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This group is dedicated to discussing film as art
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20001
From: Frederick M. Veith
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 3:30am
Subject: Re: re: Garrel
In addition to the sets Adrian mentions there also are/were Japanese DVDs
of La Cicatrice interieure and L'Enfant secret (the latter now sadly
appears to be out of print). The news of impending availability of the
rarer films of the sixties and seventies is good news indeed. I hope
that this includes Le Lit de la vierge, the best of the handful of Garrels
I've managed to see to date (a towering masterpiece).
New Yorkers should take note of two upcoming screenings of the
Cinematheque francaise's restoration of La Cicatrice interieure at the
Museum of Modern Art at the end of January. According to the program
notes, the film was imperiled by a fungus which attacked the negative
during production in Iceland!
Fred.
On Thu, 30 Dec 2004, Adrian Martin wrote:
> The Garrel-and-DVD situation is a happy one, and getting happier by the
> minute. CAHIERS have released two 'double sets' over the past year or so,
> covering four of the films 1985-2001. They are terrific (and one of the sets
> has English subtitles, which are pretty important in his narrative films
> co-scripted by the novelist Marc Cholodenko - who had the pleasure of seeing
> himself played by Jean-Pierre Léaud in BIRTH OF LOVE!).
>
> Even better news is that, since the big retrospective at the Cinémathèque
> française earlier this year, some of the far rarer films of the 60s and 70s
> are reportedly (I have this on good authority) also going to be made
> available on DVD soon. I think the only absolute rarities that are likely to
> remain rare are the rock-clips and music docos he did in the 60s for French
> TV - a Zouzou clip, for instance, is sensational in its image/music fusion.
> Also an extremely funny 'portrait' of Marianne Faithful, who occasionally
> lapses into a few words of French to drawl profondities like: "life is a ...
> jeu, you know?"
20002
From: Tom Sutpen
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 3:36am
Subject: Ambersons (was Re: Welles and the Canon)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon" wrote:
> The twenties were not a nostagia-prone decade, and it is not
> surprising that a novel written in the early twenties didn't wax
> nostalgic about the by then "historic" period it dealt with
> (interestingly this very successful and Nobel Prize winning novel
> was not adapted to the screen in the '20s or '30s). Twenty years
> later Welles saw the nostalgia potential and exploited it
> wonderfully -- but at the wrong time, as apparently no one at the
> time wanted to feel nostalgic about turn-of-the-century families
> and the advent of the automobile. To us of course the sense of the
> past and sorrow and longing about it is what makes Welles' film most
> precious.
*****
I would only quarrel with your characterization of Welles' interest in
the novel.
Perhaps this wasn't your intention, but to say that Welles was merely
"exploiting" the book's nostalgic potential imputes a degree of
cynicism on his part that I don't agree was ever there. I don't think
anyone could watch that film and not conclude that the "sorrow and
longing" you quite correctly speak of was not genuinely heartfelt.
Even though he didn't live through the period Tarkington's novel is
set in, its remnants were still lingering within the American midwest
of his boyhood.
Welles was always longing for times and places that no longer existed,
and implicitly (though it becomes explicit in "Ambersons") criticizing
the march of so-called progress. You can get a sense of this in his
idealization of Shakespeare's universe (most particularly as it is
embodied by Falstaff), also in "The Trial", set in his idea of a
nightmare city of classical architecture joined in a forced, queasy
concord with Bauhaus glass boxes.
There was no precedent, or real antecedent for this in Welles
filmography. "The Magnificent Ambersons" is his most emotional film;
suffused with a yearning for the past that he expresses more directly,
more personally than at any time before or after.
Tom Sutpen
20003
From: Tom Sutpen
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 3:42am
Subject: Cinema, taste, merit (was Re: varying...)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Yoel Meranda"
wrote:
> I'm sorry I don't have time to start a discussion on whether the
> discussion is important or not and why.
>
> If Zach feels the way you do, he should feel free to stop the
> discussion at any point. I don't and I don't feel like stopping
> either. We might just be starting...
*****
Whoa. Wait a second, Yoel. I wasn't suggesting you stop (why is it
people think I'm always looking to kill the discourse around here?). I
wasn't suggesting anything close to that. For the record, I think it's
a very important discussion you guys are having; so much so that I
felt compelled to jump into it feet first. Perhaps I shouldn't have.
In that event, I really do apologize, to both you and Zach.
Tom "Consider Me Chastened" Sutpen
20004
From: Tom Sutpen
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 3:47am
Subject: Re: Greed
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon" wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
> wrote:
> > It also sounds like Chantal Ackerman's "Jeanne
> > Dielmann" and "Les rendez-vous d'Anna."
> >
> > Yes but neither run for nine hours.
*****
You mean "Jeanne Dielmann" *didn't* run for nine hours?
Sure felt like it.
Tom "Cheap Shots R Us" Sutpen
20005
From: Patrick Ciccone
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 3:59am
Subject: Veering OT: Novels vs. Poetry (Cinema, taste, merit)
-- I do NOT
> think there is any difference between novels and poetry.
> I have read many poems that used narrative elements
> (Browning's "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came") and novels that
> have effects exactly like poetry (Joyce's "Ulysses"). "Ulysses" might
> be my favorite novel and it is hundred percent poetry in the way it
> keeps deconstructing the language and constatly uses the relationship
> between the music of the words and their meanings. For me, literature
> is literature.
> If you've ever tried to write anything to express yourself, I think
> you'll know that both poetic stuff and novelistic stuff come from the
> exact same source of the human psyche. What's more, what you start to
> write as a short story might become poetry, and vice versa. I think
> it is exactly the same when you are experiencing other people's works.
I don't agree with this equation, at least based my experience with
the two forms (briefly attempts to deploy college degree; notices that
it is written in Latin, which he can't read, lets it flutters to the
floor): besides Hardy, is there any English-language figure whose
novels are as great as their poems and vice versa? Certainly many
poets (as well as novelists) are formidible essayists and critics, but
I think if the equation were true it would be far more common to see
simultaneous masters of both arts. (A few Melville poems are very
great, but it's hard to call some of his novels novels as such, and
he's a better prose writer anyway.)
The history of the novel (if such a thing exists) is for me about the
gradual integretation of non-lyric forms of poetry into its form
(verse drama, epic poems), the final fusion occurring in 1850, with
the publication of THE PRELUDE and DAVID COPPERFIELD. Lyric poetry is
orphaned; the other poetic forms are around but like dormant novel.
This all-compassing type of novel is itself, of course, later digested
into narrative cinema, an even hungrier beast of literary forms.
I think this is true for the French tradition as well, perhaps--I'm
not as widely read, but besides perhaps Hugo, are there great
romaniciers-poètes around? I don't know myself.
Maybe this is completely untrue for other languages I can't
read--would like to know, since this is quite a polyglot group.
Although I've haven't read ULYSSES, this seems a problematic test case
for equality. How about a terse crime novel that happens to be Great
(RED HARVEST?), compared to Byron.
Bill, deploy the shadow of Harold Bloom--I'm curious where you stand
on this. If this gets interesting I can deploy the ghost of William
Empson, though we could veer off-list if this is too dry for everyone
else.
PWC
20006
From: Patrick Ciccone
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 4:06am
Subject: Re: Cinema, taste, merit
My attempted metaphor is perhaps stupid, but I would like to clarify,
as the box I have described sounds like a TV. But remember a movie is
not one box, but a series of such boxes (divided, I presume, into one
box per shot). And remember that all sides of the box, glass side
included, are continually being sawed, thus one must considered what
has been severed.
Bresson's models are perhaps particularly scarred by these encounters,
metaphorically of course. One could actually build a semi-functioning
1:50-scale test version of this box for a film which is fact a diorama
film: ROPE. But really not, because what is outside the box is neither
the studio nor the physical reality or unreality of the film's world,
but a stranger space.
I am not on drugs.
Patrick
20007
From: Patrick Ciccone
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 4:10am
Subject: Re: Veering OT: Novels vs. Poetry (Cinema, taste, merit)
> orphaned; the other poetic forms are around but like dormant novel.
dormant volcano, that is.
PWC
20008
From:
Date: Thu Dec 30, 2004 11:13pm
Subject: Re: Veering OT: Novels vs. Poetry (Cinema, taste, merit)
In a message dated 04-12-30 23:01:09 EST, Patrick Ciccone writes:
<< besides Hardy, is there any English-language figure whose
novels are as great as their poems and vice versa? >>
Best examples: Emily Jane Bronte, Stephen Crane, Oliver Goldsmith.
Short story-poet: Poe
Great novelist, good comic poet: Lewis Carroll.
Despite all this, whole heartedly agree with you. Many novels and poems seem
absolutely worlds apart.
Always liked the "poetic novelists", though: Hawthorne, Poe, Melville, the
Brontes, Conrad, Crane, Jewitt.
Mike Grost
20009
From: Saul Symonds
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 4:16am
Subject: Re: Worst films list (Was: DID NOT SEE)
I recently watched one of the worst films I have ever seen: "Billy
Jack Goes to Washington" - this was more like a bad high school
teacher lecturing in the American constitutional process while good
'ol Mr Laughlin nodded his head like one of those dogs you stick on
your dashboard.......
Kevin, I'd love to hear why you though "Princess Mononoke" was a
'draaaaaaag'....(Perhaps I could accept such a comment for early
Miyazaki such as "The Castle of Cagliostro", but a later work would
need some justification....
-- Saul.
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, LiLiPUT1@a... wrote:
>
> In a message dated 12/29/04 7:23:43 PM, zerospam@n... writes:
>
>
> > There should be "10 worst" lists.
> >
> As hard as Best or Favorite Films lists are to make, Worst Films
lists are
> even harder. I made one here:
> http://neumu.net/continuity_error/2004/2004-00001_continuity.shtml
>
> I suspect I'll never get the chance to make another, especially
since I keep
> a tighter leash on the Mr. at the box office and the video store
(he's a
> sucker for pretty boys which is fine when it comes to GERRY but
painful when it
> comes to the pointless THUNDERBIRDS). Weighing the merits of this
Mizoguchi
> against that Ford can be fun at best, informative at worst (for me,
at least). But
> trying to determine (ah, that word again) whether SPUN is a worse
film than
> HIGHWAY can be a soul-draining process.
>
> For what it's worth, HEAVY METAL has long been my pick for the worst
film of
> all-time. But the last and only time I saw it was almost twenty
years ago now
> so there is a possibility that I may like it to some extent today.
Not that
> I'm going to test that hypothesis any time soon, if ever. I'll note,
though,
> that I seem to have some sort of blockage when it comes to
feature-length
> animation. I find that it tends to bring out the worst, most
self-indulgent
> tendencies in filmmakers. PRINCESS MONONOKE and COWBOY BEBOP: THE
MOVIE were both
> draaaaaaags. FRITZ THE CAT would probably end up on an top ten worst
list. And
> BAMBI gets my vote for the most overrated film of all-time.
>
> As for non-animated flix, MAN BITES DOG I hate the most. Others (mostly
> recent): LITTLE VOICE, TODAY WE LIVE, FUNNY GAMES, NIGHT AND DAY
(1946) Todd
> Graff's CAMP, LOVE ME IF YOU DARE.
>
> Kevin John
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
20010
From: Yoel Meranda
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 4:16am
Subject: Cinema, taste, merit (was Re: varying...)
Tom,
I might have misunderstood your post. However, when you define the
conversation as "not a discussion" and a "statement of principles",
in my terms, it seems like the conversation is not very useful.
Yoel
20011
From: Zach Campbell
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 4:16am
Subject: Cinema, taste, merit (was Re: varying...)
Tom wrote:
> Actually, Yoel, I don't know if what
> you and Zach are engaging in here could be called a debate or even a
> discussion, rather than dual statements of separate principles that
> do not necessarily conflict, distinct though they are.
Sure, I think this is what we're doing, although let me say one more
time that I do not feel that the sort of experiences and "approach"
Yoel advocates is negative, because I am (in most contexts) an
advocate of it! I have had my share of what we might
call 'Camperian' film viewings, and cherish them. I just think--as
Patrick's excellent post expressed more eloquently than mine have--
that in a lot of narrative representational films, the 'Camperian'
aesthetic is failing to engage the works in question on all possible,
worthwhile levels (even if it may be totally right on certain formal
levels). I am pretty confident that I know exactly what kind of
ecstatic, aesthetic experience Yoel is speaking of and I am greatly
moved to have those experences. But a cinematic pantheon without
Rohmer? Oh, no, that won't do for me. So I have to be what Patrick
termed "expansive," and what Yoel suggests respectfully is "missing
the point."
Am I missing the point of cinema when I call Rohmer's films great?
(Or Pialat's films, or Cassavetes'?) Maybe so, but if that's the
case, I propose that it's WORTH IT to miss the point! Why worry
about "the point" when the films themselves are giving me a million
and one challenging points of their own!
Yoel asked for me to give some recommendations for some of the
filmmakers I mentioned earlier, by the way, so here I go:
Pialat - I've seen most (not all) of his features, and everything
strikes me from being in the range of 'very good' to 'superb.'
LOULOU and A NOS AMOURS are masterpieces.
Rohmer - CLAIRE'S KNEE and PERCEVAL are favorites (the latter could
possibly work in the Camperian sense for you), but there are
important ones (like LE RAYON VERT and THE MARQUISE OF O...) that
I've yet to see, embarrassingly.
Techine - WILD REEDS is one of my very favorite films of the Nineties.
Cassavetes - THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE is close to being the
best American narrative film of the 1970s.
Ferrara - NEW ROSE HOTEL, one of my most recent Ferrara viewings and
one of the last major films of his I had yet to see, completely
floored me. I'll be presenting a paper on it at a student conference
in March.
Eastwood - WHITE HUNTER, BLACK HEART, which is a loose dramatization
about the "making of" THE AFRICAN QUEEN. Far better than Huston's
(IMHO) stiff, bloated mess. Eastwood is one of the cinema's greatest
actor-directors, and this is helped by the fact that he has a star
iconography full of rich meanings to mine. UNFORGIVEN and THE OUTLAW
JOSEY WALES are also superb.
