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This group is dedicated to discussing film as art
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19001
From: Patrick Ciccone
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 2:51am
Subject: Re: acting '04 (A Talking Picture, politics and films)
Me:
> There is Augustine in North Africa, where exactly I can't remember.
I meant, I can't remember which city the Saint is from, not where some
city "Augustine" would be.
19002
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 3:25am
Subject: Re: acting '04 (A Talking Picture, politics and films)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ciccone" wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jonathan Rosenbaum"
> wrote:
> >
> > her comments correctly. For her, the treatment of civilization and
> > its roots as something existing north but not south of the
> > Mediterranean, at least not in the same way, is what she found
> > disturbing, leading her to conclude that she wished De Oliveira
> > hadn't addressed this subject
>
> Where would the ship go? Carthage? Tunis? Tripolis? There is Augustine
> in North Africa, where exactly I can't remember. However, the main
> problem with this critique is that the film goes to the Pyramids, in
> Cairo, which is on the south side of the Mediterranean. The film is a
> journey back to barbarism, not geographically but temporally. By
> hazard, this coincides with the geographical locations visited in the
> film, but isn't a comment on the character of the present lands
> themselves.
>
> PWC
If I remember correctly the ship's ultimate destination was India. How does that fit
into this? I wonder if we're risking reading the metaphorical prospects of the ship's
voyage too literally. Is de Oliveira really as narrowly Occidental as he's being pegged
to be?
19003
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 3:38am
Subject: Re: HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Ruy Gardnier" wrote:
> Anyone interested in this film should definitely watch Chang Cheh's "The
> Trail of the Broken Blade" and "Have Sword, Will Travel". In the latter you
> have a *very similar ending* (which I won't post since it is a major
> spoiler) but it may as well be a tradition in Chinese adventure tales of
> wuxia (and our experts on eastern culture Richard and Paul may have a word
> on it). I don't like Mr. Zhang's action diptych at all. A hand too heavy and
> films that do not breathe.
I agree that there is something tightly, at times suffocatingly controlling about these
films, but this is nothing new to anyone familiar to Zhang and eventually one has to
grapple with it as an element of his vision, just as one does with Kubrick.
HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS consciously evokes golden era Shaw Bros but as a result
suffers from the comparison, precisely because Chang Cheh had that kind of
unwieldy psychotic brilliance that HOUSE only manages to muster at the end, in what
must be the most visceral sequence in any of Zhang's films (and I hope there's more
where that came from).
HERO on the other hand, defies easy categorization or dismissal, despite the
relentless onslaught of a horde of self-assured philistines (no offense to your friends
intended). A film about totalitarianism is NOT the same as a totalitarian film; ask the
guy who made IVAN THE TERRIBLE or STAR WARS EPISODE II: ATTACK OF THE
CLONES. But that battle was fought months ago, so like Qin Shi Huangi, I patiently
await the vindication of history.
Kevin
19004
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 6:21am
Subject: Re: Re: acting '04 (A Talking Picture, politics and films)
I discussed A Talking Picture with Oliveira this october. I didn't ask what
his political point because I have never been doubtful about it. The movie
is the drama of the mediterranean occident. It's not like the Occident is
the good guy and the East is the bad one: he speaks from his point of view.
Jonathan's friend probably felt bothered because she wouldn't accept the
synthesis "mediterranean-occident" to be the main subject of a film.
I think Oliveira believes in the "clash of civilizations" argument. But the
last thing on the film is not the explosion: it's a song sung by a woman
begging for the wind to be a little softer. So he's not your "let's hit'em
first" guy.
As I once have said here while discussing The Letter, I feel uncomfortable
talking about Oliveira's mise-en-scène or way of dealing with actors in a
naturalist / representational key. He does not film actors to identify them
with the spectators and he doesn't want to make everything "seem real"
(vraisembable). We need more tools to interact with his images (and with the
way he deals with actors, since it's a huge part of the misunderstandings or
disagreements we a_f_b'ers are having) , and that is part of what makes his
art so great for me.
As for Leonor Silveira, her role is pretty different from her other roles
with Oliveira. Generally, from her emanates all beauty, and specifically a
certain kind of sculptural, static beauty. In A Talking Picture, from her
emanate stories that have become History. She's not the source of light but
a medium, a "passeur". That's why she doesn't seem so vivid, and rightfully
so, I guess.
This thread is very stimulating but I think a bit confuse: we're talking
politics, acting, but we seem to view A Talking Picture paying very little
attention to one of the auteurist commandments: letting other films by
Oliveira (it's NOT "De Oliveira") illuminate this one a bit. I don't think
he handles History differently in ATP. It's just that it has a subject that
is "on the political agenda", so everyone is entitled to question (I'd be
more interested to know why Paul didn't like the acting at all [or Fred
specifically relation to Malkovich] in this particular film; I can see the
reasons why people tend to be bothered by the acting in Oliveira in general,
but not on a particular one; but maybe I wasn't paying attention explicitly
to acting, and more on what each character meant as a whole for the tale [of
woe] being told).
Ruy
My interview with Oliveira:
www.contracampo.he.com.br/66/entrevistamanoeldeoliveira.htm
My review of A Talking Picture: www.contracampo.com.br/53/umfilmefalado.htm
(both, of course, in portuguese)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kevin Lee"
To:
Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2004 1:25 AM
Subject: [a_film_by] Re: acting '04 (A Talking Picture, politics and films)
>
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ciccone" wrote:
> >
> > --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jonathan Rosenbaum"
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > her comments correctly. For her, the treatment of civilization and
> > > its roots as something existing north but not south of the
> > > Mediterranean, at least not in the same way, is what she found
> > > disturbing, leading her to conclude that she wished De Oliveira
> > > hadn't addressed this subject
> >
> > Where would the ship go? Carthage? Tunis? Tripolis? There is Augustine
> > in North Africa, where exactly I can't remember. However, the main
> > problem with this critique is that the film goes to the Pyramids, in
> > Cairo, which is on the south side of the Mediterranean. The film is a
> > journey back to barbarism, not geographically but temporally. By
> > hazard, this coincides with the geographical locations visited in the
> > film, but isn't a comment on the character of the present lands
> > themselves.
> >
> > PWC
>
> If I remember correctly the ship's ultimate destination was India. How
does that fit
> into this? I wonder if we're risking reading the metaphorical prospects
of the ship's
> voyage too literally. Is de Oliveira really as narrowly Occidental as
he's being pegged
> to be?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
19005
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 6:24am
Subject: Re: acting '04 (A Talking Picture, politics and films)
Re: Objective, Burma, here's a bit of an article I wrote for an
Italian encyclopedia on the film:
One moment in the film that might make contemporary audiences queasy
because of the foresight afforded by Hiroshima is the scene where
Mark Williams, the reporter, witnesses the death of Lieutenant Sidney
Jacobs from torture. According to the script Jacobs "is Jewish and
looks it," but in the film he doesn't, so Williams' savage outcry
that people who would do such a thing deserve to be "wiped off the
face of the earth" falls solely on the Japanese. To Walsh's credit,
he undercuts the racism of Williams' diatribe by cutting immediately
to an unscripted closeup showing the very Oriental features of
Captain Li of the Chinese Army, who is fighting alongside Nelson's
commandos. Perhaps it is not entirely coincidental that Walsh's
cameraman was born in Canton.
Re: Bush's 9/11 complicity:
US is forced to abandon hunt for bin Laden
By Robin Gedye, Foreign Affairs Writer news.telegraph
(Filed: 14/12/2004)
Three years after Osama bin Laden fled American bombs in his Tora
Bora hideout, the search for the world's most wanted man has all but
come to a halt because of Pakistan's refusal to permit cross-border
raids from Afghanistan, according to CIA officials.
Washington has downgraded its efforts to catch the al-Qa'eda leader
in Afghanistan, from where he supervised the September 11 attacks,
because it has become convinced that he is hiding in Pakistan's
virtually lawless Tribal Areas, which hug the 1,200-mile frontier.
19006
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 6:33am
Subject: Re: acting '04 (A Talking Picture, politics and films)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ciccone" wrote:
>
>
> Me:
> > There is Augustine in North Africa, where exactly I can't
remember.
> I meant, I can't remember which city the Saint is from, not where
some
> city "Augustine" would be.
He was from Carthage, but later became Bishop of Hippo - both in N.
Africa.
19007
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 6:36am
Subject: Re: acting '04 (A Talking Picture, politics and films)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Kevin Lee"
wrote:
Is de Oliveira really as narrowly Occidental as he's being pegged
> to be?
He'd have to work at it - Portugal was once ruled by Moors, and there
are lots of traces of Moorish rule, as in parts of Spain.
19008
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 6:40am
Subject: Re: HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS
I guess I'd better see this. So far I'm not a fan. I really like
HAPPY TIMES, though!
19009
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 6:43am
Subject: Re: Re: HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS
> I agree that there is something tightly, at times suffocatingly
controlling about these
> films, but this is nothing new to anyone familiar to Zhang and eventually
one has to
> grapple with it as an element of his vision, just as one does with
Kubrick.
Only that Kubrick tempts me, and Zhang does not. The only film by him I'm
willing to defend is TO LIVE. After seeing the very shameful NOT ONE LESS, I
stopped taking his films into much consideration. Haven't seen HAPPY TIMES
MOTEL, but his next three didn't make me review my beliefs.
> HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS consciously evokes golden era Shaw Bros but as a
result
> suffers from the comparison, precisely because Chang Cheh had that kind of
> unwieldy psychotic brilliance that HOUSE only manages to muster at the
end, in what
> must be the most visceral sequence in any of Zhang's films (and I hope
there's more
> where that came from).
I agree. An hour and a half of Matrix boredom, and a final ten minutes of
some grace.
> HERO on the other hand, defies easy categorization or dismissal, despite
the
> relentless onslaught of a horde of self-assured philistines (no offense to
your friends
> intended). A film about totalitarianism is NOT the same as a totalitarian
film; ask the
> guy who made IVAN THE TERRIBLE or STAR WARS EPISODE II: ATTACK OF THE
> CLONES. But that battle was fought months ago, so like Qin Shi Huangi, I
patiently
> await the vindication of history.
I'm not sure I understand everything that you meant here. First of all, my
freinds may have strange tastes, but philistines they're not: the last talk
I had with one, he taught me about microtonal music; the other told me about
the differences of approach to Bach cello suites that Casals and Tortelier
had. I'm in Brazil, where the film didn't open yet (but has made to Festival
do Rio and Sao Paulo's Mostra). The battle you mean was the american
opening? I didn't say that HERO is about totalitarism or has totalitarean
aesthetics, and I think that I know (one never knows) the difference, but I
seem to find very amusing the fact that some not-too-close friends who care
for this kind of aesthetics started talking to me about it in the first
place, and then saying it belonged to the tradition. While seeing, I only
thought about heavy hand. But since they came up with something, I think
they are entitled to some reason: I indeed saw something of what they talked
about in Hero, yes.
The guy who made IVAN THE TERRIBLE also made OCTOBER, which is, err,
totalitarian aesthetics on its purest form.
I didn't get what you think about STAR WARS II: is it totalitarean or does
it question totalitarism? Either way, I think it is art in its most
reactionary and completely lacking mise-en-scene.
19010
From: Fred Camper
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 7:08am
Subject: Re: Re: acting '04 (A Talking Picture, politics and films)
There's a lot to comment on here, and I have too little time. To clear
up one thing, I wasn't really bothered by Malkovich's acting; I was just
trying to make a dumb joke because he's always seemed a little
irritating to me in the few films I've seen him in and in one TV
interview years ago. What confused me was not Malkiovich but the film's
shift in tone, but I'm prepared for the possibility that both parts
might be equally great.
I agree with Ruy that de Oliveira's acting is not naturalistic and not
intended to be, and this is why I think Paul Gallagher's comment
"Leonor Silveira doesn't seem to be interacting with her daughter. In
fact, if we construct a backstory for these characters...."
is completely off the mark. I don't think that Oliveira's films ask us
to construct "backstories," and this one especially doesn't. And two
things to avoid are looking at actors the way we might look at people in
"real life," and interpreting acting and directorial styles (and thus
making inferences about what seems to be happening between characters)
of one film by the standards of other, very different films. The way
that is usually done is by judging "odd" films by the film grammar of
mainstream Hollywood, and it looks to me, perhaps wrongly, like that's
what Paul is doing here. Personally, I don't need to actually *see* a
mother and daughter interacting on screen, in Hollywood-style matched
reverse angle shots with closeups, to believe that they are interacting
profoundly. Oliveira's method is different.
All acting, and indeed all cinema, is artifice; as Bazin said, realism
in cinema can only be achieved through artifice. Varying conventions are
established in varying ways in varying films. Someone whose only
"cinema" had been live theater might equally object to my reading of
mother and daughter as a love story by saying "These aren't live people,
they are flat images on the screen" -- which might be the right way to
read images of people in a Brakhage film. The fact that mother doesn't
"seem" to be interacting with daughter is a judgment based on the
application of different conventions. So there are no reverse angle
shots of them looking at each other, so they are sort of distanced in
some ways. As others have noticed, Oliveira's characters sometimes seem
to be declaiming for the audience, as in theater; this is very true of
"The Satin Slipper." The conventions of more conventional narrative
simply do not apply here. Just because you don't see a "convincing
interaction" in familiar close-ups doesn't mean it's not happening. It
seemed to me that I was getting an idealized dream of a parent teaching
a child, and intertwining their mutual love with learning seemed totally
"convincing" to me -- not as an example of a typical mother and
daughter, but as a rehearsal of a possibility.
How Paul can say that civilization is not fragile after seeing a film
set against backdrops of the ruins of vanished civilizations is more
than a little hard for me to understand.
I love "Voyage to Italy," but Oliveira is doing something very different
than what Rossellini did. Judging one film against the other is a mistake.
Like Patrick, I noticed the oddity of Jonathan's reference to the
exclusion of south-of-the Mediterranean when I reread his Reader capsule
after seeing the film. Egypt is certainly presented as a civilization,
as is Aden, where they also disembark.
Fred Camper
19011
From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 9:21am
Subject: Re: acting '04 (A Talking Picture, politics and films)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
>
> How Paul can say that civilization is not fragile after seeing a
film
> set against backdrops of the ruins of vanished civilizations is
more
> than a little hard for me to understand.
Artifacts are vulnerable to centuries of weather -- the temples on the
Acropolis were especially vulnerable after their roofs collapsed.
Artifacts are not equivalent to civilization.
Neither terrorism nor Islam is going to destroy Western civilization.
Written language, agriculture, living in cities are not threatened.
Terrorism destroys individual lives, but it is not going to cause the
death of Europe.
Nor are the causes of terrorism located in some clash of
civilizations. Terrorism is not fundamental to Islamic culture. Nor
are the US and Europe fundamentally in conflict with Islam; they have
gotten along well even with Islamic fundamentalists at times, notably
in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Palestine, Iran...
