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This group is dedicated to discussing film as art
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20701
From:
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 0:30am
Subject: Ford's last works (Was: Re: Their Last Film)
Richard Modiano wrote:
>A lot of last films weren't intentional: Ford's next MGM picture was
>cancelled because 7 WOMEN flopped, and he had three or four other
>projects he wanted to do
Don't forget that "7 Women" isn't Ford's last film, only his last narrative
feature. After it, there's "Vietnam, Vietnam" (which I've not seen) and
"Chesty: Tribute to a Legend" (which I have). The latter is a great film in many
ways; mostly when the footage Ford shot is on screen (as opposed to stock
footage). When Chesty Puller (the Marine general the film is paying homage to)
visits the tomb of Robert E. Lee, you know you're witnessing a great Ford moment.
Also, Joseph McBride has compared the ending to the amazing conclusion of
"The Long Gray Line" (and with great justification, too).
Peter
20702
From:
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 0:33am
Subject: Gerd Oswald's Twilight Zones (Was: Their Last Film)
Bill Krohn wrote:
>And if there's another TZ, which I haven't seen, I'm
>fully prepared for it to be even better than The Star! I hope it is -
>I love his work.
You mean you haven't seen Oswald's "The Beacon," Bill? It's absolutely
superb! In cinematic terms (if not personal ones), I was more impressed by it than
"The Star." The first season of the '80s "Twilight Zone" is now available on
DVD (which is how I saw the two Oswalds being discussed), so you might want
to look into getting a copy.
Peter
20703
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 5:39am
Subject: Re: Their Last Film
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, ptonguette@a... wrote:
.
>
I was really,
> really high on "Rio Lobo" in those days.
I wasn't just high ON it - I was high IN it. Those guitar strings...
You should track down Shootout at Rio Lobo, George Plimpton's
delightful tv doc about being an extra in that film. And read, if you
haven't, "Mostly About Rio Lobo," Greg Ford's article on the "Rio
Trio," in Focus on Hawks.
Frenzy is a superb film, but it was much less than Kaleidoscope
would've been, and Mary Rose, of course. It is above all a remarkably
INFLUENTIAL film - it really opened the floodgates for films like
Chainsaw Massacre, and even for the LOOK of those films, which all
came about in the 70s. There were Psycho ripoffs in the 60s, but
nothing like what came after Frenzy, which coincided with the lifting
of the Motion Picture Code restrictions. By all indications, Short
Night would have kept pushing that envelope.
20704
From: Aaron Graham
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 5:40am
Subject: Re: Gerd Oswald's Twilight Zones (Was: Their Last Film)
> The first season of the '80s "Twilight Zone" is now available on
> DVD (which is how I saw the two Oswalds being discussed), so you
might want
> to look into getting a copy.
>
> Peter
Thanks for reminding me that this is out, Peter! I've just ordered it
for myself. The only episode I've seen from the set is
Dante's "Shadow Man" (superb, of course), but the amount of auteurs
that worked on that series is quite amazing.
-Aaron
20705
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 5:40am
Subject: Re: Gerd Oswald's Twilight Zones (Was: Their Last Film)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, ptonguette@a... wrote:
The first season of the '80s "Twilight Zone" is now available on
> DVD (which is how I saw the two Oswalds being discussed), so you
might want
> to look into getting a copy.
>
> Peter
Watch my dust.
20706
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 5:40am
Subject: Re: Gerd Oswald's Twilight Zones (Was: Their Last Film)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, ptonguette@a... wrote:
The first season of the '80s "Twilight Zone" is now available on
> DVD (which is how I saw the two Oswalds being discussed), so you
might want
> to look into getting a copy.
>
> Peter
Watch my dust.
20707
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 6:19am
Subject: Re: Re: Their last film
> The other thing you may have been
> reacting to, as I was, is the fact that in the late 50s7 (The Cavern,
> Rio Bravo were made that year, as I recall)
Is THE CAVERN as early as that? The IMDb has it as a 1964 film. - Dan
20708
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 6:36am
Subject: Re: Their last film
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > The other thing you may have been
> > reacting to, as I was, is the fact that in the late 50s7 (The
Cavern,
> > Rio Bravo were made that year, as I recall)
>
> Is THE CAVERN as early as that? The IMDb has it as a 1964 film. -
Dan
Or later - right again Dan. I was thinking of when the project
started, 1957. It took him a long time to get it made.
20709
From: Damien Bona
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 7:58am
Subject: Re: Their Last Film
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> Other "Last" films of note:
>
> "The Saga of Anatahan"
>
> "The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse"
>
> "A Countess From Hong Kong" (a classic "film maudit")
>
> "L'Argent" (with its great 3-D finale)
>
> "Romance of a Horse Thief"
>
> "Un Flic"
>
> "Eyes Wide Shut"
>
> "Parade"
>
> "The Boy Who Turned Yellow" (1972 TV film by Michael
> Powell and Emeric Pressburger)
>
> "The Honey Pot" (more than "Sleuth")
>
> "The Voice of the Moon"
>
> "Trois places pour le 26th"
>
> "Blue" (The film Derek Jarman made after he went
> blind)
No one has mentioned Minnelli's "A Matter Of Time" (1976). Even
though it was butchered by AIP, it's nonetheless a beautiful film and
very Minnellian both in its style, mise-en-scene and its focus on the
vulnerable dreams of the artistict temperament. A wonderful sidenote
is that Minnelli's last film played at Radio City Music Hall, where
he holds the record for most films shown.
20710
From: Damien Bona
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 8:07am
Subject: Re: Their Last Film
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
>
> There was always going to be another picture, but no one on the set
> of Family Plot was under any illusions: The writer who was there
> described the crane shot to the diamond, ending on Blanche, as the
> last shot of the oeuvre. Hitchcock called a break for lunch, and
when
> the writer was gone, he called everyone back and filmed the wink!
So
> it's we - and death - who write The End. No artist ever felt he or
> she had said the last word when saying it. Hitchcock loved making
> films - he didn't WANT that to be his last shot, so he came up with
a
> better one. But the one he came up with was also a farewell to his
> audience.
In "Family Plot," Hitchcock's "appearance" was as a silhouette seen
through the frosted glass of a door. When I saw the film the night
it opened, the friend I was with -- who was not a cinephile (although
he is Dustin Hoffman's nephew)-- commented, "Hitchcock's only letting
us see his shadow, It's as if he feels this is his last film and
he's already nmoved on, leaving only his spectre behind."
20711
From: Damien Bona
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 8:24am
Subject: Re: Their Last Film
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Adrian Martin wrote:
> Another special passion born in that period - which i still
cultivate -
> is Blake Edwards. Again, RETURN OF THE PINK PANTHER on the big,
wide,
> loud screen in 1975 was a 'plastic' revelation in terms of the mise
en
> scene/gag nexus (which cinephiles discover also , variously,
through
> Keaton and J. Lewis ... or today, Stephen Chiau). It's salutary to
> remember in those days how little critical attention Edwards got;
he
> really was 'maudit'. SIGHT AND SOUND or FILM COMMENT published
> virtually nothing on the guy in that period; neither did CAHIERS,
if I
> am not mistaken.
My passion for Edwards also first came about with "Return of the Pink
Panther." (I was 20.) Bill Paul wrote a rave in the Village Voice,
where Sarris was still a major supporter of Edwards ("The Carey
Treatment" was on his 1972 Ten Best list). As was Stuart Byron,
although I'm don't quite remember if he was still at the Boston
Phoenix in the mid-70s, or was at the Voice. Janet Maslin, of all
people, wrote a rave review of "The Tamarind Seed," for the Phoenix
(or was it the other Beantown alternative weekly, the name of which
escapes me?). Myron Meisel and Dave Kehr was both major, and
elooquent, advocates for Edwards, although I'm not sure what their
venues were during the time of "Carey," "Tamarind," and the re-
established Pink Panther series.
-- Damien
20712
From: Adrian Martin
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 10:12am
Subject: re: Their last film
re Edwards and his critical reception, as per Bill and Damien's
listings: it was really only through this group that I have learnt of
the more cinephilic-cultish appreciations of Edwards (and Minnelli)
among critics in the American press during the '70s. What I was saying
that, as a kid sitting in a public library in Melbourne in 1975, I had
no access to stuff like VILLAGE VOICE - but I did have access to SIGHT
AND SOUND and FILM COMMENT, and a while later I could find CAHIERS in a
University library. And it did seem to me reading that sort of stuff
that Edwards was a kind of invisible, maudit figure - and many
mainstream critics (I imagine in many countries, certainly Australia)
really did deride him, regarding him as the guy who once made maybe one
good film, THE PARTY, and had since declined to the deepest trash.