Burnett - KILLER OF SHEEP has been on my to-see list for too long, so
I'll catch up with that soon myself; TO SLEEP WITH ANGER is a great
film.
Breillat - A REAL YOUNG GIRL is a favorite. FAT GIRL might offer
something in the Camperian sense.
Saura - I haven't seen his later and more "stylistic" films. But
CRIA CUERVOS (from his 'looser' and somewhat politicized earlier
period) is amazing.
S. Ray - Hmm. Now that I think about it I'm not sure why I included
him on the list. But I inherited an anti-Satyajit bias from my
auteurist mentor Damien, and when I finally got around to seeing
PATHER PANCHALI some time ago, I was surprised to find myself floored.
Bunuel - A figure who, like Rohmer, must be in the canon of cinema
and the aesthetics to which I subscribe must be built around *that*.
(I actually didn't warm up to Bunuel in high school when I was still
a Catholic--albeit a liberal "social justice" Merton/Harrigan type of
Catholic. It wasn't until I happily let myself lapse that I started
to feel the charge in his work. But I digress...) THE EXTERMINATING
ANGEL might be my favorite right now, but it changes from time to
time. Haven't seen them all by any means. I've seen UN CHIEN
ANDALOU maybe ten times and it remains as powerful and inscrutable
today as it did on my first viewing at the age of 17. (Fred has
Bunuel on his secondary list, I think.)
Pasolini - Seeing TEOREMA (on video) for the first time was probably
the single most important viewing experience I had all year. I can't
imagine a personal canon without Pasolini resting comfortably in it.
He's actually quite formally advanced and talented, but I really
don't think that one can fully appreciate his work without delving
into the sorts of issues that I think a purely formalist view
sidesteps. And the fact that he is absent from Fred's lists supports
(though it does not prove) this suspicion.
As for Leigh, Armstrong, Ruiz, Imamura, and Rudolph, I was simply
throwing out more respected names (none of whose work I know *very*
well) whose films have, to me, worked intricately on levels other
than the ones I've continually alluded to in this post as Camperian.
Imamura's THE BALLAD OF NARAYAMA is a truly great film.
Just some disorganized, unsystematic thoughts off the cuff.
--Zach
20012
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 5:00am
Subject: Ambersons (was Re: Welles and the Canon)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Sutpen" wrote:
>
> *****
> I would only quarrel with your characterization of Welles'
interest in
> the novel.
>
> Perhaps this wasn't your intention, but to say that Welles was
merely
> "exploiting" the book's nostalgic potential imputes a degree of
> cynicism on his part that I don't agree was ever there.
I didn't say he was "merely' exploiting the book, and I shouldn't
have used ther word "exploiting" because of its negative
connotations. "utilize" might have been better. One is always
walking on tiptoe among landmines in these exchanges.Needless to say
I imputes no cynicism to Welles in his choice of material.
JPC
20013
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 5:02am
Subject: Re: Greed
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Sutpen" wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
> >
> > --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
> > wrote:
> > > It also sounds like Chantal Ackerman's "Jeanne
> > > Dielmann" and "Les rendez-vous d'Anna."
> > >
> > > Yes but neither run for nine hours.
>
> *****
> You mean "Jeanne Dielmann" *didn't* run for nine hours?
>
> Sure felt like it.
>
> Tom "Cheap Shots R Us" Sutpen
Well, that was the whole point, Mr Cheap Shot.
20014
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 5:08am
Subject: Re: Veering OT: Novels vs. Poetry (Cinema, taste, merit)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ciccone"
wrote:
>
> -- I do NOT
> > think there is any difference between novels and poetry.
> PWC
Poetry (bad poetry) can be prosaic, and a great novel can be
poetic. But to see no difference between novels and poetry as forms
of expression sounds very weird indeed.
20015
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 5:11am
Subject: Re: Pasolini (was: Cinema, taste, merit )
--- Zach Campbell wrote:
>
> Pasolini - Seeing TEOREMA (on video) for the first
> time was probably
> the single most important viewing experience I had
> all year. I can't
> imagine a personal canon without Pasolini resting
> comfortably in it.
> He's actually quite formally advanced and talented,
> but I really
> don't think that one can fully appreciate his work
> without delving
> into the sorts of issues that I think a purely
> formalist view
> sidesteps. And the fact that he is absent from
> Fred's lists supports
> (though it does not prove) this suspicion.
>
Such as?
What other Pasolini have you seen? The "Trilogy of
Life"? "Hawks and Sparrows" ? "Oedipus Rex" ? "Gospel
According to Matthew"? "Porcile" ? "Salo?"
I think his short films are key, particularly "Cho
Sosa Son Nuovole ?' "The Earth As Seen From the Moon"
and "Il Fiori di Campo"
Have you read his novels and essays?
__________________________________
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20016
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 5:13am
Subject: Re: Cinema, taste, merit
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ciccone"
wrote:
>
> I am not on drugs.
>
> Patrick
Are you sure?
Well, as Baudelaire said, "One should always be high" (he
wrote "ivre".)
I liked your reference to ROPE as diorama though.
20017
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 5:18am
Subject: Cinema, taste, merit (was Re: varying...)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Zach Campbell"
wrote:
> levels). I am pretty confident that I know exactly what kind of
>
> Am I missing the point of cinema when I call Rohmer's films
great?
> (Or Pialat's films, or Cassavetes'?) Maybe so, but if that's the
> case, I propose that it's WORTH IT to miss the point! Why worry
> about "the point" when the films themselves are giving me a
million
> and one challenging points of their own!
>
You're right, because "the cinema" has no "point.". The point is
just what turns you on. Forget about all the rest.
By the way I love most of the films you mention. Hope you catch up
with "Killer of Sheep."
20018
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 5:24am
Subject: Re: Veering OT: Novels vs. Poetry (Cinema, taste, merit)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
"...Many novels and poems seem absolutely worlds apart.
Always liked the 'poetic novelists', though: Hawthorne, Poe,
Melville, the Brontes, Conrad, Crane, Jewitt."
In the last 20 years the long narrative poem has made a comeback:
Vikram Seth's "Golden Gate," Fredrrick Pollack's "The Adventure"
and "Happiness," Turner Cassity's "The New World" (and these last
three are science fiction)to name some of the most memorable (though
I don't like Cassity's reactionary plot.)
Not mentioned is the prose poem, most well known in a Western
language is "Le Spleen de Paris," but Novalis and Holderlin also
excelled in this form. In Japanese there is the haibun which roughly
corresponds to the prose poem. There are many Japanese poetic
novelists from ancient to modern times, from Murasaki Shikibu to Ueda
Akinari to Nagai Kafu and Kawabata Yasunari.
And finally, get back somewhat on topic, there's the great screen
writer-poet, Jaques Prevert.
Richard
20019
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 5:24am
Subject: Re: Dinner for One
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Saul Symonds"
wrote:
>
>
> I plan on writting an article on the change in viewing practises
from
> the 1890's till present day - how extensive or long this piece
will be
> will depend on how much time I have between writing daily reviews -
> but I am currently collecting, as in a sort of oral history,
stories
> and anecdotes about viewing practices/experiences.
> -- Saul.
This sounds like a tremendously exciting project, but probably more
for a book than a mere article. I do hope others here will have
anecdotes and insight to contribute.
20020
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 5:27am
Subject: Re: Téchiné (was: Cinema, taste, merit)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> Somehow, the characters, their personality traits, their histories
and
> interactions always seem to suggest a large geometric diagram. One
showing all their
> different facets, and how all these things interconnect. It is FORM
at the
> level of plot and character. And quite interesting formal patterns,
too.
Plot is a formal element of narrative film, and a richly meaningful
one ("HOW a film means"), in the same way as color, music, editing,
composition.
20021
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 5:29am
Subject: Re: Penrod (was Ambersons)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Damien Bona"
wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
> wrote:
>
> >
> > I'm a Penrod man, myself.
>
> Bill have you seen any of the Penrod pictures. When I was a kid I
> loved William McGann's Penrod and Sam and Penrod's Twin Brother,
and
> Lewis Seiler's Penrod's Double Trouble, although I suspect they had
> very little to do with Tarkington (which I haven't read). Gaven't
> seen William Beudine's earlier (1931) version of Penrod and Sam.
Haven't seen any, but Penrod and Sam is one of the books. The others
sound like spin-ofs.
20022
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 5:41am
Subject: Ambersons (was Re: Welles and the Canon)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Sutpen" wrote:
>
> >
> Welles was always longing for times and places that no longer
existed,
> and implicitly (though it becomes explicit in "Ambersons")
criticizing
> the march of so-called progress.
The lost Carnaval, made right after Amebersons, was about a place
that had already vanished before he got to Brazil, and Four Men is a
hymn to a vanishing way of life - one that, amazingly, has hung in
there against all odds, although in a much compromised form, like
Carnaval, which is held today in a soccer stadium. Wishing to
preserve or just memorialize these things led to his being perceived,
ironically, as a radical and even a communist in Brazil. But anyone
who wants to preserve cultural values is by definition an enemy of
capitalism, which sweeps all in its path in pursuit of profit,
destroying the very values it created. Loathing that was
Welles' "radicalism." Rummy's comment about "who could have imagined
there were so many vases" after Operation Iraqi Freedom had destroyed
Iraq's cultural heritage (something that the Taliban were excoriated
for when they destroyed a few statues - we pretty much got a "pass")
is but one of myriad examples. The vases will bring good prices on
the black market.
20023
From: Nick Wrigley
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 5:42am
Subject: Re: Audience reaction (for Saul)
> I was hoping that some a_film_by members might have stories or
> anecdotes about a particular viewing experience, or a particular
> audience or audience memeber's reaction, or lack of reaction, at a
> film - either a screening they were at personally, or as in the case
> of my grandmother a historical case that was related to them.
My Grandmoter (who unfortunately died aged 86 earlier this month) told
me a few years ago that she distinctly remembers watching WIZARD OF OZ
at the cinema in England at the time of release. When the film changes
into colour, she said there was a massive collective gasp from everyone
in the audience, with people standing up and pointing at the screen in
disbelief - because they just weren't expecting it - then there was
loud applause. She said she'd never seen anything as beautiful in all
her life and it was a talking point for years afterward.
-N>-
20024
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 5:45am
Subject: ROPE the Novel (Was Cinema, taste, merit)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
"I liked your reference to ROPE as diorama though."
At a garage sale I found a movie tie-in novelization of ROPE with no
author credited. The book is a Dell Map Back (Mystery Mike will know
what I'm talking about) and instead of a map of the crime city it has
a floor plan of the apartment.
Richard
20025
From: Saul Symonds
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 5:46am
Subject: Re: Veering OT: Novels vs. Poetry (Cinema, taste, merit)
"Patrick Ciccone"
> wrote:
> >
> > -- I do NOT
> > > think there is any difference between novels and poetry.
> > PWC
Doesn't the very fact that we have different words for the artforms of
"novel" and "poetry" suggest that there is something inherintly
different about them? Novels can be poetic, and poetry can be prosaic,
granted - but that's besides the point...
Though there are many novels without a narrative, and many poems that
narrate a story, this is one of the main differences - novels mostly
express themselves through a narrative and characters - poetry
traditionally expresses itself in a more analogous fashion, without
the need for character or plot. There is no way to really break down
any of these barriers, the 'modern novel' together with 'modern
poetry' make it even harder to discern, though even something as
distant as the philosphical ramblings of Nietzche in "Thus Spake
Zarathustra" are impossible to disassociate from their poetic form.
Length is also important - a novel, even a novella, cannot be as short
as a poem can - it's like saying there's no difference between a short
film and a feature, and that length is an inconsequential by-product.
And though novels usually describe in some detail the visual look of
characters and setting, the visuality of films seem closer to poetry
and its often metaphoric use of images. Eisenstein speak of haiku in
his essays on montage, quoting the famous Basho poem, but even a
cursory look into haiku poetry in all its various incarnations, and
even traced up to modern-day haiku poets such as the late Richard
Wright, (whose "This Other World" I highly reccomend) shows poetry as
a far more visual artform than the novel - a link it directy shares
with the cinema, though precious few films are based on poems. And
therein lies another difference between those two artform you lumped
together. The list of differences could go on...
-- Saul.
20026
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 5:52am
Subject: Re: Veering OT: Novels vs. Poetry (Cinema, taste, merit)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ciccone" wrote:
>
> Bill, deploy the shadow of Harold Bloom--I'm curious where you stand
> on this. If this gets interesting I can deploy the ghost of William
> Empson, though we could veer off-list if this is too dry for
everyone
> else.
>
> PWC
Since you asked, the much bad-mouthed Bloom has a habit of calling
anything he likes a poem (Moby Dick, for instance), which I have sort
of picked up and tend to apply to film, or at least to certain ones
that nonetheless have narratives, but I agree that there are
distinctions to be drawn.
If you want to be rigorous, the equivalents of lyric poetry are to be
found in the avant-garde and the the essay film, which Welles
practiced supremely well in Filming Othello. I also consider Hitler,
A Film from Germany, discussed here recently, to have the structure
of what Bloom, following M.H. Abrams, called The Greater Romantic
Ode - Keats' Nightingale being the best-known example.
I believe that most of Kubrick after Strangelove follows this
pattern, which Bloom later saw as a series of six
revisionary "ratios" by which the predecessor is overcome.
The only places I ever tried to apply the Map of Misreading, as he
calls it, to anything are a piece on 2001 for Vertigo and a piece on
Joan Didion's famous essay about H'wd, Having Fun, in the third issue
of Trafic, which sees it as born of a struggle with Fitzgerald.
Oddly, none of Bloom's other disciples has ever made use of the Map,
as far as I know, but I do think it is applicable to film - certain
films, anyway. For example, in my Bloomean CdC article on Enemies, A
Love Story, which is Mazursky's sole triumph over 8 1/2, I didn't
systematically apply the Map, but I suspect it could be applied.
