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Posts From the Internet Film Discussion Group, a_film_by
This group is dedicated to discussing film as art
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20401
From: thebradstevens
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 0:28am
Subject: OT: Sade (Re: Fred's post #20259 NOOOO!)
Maybe it was a good thing for
> literature that Sade spent so much time in jail, where he wrote the
> bulk of his work. Had he remained free he might have acted out his
> fantasies instead of writing them down.
When Sade was released from prison in 1790, he was given an excellent
opportunity to act out his fantasies, an opportunity he refused to
take. In his role as Grand Juror, he almost always dismissed charges
against the accused, and failed to take any action against Madame de
Montreuil, the woman who had made sure he spent years in prison. When
he was imprisoned again in 1793, it was on a charge of 'moderatism'.
According to Simone de Beauvoir, "Anyone who is surprised at Sade's
discrediting himself by his humaneness instead of seeking a
governor's post in the provinces, a post that would have enabled him
to torture and kill to his heart's content, does not really
understand Sade".
20402
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 0:50am
Subject: OT: Sade (Re: Fred's post #20259 NOOOO!)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Saul Symonds"
wrote:
>
> I imagine you've read Sade in the original French? Do you see any
> major differences/losses in the translation to English??
>
> -- Saul.
I have never read any Sade in English translation. An awful lot
is always lost in translation, of course, but in the case of Sade I
would think that it's less a matter of content than of elegance of
expression (which probably becomes somewhat clunky in English).
20403
From: Tom Sutpen
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 0:57am
Subject: "Salo" On Tour (was Re: OT: Sade)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein wrote:
> > There is evidence that Sade did some of the really
> > bad things he wrote about
> > and it was covered up by his family. He spent a lot
> > of time in jail for a couple of
> > misdemeanours and some dirty books. Smoke - Fire?
> >
> There is eveidence that the Unites States government
> does some of the really bad things Sade writes about
> but they were covered up by the press.
Well, the mainstream press isn't *all* that bad (he said, showing his
latent naivete). After all, they did feed us all those gruesome Abu
Ghraib photos for about a month (until Ronald Reagan croaked; then
they got all gooey-patriotic on us).
Boy, those Abu Ghraib hijinks were really something, though; suffused
with that classic bellicosity some Americans take with then just about
everywhere. I don't know if anyone here made this uniquely brilliant
and Pulitzer Prize-worthy observation at the time, but when I saw
those photos along with the rest of the world, all I could think, I
swear to you, was: Jesus, these guards are putting on a dingy Road
Company production of "Salo" out there; only without that movie's
Continental charm and Art Deco wonderment.
Anyone else make that connection; or was this rare, forcefully
illuminated insight into World Events a thing of mine own?
Tom "Who thought "Salo" was really just plain silly" Sutpen
20404
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 1:05am
Subject: OT: Sade (Re: Fred's post #20259 NOOOO!)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
wrote:
>
> Maybe it was a good thing for
> > literature that Sade spent so much time in jail, where he wrote
the
> > bulk of his work. Had he remained free he might have acted out
his
> > fantasies instead of writing them down.
>
> When Sade was released from prison in 1790, he was given an
excellent
> opportunity to act out his fantasies, an opportunity he refused to
> take. In his role as Grand Juror, he almost always dismissed
charges
> against the accused, and failed to take any action against Madame
de
> Montreuil, the woman who had made sure he spent years in prison.
When
> he was imprisoned again in 1793, it was on a charge
of 'moderatism'.
>
Sade's "sadism" was, among other things, an expression of his
hatred and rejection of authority in all its forms (religious and
secular). It makes perfect sense that he acted the way you mention
as Grand Juror. But that has little to do with the kind of sexual
behavior he might have indulged in some 20 or 30 years earlier had
he not been imprisonned.
In an attempt to drag this thread out of the dreaded "OT" bin,
I'll direct everybody to Kaufman's bizarre riff on Sade in his
adaptation of Doug Wright's "Quills". My review of it is in POSITIF
#482, April 2001. (to David: review and interview with Chereau
Re "Intimacy" in the same issue). JPC
> According to Simone de Beauvoir, "Anyone who is surprised at
Sade's
> discrediting himself by his humaneness instead of seeking a
> governor's post in the provinces, a post that would have enabled
him
> to torture and kill to his heart's content, does not really
> understand Sade".
20405
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 1:20am
Subject: "Salo" On Tour (was Re: OT: Sade)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Sutpen" wrote:
>
>
> Anyone else make that connection; or was this rare, forcefully
> illuminated insight into World Events a thing of mine own?
>
> Tom "Who thought "Salo" was really just plain silly" Sutpen
I, for one, did! But that's my kinky side showing. JPC (who has
never met a Pasolini film he didn't dislike).
20406
From: Saul Symonds
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 1:33am
Subject: OT: Sade (Re: Fred's post #20259 NOOOO!)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon" wrote:
> I have never read any Sade in English translation. An awful lot
> is always lost in translation, of course, but in the case of Sade I
> would think that it's less a matter of content than of elegance of
> expression (which probably becomes somewhat clunky in English).
Of course, why would you? It's probably about time I tried to tackle
Sade in French. No two languages are ever fully compatible, but French
and English seem to have fundamentally different rhythmns. Even when
Nabakov translated his "Lolita" from English into Russian, he left the
French parts of the book in French. An interesting case of lost in
translation I recently read about concerned the early releases of
Kafka's work and its acclaimed reception by German critics, who only
had at their disposal English translations, and who for the purpose of
quotation, translated these English version back into German! Kind of
like a 3rd generation dub.
-- Saul.
20407
From: Nick Wrigley
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 2:00am
Subject: Re: Brakhage / Yamanaka
Fred Camper wrote:
> In around 1970 the Museum of Modern Art gave him a retrospective.
I just read that Donald Richie was Curator of Film at MoMA from 1969-72
(in his excellent JAPAN JOURNALS 1947-2004 book).
-
Complete change of subject. Has anyone here ever seen an English
subtitled print (in any form) of Sadao Yamanaka's HUMANITY AND PAPER
BALLOONS (1937)?
-Nick>-
20408
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 1:59am
Subject: Re: Re: Blandine Jeanson - question for JP
Doing my internet search, I couldn't find much of anything that related
Henri Jeanson, dialoguist, Blandine Jeanson, artist and militant, and
Francis Jeanson, philosopher and political thinker (who happens to be in La
Chinoise together with Blandine). Blandine and Francis are (were) radical
leftists.
While she was providing the apartment for La Chinoise, Blandine fell in love
and lived for a year with Georg Thomann, today guru of the austrian
anarco-neo-dada-lo-fi-artistic collective Monochrom (whose room in the
before-last São Paulo Bienal I really adored). According to a Thomann bio on
his site, Blandine Jeanson sent a letter to him 20 years later saying they
had a baby together. "Clément-Edouard Jeanson was born in June 1969. After
dropping his law degree he became deputy chairman of Le Front National, an
extreme right-wing youth organisation".
(http://www.monochrom.at/thomann/biography_thomann___monochrom.htm)
WOW!
----- Original Message -----
From: "Samuel Bréan"
To:
Sent: Sunday, January 02, 2005 9:06 PM
Subject: RE: [a_film_by] Re: Blandine Jeanson - question for JP
> >
> I couldn't find out if she's related to Henri Jeanson.
>
> Samuel.
>
>
20409
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 2:19am
Subject: Re: OT: Sade (Re: Fred's post #20259 NOOOO!)
--- Saul Symonds wrote:
>
> Of course, why would you? It's probably about time I
> tried to tackle
> Sade in French. No two languages are ever fully
> compatible, but French
> and English seem to have fundamentally different
> rhythmns. Even when
> Nabakov translated his "Lolita" from English into
> Russian, he left the
> French parts of the book in French. An interesting
> case of lost in
> translation I recently read about concerned the
> early releases of
> Kafka's work and its acclaimed reception by German
> critics, who only
> had at their disposal English translations, and who
> for the purpose of
> quotation, translated these English version back
> into German! Kind of
> like a 3rd generation dub.
>
The three-volume english translation of Sade that
Grove press piblished severla decades back is
illustrated with photographs taken at Sadean sites
(sundry chateaus) by Alain Resnais.
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20410
From: Tom Sutpen
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 2:20am
Subject: "Salo" On Tour (was Re: OT: Sade)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon" wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Sutpen" wrote:
> >
> >
> > Anyone else make that connection; or was this rare, forcefully
> > illuminated insight into World Events a thing of mine own?
> >
> > Tom "Who thought "Salo" was really just plain silly" Sutpen
>
>
> I, for one, did! But that's my kinky side showing. JPC (who has
> never met a Pasolini film he didn't dislike).
*****
Oh, I don't say I completely dislike it. And I admire a number of
Pasolini's films ("Uccellacci e Uccellini", "Accatone", that thing
about the Baby Jesus, "Oedipus Rex", "Mamma Roma" "Medea" . . . the
rest? Well, we can get into that if you want, but . . . ) "Salo" has
quite a few things going for it in terms of Production Value, as well
as the dread phenomenon of Form.
I just don't think it's a terribly profound piece, that's all.
In fact, if I had to liken it to any other work in Cinema, I'd say in
the end it bears a direct resemblence to Samuel Fuller's "Shock
Corridor" (1963). Look at the similarities, 'sil vous plais': Both
films have been mistaken over time as Social/Political works of some
moment; both films may even have been intended as such by their
respective creators. And both films wind up providing us with more
insight into the psyches of the men who made them than they do the
conditions they're putatively millitating against.
It's as though both filmmakers, at some point in the composition of
their screenplays, cracked their skulls open with a chisel and a
ball-peen hammer and let every twisted, kinky, demented idea they ever
entertained in their adult, working lives emerge right onto the page .
. . PHWAAAAHH . . . in a big, viscous, clam-colored, oyster-like blob,
which was then transferred to the screen with all the solemn
deliberation of the Recording Angel.
Throughout "Salo", Pasolini lets the inherent sensationalism of his
fantasies off the leash for a good long run up and down the 'epater le
bourgeoisie' meadow. So does Fuller; only we never think of the two
films as being at all similar because Fuller's fantasies extended
merely to such prosaic musings as "Nymphos!"; while Pasolini was
conjuring somewhat more baroque fantasies on the order of boys eating
their own feces while pinned up in a Wedding Gown designed by the
ghost of Gilbert Adrian.
Sorry, but whatever errant Serious Intentions Pasolini might have had
at the outset about "Salo" constituting some kind of Anatomy of the
Fascist Mindset were completely cancelled out by the persistence of
his endlessly loony imagination.
Tom "Finally Letting Tom Be Tom" Sutpen
20411
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 2:29am
Subject: Re: Blandine Jeanson - question for JP
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Ruy Gardnier"
wrote:
> Doing my internet search, I couldn't find much of anything that
related
> Henri Jeanson, dialoguist, Blandine Jeanson, artist and militant,
and
> Francis Jeanson, philosopher and political thinker (who happens to
be in La
> Chinoise together with Blandine). Blandine and Francis are (were)
radical
> leftists.
> While she was providing the apartment for La Chinoise, Blandine
fell in love
> and lived for a year with Georg Thomann, today guru of the austrian
> anarco-neo-dada-lo-fi-artistic collective Monochrom (whose room in
the
> before-last São Paulo Bienal I really adored). According to a
Thomann bio on
> his site, Blandine Jeanson sent a letter to him 20 years later
saying they
> had a baby together. "Clément-Edouard Jeanson was born in June
1969. After
> dropping his law degree he became deputy chairman of Le Front
National, an
> extreme right-wing youth organisation".
> (http://www.monochrom.at/thomann/biography_thomann___monochrom.htm)
> WOW!
WOW indeed Ruy! This is so incredibly funny and sad! Thanks for
the investigating work. JPC
>
20412
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 2:32am
Subject: Re: "Salo" On Tour (was Re: OT: Sade)
--- Tom Sutpen wrote:
>
> Throughout "Salo", Pasolini lets the inherent
> sensationalism of his
> fantasies off the leash for a good long run up and
> down the 'epater le
> bourgeoisie' meadow.
They're not his fantasies, Tom. Read Sade. It's all
there in the book.