Remember, '10' received an awful amount of mainstream abuse in its day.
Later, of course. I did read Bill on SKIN DEEP, Gilbert Adair on MAN
WHO LOVED WOMEN, the Luhr-Lehman books, and various other positive
takes on Edwards. And he did eventually get that honourary Oscar or
whatever the heck it was! But I still think there is a slightly maudit
aura around Edwards among a certain sector of middlebrow moviegoers and
commentators - all that low comedy, plus Julie Andrews too! Proclaiming
that something like TAMARIND SEED is a masterpiece can still draw
snorts of cultured derision, let me assure you!!
Adrian
20713
From: Tom Sutpen
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 11:52am
Subject: Access and Standing (was Re: Their last film)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Adrian Martin wrote:
> re Edwards and his critical reception, as per Bill and Damien's
> listings: it was really only through this group that I have learnt of
> the more cinephilic-cultish appreciations of Edwards (and Minnelli)
> among critics in the American press during the '70s. What I was saying
> that, as a kid sitting in a public library in Melbourne in 1975, I had
> no access to stuff like VILLAGE VOICE - but I did have access to SIGHT
> AND SOUND and FILM COMMENT, and a while later I could find CAHIERS in a
> University library.
*****
That's amazing to me. No joke; no irony intended. To this day I have
absolutely no access to back issues of "Sight and Sound", "Cahiers",
"Film Comment" or . . . anything (which makes for yet another reason
why I'm truly a non-person here . . . a 'maudit' member, if you will .
. . and probably always will be). Whenever anyone in this group
references an article or an interview from one of these sources with
an assured, "surely, everyone has read this" inference, I feel as
though I'm living on another planet. I'd try to relate just how
impossible it is under these circumstances to research *any* piece of
writing onto solid ground, but I don't think anyone in this group
could imagine *not* having these materials right at their fingertips.
I'd just be speaking in tounges.
And it did seem to me reading that sort of stuff
> that Edwards was a kind of invisible, maudit figure - and many
> mainstream critics (I imagine in many countries, certainly Australia)
> really did deride him, regarding him as the guy who once made maybe one
> good film, THE PARTY, and had since declined to the deepest trash.
> Remember, '10' received an awful amount of mainstream abuse in its day.
> Later, of course. I did read Bill on SKIN DEEP, Gilbert Adair on MAN
> WHO LOVED WOMEN, the Luhr-Lehman books, and various other positive
> takes on Edwards. And he did eventually get that honourary Oscar or
> whatever the heck it was! But I still think there is a slightly maudit
> aura around Edwards among a certain sector of middlebrow moviegoers and
> commentators - all that low comedy, plus Julie Andrews too! Proclaiming
> that something like TAMARIND SEED is a masterpiece can still draw
> snorts of cultured derision, let me assure you!!
*****
I've heard such snorts, so I know whereof you speak. This raises a few
questions though: Why is cultural derision from middlebrows of such
weight to us that we take it into consideration at all? Why is the
invisible, as you put it, 'maudit' status of Blake Edwards . . . or
anyone else . . . something worthy of even passing mention?
It reminds me of Truffaut's admission that the "Cahiers" critics made
a conscious decision at one point to stand in defense of arbitraily
selected American auteurs over establishment figures in French Cinema.
Were it not for a widely-held belief among many in France that
American Cinema was nothing more than a machine for turning out
'maudit' figures, would they have taken this position at all?
What I'm asking (and this is not a rhetorical question, by any means)
is, if the practice of 'auteurism' is not informed by extra-cinematic
matters such as a given artists status in the cultural pecking order
(a pecking order, mind you, determined by a mere half-a-hundred
critics, scholars and historians, then treated as the Revealed Word by
status-conscious nobodies like me); if it's not about keeping track of
these things the way one would the standings of Major League Baseball
players; then why *do* we keep track of it as either a positive or
negative influence on who we each choose to elevate?
Tom Sutpen
20714
From: Adrian Martin
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 2:40pm
Subject: re: access and standing
Tom, your subject-heading 'access and standing' sounds a little ominous
!!!!
Let me make this perfectly clear: when I talk about having access to
SIGHT AND SOUND and FILM COMMENT, I'm just talking about free,
open-to-the-public, rather humble libraries in the inner andouter
suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. And when I talk about going to a
University library to check back issues of CAHIERS, I mean just taking
a bus to some place a number of miles away and walking in like any joe
schmoe off the street (not as a teacher or student of that institution)
- as indeed, I still do today, 30 years later. I don't know exactly
where you live, Tom, but are you anywhere near any such libraries or
newsagents (S&S and FILM COMMENT are sold in many completely ordinary
newsagents here in Australia)? And haven't you collected a few
reference books of your choosing down the years, as most film fans of
any stripe do? You make it sound like some Masonic conspiracy to have
read Bazin, or an old issue of FILM COMMENT!!!
Your other comment about the problem of being, in a sense, TOO aware of
the 'cultural standing' of auteurs is a good one. But I don't agree
with your implication (if I read it right) that sometimes cinephilia or
auteurism is ONLY a matter of saying something like 'Blake Edwards is
considered by the highbrows to be a nobody, hence I will outrageously
elevate him to the status of a sombeody'. No: I think most of our
cinephilic loves are indeed spontaneous and genuine - the films do
indeed reach out and GRAB us, for whatever reason - but then what
happens (at least in my experience, as a public writer, but it can also
happen in daily conversation) is that we have to deal with social
RESISTANCES to the things we love. Hence the tendency to monitor and
'agonise' over this state of things as a social/cultural problem. But,
I take your point: it is possible to concentrate too much on this
'resistance', rather than simply making our case and expressing
ourselves. This is a 'tension' inherent in a lot of writing about film,
I believe.
Please lighten up on the 'I am not worthy and no one on this list is
the slightest bit interested in me' stuff, Tom! You're here, we're all
here, and we're all here to talk!
Adrian
20715
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 3:15pm
Subject: Re: Sallitt on not showing (Was: OT: Sade)
>> I wish I could think of some particular good example
>> of foregrounding
>> something (sexual or otherwise) but deciding not to
>> show it.
David said:
> In "The Big Combo" one of the victims wears a hearing
> aide. it's taken off before the killers gun him down
> -- a shot of guns firing in complete silence.
Bill said:
> M.
Obviously I need to rethink and rephrase what I'm trying to say. Neither
of these examples bothers me. In the case of THE BIG COMBO, you could
almost say that something is added instead of subtracted: an unusual
subjective experiential factor. The M example is not only akin to the
Fuller example discussed early, but also a reminder that Lubitsch created
a whole style out of conveying things indirectly.
The subject that inspired my comment was pornography and the possible
techniques for avoiding it. I wasn't really thinking of cases in which
directors try for eroticism, perhaps in spite of censorship, by using
suggestion (which would be the rough equivalent of most of the examples
above). I was thinking more of cases where sex or violence is part of the
subject and yet is somehow uncomfortable from a political or personal
point of view. To show it is to expose the attraction as well as the
repulsion.
The only example I've used is the Hollywood "Muzak sex" scene. Sex must
be implied for plot purposes, but it must also be de-sexed; any hint of
real bodily fluids being exchanged would take the filmmakers someplace
uncomfortable.
On the more political side, there's the problem of rape. Filmmakers often
feel that it's important to exaggerate the typography of evil, to prevent
the act itself from taking on appeal.
You could say the same about the portrayal of Nazism in cinema. I guess
I'm getting a little far afield from the idea of showing/not-showing, but
certainly the conventional depiction of hot-button topics like these feels
like a kind of concealment, hiding real-life detail behind hardened layers
of inexpressive but obligatory convention.
I need to think more about the showing/not-showing idea before I deploy it
again. - Dan
20716
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 3:28pm
Subject: Re: Re: Sarris's 10 Best(s) - sigh
> After his extended bout with a debilitating illness some years ago
> (harrowingly described by Molly Haskell in her book on the subject) it
> may be a miracle that he can count to ten! (In fairness, the basic
> change you describe probably preceded his illness.)
I always felt that a change in Sarris took place sometime between, say,
1976 and 1981. Here's Sarris's ten-best in 1976:
A Woman of Paris
La Chienne
Une partie de plaisir
The Marquise of O....
All the President's Men
The Last Woman
Beware of a Holy Whore
Robin and Marian
Family Plot
Face to Face
By 1981, Sarris was doing separate American and foreign lists.