20027
From: Tom Sutpen
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 5:55am
Subject: Cinema, taste, merit (was Re: varying...)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Yoel Meranda"
wrote:
> I might have misunderstood your post. However, when you define the
> conversation as "not a discussion" and a "statement of principles",
> in my terms, it seems like the conversation is not very useful.
*****
I think it was more a way of stating that I pretty much agree with you
both in this exchange.
Believe me, this conversation is very useful.
Tom Sutpen
20028
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 6:00am
Subject: Re: Pasolini (was: Cinema, taste, merit )
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> > Have you read his novels and essays?
Such as The Cinema of Poetry (right title?), which addresses the
questions under discussion, and also contains the only accurate
description of Red Desert. All other writings of the period on Red
Desert are hobbled by the totally off-the-mark discussion Godard
obliged Antonioni to have with him in CdC when the film premiered, in
which they came to the conclusion that Viti's character is neurotic
and out of step with progress. Pasolini saw it as a film which used a
central character whose perceptions were aberrant as a pretext for
flamboyant estheticism, and as a love poem to Monica Vitti - both of
which it is.
20029
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 6:02am
Subject: Re: Cinema, taste, merit
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ciccone"
> wrote:
>
> >
> > I am not on drugs.
> >
> > Patrick
>
>
> Are you sure?
>
> Well, as Baudelaire said, "One should always be high" (he
> wrote "ivre".)
>
> I liked your reference to ROPE as diorama though.
Let me recommend to all who have not read it JP's Rouge piece on
ROPE, which I happily pillaged when writing about Hitchcock and the
City for a French encyclopedia. (Just a litle bit, JP - the
word "hellish.")
20030
From: Tom Sutpen
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 6:02am
Subject: Re: Penrod (was Ambersons)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666" wrote:
> > Bill have you seen any of the Penrod pictures. When I was a kid I
> > loved William McGann's Penrod and Sam and Penrod's Twin Brother,
> and
> > Lewis Seiler's Penrod's Double Trouble, although I suspect they had
> > very little to do with Tarkington (which I haven't read). Gaven't
> > seen William Beudine's earlier (1931) version of Penrod and Sam.
>
> Haven't seen any, but Penrod and Sam is one of the books. The others
> sound like spin-ofs.
*****
They are. I might be incorrect, but I believe in all three cases
they're original (of course, I use that word advisedly) scenarios
generated around Tarkington's characters.
Tom Sutpen
20031
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 6:06am
Subject: Re: ROPE the Novel (Was Cinema, taste, merit)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Modiano"
wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
> wrote:
>
>
> "I liked your reference to ROPE as diorama though."
>
> At a garage sale I found a movie tie-in novelization of ROPE with
no
> author credited. The book is a Dell Map Back (Mystery Mike will
know
> what I'm talking about) and instead of a map of the crime city it
has
> a floor plan of the apartment.
>
> Richard
Wow! I just found the Charlotte Armstrong Incident on a Corner in an
Ace Double, for 50 cents at the Susnset Out of the Closet, part of
the thriftshop chain that makes LA great.
20032
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 6:14am
Subject: Re: Veering OT: Novels vs. Poetry (Cinema, taste, merit)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Saul Symonds" wrote:
>
> "Patrick Ciccone"
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > -- I do NOT
> > > > think there is any difference between novels and poetry.
> > > PWC
>
>
> Doesn't the very fact that we have different words for the artforms
of
> "novel" and "poetry" suggest that there is something inherintly
> different about them?
Northrop Frye's radicals of presentation - drama, novel, epos, lyric -
are useful here. Epos - characters absent, author and audience
present - is the radical of presentation of Welles' essay films (or
Homer reciting the Odyssey, or the Arab storyteller in the bazaar),
and of Pope's Epistles and Essays - a historical way-station toward
the lyric: author present, characters and audience absent (or hidden,
as he/she expatiates to him/herself).
The two r.o.p of Welles' oeuvre are epos and drama, in which
characters and audience present, author hidden. Technically, the
novel is something we read alone - characters and author absent,
reader presnt - but of course any r.o.p can be imitated in a film.
But it changes things - as Bazin talks about in his pieces on filmed
theatre, the non-co-presence of characters and audience in film
changes the situation considerably. The Banquo scene in Welles'
Macbeth, of which Bazin used a shot on the cover of Cinema and the
Other Arts, is a stunning symbol of that changed "existential"
situation. That transformation in film also presented Welles problems
in his essay work, which he happily admitted was inspired by Guitry.
20033
From: Saul Symonds
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 6:23am
Subject: Reading a Novel (was: Veering OT: Novels vs. Poetry)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666" wrote:
> Technically, the novel is something we read alone - characters and
> author absent, reader presnt
Not exactly correct. You should read George Steiner's article
"Literature and Post-History" in which he talks about the change in
reading practises of the novel from Victorian England to modern times
- namely that novels were READ OUT LOUD, with one family member
reading to and for the others, (and though a different georaphical and
historical context, much as is seen near the start of "Fanny and
Alexander"), to modern times where reading a novel is an essentialy
private and silent act.
-- Saul
20034
From: Craig Keller
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 6:25am
Subject: Re: Re: Veering OT: Novels vs. Poetry (Cinema, taste, merit)
Also, having missed the first realtime chat, I'd just like to add
support to Bill's proposition for a New Year's'ish a_f_b chat session.
And I really should fill in my bio. Just gotta find it on the group
website.
craig.
20035
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 6:34am
Subject: Re: Reading a Novel (was: Veering OT: Novels vs. Poetry)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Saul Symonds" wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
>
> > Technically, the novel is something we read alone - characters
and
> > author absent, reader presnt
>
>
> Not exactly correct. You should read George Steiner's article
> "Literature and Post-History" in which he talks about the change in
> reading practises of the novel from Victorian England to modern
times
> - namely that novels were READ OUT LOUD, with one family member
> reading to and for the others, (and though a different georaphical
and
> historical context, much as is seen near the start of "Fanny and
> Alexander"), to modern times where reading a novel is an essentialy
> private and silent act.
>
Good point! I'd have to look back at Frye, but I suspect he knew this
and that this is an example of a transitional form - from epos to
novel.
20036
From:
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 1:46am
Subject: a_film_by Chat Session
After much demand (seriously!), we will be holding another a_film_by chat
session on New Year's Day, Saturday, January 1, beginning around 7:00 PM Eastern
time. I expect to be present, as does Bill Krohn. We invite anyone who can
make it to participate. The last chat session was in June and was, by most
accounts, a great deal of fun and even rather edifying. BTW, group members
should feel free to arrange their own chats and announce them on the group, as
there's no rule that us moderators have to set them up.
For those who don't remember, or who are new to the group, you can access the
chat simply by clicking on "Chat" on the left side of our home page (directly
underneath "Post"). I hope to "see" some of you there!
Peter
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
20037
From: Tom Sutpen
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 6:46am
Subject: Marginally OT: A Question for This Group
Sorry to interrupt the flow of discussion, but I've been in this group
for a little over ten days now and, as I've read through discussions
both old and new, a question keeps jumping out at me that I have to
put to rest:
Am I the *only* contributor to this list who isn't actively engaged in
the craft of writing film criticism and/or essays?
As much as I've come to love, truly love, being a member, I've started
having this 'do-I-really-belong-here?' feeling, which is not unlike a
vision of dark clouds gathering overhead.
Tom "Inquiring Mind" Sutpen
20038
From: Patrick Ciccone
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 6:59am
Subject: Re: Veering OT: Novels vs. Poetry (Cinema, taste, merit)
> > > -- I do NOT
> > > > think there is any difference between novels and poetry.
Just for the record, this is Yoel's statement, not mine.
Patrick
20039
From: Saul Symonds
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 7:01am
Subject: Re: Dinner for One
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon" wrote:
> This sounds like a tremendously exciting project, but probably more
> for a book than a mere article. I do hope others here will have
> anecdotes and insight to contribute.
I guess I'm not sure yet how much I'll go into the cultural,
historical, psychological, ethnographic, etc, etc, development of this
topic. I did like the idea of an oral history, and I guess to a large
extent it depends on how many anecdotes I get back... :| ....but,
yeah, I think it's a fascinating and somewhat overlooked topic that
could do with a good study, (by the way, does anyone know of any
previous books or articles on this area???)
-- Saul.
20040
From: Saul Symonds
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 7:05am
Subject: Re: Audience reaction (for Saul)
> My Grandmoter (who unfortunately died aged 86 earlier this month)
told
> me a few years ago that she distinctly remembers watching WIZARD OF
OZ
> at the cinema in England at the time of release. When the film
changes
> into colour, she said there was a massive collective gasp from
everyone
> in the audience, with people standing up and pointing at the screen
in
> disbelief - because they just weren't expecting it - then there was
> loud applause. She said she'd never seen anything as beautiful in
all
> her life and it was a talking point for years afterward.
>
> -N>-
Nick, this is a great anecdote. Thanks a lot.
-- Saul.
20041
From: Craig Keller
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 7:27am
Subject: Re: Marginally OT: A Question for This Group
On Friday, December 31, 2004, at 01:46 AM, Tom Sutpen wrote:
>
> Am I the *only* contributor to this list who isn't actively engaged in
> the craft of writing film criticism and/or essays?
Last I checked I wasn't a film critic. (Just a director in a pupa.)
craig.
20042
From:
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 2:27am
Subject: Re: Worst films list (Was: DID NOT SEE)
In a message dated 12/30/04 10:17:22 PM, asitdid@y... writes:
> Kevin, I'd love to hear why you though "Princess Mononoke" was a
> 'draaaaaaag'....(Perhaps I could accept such a comment for early
> Miyazaki such as "The Castle of Cagliostro", but a later work would
> need some justification....
>
Sadly, I have none beyond "I was bored to tears by it." I know that's not
insightful but one paradoxically good thing that happens with bad movies is that
they tend to fade from memory a lot quicker than good ones. I simply don't
remember enough about it. I do plan to catch up with SPIRITED AWAY sometime in
the future, though.
Kevin John
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
20043
From:
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 2:35am
Subject: Re: Audience reaction (for Saul)/MRS. MINIVER
My grandfather told me that the audience was audibly shocked when, in MRS.
MINIVER, Greer Garson says something like "Well, you can all go to hell!" There
were gasps and he said you could hear people ask one another "Did she just say
"hell?!?!'" Embarrassingly, I've never seen MRS. MINIVER (it's definitely the
kind of movie I would've eaten up when I was 12 or 13). Can anyone confirm
that such a line exists?
Also on the MRS. MINIVER tip: Maybe Damien can answer this one. I've heard
that Garson gave a half hour acceptance speech when she won her Oscar for
MINIVER and it was her long-windedness that caused the Academy to impose time limits
on speeches from that year on. True?
Kevin John
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
20044
From: Damien Bona
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 8:27am
Subject: Re: Worst films list (Was: DID NOT SEE)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, LiLiPUT1@a... wrote:
> >
> Sadly, I have none beyond "I was bored to tears by it." . . . I do
plan to catch up with SPIRITED AWAY sometime in
> the future, though.
>
> Kevin John
For what it's worth, Kevin, I was bored to tears by Spirited Away.
20045
From: Damien Bona
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 8:38am
Subject: Re: Audience reaction (for Saul)/MRS. MINIVER
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, LiLiPUT1@a... wrote:
I've heard
> that Garson gave a half hour acceptance speech when she won her
Oscar for
> MINIVER and it was her long-windedness that caused the Academy to
impose time limits
> on speeches from that year on. True?
>
That's a piece of Oscar legend, but it's not true. Garson spoke for
about 5 minutesm which is a very long time if your in the audience.
In addition, this was in the middle of the War when many dignitaries
from the armed forces got up and made speeches, so when Garson won
her award it was after midnight and people were tired -- so it seemed
longer than it actually was, and because it seemed long, that's how
the lore sprang. It wasn't until much later, in the TV era, that
time limits were imposed on speeches.
I actually quite like Mrs. Miniver and think it's among Wyler's
better films. I don't remember the "hell" line, but it's been a long
time since I've seen it. I know that another war filn from 1942, the
Noel Coward/David Lean In Which We Serve, was involved in a
contretemps with the Hays office over the language of the British
sailors in the picture. "Hell" and "damn" were allowed, but "bloody
bastards" was considered beyond the pale.
20046
From: Noel Vera
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 10:10am
Subject: High and Low (was: Re: Chimes, Zhang, Kurosawa, and lists)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> I'll resee High and Low all the way some time. I had seen it
before,
> of course. Maybe the class-ism just hit me wrong that day. I
rarely
> walk out of films.
Funny, never occured to me that the police kowtowed too much to
Mifune. They seemd polite and professional at first, and towards the
end you feel a hint of admiration--he DID agree to pay the ransom,
for a child not his own, and I think his sense of honor shows on
several other occasions, which the police porbably picked up on.
Maybe not my favorite Kurosawa, but I do regard it highly among
crime films.
Stray Dog I liked too, but I don't feel Kurosawa fully found his
voice yet there.
20047
From: Noel Vera
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 10:18am
Subject: Prevert (was: Re: Les enfants du Paradis (was:Cinema, taste, merit )
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
> The original release title of this wonderful film was "La
Bergere
> et le Ramoneur" (When the sheperdess and the chimneysweep elope,
the
> king has a loudspeaker blaring, ordering to catch "Une bergere, et
> un petit ramoneur de rien du tout -- je repete, de rien du
tout...")
Lovely post on Prevert, jp.
Wrote a little someting on the film, which I saw on a lousy 16 mm
print, thanks to the Alliance Francais (it was a tremendous
experience, nevertheless):
http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/noelmoviereviews/message/382
Most American critics seem to have never heard of the film.