For example, here is Zbigniew Brzezinski in the Jan 15-21, 1998 Le
Nouvel Observateur. Brzezinski and Carter began aid to the Afghan
mujahadeen.
Q: Some stirred-up Moslems? But it has been said and repeated:
Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today.
Brzezinski: Nonsense! It is said that the West had a global policy in
regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn't a global Islam. Look at
Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It
is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers.
But what is there in common among Saudi Arabian fundamentalism,
moderate Morocco, Pakistan militarism, Egyptian pro-Western or
Central Asian secularism? Nothing more than what unites the
Christian countries.
But I'm not interested in changing your political beliefs. You seem to
agree with me as to the film's thesis: the West is vulnerable and
threatened by Islam; we just disagree on the merits of the thesis.
> Like Patrick, I noticed the oddity of Jonathan's reference to the
> exclusion of south-of-the Mediterranean when I reread his Reader
capsule
> after seeing the film. Egypt is certainly presented as a
civilization,
> as is Aden, where they also disembark.
>
Oliveira does seem to be claiming Egypt for European civilization. I'm
more inclined to classify both Egypt and the ancient Hellenic
civilizations as separate from Western civilization, whereas the
Islamic Near East could just as well be included as part of the West,
as both descend from Roman Empire.
Paul
19012
From:
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 4:36am
Subject: Early Milestone & Hughes - Thumbs Down
TCM showed restored versions of "Two Arabian Knights" (1927) and "The Racket"
(1928) last night. Both are directed by Lewis Milestone and produced by the
Aviator himself, Howard Hughes. These are legendary silent films, famed as
early Oscar winners or nominees, but utterly unavailable to the public till now.
Unfortunately, both have serious problems, and are a big disappointment.
"Two Arabian Knights" is a much better movie, stylistically speaking. In
fact, the first half is a thoroughly enjoyable comic romp, and I was making plans
to hail it as a lost silent classic. Then the second half kicks in, with the
boys making it to the Middle East, and every ugly anti-Arab stereotype you've
ever seen flooding the film. Thus the film has similar problems as "The
Conquering Power" (Rex Ingram), whose first half is a high powered romantic drama,
with Rudolph Valentino at his best, but whose second half degenerates into
racist stereotypes.
For that matter, "The Racket" faithfully preserves the nasty Jewish shyster
lawyer of the play, although he plays a much smaller role in terms of screen
time than the Middle Eastern caricatures in "Two Arabian Knights". Not every
pair of filmmakers could manage to be anti-Arab and anti-Jewish in just three
hours of running time, but Milestone and Hughes "succeed". Yuchh!
There is a lot of good comedy in the first half of "Two Arabian Knights". It
is one of those films about a pair of battling-but-best-friend soldiers, one
from an aristocratic background (here Philadelphia's main line), the other a
brawling roughneck of a Sgt.. "What Price Glory" is the archetype here. William
Boyd & Louis Wolheim did a good job with these two guys. This first half also
has the only mise-en-scene from Milestone I've ever been able to enjoy.
"The Racket" utterly fails as an adaptation of Bartlett Cormack's play. This
1927 stage hit came in the wake of "Broadway" (1926), the classic stage play
that is the ur-Gangster work. Cormack's work is not as good - it suffers from
racist slurs of every type - but it also has a lot of dramatic power. The play
is a duel between an honest but ruthless and above-the-law police captain, and
a monstrous gangster (inspired by Al Capone). Both of these ferocious men are
essentially sub-human, anti-democratic forces, and their duel reaches
hurricane level in the play. Milestone's film has an opening half-hour that has
little to do with the play, and which takes place in lavish locations all over
Chicago. "Best" scene: a huge gangster battle-turned-riot on the street, one of
the most violent scenes in silent film history. It is unpleasant as most of
Milestone is, but it it is certainly something else. After the first 30 minutes,
we reach the play itself, essentially a one-set work in a police station.
Biggest mistake in the adapatation: making the police captain and the gangster to
be sweet buddies, just like the "Two Arabian Knights"! This makes no sense at
all. The gangster here is actually played by lovable lug Louis Wolheim again,
who was the Sgt in "Two Arabian Knights". And the police captain is played by
pretty boy leading man Thomas Meighan, veteran of De Mille. On stage, the
captain was John Cromwell, who would go on to direct the 1951 sound version of "The
Racket", an utterly different film. The stage gangster villain was a
ferocious star-making turn by the young Edward G. Robinson, apparently an early
version of his "Little Caesar" film role three years later. The naive young rookie
reporter on stage was Norman Foster, apparently the same man who later worked
with Orson Welles in "Journey Into Fear" and "It's All True".
Two odd notes: the fancy police uniforms in the 1928 film look just like
those in photos of the 1927 stage version. Were these authentic Chicago police
uniforms of the period, or did the film take them over from the stage play?
A friend told me in 1971 his theory about Howard Hughes: In many of Hughes'
films, a man is accidentally killed by his best friend - this being Hughes'
deepest fear and emotional obsession. It sure happens in "The Racket", with
Meighan's police captain causing best buddy gangster Wolheim's death. Very strange!
Mike Grost
19013
From: thebradstevens
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 0:49pm
Subject: Spoken Credits
Just watched James Parrott's ANOTHER FINE MESS, a Laurel and Hardy
short from 1930 which has spoken credits - 12 years before THE
MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS. Is this a first? The earliest example of
spoken credits I'd previously been aware of was Tex Avery's TORTOISE
BEATS HARE (made in 1942, the year before AMBERSONS), in which
Avery's name is mispronounced by Bugs Bunny. Welles' THE TRAGEDY OF
OTHELLO also has spoken credits (though the horrible 'restoration'
uses ordinary printed credits), while Pasolini's HAWKS AND SPARROWS
and Preminger's SKIDOO both have sung credits.
19014
From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 1:23pm
Subject: Re: Spoken Credits
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
wrote:
>
> Just watched James Parrott's ANOTHER FINE MESS, a Laurel and Hardy
> short from 1930 which has spoken credits - 12 years before THE
> MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS. Is this a first? The earliest example of
> spoken credits I'd previously been aware of was Tex Avery's
TORTOISE
> BEATS HARE (made in 1942, the year before AMBERSONS), in which
> Avery's name is mispronounced by Bugs Bunny. Welles' THE TRAGEDY OF
> OTHELLO also has spoken credits (though the horrible 'restoration'
> uses ordinary printed credits), while Pasolini's HAWKS AND SPARROWS
> and Preminger's SKIDOO both have sung credits.
I've read that Louis King's "The Terror" from 1928, and the Little
Rascal's short, "Teacher's Pet," from 1930 also have spoken credits.
Truffaut's "Fahrenheit 451" and Sacha Guitry's "Le Roman d'un
tricheur" are two more well-known films with spoken credits.
Paul
19015
From:
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 8:59am
Subject: Re: Spoken Credits
Please don't forget "The Naked City" (Dassin) which has spoken credits at the
start, and printed credits at the end.
Mike Grost
19016
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 2:13pm
Subject: Re: Re: acting '04 (A Talking Picture, politics and films)
--- Fred Camper wrote:
What confused me was not
> Malkiovich but the film's
> shift in tone, but I'm prepared for the possibility
> that both parts
> might be equally great.
>
> I agree with Ruy that de Oliveira's acting is not
> naturalistic and not
> intended to be,
Shifts in tone, especially as the relate to
performers, are a constant in Oliviera. The male lead
in "Franbcesca" was acinematographer who had never
acted befroe. Oliviera simple insisted that he paly
the part. Films like "Mon Cas" and "The Cannibals" are
ENTIRELY abiut violent shifts in tone. As for actors
Oliera doesn't treatmastroianni as an actoir in
"Voyage to the End of the World" but rather as a old
man who's goign to die soon. That Malkovich and
Deneuve are used as "rep company" supporting players
is also relling.
__________________________________
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19017
From: jess_l_amortell
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 2:32pm
Subject: Re: acting '04
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Kevin Lee" wrote:
>
> It's nice to see the enthusiasm for Moon and the film, but I'd actually like to offer a
> modest voice of skepticism. She's a great actress without question, but in this role I
> felt there was not a small measure of ostentatiousness in the Meryl Streep vein, where
> the actor paradoxically makes the viewer aware that their acting is supposed to be
> self-effacing. The best way I could rationalize her acting was that it was
> purposely pushing my buttons as to what I could accept as authentic human behavior
> in a person cerebral palsy, and my reluctance paralleled that of the family members.
> In this way, acting serves an active social critique.
Yes, I was thinking that this was too much like the obvious Academy Award choice of someone playing a disabled person -- before making her the cover girl, one would want to explain how it's really a different kind of performance. But in addition, the uniqueness of the performance (to whatever extent that matters, anyway) may seem slightly diminished if one sees Lee's earlier GREEN FISH, where the actor in the admittedly much smaller role of the brother managed a similar impersonation -- a reminder of the director's hand shaping the actors' work.
19018
From: Patrick Ciccone
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 2:57pm
Subject: Re: acting '04 (A Talking Picture, politics and films)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
>
> Like Patrick, I noticed the oddity of Jonathan's reference to the
> exclusion of south-of-the Mediterranean when I reread his Reader
capsule
> after seeing the film. Egypt is certainly presented as a civilization,
> as is Aden, where they also disembark.
Also, I should point out that the film, as alluded to explicitly by
the monument to Henry the Navigator at the start, is supposed to be a
Portuguese voyage of discovery, with the destination India. Unlike
Diaz or da Gama, who journeyed there around Africa, this journey is
through the Mediterranean and into the past. I don't think the film
views India as a destination of barbarism, as the structure of the
film shifts once the geographical-temporal-Malkovichal barrier of the
Suez Canal is crossed. Maybe the Suez is an hourglass of casuality?
Patrick
19019
From: Patrick Ciccone
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 3:05pm
Subject: Re: acting '04 (A Talking Picture, politics and films)
> casuality
I meant causality--been reading one too many Middle East stories.
Speaking of which, no Jerusalem in the film.
PWC
19020
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 3:58pm
Subject: Re: acting '04
Yes, there is definitley something distinctive about Lee Changdong's
handling of actors. I've only seen PEPPERMINT CANDY and OASIS but in
both cases he makes a study of bad behavior in his leads. The
signature Lee Changdong scene involves a party where friends and
family gather together to eat, drink, sing, reinforce their bonds and
forget about their worries -- a communal psychic purging that allows
them to continue believing in their happiness -- and in the midst of
it, Sol Kyung-gu or Moon So-ri act up and disrupt everything, because
this collective act of "acting happy" only exacerbates the misery
lurking inside them and unleashes it like a demon under the bed.
This happens twice in PEPPERMINT CANDY and once in OASIS.
But Sol and Moon's bull-in-the-china-shop pyrotechnics wouldn't be
half as compelling if Lee wasn't able to get his ensemble to function
so effectively as straight people. The people who play the family
members and friends are so good at acting like normal, well-meaning
people who just want to be happy. Because of their effectiveness I
empathize with their discomfort and confusion when the lead
characters go haywire, even as I share the emotional torment of the
leads (because, unlike the other characters, the viewer is given
information about the sociological and historical causes for the lead
characters' dysfunction). It's Ozu's etiquette on a collision course
with Fassbinder's rage, and the result is gutwrenching but also makes
the best use of the sociological aspects of drama: it confronts the
viewer with his or her own process of understanding and empathizing
with others.
If only Jia Zhangke could be as inspired with his treatment of actors
(instead of offering them as neorealist objects of pity) he wouldn't
be content with pitching softballs to festival audiences.
Kevin
> Yes, I was thinking that this was too much like the obvious Academy
Award choice of someone playing a disabled person -- before making
her the cover girl, one would want to explain how it's really a
different kind of performance. But in addition, the uniqueness of
the performance (to whatever extent that matters, anyway) may seem
slightly diminished if one sees Lee's earlier GREEN FISH, where the
actor in the admittedly much smaller role of the brother managed a
similar impersonation -- a reminder of the director's hand shaping
the actors' work.
19021
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 4:00pm
Subject: Re: HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
>
> I guess I'd better see this. So far I'm not a fan. I really like
> HAPPY TIMES, though!
That's the second time you've said this on the board. HAPPY TIMES is
my least favorite Zhang Yimou film. Please tell me why you like this
film so much! Michael Kerpan also loves it, so you can count on at
least one other afb member to cover you, if he's around.
Kevin
19022
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 4:33pm
Subject: Re: HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS
First off Ruy thanks for your insights on Olivera (minus the de! I
apologize). I think we're fortunate to have someone who knows his
films so well, as well as the cultural and biographical context for
understanding them. I've tried to gather the same for Zhang Yimou
and other Chinese filmmakers. I probably like Zhang Yimou far less
than you like Olivera. There's something about Zhang that I just
don't trust -- but rather than use my distrust as an alibi to dismiss
him (as many Chinese critics do) I try to confront it so I can
understand where it's coming from and how it reflects the larger
context of Chinese cinema and culture that surrounds and informs
Zhang's films.
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Ruy Gardnier"
> Only that Kubrick tempts me, and Zhang does not. The only film by
him I'm
> willing to defend is TO LIVE. After seeing the very shameful NOT
ONE LESS, I
> stopped taking his films into much consideration. Haven't seen
HAPPY TIMES
> MOTEL, but his next three didn't make me review my beliefs.
My own favorite ZY films are STORY OF QIU JU and HERO. There's
something very calculated about his films, something like a math
equation, about how he handles relationships and fate. This
calculation is probably a source of deep distrust among his critics
(both in the West and the East) -- even as it's probably what helps
many of his admirers readily ingest his films as entertainment, art,
or social tract. of course I haven't heard the details of your
disdain for NOT ONE LESS, but perhaps its because you think it
exploits its subject matter in ways that would make Spielberg look
saintly. Sort of as with HERO, I prefer to see it more as a film
about exploitation -- on the part of not just the characters but also
the filmmaker -- than a film that exploits. If we can say that for
SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS, I think we can say that for Zhang Yimou.
>> First of all, my
> freinds may have strange tastes, but philistines they're not: the
last talk
> I had with one, he taught me about microtonal music; the other told
me about
> the differences of approach to Bach cello suites that Casals and
Tortelier
> had. I'm in Brazil, where the film didn't open yet (but has made to
Festival
> do Rio and Sao Paulo's Mostra).
"Philistines" was a clunky term to use, I admit -- I was trying to
say that there were a lot of critics, and admirers, who responded to
the film on a superficial level. They saw it as brilliant poster art
and razzle dazzle entertainment with no real ideological
significance, or dangerous fascist propaganda in a candy wrapping.
This happened not just with western critics (Armond White) but also
eastern critics (Evans Chan), who I would have expected to be more
sensitive to the film in the context of Chinese society and Zhang's
career, but they seemed just as eager to wash their hands of it --
when they could have just as easily claimed it as a work that
subverts its own ostensible message and grapples with the crisis of
nationalism in the 21st century in ways more original and challenging
than what Jia Zhangke does in the world. The only writers I've seen
who have truly taken on the challenge posited by the film are Chris
Fujiwara [url]http://members.verizon.net/~vze4b4rc/content/hero.htm
[/url], Shelley Kraicer in CINEMASCOPE (vol 5 issue 1) and, well,
myself. I spent a lot of time posting about this on this board when
the film was released in the US back in August. I've been meaning to
extract them, revise them and post them on my website, but haven't
done it yet.