American (alphabetical):
Atlantic City
Body Heat
Eye of the Needle
Modern Romance
Pennies from Heaven
Prince of the City
Reds
Scanners
S.O.B.
Stevie
They All Laughed
True Confessions
Foreign (alphabetical)
The Aviator's Wife
Beau Pere
Contract
Camouflage
City of Women
La signora senza camilie
Lili Marleen
Man of Iron
Montenegro
The Woman Next Door
-----------
Obviously tastes will vary, and I certainly like some of the films on the
1981 lists. But I sense a move toward the mainstream of American
criticism. - Dan
20717
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 3:30pm
Subject: Re: Re: Their Last Film
--- Damien Bona wrote:
>
> No one has mentioned Minnelli's "A Matter Of Time"
> (1976). Even
> though it was butchered by AIP, it's nonetheless a
> beautiful film and
> very Minnellian both in its style, mise-en-scene and
> its focus on the
> vulnerable dreams of the artistict temperament. A
> wonderful sidenote
> is that Minnelli's last film played at Radio City
> Music Hall, where
> he holds the record for most films shown.
>
>
The Best, and most Minnelian thing in it si the scene
where Liza sings "Do It Again." Bergman and Boyer are
quite good in it as is maria Montez's daughter, Tina
Aumont.
A trio of shot last films that no one has mentioned
yet: Sirk's "Talk to Me Like the Rain," "New Year's
Eve" and "Bourbon Street Blues."
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20718
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 3:39pm
Subject: Re: Re: Their Last Film
>> I even missed "The Searchers" when it came out (wasn't it panned by
>> Truffaut in Cahiers?)
>
> It was panned by the CdC critics cited in the Conseil des dix - I
> wouldn't be surprised if Trufaut panned it.
You can find his pan (in Arts, not Cahiers) in Wheeler Winston Dixon's THE
EARLY FILM CRITICISM OF FRANCOIS TRUFFAUT. Godard, on the other hand,
listed THE SEARCHERS as one of the ten best American sound films in a
Cahiers list made in 1963-64. - Dan
20719
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 3:51pm
Subject: Boston and Chicago papers and critics (Was: Their Last Film)
> Janet Maslin, of all
> people, wrote a rave review of "The Tamarind Seed," for the Phoenix
> (or was it the other Beantown alternative weekly, the name of which
> escapes me?).
Can't remember the timing: first it was the Phoenix and Boston After Dark
(B.A.D.). Then, after a merger (under the Phoenix name), dissatisfied
staff broke away and formed the Real Paper. I think Maslin wrote only for
the Phoenix.
> Myron Meisel and Dave Kehr was both major, and
> elooquent, advocates for Edwards, although I'm not sure what their
> venues were during the time of "Carey," "Tamarind," and the re-
> established Pink Panther series.
Myron left the Chicago Reader sometime in the early 70s: my guess is that
he was there for CAREY but not TAMARIND. He did some writing for Boston
papers after that, and reappeared at the L.A. Reader in 1978. Dave can
correct me, but I think he started writing for the Chicago reader sometime
around the middle of the 70s - 1975 or 1976, maybe. - Dan
20720
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 3:58pm
Subject: Edwards maudit (Was: Their last film)
> And it did seem to me reading that sort of stuff
> that Edwards was a kind of invisible, maudit figure - and many
> mainstream critics (I imagine in many countries, certainly Australia)
> really did deride him, regarding him as the guy who once made maybe one
> good film, THE PARTY, and had since declined to the deepest trash.
> Remember, '10' received an awful amount of mainstream abuse in its day.
> But I still think there is a slightly maudit
> aura around Edwards among a certain sector of middlebrow moviegoers and
> commentators - all that low comedy, plus Julie Andrews too!
My sense is that "10" totally trashed Edwards' reputation among
non-auteursts: he was forever marked after that as a crass exploiter.
Whereas auteurists were general enraptured by "10." People from different
camps simply couldn't communicate on the subject of Edwards.
My minority opinion (a minority among auteurists, anyway) is that the
success of "10" did bad things to Edwards' artistic personality. I love
THE TAMARIND SEED and think "10" is quite good, but the only Edwards I
like after that is the first half-hour of S.O.B. - Dan
20721
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 4:14pm
Subject: Re: Edwards maudit (Was: Their last film)
--- Dan Sallitt wrote:
>
> My minority opinion (a minority among auteurists,
> anyway) is that the
> success of "10" did bad things to Edwards' artistic
> personality. I love
> THE TAMARIND SEED and think "10" is quite good, but
> the only Edwards I
> like after that is the first half-hour of S.O.B. -
> Dan
>
I'm surprised that no Edwardians have spoken up for
"That's Life." Talk about your late films! it was even
shot, Cassavetes-style, in Edwards house.
I LOVE "S.O.B." - a truly great, neglected satire of
Hollywood. I remembe being at the all-media of it with
the late (and fondly recalled ) Rafe Blasi -- who
practically collapsed from laughter as he knew more of
the objective correlatives than anyone in the house.
As he staggered out of the screening, joyous tears
streaming down his face, Rafe declared "It's a documentary!"
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20722
From: Maxime Renaudin
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 4:38pm
Subject: Re: Sallitt on not showing
This is matter of choice. I don't think that the issue should be
showing vs. not showing, but rather: "Where does the film-maker
stands between what he films and the viewer?". The distances set
between the subject filmed, the subject filming and the subject
spectator, as pointed out by Daney his re: Kapo piece. We'll always
come back here, to the "moral" issue of any shot. Each cineaste
performs a cutting through the real, which requires the
understanding of the necessity of each selection. Rivette
wrote: "There are things that must be approached with fear and
trembling. Death is such a thing and how could someone film such a
mysterious thing without the feeling of being an impostor?". He
later expressed his own uneasiness about the sexual act as a film
subject. Pornography shows its ugly face when this thought ("Why do
I show that?") is not restored in the film, when the gratuitous
gesture denies the necessity, when there is no fear nor trembling.
As I already pointed out in an earlier related thread, there is a
filthy shot in Reservoir's Dog, which precisely stands as a perfect
counter-example of such moral position: when Tarantino pans from the
torture ear scene to show the ceiling/wall (I can't remember) when
the guy he still yelling, as if T. was saying: "Hey folks, I can't
show that! That's disgusting, that's immoral!". This precaution is
an odious fake, since T. had obviously a great time showing the
blood. You can either choose to show it or not to show it, but be
straight with it.
As for Fuller, it seems to me that he exemplary deals head-on with
that scene. The issue here relies precisely in the gaze on horror,
and not in the horror itself. Bronson looking at Steiger looking at
Meeker. And I think that the close-up of Meeker's head, smeared with
blood, swear, dust and fear is an unequaled representation of
horror. There was nothing more to show. The indirect gaze is not a
lesser evil; it's the very subject of the scene.
20723
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 4:59pm
Subject: Re: Their Last Film
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
Frenzy is a superb film, but it was much less than Kaleidoscope
> would've been, and Mary Rose, of course. It is above all a
remarkably
> INFLUENTIAL film - it really opened the floodgates for films like
> Chainsaw Massacre, and even for the LOOK of those films, which all
> came about in the 70s. There were Psycho ripoffs in the 60s, but
> nothing like what came after Frenzy, which coincided with the
lifting
> of the Motion Picture Code restrictions.
Which is precisely what I deplore about it.
By all indications, Short
> Night would have kept pushing that envelope.
Alas!
20724
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 5:25pm
Subject: Re: Edwards maudit (Was: Their last film)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
>
> >
>
> I'm surprised that no Edwardians have spoken up for
> "That's Life." Talk about your late films! it was even
> shot, Cassavetes-style, in Edwards house.
"That's Life!" (actually titled "Blake Edwards' That's Life!"!)is
one of the most successful autobiographical comedy-dramas ever made.
A very funny AND very pessimistic world view.
>
> I LOVE "S.O.B." - a truly great, neglected satire of
> Hollywood. I remembe being at the all-media of it with
> the late (and fondly recalled ) Rafe Blasi -- who
> practically collapsed from laughter as he knew more of
> the objective correlatives than anyone in the house.
> As he staggered out of the screening, joyous tears
> streaming down his face, Rafe declared "It's a documentary!"
>
And possibly Edwards'masterpiece, IMO.
> Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
20725
From:
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 0:42pm
Subject: Re: Sallitt on not showing
Filmmakers have a similar choice to glamorize/ not glamorize.