20048
From: Noel Vera
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 10:23am
Subject: Re: Worst films list (Was: DID NOT SEE)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Damien Bona"
wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, LiLiPUT1@a... wrote:
> > >
> > Sadly, I have none beyond "I was bored to tears by it." . . . I
do
> plan to catch up with SPIRITED AWAY sometime in
> > the future, though.
> >
> > Kevin John
>
>
> For what it's worth, Kevin, I was bored to tears by Spirited Away.
Mononoke's seriously flawed, I think, and I don't consider Spirited
Away's Miyazaki's best work (close to it, though). But for what it's
worth, I'd put those films above and beyond anything done by Disney
or Pixar in the past few years.
20049
From: Noel Vera
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 10:31am
Subject: Re: Worst films list (Was: DID NOT SEE)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Noel Vera"
wrote:
> Mononoke's seriously flawed, I think, and I don't consider
Spirited
> Away's Miyazaki's best work (close to it, though). But for what
it's
> worth, I'd put those films above and beyond anything done by
Disney
> or Pixar in the past few years.
Hell, let me throw in a word in defense of The African Queen while
I'm at it--true it's got blatant rear projected scenes that wouldn't
fool a 6 year old, but I'd vouch for the chemistry between Bogart
and Hepburn any day; far as I'm concerned, what happens between them
IS the film.
To be fair, I haven't seen White Hunter, Black Heart; my only excuse
is that I was never a big fan of Eastwood as a director, Mystic
River and Unforgiven notwithstanding (much prefer Laughton, myself).
I'll try catch it one of these days, I suppose...
20050
From:
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 5:41am
Subject: Re: Audience reaction (for Saul)
1) At our college film society in 1973, people were usually quiet during
shows. But when the scene with the Buddha appeared in "The Steel Helmet", the
audience was so impressed that everyone burst into applause. (No more details on
Fuller's magnificent image - do not want to "spoil" this scene.)
2) Seeing "That Sinking Feeling" (Bill Forsyth) in Lansing, Michigan circa
1983, in an art house. This is a comedy about some low life crooks in Glasgow,
Scotland who steal hundreds of stainless steel sinks. One attempts to sell some
of the loot to a local art dealer, claiming the sinks are "conceptual
sculpture" or some such. The art dealer is skeptical. The crook tells him, "It's the
latest thing out of New York!" - which makes the sale. The whole audience
burst into applause. Strong impression: people in Michigan were tired of having
their culture determined by the mandarins in New York (eg, Pauline Kael).
3) A screening of "Othello" in 1995 here in Detroit. The whole audience was
virtually wired together - we could all feel what everyone was feeling. When
Iago's wife finally turns on him towards the end, one lady in the audience burst
into feminist applause (we could read her mind!) Everyone else then laughed,
but sympathetically - we all sympathized with her.
4) A lady who started sobbing uncontrollably towards the end of "Ghost"
(1991?). People laughed briefly, but also sympathetically - they felt the same way
she did.
5) "Fahrenheit 9/11" brought strong, positive reaction from a huge multiplex
audience here in Detroit. Biggest applause: The elderly lady who complains
about the non-existant WMD's - "We were had!". There was much discussion when
Flint enters the film - it is just a few miles north of the Southfield (suburb of
Detroit) theater.
6) "The Caveman's Valentine" brought much commentary, applause from a largely
black audience I saw it with in Southfield. It was very interesting to hear
audience comments - people felt obliged to speak out about the issues in the
film.
7) In general, however, audiences today are much quieter than audiences in
the 1980's. People used to go to the theaters in the 80's and talk and talk and
talk - often about subjects unrelated to the film - eg, plumbing problems at
home, etc. This would drive me crazy.
8) Bo Derek's nude scenes in "Tarzan, the Ape Man" (1981) did precipitate a
deathly silence in the huge, packed theater where I saw it. These scenes were
regarded as an Event. People were awed, and regarded this as a Major Erotic
Revelation. It was if the heavens had opened, and some unprecedented, new
revelation of erotic possiblities beyond all imagining had been revealed. This was
NOT like the cliches about "the male gaze" being used to control women, etc. It
was audience humilty in the face of the sacred.
9) My father tells me that people were shocked when Gable said, "Frankly, my
dear, I don't give a damn" in GWTW (1939). No one had heard "damn" from the
screen. He also recalls this being denounced from the pulpit by the priest in
church.
10) You need Charles Addams first cartoon about Uncle Fester (in his book
"Drawn and Quartered"?) It shows the audience in a huge movie palace, circa 1939.
Everyone is in tears. Except Uncle Fester - he is laughing...
Mike Grost
20051
From:
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 5:45am
Subject: Re: Re: Worst films list (Was: DID NOT SEE)
In a message dated 12/31/04 4:36:09 AM, noelbotevera@y... writes:
> To be fair, I haven't seen White Hunter, Black Heart; my only excuse
> is that I was never a big fan of Eastwood as a director, Mystic
> River and Unforgiven notwithstanding (much prefer Laughton, myself).
> I'll try catch it one of these days, I suppose...
>
It really is a smashing flick with a tart (to choose a nice word), aphoristic
snap at the end that just kills.
Kevin John
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
20052
From:
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 5:54am
Subject: Re: Re: Worst films list (Was: DID NOT SEE)
In a message dated 12/31/04 2:29:01 AM, damienbona@y... writes:
> For what it's worth, Kevin, I was bored to tears by Spirited Away.
>
Worth a lot. Now I'm leery. And thanx for clarifying the Garson story.
Kevin John
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
20053
From:
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 5:57am
Subject: Re: Marginally OT: A Question for This Group
In a message dated 12/31/04 1:57:26 AM, akira88o@a... writes:
> As much as I've come to love, truly love, being a member, I've started
> having this 'do-I-really-belong-here?' feeling, which is not unlike a
> vision of dark clouds gathering overhead.
>
Yes, you absolutely belong here. I've already enjoyed your posts. And I bet
non-critics make up the majority anyway. I'm barely a critic myself.
Kevin John
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
20054
From: Henrik Sylow
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 11:13am
Subject: Re: Worst films list (Was: DID NOT SEE)
I really can't believe that Miyazaki is boo'd and "Spirited Away" is
being discussed as "worst films". It is one of the most beautiful
animated film yet made, with a very direct social and political
commentary / criticism of Japan.
And what is wrong with Pixar? Here is a company which policy is "the
good story", who has surpassed Disney, who since Eisner fired
Katzenberg has turned into a joke, making worse films than before they
took charge. Considering the qualities of their stories, the legacy of
them and their advancement in CG animation, I had to pinch myself when
they were mentioned here aswell.
If you want bad films, then take films like Troy, Alexander, Last
Samurai, Kill Bill 2, Cold Creek Manor and so on. Or take those corny
redundant films like Sideways, with stories we see on Hallmark daily.
I may be in the minority, but I fail to see why some on one side my
excuses to defend weak films by certain directors and on the other
side completely dismiss great films, just because their technique
isn't the same as those employed in Eastern Europe.
Besides all that, any worst film list without Boa vs. Python on it, is
not really a worst film list :)
Henrik
20055
From: Zach Campbell
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 1:53pm
Subject: Re: Pasolini (was: Cinema, taste, merit )
David:
> Such as?
Well for example the political implications of his works and his
periods (which in turn helped to create the form of his films).
There's a fascinating dissertation on Pasolini (which I've yet to
read in full since my library has it constantly checked out) that
makes a full study of the Roman sociopolitical life and the impact of
the borgate in shaping the form and meaning of ACCATTONE and MAMMA
ROMA. To look at these films as discrete formal exercises would be
to miss a lot of their form itself, I suspect, which has not so much
to do with composition and rhythm as with the expression of a
specifical social and political perspective. The film's presentation
of masculinity is contingent as well upon its acting, teasing out (or
conflating) an actor's performance and a character's performance.
If you were looking for very broad and literal answers to the
question of what a purely "formalist" reading would sidestep, I could
just say homosexuality, Marxism, and the specter of Catholicism.
Which are every bit as vital to understanding his work as these
films' Camperian "form" are.
> What other Pasolini have you seen?
ACCATTONE, SALO, THE CANTERBURY TALES, part of PORCILE (DVD player
problems). Of course, I haven't seen the one that practically every
(of my generation anyway) seems to start with, THE GOSPEL ACCORDING
TO ST. MATTHEW. I like them all very much so far, though TEOREMA
remains my favorite.
> I think his short films are key, particularly "Cho
> Sosa Son Nuovole ?' "The Earth As Seen From the Moon"
> and "Il Fiori di Campo"
Good to know.
> Have you read his novels and essays?
Novels, none. Essays, yes, some of them. HERETICAL EMPIRICISM sat
on my shelf for quite a while, not untouched. And I've taken a look
at almost all of the English-language Pasolini books I could find. I
went through a period where I was seeing and reading about his work a
lot; he was one of the last major filmmakers who'd work I'd never
seen. When I return to New York in a few weeks I plan on taking it
all up again. Particularly looking forward to seeing OEDIPUS REX.
--Zach
20056
From: Zach Campbell
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 2:18pm
Subject: African Queen, White Hunter (was re: Worst...)
Noel:
> Hell, let me throw in a word in defense of The African Queen while
> I'm at it--true it's got blatant rear projected scenes that
> wouldn't fool a 6 year old, but I'd vouch for the chemistry between
> Bogart and Hepburn any day; far as I'm concerned, what happens
> between them IS the film.
When I finally saw THE AFRICAN QUEEN I felt stunned because I didn't
see any "there" there. I still contend that the film would be more
interesting (OK, if perhaps not commercially feasible) if Bogart and
Hepburn remained at odds throughout.
> To be fair, I haven't seen White Hunter, Black Heart; my only
> excuse is that I was never a big fan of Eastwood as a director,
> Mystic River and Unforgiven notwithstanding (much prefer Laughton,
> myself).
MYSTIC RIVER is my least favorite Eastwood. Laughton is setting the
bar too high, though--practically nobody can compete and Laughton
only has that one grand slam, one time out. No fair!
--Zach
20057
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 2:42pm
Subject: Re: Eastwood (Was: Worst films list)
--- Noel Vera wrote:
>
> To be fair, I haven't seen White Hunter, Black
> Heart; my only excuse
> is that I was never a big fan of Eastwood as a
> director, Mystic
> River and Unforgiven notwithstanding (much prefer
> Laughton, myself).
> I'll try catch it one of these days, I suppose...
>
It's funny but I've been thinking about him a lot
lately in light of over-the-top "mainstream" praise
for "Million Dollar Baby" -- far inferior to Cy
Endfield's "Joe Palooka" to name but one. I didn't
like "Mystic River" either, though I think
"Unforgiven" is really quite teriffic -- the last
Western.
On the whole I've been up and down about his
directorial career. "Play Misty For Me" is a teriffic
little B-movie -- far superior to its rip-off, "Fatal
Attraction." I also like "High Plains Drifter."
"Bird" is a film I admire more than like. And can't
stand either "The Eiger Sanction" or "Foxfire" (his
most right-wing jigoistic programmers)
Obviously he's changed a lot over the years, and
become a talent that must re reckoned with. But his
most interesting work is often given the go-by
--"Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil"
especially, which actually improves on the book, and
is remarkably sophisticated in its understanding of
"trade" ( a tip of the hat to his days with Arthur
Lubin no doubt.) I can't think of another filmmaker
who would have so much as considered, much less gotten
away with, casting The Lady Chablis as herself.
That said the studied darkness of his mise en scene is
getting to be annoying. And his pessimism seems
by-the-numbers. He piddles around the void but never
really looks into it the way Bertolucii does in "The
Sheltering Sky." And that's not to mention Jean
Eustache. Still I look forward to everything he does
-- which is more than I can say of most commercial
directors these days.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The all-new My Yahoo! - What will yours do?
http://my.yahoo.com
20058
From: Michael E. Kerpan, Jr.
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 3:07pm
Subject: Re: Reading a Novel (was: Veering OT: Novels vs. Poetry)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Saul Symonds" wrote:
> Not exactly correct. You should read George Steiner's article
> "Literature and Post-History" in which he talks about the change in
> reading practises of the novel from Victorian England to modern times
> - namely that novels were READ OUT LOUD, with one family member
> reading to and for the others, (and though a different georaphical and
> historical context, much as is seen near the start of "Fanny and
> Alexander"), to modern times where reading a novel is an essentialy
> private and silent act.
We did this in our household for almost 10 years (in lieu of TV
watching), when our children were younger. Recently, my wife and I
tried to recollect just what we had covered in this period -- and were
stunned at just how much ground had been covered. I rather miss it --
we may do it again someday -- perhaps once our children have moved out.
MEK
20059
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 3:17pm
Subject: Re: Marginally OT: A Question for This Group
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Sutpen" wrote:
>
> Sorry to interrupt the flow of discussion, but I've been in this
group
> for a little over ten days now and, as I've read through
discussions
> both old and new, a question keeps jumping out at me that I have to
> put to rest:
>
> Am I the *only* contributor to this list who isn't actively
engaged in
> the craft of writing film criticism and/or essays?
>
> As much as I've come to love, truly love, being a member, I've
started
> having this 'do-I-really-belong-here?' feeling, which is not
unlike a
> vision of dark clouds gathering overhead.
>
> Tom "Inquiring Mind" Sutpen
I am sure that Fred and Peter would agree that anybody who has
interesting things to say about cinema, especially from an auteurist
(taking the term loosely) point of view does belong in this group.
It doesn't really matter whether one is actively engaged in the
craft of writing film criticism or not. Actually, your posts are
proof that you are in fact engaged in such an activity.
20060
From: Yoel Meranda
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 3:48pm
Subject: Cinema, taste, merit (was Re: varying...)
I've just been reading most of the posts since the discussion
started. I have to say that the whole discussion helped me a lot in
my understanding of Zach's and Patrick's viewpoints. Maybe my views
haven't changed, but I can see the other view much more clearly now
and that just gives me new ways to think about cinema.