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20413
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 2:32am
Subject: Re: Re: January TCM Essentials / PSIFF
(I'm really behind reading posts and answering them; sorry)
From: "Gabe Klinger"
Subject: [a_film_by] Re: January TCM Essentials / PSIFF
> Elizabeth -- I've heard wonderful things about Wang Chao's DAY
> AND NIGHT.
I really like "The Orphan of Anhyang", but this one misses the spot. You get
a sense that tha story is interesting, that it reflects the more
capitalistic, individual-oriented changes on China over the last years, and
that Wang really knows how to frame and sense the (very long) length of each
shot, but here everything seems to rotate around nothing. Almost homonymous
director Yang Chao made the slightly more interesting "Passages", which in
fact is almost an "Unknown Pleasures" remake, but interesting nonetheless
Haven't seen Jia Zhangke's "The World" and I'm dying to. Would recommend it
without seeing it, together with "Tropical Malady" which I'd gladly see for
the fifth time if I were in PS. "The Holy Girl" is a very good film. I'd
make a small case for Sergio Castellito's "Don't Move", one of the strangest
films in years and absolutely not for all tastes. I wouldn't miss the
Johnnie To's and the Raphael Nadjari film, which I missed at Sao Paulo but
got very high opinions among friends. Pablo Trapero's "Rolling Family" is a
gem. "Or" is a good film and "Turtles Can Fly" is of real interest (and a
must-see for people who don't understand why America is hated on foreign
coutries).
Wouldn't exactly recommend any of the four brazilian films as a must-see.
20414
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 2:37am
Subject: "Salo" On Tour (was Re: OT: Sade)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> --- Tom Sutpen wrote:
>
>
> >
> > Throughout "Salo", Pasolini lets the inherent
> > sensationalism of his
> > fantasies off the leash for a good long run up and
> > down the 'epater le
> > bourgeoisie' meadow.
>
> They're not his fantasies, Tom. Read Sade. It's all
> there in the book.
>
>
> So they shared fantasies. The sad thing about sex fantasies is
that they are so banal. Even the most outlandish ones.
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard.
> http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
20415
From: Saul Symonds
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 2:43am
Subject: "Salo" On Tour (was Re: OT: Sade)
> > --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Sutpen" wrote:
> In fact, if I had to liken it to any other work in Cinema, I'd say in
> the end it bears a direct resemblence to Samuel Fuller's "Shock
> Corridor" (1963). Look at the similarities, 'sil vous plais': Both
> films have been mistaken over time as Social/Political works of some
> moment; both films may even have been intended as such by their
> respective creators.
"Salo" was definitly designed as a political work, seen not just in
the update to the Republic of Salo and Musolini's Italy, but
Pasolini's Marxist outlook is clearly stated by him at many points in
interviews both before and during the production of the film - it can
also be clearly seen at every point in his interpretation of the
source material, and the distance he places between himself and Sade's
thematic interests.
> It's as though both filmmakers, at some point in the composition of
> their screenplays, cracked their skulls open with a chisel and a
> ball-peen hammer and let every twisted, kinky, demented idea they ever
> entertained in their adult, working lives emerge right onto the page
Pasolini also cracked open the skulls of Barthese, Blanchot and
Klossowski in the creation of this film.
> Throughout "Salo", Pasolini lets the inherent sensationalism of his
> fantasies off the leash for a good long run
> Sorry, but whatever errant Serious Intentions Pasolini might have had
> at the outset about "Salo" constituting some kind of Anatomy of the
> Fascist Mindset were completely cancelled out by the persistence of
> his endlessly loony imagination.
In truth, P.P. Pasolini only called upon a small fraction of the
"horrors" (to use the phrase in the sense Conrad used it) that are in
Sade's text. I would cut and paste descriptions for you, but I doubt
most a_f_b readers would want to hear such stuff. I have though, been
greatly enjoying this Sadeian detour, and JPC's insights.
-- Saul.
20416
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 2:45am
Subject: Re: "Salo" On Tour (was Re: OT: Sade)
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
> > So they shared fantasies. The sad thing about sex
> fantasies is
> that they are so banal. Even the most outlandish
> ones.
> >
> >
If on the basis of "Salo" you're going to make the
claim that he 'shared fantasies" with Sade, then it's
obvious from "The Gospel According to Matthew" that
he's also a practiscing Catholic, no?
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20417
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 3:24am
Subject: Re: The Face (was: Viewing OZU: even upside-down)
cf. Gilles Deleuze, Image-Movement, vol. 1, chapter 6: "Image-affection:
face and close-up"
----- Original Message -----
From: "Matthew Clayfield"
To:
Sent: Tuesday, January 04, 2005 7:26 AM
Subject: [a_film_by] The Face (was: Viewing OZU: even upside-down)
> I'm a big fan of the face as well; one of my own wannabe-Godardian
20418
From: Tom Sutpen
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 3:26am
Subject: "Salo" On Tour (was Re: OT: Sade)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein wrote:
>
> --- Tom Sutpen wrote:
>
>
> >
> > Throughout "Salo", Pasolini lets the inherent
> > sensationalism of his
> > fantasies off the leash for a good long run up and
> > down the 'epater le
> > bourgeoisie' meadow.
>
> They're not his fantasies, Tom. Read Sade. It's all
> there in the book.
*****
I know they're in the book, David. But you will admit that "Salo" is
not classically Faithful to "The 120 Days of Sodom" in the same sense
that, for instance, Lewis Milestone's film of "Of Mice and Men" is to
its source. He made choices along the route of adaptation: choices of
setting, choices in realizing the material and bringing it to the
screen, which were conditioned by his own sensibilities, not those of
the Marquis deSade.
I'm aware that the atrocities come directly out of Sade; but it's
Pasolini's presentation of them; his wallowing in the utter
sensationalism of what he's supposedly either condemning or depicting
with a cold, unblinking gaze (depends on which critical line you
follow), and . . . go ahead, call me a heretic, a philistine, a cynic
. . . the inescapable suspicion that he is simply and plainly getting
off on this stuff in some wholly private way, that leads me to the
conclusion that "Salo" (again, not a totally worthless film, by any
means) is more a document of a middle-aged Pier Paolo Pasolini's id in
its rawest form than it is this profound work depicting four
middle-aged Fascists' idea of a good time in the country.
Tom Sutpen
20419
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 3:33am
Subject: Re: "Salo" On Tour (was Re: OT: Sade)
--- Tom Sutpen wrote:
> I'm aware that the atrocities come directly out of
> Sade; but it's
> Pasolini's presentation of them; his wallowing in
> the utter
> sensationalism of what he's supposedly either
> condemning or depicting
> with a cold, unblinking gaze (depends on which
> critical line you
> follow), and . . . go ahead, call me a heretic, a
> philistine, a cynic
> . . . the inescapable suspicion that he is simply
> and plainly getting
> off on this stuff in some wholly private way, that
> leads me to the
> conclusion that "Salo" (again, not a totally
> worthless film, by any
> means) is more a document of a middle-aged Pier
> Paolo Pasolini's id in
> its rawest form than it is this profound work
> depicting four
> middle-aged Fascists' idea of a good time in the
> country.
>
Nope. You're simply projecting.
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20420
From: J. Mabe
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 3:37am
Subject: Tourneur, TV, bad haikus
I guess I’ll be the next lurker to come out in the sun
briefly.
I just watched the episode of Bonanza directed by
Jacques Tourneur and I wasn’t very impressed. It
didn’t seem much different than the other Bonanza
episodes available on the DVD I was watching. There
wasn’t much that reminded me
stylistically/formally/thematically of the three
Tourneur’s I’ve seen (admittedly a small number - 2 on
video, 1 on film). There was one short tracking shot
that inexplicably allows a fore-grounded tree to fill
the screen for about 5 or 6 seconds, one
maybe-interesting shot of Michael Landon and Denver
McKee talking about a marriage proposal where they
walk in front of one another a few times - shifting
the composition and the fore/middle-ground back and
forth, and one good actor-y moment when Denver is
allowed a short, angry, lucid speech before dying… but
there wasn’t much else special.
It’s lead me to think that its very difficult for even
a good director to make their mark on episodic TV
unless they have full control over it ,like Jack Webb
in Dragnet (tangent - really liked LA Plays Itself,
which I saw last night), Steven Soderburgh, or Robert
Altman. This is probably because of the system they
come to work in is already so rigorously preset and
they can’t change much in their one or two stints in a
long running series. My only other evidence in making
this simple claim is watching Nicole Holofcener’s
episodes of Sex and the City. I didn’t watch any more
than her two episodes, but they were terrible -
certainly not because of Holofcener, but because it
was Sex in the friggin City. I guess the test of this
would be to watch some early episodic television
directed by someone I’m much more familiar with
(Altman) and look for the resonance with his very
singular style, or to see some television by someone
like Webb who fully created their own style and see if
it carries over the other shows he directed.
PS. Totally off topic. I made a character in a very
bad short story I once wrote in high school make up a
haiku about Bonanza, which I don’t even think I had
seen at that point. Ben Cartwright rode tall / Proud,
like entering Springtime / Hop Sing spoke pidgin.
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20421
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 3:46am
Subject: Re: Brakhage / Yamanaka
> Complete change of subject. Has anyone here ever seen an English
> subtitled print (in any form) of Sadao Yamanaka's HUMANITY AND PAPER
> BALLOONS (1937)?
We had a little discussion of it here a while back. I've seen
English-subtitled prints on two occasions - the soundtrack is in bad
shape, though. I hear that a DVD (with English subtitles) will come out
soon.
A great film. - Dan
20422
From: Nick Wrigley
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 4:28am
Subject: Re: Brakhage / Yamanaka
> We had a little discussion of it here a while back. I've seen
> English-subtitled prints on two occasions - the soundtrack is in bad
> shape, though.
Thanks!
Soundtrack isn't bad on the forthcoming DVD.
> I hear that a DVD (with English subtitles) will come out soon.
I'm researching the subtitle history of it. It seems there are some
subtitled prints knocking about courtesy of The Japan Foundation.
> A great film.
Verily so!
-Nick>-
20423
From: Tom Sutpen
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 4:41am
Subject: "Salo" On Tour (was Re: OT: Sade)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Saul Symonds" wrote:
> "Salo" was definitly designed as a political work, seen not just in
> the update to the Republic of Salo and Musolini's Italy, but
> Pasolini's Marxist outlook is clearly stated by him at many points in
> interviews both before and during the production of the film - it can
> also be clearly seen at every point in his interpretation of the
> source material, and the distance he places between himself and Sade's
> thematic interests.
*****
Well, of course there's distance between Pasolini and Sade. This is my
point. We might be seeing atrocities (some of them) in living color
that have their genesis with Sade, but the adaptation of them to the
screen, in all their gaudy dementia, is Pasolini's own, no one else's.
They're adaptation was entirely a reflection of ideas that were his;
that he believed suited his narrative; that he . . . cherished.
And as for what he said in interviews . . .
Okay, I don't want to come off like a complete cynic here, Saul, but
it's important that we keep in mind a certain, let's say, Public
Relations strategy that movie directors engaged in in the days when
they began receiving the kind of accolades from Art Lovers that would
make Picasso blush (if such a thing were possible):
In the case of someone like Pasolini; let's say he gives an interview;
either before commencing work on a film, or during its production; or
both. Let's say it's the interview is conducted by a more or less
credulous journalist for some upmarket Arts publication, and Pasolini
avails himself of the opportunity to explicate his vision of the film
in question; what his conception is; what his intentions are; what
rests behind it, etc.
Okay?
Well, what Pasolini is doing . . . even in the event he is totally,
absolutely sincere in what he tells the journalist . . . is he is
using the phenomenon of The Interview to try and determine the
rhetorical geography of future interpretations of the work in
production; he is mounting a forward assault on critics, in other
words. It is a balletic art that filmmakers learned how to practice
quite effectively in the days when journalists saw their role in an
interview with an esteemed artist as one of transcription rather than
true inquiry.
By getting his vision of the film on the record before anyone had a
chance to see it for themselves . . . which is why releasing the
artist's interpretation of the work before the work itself is so
absolutely vital to this process . . . he could more effectively
influence how the work was subsequently interpreted and critiqued. It
wasn't a foolproof measure by any means; but a strategy like that
stood a better chance of working than no strategy at all. Few were the
critics in those days of heady cinephilia who would completely ignore
what an artist who'd achieved Absolute Stardom in their field had
already stated on the record; not unless they were completely jaded
after a lifetime of covering the opportunistic.