In "X2: X-Men United" there are nasty government guards who imprison and
mis-treat gallant Sir Ian McKellen. Bryan Singer made them look big and tough, but
otherwise, not very good. He cast an ugly looking actor with a big belly as
the lead guard, and the guard's uniforms are some of the least spiffy in
Hollywood history. Singer clearly wanted to do de-sexualize these scenes.
By contrast, in many Hollywood films, any policemen or guards are slicked up
to the max, as long as they are good guys. For example, at the start of "Quiz
Show" (Robert Redford), the security men guarding the quiz show answers are in
spit and polish uniforms. They are clearly there to add some glamour to the
film.
Mike Grost
20726
From: samfilms2003
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 5:53pm
Subject: Moon In The Gutter (Re: Their Last Film)
> At the time I thought Fellini had beat Beniex at his
> own game vis-a-vis "The Moon in the Gutter"
Now I gotta see this, "The Moon in the Gutter" might top
something like a "Guilty Pleasues" list, if I had one.
-Sam
20727
From:
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 0:54pm
Subject: Re: Their Last Film
Hitchcock's last three films, Topaz, Frenzy and Family Plot, were the only
three I saw in theaters when they first came out. Still remember how much I
enjoyed seeing Topaz.
I am a big fan of all of late Hitchcock, Marnie & Torn Curtain, too - except
Frenzy. Have never been able to like this film at all. Its story telling seems
flat, the characters are uninteresting, and the subject matter certainly is
hard to take.
Am interested to see that it is the least favorite late Hitchcock of many
a_film_byers, too.
My father and I saw "Rio Lobo" (Hawks) at a little bargain theater circa 1973
- it was being revived. Just as the credits ended, an usher came down (yes,
they still had theater ushers in those days!) and pulled my father out of the
theater. Seems the alarm had gone off at the credit union where my father
worked, and the alarm company had to notify him. It turned out to be a false alarm.
But by the time my father got back to his seat, the big train robbery in the
film was all over.
For years afterwards, my father said things like "Why did I have to miss the
train robbery in Rio Lobo? It is supposed to be the best part of the picture!"
Of course, there was no DVD or video to rent in those days...
I liked "Rio Lobo" very much - but have not seen it since. Should definitely
see it again.
Mike Grost
20728
From: samfilms2003
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 5:58pm
Subject: Re: Their Last Film
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Adrian Martin wrote:
> Bill mentioned late Wilder, It is amazing for me to remember this now -
> as Wilder doesn't occupy my mind much these days - but in 1975, at the
> age of 15, my first powerful shot of understanding of what mise en
> scene was (ie, bodies in space, framing, camera movement, etc) came
> from seeing in 35mm at the biggest popular cinema ... Wilder's THE
> FRONT PAGE.
I had a similar experience with the 35mm scope print of "The Apartment"
at the Orson Welles Cinema in Cambridge (anyone remember that place ?)
Still think it would make a great 'Architectual' double bill with
"Side/Walk/Shuttle" (Ernie Gehr).
-Sam W
20729
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 6:17pm
Subject: Re: Boston and Chicago papers and critics (Was: Their Last Film)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > Janet Maslin, of all
.
>
> Myron left the Chicago Reader sometime in the early 70s: my guess
is that
> he was there for CAREY but not TAMARIND. He did some writing for
Boston
> papers after that, and reappeared at the L.A. Reader in 1978.
Dave can
> correct me, but I think he started writing for the Chicago reader
sometime
> around the middle of the 70s - 1975 or 1976, maybe. - Dan
Myron wrote the (very long) Edwards entry for "American
Directors" (Vol. II) and listed "Tamarind" as one of his major
works. Strangely enough he said nothing of "Carey Treatment" except
that it was butchered by MGM and Edwards, knowing it would, lost
interest in it while shooting. JPC
20730
From:
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 1:34pm
Subject: Re: Moon In The Gutter (Re: Their Last Film)
In a message dated 01/09/2005 11:53:46 AM, samw@v... writes:
<< Now I gotta see this, "The Moon in the Gutter" might top
something like a "Guilty Pleasues" list, if I had one. >>
Me 2. Been dying to see this ever since John Waters called it his favorite
lunatic art film. Anyone have a copy?
Kevin John
20731
From:
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 7:11pm
Subject: Re: Sallitt on not showing (Was: OT: Sade)
Dan Sallitt wrote:
> >> I wish I could think of some particular good example
> >> of foregrounding
> >> something (sexual or otherwise) but deciding not to
> >> show it.
>
Hmm. Could it be that an uncontroversial example of what you're
talking about is to be found in a film like Gianni Amelio's THE WAY
WE LAUGHED, where the story, which is about the relationship between
two brothers over the years, is composed entirely of single days in
their lives, jumping ahead a few years every time? This isn't an
evasion, of course, but rather a narrative gimmick (which works
reasonably well imo), but you do get some protracted moments where
the viewer has to catch up with the story, and it's sometimes
awkward. I know this example doesn't quite work perfectly, but maybe
it begins to hint at what you're talking about?
-Bilge
20732
From:
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 2:19pm
Subject: Re: Sallitt on not showing (Was: OT: Sade)
Dan, the reason I asked is because I've been mulling over this issue since my
first year in film school when I first saw HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR. That's
certainly a film about the benefits of not showing (or rather, not telling). Soon
afterwards, I saw THE ACCUSED with Jodie Foster. And all throughout, I was
silently begging the director (screenwriter? DP?) to NOT show the rape. Of course,
he does show it and I was left with the impression that THE ACCUSED is a film
that counterintuitively caters to rape fantasies.
Soon after that, I attended a John Waters talk in which he claimed (I never
believe anything he says) that he showed some of his movies to prisoners and
said "Hey look - you don't have to act on these thoughts. You can make movies
like these instead."
So are films that show violent rapes, for example, a social good that siphon
off evil thoughts in a sort of catharsis or do they merely cater to those
thoughts, failing to examine why we have them in the first place perhaps in an
attempt to do way with them entirely? YOU decide, Dan!
Just kidding. I know I'm making some great leaps from HIROSHIMA to ACCUSED to
Waters here. And I know films that show violent rapes can take many different
forms. Just something to (probably eternally) mull over, especially in the
wake of colleagues recently trying to convince me that FUNNY GAMES has something
to say about MY viewing habits.
Kevin John
20733
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 7:21pm
Subject: Access and Standing (was Re: Their last film)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Sutpen" wrote:
>
if it's not about keeping track of
> these things the way one would the standings of Major League
Baseball
> players;
Check out the Manny Farber painting My Budd posted at senses of
cinema with my article - he makes a neat visual joke about this.
20734
From: Maxime Renaudin
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 7:23pm
Subject: Re: Edwards maudit (Was: Their last film)
I desperately waited for a last one in the 90's… Son of the Pink
Panther, discovered lately, is rather funny, but… after Blind date,
Switch, that's little… Did he have any project then? What about the
TV Victor/Victoria?
20735
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 7:26pm
Subject: Re: Sallitt on not showing (Was: OT: Sade)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
>
> On the more political side, there's the problem of rape.
Filmmakers often
> feel that it's important to exaggerate the typography of evil, to
prevent
> the act itself from taking on appeal.
But isn't that what you objected to about the rape scene in Frenzy,
the fact that it might turn people on?
20736
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 7:40pm
Subject: Re: Edwards maudit (Was: Their last film)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
>
> "That's Life!" (actually titled "Blake Edwards' That's Life!"!)is
> one of the most successful autobiographical comedy-dramas ever
made.
> A very funny AND very pessimistic world view.
>
[SOB is] possibly Edwards'masterpiece, IMO.
Since we have Dan's minority view on record, let me say that I hated
10 at the time and loved most of what followed.
I haven't reseen 10 -I should - but reseeing SOB and That's Life
recently to write something on BE, I find that they hold up superbly.
And Victor Victoria was better than ever. Also revisited, also
adored: Experiment in Terror, Days of Wine and Roses, Mr. Corey. And
discovering the very early work that he only wrote was also fun -
even Panhandle! Edwards the director is always at the service of
Edwards the writer, as with Mankiewicz - Jack Lemmon's self-absorbed
opening monologue in That's Life, for example. I don't worry with
Maknkiewicz or with Edwards about whether the mise-en-scene is merely
illustrative, as I often do with Wilder.
I wonder if what Dan has trouble with is the increasingly
foregrounded morality of Edwards in the later films, which he may
find esthetically counter-productive. I know it's what got my then-
hippy back up about 10.