Especially Patrick's idea of a "box" to describe the film viewing
experince is the most interesting summary I heard of the "other view
point" and that definitely makes me respect it lot more.
And Patrick is right when he says that I am only looking at the
surface of the box. I don't believe there is a box because what
you're looking at is not really a window, especially since the way
the camera records the three dimensional space has nothing to do with
its "reality". It is just one way to perceive that space and even
that is not the way we perceive things when we look at the window.
Moreover, stuff don't look grainy when I have a window to another
world.
Also, I would have found the "box" much closer to the nature of
cinema if it was about frames but not shots, because in reality,
there is no real difference between continuous frames (that we call
shots) and the noncontinous ones (cuts, in narrative cinema, although
that is only the norm in a film like Breer's "Recreation").
I personally refuse the box and I prefer sticking to what we know
there is, instead of imagining boxes that are really not there. Gehr
says: "Film is a variable intensity of light, an internal balance of
time, a movement within a given space." and I agree with him
completely.
When I refuse the "box", I'm not refusing that what happens
narratively affects our experience of seeing the film. We are in
complete agreement there. However, my experience is a different
engagement with the world than a "window" would offer. *spoilers if
you haven't seen A Talking Picture* I didn't care much about the
mother and the girl who died at the end of the Oliveira film, and if
the screen was anything like a window, I wouldn't be able to do that.
I now have a few guesses on how people might respond to this, which
proves me that my thinking has improved a lot since the beginning of
our discussion. Thanks a lot to everyone.
Can someone try to explain for me how a person experiences that
imaginary box? Someone explaining what happens in their brain and
body in their favorite film would be great since that would help me
understand the pleasures and the fulfillments you're getting. If
anybody has time, of course..
Yoel
20061
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 3:48pm
Subject: Re: Cinema, taste, merit
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
> wrote:
>
>
> Let me recommend to all who have not read it JP's Rouge piece on
> ROPE, which I happily pillaged when writing about Hitchcock and
the
> City for a French encyclopedia. (Just a litle bit, JP - the
> word "hellish.")
Thanks for the plug, Bill. I assume you "pillaged" the original
French article (1984) since my translation for ROUGE just appeared a
few weeks ago... I wonder if you were able to determine the exact
location of the apartment building -- based on the diorama -- or was
it, as I suspect, a metaphorical locus, like Sartre's "hellish"
hotel room in "Huis Clos."
I was fascinated to read that there was a novelization with a map
of the apartment. That apartment looked a lot like the one I lived
in for many years on the upper west side, courtesy of Columbia U.
But the view was of Riverside Park, the Hudson and the Jersey shore
(great sunsets).
Re: ROPE, have you read the infamous "Anal Rope" article by that
academic whose name I forget? (I haven't). Ken Mogg hates it!
JPC
20062
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 4:02pm
Subject: Re: Re: Cinema, taste, merit
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
> Re: ROPE, have you read the infamous "Anal Rope"
> article by that
> academic whose name I forget? (I haven't). Ken Mogg
> hates it!
>
D.A. Miller is his name. LOVE that piece. His best
work is his book on why gay men love musicals "Place
for Us," which begins as a general study combined with
a memoir before turning into an all-stops-out
Barthesian dissertation on "Gypsy" and the centrality
of the character of "Tulsa" to the gay male mythos.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Dress up your holiday email, Hollywood style. Learn more.
http://celebrity.mail.yahoo.com
20063
From: K. A. Westphal
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 4:03pm
Subject: Re: Marginally OT: A Question for This Group
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Sutpen" wrote:
>
> Am I the *only* contributor to this list who isn't actively engaged in
> the craft of writing film criticism and/or essays?
>
>
> Tom "Inquiring Mind" Sutpen
My only published work was in the Sacramento Bee teen page. My editor
was a nice guy and I just had lunch with him again yesterday.
But I'll never forgive him for altering my MASTER AND COMMANDER
review; he edited out this whole sentence:
"There's more action than politics on display, but what little
French-bashing rears its head can only help "Master and Commander"
rake in plenty of box office doubloon during a holiday season when
most Americans still contend that the French played a nefarious role
in the prelude to Operation Iraqi Freedom."
--Kyle Westphal
20064
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 4:07pm
Subject: Re: Worst films list (Was: DID NOT SEE)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Noel Vera"
wrote:
>
>
> Hell, let me throw in a word in defense of The African Queen while
> I'm at it--true it's got blatant rear projected scenes that
wouldn't
> fool a 6 year old, but I'd vouch for the chemistry between Bogart
> and Hepburn any day; far as I'm concerned, what happens between
them
> IS the film.
>
Actually, at the time the film was made rear projection was still
widely used in Hollywood movies, and most audiences, let alone six
year olds, were fooled by them. Most people outside of
professionals and some film buffs didn't even realize that there was
such a technique and that the actors were not really where they were
supposed to be.
I agree that what happens between HB and KH IS the film... My main
problem with African Queen is that 99% of it looks as though it had
been shot on the backlot and you keep wondering why they went to all
that trouble (aside from indulging Huston's urge to go hunting).
> To be fair, I haven't seen White Hunter, Black Heart; my only
excuse
> is that I was never a big fan of Eastwood as a director, Mystic
> River and Unforgiven notwithstanding (much prefer Laughton,
myself).
> I'll try catch it one of these days, I suppose...
Do try. It's a must-see.
20065
From: Fred Camper
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 4:08pm
Subject: Re: Marginally OT: A Question for This Group
Us co-moderators (Peter and myself) see the information that each
applicant to our group provides when that person applies, and we've been
the co-moderators since the group was formed. I think the majority of
members are not "film critics." It so happens that the "film critics"
post more often than the average member. One hypothesis would be that
for a professional film critic, the routine is, you wake up, you go to
your computer, and you type something about film. So if you don't have a
deadline that day, you post to a_film_by.
We have never given preference to "film critics" in deciding on
admission. The keys are agreeing with our group's statement and being
able to talk intelligently about cinema.
I've also seen the danger in specialized interest groups of the group
discussing itself too much, or the personalities within it, and that's
something we have largely avoided, and I'd like to keep it that way.
Fred Camper
20066
From:
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 11:16am
Subject: Re: Dell Mapbacks, Floor Plans (was: Cinema, taste, merit)
During the 1940's, Dell books published a series of paperback reprints of
mystery novels. They tended to have either maps or floor plans on the back. They
are now known as "mapbacks".
Example:
"Bengal Fire" by Lawrence Blochman (DELL #311)
This has a street map of Calcutta, India on the back, with circles marking
the 16 locations that play a role in the mystery. You can follow the characters
around the city, while reading the novel.
"Chinese Red" by Richard Burke (DELL #260)
This has a detailed floor plan of the Chinese restaurant of the story - all
three floors. Once again, you can follow all the movements of the suspects
during the mystery.
The earliest floor plan in any mystery known to me is in "The Notting Hill
Mystery" (1862), by Charles Felix. In the 140 years since, there have been
countless others.
Also interesting, the book:
"TV Sets" (1996) by Mark Bennett
This creates blueprints for 40 American TV sitcoms, recreating them from the
TV shows.
I would love to have something like this for movies - perhaps as a DVD extra
(are you listening, DVD producers?)
Three hardest candidates to understand from the films:
The Scent of Green Papaya
I Walked With a Zombie
Scarlet Street
Mike Grost
20067
From: Tom Sutpen
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 4:23pm
Subject: Re: Marginally OT: A Question for This Group
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
> I've also seen the danger in specialized interest groups of the group
> discussing itself too much, or the personalities within it, and that's
> something we have largely avoided, and I'd like to keep it that way.
*****
Message received. Believe me, I regretted it the minute I hit the
'Send' button, and such a post will not be repeated by me again.
Tom Sutpen
20068
From:
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 4:35pm
Subject: Re: Pasolini (was: Cinema, taste, merit )
Zach:
>
> > What other Pasolini have you seen?
>
> ACCATTONE, SALO, THE CANTERBURY TALES, part of PORCILE (DVD player
> problems). Of course, I haven't seen the one that practically
every
> (of my generation anyway) seems to start with, THE GOSPEL
ACCORDING
> TO ST. MATTHEW. I like them all very much so far, though TEOREMA
> remains my favorite.
>
I think THE HAWKS AND THE SPARROWS is the PPP film that most clearly
(and successfully) fuses all the elements that are traditionally
regarded as being central to Pasolini, sometimes in overt ways --
perhaps because the film itself takes the form of an extended
conversation. I'd say don't miss that. I've also always been fond of
MEDEA, although it's certainly a flawed film. It's one of those
works I'm dying to see on a big screen. And yeah -- even the Pope
digs THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW.
And I'd like to give a shout out to the two documentaries NOTES FOR
AN AFRICAN ORESTES and COMIZI D'AMORE. (He made a couple more, but
those are the only two that are around these days for some reason.)
> > I think his short films are key, particularly "Cho
> > Sosa Son Nuovole ?' "The Earth As Seen From the Moon"
> > and "Il Fiori di Campo"
>
Definitely. Also LA RICOTTA (which is included on the Criterion
MAMMA ROMA disc). I'm surprised noone's tried to make a case that
Orson Welles secretly directed *that* one, too. {joke}
> Good to know.
>
> > Have you read his novels and essays?
>
> Novels, none. Essays, yes, some of them. HERETICAL EMPIRICISM
sat
> on my shelf for quite a while, not untouched. And I've taken a
look
> at almost all of the English-language Pasolini books I could
find. I
> went through a period where I was seeing and reading about his
work a
> lot; he was one of the last major filmmakers who'd work I'd never
> seen. When I return to New York in a few weeks I plan on taking
it
> all up again. Particularly looking forward to seeing OEDIPUS REX.
>
Pasolini's poetry, cinema, and essays tend to be given slightly
higher prominence nowadays than his novels, and while I do consider
him a terrific filmmaker, I've also been very impressed with the
fiction I've read by him. A VIOLENT LIFE is a great novel.
I've always been on the lookout for Sergio Citti's OSTIA, which was
co-written by Pasolini, and which just sounds too "Pasolinian" to
ignore. Never had a chance to see it, though. (Films scripted and
not written by Pasolini are quite hard to find indeed -- witness the
sad fate of some of Mauro Bolognini's earlier films.)
-Bilge
20069
From: samfilms2003
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 4:53pm
Subject: Re: Pasolini (was: Cinema, taste, merit )
-> Pasolini saw it as a film which used a
> central character whose perceptions were aberrant as a pretext for
> flamboyant estheticism,
For which I'm thankful !
> and as a love poem to Monica Vitti -
And why not ?
So, sue me already ;-)
-Sam
20070
From: samfilms2003
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 5:00pm
Subject: Re: Marginally OT: A Question for This Group
> Tom "Inquiring Mind" Sutpen:
> Am I the *only* contributor to this list who isn't actively engaged in
> the craft of writing film criticism and/or essays?
I'm not. In fact I'm a filmmaker.
> As much as I've come to love, truly love, being a member, I've started
> having this 'do-I-really-belong-here?' feeling, which is not unlike a
> vision of dark clouds gathering overhead.
I have that feeling too. This is a dangerous place, maybe I should say 'space'
for a filmmaker I think ;-)
-Sam Wells
p.s. Enjoy your contributions, stay around.
20071
From: samfilms2003
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 5:23pm
Subject: Re: Worst films list (Was: DID NOT SEE)
makes me think of the (Bogdanovich ?) interview with Jos. H. Lewis;
who shot the bank robbery in "Gun Crazy" live action and in the
dailies everyone argued about how many rear screens he'd used ;-)
-Sam
P.S. The worst film of all time is "El Topo" (although "Forrest Gump"
is tough competition......)
> Actually, at the time the film was made rear projection was still
> widely used in Hollywood movies, and most audiences, let alone six
> year olds, were fooled by them. Most people outside of
> professionals and some film buffs didn't even realize that there was
> such a technique and that the actors were not really where they were
> supposed to be.
20072
From: samfilms2003
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 5:36pm
Subject: Cinema, taste, merit (was Re: varying...)
> Can someone try to explain for me how a person experiences that
> imaginary box? Someone explaining what happens in their brain and
> body in their favorite film would be great since that would help me
> understand the pleasures and the fulfillments you're getting. If
> anybody has time, of course..
>
> Yoel
I've likely thought about this for 30 years so no I don't have the time ;-)
Instead, I'll throw this out along a tangent: I saw a lecture by South African
artist and animator William Kentridge. At one point he challenged the
concept of "willing suspension of disbelief"; pointing out that, if he walked
to the rear of the theater, made the famous bird shadow with his hands
in the projector beam, you could not NOT see 'a bird' on the screen.
I think my sense of both representation and abstraction (and I'm working on
the risky razor's edge of the two) can nearly be summed up in Kentridge's
observation - indeed I'm quite thankful to him for putting it so simply.
So to begin the endless long answer, I think I react to the possibilities of
birdness flying across that rectangular screen......
-Sam Wells
20073
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 5:41pm
Subject: Re: Cinema, taste, merit
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
"I was fascinated to read that there was a novelization with a map
of the apartment. That apartment looked a lot like the one I lived
in for many years on the upper west side, courtesy of Columbia U.
But the view was of Riverside Park, the Hudson and the Jersey shore
(great sunsets)."
Given the direction of the light and the loft window I'd say the
living room faces north, so it could be on the west side, and the
architecture looks upper west side. If you like J-P (and Bill too)
I'll scan the floor plan and send it to you.
Richard
20074
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 5:49pm
Subject: Re: Cinema, taste, merit
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> D.A. Miller is his name. LOVE that piece. His best
> work is his book on why gay men love musicals "Place
> for Us," which begins as a general study combined with
> a memoir before turning into an all-stops-out
> Barthesian dissertation on "Gypsy" and the centrality
> of the character of "Tulsa" to the gay male mythos.
>
I'm sure it's "brilliant", but it's exactly the sort of thing
that turns me off. Maybe I should write a piece on why straight men
(some straight men at least) love musicals too. Guys like you have
been keeping us in the closet for too long.