> The guy who made IVAN THE TERRIBLE also made OCTOBER, which is, err,
> totalitarian aesthetics on its purest form.
Yeah but there were 20 years separating those films, and a lot that
happened to Eisenstein in the interim. IVAN THE TERRIBLE could be
viewed as an aesthetic (and possibly ideological) refutation of
OCTOBER.
> I didn't get what you think about STAR WARS II: is it totalitarean
or does
> it question totalitarism? Either way, I think it is art in its most
> reactionary and completely lacking mise-en-scene.
I only brought it up because of Bill Krohn's stimulating take on the
film from a couple months ago, as an allegory for the Empire of Bush
II. Bill, I hope you shape your thoughts into an article to be
published somewhere.
Kevin
19023
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 4:39pm
Subject: Re: acting '04
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Gabe Klinger"
wrote:
>
> On Friday I vote in the Chicago Film Critics Association awards,
> which are ridiculous*. Anyway, this time of the year I start to
break
> down the different categories to decide what to nominate. I try to
> put myself in a populist mindframe, since there's no hope of
> beating the bulk of the membership, who have only seen, for
> example, THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES in the foreign language
> category**.
>
> > Acting is a difficult category for me and I always come up short
in
> my lists of lead and supporting performers.
>
> I would love to hear the favorites of our group members, even
> though for most of the non-critics the year is not totally wrapped
> up. For me I saw SPANGLISH (not as awful or great as some of
> his others) on Friday and that ends all the commercial releases I
> have to see for the year.
>
> Here are some of the performances I liked, beginning with the
> casts of Moolaade and Vera Drake, two films unlike anything
> being made today. Sembene and Leigh are such radical
> outsiders that they deserve to be judged in their own private
> categories. In both films (Moolaade being the more conspicuous
> example as a film from a part of the west that we don't yet
> understand) the characters inhabit precise worlds that allow
> them to make palpable the most nuanced aspects of day-to-day
> life. In Leigh's film, I enjoyed Phil Davis (Vera's husband), Eddie
> Marsan (the neighbor and future son-in-law), and Ruth Sheen
> (the black-marketeer) as much as Imelda Staunton, who is
> perfect as the title character. And for the sake of pragmatism
> (since at this time I can't identify all the actors I liked in the
> Sembene film), Fatoumata Coulibaly, as Colle, the savior of the
> children, is not only beautiful but Moolaade's strongest character.
>
I hope you push for the actors in MOOLAADE, especially Fatoumata
Coulibaly, the best thing since Joan Crawford in JOHNNY GUITAR.
What did you think of BAD EDUCATION? I'd rather vote for Gael Garcia
Bernal in that movie than in BEAVIS AND BUTTHEAD DO SOUTH AMERICA.
19024
From: thebradstevens
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 5:01pm
Subject: Re: Bye-Bye Miramax
> DISNEY'S 'MAXING OUT
> Ongoing projects may be abandoned [!]
> In the first official acknowledgment that its relationship with Bob
> and Harvey Weinstein may be coming to an end, the Walt Disney Co.
> said Monday that it doesn't expect Miramax Films to continue "at
the
> same level" after its current contract with the brothers expires
next
> September.
Would this have happened if Bush hadn't been reelected? Sounds like
Disney are trying to distance themselves from the people who were
responsible for FAHRENHEIT 9/11.
19025
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 6:02pm
Subject: Re: Re: acting '04
> It's nice to see the enthusiasm for Moon and the film, but I'd actually
> like to offer a modest voice of skepticism. She's a great actress
> without question, but in this role I felt there was not a small measure
> of ostentatiousness in the Meryl Streep vein, where the actor
> paradoxically makes the viewer aware that their acting is supposed to be
> self-effacing.
Hmmm. I don't think I would have been quite as impressed with Moon if she
had just done the impersonation of a disabled person. (The impersonation
is terrific, but skill for its own sake isn't my bag.) But I was
entranced by the many scenes where she transitioned on-screen from palsy
to no-palsy - and I'd say these were supremely non-showy, to the point
where you have to walk her like a hawk even to detect the point of change.
Suddenly she is just standing there, a shy girl with a nice smile.
Obviously Lee deserves much credit for the amazing aura of these shots -
Meryl Streep (a superb actress, by the way) would not be permitted this
deemphasized space in which to work - but the magic trick couldn't work
without Moon's ease and diffidence. - Dan
19026
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 6:16pm
Subject: Re: Re: acting '04
>> The lead actor in CRIMSON GOLD - a great performance.
>
> Does that really count as a performance? I mean he really was schizo.
Big issues are raised here. For one thing, I didn't know anything about
the guy until now. His real-life state is extracinematic information.
My feeling about acting is, basically, that I value the performance to the
extent that the film seems diminished if I imagine some competent,
undistinguished actor in the role. The skill required to play the part
isn't important to me.
This guy's mere existence is stunning to me. Admittedly his performance
dependes on Kiarostami's instincts about how to present him in a moving
context. But Kiarostami's film depends absolutely on him - substitution
is unimaginable. His on-screen existence is completely credible, and
that's a big part of cinema: to contrive crediblity. (By the way: thanks,
Fred, for actually quoting Bazin in such a way as to suggest his
subtlety!)
The issue here is close to the heart of auteurism: all those old fights to
defend actors like John Wayne, people whom you wouldn't want to cast as
Hamlet. The basic auteurist argument was: existing credibly on
screen is the most important thing an actor can do. Sometimes it's the
result of great skill, sometimes of a quality of being. - Dan
19027
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 6:42pm
Subject: Re: Bye-Bye Miramax
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
wrote:
>
>
> > DISNEY'S 'MAXING OUT
> > Ongoing projects may be abandoned [!]
> > In the first official acknowledgment that its relationship with Bob
> > and Harvey Weinstein may be coming to an end, the Walt Disney Co.
> > said Monday that it doesn't expect Miramax Films to continue "at
> the
> > same level" after its current contract with the brothers expires
> next
> > September.
>
> Would this have happened if Bush hadn't been reelected? Sounds like
> Disney are trying to distance themselves from the people who were
> responsible for FAHRENHEIT 9/11.
There were rumblings before, but I'm sure the current Red [State] Scare isn't
helping. By the way, I don't think Bush WAS reelected.
19028
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 6:46pm
Subject: Re: HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Ruy Gardnier"
wrote:
> The guy who made IVAN THE TERRIBLE also made OCTOBER, which is,
err,
> totalitarian aesthetics on its purest form.
> I didn't get what you think about STAR WARS II: is it totalitarean or does
> it question totalitarism? Either way, I think it is art in its most
> reactionary and completely lacking mise-en-scene.
Define "totalitarian esthetics." Justify "absence of mise-en-scene."
19029
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 6:49pm
Subject: Re: acting '04 (A Talking Picture, politics and films)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
I wasn't really bothered by Malkovich's acting; I was just
> trying to make a dumb joke because he's always seemed a little
> irritating to me in the few films I've seen him in and in one TV
> interview years ago.
Sing out, Louise!
19030
From: filipefurtado
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 7:32pm
Subject: Re: Re: Bye-Bye Miramax
> There were rumblings before, but I'm
sure the current Red [State] Scare isn't
> helping. By the way, I don't think
Bush WAS reelected.
>
The Wesnstein/Disney deal soap opera
is going on for a long time already.
The rumor that the renewal wouldn't
happened starts far before the buzz on
Moore's film It's has all to do with
money as usuak. Disney bought Miramax
wanting a dependent not that much
bigger than let's say Sony Pictures
Clasics. The company got bigger every
year and now disney throws 700m a year
for a big major wannabe. And although
Bob's Dimension is profitable,
Harvey's more respectable side of the
company (where most of the budget is)
is always on losing a lot of money,
since he dumps most of the little
films he boughts without even
bothering to give than a push (unless
he smells oscar) and the commercial
films with Miramax logo are always
overbudget and almost always
underperform (between advertising and
trying to get Marty an oscar he spent
more money than Gangs of NY grossed,
not to mention the 100+m budget).
Without Disney's money Miramax
wouldalready had perform the indie
company trying to become a major and
wenting bankrupt script fallowed by
Orion and more recently Artisan.
Still, they got till next September to
work something out and they will
probably ending by accept some
comprise (getting the budget cut to
400-500m which is out Disney is trying
anyway).
Filipe
>
>
>
>
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19031
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 7:39pm
Subject: Re: acting '04
I know what you're saying, Dan. It reminds me of the resentment
among some professional actors about Keisha Castle Hughes getting a
best actress nomination for WHALE RIDER. I can understand the hurt
of having a pre-adolescent be recognized over adults who've devoted
years and years studying the craft. But if she left more of an
impression than the rest, dems de brakes.
btw, Kiarostami wrote CRIMSON GOLD but did not direct. That would be
Jafar Panahi.
19032
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 7:41pm
Subject: Re: acting '04
addendum -- since Kiarostami was brought up, I should take a moment
to acknowledge him as one of the preeminent explorers of this
troublesome line that separates "performing" from mere (or not so
mere) being. Sabzian in CLOSE-UP being perhaps the quintessential
example.
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Kevin Lee"
wrote:
>
> I know what you're saying, Dan. It reminds me of the resentment
> among some professional actors about Keisha Castle Hughes getting a
> best actress nomination for WHALE RIDER. I can understand the hurt
> of having a pre-adolescent be recognized over adults who've devoted
> years and years studying the craft. But if she left more of an
> impression than the rest, dems de brakes.
>
> btw, Kiarostami wrote CRIMSON GOLD but did not direct. That would
be
> Jafar Panahi.
19033
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 7:43pm
Subject: Re: Re: acting '04
> btw, Kiarostami wrote CRIMSON GOLD but did not direct. That would be
> Jafar Panahi.
Oops - a total, bad mistake on my part. I really do not want to take
credit away from Panahi for this film. - Dan
19034
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 7:44pm
Subject: Re: acting '04
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> Hmmm. I don't think I would have been quite as impressed with Moon
if she
> had just done the impersonation of a disabled person. (The
impersonation
> is terrific, but skill for its own sake isn't my bag.) But I was
> entranced by the many scenes where she transitioned on-screen from
palsy
> to no-palsy - and I'd say these were supremely non-showy, to the
point
> where you have to walk her like a hawk even to detect the point of
change.
> Suddenly she is just standing there, a shy girl with a nice smile.
> Obviously Lee deserves much credit for the amazing aura of these
shots -
I remember a lot of those transitions (at least initially) occurring
off-screen. The first one is in a subway -- the camera pans away
from cerebral palsied Moon sitting down and towards Sol standing in
the middle of the car. Then Moon enters the frame acting "normal".
But yeah I think later on she makes the transition on camera -- after
we've become accustomed to this flipping back and forth between
reality and fantasy.
Anyway, it's a testament to the film that I can remember these
details from one sitting.
and thanks again for turning me on to PRIMER.
Kevin
19035
From: peckinpah20012000
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 8:42pm
Subject: Re: Spoken Credits
Also, perhaps a little-known 50s British film starring John Mills,
MR DENNINGS GOES NORTH?
Tony Williams
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> Please don't forget "The Naked City" (Dassin) which has spoken
credits at the
> start, and printed credits at the end.
>
> Mike Grost
19036
From: Zach Campbell
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 9:09pm
Subject: Re: acting '04 (A Talking Picture, objects in films)
Fred:
> There's a serious point here, which perhaps everyone understands
> as so obvious that it doesn't need articulating, which is that in
> a great film a cut to an object, or the placement of an object in
> a scene, can have the same affective effect as an actor's
> performance.
Sorry I didn't get to this a little more promptly, but things have
been busy. You know how it is.
I have to say that I don't quite agree with this. A cut to an
object can have the *same* affective effect as an actor's
performance? What is to be gained by conflating the expressive
performance of a human being with an object, simply by the virtue
that images of both are cut from and to?
Yes, the audience can have similarly projective (and even profoundly
moving) experiences to both the face of Garbo and a swirling cup of
coffee, but a human being caught on film (or video) is also usually
expressing something, and this involves a viewer psychologically in
a way that an object cannot. (Doesn't mean that objects do not also
involve people psychologically, and sometimes deeply. But
differently!) As Raymond Durgnat argued at length, 'people look at
people,' and in dealing with narrative films we have to acknowledge
this for the fullest possible comprehension of these films'
functions. A performance is a presence in a film that is both
projected upon and projective unto itself; an object is presence
that is purely projected upon. And I think that--from Godard to
Bresson to Hawks to Fassbinder--what films say to us through the
collaborative art of acting (as acting) can be extremely important,
and something we can miss a lot from if we instead feel a defensive
urge to quickly liken great acting to a great shot or a great cut,
as if the difference were negligible, which is how I read your
paragraph, Fred. (Correct me if you think I've misunderstood.)
Dan--who has always been a great (if perhaps unwitting) teacher for
me in showing how to grapple with acting and meaning formation--
makes a good point when he asks if a film would suffer if a
competent person filled a particular role. This is an excellent
formulation because it can account for impeccably applied skill and
it can account for various X factors, many of which might be extra-
aesthetic but used for aesthetic ends.
--Zach
19037
From: Peter Henne
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 9:24pm
Subject: Re: Re: acting '04 (A Talking Picture, politics and films)
By stating the film plays into the hands of the American right, I had in mind that conservatives could incorporate Oliveira's historically reflected point of view into their own agenda. Most conservatives in the popular culture hardly even look at history; but if some "egghead"--or a purportedly leftie film--brings in history that can back them up, they will reason, all the better. (They're prone to screaming with delight at the first sign of defection.) Also, it was clear to me from the film's broad discussion of Europe and the Islamic world that Oliveira was looking at Islamic terrorism as a result of a clash of civilizations. Of course, Oliveira went to some pains in attempting to portray Islamic culture in a well-rounded way. But an underlying idea was that terrorists represent Islamic culture, and I vehemently disagree with that. Neither "Islam" or "Christianity" is an ideological block of stone, nor have they ever been. And, as Paul has said, the film is overreacting--I would
add, just like the right does. A band of idiots is not going to bring Western civ. to an end.
I'm baffled that Oliveira would even endeavor a grandiose political statement. I happen to think that, at this point in history, if you're going to make a film which makes Western-Islamic conflict a leading topic of discussion and it ends with a terrorist attack, then like it or not you have entered the political fray, my friend. The song (a folk song, with centuries behind it) over the end credits might be a plea to cool temperatures in the conflict, but it does not counterweigh the shock and enormity of lives and a ship going down. Oliveira sees the hopes of Western civ. sinking with the history professor, her progeny, the ship and its beautiful mural. Terrorism will take us down--and I think this ending is political hokum.