20737
From: thebradstevens
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 7:53pm
Subject: Edwards (was Re: Their last film)
"but I did have access to SIGHT AND SOUND and FILM COMMENT, and a
while later I could find CAHIERS in a University library. And it did
seem to me reading that sort of stuff that Edwards was a kind of
invisible, maudit figure"
Richard Combs, who regulary reviewed Edwards' films for MONTHLY FILM
BULLETIN (and perhaps SIGHT AND SOUND as well), was one of this
director's most intelligent and passionate defenders. (See the Combs-
edited piece on the back page of MFB 606.) It was Combs who finally
convinced me of Edwards' genius.
One thing which must be said about Edwards is that he was a great
champion of the 2.35 format, refusing to keep his actors within the
TV safe area of the frame. I even suspect that Edwards' reputation
would be much higher if people hadn't become used to seeing his work
panned-and-scanned on television (there are gags in THE PINK PANTHER
which aren't even gags unless you see the entire 'Scope frame). Here
in the UK, the Paramount Comedy Channel have been running gorgeous
letterboxed transfers of the last three Pink Panther films (TRAIL,
CURSE and SON - I don't think the last two are even available on DVD
yet), and it's amazing how much better even these obviously
problematic late works seem when viewed in their correct ratio. So
much of what Edwards was doing in his comedies centered on performers
attempting to negotiate widescreen spaces.
Edwards' dramas are good too. DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES is one of the
greatest films about the impossible pressures of American life. WILD
ROVERS looks more and more like a masterpiece each time I see it
(though I'm not sure if the director's cut which has always been
available in the UK, was ever shown in America).
By the way, does anyone know what Edwards contributed to Dmytryk's
WALK ON THE WILD SIDE?
20738
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 7:54pm
Subject: Re: Re: Sallitt on not showing (Was: OT: Sade)
--- hotlove666 wrote:
>
> But isn't that what you objected to about the rape
> scene in Frenzy,
> the fact that it might turn people on?
>
>
>
>
Preminger's "Anatomy of a Murder" pivots on his
refusal to show either the rape OR the murder that
precipitated it. It's quite a provocative "structuring
absence" int hat I can't think of a single director
who wouldn't have made a stab at a flashback of some
sort.
By contrast "Shoah" showboats by refusing to show any
image of the Holocaust.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - 250MB free storage. Do more. Manage less.
http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250
20739
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 7:54pm
Subject: Re: Sallitt on not showing (Was: OT: Sade)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> >
> > On the more political side, there's the problem of rape.
> Filmmakers often
> > feel that it's important to exaggerate the typography of evil,
to
> prevent
> > the act itself from taking on appeal.
>
> But isn't that what you objected to about the rape scene in
Frenzy,
> the fact that it might turn people on?
There is no proper way of showing rape on screen. No matter how
you film it, there will be two opposed types of responses,
corresponding to two types of viewers: those who are upset (and
tuned off) by it, and those who are turned on (I suppose that would
include most rapists, of whom there are countless millions, and I
guess they too watch movies ).
I don't see how you can "exaggerate the typography of evil" when
representing rape on screen. Even the most sensationalistic director
tends to underplay it. JPC
20740
From: thebradstevens
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 7:56pm
Subject: Re: Edwards maudit (Was: Their last film)
>
> I wonder if what Dan has trouble with is the increasingly
> foregrounded morality of Edwards in the later films, which he may
> find esthetically counter-productive. I know it's what got my then-
> hippy back up about 10.
What is it about 10's morality that you objected to? I'm genuinely
puzzled, since I can't imagine what your objections might be.
20741
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 8:04pm
Subject: Re: Sallitt on not showing (Was: OT: Sade)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> --- hotlove666 wrote:
>
>
> >
> > But isn't that what you objected to about the rape
> > scene in Frenzy,
> > the fact that it might turn people on?
> >
> >
> >
> >
> Preminger's "Anatomy of a Murder" pivots on his
> refusal to show either the rape OR the murder that
> precipitated it. It's quite a provocative "structuring
> absence" int hat I can't think of a single director
> who wouldn't have made a stab at a flashback of some
> sort.
Well, if he had shown any part of the rape or murder, there was
no film. So OP didn't really have a choice.
>
> By contrast "Shoah" showboats by refusing to show any
> image of the Holocaust.
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Mail - 250MB free storage. Do more. Manage less.
> http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250
20742
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 8:19pm
Subject: Re: Re: Sallitt on not showing (Was: OT: Sade)
>>>> I wish I could think of some particular good example
>>>> of foregrounding
>>>> something (sexual or otherwise) but deciding not to
>>>> show it.
>
> Hmm. Could it be that an uncontroversial example of what you're
> talking about is to be found in a film like Gianni Amelio's THE WAY
> WE LAUGHED, where the story, which is about the relationship between
> two brothers over the years, is composed entirely of single days in
> their lives, jumping ahead a few years every time? This isn't an
> evasion, of course, but rather a narrative gimmick (which works
> reasonably well imo), but you do get some protracted moments where
> the viewer has to catch up with the story, and it's sometimes
> awkward. I know this example doesn't quite work perfectly, but maybe
> it begins to hint at what you're talking about?
This kind of narrative gimmick certainly doesn't bother me. I really need
to back away from the showing/not-showing thing and find some other way of
talking about whatever I'm trying to talk about. - Dan
20743
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 8:21pm
Subject: Re: Re: Sallitt on not showing (Was: OT: Sade)
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
> Well, if he had shown any part of the rape or
> murder, there was
> no film. So OP didn't really have a choice.
> >
Oh yes he did! You're forgetting the falshback that
lies in "Stage Fright."
An entirely different film could have been made out of
"Anatomy of a Murder" utilizing multiple flashbacks
from multiple points of view.
Preminger's emphasis on location verisimilitude, plus
Duke Elliington's amazing score, distracts the
audience from the "norm" of flashbacks.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today!
http://my.yahoo.com
20744
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 8:32pm
Subject: Re: Sallitt on not showing (Was: OT: Sade)
> So are films that show violent rapes, for example, a social good that
> siphon off evil thoughts in a sort of catharsis or do they merely cater
> to those thoughts, failing to examine why we have them in the first
> place perhaps in an attempt to do way with them entirely? YOU decide,
> Dan!
>
> Just kidding.
I dunno. Art tends to thrive on complexity, on expressing multiple
attitudes toward things. But this obviously collides with almost any
political agenda (I use "politics" in a broad sense), including both
alternatives that you suggest above.
I don't think showing rapes prevents people from raping, and I hope that
showing rapes doesn't whip rapists up to a frenzy that they would not have
otherwise attained. If the social effects were clear and demonstrable one
way or another, I guess one would have to sacrifice art, as a luxury
that one cannot afford.... - Dan
20745
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 9:10pm
Subject: Ford's last works (Was: Re: Their Last Film)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, ptonguette@a... wrote:
"Don't forget that '7 Women' isn't Ford's last film, only his last
narrative feature. After it, there's 'Vietnam, Vietnam' (which I've
not seen) and 'Chesty: Tribute to a Legend' (which I have).
As to VITNAM, VIETNAM Ford didn't shoot any footage for it and
apparently had nothing more to do with it than taking a producer's
credit in order to lend the picture some prestige. I saw it once at
the Ford retro 11 years ago and it seemed wholly undistinguished and
not much different from other DOD/Pentagon propaganda movies of the
era.
On the other hand, CHESTY is a labor of love. The shorter version is
Ford's prefered version.
Richard
20746
From:
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 4:19pm
Subject: Re: Ford's last works (Was: Re: Their Last Film)
Richard,
For more details on "Vietnam, Vietnam," see Tag Gallagher's post #941. There
are also comments on it by Fred in the same discussion. I'd like to see it
someday, but I certainly don't hold out much hope that it's worth much.
"Chesty" (which you've seen, I take it?) is a gem. The long version has some
slow spots, but I nevertheless prefer it because it has more Ford footage -
and the more Ford footage, the better.
Peter
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
20747
From: Adrian Martin
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 9:27pm
Subject: re: Edwards
What Brad says is absolutely true: Edwards' comedies make precious
little comedic sense without the wide screen. He really does great
things with spatial set-ups of gags. That's one of the things I learnt
about cinema and mise en scene in general watching his films as a young
cinephile.
THAT'S LIFE is among my favourite Edwards films - but also brought up,
in my experience, a clear case of middlebrow resistance to his work: it
bypassed commercial release here in Australia and was picked up for a
screening by the Melbourne Film Festival - and there were so many
gripes and groans from the Festival audience in public and private
about its unsuitability as a selection in an art-film-oriented event
!!!