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Dress up your holiday email, Hollywood style. Learn more.
> http://celebrity.mail.yahoo.com
20075
From: Damien Bona
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 5:53pm
Subject: Re: Marginally OT: A Question for This Group
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
> I am sure that Fred and Peter would agree that anybody who has
> interesting things to say about cinema, especially from an
auteurist
> (taking the term loosely) point of view does belong in this group.
> It doesn't really matter whether one is actively engaged in the
> craft of writing film criticism or not. Actually, your posts are
> proof that you are in fact engaged in such an activity.
I second everything JP says.
20076
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 6:03pm
Subject: Re:BIOS! (Was: Marginally OT: A Question for This Group)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Sutpen" wrote:
>
> Am I the *only* contributor to this list who isn't actively engaged
in
> the craft of writing film criticism and/or essays?
>
Of course not, but this is another reason we REALLY NEED members to
post their bios in the appropriate place. Mayeb Peter T. should spell
out how to do it.
20077
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 6:03pm
Subject: Re:BIOS! (Was: Marginally OT: A Question for This Group)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Sutpen" wrote:
>
> Am I the *only* contributor to this list who isn't actively engaged
in
> the craft of writing film criticism and/or essays?
>
Of course not, but this is another reason we REALLY NEED members to
post their bios in the appropriate place. Mayeb Peter T. should spell
out how to do it.
20078
From: Damien Bona
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 6:05pm
Subject: Re: Worst films list (Was: DID NOT SEE)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Noel Vera"
wrote:
>
> Hell, let me throw in a word in defense of The African Queen while
> I'm at it--true it's got blatant rear projected scenes that
wouldn't
> fool a 6 year old, but I'd vouch for the chemistry between Bogart
> and Hepburn any day; far as I'm concerned, what happens between
them
> IS the film.
I saw The African Queen again a few months ago for the first time in
many years. I agree with you, Noel, that Bogart and Hepburn is the
film, but because that's all there is to the film, I find it not
worthy of defense.
It's an extremely dull picture, which is too bad because the concept
is clever and Bogart and Hepburn are both highly appealing (I believe
this was Hepburn's first spinster role). But the problem can be
summed up in four words: Huston's lack of imagination. The film is a
battle of the sexes in which the battle comes to an end almost before
it even starts. In record time, the two lead characters have gone
from antagonistic to being in love, and that situation is arrived at
with no originality or ingenuity – there's none of the playfulness
that was found when, say, Bogart and Bacall were acting for Hawks.
20079
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 6:11pm
Subject: Re: Re: Cinema, taste, merit
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
> >
> I'm sure it's "brilliant", but it's exactly the
> sort of thing
> that turns me off. Maybe I should write a piece on
> why straight men
> (some straight men at least) love musicals too. Guys
> like you have
> been keeping us in the closet for too long.
> >
Then you should get Alain Resnais to write the
introduction. He's the biggest straight show queen
there is.
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
20080
From: Fred Camper
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 6:11pm
Subject: Re: Cinema, taste, merit (was Re: varying...)
aFirst, my apologies for not being able to reply to Zach earlier. I had
a number of deadlines this week and just too much work to get engaged.
I've read the posts in this and related threads with great interest. It
would be insane for me to try to reply to every point, obviously.
I think the only hope I have of replying at this point is to mostly
reply to Zach's two posts to me, the much earlier post on acting
(http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/a_film_by/message/19036 ) and the
more recent one which led to his fascinating exchange with Yoel
(http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/a_film_by/message/19835 ), which
reminded me, by the way, that Yoel is one of the few people I've ever
known who I feel a deep agreement with about cinema, on this list or
elsewhere. Yoel and I are in a very tiny minority, even in this group,
and people should keep that in mind: "we" are no threat to "you."
Also, I should say that I've long wanted to write an essay that
articulates my aesthetic, and have been planning to, and the posts are
responses here are helping me formulate it.
I do think that anything can be great. If the history of art in the last
century has taught us anything, it should be that; there are no rules as
to what makes a good work of art, including a film. Every set of past
rules has been successfully disproved by an art work that violates it
and is great anyway. So despite my apparent under emphasis on tahe
importance of acting and lip sync and such, I have to admit that a
single take film of a man speaking could be great. And it is. I've seen
it. It's called "Pierre Vallières," and it's by Joyce Wieland. And
perhaps it's only my pro-montage passion that I think her earlier "La
Raison Avant la Passion" is even greater.
I also want to make clear, that I strenuously disagree with Patrick
Ciccone's claim that I offer a "subtractive definition of cinema"
(http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/a_film_by/message/19967 )
When I taught an introductory film history class for a few years,
starting in 1977, my one-semester course included not only Hollywood and
foreign "narrative" movies and avant-garde films and documentaries, but
slides of pre-cinema devices, and projections of Hollywood cartoons,
home movies, and instructional films. I am a huge longtime advocate of
the seven "Navajo films," films made by Navajo who had had little
exposure to films and TV in 1966, and have shown them publicly on a
number of occasions (they are described in the book "Through Navajo
Eyes," for those who wish to know more). Most of these things do *not*
fit into my "standard amodel" for aesthetic greatness in film, and
that's one reason why I love them; they offer alternatives.
I passionately advocate that cinephiles should open themselves up to
wider varieties of film. When Brian Frye co-programmed the Robert Beck
Memorial Cinema in NYC, you could see such things there: all sorts of
oddities collected by collectors (of whom Frye is one), as well as
avant-garde films both older and current. Most recently, I really liked,
and praised in print, a 1960 industrial film called "The New World of
Stainless Steel" (see
http://onfilm.chicagoreader.com/movies/capsules/27180_GLIMPSE_OF_CHICAGO_FILM_ARCHIVES
for a few words ) In its use of color, in its nutty extravagance, this
film had a real beauty to it.
Learning to appreciate such films might break some auteurists away from
the sit back and relax and enjoy the plot and acting and maybe a few
nice directorial touches if it happens to be an "auteur" film model that
I fear lurks in the background of many of these types of discussions.
It is true that according to my notion of the "aesthetic tradition" in
film (which includes Griffith and Hawks and Hitchcock and Bresson and
Mizoguchi and Rossellini as well as avant-gardists and figures like
Marker and Ivens and Leacock and last but not least the Bugs and Daffy
of Jones and Avery), acting doesn't play as great a role as it does for
some. But keep in mind that this doesn't mean I always favor montage
over the long take, for example. I completely love the very long-take
static camera gin-rummy scene in Cukor's "Born Yesterday," and to
address Patrick's query about acting, sure, if you changed the
performances in some way that made them discordant with the film, the
film wouldn't be as good. But saying that is not the same thing as
saying that what's good about the scene are the performances. The long
take can be a formal device too, and it certainly is in Cukor: it
articulates his attitudes toward his performers, and toward his viewers'
perceptions of performances, as well as toward people in the world. Also
keep in mind that Hawks remains my favorite Hollywood filmmaker, and
with Hawks I think the acting style is very much a part of the formal
structure of his work, as my old friend John Belton pointed out in an
essay on acting in Hawks some decades ago.
This all relates to Zach's comment that "the cinema's core values are to
be found not in the masterpieces but in the medium as a whole." Another
way to put this is, what does one care about most? But in a way it's
unnecessary to debate this, even if in the end I probably care about my
"aesthetic tradition" most, because I certainly value various other
things as well, and I think the two play off each other nicely, and I'd
insist on trying to explore all of cinema. We may be coming down to a
question of taste here: that stepping away from the criteria for
masterpieces, I prefer the nutty montage in a commercial for steel than
an actor's moving performance in a film in which the acting and script
somehow manage to transcend the lack of form.
In his post about acting, Zach asked how I can argue that "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?"
In some sense Zach is right, of course; a human face is always going to
have a certain effect on us humans. It is true that I think the
difference is not all that important.
Here's an example of the way I think about and analyze acting, using a
film that I trust many or most of us have both seen and agree is great,
"Vertigo." I'm not sure I've ever heard an admirer of "Vertigo" say
anything negative about Kim Novak's performance. I have nothing negative
to say about it or about her presence in that film, nothing negative at
all. And to take Patrick's point, if you give her the wrong "tics," if
you changed her performance in a way that made it discordant with the
film's aesthetic, the film wouldn't be as nearly as great, that's for
sure. But that's not the same thing as saying that her performance is
key to the film's greatness.
Using the example of cuts to objects, one of my favorite moments in
"Vertigo" is the rarely discussed four shot sequence of close-ups
showing her "makeover." These don't really show her face, even though
they show her, and while sure, seeing them is different from seeing her
face, that's part of their point, and Hitchcock us using that difference
-- with the goal of producing an effect similar to the shots that
include human figures. They connect back to the opening eye, they
connect to the film's theme of the instability of appearances, and by
bringing us close to her skin they connect with the film's erotics and
its idea that the locus of erotic attraction is itself a locus of
instability.
At the core of "Vertigo" for me is my least favorite imagery in it, the
stretching "trick" "Vertigo" shots showing the simultaneous stretching
and compression of space from Scottie's POV. They're at the core because
I think Hitchcock uses them as metaphors for the space of the whole
film, articulated more subtly in every other shot. At every moment, the
image is unstable; at every moment, the image is about to stretch and
twist or even tip over, to swirl down the bathtub drain (to mix a
metaphor from "Psycho" here), to collapse in on itself. At the same time
this is being opposed by the sensual attractiveness of each image's
material objects, of which Novak's figure is the primary exemplar, but
then the flowers in that flower shop are of almost equal importance in
"their" scene; the viewer is meant to be erotically attracted to the
colors, the sights, and of course at least in narrative terms but in
visual ones as well, the babe. But then that attraction turns unstable
again, or rather reveals that it always was, as the space is undermined
by a void, the old very "psychological" (That's "psychological" says a
hard-bitten sergeant in a Fuller war movie) love and death, Eros and
Thanatos pair. Novak's figure is somehow located as both the center of
erotic attraction and as the center of the void, the drain down which we
will all flow in the end. To look at her is to risk falling in, and the
old notion that some male virgins fear "falling in" in their first sex
act is doubtless at play here. (I've always thought it interesting to
"read" Scottie as a virgin, perhaps supported by the mysterious dialogue
about how he and Midge were once "engaged" back in college.)
So from the moment Madeline appears with a mysterious glow behind her
whose brightening completely undermines the space in Ernie's (echoed by
Judy's neon glow at her appearance), her face is "configured" as both a
locus of attraction and a center of instability. And this is done
through framing and color and light and camera movement. I'm sure
someone could also integrate her performance into that description,
something perhaps about the mysterious and gentle sensuality of her
voice, but I'm just as sure that other performance styles by different
actresses could also have been integrated into that description. Would
Sandra Dee have worked as Madeline? No. Disaster. Would Novak's
performance have worked if her "tics" included Tourette's syndrome, or
if she were constantly chewing bubble gum and blowing bubbles? No. But
this also doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out -- any crew
member would have known it. A better question might be, is any of the
mystery of the way we see the Novak character contained in any of her
other films? I haven't seen most of them, but it's not in Aldrich's
great "The Legend of Lylah Clare," in which her presence draws on her
character in "Vertigo"; her function there is quite different.
So this is a long way of saying that in most of the films I love,
performance is inseparable from the direction; the way I react to the
presence of a character is *determined* by the mise en scene. My
response to the great moment when Dude (Dean Martin) pours the booze
back into the bottle in "Rio Bravo," or to the many other gestures in
that film, is determined in part by the way the images are composed, by
the use of light, and so on. This would be much less true, or not true
at all, of the same performances in a film by my proverbial anonymous hack.
Zach quotes Durgnant saying "people look at people." It would be my
claim that most of the "people" watching "Vertigo" or "Rio Bravo," while
perhaps subliminally affected by formal qualities, tend to isolate
actors from them far too much, and do not respond to performances the
way that someone who is really seeing the whole form of these films
responds.
"Vertigo" was, remember, a flop, right? I'm assuming Kim Novak has some
bad films that were hits, right?
Now, on to the later points. First, with regard to Zach's list of
directors who my aesthetic will not help one appreciate and explain, I
have to admit I smiled at his generosity in assuming I must like some of
them. Actually, for quite a few I've seen nothing, in part because of
inaccessibility of the recent ones but in part because I kind of assumed
I probably wouldn't like them. For the majority I have seen at least
some films, but have liked almost none of them! I did "used" to like
Bunuel a lot, and certainly acknowledge his artistry still, but the only
Bunuel I've reseen in recent years is "L'Age d'Or," and the fact that I
still liked it would help make Zach's point, since this is not exactly a
film that depends on acting. I have seen a bunch of Pasolinis on film
and didn't like any of them; I especially disliked "Teorama."
Perhaps these films are all great and I do have a "narrow" aesthetic and
am just not getting it. I await an essay that articulates -- since Zach
does seem to argue that there is a difference between the way the work
of these directors "works" and the way that the films of a list of other
directors "works" -- that articulates the difference. Since I do think
there are no rules as to what makes film an art, only empirical
observations, I have to admit the possibility of "other criteria" (title
of a book by Leo Steinberg on modern art, which certainly requires its
own criteria shifts). But until more people appreciate home movies and
instructional films and the like, I do not think my aesthetic should be
considered any narrower than anyone else's.
Zach asks:
"Do you really believe that in the history of cinema its acting and
performance, for instance, have failed to reach heights of greatness?"
Yes.
(Ducks).
Perhaps I should remind group members of our no-flame rule? You can
attack someone's views, but not the person.
If you judge performances against each other, sure, some are
comparatively great. What I'm saying is that I've never seen a
performance in a film that wasn't made by a "great" filmmaker where the
performance alone provided anything remotely like the depth of
expression or pleasure that the "direction" of "Vertigo" provides.
"Why constantly dichotomize between cinema as high art (as you conceive
it) and cinema as a way to kill time..."
Because they seem like fundamentally different experiences to me.