Now, out of deference I have changed my spelling to "Oliveira," but I would like confirmation on its correctness. It is only recently that I have seen the "de" dropped in print.
Peter Henne
Paul Gallagher wrote:
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
>
> How Paul can say that civilization is not fragile after seeing a
film
> set against backdrops of the ruins of vanished civilizations is
more
> than a little hard for me to understand.
Artifacts are vulnerable to centuries of weather -- the temples on the
Acropolis were especially vulnerable after their roofs collapsed.
Artifacts are not equivalent to civilization.
Neither terrorism nor Islam is going to destroy Western civilization.
Written language, agriculture, living in cities are not threatened.
Terrorism destroys individual lives, but it is not going to cause the
death of Europe.
Nor are the causes of terrorism located in some clash of
civilizations. Terrorism is not fundamental to Islamic culture. Nor
are the US and Europe fundamentally in conflict with Islam; they have
gotten along well even with Islamic fundamentalists at times, notably
in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Palestine, Iran...
Oliveira does seem to be claiming Egypt for European civilization. I'm
more inclined to classify both Egypt and the ancient Hellenic
civilizations as separate from Western civilization, whereas the
Islamic Near East could just as well be included as part of the West,
as both descend from Roman Empire.
Paul
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19038
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 9:46pm
Subject: Re: Re: Bye-Bye Miramax
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "filipefurtado" wrote:
The original Disney deal enabled Miramax to avoid bankruptcy. They haven't
changed.
19039
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 9:51pm
Subject: Re: acting '04
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Kevin Lee" wrote:
>
> addendum -- since Kiarostami was brought up, I should take a moment
> to acknowledge him as one of the preeminent explorers of this
> troublesome line that separates "performing" from mere (or not so
> mere) being. Sabzian in CLOSE-UP being perhaps the quintessential
> example.
That's still my favorite Kiarostami film.
> > I know what you're saying, Dan. It reminds me of the resentment
> > among some professional actors about Keisha Castle Hughes getting a
> > best actress nomination for WHALE RIDER. I can understand the hurt
> > of having a pre-adolescent be recognized over adults who've devoted
> > years and years studying the craft. But if she left more of an
> > impression than the rest, dems de brakes.
Some actors' first performance reamins their best. O'Toole never topped
Lawrence. Freeway came a little later in Witherspon's career, and whatever
she gets the first Oscar for, it won't be as good a performance, I bet. Brifges:
Thunderbolt. Leaud: 400 Blows. Something to do with life.
19040
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 10:08pm
Subject: Re: acting '04 (A Talking Picture, objects in films)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Zach Campbell"
wrote:
I think that--from Godard to
> Bresson to Hawks to Fassbinder--what films say to us through the
> collaborative art of acting (as acting) can be extremely important,
> and something we can miss a lot from if we instead feel a defensive
> urge to quickly liken great acting to a great shot or a great cut,
> as if the difference were negligible
Interesting that you include Bresson, Zach. I'm not sure what you say is true in
that case.
19041
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 10:11pm
Subject: Re: acting '04 (A Talking Picture, politics and films)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Peter Henne wrote:
Oliveira sees the hopes of Western civ. sinking with the history professor, her
progeny, the ship and its beautiful mural. Terrorism will take us down--and I
think this ending is political hokum.
I won;t be seeing this one, since Malkoivich is in it, but you make it sound like
Orchestra Rehearsal, a film that embarrassed us Fellinians way back when.
>
> Now, out of deference I have changed my spelling to "Oliveira," but I would
like confirmation on its correctness. It is only recently that I have seen the "de"
dropped in print.
>
I wouldn't contradict someone (Ruy) whose native tongue is Portugese on that
one.
19042
From:
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 10:12pm
Subject: Re: Digest Number 1024
I agree, which is why I put TARNATION's Jonathan Caouette on my
acting list for the Voice poll. I should have put FAHRENHEIT 9/11's
Lila Lipscomb down for supporting performance as well, but I thought
that might come off as a snide accusation of fakery, which it wasn't
meant to be -- it seemed like the appropriate way to acknowledge that
the film's power is largely derived from the scenes with her in them.
Apart from non-disabled actors playing disabled characters, adopting
accents that are not their own, I think it's impossible, and more
importantly unnecessary, to distinguish which parts of a performance
are "real" and which not -- if a director works an actor into an
excited state just before a dramatic scene, should the director get
the credit for the performance instead of an actor? Should Michael
Moore get the credit for Lila Lipscomb's performance, since she
wouldn't have done some of the things she did without his camera
following her? I have some doubts about the film as a whole, but none
whatsoever about her.
Incidentally, this is the first year I've had to come up with a
year-end list of performances, and I have to say I found it extremely
difficult. A number of performances lept immediately to mind -- Will
Ferrell in ANCHORMAN, Hossain Emadeddin in CRIMSON GOLD, Zhang Ziyi
in HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS, Mark McKinney in THE SADDEST MUSIC IN THE
WORLD, Thomas Hayden Church in SIDEWAYS, Mark Wahlberg in HUCKABEES
-- but getting up to five each of lead and supporting performances
took real effort. There does seem something odd and unnatural about
evaluating performances apart from the films that contain them (or
don't). I loved ETERNAL SUNSHINE, but I'd have trouble singling out
any individual performance in it, even though if any of the
performances weren't good, the movie wouldn't be either. Uncontested
lead performances are comparatively easy -- SPARTAN wouldn't be
anything like the movie it is without Val Kilmer -- but supporting
roles were especially tough, especially when they meant picking
performances I liked out of movies I didn't. (COFFEE AND CIGARETTES
was a bit of a gold mine -- I eventually settled on Cate Blanchett
over Molina and Coogan, even though I preferred the latter sketch,
just because of the extraordinarily technical skill involved in
playing an unbroken two-shot with yourself). Perhaps it's because in
a movie like ETERNAL SUNSHINE, the director's style is so predominant
that the actors seem subservient to his vision, or that the idea was
to have the actors play as naturalistically as possible against
Michel Gondry's rather aggressively unnatural style. But it's
interesting how a director like Alexander Payne or Jafar Panahi, in
adopting a relatively unobtrusive style, seems to give the actors a
bigger part in the big picture.
Sam
>
> Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 13:16:09 -0500 (EST)
> From: Dan Sallitt
>Subject: Re: Re: acting '04
>
> >> The lead actor in CRIMSON GOLD - a great performance.
>>
>> Does that really count as a performance? I mean he really was schizo.
>
>Big issues are raised here. For one thing, I didn't know anything about
>the guy until now. His real-life state is extracinematic information.
>
>My feeling about acting is, basically, that I value the performance to the
>extent that the film seems diminished if I imagine some competent,
>undistinguished actor in the role. The skill required to play the part
>isn't important to me.
>
>This guy's mere existence is stunning to me. Admittedly his performance
>dependes on Kiarostami's instincts about how to present him in a moving
>context. But Kiarostami's film depends absolutely on him - substitution
>is unimaginable. His on-screen existence is completely credible, and
>that's a big part of cinema: to contrive crediblity. (By the way: thanks,
>Fred, for actually quoting Bazin in such a way as to suggest his
>subtlety!)
>
>The issue here is close to the heart of auteurism: all those old fights to
>defend actors like John Wayne, people whom you wouldn't want to cast as
>Hamlet. The basic auteurist argument was: existing credibly on
>screen is the most important thing an actor can do. Sometimes it's the
>result of great skill, sometimes of a quality of being. - Dan
>
19043
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 10:18pm
Subject: Re: Re: acting '04
> Some actors' first performance reamins their best. O'Toole never topped
> Lawrence.
THE SAVAGE INNOCENTS came before that, no?
> Freeway came a little later in Witherspon's career, and whatever
> she gets the first Oscar for, it won't be as good a performance, I bet.
Haven't seen FREEWAY, but I thought her performance in ELECTION was one of
the best I've ever seen. - Dan
19044
From:
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 5:27pm
Subject: Re: A Talking Picture, politics and films
On sinking Portuguese ships:
The Portuguese poet Luis de Camoes was shipwrecked off the coast of Cochin
China.
He survived by swimming to shore with one hand, while holding the manuscript
of his poetry out of the water with his other.
This is a great metaphor for most writers' lives.
Mike Grost
19045
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 10:56pm
Subject: Re: acting '04
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > Some actors' first performance reamins their best. O'Toole never topped
> > Lawrence.
>
> THE SAVAGE INNOCENTS came before that, no?
Right you are. So no. 2(?) is the one he has never topped.
>
> > Freeway came a little later in Witherspon's career, and whatever
> > she gets the first Oscar for, it won't be as good a performance, I bet.
>
> Haven't seen FREEWAY, but I thought her performance in ELECTION was
one of
> the best I've ever seen. - Dan
You may not agree, but do see Freeway sometime. It's a great performance.
And she was 3 yrs. younger than in Election. Sometimes youth combined with
talent creates something unsurpassable.
I keep hearing great reports on Swank in Baby. Anybody like her?
19046
From: Zach Campbell
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 11:03pm
Subject: Acting, Bresson
Bill:
> Interesting that you include Bresson, Zach. I'm not sure what you
> say is true in that case.
I think it's true! In the interest of breadth I deliberately
included Bresson's work for his unconventional direction of actors.
Their acting-as-acting is not important in all the same ways that
the acting in most films is, but the line readings (sometimes both
consequence and signifier of fatigue) are distinctive and are
integral to what Bresson is trying to get across
formally/thematically. Performance is an important element of
Bresson, one that is usually overlooked simply because the acting
style is so distinctively of a piece.
Keeping in mind recent criticisms of my failure to provide close
filmic examples, though, I have to apologize since it's been quite
some time since I've seen any Bresson film and don't know that I
could get sufficient depth on a filmmaker as prickly as Bresson when
I haven't immersed myself in his work in a while. But when I
revisit Bresson I would be glad to renew my feelings on this point
(or admit that I'm off the mark if I end up thinking so), if
anyone's interested.
--Zach
19047
From: Damien Bona
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 11:10pm
Subject: Re: acting '04
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
>
> You may not agree, but do see Freeway sometime. It's a great
performance.
> And she was 3 yrs. younger than in Election. Sometimes youth
combined with
> talent creates something unsurpassable.
Witherspoon gave a great performance her very first time out, in
Mulligan's "Man In The Moon" at age 14. When that film didn't do
well at the box-office, I feared that we wouldn't be seeing her
again.
19048
From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 11:16pm
Subject: Re: acting '04
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > Freeway came a little later in Witherspon's career, and whatever
> > she gets the first Oscar for, it won't be as good a performance, I
bet.
>
> Haven't seen FREEWAY, but I thought her performance in ELECTION was
one of
> the best I've ever seen. - Dan
I thought her performance in FREEWAY was even better than her
performance in ELECTION. I'm not sure what to think about FREEWAY as a
whole. I enjoyed it a great deal, but I'm not sure whether to be
bothered by its lack of seriousness -- this is a film that deals with
serial killing and child abuse. The review in Cahiers described the
film as an elaborate joke. My prejudices are showing, but the fact
that Pauline Kael promoted the film gave me pause, since FREEWAY seems
to embody the aesthetic that movies are trashy fun not to be taken
seriously.
Reese Witherspoon seems to be the essential ingredient, since Matthew
Bright's followup, FREEWAY II, without her, was so similar but
disappointing.
Paul
19049
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 11:24pm
Subject: Re: Re: acting '04
--- hotlove666 wrote:
>
> I keep hearing great reports on Swank in Baby.
> Anybody like her?
>
>
>
>
Not me. All "technique." But the film is a piece of
bloated corn.
I much prefer Cy Endfield's "Joe Palooka" movie.
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19050
From:
Date: Thu Dec 16, 2004 7:38pm
Subject: Karroll's Christmas (Dennis Dugan)
"Karroll's Christmas" (Dennis Dugan, 2004) is a made-for-TV movie, recently
shown on A&E cable TV here in the US.
It is a zany riff on "A Christmas Carol" - here the various ghosts descened
on the hero, mistaking him for the mean scrooge next door. The film is quite
entertaining, in a light-hearted way.
Dugan has directed a lot of comedies, mainly for TV, but also in the
theaters. I previously liked:
Brain Donors
Happy Gilmore
Big Daddy
with the last being a particular favorite of Robin Wood.
Mike Grost
19051
From: Peter Henne
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 1:15am
Subject: Re: Re: acting '04 (A Talking Picture, politics and films)
Actually, "And the Ship Sails On" seems like a likely inspiration, except Fellini made all the allegorizing pretty funny as he just about always does. I'll go further and say that "Ship Sails On" is a more beautiful film than "A Talking Picture." Fellini's use of the sets as such is really striking. "A Talking Picture" was on the bland side by Oliveira's standards, tending toward documentary instead of formal beauty. However he gets some great shots of the Parthenon, something very hard to make come alive considering the subject's overkill. Need I say that both of these filmmakers are breathtaking (at the top of my Oliveira list for visual glory: Francisca, The Satin Slipper, The Day of Despair, The Divine Comedy).
Peter
hotlove666 wrote:
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Peter Henne wrote:
Oliveira sees the hopes of Western civ. sinking with the history professor, her
progeny, the ship and its beautiful mural. Terrorism will take us down--and I
think this ending is political hokum.
I won;t be seeing this one, since Malkoivich is in it, but you make it sound like
Orchestra Rehearsal, a film that embarrassed us Fellinians way back when.
>
> Now, out of deference I have changed my spelling to "Oliveira," but I would
like confirmation on its correctness. It is only recently that I have seen the "de"
dropped in print.
>
I wouldn't contradict someone (Ruy) whose native tongue is Portugese on that
one.
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19052
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 4:05am
Subject: Re: Digest Number 1024
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, samadams@e... wrote:
> I agree, which is why I put TARNATION's Jonathan Caouette on my
> acting list for the Voice poll.
If I had such voting authority (can't wait to see your ballot on their website, hope you
gave them some good blurbs to post as well), I think I'd ultimately pass on Caouette
because his "performance" on screen falters by the end. That pseudo-climactic
monologue in front of the bathroom mirror in his apartment practically tears down
the illusion of genuineness that we've been witnessing the whole time, because that's
the moment when I realized he's now playing documentary-realism to the camera,
and he's no better than Morgan Spurlock (and much of the "reality" junk on tv)
Both SUPER SIZE ME and TARNATION may amount to feature-length audition tapes for
their actor-director creators.
Nonetheless, I'm now wondering if his directing and editing may amount to even
more of a "performance" than his onscreen acting, in that they are perhaps more
crucial to constructing an impression of Caouette's persona than his actual physical
appearance. (I actually love his use of intertitles -- their deadpan tone in narrating
details of horrific events give the impression of a guy trying not to break down as he
pours his heart out)
I should have put FAHRENHEIT 9/11's
> Lila Lipscomb down for supporting performance as well, but I thought
> that might come off as a snide accusation of fakery, which it wasn't
> meant to be -- it seemed like the appropriate way to acknowledge that
> the film's power is largely derived from the scenes with her in them.