When we talk about the first film of an auteur that we saw, and what
that does to our perceptions, a subset could be opened, for those of us
who write film criticism: 'the first film I wrote a lengthy/serious
piece on'. In my case, it was "10", so I looked at it over and over,
and really came to love it. It holds up pretty well today, I feel -
although one always has to deal with (or repress) the somewhat queasy
PLAYBOY/'critique of PLAYBOY' posturing that smears itself over the
superficial level of his films - maybe that's part of what Bill is
referring to as their 'morality'? (Also, in terms of the 'bad rap'
Edwards got and still can get, let us add that his films are often
pegged as revelling in 'racist stereotypes' - he is a hard auteur to
teach in a modern postcolonial classroom, let me tell you!) To grapple
with Edwards is to grapple with something that is necessarily confused
and compromised at some levels, but fascinatingly so - thus connecting
him to James L Brooks !
Adrian
20748
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 9:30pm
Subject: Re: Sallitt on not showing (Was: OT: Sade)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> --- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
> >
> > Well, if he had shown any part of the rape or
> > murder, there was
> > no film. So OP didn't really have a choice.
> > >
>
> Oh yes he did! You're forgetting the falshback that
> lies in "Stage Fright."
NO! That was not an option for this particular film. We must be
left in doubt to the end and beyond. A lying flashback would resolve
the doubt.
When I typed "there was no film" I almost added: "or it would
have been an entirely different film." My point: flashbacks would
destroy the principle of uncertainty upon which the entire film is
predicated.
> An entirely different film could have been made out of
> "Anatomy of a Murder" utilizing multiple flashbacks
> from multiple points of view.
>
Agreed. It would be totally different. But there was no point in
doing "Anatomy" except the way OP did it.
>
Preminger's emphasis on location verisimilitude, plus
> Duke Elliington's amazing score, distracts the
> audience from the "norm" of flashbacks.
>
The verisimilitude is somewhat damaged when Jimmy Stewart's piano
playing sounds exactly like Ellington's (which is at least as
distinctive as Thelonious Monk's).
Ellington's score doesn't distract from any "norm" of flashbacks.
The film's construction does.
>
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today!
> http://my.yahoo.com
20749
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 9:32pm
Subject: Re: Re: Sallitt on not showing (Was: OT: Sade)
>> On the more political side, there's the problem of rape.
> Filmmakers often
>> feel that it's important to exaggerate the typography of evil, to
> prevent
>> the act itself from taking on appeal.
>
> But isn't that what you objected to about the rape scene in Frenzy,
> the fact that it might turn people on?
I'm trying not to pile error upon error here, and get back to my
reactions.
In the FRENZY scene, I feel as if Hitch miscalculated, or something, and
wound up collapsing the scene into fairly straightforward sadistic porn,
with his usual techniques serving a simplifying instead of complicating
effect. I don't think I'm bothered by the effect this will have on
spectators - maybe my head is in the sand, but I hope it will have little
effect. I'm bothered by the effect it has on the film, though.
I resaw STRANGERS ON A TRAIN a few weeks ago, and I felt that the murder
in that film had some of the complication and discomfort that I wished on
the FRENZY murder. I know that most of the actual killing is elided in
STRANGERS by the glasses shot, but the lead-up has a fascinating
tone: Bruno is invested with a sexual charm and mystery that is elaborated
and then discarded at the sudden and violent onset of the killing.
In SALO, I have trouble, as always, figuring out what motivates Pasolini,
but I tend to feel that the film is very like sadistic pornography in its
effect. I'm open to the idea that there's some complication that I'm
missing, but I don't think that the oppressors being Fascists is a
complication.
In the controversial rape scene in IRREVERSIBLE, I think that turn-on is a
big part of what's going on, but I feel like cutting Noe some slack, for
some reason. Maybe because his big decision is not to elide (or to elide
much, anyway - he necessarily uses the frame to hide violence that he
would not have been able to fake), and one has to confront the politics of
ellipsis when one watches the scene. It's certainly true that porn can
be extracted from the scene very easily...but I don't think it forbids a
range of response. - Dan
20750
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 9:35pm
Subject: Re: Re: Sallitt on not showing (Was: OT: Sade)
> There is no proper way of showing rape on screen. No matter how
> you film it, there will be two opposed types of responses,
> corresponding to two types of viewers: those who are upset (and
> tuned off) by it, and those who are turned on (I suppose that would
> include most rapists, of whom there are countless millions, and I
> guess they too watch movies ).
And the much greater number of people with rape fantasies.
> I don't see how you can "exaggerate the typography of evil" when
> representing rape on screen. Even the most sensationalistic director
> tends to underplay it.
I don't agree with this position. A certain kind of typage does more to
obscure personality than reveal it. - Dan
20751
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 9:49pm
Subject: Ford's last works (Was: Re: Their Last Film)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, ptonguette@a... wrote:
"'Chesty' (which you've seen, I take it?) is a gem. The long version
has some slow spots, but I nevertheless prefer it because it has
more Ford footage - and the more Ford footage, the better."
I've seen both versions. The short at the Ford retro and the long
several years later on video tape. The long version seemed to be
padded by repeating some stock footage that I think Ford took
himself. I didn't realize that there was more Ford (aside from the
repeated stock footage that Ford may have shot) in the long version,
memory for details between the two viewings had failed by then. The
exteriors at West Point showed Ford at the top of his form and lead
me to concur with Bogdanovich and McBride that Ford was fit enough to
make pictures until at least 1970. Even so, I'm grateful for CHESTY.
Richard
20752
From: K. A. Westphal
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 11:03pm
Subject: Re: Sarris's 10 Best(s) - sigh
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> I always felt that a change in Sarris took place sometime between, say,
> 1976 and 1981. Here's Sarris's ten-best in 1976:
>
> A Woman of Paris
> La Chienne
> Une partie de plaisir
> The Marquise of O....
> All the President's Men
> The Last Woman
> Beware of a Holy Whore
> Robin and Marian
> Family Plot
> Face to Face
>
>
> Obviously tastes will vary, and I certainly like some of the films
on the
> 1981 lists. But I sense a move toward the mainstream of American
> criticism. - Dan
Dan:
I think ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN is a pretty mainstream, boring sort of
film.
As for the 2004 list that started this whole discussion:
It looked questionable to me, too. I've not seen FINDING NEVERLAND or
RAY or MOTORCYCLE DIARIES, but they seem like the sort of middlebrow
pictures Sarris would've described as "strained seriousness" back in
'68. (The pull-quotes for MOTORCYCLE DIARIES from Sarris said
something to the effect of "an inspiring film everyone should see."
Sigh.)
When I was touring Columbia University in early 2003, I walked in on
one of Sarris' classes: American Film, 1960-1990. It was very
depressing; he had just shown RAGING BULL on DVD and talked about how
"it's probably his best picture, maybe" and then talked about the
boxing matches he saw in the 1930s. He announced that next week the
class would watch TOOTSIE. (In a way, I should be glad Columbia
rejected my application; the faculty is great, but having Sarris show
TOOTSIE isn't the best use of resources).
But Sarris did cite BEFORE SUNSET as the year's best American film,
and I've little reason to disagree with that finding. Any auteurists
who want to argue over that one are welcome to do so. (And no, I don't
care about Delpy's accent.)
--Kyle Westphal
20753
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 11:13pm
Subject: Re: Sarris's 10 Best(s) - sigh
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> By 1981, Sarris was doing separate American and foreign lists.
>
> American (alphabetical):
>
> Atlantic City
> Body Heat
> Eye of the Needle
> Modern Romance
> Pennies from Heaven
> Prince of the City
> Reds
> Scanners
> S.O.B.
> Stevie
> They All Laughed
> True Confessions
Since I'm unsure of the US release dates of films like Pont du nord,
Francisca, La fille prodigue or Sauve Qui Peut, let me just list
noteworthy American releases of 1981 that didn't make the cut:
Incomprehensible omissions
Rich and Famous
Escape from New York
Ms. 45 (not an unknown film - it got a rave in Variety)
Polyester
Knightriders
Time Bandits
Blow Out
Death Hunt
Matters of taste, but if you put them up against Eye of the Needle....
Cutter's Way
Superman II
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Thief
Excalibur
Deadly Blessing
All The Marbles
Buddy, Buddy
(Actually, 1981 was not that good a year. I noticed that a lot of
directors didn't release a film in 1980, either because they had
tanked with a big film in 1980 or were preparing to tank with a big
one in 1982. The beginning of the 80s was the end of the auteurist
revolution in H'wd. No more Heaven's Gates, no more Cruisings etc.
But a list of what was made in 1980 is kind of stunning.)