> Pasolini also cracked open the skulls of Barthese, Blanchot and
> Klossowski in the creation of this film.
*****
I could say it was fashionable then for filmmakers to have a
bibliography handy; since it made the work seem more . . . literary, I
guess. But I don't think I'm *that* cynical, do you?
> In truth, P.P. Pasolini only called upon a small fraction of the
> "horrors" (to use the phrase in the sense Conrad used it) that are in
> Sade's text.
*****
Of course. He wasn't stupid. Unless he wanted the film screened
exclusively in Times Square on the bottom-half of double bills with
Gualtiero Jacopetti & Franco Prosperi's "Mondo candido", then he
absolutely had to go easy on the Sade-ism.
At least as far as what he left in the final cut was concerned.
Tom Sutpen
20424
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 4:41am
Subject: "Salo" On Tour (was Re: OT: Sade)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Sutpen" wrote:
>>
> *****
> I know they're in the book, David. But you will admit that "Salo"
is
> not classically Faithful to "The 120 Days of Sodom" in the same
sense
> that, for instance, Lewis Milestone's film of "Of Mice and Men" is
to
> its source. He made choices along the route of adaptation: choices
of
> setting, choices in realizing the material and bringing it to the
> screen, which were conditioned by his own sensibilities, not those
of
> the Marquis deSade.
>
> I'm aware that the atrocities come directly out of Sade; but it's
> Pasolini's presentation of them; his wallowing in the utter
> sensationalism of what he's supposedly either condemning or
depicting
> with a cold, unblinking gaze (depends on which critical line you
> follow), and . . . go ahead, call me a heretic, a philistine, a
cynic
> . . . the inescapable suspicion that he is simply and plainly
getting
> off on this stuff in some wholly private way, that leads me to the
> conclusion that "Salo" (again, not a totally worthless film, by any
> means) is more a document of a middle-aged Pier Paolo Pasolini's
id in
> its rawest form than it is this profound work depicting four
> middle-aged Fascists' idea of a good time in the country.
>
> Tom Sutpen
I have to agree with Tom here, David. But the funny thing is that
you can at the same time "wallow," "condemn" and coldly "depict." No
matter how much I dislike the film, i can't deny that it is multi-
layered. JPC
20425
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 5:02am
Subject: OT: Sade (Re: Fred's post #20259 NOOOO!)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
> >
> He did a few bad things but nothing even close to even the
> milder scenes in his books. And he didn't get much of a chance to
> act out his fantasies as he spent the greater part of his life in
> jail or the asylum. His mother-in-law did everything she could to
> get him into jail and keep him there, rather than covering up for
> him. JPC
I know the received version, largely based on Jean-Jacques Pauvert's
biography, but it may also be based on Sade's paranoia. Actually,
Madame de Montreuil did a lot to get him released at various points,
and to cover up the crimes that eventually made the authorities lock
him up and throw away the key - according to Marie-Laure Susini and
the sources she quotes. Ask yourself: Would a Marquis be jailed all
that time for knifing a beggar-lady or giving prostitutes cantharides?
The key period is 1774-7, when Sade, condemned to death in absentia
for the poisoning incident, was allowed through his family's
intervention to return to his ancestral estate in La Coste, where
many young girls were employed. One of them who had fled talked to
the prieur of a nearby convent; a father appeared at the door of the
chateau with a gun demanding his daughter back. Sade, who had himself
fled, was arrested in Paris and incarcerated in Vincennes in 1777.
Through Madame de Montreuil's lobbying, he was taken to Aix to have
the death sentence formally lifted, and escaped en route, returning
to La Coste. On August 26, 1778, a policeman named Marais had the
doors of La Coste broken down, arrested Sade and sent him to
Vincennes, where his long imprisonment (to be continued at the
Bastille) began. An eyewitness of the arrest reported that Inspector
Marais was furious at what he found inside the chateau - that
contemporary account is full of those infuriating blank spaces, but
seems to indicate that murders had been committed.
Again, Montreuil, concerned about the family name, hushed it up. Here
is one of the letters she wrote to Sade's childhood friend Gaufridy,
the regisseur of the farm at La Coste, who was twice charged with
cleaning up the chateau after one of Sade's arrests: "Dans la chose
dont il s'agit, nous ne pouvons admettre de tiers, meme de confiance,
autre qu'entre vous et moi. Ainsi nous ne pouvons prendre conseil que
de nos bonnes intentions respectives...Je croyais qu'il ne s'agissait
que d'un objet; deux, c'est pis encore. Savez-vous quels etaient ces
objets, d'ou venant, et comment? Des que vous etes sur qu'on ne peut
les retrouver en activite, il faut, sans contredit et sans delai,
aneantir cent pieds sous terre toute trace et tout ce qui peut
justifier les dires passes et a venir."
By the way, "Sade" is one brief chapter in an excellent book, just
published, called L'Auteur du crime pervers, where Susini talks about
two of her own psychoanalytic patients, who were locked up for life;
historical figures like Gilles de Rais and Landru; and movies like M
and Monsieur Verdoux. She has a high regard for Lang's moral vision
in M (to sneak back on-topic at the end of a completely gratuitous
post).
20426
From: Fred Camper
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 5:06am
Subject: Re: OT: Sade (Re: Fred's post #20259 NOOOO!)
JPC, it's interesting to hear you thought Sade was a fine stylist. I
don't think I'd sense that from the English translations. If you'd care
to characterize his style a bit, and feel you can, great.
While it's true that Sade, too, makes me aware of what it means to be
human, I think *any* product of a human being does that. I introduced
him as a counter to what I took to be the optimistic, children-loving
humanism that was introduced as something that good filmmaking should
support. Sade's "101 Days" details many murders of children for the
sexual gratification of the four "heroes" (evildoers).
A key moment comes early in the book when one of the four, speculating
on murder and murder for pleasure, says something like, once you've done
some murders, there isn't much more to do. Then he wishes he could blot
the sun from the sky, or use its light to burn up the world; "that would
be a crime worth committing." The utterly meglomaniacal destructiveness
of this little speculation is about as far from well-inentioned humanism
as I can imagine. It also shows, I believe, that whatever political or
anti-authoritarian or other reading you want to put on Sade (some of
which seem strange to me: the whole setup of the "101 Days" is pure
authoritarianism), at his core is pure negation. This is the meaning of
the final "hell" fantasy too, a meaning ruined in Pasolini's stupid
literalization of it: at the point that all manner of tortures flow into
feeding one man's orgasm, the intensely nihilistic nature of the orgasm
itself (at least for Sade) becomes even clearer.
Yet his writing is art too, even in the video reproduction, oops, I mean
in English translation.
Thanks to Dan for his long post. I'm going to save up responses to the
main thread until the weekend.
Fred Camper
20427
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 5:08am
Subject: Re: Blandine Jeanson - question for JP
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
"Clément-Edouard Jeanson was born in June
> 1969. After
> > dropping his law degree he became deputy chairman of Le Front
> National, an
> > extreme right-wing youth organisation".
Like A.O. Scott fleeing grad school, he was just plain sick of
hearing about "ideology."
20428
From: Elizabeth Anne Nolan
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 5:09am
Subject: Re: Pausing, single still frame -- CINEMATIC INFORMATION
Elizabeth wrote:
> > Anyone want to mention one of their favorite single still frames that
> > conveys a lot of CINEMATIC INFORMATION at that moment in the story?
> Jonathan Takagi wrote:
> Check out the current issue at:
> http://www.rouge.com.au/
Thanks Jonathan.
I just viewed the ROUGE images and there is a lot there, even without text. At
first I was unhappy I knew just a few of the films (and some are not from
cinema, per se); but the selections alone are telling. Several a_film-by members
have contributed images, which should perhaps be added to their bios.
20429
From: Elizabeth Anne Nolan
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 5:13am
Subject: Carlito's Way impressionistic paragraphs (another call for, ala ROUGE's images)
Coincidentally, yesterday I viewed CARLITO's WAY and then found
http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/00/6/carlito.html
where responses to a call (was) put out for "impressionistic" paragraphs
on specific key moments or broad, poetic themes relating to Carlito's Way.
Has anyone seen this 'call for impressionistic paragraphs' before? If so,
is it a regular feature appearing every so often or whatever?
20430
From: jaketwilson
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 5:16am
Subject: OT: Sade (Re: Fred's post #20259 NOOOO!)
> A key moment comes early in the book when one of the four,
speculating
> on murder and murder for pleasure, says something like, once you've
done
> some murders, there isn't much more to do. Then he wishes he could
blot
> the sun from the sky, or use its light to burn up the world; "that
would
> be a crime worth committing."
"Since the beginning of time, man has yearned to destroy the sun"
(Mr Burns, THE SIMPSONS)
JTW
20431
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 5:26am
Subject: "Salo," "Sade" and "Quills"
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
> I have to agree with Tom here, David. But the funny thing is
that
> you can at the same time "wallow," "condemn" and coldly "depict."
No
> matter how much I dislike the film [SALO], i can't deny that it is
multi-
> layered. JPC
I believe Barthes had some interesting things to say about Salo - so
did Daney. In any case, the best reflection on the film is by Gary
Indiana, in his great BFI "Modern Classics" monograph, which I can't
recommend too highly.
It would be hard to choose, between Kaufman's Quills and Jacquot's
Sade, which is sillier, but I give the palm to Sade, because of
Auteuil's preening performance. Quills is still the work of someone
who has made real films, and there are a few real scenes in it.
A recent piece by Ian Christie traces Sade's influence on Bunuel and
argues that Sade was a Gnostic, and Bunuel too - in line with Fred's
observations about Sade's nihilism, which is certainly a component of
Gnosticism, if not the whole religion. Actually, I've always kind of
like Lacan's comment on "El," where a snooty Catholic prig attempts
to sew up his wife's vagina, like Eugenie sewing up her mother at the
end of Philosophy in the Boudoir: "Sade's complexes are more at home
among supporters of the Christian ethic than elsewhere" - as Abu
Ghraib recently reminded us. I think Bunuel, who made the Duke de
Blangis from 120 Days look just like Jesus at the end of L'Age d'Or,
noticed the same shared attitudes, however much he (like Lacan) may
have admired Sade.
20432
From: Saul Symonds
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 5:27am
Subject: "Salo" On Tour (was Re: OT: Sade)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Sutpen" wrote:
> Okay, I don't want to come off like a complete cynic here, Saul, but
> it's important that we keep in mind a certain, let's say, Public
> Relations strategy that movie directors engaged in in the days when
> they began receiving the kind of accolades from Art Lovers that would
> make Picasso blush (if such a thing were possible):
>
> In the case of someone like Pasolini; let's say he gives an interview;
> either before commencing work on a film, or during its production; or
> both. Let's say it's the interview is conducted by a more or less
> credulous journalist for some upmarket Arts publication, and Pasolini
> avails himself of the opportunity to explicate his vision of the film
> in question; what his conception is; what his intentions are; what
> rests behind it, etc.
>
> Okay?
And? Ignore his interviews then if you want - what's he's expressing
is clear enough from the film - what he constructs in interviews is
neither here not there and can be taken or discounted as you want. It
makes no difference in the end.
> > Pasolini also cracked open the skulls of Barthese, Blanchot and
> > Klossowski in the creation of this film.
>
> *****
> I could say it was fashionable then for filmmakers to have a
> bibliography handy; since it made the work seem more . . . literary, I
> guess. But I don't think I'm *that* cynical, do you?
I was merely using this to argue against your point that the film was
intellectually and philosophically shallow.
20433
From:
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 0:40am
Subject: Any thoughts on these books?
There are several cheap copies of the following books at a local used book
store. Any thoughts on them?
Positif 50 Years, Michel Ciment, ed. (A no brainer, I imagine, but would
still appreciate thoughts.)
Hollywood Party: How Communism Seduced the American Film Industry in the
1930s and 1940s by Lloyd Billingsley (With a recommendation from Charlton Heston
but still....)
Kevin John
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
20434
From: Tom Sutpen
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 6:31am
Subject: "Salo" On Tour (was Re: OT: Sade)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Saul Symonds" wrote:
> > Okay?