Getting me involved in rooting for a character, wanting the plot to turn
out well, liking or hating the people, hoping that the E.T. will get to
phone home, all of which feelings I've experienced, have nothing to do
with what I think of as the aesthetic experience. They are opposed. Art
makes me think, it gives aesthetic pleasure through its form, it doesn't
push obvious buttons (or if it does, it changes the effects of the
button pushing to link them with profounder themes and effects, as in
"Psycho"). Art doesn't "kill time," it makes its own time.
But then, remember, I've never been a movie fan. I didn't go to movies
or watch much TV as a kid. My analogue for Yoel's "The Searchers"
experience came right at the beginning of my interest in cinema, when I
saw Gregory J. Markopoulos's "Twice a Man" at 15.
As for Zach's question about whether "F for Fake" would be as great if
the rest of Welles's oeuvre didn't survived and so it lost its meta
quality, probably. But part of the point of auteurism for me, perhaps
the main point, is the way seeing some films of a filmmaker helps me
learn to appreciate the others. Each great filmmaker establishes a
unique cinematic language, and seeing more work deepens the pleasure.
Perhaps if Laughton had directed more films, "Night of the Hunter" would
seem even greater, because the meaning of his stylistic devices would be
clarified by the way he used them in other films.
Zach: "I would argue that the cinema's sole essential element is not the
image (or sight) but TIME."
Yes. I mean, I may not agree precisely, but this is a great point.
Hollis Frampton once speculated in a lecture that cinema might have
begun as sound played in a darkened room rather than with image, and
made clear that he meant this seriously. British film and video maker
Matt Hulse recently put together a program of audio works meant to be
experienced that way, and has been traveling around "showing" it in
cinemas, and I like this program and wrote a capsule review of it.
Also with a smile, I should tell you that I saw "Children of Paradise"
exactly once, over three decades ago, and I completely hated it, could
barely sit through it, was squirming in my seat, and so on, very much
for the reasons you give. I would have said something like, "It's not
cinema," which I've long used not to mean that literally but in my
polemical-autuerist fashion to mean it's not "cinema art." I think my
aesthetic has broadened somewhat since, but I'm not sure I'd like it any
better.
Seriously, Zach, if you think there are a group of films that can be
defended on "different" terms than the "formalist" ones, I hope you'll
write about these, perhaps make a theoretical case for them as well as
specific cases. And if you write one of those rare career-making
articles that makes you an academic superstar and earns you a big
teaching job, please invite me every couple of years to lecture on
camera movement in the more obscure films of Andre de Toth or something
like that. But it does sound like you might be on to something, and I'd
like to see the result of your thinking here.
You wrote, "All of these films work because they have unfolded an
'argument,' a 'vision' (yet it need not be 'vision' literally!), across
time, the
experience of which changed me."
Great. Explain.
And because I am now being completely serious and unironic, I don't
necessarily expect you to "explain" in your next post, or in the next
year, though please do if you can. But this might be a project, defining
a particular aesthetic in cinema that's different from some others, that
could take years, or decades.
The reason my posts on such issues often take an oppositional stance is
that statements like "That film gave me a real sense of what breaking up
with your girlfriend is like," easy connections between film and life,
have little to do with what I most value when they seem to come, as the
mostly seem to come, from a response to script/actors/story. Unlike most
here, I think of the basic illusionistic-escapist mechanism of
commercial narrative filmmaking in negative terms. It seems to me that
pushing emotional buttons with cuts to a closeup of an axe is actually a
bad, and socially negative, thing.( Please, all, I'm not trying to start
a big argument, I don't think anything should be banned; maybe it's
"neutral" rather than negative. I certainly don't think it's good in
itself.)
I remember that when I went to "The Gangs of New York" on the strong
recommendation of three people, two members of this group (with the
initials JR and PWC) and the third a filmmaker of some repute with the
initials SB. I didn't like it at all. In the prologue, I was already
cringing at the cuts between the fight and the kid's face. I remember
admiring the precision of the cutting, very skillfully integrating his
expressions with the fight to make me "feel" for the way it was
affecting him. But if that's *all* that was happening in this scene, and
I'm assuming that the film's defenders here would say that it wasn't
all, then I'm against it. This is just crass manipulation of emotions
based on response to filmic illusions of events, manipulation based not
on the way the events are shown but the way the cutting leads us back to
our primal response to the events themselves, collapsing itself into its
subject matter rather than articulating a particular kind of space or
vision. Yet most viewers (and critics) tend to talk about such scenes in
those terms: "I really felt the little boy's pain." Well, I did too,
because the cutting was so well done. But it ain't art. And it's
manipulative, and in that sense I think is socially regressive as well.
I don't see a fundamental difference between this editing and TV
commercial cutting between the beer can and the babe or between Ronald
Reagan and the sun rising on "Morning in America." It does not take you
out of yourself, it pushes your existing buttons in order to make you
believe in an illusion.
Zach, though I've not read all your posts I don't ever recall your
defending a film in the way I just critiqued, and most members of this
group don't do so either. That's why I'm interested in reading your
articulation of this other, presumably more acting-related, aesthetic.
I never really finished my film and classical music thread the way I
wanted to, so I'll end by doing so now. I don't do this to attack
"other" aesthetics but to try to explain my own.
My model, as earlier, is the very short preludes and fugues of "the 48,"
Bach's "The Well-Tempered Clavier," Books I and II. I'd urge anyone
interested to get a recoding (Book I is a good place to start), and I
like Verlet, Koopman, and Kirkpatrick). Take only one prelude and fugue.
Listen to the pair (which might be as short as 2 minutes) again and
again and again. Listen to a group of six, pick either one that you
immediately like or one that made no sense, and listen to that one five
times in a row, come back the next day and hear it once, wait three
days, hear it twice in a row in the morning and six times in a row in
the evening, things like that. Try to hear to each line or "voice"
separately as well as simultaneously. This is "polyphonic" music;
different "voices" are playing melodies independently. There is a
"texture" here that seems to me infinitely rich. The more I listen, the
more space seems to open up around each note. Something as simple as the
re-entrance of a fugue theme can become an incredibly moving event, and
when one enters in inversion (the notes played "upside down" -- the
eighth fugue in Book I is an example), the world seems to change. These
pieces focus my attention on the smallest perceptual details, on each
note, in a profound way. Every note seems in perpetual tension with, and
utter unity with, every other, and all at once.
When in a Preminger film a camera movement seems to completely transform
a space, every inch of that space seems to come alive, be possessed of
incredible possibility, in the same way that Bach affects me.
In what is perhaps a modernist view of older art, what I want is
something that both offers a profoundly vision-changing experience and
something that I can interact with profoundly, in a way that makes me
think and encourages me to argue. This I would argue is the socially
positive aspect of art, and I think it can be said that almost any work
that's formally great does it. The montage of the "Triumph of the Will"
certainly inspires me to want to argue with fascism, in a way that a
dreadfully dull banality-of-evil completely lying Nazi doc on
Thereisenstadt did not. I want to be fully engaged, not simply be a
receptor for transmitted moods or illusions.
Fred Camper
20081
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 6:25pm
Subject: Re: Marginally OT: A Question for This Group
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "K. A. Westphal"
wrote:
>
I'll never forgive him for altering my MASTER AND COMMANDER
> review; he edited out this whole sentence:
>
> "There's more action than politics on display, but what little
> French-bashing rears its head can only help "Master and Commander"
> rake in plenty of box office doubloon during a holiday season when
> most Americans still contend that the French played a nefarious role
> in the prelude to Operation Iraqi Freedom."
Those sentences do tend to come out.
20082
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 6:24pm
Subject: Re: Cinema, taste, merit
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
>
> Re: ROPE, have you read the infamous "Anal Rope" article by that
> academic whose name I forget? (I haven't). Ken Mogg hates it!
>
> JPC
I haven't. It's the last article described in Sloane's biblio-
filomgraphy of Hitchcock, and it's by D.A. Miller, author of Place
for Us: Essay on the Broadway Musical and Jane Austen, or The problem
of Style - two highly personal essays that are among the best work
done in Queer Theory - as well as The Novel and The Police and
Narrative and Its Discontents. I share David E's high opinion of
Place for Us, which you might want to check out, JP, being the
world's leading non-gay B'way musical expert. I respect Ken's
judgement, but given Miller's other work, I'll have to check
out "Anal Rope" for myself. I think it was reprinted in a recent AH
anthology.
20083
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 6:29pm
Subject: Re: Dell Mapbacks, Floor Plans (was: Cinema, taste, merit)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> During the 1940's, Dell books published a series of paperback
reprints of
> mystery novels. They tended to have either maps or floor plans on
the back. They
> are now known as "mapbacks".
Those old Dells are beautiful, front and back. Who were the artists?
> I would love to have something like this for movies - perhaps as a
DVD extra
> (are you listening, DVD producers?)
> Three hardest candidates to understand from the films:
> The Scent of Green Papaya
> I Walked With a Zombie
> Scarlet Street
Great idea, Mike. Nabokov in his published lectures on literature
always srew maps for his students to oblige them top deal with the
geography of the novel under discussion.
20084
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 6:31pm
Subject: Re: Pasolini (was: Cinema, taste, merit )
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, ebiri@a... wrote:
>
> Zach:
>
> >
> > > What other Pasolini have you seen?
Since no one has mentioned it, ARABIAN NIGHTS is my favorite, and one
of the best films of the 70s.
20085
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 6:33pm
Subject: Re: Cinema, taste, merit
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Modiano"
wrote:
If you like J-P (and Bill too)
> I'll scan the floor plan and send it to you.
>
> Richard
Wow! Please do!
20086
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 6:38pm
Subject: Re: Re: Cinema, taste, merit
--- hotlove666 wrote:
I'll have
> to check
> out "Anal Rope" for myself. I think it was reprinted
> in a recent AH
> anthology.
>
>
>
You can find it in "Inside/Out: Lesbian Theories, Gay
Theories" edited by Diana Fuss (Routledge, 1991)
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20087
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 7:08pm
Subject: Re: Cinema, taste, merit
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Modiano"
wrote:
>
>
> Given the direction of the light and the loft window I'd say the
> living room faces north, so it could be on the west side, and the
> architecture looks upper west side. If you like J-P (and Bill
too)
> I'll scan the floor plan and send it to you.
>
> Richard
I'd love that! Thanks! JPC
20088
From: Noel Vera
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 7:54pm
Subject: Re: Worst films list (Was: DID NOT SEE)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Damien Bona"
wrote:
> I saw The African Queen again a few months ago for the first time
in
> many years. I agree with you, Noel, that Bogart and Hepburn is the
> film, but because that's all there is to the film, I find it not
> worthy of defense.
>
> It's an extremely dull picture, which is too bad because the
concept
> is clever and Bogart and Hepburn are both highly appealing (I
believe
> this was Hepburn's first spinster role). But the problem can be
> summed up in four words: Huston's lack of imagination. The film
is a
> battle of the sexes in which the battle comes to an end almost
before
> it even starts.
I'd say forget the visual style and if Huston's imagination was
applied to anything it was applied to the relationship. If I
remember right, the screenplay (I don't know about the novel) was
not conceived as a comedy, and Huston provided the key to how
Hepburn would play her character.
It's solidly in the genre of two antagonists falling in love and
about as fine an example as any, I'd say--with the possible
innovation that the characters are over-the-hill (I'm thinking of
Donat and Caroll in The 39 Steps, for one, and if that film benefits
from a well-made thriller framework, this one has the added note of
poignancy in that you would think they're rather too old for this
sort of thing--except no one is, really).
As to how they fall in love--why, people are aroused, cling
desperately to other people in the face of danger. It's not just a
cliche, I've seen it happen myself. Psychologically speaking, I
can't find any fault in what happens between the two; it's about as
real a relationship as any love story I can think of.
20089
From: Patrick Ciccone
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 7:56pm
Subject: Re: Cinema, taste, merit
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Modiano"
> > I'll scan the floor plan and send it to you.
> >
Can this go in the "files" section for the group?
20090
From: Noel Vera
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 8:09pm
Subject: "Da King" of Philippine Cinema
http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/noelmoviereviews/message/477
20091
From: Noel Vera
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 8:13pm
Subject: Re: Worst films list (Was: DID NOT SEE)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Henrik Sylow"
wrote:
>
> I really can't believe that Miyazaki is boo'd and "Spirited Away"
is
> being discussed as "worst films". It is one of the most beautiful
> animated film yet made, with a very direct social and political
> commentary / criticism of Japan.
>
What Henrik said.
Not just on Japan; here's another liddle something I wrote on the
subject:
http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/noelmoviereviews/message/392
20092
From: Peter Henne
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 8:25pm
Subject: Re: Re: Pasolini (was: Cinema, taste, merit )
I don't think the shorts are the key to Pasolini, and "La Ricotta"'s pot shots at the Catholic Church and its sanctioned aesthetics are just too on-the-nose.
Among the features I think "Gospel," "Teorema" and "Medea" are the richest in philosophical, sexual, and political speculation. None of the shorts explore
these strands with the depth that every Pasolini feature does. The first eight features line up like couplets: "Accatone" and "Mamma Roma" (Rome's
proletariat and working classes), "Gospel" and "Hawks" (the realm of Christian myth), "Oedipus Rex" and "Medea" (the realm of antiquity's myth), "Teorema"
and "Porcile" (the crossing of modernity with primitive life). That is the barest of outlines. The films do not fit into neat, exhaustible formulas but reply
to each other with questions. "Mamma Roma" represents a life of comfort just one level above the squalor of "Accatone," but asks if the sordidness in the
earlier film might bring greater joy and profound experience to life
than the safety and status sought by Magnani's character. And it really does leave that an open question, avoiding the familiar routes of romanticizing the
destitute and upbraiding the ambitious.
Read the poetry, essays, letters. I haven't read the novels so I can't comment there.
Peter Henne
ebiri@a... wrote:
Zach:
>
> > What other Pasolini have you seen?