(Where can I find a complete list of US releases year-by-year online?)
20754
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 11:14pm
Subject: Edwards (was Re: Their last film)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
wrote:
. WILD
> ROVERS looks more and more like a masterpiece each time I see it
> (though I'm not sure if the director's cut which has always been
> available in the UK, was ever shown in America).
This is big news to me and wd be big news to Edwards. What's the
running time? When was it released?
20755
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 11:22pm
Subject: Re: Edwards maudit (Was: Their last film)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
wrote:
>
> What is it about 10's morality that you objected to? I'm genuinely
> puzzled, since I can't imagine what your objections might be.
He was setting Bo Derek up as a symbol of the mindless hedonism of my
generation, much the way he used Holly Golightly in Breakfast at
Tiffany's - it was his idea, not Capote's or Axelrod's, for Peppard
to denounce her in the cab at the end. I don't know if you remember
the 60s or were even around then, but those were fighting words in
those days. I also loathed The Carey Treatment for the same reason.
I told him this when we interviewed him, and he wasn't bothered by
it - he does consider himself a moralist (and loved Sarris's line
about "walking on the slick surfaces of modernity with the squeaky
shoes of morality"). He says that moralism has caused him more
trouble in H'wd than anything else. This statement (a propos of Days
of Wine and roses, where he insisted on keeping the unhappy ending)
struck my French translator, Helene Frappat, as so nonsensical that
she turned it around: It must have been his AMORALITY that got him in
trouble... But that's not what he said.
20756
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 11:31pm
Subject: Re: Contracampo/Odeon (was: "Salo" On Tour)
not that expensive, really. we curate the cineclube together with a big
arthouse exhibitor/distributor, and they have a good number of copies. And
then we have Maison de France and the Goethe Institut, and they both lend
the films for free, because their interest is the transmission of their
country's culture. And then there are the cinematheques that charge cheap
and collectors who can charge cheap or expensive. The expensive ones (and
there are gems) we can't show, unfortunately.
----- Original Message -----
From:
To:
Sent: Thursday, January 06, 2005 3:20 AM
Subject: [a_film_by] Contracampo/Odeon (was: "Salo" On Tour)
<
theater (huge magnificent screen, 600 seats) called "Sessão Cineclube"
(shown today: Renoir's "La Grande Illusion").>>
Goddamn! Where do u get the money for the prints, Ruy?
Kevin John
20757
From: peckinpah20012000
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 11:46pm
Subject: Re: Their Last Film
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, ptonguette@a... wrote:
> .
> >
> I was really,
> > really high on "Rio Lobo" in those days.
>
> I wasn't just high ON it - I was high IN it. Those guitar
strings...
> You should track down Shootout at Rio Lobo, George Plimpton's
> delightful tv doc about being an extra in that film. And read, if
you
> haven't, "Mostly About Rio Lobo," Greg Ford's article on the "Rio
> Trio," in Focus on Hawks.
>
> A personal reminiscence on RIO LOBO. I did not see it on
theatrical release but on its first television screening in the 80s.
The film began, then 15 mins, it was interrupted by a live broadcast
of the Iranian Embassy Siege in London. Then the film resumed. We
later learned that the SAS had executed the hostage takers after
they had surrendured.
Just so you know that the U.S. does not have the sole record in
brutality.
Tony Williams
20758
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 11:51pm
Subject: Re: Sallitt on not showing (Was: OT: Sade)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
>
> In the FRENZY scene, I feel as if Hitch miscalculated, or
something, and
> wound up collapsing the scene into fairly straightforward sadistic
porn,
> with his usual techniques serving a simplifying instead of
complicating
> effect. > I resaw STRANGERS ON A TRAIN a few weeks ago, and I felt
that the murder
> in that film had some of the complication and discomfort that I
wished on
> the FRENZY murder. The lead-up has a fascinating
> tone: Bruno is invested with a sexual charm and mystery that is
elaborated
> and then discarded at the sudden and violent onset of the killing.
One thing that complicates the Torn Curtain murder is that it is
sexualized, not just metaphorically, but by having Newman partnered
with a beautiful woman. It's a more sexual scene than the rape in
Frenzy, which is about power in a fairly straightforward, hence
frightening, way. The leadup to the rape is not sexual - it's just
SPOILER
Barry McKenzie's monologue, which Barbara Leigh-Hunt's character is
obliged to listen to helplessly because they're alone and he's
stronger. It may be turning HIM on to play cat-and-mouse, but it's
really creepy and scary to the spectator.
20759
From: peckinpah20012000
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 0:02am
Subject: Re: Sallitt on not showing (Was: OT: Sade)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
>
> Barry McKenzie's monologue,
You, of course, mean Barry Foster - unless Hitch thought of going
to Australia like Michael Powell in THEY'RE A WEID MOB?
Tony Williams.
20760
From: Tom Sutpen
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 0:19am
Subject: Re: access and standing
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Adrian Martin wrote:
> Your other comment about the problem of being, in a sense, TOO aware of
> the 'cultural standing' of auteurs is a good one. But I don't agree
> with your implication (if I read it right) that sometimes cinephilia or
> auteurism is ONLY a matter of saying something like 'Blake Edwards is
> considered by the highbrows to be a nobody, hence I will outrageously
> elevate him to the status of a sombeody'.
*****
I know its fashionable here to read the very worst into anything I
write, but that's not what I meant at all. As far as I'm concerned, I
see two great wide cavernous pitfalls in the practice of auteurism
(which I've noticed in play within this group): One is the above
stated; the tendency to become preoccupied with a director's status.
The other is to have a sensibility so open that you can't tell a good
film from a bad one. As I say, I've seen it at work here. There are
members who seem to like everything. An open sensibility is, of
course, one of the component parts to being an auteurist. You really
have to stretch yourself in order to embrace the medium in its
fulness. But to announce one's predeliction for more or less atrophied
'last works' and then defend that position entirely in the language of
CriticSpeak (a vocabulary one absorbs solely by immersing themselves
in critical writings half as old as time), seems awfully reflexive to
me. As I say, these are common pitfalls which need to be watched out
for and avoided at all costs.
> No: I think most of our
> cinephilic loves are indeed spontaneous and genuine - the films do
> indeed reach out and GRAB us, for whatever reason
*****
That's absolutely true. Again, you're reading something sinister into
my position. I don't doubt the authenticity of anyone's taste. Why do
you people always assume I have the worst motives in mind when I sit
myself down at the keyboard, would you tell me that please?
> - but then what
> happens (at least in my experience, as a public writer, but it can also
> happen in daily conversation) is that we have to deal with social
> RESISTANCES to the things we love. Hence the tendency to monitor and
> 'agonise' over this state of things as a social/cultural problem.
*****
Well, I've managed to avoid social resistances (for the most part) by
keeping my cinephilia more or less under my hat; something that has
worked out pretty well. I only watch, read about, and write about,
film when I'm alone; and whenever the subject comes up among people I
know I try to avoid discussing it, tempting though it is to pursue. Of
course, I used to be very public about my enthusiasm back in the day,
but since no one I know now could in any sense be called a cinephile,
the mere expression of such an enthusiasm is treated at best as a
social gaffe, and at worst as a sign of madness.
> But,
> I take your point: it is possible to concentrate too much on this
> 'resistance', rather than simply making our case and expressing
> ourselves. This is a 'tension' inherent in a lot of writing about film,
> I believe.
*****
Yes. There sure is.
Tom Sutpen
20761
From: Matthew Clayfield
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 0:59am
Subject: Re: access and standing
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Sutpen" wrote:
>
> Why do you people always assume I have the worst motives in mind
when > I sit myself down at the keyboard, would you tell me that please?
Why do you, Tom, always assume that other members are out to get you
and everything you write? Just relax a little!
As far as I can see, no-one's out to shoot down anybody.
20762
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 1:11am
Subject: Re: access and standing
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Matthew Clayfield"
wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Sutpen"
wrote:
> >
> > Why do you people always assume I have the worst motives in mind
> when > I sit myself down at the keyboard, would you tell me that
please?
>
> Why do you, Tom, always assume that other members are out to get
you
> and everything you write? Just relax a little!
>
> As far as I can see, no-one's out to shoot down anybody.
In a very short time Tom seems to have become the sharpest critic
of this Group's little foibles, excesses and pretentions -- real or
perceived. I think it's great. But at the same time Tom seems to be
struggling with a severe persecution complex -- which ironically
feeds his antagonism. Like Matthew and others I do hope he relaxes a
little. But I also hope he sticks around and keeps punching holes in
our auteurist baloons. JPC
20763
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 1:31am
Subject: Re: Re: Edwards maudit (Was: Their last film)
> I wonder if what Dan has trouble with is the increasingly
> foregrounded morality of Edwards in the later films, which he may
> find esthetically counter-productive. I know it's what got my then-
> hippy back up about 10.