>
> And? Ignore his interviews then if you want - what's he's expressing
> is clear enough from the film - what he constructs in interviews is
> neither here not there and can be taken or discounted as you want. It
> makes no difference in the end.
*****
That's quite true. All that counts is the work; and if you see an
expression of those ideas within it, then I can't argue with you. What
could I even say? "Wrong! You *didn't* see that in the film!! You saw
something else!!!". No. That'd be both stupid of me and an insult to
you. And you don't deserve that.
> > I could say it was fashionable then for filmmakers to have a
> > bibliography handy; since it made the work seem more . . . literary, I
> > guess. But I don't think I'm *that* cynical, do you?
>
> I was merely using this to argue against your point that the film was
> intellectually and philosophically shallow.
*****
I may have been speaking imprecisely before. It isn't that I believe
those matters you cite are *not* present in the finished film. They
are, quite clearly. My point through this thread has been that there's
another, more personal, probably semi-conscious, rather crazy
dimension to "Salo" which tends, to me at any rate, to undermine the
complete seriousness of what Pasolini, yes, is attempting; and that's
why I characterized the film as "silly" (note, I did not say it was a
bad or even a dishonest film).
What I wrote admittedly sounded as though I thought ALL "Salo" was was
an exercise in secret self-gratification by Pasolini.
It isn't that at all.
Tom Sutpen
20435
From:
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 6:48am
Subject: "Salo" On Tour (was Re: OT: Sade)
>
>
> > > I could say it was fashionable then for filmmakers to have a
> > > bibliography handy; since it made the work seem more . . .
literary, I
> > > guess. But I don't think I'm *that* cynical, do you?
For the record, anyone that would say this about Pasolini would be
nuts indeed, since the guy was a brilliant poet, writer, and
literary critic *before* he became a filmmaker. Not that I think
you're saying this, but when Pasolini cites reading materials,
there's no doubt that he's done quite a bit of reading up, and not
just in an effort to seem "literary". (If anything, PPP spent a good
part of his career trying to get away from "literariness".)
>
> *****
> I may have been speaking imprecisely before. It isn't that I
believe
> those matters you cite are *not* present in the finished film. They
> are, quite clearly. My point through this thread has been that
there's
> another, more personal, probably semi-conscious, rather crazy
> dimension to "Salo" which tends, to me at any rate, to undermine
the
> complete seriousness of what Pasolini, yes, is attempting; and
that's
> why I characterized the film as "silly" (note, I did not say it
was a
> bad or even a dishonest film).
>
It's kind of odd that I chose to watch SALO again a couple of days
ago, just before this thread started, so the film is fresh in my
mind. The thing that you're ignoring here is just how sad and
passionate the film actually is when you look at its form: Yes,
there are lots of cold, symmetrically authoritarian shots, and yes,
the victims are often kept at a distance and dehumanized. But then
there are quite powerful passages where Pasolini shoots through
windows or throuugh binoculars, dropping the sound, blocking our
view -- almost turning away, as it were. It's a much, much more
emotionally resonant film that I had remembered it being. I still
have lots of problems with it, but it evinces a phenomenal kind of
expressive control that I had forgotten about.
There's also something else at work here: SALO came at the tail end
of the Italians' craze for the cinema of fascist perversion: THE
DAMNED, THE CONFORMIST, and maybe even THE NIGHT PORTER were the
high-end examples of this, but there were many, many low-rent
imitations, exploitation movies and the like. And Pasolini, coming
off the Trilogy of Life, had become enormously disillusioned with
his own work and its reception. I can't help but see the horrors
done to naked bodies in SALO to be a comment on the way nudity had
become exploited in his last three films, and the way he saw that
fitting in to the way human beings were commodified in the corporate
age. In the end, SALO isn't really about fascism but about
capitalism itself -- a very personal and sad glance at how Pasolini
had come to view the world at that stage in his career.
-Bilge
20436
From: Damien Bona
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 8:14am
Subject: Re: Tourneur, TV, bad haikus
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "J. Mabe" wrote:
> It's lead me to think that its very difficult for even
> a good director to make their mark on episodic TV
> unless they have full control over it ,like Jack Webb
> in Dragnet (tangent - really liked LA Plays Itself,
> which I saw last night), Steven Soderburgh, or Robert
> Altman. This is probably because of the system they
> come to work in is already so rigorously preset and
> they can't change much in their one or two stints in a
> long running series . . . I guess the test of this
> would be to watch some early episodic television
> directed by someone I'm much more familiar with
> (Altman) and look for the resonance with his very
> singular style, or to see some television by someone
> like Webb who fully created their own style and see if
> it carries over the other shows he directed.
Two directors whose work on TV series are very distinctively their
own are Curtis Harrington ("Dynnasty," "Charlie's Anngels," "Baretta"
and Paul Wendkos ("Harry O," "Burke's Law," "Hawaii 5-0," "Honey
West").
20437
From: Adam Hart
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 8:15am
Subject: Re: "Salo," "Sade" and "Quills"
"I think Bunuel, who made the Duke de Blangis from 120 Days look
just like Jesus at the end of L'Age d'Or, noticed the same shared
attitudes, however much he (like Lacan) may have admired Sade."
I haven't read it in a few years, but I remember that in a book of
Bunuel interviews (and I don't remember the interviewer or the
original publication), Bunuel mentioned reading the same smuggled
copies of de Sade that had been passed around in French artist
circles for decades, having made their way through the hands of
Proust and Duchamp.
That quote might be a footnote, but it reveals a great deal about
Bunuel's opinion of de Sade's influence on all early 20th century
art. As if what tied everyone from the surrealists to Proust (and
whoever else) together was some sort of common bond with de Sade.
20438
From: Adam Hart
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 8:34am
Subject: Re: Any thoughts on these books?
> Hollywood Party: How Communism Seduced the American Film Industry
in the
> 1930s and 1940s by Lloyd Billingsley (With a recommendation from
Charlton Heston
> but still....)
>
>
Hollywood Party is kind of fun in a kitschy, ironic way - it's as if
it was written in the 50s, by John Wayne (or, I guess *that* would
place it in the 60s). Hard to believe it's serious (and, truth be
told, I never even tried to get through more than a chapter or two
at a time). Not worth any money, but if you can find a copy of Thom
Anderson and Noel Burch's Red Hollywood, it would make an
interesting companion piece. Well-reasoned, exceedingly intelligent
critical history meets sensationalist right-wing rant to make a
perfect reproduction of the hysteria over idealogical differences.
Although, as I write this, visions of talk radio blowhards screaming
about the liberal media (or, now, how liberals control Hollywood, or
control the arts) start popping up... and the joke gets a little
less funny. Substitute "liberal" for "communist" (which I'm assuming
many already have - maybe I should finish that book), and this book
could be written by Ann Coulter or Michael Medved about contemporary
film and be one of America's biggest sellers. Depressing.
20439
From: Adrian Martin
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 8:42am
Subject: re: CARLITO'S WAY symposium
Elizabeth - Note the tell-tale presence in the CARLITO'S WAY symposium
of all three future editors of ROUGE!
The 'impressionistic paragraphs' idea was in fact one I introduced into
that other magazine back in about 2000 - I called it a 'writing game'.
Three were done in that period: on Eric Rohmer, Wong Kar-wai and
CARLITO'S WAY. I was inspired by a history of such literary games in
the history of 20th century avant-garde literature: like the various
Surrealist games, or the OULIPO '20 lines a day' game. The hope is that
it can inspire creative writing, a different angle of analysis, etc.
The ROUGE 'Image Issue' is in fact a continuation of this experiment in
another way - using mainly images!
'Writing games' can be great when they inspire playfulness, novel
thought, spontaneity, creativity, etc. When I taught film, I used to
get my students to write a page imagining they were somehow 'inside'
THE LADIES MAN - as a fly, a character, a vase on the table, as Jerry,
anything - and to describe how the movie 'felt' from this angle!! The
results were usually terrific - getting students to think about films
'phenomenologically', as a tissue of sensations, textures, etc - rather
than in the usual literary way. The most famous experiment of this kind
is the game of 'irrational enlargement' played by Surrealist
cinephilies in the 50s on Sternberg's SHNGHAI GESTURE - that's
translated in Paul Hammond' SHADOW AND ITS SHADOW, and it's mighty.
'Writing games' can turn bad, however, when participants are too
self-conscious and try to mimic the exact way that the Surrealists or
whomever wrote - thus erasing the playfulness, spontaneity and
creativity! I find a lot of neo-surrealist, neo-fluxus,
neo-situtationist (etc etc) groups and projects a bit dead in this way.
People have to find their own way, their own voice!
Yvette Biro (another ROUGE regular, and long before that Miklos
Jancso's screenwriter) wrote a wonderful book a few years back that
encourages and outlines 'screenwriting games' in the same kind of
creative spirit I am talking about: for instance , 'write the most
boring story in the world'. No one can do it, they end up, despite
themselves, writing very intriguing tales - and then that can become
the basis for a new script idea ... It's all a part of that fascinating
business called 'the creative process'. Critics should learn more about
it ...
Adrian
20440
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 9:56am
Subject: Re: "Salo," "Sade" and "Quills"
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Adam Hart" wrote:
Bunuel mentioned reading the same smuggled
> copies of de Sade that had been passed around in French artist
> circles for decades, having made their way through the hands of
> Proust and Duchamp.
>
> That quote might be a footnote, but it reveals a great deal about
> Bunuel's opinion of de Sade's influence on all early 20th century
> art. As if what tied everyone from the surrealists to Proust (and
> whoever else) together was some sort of common bond with de Sade.
More a matter of the cladestinity of those writings. Sade was a
personal hero for Bunuel, based on an idea of an intellectual rebel
who imagined crimes he never committed - perhaps in order not to
commit them. Which I'm starting to think may not be a true picture of
the Divine Marquis, whose legend has been passed from hand to hand as
reverently as those manuscripts.
But Bunuel was nothing if not a sharp observer of his contemporaries.
He was as shocked as he was pleased by the success of An Andalusian
Dog, for example, and satirized both the Surrealists and his rich
patrons (one of whom was descended from Sade) in his next film. That
was the beginning of a process that Bunuel - especially ith the
success of Belle de Jour - contributed to pulling S&M out of the
closet and making it chic. If you go into Book Soup in LA, or any
comparably upscale, hip book store with lots of photography books,
you can see the mainstreaming of Sade in the piles of B&D photo books
that abut the art section, or sometimes the cinema section. The
publisher of my Bunuel book specializes in that combo.
Lacan was already noting the limits of Sade's rebellion in 1966, and
he seems to have felt that Bunuel had a similar view of the guy.
Lacan's favorite study of Sade was Klossowski, which is quite
brilliant - a philosophical study, very much in line w. Fred's
observations. In any case, like Sade himself, Bunuel portrays sadism
as a practice largely reserved for the upper class.
20441
From: thebradstevens
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 10:58am
Subject: Re: Tourneur, TV, bad haikus
> Two directors whose work on TV series are very distinctively their
> own are Curtis Harrington ("Dynnasty," "Charlie's
Anngels," "Baretta"
> and Paul Wendkos ("Harry O," "Burke's Law," "Hawaii 5-0," "Honey
> West").
Try to see Sam Fuller's episode of THE VIRGINIAN, which is an
absolute masterpiece.
(But avoid THE MEANEST MEN IN THE WEST, which includes only a few
recontextualized scenes from the Fuller segment.)
20442
From: Adrian Martin
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 10:59am
Subject: re: any thoughts on these books?
There is an excellent review of the POSTIF 50 YEARS book - comparing it
to the quite different French version - in the Australian on-line
journal SCREENING THE PAST:
http://www.latrobe.edu.au/screeningthepast/reviews/rev0703/ambr15.html
And in general, this is an excellent site for detailed film-book
reviews.
Adrian
20443
From: thebradstevens
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 11:14am
Subject: OT: Sade (Re: Fred's post #20259 NOOOO!)
It also shows, I believe, that whatever political or
> anti-authoritarian or other reading you want to put on Sade (some
of
> which seem strange to me: the whole setup of the "101 Days" is pure
> authoritarianism), at his core is pure negation.