Now this nomination I can embrace -- I mean, yeah, you're right, this performance
MADE the film for me -- and you could have explained your vote in the comments
section. It would have been a provocative vote for others to consider.
Kevin
19053
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 4:07am
Subject: Re: Re: HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS
> and other Chinese filmmakers. I probably like Zhang Yimou far less
> than you like Olivera. There's something about Zhang that I just
> don't trust -- but rather than use my distrust as an alibi to dismiss
> him (as many Chinese critics do) I try to confront it so I can
> understand where it's coming from and how it reflects the larger
> context of Chinese cinema and culture that surrounds and informs
> Zhang's films.
Thank you. Well I'm not a specialist on Oliveira. I have seen a great part
of his delivery from the 90s and up to now all from the 00s, but no film
before that, except for his first feature, Aniki Bobo. You're true about
distrust: I think he's a guy that will always stick to the official motto,
whatever this motto will be. In portuguese, we call these people "chapa
branca". I don't know if the languages I'm familiar with have an expression
for that, but they probably do.
> My own favorite ZY films are STORY OF QIU JU and HERO.
I like the films which are previous to TO LIVE as well, but I think they are
academicist, very well crafted films. But they have some kind of arthouse
exotism that keeps me distant from taking them seriously as pieces of great
art.
> something very calculated about his films, something like a math
> equation, about how he handles relationships and fate. This
> calculation is probably a source of deep distrust among his critics
> (both in the West and the East)
I don't view it as overcalculation, but some lack of blood instead. There's
such a privilege of story over characters that his films simply can't
breathe very much. My take on TO LIVE is precisely because of that: in it,
he seems to do some new brainwork to have comedy and drama not destroy one
another. It's been ages since I saw it, but if I remember correctly, you get
the sense that the film doesn't know where it's going. The contrary of
nearly all his others.
> or social tract. of course I haven't heard the details of your
> disdain for NOT ONE LESS, but perhaps its because you think it
> exploits its subject matter in ways that would make Spielberg look
> saintly. Sort of as with HERO, I prefer to see it more as a film
> about exploitation -- on the part of not just the characters but also
> the filmmaker -- than a film that exploits. If we can say that for
> SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS, I think we can say that for Zhang Yimou.
Well, the scene that the teacher teaches her kids to be a group and then
drink Coca Cola says it all. Or the ending of the film with television
saving the day. But mostly I like to have my own feelings about scenes, and
not feel invaded by some syrupy music that tells me it's time to cry. I
never thought Hero on exploitation ground. It will open in january, I intend
to see it again and then try to know what you're talking about in relation
to that.
> career, but they seemed just as eager to wash their hands of it --
> when they could have just as easily claimed it as a work that
> subverts its own ostensible message and grapples with the crisis of
> nationalism in the 21st century in ways more original and challenging
> than what Jia Zhangke does in the world.
On a purely formal level I think it's poor. Maybe these critics do, also
(haven't read). Have they mentioned the crisis of nationalism in the 21st
century and then dismissed it. I, for myself, don't have enough information
on chinese political affairs on the last, say, twenty years (except for
tian'amen [sp?], which everyone knows), to identify references. Also I feel
that some films I repute as really bad deal with certain aspects (political,
social) better than ones I dearly admire. Films can't be about everything
(as Zach well knows, and I loved his posts on Rushmore). I'm also not
learned on nationalism crisis. Last time I checked the riches country in the
world had at least a majority of 51 percent nationalists who think it's
alright to burn other countries for (phony) security reasons. But you're
sure: everywhere except in the states nationalism is getting pointless and
pointless. I didn't watch Hero with this concern in mind nor anything in the
movie has awaken this subject in me. Maybe when I resee it... I don't assume
at all I've seen all there's to see in that movie. Oh, and I love Jia
Zhangke's films but The World hasn't come by to say hello this year in
Brazil.
The only writers I've seen
> who have truly taken on the challenge posited by the film are Chris
> Fujiwara [url]http://members.verizon.net/~vze4b4rc/content/hero.htm
> [/url], Shelley Kraicer in CINEMASCOPE (vol 5 issue 1) and, well,
> myself. I spent a lot of time posting about this on this board when
> the film was released in the US back in August. I've been meaning to
> extract them, revise them and post them on my website, but haven't
> done it yet.
I remember reading your posts, before seeing the film. Will read Fujiwara.
> Yeah but there were 20 years separating those films, and a lot that
> happened to Eisenstein in the interim. IVAN THE TERRIBLE could be
> viewed as an aesthetic (and possibly ideological) refutation of
> OCTOBER.
I agree. I think that, except for the evaluation of Zhang's work and for the
evaluation of Hero in particular, we share a lot of aesthetical and
political concerns.
> > I didn't get what you think about STAR WARS II: is it totalitarean
> or does
> > it question totalitarism? Either way, I think it is art in its most
> > reactionary and completely lacking mise-en-scene.
>
> I only brought it up because of Bill Krohn's stimulating take on the
> film from a couple months ago, as an allegory for the Empire of Bush
> II. Bill, I hope you shape your thoughts into an article to be
> published somewhere.
>
comments elsewhere.
Ruy
19054
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 4:21am
Subject: Re: Re: HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS
> > The guy who made IVAN THE TERRIBLE also made OCTOBER, which is, err,
> > totalitarian aesthetics on its purest form.
> > I didn't get what you think about STAR WARS II: is it totalitarean or
does
> > it question totalitarism? Either way, I think it is art in its most
> > reactionary and completely lacking mise-en-scene.
> Define "totalitarian esthetics."
It would take a book to do that. I have named on other posts some traits of
totalitarian aesthetics (monumentalism, icon, respect for male authority
(=leader), love for the homeland). Phillippe Lacoue-Labarthe, dealing with
in, talks about "immanentism" (nothing to do, though, with Deleuze's
immanence). But everytime an aesthetics gives you the impression that all
the people in one country (there is not an universalist totalitarism) share
one same goal and that they are together as one, there you have it:
totalitarian aesthetics. But it's not a definition, as you require... More
of an example.
>Justify "absence of mise-en-scene."
It was a feeling. SW2 didn't seem to have a point-of-view organizing what we
were seeing and how we were seeing what we were seeing. Instead, I felt it
was the panoptic of the spectacle which was throwing images to explain the
story. The story goes alright but the camera has no regard. As it was a
feeling, not an argument, it can easily be disregarded if you didn't feel
the same thing.
19055
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 4:31am
Subject: Re: Re: acting '04 (A Talking Picture, politics and films)
> > Now, out of deference I have changed my spelling to "Oliveira," but I
would
> like confirmation on its correctness. It is only recently that I have seen
the "de"
> dropped in print.
> I wouldn't contradict someone (Ruy) whose native tongue is Portugese on
that
> one.
Not only that, but I'm a "de Nóbrega", oops, "Nóbrega". You can have your
confirmation, Peter. Many brazilians and portugueses that are "de", "da",
"dos" even skip writing the particle, like brazilian filmmaker Domingos de
Oliveira, oops, Domingos Oliveira.
19056
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 4:41am
Subject: Re: Re: acting '04 (A Talking Picture, politics and films)
As of an early thread with Bill, I'd say that Oliveira's ballgame is not
mainly in the court of formal beauty (which is something his films have, and
a great deal of it), but the concern with History. A Talking Picture only
adds contemporary agenda to that.
>
> Actually, "And the Ship Sails On" seems like a likely inspiration, except
Fellini made all the allegorizing pretty funny as he just about always does.
I'll go further and say that "Ship Sails On" is a more beautiful film than
"A Talking Picture." Fellini's use of the sets as such is really striking.
"A Talking Picture" was on the bland side by Oliveira's standards, tending
toward documentary instead of formal beauty. However he gets some great
shots of the Parthenon, something very hard to make come alive considering
the subject's overkill. Need I say that both of these filmmakers are
breathtaking (at the top of my Oliveira list for visual glory: Francisca,
The Satin Slipper, The Day of Despair, The Divine Comedy).
>
> Peter
19057
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 4:52am
Subject: Re: Re: acting '04 (A Talking Picture, politics and films)
>>>>>>But an underlying idea was that terrorists represent Islamic culture,
and I vehemently disagree with that. Neither "Islam" or "Christianity" is an
ideological block of stone, nor have they ever been. And, as Paul has said,
the film is overreacting--I would add, just like the right does. A band of
idiots is not going to bring Western civ. to an end.
I vehemently disagree also, but I don't think that you can find that
equivalence in the film: I've never asked, but Oliveira does not watch Fox
News. A Talking Picture is overreacting the same way Invasion of the Body
Snatchers or The Night of the Living Dead do. They invent a "what if"
situation and dig out of it some fears they have about the destiny of the
world. A crime so big?
>>>>>I'm baffled that Oliveira would even endeavor a grandiose political
statement.
Well, he wouldn't and he didn't. Some people couldn't come up with other
interpretations.
>>>>>I happen to think that, at this point in history, if you're going to
make a film which makes Western-Islamic conflict a leading topic of
discussion and it ends with a terrorist attack, then like it or not you have
entered the political fray, my friend. The song (a folk song, with centuries
behind it) over the end credits might be a plea to cool temperatures in the
conflict, but it does not counterweigh the shock and enormity of lives and a
ship going down. Oliveira sees the hopes of Western civ. sinking with the
history professor, her progeny, the ship and its beautiful mural. Terrorism
will take us down--and I think this ending is political hokum.
Again, it's a "what if" situation. He does not think terrorism is gonna put
the world to an end. He's as aprehensive of the future as you and me, but
the film doesn't blame arabs or make moral judgments. He just presents a
tension, shows some signs: there is the threat of terrorism today just as
there have been in the world all wars, which, by the way, are several times
mentioned. For every beautiful construction and story in the world, a war.
Why should our times be different? They arent'. Is it immoral to say so?
Well, not for Oliveira, I guess.
Ruy
19058
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 5:22am
Subject: Re: Acting, Bresson
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Zach Campbell"
wrote:
>
> Bill:
> > Interesting that you include Bresson, Zach. I'm not sure what you
> > say is true in that case.
>
Performance is an important element of
> Bresson, one that is usually overlooked simply because the acting
> style is so distinctively of a piece.
Actually, I wasn't discounting the actors, just saying that they are
accorded no more importance than the objects, which is considerable!
19059
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 5:26am
Subject: Re: acting '04
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Gallagher"
wrote:
>
>
>
> I thought her performance in FREEWAY was even better than her
> performance in ELECTION. I'm not sure what to think about FREEWAY
as a
> whole. I enjoyed it a great deal, but I'm not sure whether to be
> bothered by its lack of seriousness -- this is a film that deals
with
> serial killing and child abuse.
Bright's Ted Bundy is pretty serious.
The review in Cahiers described the
> film as an elaborate joke.
And later Erwan Higuinen called Matthew Bright a hack. Not true!
My prejudices are showing, but the fact
> that Pauline Kael promoted the film gave me pause, since FREEWAY
seems
> to embody the aesthetic that movies are trashy fun not to be taken
> seriously.
Well, she could be right sometime. The problem is when she used that
esthetic to promote crap like Million Dollar Legs.
>
> Reese Witherspoon seems to be the essential ingredient, since
Matthew
> Bright's followup, FREEWAY II, without her, was so similar but
> disappointing.
She's the main ingredient, but Freeway II is very much of a piece w.
Freeway I. But anything would be a letdown after her performance in
that. I haven't seen Tiptoes yet. Anyone?
19060
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 5:34am
Subject: Re: Digest Number 1024
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Kevin Lee"
wrote:
> I should have put FAHRENHEIT 9/11's
> > Lila Lipscomb down for supporting performance as well, but I
thought
> > that might come off as a snide accusation of fakery, which it
wasn't
> > meant to be -- it seemed like the appropriate way to acknowledge
that
> > the film's power is largely derived from the scenes with her in
them.
>
> Now this nomination I can embrace -- I mean, yeah, you're right,
this performance
> MADE the film for me -- and you could have explained your vote in
the comments
> section. It would have been a provocative vote for others to
consider.
>
> Kevin
Acting - as opposed to acting a character someone made up - is
something we all do all the time, and people in front of a
documentary camera are certainly no exception. Brando used to say
acting was no big deal - he'd cite the husband who comes home after a
fling with a hooker explaining to his wife where he was. I don't
think it violates the dictionary definition of acting to use the word
that way - it's not even a metaphorical use.
19061
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 5:38am
Subject: Re: HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Ruy Gardnier"
wrote:
> > > The guy who made IVAN THE TERRIBLE also made OCTOBER, which is,
err,
> > > totalitarian aesthetics on its purest form.
> > > I didn't get what you think about STAR WARS II: is it
totalitarean or
> does
> > > it question totalitarism? Either way, I think it is art in its
most
> > > reactionary and completely lacking mise-en-scene.
>
> > Define "totalitarian esthetics."
>
> It would take a book to do that. I have named on other posts some
traits of
> totalitarian aesthetics (monumentalism, icon, respect for male
authority
> (=leader), love for the homeland). Phillippe Lacoue-Labarthe,
dealing with
> in, talks about "immanentism" (nothing to do, though, with Deleuze's
> immanence). But everytime an aesthetics gives you the impression
that all
> the people in one country (there is not an universalist
totalitarism) share
> one same goal and that they are together as one, there you have it:
> totalitarian aesthetics. But it's not a definition, as you
require... More
> of an example.
But the unity of the characters fighting the Empire leads to blunder
on blunder and the triumph of evil, Nathalie Portman's nationalism in
particular.
>
> >Justify "absence of mise-en-scene."
>
> It was a feeling. SW2 didn't seem to have a point-of-view
organizing what we
> were seeing and how we were seeing what we were seeing.
Lucas has always been an unconventional director. THX and Graffiti
and Star Wars are all shot very unconventionally, and basically the
same way. I'd call it anti-mise-en-scene. It's really quite radical.
19062
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 5:43am
Subject: Re: acting '04 (A Talking Picture, politics and films)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Ruy Gardnier"
wrote:
> >>>>>>But an underlying idea was that terrorists represent Islamic
culture,
> and I vehemently disagree with that. Neither "Islam"
or "Christianity" is an
> ideological block of stone, nor have they ever been. And, as Paul
has said,
> the film is overreacting--I would add, just like the right does. A
band of
> idiots is not going to bring Western civ. to an end.
>
> I vehemently disagree also, but I don't think that you can find that
> equivalence in the film: I've never asked, but Oliveira does not
watch Fox
> News. A Talking Picture is overreacting the same way Invasion of
the Body
> Snatchers or The Night of the Living Dead do. They invent a "what
if"
> situation and dig out of it some fears they have about the destiny
of the
> world. A crime so big?
>
> >>>>>I'm baffled that Oliveira would even endeavor a grandiose
political
> statement.
>
> Well, he wouldn't and he didn't. Some people couldn't come up with
other
> interpretations.