>
> ACCATTONE, SALO, THE CANTERBURY TALES, part of PORCILE (DVD player
> problems). Of course, I haven't seen the one that practically
every
> (of my generation anyway) seems to start with, THE GOSPEL
ACCORDING
> TO ST. MATTHEW. I like them all very much so far, though TEOREMA
> remains my favorite.
>
I think THE HAWKS AND THE SPARROWS is the PPP film that most clearly
(and successfully) fuses all the elements that are traditionally
regarded as being central to Pasolini, sometimes in overt ways --
perhaps because the film itself takes the form of an extended
conversation. I'd say don't miss that. I've also always been fond of
MEDEA, although it's certainly a flawed film. It's one of those
works I'm dying to see on a big screen. And yeah -- even the Pope
digs THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW.
And I'd like to give a shout out to the two documentaries NOTES FOR
AN AFRICAN ORESTES and COMIZI D'AMORE. (He made a couple more, but
those are the only two that are around these days for some reason.)
> > I think his short films are key, particularly "Cho
> > Sosa Son Nuovole ?' "The Earth As Seen From the Moon"
> > and "Il Fiori di Campo"
>
Definitely. Also LA RICOTTA (which is included on the Criterion
MAMMA ROMA disc). I'm surprised noone's tried to make a case that
Orson Welles secretly directed *that* one, too. {joke}
> Good to know.
>
> > Have you read his novels and essays?
>
> Novels, none. Essays, yes, some of them. HERETICAL EMPIRICISM
sat
> on my shelf for quite a while, not untouched. And I've taken a
look
> at almost all of the English-language Pasolini books I could
find. I
> went through a period where I was seeing and reading about his
work a
> lot; he was one of the last major filmmakers who'd work I'd never
> seen. When I return to New York in a few weeks I plan on taking
it
> all up again. Particularly looking forward to seeing OEDIPUS REX.
>
Pasolini's poetry, cinema, and essays tend to be given slightly
higher prominence nowadays than his novels, and while I do consider
him a terrific filmmaker, I've also been very impressed with the
fiction I've read by him. A VIOLENT LIFE is a great novel.
-Bilge
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20093
From:
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 3:35pm
Subject: Re: Re:BIOS! (Was: Marginally OT: A Question for This Group)
Bill Krohn wrote:
>Of course not, but this is another reason we REALLY NEED members to
>post their bios in the appropriate place. Mayeb Peter T. should spell
>out how to do it.
Fred and I have divided the two major ongoing group "projects" among
ourselves: Fred handles the bios project, I handle the top 10 lists. So anyone who
would like to contribute a bio should email it to Fred privately and he will
upload it to the site.
(And both the lists and the bios can be accessed in the "Files" section, for
those who don't know.)
It would indeed be great to know more about our illustrious and ever-growing
membership!
Peter
20094
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 8:42pm
Subject: Re: Re: Pasolini (was: Cinema, taste, merit )
--- Peter Henne wrote:
> I don't think the shorts are the key to Pasolini,
> and "La Ricotta"'s pot shots at the Catholic Church
> and its sanctioned aesthetics are just too
> on-the-nose.
Maybe for you, but I don't think they're pot shots at
all. The poor crucified (for real as it turns out)
extra belongs to the poor that Christ spoke of the
most. The church's attack on Pasolini was entirely ad
hominem in that it brought up the "scandal" thatsent
him to Rome in the first place. ie."How DARE this
homosexual make a film about US!"
In light of the church's actual practices this is
darkly hilarious.
Among the features I think "Gospel,"
> "Teorema" and "Medea" are the richest in
> philosophical, sexual, and political speculation.
> None of the shorts explore these strands with the
> depth that every Pasolini feature does.
Again I beg to differ. The shorts are about Pasolini's
relationship to Ninetto Davoli -- the one person he
truly loved in an affair doomed to run its course due
to all manner of inequality between the two parties.
Please note that Ninetto deos not appear in "Salo." He
would have to play either a victim or an executioner
and Pasolini couldn't stand to see his beloved in
either role.
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20095
From:
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 3:58pm
Subject: Re: Re: Cinema, taste, merit
In a message dated 12/31/04 12:35:03 PM, hotlove666@y... writes:
> Wow! Please do!
>
I'd love to see it too, Richard!
Kevin John
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
20096
From:
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 9:05pm
Subject: top (ahem) of 2004
The moderators would murderize me if I cut-n-pasted the whole thing,
but my free-associative take (dig that Anchorman/Brown Bunny
transition) on the year that was the year that was is approximately
here:
http://citypaper.net/articles/2004-12-30/movies.shtml
As always, the connecting-the-dots part was a lot more fun than the
list-making part.
The list (which runs to 13) goes like this:
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
The Brown Bunny
Bright Leaves
Greendale
The Dreamers
Crimson Gold
Sideways
S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine
Spartan
The Incredibles
Anchorman
Empathy
The Corporation
Sam
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
20097
From:
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 4:09pm
Subject: Re: Eastwood (Was: Worst films list)
In a message dated 12/31/04 8:45:38 AM, cellar47@y... writes:
> I can't think of another filmmaker
> who would have so much as considered, much less gotten
> away with, casting The Lady Chablis as herself.
>
Yes but he makes up for it by casting his own freaking daughter in a
thankless, utterly extraneous (and invented for the movie?) role. Where would a
commerical director be without compulsory heterosexuality?
Kevin John
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
20098
From:
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 4:16pm
Subject: Re: Re: Dell Mapbacks, Floor Plans (was: Cinema, taste, merit)
In a message dated 12/31/04 12:30:03 PM, hotlove666@y... writes:
> > Three hardest candidates to understand from the films:
> > The Scent of Green Papaya
> > I Walked With a Zombie
> > Scarlet Street
>
Intriguing, Mike. But I want to make sure I understand you. You're saying the
spatial layout of the places where these films take place is difficult to
grasp as a whole, right?
Kevin John
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
20099
From:
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 4:19pm
Subject: Re: Re: Worst films list (Was: DID NOT SEE)
In a message dated 12/31/04 11:23:53 AM, samw@v... writes:
> P.S. The worst film of all time is "El Topo" (although "Forrest Gump"
> is tough competition......)
>
Oh come on. EL TOPO's not THAT bad. I really like the "two heads are better
than one" idea that he explores there and in SANTA SANGRE (and much more
fruitfully laid out in music by The Moldy Peaches). And, at the very least, it's an
extremely important film in cinema history.
But FORREST GUMP...I forgot about that one. Total pond scum. But the clan
redeemed themselves with the sublime CAST AWAY.
Kevin John
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
20100
From: Zach Campbell
Date: Fri Dec 31, 2004 9:21pm
Subject: Cinema, taste, merit (was Re: varying...)
Fred, thanks for responding. I'm afraid I'll have to try to
streamline my own arguments, which will be long anyway, and as I now
have less than 24 hours of computer access to go (and an article to
wrap up), I shouldn't spend too much time at the moment. But I would
like to address some points.
> Here's an example of the way I think about and analyze acting, [cut
a long and detailed analysis of VERTIGO and Kim Novak]
But Fred, it seems you neither thought about nor analyzed the
acting! Surely you must realize this!? Read over your paragraphs
again--barely a word about what Novak was doing.
I'm sure few of us here would disagree fundamentally with your
analysis (which seems superb to me, though the film is far less fresh
in my mind than yours) of how VERTIGO (and by extension
Hitchcock) "use" Novak as a photographic subject, and how
they "treat" her as a character. Everything you wrote was clear and
clarifying. I'm just saying there's room for more analysis, yes,
even formal analysis, that would take into account what Novak does,
not only what is done to her. And I certainly do not wish to oppose
the idea that a film's "form" (using that word the way you've used
it) shapes our understanding of any performance.
But I would stress that I use "shapes" our understanding, whereas you
used "determines." And I would say "shapes" because in most cases--
and certainly in the vast majority of cases in commercial,
representational, narrative cinema, which is what concerns this
debate as far as I'm aware--the actor is an agent of his or her own,
and sometimes even a match of intelligence and creativity for a great
director. How a director treats his actors is certainly going to
play a part in how much and in what ways his or her work "shapes" the
acting. (And this is further compounded by how the producers treat
the director's work, and how closely the editor is working with the
director. In com/rep/nar cinema, of course.) I'm not saying it's an
equal collaboration in a great film or any film (well, in some films
the director is going to be a weaker figure than the actor). And
quite honestly by almost anyone's standards I give great
and "unwarranted" privilege to the director. But I think that one
way a director expresses him- or herself is through the acting, and
not simply through how they "deal with" the acting. (You
acknowledged this yourself vis-a-vis Hawks, but again, didn't really
discuss the acting.) And the actor's agency itself is practically
never going to be eliminated; it may be subordinated but not erased.
This is a rich issue to be mined; I feel like I've only just begun to
get a handle on it.
I've seen good and great performances in films that I didn't think
were very good. And in that sense, sure, I'm probably responding to
performance in the same way I suspect you think I'm debating in favor
of, in that it works "against" or "in spite of" the film. But there
are great films with great performances where I think that the
actor's contribution is so important that, yes, while integrated into
the "director's vision," the acting forms one of the pillars that
supports that vision. And thus should be discussed for what it is
and not only how the director lights and edits the talking biped. A
few examples of what I'm talking about: Summer Pheonix in ESTHER
KAHN, the three leads in DAISY KENYON, Ben Gazzara in THE KILLING OF
A CHINESE BOOKIE, Setsuko Hara and Chishu Ryu in numerous Ozu films
but perhaps especially LATE SPRING.
The entire oeuvre of Abel Ferrara might be the best body of work in
which to examine how acting is integrated (and "integratable") into
form.
> I await an essay that articulates -- since Zach
> does seem to argue that there is a difference between the way the
> work of these directors "works" and the way that the films of a
> list of other directors "works" -- that articulates the difference.
No, I wouldn't say there's a "difference" between these "groups."
Now, between Eric Rohmer and Kenji Mizoguchi, sure, there's an
important gap to their working methods and the way the films "work."
But I think that most narrative filmmakers, from Ford and Hawks to
Franju to Rossellini (all favorites of yours, correct?), did very
important work with acting and/or narrative, that these things make
up important elements of the films' forms, both "integrated" into
and "additive" to what you have referred to as "form."
> "Why constantly dichotomize between cinema as high art (as you
conceive
> it) and cinema as a way to kill time..."
>
> Because they seem like fundamentally different experiences to me.
They obviously are. Let me restate this. My point was why would you
have to do suggest that this dichotomy is all there is in which to
place ? Am I a slave to pleasure delivery? Could be, though when
I'm speaking of cinema's "masterpieces" I sincerely don't believe I
am. But I can't imagine that much better and more insightful writers
here than myself, like Adrian or Dan or Bill, are being pushed and
pulled merely by a desire to identify with Little Timmy and see that
Lassie saves him ...
And this is why I have tried to stress many times now that when I am
arguing "for acting" or "for narrative," I am doing so thinking of
myself as a formalist of some kind--I want to see how these things
possess their own form, and how they fit into the larger formal
framework of a film (not merely how they are "utilized" by it).
> Also with a smile, I should tell you that I saw "Children of
> Paradise" exactly once, over three decades ago, and I completely
> hated it,
Let me say that CHILDREN OF PARADISE is an "extreme" form of what I'm
talking about. In most of the cases that I'm arguing for, I think
the "direction" or the "abstract form" is often very good or very
great. Not so in CHILDREN. I've seen it only once, and the reason
why I am so fascinated by this movie was how it had such a strong and
(this is important) slow-burning long-term impact on me. In being
haunted by this film I've learned to respect and reckon with it. I
slowly realized that the film (like every film) has "form," and that
even if its form in some ways--Camperian ways--is mediocre at best,
there are other "forms" through which it communicates which *are*
great. The film isn't worthless to me as a result, even if its
Camperian greatness is nil, and I don't think this is because I
simply identify with the characters and find the situations
pleasurable. So I'm left with a problem: I have to make sense of
that middle ground.
CHILDREN OF PARADISE is almost like seeing a cross-section of a
building: take away a chunk (the direction) and you can see some of
the beginnings of the film's (projected) greatness. What's already
in this proverbial building is amazing; the film fails to cohere
though. I'm not trying to make a case that CHILDREN OF PARADISE is
an ultimate masterpiece; I'm trying to say that it showed me how some
masterpieces are built on greatness that exists peripheral to (if not
isolated from) Camperian aesthetics.
This is what I'm going for: multiplicity and plurality of form. If
it's not cinema, or not cinema art, fine. I'm not prone to spending
much time deciding that issue for myself.
> I hope you'll
> write about these, perhaps make a theoretical case for them as well
> as specific cases.
I'd like to. It's something I'll have to think much longer and much
harder about. (And I promise I will do what I can to "explain" these
experiences in future posts and articles. I've already spent too
much time typing this post to go into detail on these instances, as
you half-predicted anyway.)
> And if you write one of those rare career-making
> articles that makes you an academic superstar and earns you a big
> teaching job, please invite me every couple of years to lecture on
> camera movement in the more obscure films of Andre de Toth or
> something like that.
Hopefully this post served as a reminder that I'm not against this
kind of analysis because I practice this kind of analysis (or at
least I fool myself into thinking so). I just think that additional
critical grids are called for in some cases. But you'd have more of
worth to say on De Toth than I would so I'll gladly invite you to
lecture. After I get famous for my groundbreaking essay "(Re)Placing
Fem(in)inity: Interpellation, Performativity, and the Politics of
Ecriture feminine in Widescreen Teen Comedies of the Late Nineties."
> I want to be fully engaged, not simply be a
> receptor for transmitted moods or illusions.
Rohmer, Bunuel, and Pasolini don't fully engage you? They do it for
me. Because (there's that unhelpful dichotomy I was talking about)
it is simply and definitely inaccurate to relegate their cinema to
being about the reception of transmitted moods or illusions; button-
pushing.
--Zach
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