But surely it is possible to read 101 DAYS as a protest against an
intolerable situation, an intolerable authoritarianism. The more that
Sade (as narrator) insists on how wonderful the tortures are, the
more horrific they seem, and the final murders are described in a way
that makes them totally repellent (and not at all erotic).
Incidentally, the Winter 1975/1976 edition of SIGHT AND SOUND
contains an article on the making of SALO that quotes the following
passage from the screenplay - this dialogue didn't make it into the
film, and doesn't appear to derive directly from Sade:
Blangis: On the day of judgment, God will surely scold us in these
terms: "Since you saw that on earth all is vicious and criminal, why
did you lose yourselves on the road of virtue? The perpetual
disasters which I, God, have imposed upon the universe, how could
they fail to convince you that I love only disorder? Every day I
supplied you with examples of destruction, so why did you not
destroy? Imbeciles! Why did you not imitate me?"
Curval: Thus even in our monstrosities we will never be free of the
model of God! As each one of us inflicts upon the bodies of his
victims his own anarchic will, all we become is God on earth!
All of which strikes me as particularly relevant in the light of the
recent tsunami - and an eloquent defence of atheism.
20444
From: alfred eaker
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 1:37pm
Subject: intro to avant-garde film studies by scott macdonald
I came across the following intro to Avant-Garde Film Studies by
Scott MacDonald.
His points are obvious to many of us, but he hits the nail right
on the head.
'Mainstream cinema is so fundamental a part of our public and
private experiences, that even when filmmakers produce and exhibit
alternative cinematic forms,that dominant cinema is implied by the
alternatives. If one considers what has come to be called avant-
garde film from the point of view of the audience, one confronts an
obvious fact. No-one or certainly,almost no one-sees avant garde
films without first having seen mass-market commercial films.In
fact,by the time most people see their first avant-garde film, they
have already seen hundreds of films in commercial theatres, and
their sense of what a movie IS has been almost indelibly imprinted
in their conscious and unconcious minds by their training as
children and by the continual reconfirmation of this training during
adolescence and adulthood. The earliest most people come in contact
with an avant-garde film of any type is probably mid to late teens
(for many people the expereince comes later, if at all.
The result is that whatever particular manipulations of
imagery,sound, and time define these first avant-garde film
experiences as alternatives to the commercial cinema are
recognizable only because of the conventioanlized context vieweres
have already developed.
Generally, the first response generated by an avant-garde film is,
" This isn't a movie," or the more combative, " You call this a
movie?" Even the rare, resoponsive viewer almost inevitably finds
the film-whatever its actual length in minutes- " too long".By the
time we see our first avant-garde film we think we know what movies
are, we recognize what " everyone" agrees they should be; and we see
the new cinematic failures-to-conform as presumptious refusals to
use the cinematic space (theatre, vcr, viewing room)" correctly".
If we look carefully at this response, however we recognize that the
obvious anger and frustration are a function of the fact that those
films confront us with the necessity of redfining an expereince we
were sure we understood.We may feel we KNOW that these avant-garde
films are not movies, but what are they? We see them in a theatre;
they're projected by movie projectors,just as conventional movies
are...we can see that they ARE movies, even if we KNOW they're not.
The expreience provides us with the opportunity to come to a
clearer,more complete understanding of what the cinematic experience
actually can be, and what-for all the pleasure and inspiration it
may give us-the conventional movie experience is NOT'.
yup, that sums it up quite well
20445
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 3:18pm
Subject: Re: Pausing, single still frame -- CINEMATIC INFORMATION
the one I picked for ROUGE. Because it denotes control (the man, safe, on
the car) and lack of control (the woman he'll never get to watch closely or
"capture"). It is an essential part of what's great in Kiarostami - a
certain ethics of looking - and what interests me most in cinema: when you
have the experience that what you are seeing is not the whole world but just
part of it. That wonderful "fault" of cinema, and maybe in that sense it is
purely cinematic (the ontological etc.), is the thing that makes it so
special for me.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Elizabeth Anne Nolan"
To:
Sent: Tuesday, January 04, 2005 3:31 PM
Subject: [a_film_by] Pausing, single still frame -- CINEMATIC INFORMATION
20446
From: alfred eaker
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 3:26pm
Subject: A.I
last night i watched a.i for about the third time.
it is an exquisetly beautiful film with elongated moments of
diaphanous silence.
before i had ever seen the film i had been told by numerous people
how god awful the film was and many had told me they had walked out
on it.
first of all i don't understand anyone walking out on a film and
usually when that it occurs it's because the film is too
aesthetically challenging.
people dont walk out on action packed shit.
i feel a.i was spielberg's turn around as an artist. and,despite his
being sooooo hollywood, he IS an artist.
oh, he lost his way for a long time, catering to the masses.
he would sacrifice a sound artistic decision in favour of a crowd
pleasing decision.
case in point, color purple and schindler's list.
in purple goldberg's character is abused throughout the film.
when the big moment finally arrives for her to confront her abuser
spielberg hands it over to oprah to do a sitcom like 'big mama' shit
giving. then in list, when it comes time for oscar to depart (after
the allies have arrived) he does not stand true to oscar's character.
schindler was a cold, non-chalant, buisness like individual,but
spielberg gives him an over dramatic, crowd pleasing, wear it on your
sleeve, tear jerking break down.
no such obvious moents in a.i.
some have said the ending a cop out. i don't think so.
even it has a darker nuance.the boy oblivious to his mother's
impending death,sleeps forever with her.
the spirit of kubrick definitely influenced spielberg and the films
since then (minority report, catch me if you can, the terminal) have
shown him to be in an artistic peak.
a.i will, i think, turn out to be a film ahead of it's time.
20447
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 4:00pm
Subject: OT: Sade (Re: Fred's post #20259 NOOOO!)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
> JPC, it's interesting to hear you thought Sade was a fine stylist.
I
> don't think I'd sense that from the English translations. If you'd
care
> to characterize his style a bit, and feel you can, great.
>
Sade's prose is the height of eighteenth century French brainy
elegance, each sentence as carefully balanced as poetry -- I could
only do it justice by quoting (almost at random) from the French. He
can describe the most obscene or shocking scenes and make them come
across like a Boucher painting. There is a stunning sense of form in
his arrangements of bodies and props. Sade 'directs" his orgies
(it's quite logical that he became involved in tstage direction at
Charenton) and his characters often act as surrogate directors (the
depraved Mme Delbene at the beginning of "Juliette": "Mettons un peu
d'ordre a nos plaisirs, on n'en jouit qu'en les fixant." = "Let us
put some order in our pleasures, only when arranged can they be
enjoyed.") But where Sade really glows is in what I call "the good
parts" -- that is, the philosophical discussions (because the sex
stuff is really boring after a while, and, to my taste at least,
totally un-erotic). It's way up there, as far as style is concerned,
with the best of Voltaire or Laclos.
> as I can imagine. It also shows, I believe, that whatever
political or
> anti-authoritarian or other reading you want to put on Sade (some
of
> which seem strange to me: the whole setup of the "101 Days" is
pure
> authoritarianism), at his core is pure negation. This is the
meaning of
> the final "hell" fantasy too, a meaning ruined in Pasolini's
stupid
> literalization of it: at the point that all manner of tortures
flow into
> feeding one man's orgasm, the intensely nihilistic nature of the
orgasm
> itself (at least for Sade) becomes even clearer.
>
The great thing about Sade is that completely opposite readings
of his thought are equally acceptable -- his thinking his fuelled by
contradiction. There is a perverse dialectics there, which Blanchot
brilliantly analyzed. We can, may, and perhaps must, both admire and
hate Sade -- admire him for what we hate in him, hate him for what
we admire.
20448
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 4:22pm
Subject: Re: "Salo," "Sade" and "Quills"
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
>
> It would be hard to choose, between Kaufman's Quills and Jacquot's
> Sade, which is sillier, but I give the palm to Sade, because of
> Auteuil's preening performance. Quills is still the work of
someone
> who has made real films, and there are a few real scenes in it.
>
I am not a fan of Jacquot's "Sade" but are you implying that he
hasn't made "real" films? "La fausse suivante" is a truly wonderful
film.
Perhaps "Salo", "Quills" and "Sade" confirm that Sade is
not "filmable." Still I'd love to see Rohmer tackling "La
Philosophie dans le boudoir."
20449
From: Elizabeth Nolan
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 5:36pm
Subject: re: CARLITO'S WAY symposium
> Adrian wrote:
> Elizabeth - Note the tell-tale presence in the CARLITO'S WAY symposium
> of all three future editors of ROUGE!
> Yvette Biro (another ROUGE regular, and long before that Miklos
> Jancso's screenwriter) wrote a wonderful book a few years back that
> encourages and outlines 'screenwriting games'
>
Is the BIRO book TO DRESS A NUDE: Exercises in Imagination? I'll see
if I can get it in the library as it's $30+ for a battered copy unless
you suggest it is well worth that price.
I know I'm making progress in my cinematic knowledge ... there was no
good reason for me to spend time watching Carlito's Way the other day
as I had much else to do, and then to spend time reading about it. Yet
it all ends up coming around to a book that can help my screenwriting
interests.
Carlito's Way intro and exiting scenes are also interesting reference
the "face" discussions and the viewing from an 'upside' down
perspective as we see Carlito's face and his vision of the world as
people gather around him; I'd have to look again but I suspect he black
and white intro is more telling that the colored exit scene in terms of
form and composition. Does black and white trump color most of the
time?
20450
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 5:39pm
Subject: Re: A.I
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "alfred eaker"
wrote:
>
> last night i watched a.i for about the third time.
> it is an exquisetly beautiful film with elongated moments of
> diaphanous silence.
> the spirit of kubrick definitely influenced spielberg and the films
> since then (minority report, catch me if you can, the terminal)
have
> shown him to be in an artistic peak.
> a.i will, i think, turn out to be a film ahead of it's time.
I agree - the recent films begin to fulfill the promise of Jaws. But
he didn't really learn from Kubrick - he screws up act 3 of Minority
Report, just like he screwed up Act 3 of ET. But the Kubrick script
or treatment he worked from in AI is perfect, and he did us all and
himself a favor by filming it.
20451
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 5:40pm
Subject: Re: "Salo," "Sade" and "Quills"
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
> I am not a fan of Jacquot's "Sade" but are you implying that he
> hasn't made "real" films? "La fausse suivante" is a truly wonderful
> film.
Haven't seen it. I liked Les enfants du placard, not much since.
I'd love to see Rohmer tackling "La
> Philosophie dans le boudoir."
Van Trier is reportedly interested in doing a Sade film.
20452
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 5:53pm
Subject: Hitch and actors (Was: Cinema, taste, merit)
> Not if you read the pages and pages of conversations between
> Hitchcock and Hedren pre-The Birds (or pre-Marnie, I forget which
> transcript Dan reproduced) in Auiler's Hitchcock's Notebooks. Ever
> beat, every gesture was dictated in advance.
Without any evidence one way or another except for the movies, I've always
assumed that the legend that Hitchcock didn't direct his actors was
completely bogus. Is that your finding in general? - Dan
20453
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 5:56pm
Subject: Bob Ellis (Was: Richard Wilson)
> Australian cinema of the 1990s: in THE NOSTRADAMUS KID, an
> autobiographical film by the Australian writer/celebrity Bob Ellis
This is the guy who directed WARM NIGHTS ON A SLOW-MOVING TRAIN, right?
That was a pretty decent film. - Dan
20454
From: Matt Teichman
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 6:01pm
Subject: OT: Sade (Re: Fred's post #20259 NOOOO!)
jpcoursodon wrote:
>--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
>
>
>> <>JPC, it's interesting to hear you thought Sade was a fine stylist.
>> I don't think I'd sense that from the English translations. If you'd
>> care to characterize his style a bit, and feel you can, great.
>
> Sade's prose is the height of eighteenth century French brainy elegance, each sentence as carefully balanced as poetry -- I could only do it justice by
quoting (almost at random) from the French.
>
I'll have to second J-P here; Sade is a superb stylist. He really
stands out amongst his fellow 18th century French writers, who were
producing comparatively bland prose.
-Matt
20455
From: Tom Sutpen
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 6:46pm
Subject: Re: Hitch and actors (Was: Cinema, taste, merit)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > Not if you read the pages and pages of conversations between
> > Hitchcock and Hedren pre-The Birds (or pre-Marnie, I forget which
> > transcript Dan reproduced) in Auiler's Hitchcock's Notebooks. Ever
> > beat, every gesture was dictated in advance.