>
> >>>>>I happen to think that, at this point in history, if you're
going to
> make a film which makes Western-Islamic conflict a leading topic of
> discussion and it ends with a terrorist attack, then like it or not
you have
> entered the political fray, my friend. The song (a folk song, with
centuries
> behind it) over the end credits might be a plea to cool
temperatures in the
> conflict, but it does not counterweigh the shock and enormity of
lives and a
> ship going down. Oliveira sees the hopes of Western civ. sinking
with the
> history professor, her progeny, the ship and its beautiful mural.
Terrorism
> will take us down--and I think this ending is political hokum.
>
> Again, it's a "what if" situation. He does not think terrorism is
gonna put
> the world to an end.
Here's a what-if from Bunuel - the treatment for his last film. Near
the end the announcement that Jerusalem has been destroyed by a
hydrogen bomb provokes worldwide panic. Cut to a cave where a
terrorist reads out loud to his comrades a communiqué the group is
preparing to send:
"To the President of the Republic: We hereby inform you that the
group Revolutionary Action has dissolved. Our actions have become
insignificant by comparison to the infinitely more powerful actions
of the imperialists. Our ultimatum has been nullified. You will find
our modest atomic bomb in a barge anchored across from the Louvre.
We're going home. We'll be mobilized if it's not too late. We promise
you then, if the opportunity arises to do so with impunity, we shall
liquidate our officers by shooting them in the back."
19063
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 5:46am
Subject: Re: HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Ruy Gardnier"
wrote:
"I like the films which are previous to TO LIVE as well, but I think
they are academicist, very well crafted films. But they have some
kind of arthouse exotism that keeps me distant from taking them
seriously as pieces of great art."
I agree with you about Zhang's academic quality to a certain extent,
but not about the exocticism, at least until SHANGHAI TRIAD where it
seems calculated for the export market. It seems to me that Zhang was
trying to move beyond what he was taught in the state run film school
where he learned his trade. I know he got into political trouble
after SHANGHAI TRIAD, and when he was allowed to make films again he
retrenched.
"There's such a privilege of story over characters that his films
simply can't breathe very much. My take on TO LIVE is precisely
because of that: in it, he seems to do some new brainwork to have
comedy and drama not destroy one another. It's been ages since I saw
it, but if I remember correctly, you get the sense that the film
doesn't know where it's going. The contrary of nearly all his
others."
TO LIVE (also known as LIFETIMES which I think is a better title; I
don't know what the Chinese title is)is a history lesson and as such
it could have suffered from submerging the charcaters in the events
that it depicts, and it seems to me that Zhang was aware of that. TO
LIVE and THE STORY OF QIU JU and certainly his most engaging movies.
"On a purely formal level I think it's poor."
As a commentary on the genre HERO is of considerable formal interest,
but to appreciate it one would have to be familiar with its routine
predessors.
"Have they mentioned the crisis of nationalism in the 21st
century and then dismissed it. I, for myself, don't have enough
information on chinese political affairs on the last, say, twenty
years (except for tian'amen [sp?], which everyone knows), to identify
references...I didn't watch Hero with this concern in mind nor
anything in the movie has awaken this subject in me. Maybe when I
resee it... "
Kevin has very astutely examined the thematic concerns of HERO in his
earlier posts here. One thing to keep in mind about Zhang and other
filmmakers who are or were working in one party countries (like
Eisenstein or several Japanese filmmakers working during the facist
era of 1936-1945) is the civil constraints under which they must
live. A concientious appraisal of Zhang, Eisenstein and other
directors working under similar conditions would have to take take
into account the prevailing intellectual atmosphere of their time and
place and the limits to freedom of expression imposed by the state as
well as the penalties meted out for defying the state.
Concerning Oliveira's orientalist politics in UM FILME FALADO and
other more egregious examples of filmmakers we admire, it might be
worthwhile to peruse the book "Tainted Greatness: Antisemitism and
Culture Hereos" edited by Nancy Harrowitz. It has essays on Martin
Luther, Gerhard Kittel, Mircea Eliade, Carl Jung, Masud Khan, Wagner,
Heidigger, Pound, De Man, Genet among others. It offers some
provocative ways for coping with the taintedness of brilliant artists
and thinkers without dismissing them or their works.
Richard
19064
From: Fred Camper
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 5:48am
Subject: Re: Re: acting '04 (A Talking Picture, politics and films)
Thanks to Zach for a thoughtful post. I'll have an (I hope) thoughtful
answer in a day or two. For now....
Paul Gallagher wrote:
>
> Artifacts are vulnerable to centuries of weather -- the temples on the
> Acropolis were especially vulnerable after their roofs collapsed.
> Artifacts are not equivalent to civilization.
But they stand for the civilizations that had vanished, as I already
said. We see the monuments of vanished civilizations, and those
monuments remind us that the civilizations have vanished. We hear about
all the killing they engaged in. These are true facts.
> Neither terrorism nor Islam is going to destroy Western civilization.
I don't think the film is saying that. I think the film is saying that
citizens are in danger. It ends with exactly two people getting killed.
This seems rather moderate compared to the number of civilians actually
killed in recent years by Islamic terrorists, Israeli troops in the
occupied territories, or the U.S. in Iraq. (And the U.S., sadly, is the
"champ" here, by a wide margin.)
While it's also true that most will infer Islamic terrorism from the
explosion, unless I missed something the film doesn't specify who set
the bombs. That seems really important to me, because it implicates the
viewer, including Paul, including me, in interpreting that the terrorism
is "Islamic." When news of the Oklahoma City bombing that killed 167
first broke, I in fact did assume it was "Islamic," especially since it
occurred on the anniversary of the end of Gulf War I (or maybe it was of
the start of ground combat in Gulf War I). That it was not Muslims was
an important lesson for me. Too bad 9/11 had to happen later.
Also, you're writing as if Islamic terrorists are not a huge threat.
Hello? Earth to Paul? Kenya, Tanzania, Bali, Madrid, Morocco, New York?
You know, before 9/11 there was that Egyptian airliner that crashed into
the sea, killing everyone on board. The copilot was alone in the cockpit
(or at least, the pilot was gone), when it started to plunge. He could
be heard uttering some prayer to the effect (I think) that all was in
Allah's hands. The captain returned and said something like "What the
hell are you doing?" I don't remember all the details. Many people,
including myself, took it as a case of a terrorist suicide and mass
murder. Then the good multiculturalists came in and told us we were all
being bigots, in part because Muslims don't commit suicide because it's
against their religion. Umm hmm.
> Written language, agriculture, living in cities are not threatened.
> Terrorism destroys individual lives, but it is not going to cause the
> death of Europe.
We don't know what might happen to the world were terrorists to get a
hold of a few nukes. Are you aware that there are Pentagon "researchers"
trying to figure out how to trace the source of a nuclear bomb so that
if the U.S. is nuked, the U.S. can nuke other parts of the world in
retaliation?
> Terrorism is not fundamental to Islamic culture.
Yes, of course, we agree.
> Nor
> are the US and Europe fundamentally in conflict with Islam
The problem now is that hundreds of millions of Muslims think the U.S.
is on a mission to destroy Islam, and it's not that ridiculous a belief,
even if it's not true, in light of things like our illegal invasion of
Iraq, a great terrorist recruitment tool.
A lot of those same people, millions of them, think that the Jews did
9/11. If that's not a conflict of beliefs I don't know what is.
> But I'm not interested in changing your political beliefs. You seem to
> agree with me as to the film's thesis: the West is vulnerable and
> threatened by Islam....
Up to a point, the film does imply this, but it doesn't imply that all
Islam is out to destroy the West. It's instead a reminder of the
fragility of all our lives. The ruins of vanished civilizations
definitely have some sort of relationship to the terrorism at the end,
but it's not as simple a relationship as you seem to think.
Also, even if that *were* the film's main "thesis," the fact that it's a
good or great film means that it's almost inevitably more complex than
its "thesis." Bill gave us a small example from "Objective Burma," but
even in a racist film that doesn't undercut its racism, there may be a
lot of other things going on not reducible to a or the "thesis."
I think Ruy is right to compare "A Talking Picture" to certain horror
films. And it *is* only a fiction movie. But the explosion at the end is
not some racist fantasy; it's inspired by real events that really did
happen. Ruy puts it better than I could: the film suggests "there is the
threat of terrorism today just as there have been in the world all wars,
which, by the way, are several times mentioned." Indeed, at most or all
the cities they stop in, mother tells daughter about wars in which lots
of people were killed. The history lesson she gives is in part a history
of killings, and one other way you could take the ending is that
Oliveira is not so much attacking Islam but rather connecting past to
present, by "saying" in his film what Ernie Gehr said in horror at the
outbreak of Gulf War I in mid-January 1991: "We have learned NOTHING!"
Fred Camper
19065
From: Peter Henne
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 6:30am
Subject: Re: Re: acting '04 (A Talking Picture, politics and films)
Ruy, just a couple of comments. First of all, I think that Oliveira's primary contribution is the interesting questions he raises about how cinema may represent history. I said as much in a review of "Voyage to the Beginning of the World," which is archived at www.filmjournal.com. Perhaps we have some agreement about the relationship of his films to history. His films are gorgeous, and I said so in a post, but I did not mean that was his principal trait. Secondly, by no means do I think Oliveira has gone Bill O'Reilly on the world, only that this film's outlook could be used as fodder by cretins of his ilk if they cared to bother. I don't see evidence to support interpreting the film as a "what if," and I've never really known him to raise sweeping hypotheticals about contemporary politics. But I think others on this thread have made a good case for seeing the film as a political statement. Also, is it really like Oliveira to express himself by overreacting? I would say typically the
performances, visual aesthetics, and story developments of his films are all very much understated. Somehow, deliberately overreacting to terrorism to reach a more balanced perspective seems like a game of shock tactics that Oliveira would refrain from playing. Maybe I have misunderstood your point. But even on my interpretation, he doesn't simply "blame Arabs," and the way I read the absence of naming the terrorists was that he didn't have to--given the film's ongoing discussions and the political climate in which the film is received, they could only be Muslim. What other group could they come from which would make any sense for the film? But for Malkovich to have said so would have amounted to name-calling.
I will remain open to other interpretations of the film. Any way I look at how the film closes, it is a very different kind of endeavor for this director than what he has done before.
Peter
Ruy Gardnier wrote:
>>>>>>But an underlying idea was that terrorists represent Islamic culture,
and I vehemently disagree with that. Neither "Islam" or "Christianity" is an
ideological block of stone, nor have they ever been. And, as Paul has said,
the film is overreacting--I would add, just like the right does. A band of
idiots is not going to bring Western civ. to an end.
I vehemently disagree also, but I don't think that you can find that
equivalence in the film: I've never asked, but Oliveira does not watch Fox
News. A Talking Picture is overreacting the same way Invasion of the Body
Snatchers or The Night of the Living Dead do. They invent a "what if"
situation and dig out of it some fears they have about the destiny of the
world. A crime so big?
>>>>>I'm baffled that Oliveira would even endeavor a grandiose political
statement.
Well, he wouldn't and he didn't. Some people couldn't come up with other
interpretations.
>>>>>I happen to think that, at this point in history, if you're going to
make a film which makes Western-Islamic conflict a leading topic of
discussion and it ends with a terrorist attack, then like it or not you have
entered the political fray, my friend. The song (a folk song, with centuries
behind it) over the end credits might be a plea to cool temperatures in the
conflict, but it does not counterweigh the shock and enormity of lives and a
ship going down. Oliveira sees the hopes of Western civ. sinking with the
history professor, her progeny, the ship and its beautiful mural. Terrorism
will take us down--and I think this ending is political hokum.
Again, it's a "what if" situation. He does not think terrorism is gonna put
the world to an end. He's as aprehensive of the future as you and me, but
the film doesn't blame arabs or make moral judgments. He just presents a
tension, shows some signs: there is the threat of terrorism today just as
there have been in the world all wars, which, by the way, are several times
mentioned. For every beautiful construction and story in the world, a war.
Why should our times be different? They arent'. Is it immoral to say so?
Well, not for Oliveira, I guess.
Ruy
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19066
From: Yoel Meranda
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 6:45am
Subject: Re: acting '04 (A Talking Picture, politics and films)
I have seen A Talking Picture in Anthology Today. I should say that I
had never seen an Oliveira film before and the posts here helped me a
lot with my understanding of it so thanks to everyone.
First of all, I do not understand how people come to any conclusions
about Oliveira's political beliefs from a film that is so complicated
in every way. The historical stories told in the film are so varied
and so unrelated on the surface that I find it impossible to even
state that the film is about terrorism or even the occident. The long
scene about the opening of the Suez Canal is one example of a story
that is totally unrelated to terrorism (at least the connection is
not made in the film); the story about the Goddess Athena and
everything that happens in Istanbul (my home town, and I like the
fact that it is the only city the little girl finds "beautiful") are
other examples.
I think there is only one common theme to almost all the stories:
Civilization, in general, has accomplished great things but many
particular civilizations that seemed to be stable in the past are in
ruins now and if they are not in ruins, they have changed
drastically, mostly as a result of wars (and wars are in the human
nature so this trend is going to go on forever). Whether terrorism
or "the war against terrorism" are justified is only indirectly
related to this and I think Oliveira uses it as his backdrop only
because that is the main "war" that is happening in the world today.
In any case, there are so many other things going on in the film in
terms of content. The advances by the famous actor in Egypt, by the
captain to every female being in the ship and the mother's
relationship with the daughter are totally outside the context of
terrorism. I think Oliveira's main subject (or rather, his starting
point) is the personal struggles of individuals who are forced to
face the history (and therefore, in some way, their destinies) that
they cannot control.
I don't think he tries to make any political points. I do believe
that he finds that starting point very inspiring.
Also, I agree with Ruy Gardnier when he says (in post #19004) that it
is impossible to treat the acting as realistic in the film. It seemed
very distanced and totally unbelievable and I don't understand how
people don't think it is Oliveira's choice, even if it is more
intuitive than conscious. It also goes with Fred's point (post
#18972) when he says that there is not much difference between the
Suez Canal paintings and the scenery of pyramids. The film is very
artifical and I think it is so obvious that it is hard to dismiss it
as Oliveira's mistake, rather than seeing it as his choice.
If you have any doubts about the conscious artificiality of the film
just take a look again at the repeated sequence of shots near the end
that Patrick Ciccone talks about (post #18997) where the mother and
the girl run back and forth. It would have never happened in a film
that tries to involve its viewers.
The fact that we cannot identify much with characters (especially, in
the case of Malkovich, who is definitely a repulsive personality in
my - and I believe Oliveira's - terms) in this artificiality also
goes with my point that there is no way of understanding Oliveira's
position from the film. Who knows whether he agrees with the
characters and whether he would tell the stories of the past the way
the characters would?
I thought one of the most beautiful points in the film was the
entrance of the famous actor in Cairo. The tone of his voice totally
changes the way we experience the pyramids that we had been looking
at for a while. Thanks to David for saying that "Shifts in tone,
especially as the relate to performers, are a constant in Oliviera."
(post #19016).