>
> Without any evidence one way or another except for the movies, I've
always
> assumed that the legend that Hitchcock didn't direct his actors was
> completely bogus. Is that your finding in general?
*****
I know you didn't ask me to chime in, but . . . here I am.
There are so many stories spread throughout all the literature
generated around Alfred Hitchcock as to his directing, over-directing,
not directing, and barely noticing actors on his sets that, assuming
most of them are true, I doubt if he ever developed a fixed
methodology for working with his players beyond the requirements of
whatever film he was making at a given moment. If he needed a
performance, he tried to get it; if the event of a scene was more
central than whatever the actor might bring to it, as was quite
frequently the case, then he left the actor alone as long as they
didn't get in the way.
People assume, because of things he said for public consumption, that
he had an all-encompassing, monolithic approach to his actors. And it
simply isn't born out by the evidence.
Tom Sutpen
20456
From: ruygardnier
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 7:21pm
Subject: Re: "Salo," "Sade" and "Quills"
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon" wrote:
One of João César Monteiro's last projects was "La Philosophie dans le
boudoir". A treatment was published on Trafic. I'm sure he would make
a real great film out of it. He had it all to it.
If I recall well (I read them a long time ago), Barthes argued that
"Salo" was indefensable, and Daney made a great defense out of it,
claiming that the real purpose of the film was to show resistence of
the torturees and then connecting it with Pasolini's more recent opus,
mainly the Trilogy of Life.
If I recall well, Barthes didn't have strong words for Sade's style.
20457
From: Peter Henne
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 8:10pm
Subject: Re: "Salo" On Tour (was Re: OT: Sade)
Yes, as a matter of fact, during the first week of those images on television, I had the nagging suspicion there was a connection to be made with something
else I had seen. And it finally dawned on me that the parallel I was rummaging for in my memory was "Salo." I mentioned the comparison to a film buff friend
of mine, and he agreed right away.
Peter Henne
jpcoursodon wrote:
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Sutpen" wrote:
>
>
> Anyone else make that connection; or was this rare, forcefully
> illuminated insight into World Events a thing of mine own?
>
> Tom "Who thought "Salo" was really just plain silly" Sutpen
I, for one, did! But that's my kinky side showing. JPC (who has
never met a Pasolini film he didn't dislike).
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20458
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 8:13pm
Subject: Re: Hitch and actors (Was: Cinema, taste, merit)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
>d in advance.
>
> Without any evidence one way or another except for the movies, I've always
> assumed that the legend that Hitchcock didn't direct his actors was
> completely bogus. Is that your finding in general? - Dan
Yes. Leo Gordon told a friend of mine before he died that AH wasn't on the set
wwhen Gordon played his fight scene w. Stewart in MWKTM. I printed a photo
in my book of AH energetically involved in directing that very scene, showing
Gordon how to throw the punch!
Thge only example I've seen of him walking away is some behind-the-scenes
of Frenzy, where he does ankle for a few minutes to take a meeting during the
endless shooting of the potato truck scene, which had about a 60 setups, all
planned out, and acting only in the closeups.
Apart from that, the eyewitness on the set of Foreign Correspondent, whom I
quote, saw an intensely involved, empathetic director of actors at work. Walter
Slezak wrote in his memoirs that from a technical standpoint AH knew more
about directing actors than any director he ever worked with. The famous
cattle line was something he said to shock a theatre-snob actor, Michael
Redgrave, into putting himself into his performance in Lady Vanishes.
Redgrave says in his memoirs that if you watch the movie, you can see where
he finally started acting - and became a movie star.
20459
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 8:16pm
Subject: Re: Hitch and actors (Was: Cinema, taste, merit)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Sutpen" wrote:
>
I doubt if he ever developed a fixed
> methodology for working with his players beyond the requirements of
> whatever film he was making at a given moment. If he needed a
> performance, he tried to get it; if the event of a scene was more
> central than whatever the actor might bring to it, as was quite
> frequently the case, then he left the actor alone as long as they
> didn't get in the way.
A good example of that was Doris Day, a pretty brilliant actress who was
traumatized by AH's neglect until Stewart explained to her that no feedback
meant that AH loved what she was doing and didn't want to interfere.
20460
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 8:22pm
Subject: Re: "Salo," "Sade" and "Quills"
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "ruygardnier" wrote:
>
> If I recall well (I read them a long time ago), Barthes argued that
> "Salo" was indefensable, and Daney made a great defense out of it,
> claiming that the real purpose of the film was to show resistence of
> the torturees and then connecting it with Pasolini's more recent opus,
> mainly the Trilogy of Life.
>
> If I recall well, Barthes didn't have strong words for Sade's style.
Right on all counts. Barthes thought that fucks were Sade's sentences and
clusterfucks were his paragraphs. Two other sade moments in cinema:
The office cf in Sauve Qui Peut (Godard), where the Sadean organizer
(Godard, from what I hear) is described in vo using a passage about Kurtz
from Heart of Darkeness.
In Milky Way Bunuel had Piccoli play Sade in the process of actually inflicting
injury on his Justine. Which makes Sade a) an actual torturer and b) a heretic,
hence a Christian, like everyone else in the film.
Robbe-Grillet's cute wife is publishing a many-volume Journal where she
talks about how she organized S&M mise-en-scenes featuring friends in the
60s and 70s. No bloodletting.
20461
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 8:24pm
Subject: "Salo" On Tour (was Re: OT: Sade)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Peter Henne wrote:
> Yes, as a matter of fact, during the first week of those images on television, I
had the nagging suspicion there was a connection to be made with
something else I had seen. And it finally dawned on me that the parallel I was
rummaging for in my memory was "Salo." I mentioned the comparison to a film
buff friend of mine, and he agreed right away.
You bet, but the participants were probably imitating an underground video
called Uncle Goddam's Redneck Torture Tape, rentable at Cinefile, and
others from the plentiful underground market in such things - v. popular in the
"Red States."
20462
From: Peter Henne
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 9:13pm
Subject: Re: "Salo" On Tour (was Re: OT: Sade)
Thanks for this post, Bilge. I would only add that those symmetrical long shots have at least two functions, to prevent sentimentalizing the victims for the
film audience and to mirror the icy, inspecting vision of the torturers. I think the film not only succeeds at condemning fascism, but it ties fascism to the
making of narrative. That distant view from the camera, emotionally indicating the gaze of the torturers, is necessary for making their narration. The film
suggests that an impassive and remote voice passing over the fortunes and tribulations of characters is itself cruel. Another film from the same time seemed
to make a similar effect, "Barry Lyndon." I find it hard to agree with the general principle that narration implies cruelty, but these two films, especially
Pasolini's, gives that idea a run for the money (oops, bad metaphor).
While I respect it, "Salo" is almost impossible to defend. I've seen it once, but it was such a blackening experience that I will never see it again. I'd
prefer to consider Pasolini's film work as the first eight features, shorts, and documentaries, and discard the Trilogy (since Pasolini disowned it) and
"Salo," yet that move seems repressive. So I'm stuck defending a body of work the last third of which is both undesirable and essential... and I think
Pasolini liked causing this vexation amongst his supporters. If only he had lived to enjoy it more.
Peter Henne
ebiri@a... wrote:
It's kind of odd that I chose to watch SALO again a couple of days
ago, just before this thread started, so the film is fresh in my
mind. The thing that you're ignoring here is just how sad and
passionate the film actually is when you look at its form: Yes,
there are lots of cold, symmetrically authoritarian shots, and yes,
the victims are often kept at a distance and dehumanized. But then
there are quite powerful passages where Pasolini shoots through
windows or throuugh binoculars, dropping the sound, blocking our
view -- almost turning away, as it were. It's a much, much more
emotionally resonant film that I had remembered it being. I still
have lots of problems with it, but it evinces a phenomenal kind of
expressive control that I had forgotten about.
There's also something else at work here: SALO came at the tail end
of the Italians' craze for the cinema of fascist perversion: THE
DAMNED, THE CONFORMIST, and maybe even THE NIGHT PORTER were the
high-end examples of this, but there were many, many low-rent
imitations, exploitation movies and the like. And Pasolini, coming
off the Trilogy of Life, had become enormously disillusioned with
his own work and its reception. I can't help but see the horrors
done to naked bodies in SALO to be a comment on the way nudity had
become exploited in his last three films, and the way he saw that
fitting in to the way human beings were commodified in the corporate
age. In the end, SALO isn't really about fascism but about
capitalism itself -- a very personal and sad glance at how Pasolini
had come to view the world at that stage in his career.
-Bilge
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20463
From: Tom Sutpen
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 9:13pm
Subject: Re: Tourneur, TV, bad haikus
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "J. Mabe" wrote:
> I guess I'll be the next lurker to come out in the sun
> briefly.
>
> I just watched the episode of Bonanza directed by
> Jacques Tourneur and I wasn't very impressed. It
> didn't seem much different than the other Bonanza
> episodes available on the DVD I was watching. There
> wasn't much that reminded me
> stylistically/formally/thematically of the three
> Tourneur's I've seen (admittedly a small number - 2 on
> video, 1 on film).
*****
It's conjecture on my part, since the only example of Jacques
Tourneur's tour of duty in television that I've see was a single,
somewhat underwhelming episode of "The Twilight Zone"; but it could be
that he saw television as a distinct step down aesthetically from his
work in Cinema and therefore thought it unworthy of his prodigious
formal attentions.
In fact, apart from Alfred Hitchcock, I can't really think of another
old school Hollywood filmmaker I've seen who wasn't just punching the
clock when they directed TV. It's possible this was a result of the
lingering perception of an aesthetic divide between the two media. It
was mainly younger filmmakers like Blake Edwards, Sam Peckinpah and
Robert Altman who thought the format of episodic television worth
exploring.
> It's lead me to think that its very difficult for even
> a good director to make their mark on episodic TV
> unless they have full control over it ,like Jack Webb
> in Dragnet I guess the test of this
> would be to watch some early episodic television
> directed by someone I'm much more familiar with
> (Altman) and look for the resonance with his very
> singular style,
*****
The only vintage television from noted filmmakers I've been fortunate
enough to see is Hitchcock's episodes of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents"
(who hasn't?); Samuel Fuller's episode of "The Virginian"; Robert
Altman's sometimes astonishing work on "Combat"; and Sam Peckinpah's
"The Rifleman" and "The Westerner" (both clear emanations of his
evolving sensibility). In every one of those instances you had a
director more than leaving his mark on that medium.
> or to see some television by someone
> like Webb who fully created their own style and see if
> it carries over the other shows he directed.
*****
I don't know. Can Jack Webb be said to have created a personal style;
or, as I suspect, one he slipped into by default because it moved his
schedules forward? It's easy to dismiss Webb's work behind the camera
solely as flat, charmless, static and generally without dimension, but
if his 1954 film "Dragnet" is any indication, he was not without
talent as a director ("Dragnet" has a number of striking moments, and
even evinces a Samuel Fuller influence it might have profited him to
explore further). The problem with the balance of his work is that the
filmmaking is almost aggressively pedestrian; no better or worse than
50 other directors could have acomplished. If I had to guess I'd say
that he valued moving the production along at a fast clip over
composing formal strategies (while never once realizing that the two
are not mutually exclusive . . . but no one ever confused Jack Webb
with Edgar Ulmer, did they?).
Although it's entirely possible that this absence of style in Webb's
filmmaking was something deliberate: a kind of anti-style that
represented a personal aesthetic choice of his. I don't know that
anything is mitigated by it. I mean, even if this were the case, while
it might make him a definable auteur, it doesn't make films like "Pete
Kelly's Blues" and "The D.I." any better than they are (though I'll
admit to a lingering fondness for his 1959 stop-the-presses soap opera
"-30-").
> PS. Totally off topic. I made a character in a very
> bad short story I once wrote in high school make up a
> haiku about Bonanza, which I don't even think I had
> seen at that point. Ben Cartwright rode tall / Proud,
> like entering Springtime / Hop Sing spoke pidgin.
*****
Hey, as do-it-yourself Haikus go, that one is perfectly benign.
(Years ago I wrote a Haiku about Louis B. Mayer, of all people; but
I'm damned if I can remember the thing now)
Tom Sutpen
20464
From: Tom Sutpen
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 9:18pm
Subject: "Salo" On Tour (was Re: OT: Sade)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666" wrote:
> > Yes, as a matter of fact, during the first week of those images on
television, I
> had the nagging suspicion there was a connection to be made with
> something else I had seen. And it finally dawned on me that the
parallel I was
> rummaging for in my memory was "Salo." I mentioned the comparison to
a film
> buff friend of mine, and he agreed right away.
>
> You bet, but the participants were probably imitating an underground
video
> called Uncle Goddam's Redneck Torture Tape, rentable at Cinefile, and
> others from the plentiful underground market in such things - v.
popular in the
> "Red States."
*****
Bill, you think if some clever distributor dubbed in some regional
accents and dialed down the speechifyin' that "Salo" might find a
reservoir of success in that Red State sub-genre?
Tom Sutpen
20465
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 9:26pm
Subject: "Salo" On Tour (was Re: OT: Sade)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, ebiri@a... wrote:
> there were many, many low-rent
> imitations, exploitation movies and the like.
Thye Cahiers called it Le Mode Retro - there are articles, including a Foucault
interview, translated and collected in the long-overdue vol. 3 of the BFI
Cahiers reprint series.
And Pasolini, coming
> off the Trilogy of Life, had become enormously disillusioned with
> his own work and its reception. I can't help but see the horrors
> done to naked bodies in SALO to be a comment on the way nudity had
> become exploited in his last three films, and the way he saw that
> fitting in to the way human beings were commodified in the corporate
> age. In the end, SALO isn't really about fascism but about
> capitalism itself -- a very personal and sad glance at how Pasolini
> had come to view the world at that stage in his career.
That sounds dead right to me - and let's not forget the unleashing of X films at
that time everywhere, here and in Europe. We could be watching a porn
shoot, albeit one with a snuff film payoff. I think Salo does speak to the
problem of repressive desublimation (Marcuse) in the 70s. In a sense, all my
skeptical posts about Sade have been saying the same thing.
That changes in no way my love for ARABIAN NIGHTS, the third film of the
Trilogy of Life, and IMO Pasolini's best film.
On Pasolini and Godard - who came out w. his hardcore Numero Deux at the
same time, although I believe his autocritique is Sauve Qui Peut. This whole
strain of autocritique after the sexual revolution (complicated in JLG's case by
the accident) has been overlooked.
Also, PP's enormous influence on JLG - I recently cited Weekend, and I wd
add La Ricotta as a major influence on Passion.
20466
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 9:29pm
Subject: Re: Re: Fred's post #20259
> What's notable is how rarely, even in our group, is a discussion of a
> film that refers *only* to the acting, or to the moods it transmitted,
> met with something like, "Yes, but you haven't accounted for how the
> film works as a film."
> The kind of writing I'm speaking against makes it hard to tell that
> you're even watching a film: often (unless there's a discussion of
> special effects) the same review would work for a stage play.
Just a postscript to my earlier comments: this emphasis on film as
distinct from theater (or other art forms) seems to me more characteristic
of pre-auteurist than auteurist film thought. The first half-century of
film thought seems to me characterized by a desire to get film out from
under the shadow of theater, with much talk of "pure cinema" and the
qualities that were unique to film. (This is no doubt why editing was for
so long regarded as the essence of film art.) Whereas Bazin and the early
auteurists were quite open about their commitment to impure cinema, cinema
that could paradoxically be itself by existing alongside and maintaining
fidelity to other art forms.
Once more, this is not a negative observation, just an attempt at
describing the history. God knows there's enough about the auteurist
tradition that needs to be rethought. (Though, for me, the commitment to
impure cinema is still important.) - Dan
20467
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 9:30pm
Subject: Re: Tourneur, TV, bad haikus
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Sutpen" wrote:
>
>
> The only vintage television from noted filmmakers I've been fortunate
> enough to see is Hitchcock's episodes of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents"
> (who hasn't?); Samuel Fuller's episode of "The Virginian"; Robert
> Altman's sometimes astonishing work on "Combat"; and Sam Peckinpah's
> "The Rifleman" and "The Westerner" (both clear emanations of his
> evolving sensibility). In every one of those instances you had a
> director more than leaving his mark on that medium.
Boetticher and McCarey did some important stuff - not Maverick, in Budd's
case. More obscure stuff.
>
> I don't know. Can Jack Webb be said to have created a personal style
Yes - Draget has style, and so does The DI - what makes you call that
pedestrian?(!)
20468
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 9:32pm
Subject: "Salo" On Tour (was Re: OT: Sade)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Sutpen" wrote:
*
> Bill, you think if some clever distributor dubbed in some regional
> accents and dialed down the speechifyin' that "Salo" might find a
> reservoir of success in that Red State sub-genre?
>
> Tom Sutpen
Some of the kids look Middle Eastern - cd. work.
20469
From: Matt Teichman
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 10:52pm
Subject: Re: "Salo," "Sade" and "Quills"
hotlove666 wrote:
>>If I recall well, Barthes didn't have strong words for Sade's style.
>>
>>
>
>Right on all counts. Barthes thought that fucks were Sade's sentences and
>clusterfucks were his paragraphs.
>
Is this from _Sade, Fourier, Loyola_ or another text?
-Matt
20470
From: Tom Sutpen
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 10:49pm
Subject: Re: Tourneur, TV, bad haikus
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666" wrote:
> > I don't know. Can Jack Webb be said to have created a personal style
>
> Yes - Draget has style, and so does The DI - what makes you call that
> pedestrian?(!)
*****
I cited "Dragnet" as the lone, quite impressive exception. As for "The
D.I.": it could be I need to re-see it. My recollection . . . and I'll
admit it's easily 20 years since I watched it last . . . is that it
was just as formally uninspired as "-30-" or "The Last Time I Saw
Archie".
I know I wasn't struck by the filmmaking as I was in the case of
"Dragnet".
Tom Sutpen
20471
From: Saul Symonds
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 11:00pm
Subject: "Salo" On Tour (was Re: OT: Sade)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Peter Henne wrote:
> While I respect it, "Salo" is almost impossible to defend. I've seen
>it once, but it was such a blackening experience that I will never
see >it again
I just have a quick point to make, more of an emotionally than
intellectually based one. Why do we need to defend "Salo" at all? A
lot have been said here about it's 'inhumanity', it's 'atrocities',
etc, etc - but these shouldn't be the points we use to condemn the
film. When I saw "Salo" at the age of 16, it was a movie-going
experience that profoundly changed me - as a critic, film buff, and
person. (And I probably can count on both hands that number of times a
film has deeply and completely changed my whole cinematic outlook).
More than this, Jean-Pierre Coursodon wrote: "Sade's prose is the
height of eighteenth century French brainy elegance, each sentence as
carefully balanced as poetry ... He can describe the most obscene or
shocking scenes and make them come across like a Boucher painting.
There is a stunning sense of form in his arrangements of bodies and
props." Can we not use the same formal arguments in PPP's situation?
And, on the subject of translation, which was discussed earlier,
though it's a given that something is always lost, or perhaps more
precisely, something is always changed, it might be something
particular about Sade's prose that causes its clunkiness in English,
(same with Rimbaud, who I nevertheless still like in English), as I
have read English translations of Apollinaire, (mostly his art
criticism which I looked at as a model when I first started film
criticism), and found him very eloquent and evocative in the English.
-- Saul
20472
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 11:14pm
Subject: Re: Re: "Salo," "Sade" and "Quills"
--- hotlove666 wrote:
> Haven't seen it. I liked Les enfants du placard, not
> much since.
> I'd love to see Rohmer tackling "La
> > Philosophie dans le boudoir."
> Van Trier is reportedly interested in doing a Sade
> film.
>
Hadn't heard of Jacquot's "La Fausse Suivante." I
wonder how much it owes to Chereau's rendition with
Michel Piccoli and Jane Birkin (which Chereau videoed
for TV)
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20473
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 11:18pm
Subject: Re: Re: "Salo," "Sade" and "Quills"
--- ruygardnier wrote:
>
> If I recall well, Barthes didn't have strong words
> for Sade's style.
>
>
>
>
Because an appreciation of Sade's style was understood
by barhtes audience. What he was (quitepeevishly)
objecting to was Pasolini spoiling "his" Sade --
taking an intellectual plaything seriously.
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20474
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 11:23pm
Subject: Re: "Salo" On Tour (was Re: OT: Sade)
--- Peter Henne wrote:
> While I respect it, "Salo" is almost impossible to
> defend. I've seen it once, but it was such a
> blackening experience that I will never see it
> again.
Well if you get your courage up you're more than
welcome to come over to my place and look at my (now
exceedinly rare) DVD!
I'd prefer to consider Pasolini's film work
> as the first eight features, shorts, and
> documentaries, and discard the Trilogy (since
> Pasolini disowned it)
A rather painfully insincere gesture on his part.
and "Salo," yet that move
> seems repressive. So I'm stuck defending a body of
> work the last third of which is both undesirable and
> essential... and I think Pasolini liked causing this
> vexation amongst his supporters. If only he had
> lived to enjoy it more.
>
Quite true.
Had Pasolini not been murdered and lived to "defend"
his work, we'd all be talking about it in quite a
different way today.
Instead is murder has become the film's "last scene"
-- as far as mot of its enemies are concerned.
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20475
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 11:28pm
Subject: Re: Re: "Salo," "Sade" and "Quills"
--- Matt Teichman wrote:
were his paragraphs.
> >
> Is this from _Sade, Fourier, Loyola_ or another
> text?
>
It's another text. There's a translation in the BFI
booklet on Pasolini.
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20476
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 11:42pm
Subject: Re: "Salo," "Sade" and "Quills"
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein wrote:
>
> > Is this from _Sade, Fourier, Loyola_ or another
> > text?
> >
>
> It's another text. There's a translation in the BFI
> booklet on Pasolini.
Good to know. Of course Matt is talking about S/F/L when he reports Barthes'
inattention to written style in Sade's books. For Barthes Sade was the inventor
of a language - he subjects the orgies and other mise en scenes in the books
to a semiotic analysis.
20477
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 11:45pm
Subject: "Salo" On Tour (was Re: OT: Sade)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Saul Symonds" wrote:
Can we not use the same formal arguments in PPP's situation?
Let's also remember Hitchcock's favorite saying: "It's only a movie" -
something our courts don't seem to get re: virtual simulations of forbidden
materials. The excrement in the film is chocolate, the blood is fake, no one
actually coupled or died, etc.
20478
From:
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 7:22pm
Subject: Gerd Oswald/Jack Webb (Was: Tourneur, TV)
In a message dated 1/5/05 3:15:19 PM, akira88o@a... writes:
> In fact, apart from Alfred Hitchcock, I can't really think of another
> old school Hollywood filmmaker I've seen who wasn't just punching the
> clock when they directed TV.
>
Tom, check out Gerd Oswald's episodes of THE OUTER LIMITS (does Oswald count
as an old school Hollywood filmmaker?). I wonder if Camper has seen these
because some of them feature objects quite prominently, almost as a critique (I'd
say) of humans' ontological certainity.
<>
Maybe not. But he was confused with (compared to?) Bresson on this very list.
Check out the archives, if you dare.
Kevin John
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
20479
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Thu Jan 6, 2005 0:29am
Subject: Re: "Salo," "Sade" and "Quills"
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
.
> >
> Hadn't heard of Jacquot's "La Fausse Suivante." I
> wonder how much it owes to Chereau's rendition with
> Michel Piccoli and Jane Birkin (which Chereau videoed
> for TV)
>
>
> David, I haven't seen Chereau's rendition so I couldn't tell,
but I can tell you Jacquot's is a marvel and gave me more pleasure
when i saw it in Paris (in 2000) than any other new film I had seen
in a long time. It's one of Marivaux's most brilliant plays (and one
of the most incisive and cruel underneath the glitter) and Jacquot
respects it, refuses to open it up, places his actors -- a
tremendous quartet: Huppert, Kiberlain, Arditi, Almaric -- on an
empty stage in an empty theatre (they are going through a final
runthrough)and manages this rare miracle (like Resnais in "Melo")--
transmuting pure theatre into pure cinema. I haven't seen all of
Jacquot's films but I would say it's one of his very best (with "Les
Enfants du placard.")