I don't know what to make of the "entrance" of the bomb but the shot
where everybody starts running around in a chaotic way is a first in
the film and I think it's very very beautiful. I find the whole shift
in the film very interesting although I can't really explain why.
There is a formal beauty in the film, which is apparent from the
first shot which is the most beautiful shot I have seen for a while,
but the beauty comes mostly from the way the images are interrelated
and not necessarily from the beauty of any individual images. I have
a personal admiration for the filmmakers who achive that and I think
that is why Bresson and Rossellini are my favorite narrative
directors.
I should see many many more Oliveiras from now on.
I think people who liked the film would be happy to hear that it will
be shown one extra week in Anthology thanks to the demand.
Yoel
19067
From: Aaron Graham
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 6:51am
Subject: Re: acting '04
> She's the main ingredient, but Freeway II is very much of a piece
w.
> Freeway I. But anything would be a letdown after her performance in
> that. I haven't seen Tiptoes yet. Anyone?
Conversely, this is the only Bright film i've seen. I'll certainly
seek out the others upon Bill's recommendation.
Regarding "Tiptoes": I found it worthy only for Gary Oldman's
believable performance as a little person, played completely straight
without coming off as a gimmick of any sort. The sentimentaliy was
really quite brave for such a story, and it's got a great ending.
My aversion towards Kate Beckinsdale prohibited me from enjoying it
any further, as it's really her driving the plot.
-Aaron
19068
From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 8:11am
Subject: Re: acting '04 (A Talking Picture, politics and films)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Yoel Meranda"
wrote:
> The long
> scene about the opening of the Suez Canal is one example of a story
> that is totally unrelated to terrorism (at least the connection is
> not made in the film); the story about the Goddess Athena and
> everything that happens in Istanbul (my home town, and I like the
> fact that it is the only city the little girl finds "beautiful") are
> other examples.
The story about Athena -- the protector of Athens is gone -- seems to
imply the West is unprotected. In Istanbul the film addresses the
conversion of Hagia Sofia into a mosque, which seems to indicate worry
about Muslim revanchism. It reminds me of a comment Oliveira made to
Ruy Gardnier. I may be misunderstanding Oliveira's statement: "Agora,
são os muçulmanos que querem retornar à Europa, ou para o ocidente. Há
a questão do terrorismo." Is he worried about immigrants or something
else?
> I think there is only one common theme to almost all the stories:
> Civilization, in general, has accomplished great things but many
> particular civilizations that seemed to be stable in the past are in
> ruins now and if they are not in ruins, they have changed
> drastically, mostly as a result of wars (and wars are in the human
> nature so this trend is going to go on forever).
The emphasis in this group on ruins may be overstated. The Castle of
the Egg seems to be doing OK. The story of Virgil's egg emphasizes the
vulnerability of civilization to foreign invaders, but the emphasis on
past buildings seems to be more a matter of pointing to the West's
patrimony: Rome and Greece are not vanished civilizations, but part of
Western civilization. Irene Pappas comments that 40% of the roots of a
language were Greek and speaks of Attic Greek and modern Greek as
equivalent: in other words, the classical past persists and is not
lost. (In fact, a much smaller percentage of either English or the
Romance languages has Greek roots.)
Paul
19069
From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 8:38am
Subject: Re: HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Modiano"
wrote:
> Concerning Oliveira's orientalist politics in UM FILME FALADO and
> other more egregious examples of filmmakers we admire, it might be
> worthwhile to peruse the book "Tainted Greatness: Antisemitism and
> Culture Hereos" edited by Nancy Harrowitz. It has essays on Martin
> Luther, Gerhard Kittel, Mircea Eliade, Carl Jung, Masud Khan, Wagner,
> Heidigger, Pound, De Man, Genet among others. It offers some
> provocative ways for coping with the taintedness of brilliant artists
> and thinkers without dismissing them or their works.
>
There's the difference that anti-Semitism has been repudiated and
marginalized, whereas the "clash of civilizations" viewpoint is
widespread, even prevailing. Even if one agrees with the "clash of
civilizations" thesis, it's useful to treat the film's ideas not as
commonsense, but as matters of contention requiring real thought.
I haven't noticed critics taking issue even with small details in the
film. I would have thought Silveira's calling Arabs descendants of
Ishmael or stating that they burned the library at Alexandria or
seeming to endorse the idea that God punished Pompeii would at least
provoke comment. Since Silveira's lectures move back and forth between
history and myth, it may be legitimate in the context of the film, but
it's still important to correct widely believed myths.
Paul
19070
From: Zach Campbell
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 1:19pm
Subject: Re: Acting, Bresson
Bill:
> Actually, I wasn't discounting the actors, just saying that they
> are accorded no more importance than the objects, which is
> considerable!
True -- but I wasn't trying to argue that the actors in Bresson are
more important than the objects, or that Bresson doesn't do
fascinating things with shots of objects. I just think that in
Bresson, as in others' films, the acting (as acting) can tell us
something very important. As I've tried to think about it a little
since last night, I wonder if UNE FEMME DOUCE might be a
particularly rich example. That's one I'd like to revisit.
--Zach
19071
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 1:53pm
Subject: Totalitarian aesthetics
>> Define "totalitarian esthetics."
>
> But everytime an aesthetics gives you the impression that all
> the people in one country (there is not an universalist totalitarism) share
> one same goal and that they are together as one, there you have it:
> totalitarian aesthetics.
That's a good approach, very concrete. Could we say: all the people in
one country, except for some bad guys who pose a threat?
I prefer approaches like this, which connect totalitarianism to a state of
mind rather than to a particular political agenda.
I just paid a not entirely satisfying revisit to THE BIG HEAT the other
day, and found some of this structure in Sidney Boehm's script. - Dan
19072
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 2:15pm
Subject: Re: Re: Acting, Bresson
> Actually, I wasn't discounting the actors, just saying that they are
> accorded no more importance than the objects, which is considerable!
I don't think I'd say this. Look how much Bresson sweats over getting a
certain acting style. He's quite the ideologue about it - feels strongly
that the least hint of theater or performance is false, and goes to
lengths to obliterate it. One can question his ideology (I think it's a
personal quirk that he's elevated to an aesthetic principle), but clearly
there's something about people that he loves, and once he arrives at it,
he's quite interested in documenting it. I don't think objects are
treated in the same way in his films.
If I had to think about the important figures in the history of filming
objects...maybe Eisenstein? Whom I don't care for, so it's a bit of a
dodge. Resnais manages to get quite a lot of his personality into
passages that film objects, which is one of the things that makes his
documentaries so valuable. To move away from filmmakers with distinctive
editing styles: I always felt that John Korty had some special feeling for
the texture and weight of objects, and a lot of the moments that I
remember from his films have no people in them.
As far as giving people and objects equal weight - maybe Lang, more than
Bresson? We're really talking less about objects than about the way of
looking and thinking that the filmmaker induces. - Dan
19073
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 2:37pm
Subject: Re: Re: acting '04
>> I keep hearing great reports on Swank in Baby.
>> Anybody like her?
> Not me. All "technique."
Haven't seem BABY, but I thought Swank's famous performance in BOYS DON'T
CRY was a horrible tic-fest. - Dan
19074
From: Michael E. Kerpan, Jr.
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 2:41pm
Subject: Re: HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Modiano"
wrote:
> TO LIVE (also known as LIFETIMES which I think is a better title; I
> don't know what the Chinese title is)is a history lesson and as such
> it could have suffered from submerging the charcaters in the events
> that it depicts, and it seems to me that Zhang was aware of that. TO
> LIVE and THE STORY OF QIU JU and certainly his most engaging movies.
I'd like to propose a third "top Zhang Yimou film" -- "Keep Cool". I
guess this has never been distributed anywhere (except maybe Spain)
and I have never been understand the reason for its total neglect. It
is probably the quirkiest of his films stylistically -- with a
hand-held camera and fast-paced cutting -- but the lead performances
(by Jiang Wen and Li Baotian) are absolutely superb.
And a word of defense for "Not One Less". I think the message there
is far more complex than it seems on the surface. The "happy ending"
here reminds me more than a little of that of Murnau's "Letzte Mann"
(Last Laugh). The rather over the top nature of the resolution is
intended to heighten the contrast with what he knows his (domestic)
audience knows is the _real_ situation. (A point made even more clear
in ZY's text epilog, pointing out the inexcusably dire circumstances
in rural China's schools). "Not One Less" may not be flawless -- but
it was my introduction to the work of Zhang Yimou -- and (for its many
good points) I love it still.
Hoping to see "Flying Daggers" this weekend.
MEK
19075
From: Fred Camper
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 2:46pm
Subject: Re: Re: acting '04 (A Talking Picture, politics and films)
Paul Gallagher wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Yoel Meranda"
> wrote:
> In Istanbul the film addresses the
> conversion of Hagia Sofia into a mosque, which seems to indicate worry
> about Muslim revanchism.
After "addressing" the conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque, the
film "addresses" the fact that it became a museum under the secularizing
Attaturk. Both of these are historical facts and I don't detect any
"worry" about either in the film. It seems to me you're stretching your
interpretations to the point of ridiculousness. Oliveira is not
obligated to consider every ridiculous misinterpretation that some moron
might put on historical facts. Equating things the mother tells her
daughter with the film "addressing" something is already a problem. Why
do I get the feeling that you would like the film to mention only
murders committed by the West, only "dangers" from the West? Just
because George Bush is a bad guy (and he is) doesn't mean that Islamic
terrorism is not a threat today, and it certainly doesn't mean that
Oliveira's film is mostly "about" Islamic terrorism. Why don't you go
after the media that reports on Islamic terrorist attacks without adding
the full context (the Iraqis might be said to be resisting US
occupation), since those facts might inspire the American right far more
than Oliveira's film, which just about none of "them" are going to see
anyway.
Fred Camper
19076
From: Michael E. Kerpan, Jr.
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 2:47pm
Subject: Object-oriented directors (was: Acting, Bresson)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> If I had to think about the important figures in the history of filming
> objects...maybe Eisenstein? Whom I don't care for, so it's a bit of a
> dodge. Resnais manages to get quite a lot of his personality into
> passages that film objects, which is one of the things that makes his
> documentaries so valuable.
Ozu, perhaps. Have teapots and smokestacks ever been so eloquent?
MEK
19077
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 2:53pm
Subject: Re: Object-oriented directors (was: Acting, Bresson)
--- "Michael E. Kerpan, Jr."
wrote:
.
>
> Ozu, perhaps. Have teapots and smokestacks ever
> been so eloquent?
>
True.
Also Godard's symphony of objects "2 ou 3 choses que
je sais d'elle"
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19078
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 3:08pm
Subject: Re: Acting, Bresson
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
>
> As far as giving people and objects equal weight - maybe Lang,
more than
> Bresson? We're really talking less about objects than about the
way of
> looking and thinking that the filmmaker induces. - Dan
I wonder (I haven't been following this thread too closely) if
anyone has mentioned Tarkovsky's fascination for objects and empty
places? He has a very sensual approach to inanimate objects, mixed
with an elemental poetics that often unexpectedly brings water into
the picture. You can get lost into his slow trackings and pans on
random objects surrealistically brought together, and in the
contemplation of his eerie sets. "The Mirror" and "Nostalghia" are
particularly striking in that respect.
JPC
19079
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 3:17pm
Subject: Re: Re: acting '04
> But Sol and Moon's bull-in-the-china-shop pyrotechnics wouldn't be
> half as compelling if Lee wasn't able to get his ensemble to function
> so effectively as straight people. The people who play the family
> members and friends are so good at acting like normal, well-meaning
> people who just want to be happy. Because of their effectiveness I
> empathize with their discomfort and confusion when the lead
> characters go haywire, even as I share the emotional torment of the
> leads (because, unlike the other characters, the viewer is given
> information about the sociological and historical causes for the lead
> characters' dysfunction).
I like this observation. This is the sort of thing that trips up a lot of
directors: without an established social context to provide a baseline,
extreme behavior can be confusing (is it style or characterization?) and
unsatisfying. - Dan
19080
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 3:52pm
Subject: Re: Object-oriented directors (was: Acting, Bresson)
Isn't it arbitrary to distinguish between object-oriented directors
and actor-oriented ones? And, ultimately, between objects and
actors? In the camera gaze, and on screen, aren't actors objectified
(whether they are "objects of desire" or not)just as the inanimate
objects around them? Is Rita Hayworth (random example) in GILDA any
less of an object than, say, Macready's "faithful friend" (the
object becoming, metaphorically, "human")or Glenn Ford's "peasant"
tie? Objects are enormously important in most of Hitchcock's films,
but he also turns his actors into objects, so there is no real
opposition.
Bresson was theoretically right in pushing the object status of the
actor on film to its limit through dehumanizing (rejection of
naturalistic acting) but he didn't have to go that far. Viewers tend
to resist the concept of actor-as-object and keep reinstating the
actor to a more glorified status.
JPC
19081
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 3:54pm
Subject: Re: Re: Rushmore (Was: Wes Anderson's New Film)
>> I don't want to belabor this too much, because my problems with the film
>> may not generalize enough to be interesting to others. But: Max's
>> behavior in the first, I don't know, three-fourths of the film was
>> calculated to give us pleasure. It would be odd for the film to apologize
>> for it, or to stand behind Max's apology. And yet one feels that the film
>> is doing just that. I can't help but think that Anderson is hiding a
>> little, is not willing to cop to how his movie won the audience over. -
>> Dan
>
> How does that apply to Buddy Love in The Nutty Professor?
Oh, God, it's been so long since I've seen that film.
I think this is a very common syndrome, though. Lots of films appeal to
somewhat disreputable parts of our collective psyche, and then provide
just enough conventional narrative comeuppance that we can feel
comfortable believing that the film is really against the thing that was
its true raison d'etre.
In fact, it's so common that some iconoclastic filmmakers can get mileage
just from *not* pulling the expected third-act switcheroo and sticking to
their initial, somewhat disreputable agenda. Wilder is an example; I'd
say Fuller as well, though I'm sure many would disagree with me on that
one. - Dan
19082
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 4:10pm
Subject: Re: Re: Object-oriented directors (was: Acting, Bresson)
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
Is Rita Hayworth (random
> example) in GILDA any
> less of an object than, say, Macready's "faithful
> friend" (the
> object becoming, metaphorically, "human")or Glenn
> Ford's "peasant"
> tie?
Ah but she's an object "en plus" because she can sing,
dance and interact with Ford, MacCready, et. al. Can't
say the same of the dagger/cane or the tie. The
dagger/cane is indicative of "MacCready and Ford are
getting it on but we really can't talk about that in
any detail."
The tie is an indicator of class issues -- understood
only by world-weary washroom attendants.
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19083
From: samfilms2003
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 4:25pm
Subject: Re: Acting, Bresson
Re Ozu, Tarkovsky; (or Dorsky !!) sometimes, if a filmmaker is good,
everything on the screen can perform, talk, even sing...