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Get it on your mobile phone.
> http://mobile.yahoo.com/maildemo
20480
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Thu Jan 6, 2005 0:32am
Subject: "Salo" On Tour (was Re: OT: Sade)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
>
> Let's also remember Hitchcock's favorite saying: "It's only a
movie" -
> something our courts don't seem to get re: virtual simulations of
forbidden
> materials. The excrement in the film is chocolate, the blood is
fake, no one
> actually coupled or died, etc.
So if nothing is real everything is permitted, right?
20481
From: Saul Symonds
Date: Thu Jan 6, 2005 0:49am
Subject: "Salo" On Tour (was Re: OT: Sade)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:The excrement in the film is chocolate, the blood is fake, no one
> actually coupled or died, etc.
No-one but Pasolini that is.
David, is your exceedingly rare 'Salo' DVD the Criterion release?
-- Saul.
20482
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Jan 6, 2005 1:00am
Subject: Re: Gerd Oswald/Jack Webb (Was: Tourneur, TV)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, LiLiPUT1@a... wrote:
>
> In a message dated 1/5/05 3:15:19 PM, akira88o@a... writes:
>
> Tom, check out Gerd Oswald's episodes of THE OUTER LIMITS (does
Oswald count
> as an old school Hollywood filmmaker?). I wonder if Camper has seen
these
> because some of them feature objects quite prominently, almost as a
critique (I'd
> say) of humans' ontological certainity.
don't open before doomsday, shape of things to come, soldier, the special
one
oswald was very much a cineaste - one fred likes - and so was his dad,
richard, whose strange tales i just saw (cinefile) - very interesting
20483
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Jan 6, 2005 1:02am
Subject: "Salo" On Tour (was Re: OT: Sade)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon" wrote:
>
>
> So if nothing is real everything is permitted, right?
not according to our legal codes
20484
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Jan 6, 2005 1:28am
Subject: Re: Re: "Salo," "Sade" and "Quills"
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
It's one of Marivaux's most
> brilliant plays (and one
> of the most incisive and cruel underneath the
> glitter) and Jacquot
> respects it, refuses to open it up, places his
> actors -- a
> tremendous quartet: Huppert, Kiberlain, Arditi,
> Almaric -- on an
> empty stage in an empty theatre (they are going
> through a final
> runthrough)and manages this rare miracle (like
> Resnais in "Melo")--
> transmuting pure theatre into pure cinema.
Hmmm. Then it also suggests the influence of Jacques
Rivette, whose "La Bande a Quatre" is about a
production of Marivaux's "La Double Inconstance"
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20485
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Jan 6, 2005 1:29am
Subject: Re: "Salo" On Tour (was Re: OT: Sade)
--- Saul Symonds wrote:
> David, is your exceedingly rare 'Salo' DVD the
> Criterion release?
>
Yep!
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20486
From:
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 8:32pm
Subject: Re: Re: Gerd Oswald/Jack Webb (Was: Tourneur, TV)
I recently saw Gerd Oswald's two episodes in the '80s "Twilight Zone" series:
"The Star" and "The Beacon." For me, they were the highlights of the entire
first season of the series (as well as constituting Oswald's last "films," and
his first directorial work since the '70s.)
Peter
20487
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Jan 6, 2005 1:44am
Subject: Re: Gerd Oswald/Jack Webb (Was: Tourneur, TV)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, ptonguette@a... wrote:
> I recently saw Gerd Oswald's two episodes in the '80s "Twilight Zone"
series:
> "The Star" and "The Beacon." For me, they were the highlights of the entire
> first season of the series (as well as constituting Oswald's last "films," and
> his first directorial work since the '70s.)
The Star is a sad parable of Oswald's own career, which was extinguished
prematurely, but may yet light the way for a cineMessiah to come. Great color
expressionism too.
20488
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Thu Jan 6, 2005 2:24am
Subject: Re: "Salo," "Sade" and "Quills"
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> --- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
> It's one of Marivaux's most
> > brilliant plays (and one
> > of the most incisive and cruel underneath the
> > glitter) and Jacquot
> > respects it, refuses to open it up, places his
> > actors -- a
> > tremendous quartet: Huppert, Kiberlain, Arditi,
> > Almaric -- on an
> > empty stage in an empty theatre (they are going
> > through a final
> > runthrough)and manages this rare miracle (like
> > Resnais in "Melo")--
> > transmuting pure theatre into pure cinema.
>
> Hmmm. Then it also suggests the influence of Jacques
> Rivette, whose "La Bande a Quatre" is about a
> production of Marivaux's "La Double Inconstance"
>
>
>
> It's "La Bande des quatre," David...Maybe it is, but with no
trace of Rivette-like self-indulgence (and you know I love
Rivette).__________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> All your favorites on one personal page – Try My Yahoo!
> http://my.yahoo.com
20489
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Jan 6, 2005 2:29am
Subject: Re: Re: "Salo," "Sade" and "Quills"
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
> >
> >
> > It's "La Bande des quatre," David...Maybe it
> is, but with no
> trace of Rivette-like self-indulgence (and you know
> I love
> Rivette).__________________________________
>
I think of it s "Bulle Ogier's Acting Academy"
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20490
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Thu Jan 6, 2005 2:32am
Subject: Autocritique after the sexual revolution ("Salo" On Tour)
> On Pasolini and Godard - who came out w. his hardcore Numero Deux at the
> same time, although I believe his autocritique is Sauve Qui Peut. This
whole
> strain of autocritique after the sexual revolution (complicated in JLG's
case by
> the accident) has been overlooked.
Would you add Ferreri on this deal?
20491
From:
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 9:36pm
Subject: Re: Gerd Oswald/Jack Webb (Was: Tourneur, TV)
Also good Outer Limits (60's version) directed by Oswald, in addition to
those mentioned by Bill Krohn:
The Forms of Things Unknown
It Crawled Out of the Woodwork
These are all very personal works of cinema. They have strong visual style.
And are based on inventive scripts by Joseph Stefano.
Peter's post about the more recent "The Star" & "The Beacon" is very
interesting!
Have never seen anything directed by Oswald pere, Richard Oswald. Have seen
reports that a DVD of "Different from the Others" (1919) is in the works.
Mike Grost
20492
From:
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 9:39pm
Subject: Re: Curtis Harrington (was: Tourneur, TV, bad haikus)
In a message dated 05-01-05 03:14:50 EST, Damien Bona writes:
<< Two directors whose work on TV series are very distinctively their
own are Curtis Harrington ("Dynnasty," "Charlie's Anngels," "Baretta"
and Paul Wendkos ("Harry O," "Burke's Law," "Hawaii 5-0," "Honey
West"). >>
Wholeheartedly agree.
In addition to the above, try not to miss Harrington's episode of Vega$
(1979) called "Kill Dan Tanna". It is personal poetic filmmaking of a very high
order.
Mike Grost
20493
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Jan 6, 2005 2:45am
Subject: Re: Autocritique after the sexual revolution ("Salo" On Tour)
--- Ruy Gardnier wrote:
>
> Would you add Ferreri on this deal?
>
>
I certainly would. "Le Grand Bouffe," "Bye Bye Monkey"
and (my favorite) "Dillinger is Dead" are poetic
meditations on the erotics of impotence.
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20494
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Jan 6, 2005 2:54am
Subject: Re: Re: Gerd Oswald/Jack Webb (Was: Tourneur, TV)
--- MG4273@a... wrote:
> Have never seen anything directed by Oswald pere,
> Richard Oswald. Have seen
> reports that a DVD of "Different from the Others"
> (1919) is in the works.
>
It's out, and quite interesting. Conrad Veidt is more
Conrad Veidt than ever. Dr.Magnus Hirschfeld plays
himself and deliver's the film's message at the
climax.
And the good doctor's boyfriend plays Connie Veidt as
a youth.
The EvilBlackmailer in the story is played by Reinhold
Schutzel -- future auteur of "Viktor und Victoria" and
"Ice Follies of 1938."
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20495
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Thu Jan 6, 2005 3:27am
Subject: Re: "Salo" On Tour (was Re: OT: Sade)
>>>I'd prefer to consider Pasolini's film work as the first eight features,
shorts, and documentaries, and discard the Trilogy (since Pasolini disowned
it) and "Salo," yet that move seems repressive.
In Rio we at Contracampo hold weekly screenings of films at the Odeon
theater (huge magnificent screen, 600 seats) called "Sessão Cineclube"
(shown today: Renoir's "La Grande Illusion"). We curate it, distribute
pamphlets with a review by one of ours, and discuss the film with the
audience after. When we screened ARABIAN NIGHTS, the focus of my text on the
film was how to defend a disowned film. I tried my best to make Pasolini
reown it. The result, in portuguese, is here:
http://www.contracampo.com.br/60/1001noites.htm
20496
From:
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 10:58pm
Subject: Re: Re: Gerd Oswald/Jack Webb (Was: Tourneur, TV)
In a message dated 1/5/05 8:56:40 PM, cellar47@y... writes:
> "Ice Follies of 1938."
>
ICE FOLLIES OF 1939, actually.
Kevin John
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
20497
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Jan 6, 2005 4:50am
Subject: Re: Re: Gerd Oswald/Jack Webb (Was: Tourneur, TV)
--- LiLiPUT1@a... wrote:
1938."
> >
>
> ICE FOLLIES OF 1939, actually.
>
Correct.
And to make it even campier, this is the film Faye
Dunaway's Joan is making at the beginning of "Mommie Dearest"
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20498
From: Saul Symonds
Date: Thu Jan 6, 2005 5:13am
Subject: "Salo" On Tour (was Re: OT: Sade)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein wrote:
>
> --- Saul Symonds wrote:
>
>
> > David, is your exceedingly rare 'Salo' DVD the
> > Criterion release?
> >
>
> Yep!
Lucky you...If the strain of owning such a rare dvd becomes too much
to handle, I'll help out and take it off your hands! :)
"hotlove666" wrote:
>The excrement in the film is chocolate, the blood is fake, no one
actually coupled or died, etc.
Just for the sake of accuracy, I quote an article by Gideon Bachmann
which appeared in Sight and Sound, Winter 1975/76: "Since coprophagy
occurs at regular intervals, Sergio Chiusi, Special Effects department
head, has had to produce a comestible product. Swiss chocolate, broken
biscuits, condensed milk and marmalade, which is then squeezed through
plastic tubing to dress it in its habitual form."
-- Saul
20499
From:
Date: Thu Jan 6, 2005 0:15am
Subject: ICE FOLLIES OF 1939 (Was: Gerd Oswald/Jack Webb)
In a message dated 1/5/05 10:52:47 PM, cellar47@y... writes:
> And to make it even campier, this is the film Faye
> Dunaway's Joan is making at the beginning of "Mommie Dearest"
>
And that's precisely why when I was about 12 years old, ICE FOLLIES OF 1939
was the film I wanted to see more than any other. I finally got the chance a
couple of years ago. A truly dreadful thing although eerily autobiographical.
Kevin John
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
20500
From: Craig Keller
Date: Thu Jan 6, 2005 5:20am
Subject: Re: "Salo" On Tour (was Re: OT: Sade)
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
> wrote:
>>
>> --- Saul Symonds wrote:
>>
>>
>>> David, is your exceedingly rare 'Salo' DVD the
>>> Criterion release?
>>>
>>
>> Yep!
>
> Lucky you...If the strain of owning such a rare dvd becomes too much
> to handle, I'll help out and take it off your hands! :)
Ah, but do note David and Peter, that this rare DVD, like a few of the
once-rare Criterions, is going to be reissued in the near future. I
understand Criterion have (still have? have reacquired?) the rights,
and furthermore, that there was a scene missing in their prior now-rare
release, which will be added to the upcoming release, to make it all
the more definitive, along with a brand new transfer.
The next on the now-in-print but soon-to-be-out-of-print-Criterions
list is 'Seven Samurai,' which will be reissued in a new edition with a
new transfer, similar to what they've done with 'La Belle et la Bête'
and 'M.' Hopefully (and probably?) still containing the Ehrenstein
essay.
BTW, 'Kagemusha' has been pushed back to March.
craig.
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