-Sam Wells
19084
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 4:28pm
Subject: Re: Re: Object-oriented directors (was: Acting, Bresson)
> Isn't it arbitrary to distinguish between object-oriented directors
> and actor-oriented ones?
Well, yeah, because looking at an object is more about the looking and the
associated brain activity than about the object itself.
> And, ultimately, between objects and
> actors?
That's where Zach came in. I think there's a difference as well.
"Objectifying" a person has impact only because the person isn't really
the same to us as an object.
> Bresson was theoretically right in pushing the object status of the
> actor on film to its limit through dehumanizing (rejection of
> naturalistic acting)
I really don't think Bresson is trying to dehumanize his actors. He
thinks he's trying to rehumanize them. Be that as it may, he's after
something that he thinks is authentic about people. - Dan
19085
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 4:49pm
Subject: Re: Acting, Bresson
I nominate Ozu and early Hou (at least back when he did use close-
ups -- he could give a rice bowl on a table or a folded letter enough
gravitas for a Proust novel).
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> If I had to think about the important figures in the history of
filming
> objects...maybe Eisenstein? Whom I don't care for, so it's a bit
of a
> dodge. Resnais manages to get quite a lot of his personality into
> passages that film objects, which is one of the things that makes
his
> documentaries so valuable. To move away from filmmakers with
distinctive
> editing styles: I always felt that John Korty had some special
feeling for
> the texture and weight of objects, and a lot of the moments that I
> remember from his films have no people in them.
>
19086
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 4:52pm
Subject: Re: Object-oriented directors (was: Acting, Bresson)
Hmmm... come to think of it, this may be Godard's most Bressonian
film (in the treatment of actors as well as objects)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> --- "Michael E. Kerpan, Jr."
> wrote:
>
> .
> >
> > Ozu, perhaps. Have teapots and smokestacks ever
> > been so eloquent?
> >
>
> True.
>
> Also Godard's symphony of objects "2 ou 3 choses que
> je sais d'elle"
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Dress up your holiday email, Hollywood style. Learn more.
> http://celebrity.mail.yahoo.com
19087
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 4:58pm
Subject: Re: Object-oriented directors (was: Acting, Bresson)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Michael E. Kerpan, Jr."
wrote:
"Ozu, perhaps. Have teapots and smokestacks ever been so eloquent?"
And there is Mizoguchi who treats objects as negative space.
Richard
19088
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 4:59pm
Subject: Re: acting '04
That's why the opening sequence in PEPPERMINT CANDY is so ballsy,
because it doesn't give you the full context for why Sol is acting
like a maniac. It depends totally on our ability to buy into this
creek-side karaoke party and the interactions between long-estranged
classmates (the only information we are able to discern) as
authentic. (Do Korean people really go to the trouble of bringing
power generators to a creekside just to sing karaoke?)
Just so I can fully agree with what you're saying, can you think of
an example of unsuccessful, baseline-less extreme behavior?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
This is the sort of thing that trips up a lot of
> directors: without an established social context to provide a
baseline,
> extreme behavior can be confusing (is it style or
characterization?) and
> unsatisfying. - Dan
19089
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 5:44pm
Subject: George Lucas and anti-mise-en-scene (was: HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS)
> But the unity of the characters fighting the Empire leads to blunder
> on blunder and the triumph of evil, Nathalie Portman's nationalism in
> particular.
It wasn't me who came up with SW2. I don't claim it to be totalitarian or an
account on totalitarism. I didn't see the film this way and I don't remember
it a bit.
> > >Justify "absence of mise-en-scene."
> > It was a feeling. SW2 didn't seem to have a point-of-view
> organizing what we
> > were seeing and how we were seeing what we were seeing.
> Lucas has always been an unconventional director. THX and Graffiti
> and Star Wars are all shot very unconventionally, and basically the
> same way. I'd call it anti-mise-en-scene. It's really quite radical.
I really like American Graffiti, and I think it's a bridge between Rebel
Without a Cause and american teen comedies of the 80s. If you see it that
way, a lot of things will pop out that relate all these films and constitute
a genre in its own right. Have never seen THX and like the first half hour
of Star Wars 4 (the first one), but that's about it.
Ruy
19090
From: Craig Keller
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 6:23pm
Subject: Columbia DVD + Malick
Not to disrupt the flow of two very interesting threads, but I thought
some here might be interested in seeing the cover design for the
forthcoming (long-version) release of 'Bitter Victory,' courtesy
Columbia Pictures DVD. For those who find this sort of thing
inconsequential, you can avoid clicking here --
http://www.dvdplanet.com/productimages/front/49813.jpg
-- for the rest, prepare to fall out of your seats. If any remember
their design treatment for 'The Caine Mutiny', you'll understand why
I'm trying to drum up support to put an end to this studio's diseased
aesthetic, as applied to their classic reissues. Compared to the care
that Warner Bros. bestows upon each of its releases, Columbia's designs
express the belief that their backcatalog is C-grade waste. Anyway,
another small skirmish in the war of ideas.
On another topic, the trailer can now be viewed online for the
forthcoming Terrence Malick film, 'The New World,' here --
http://progressive.stream.aol.com/newline/gl/newline/trailers/theNW/
TheNewWorld_700_dl.mov
craig.
19091
From: Gary Tooze
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 6:40pm
Subject: Suddenly...
I loved this film... great noir factor!
Disc Plaza Entertainment - Region 0 - NTSC vs. Image Entertainment - Region
1- NTSC
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCompare7/suddenly.htm
"Suddenly" is a peaceful small town in Southern California. Nothing ever
happens but one day the local police are notified that a train carrying the
President of the United States, on a re-election campaign tour, will be
making a brief stop in their little hamlet.
As expected, security is stringent as FBI agents comb the area to see that
every precaution is taken to ensure the President's protection. A car draws
up at the home of a family whose house overlooks the station at the very
point where the President's train will stop. A trio of men headed by John
Baron (Frank Sinatra) announce themselves as FBI security men and proceed
to enter the house. Eventually the genuine FBI agents turn up and are shot
by Baron. The family realizes that he is a paid assassin preparing to shot
the President! He and his henchmen hold the family hostage at gunpoint as
they await the arrival of the presidential train.
As the hours pass, Baron's pathological personality becomes more pronounced
while the family try, unsuccessfully, various ways to outwit him and his
men. The killer's plans have been carefully laid and as the train
approaches. The tension mounts and it seems that nothing can prevent the
impending murder of the nation's leader.
Suddenly is an obvious attempt at eroding any pacifist leanings. It uses
and targets women as the weak link in the chain of vigilant security. The
young mother Ellen Benson (played by Nancy Gates), has lost her husband in
Korea (fighting the communist menace) and consistently attempts to keep her
son Pidge (Kim Charney) from playing with guns. The strong father-in-law
opposes this and the mother is portrayed as a simple un-worldly female
unaware of the threats that society is consistently exposed to. From this
standpoint the film is a true classic of pro-war propaganda and 'defense of
country' with nationalistic intent. You can almost hear in the narrative "
The commies could be everywhere". A fascinating and obvious piece of
cold-war fear mongering - 4.5 out of 5
NOTE: Sinatra made two films with a plot revolving around a Presidential
assassination (the other being The Manchurian Candidate), but Suddenly
became infamous when it was learned Lee Harvey Oswald had watched the film
just a few days before he shot President Kennedy. After learning of this,
Sinatra had the prints removed from circulation.
Best,
Gary
19092
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 6:46pm
Subject: Ford and Oliveira (was/still is: A Talking Picture, politics and films)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Peter Henne wrote:
> Ruy, just a couple of comments. First of all, I think that Oliveira's primary
contribution is the interesting questions he raises about how cinema may
represent history.
The main influence on Oliveira is Ford, whom Jean-Claude Biette calls "a
historian" (as opposed to Walsh: "a poet") in Cinemanuel, which I am reading
with great pleasure. I certainly feel that about the Oliveira films I love - Ill Fated
Loves and Francisca - which give you the feeling of being directly in touch
with Portugese history, in much the way that you are in My Darling
Clementine (partly based on eyewitness accounts of the shootout at OK
Corral). That "presence of the past" is also strongly felt in Ana and Tras-Os-
Montes, by Cordeira and Reis, a filmmaking couple whose work I generally
prefer to Oliveira's - in part, no doubt, because there's so little of it...
I regret not being able to see A Silent Film, because of my Sacred Oath, but
this certainly has been an interesting thread! I found the dichotomy of form
and content re: politics creeping back in at some points in the discussion, so
let me say again that I don't believe they can be severed. In other words,
without saying that a filmmaker has to agree with my personal political beliefs,
I do feel that saying Triumph of the Will is a great film but a piece of fascist
propaganda opens the door to pure formalism, which I'm not willing to do. As I
have said before, Leni Riefenstahl belongs in the Strained Seriousness
category. One symptom of her shortcomings as a filmmaker is her influence
on culture: Her esthetic heritage is ESPN and Fox News -- i.e. crap.
To take a smaller example, the silliness of Fellini's political statement in
Orchestra Rehearsal keeps me from enjoying that particular Fellini, whereas
in general I rank him very high - above Oliveira, for example. But I would
never accuse M de O of being a neo-con -- just an uneven filmmaker.
19093
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 6:48pm
Subject: Re: Object-oriented directors (was: Acting, Bresson)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> I really don't think Bresson is trying to dehumanize his actors.
He
> thinks he's trying to rehumanize them. Be that as it may, he's
after
> something that he thinks is authentic about people. - Dan
I agree. I should have put "dehumanize" between quotes. What I
meant was expressed by the parenthesis (rejection of naturalistic
acting). However, for a large number of people, probably a majority,
the bressonian affectless speech is not "authentic" because "nobody
speaks like that."
19094
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 6:54pm
Subject: Re: Totalitarian aesthetics
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
Re; Totalitarian structure in Big Heat - The way Graham dies to bring down
the big heat while keeping Ford's hands clean has always struck me as
deliberately unsettling. She is a scapegoat, but Lang's use of scapegoats (cf.
the death of the ALWAYS designed to make the audience uneasy about the
ritual.
"Keep the coffee hot" -- I love that last line.
This comes back to my previous post about form and content, and Fred's
remarks about the complexity that is part of any great film, even one with an
ostensible "project: of fomenting race hatred, like Objective, Burma.
19095
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 6:59pm
Subject: Re: Rushmore (Was: Wes Anderson's New Film)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
re the switcheroo: I repeat, what about Nutty Professor?
Feeling ambivalent about a character's behavior is another matter: Monsieur
Verdoux, for example.
19096
From: Peter Henne
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 7:02pm
Subject: Re: Ford and Oliveira (was/still is: A Talking Picture, politics and films)
I, too, have appreciated the thread, and I wish to thank Fred Camper for his detailed historical considerations of the film. I have learned a lot from his observations.
Peter
hotlove666 wrote:
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Peter Henne wrote:
> Ruy, just a couple of comments. First of all, I think that Oliveira's primary
contribution is the interesting questions he raises about how cinema may
represent history.
The main influence on Oliveira is Ford, whom Jean-Claude Biette calls "a
historian" (as opposed to Walsh: "a poet") in Cinemanuel, which I am reading
with great pleasure. I certainly feel that about the Oliveira films I love - Ill Fated
Loves and Francisca - which give you the feeling of being directly in touch
with Portugese history, in much the way that you are in My Darling
Clementine (partly based on eyewitness accounts of the shootout at OK
Corral). That "presence of the past" is also strongly felt in Ana and Tras-Os-
Montes, by Cordeira and Reis, a filmmaking couple whose work I generally
prefer to Oliveira's - in part, no doubt, because there's so little of it...
I regret not being able to see A Silent Film, because of my Sacred Oath, but
this certainly has been an interesting thread! I found the dichotomy of form
and content re: politics creeping back in at some points in the discussion, so
let me say again that I don't believe they can be severed. In other words,
without saying that a filmmaker has to agree with my personal political beliefs,
I do feel that saying Triumph of the Will is a great film but a piece of fascist
propaganda opens the door to pure formalism, which I'm not willing to do. As I
have said before, Leni Riefenstahl belongs in the Strained Seriousness
category. One symptom of her shortcomings as a filmmaker is her influence
on culture: Her esthetic heritage is ESPN and Fox News -- i.e. crap.
To take a smaller example, the silliness of Fellini's political statement in
Orchestra Rehearsal keeps me from enjoying that particular Fellini, whereas
in general I rank him very high - above Oliveira, for example. But I would
never accuse M de O of being a neo-con -- just an uneven filmmaker.
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19097
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 7:01pm
Subject: Re: Object-oriented directors (was: Acting, Bresson)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> I really don't think Bresson is trying to dehumanize his actors. He
> thinks he's trying to rehumanize them. Be that as it may, he's after
> something that he thinks is authentic about people. - Dan
I don't either. I said he treats objects and actors as equally important parts of
the larger whole that is the film - not that he films people as if they
wereobjects!
19098
From: programming
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 7:06pm
Subject: Re: Ford and Oliveira (was/still is: A Talking Picture, politics and films)
On 12/17/04 12:46 PM, "hotlove666" wrote:
> I regret not being able to see A Silent Film, because of my Sacred Oath
Bill,
If you have the chance to see A TALKING PICTURE and if your vow not to see
any Malkovich films is irrevokable, do yourself the favor of going anyway
and watching the first half (you can plug your ears and run when you first
spot the evil M). It's worth it.
Patrick F.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
19099
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 7:11pm
Subject: Re: Totalitarian aesthetics (resend)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666" wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
>
> Re; Totalitarian structure in Big Heat - The way Graham dies to bring down
> the big heat while keeping Ford's hands clean has always struck me as
> deliberately unsettling. She is a scapegoat, but Lang's use of scapegoats
(cf.
> the death of the collaborator in Hangmen) isALWAYS designed to make the
audience uneasy about the
> ritual.
>
> "Keep the coffee hot" -- I love that last line.
>
> This comes back to my previous post about form and content, and Fred's
> remarks about the complexity that is part of any great film, even one with an
> ostensible "project: of fomenting race hatred, like Objective, Burma.
19100
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Fri Dec 17, 2004 7:14pm
Subject: Re: Columbia DVD + Malick
JESUS CHRIST! They make it look like a cheap b-flick from the 80s.
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Craig Keller
wrote:
>
> Not to disrupt the flow of two very interesting threads, but I
thought
> some here might be interested in seeing the cover design for the
> forthcoming (long-version) release of 'Bitter Victory,' courtesy
> Columbia Pictures DVD. For those who find this sort of thing
> inconsequential, you can avoid clicking here --
>
> http://www.dvdplanet.com/productimages/front/49813.jpg
>
> -- for the rest, prepare to fall out of your seats. If any
remember
> their design treatment for 'The Caine Mutiny', you'll understand
why
> I'm trying to drum up support to put an end to this studio's
diseased
> aesthetic, as applied to their classic reissues. Compared to the
care
> that Warner Bros. bestows upon each of its releases, Columbia's
designs
> express the belief that their backcatalog is C-grade waste.
Anyway,
> another small skirmish in the war of ideas.
>
> > craig.
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