Yeah, that and the way he places the speechifying within the film. I
talked a bit about this in post #5374. - Dan
20764
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 1:40am
Subject: Re: Re: Sarris's 10 Best(s) - sigh
> I think ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN is a pretty mainstream, boring sort of
> film.
Kyle - I happen to love this film! But there's a lot of subjectivity in
the point I was making. Do with the lists what you will.
> It was very
> depressing; he had just shown RAGING BULL on DVD and talked about how
> "it's probably his best picture, maybe"
Sarris used to be very hesitant about Scorsese. I don't believe any
Scorsese film got a very good review from him until the 80s. - Dan
20765
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 1:58am
Subject: Re: Re: Sarris's 10 Best(s) - sigh
> Matters of taste, but if you put them up against Eye of the Needle....
I actually like EYE OF THE NEEDLE....
> Cutter's Way
> Superman II
> Raiders of the Lost Ark
> Thief
> Excalibur
> Deadly Blessing
> All The Marbles
> Buddy, Buddy
Four of these (the first three and the Aldrich) were on
Sarris's runners-up list.
> (Actually, 1981 was not that good a year.
Sarris called it a banner year at the time.
> (Where can I find a complete list of US releases year-by-year online?)
Don't know, but Mike D'Angelo lists them from 1998 on:
http://www.panix.com/~dangelo
- Dan
20766
From: Saul Symonds
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 4:26am
Subject: Re: Sarris's 10 Best(s) - sigh
But Sarris did cite BEFORE SUNSET as the year's best American film,
> and I've little reason to disagree with that finding. Any auteurists
> who want to argue over that one are welcome to do so. (And no, I don't
> care about Delpy's accent.)
>
> --Kyle Westphal
I had the pleasure to see this film, (which I didn't actually like),
at the Berline Palast at last year's Berlinale. Though a lot of people
there spoke English, there was a larger portion reading the subtitles,
and every joke in the film would generate a small ripple of laughter
from the audience, and then a much louder roar about 1/2 a second
later when the rest had read the joke in the subtitle.
I think subtitles where mentioned a few days ago in this group - I
often don't read subtitles when watching a foreign film, and am
therefore always happy to watch films without subtitles, (unless of
course I have to review them, then I want to know everything that
happens...), as constantly glancing at the bottom of the screen breaks
the rhythmn of the film, (though some films have no rythmn to break
and it barely matters...) When I saw Angelopoulos' "The Weeping
Meadow" at the above mentioned festival, it was in the front row, (no
other seats were left), or a small 100 seat cinema - (I had a lot of
weird front row experiences at that festival, particularly in their
American retrospective and the screenings of "Taxi Driver" and
"Chinatown" I attened...) - now, I was so close to the screen that to
read the subtitles I had to tilt my head down, then from left to right
- I was just too close to take it all in at a glance. What was more
interesting, what that I couldn't take the images in at a glance
either, and constantly was scanning up, down, left, right, picking and
choosing those spots on the frame that my eyes would focus on - as the
screening was from 12am to 3am, and I was in serious lack of sleep, I
had a very sore neck by the end...but it was nonetheless one of my
most interesting filmgoing experiences, and one that heightened my
awareness of the way that we unconscioulsy construct meaning in a film
through focusing on, or looking at, those areas of the frame we are
accustomed to look at, (such as an actors face).
-- Saul.
-- Saul.
20767
From: Chris Fujiwara
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 4:27am
Subject: strayhorn (WAS Re: Sallitt on not showing (Was: OT: Sade)
Actually Billy Strayhorn played the piano for Stewart, at least that
very beautiful piece in the scene in which Stewart, O'Connell, and
Arden wait for the jury to come back to the courtroom.
In any case, I don't feel any loss in verisimilitude. But maybe
that's just me, I'd say the same thing about The Glenn Miller Story.
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
> The verisimilitude is somewhat damaged when Jimmy Stewart's
piano
> playing sounds exactly like Ellington's (which is at least as
> distinctive as Thelonious Monk's).
>
20768
From: Craig Keller
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 4:30am
Subject: Showing Åmål
On the subject of pornography and what "can" and "cannot, on moral
grounds, be shown, in such a manner," and the dilemmas surrounding
such, here's a recent interview with Lukas Moodysson from The Guardian,
on his new film 'A Hole in My Heart' --
http://film.guardian.co.uk/interview/interviewpages/
0,6737,1382946,00.html
craig.
20769
From:
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 11:38pm
Subject: 1981 (WAS: Sarris's 10 Best(s) - sigh)
But Bill, you're forgetting the greatest American film of 1981, MOMMIE
DEAREST. And if anyone cares, 1981 was THE very best year for pop music singles ever.
Kevin John
20770
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 4:39am
Subject: strayhorn (WAS Re: Sallitt on not showing (Was: OT: Sade)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Chris Fujiwara"
wrote:
>
> Actually Billy Strayhorn played the piano for Stewart, at least
that
> very beautiful piece in the scene in which Stewart, O'Connell, and
> Arden wait for the jury to come back to the courtroom.
>
> In any case, I don't feel any loss in verisimilitude. But maybe
> that's just me, I'd say the same thing about The Glenn Miller
Story.
Well of course Strayhorn was Ellington's alter ego, and did sound
exactly like him in those few wonderful two-piano recordings they
did together. That Stewart sounds like either or both of them
doesn't really bother me. it's just one of those countless movie
conventions. JPC
20771
From:
Date: Sun Jan 9, 2005 11:40pm
Subject: Re: Contracampo/Odeon (was: "Salo" On Tour)
Ruy, some fellow students and I are trying to get a film society lifted off
at UT-Austin. Would Maison de France and the Goethe Institute send us free
films? If so, any contact info would be great! Feel free to email me offlist if
you think that more approrpriate.
Kevin John
20772
From:
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 4:51am
Subject: Re: Sallitt on not showing (Was: OT: Sade)
Dan Sallitt wrote:
>
> In SALO, I have trouble, as always, figuring out what motivates
Pasolini,
> but I tend to feel that the film is very like sadistic pornography
in its
> effect. I'm open to the idea that there's some complication that
I'm
> missing, but I don't think that the oppressors being Fascists is a
> complication.
>
> In the controversial rape scene in IRREVERSIBLE, I think that turn-
on is a
> big part of what's going on, but I feel like cutting Noe some
slack, for
> some reason. ... It's certainly true that porn can
> be extracted from the scene very easily...but I don't think it
forbids a
> range of response.
Maybe my unfamiliarity with certain types of porn is showing here,
but I don't see how anyone can read these films as being even
remotely like pornography. Doesn't porn usually involve lots of
closeups and such? The stuff in SALO is so distanced, so anonymous
usually, that I find it hard to see anyone finding it titillating
(putting aside for a moment the fact that what is occuring onscreen
is actually gruesome and horrific -- I'm well aware that some people
get off on this stuff). IRREVERSIBLE's rape scene probably wound up
on the Net eventually, but there, too, I find it hard to see how
anyone (again, sexual preferences aside) could even *see* enough to
get their rocks off. I guess maybe there's some voyeuristic thing
going on here.
There's a lot more pornography, I'd say, in Paul Verhoeven's films,
but a certain class of cinephile seems to adore his work, so I'll
keep away from that battle.
-Bilge
20773
From: Saul Symonds
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 5:06am
Subject: Re: 1981 (WAS: Sarris's 10 Best(s) - sigh)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, LiLiPUT1@a... wrote:
> But Bill, you're forgetting the greatest American film of 1981, MOMMIE
> DEAREST. And if anyone cares, 1981 was THE very best year for pop
music singles ever.
>
> Kevin John
I care and though I'm not sure what year I'd pick for pop singles, I
don't know if it'd be 1981 - what music are you referring to? John
Lennon's "(Just Like) Starting Over", Blondie's "The Tide is High" or
"Rapture", Oliva-Newton John's "Physical", Styx's "The Best Of Times",
Duran Duran's "Girls On Film", Roxy Music's "Oh Yeah" ... What singles
of these do you think make it THE BEST year for pop singles...???!!! I
think we'd have to go later into the 80's, or back to the 70's for the
BEST!
BTW, I always though "Absence of Malice" was the best film of
1981...(It was certainly Pollack's last great film, after a 70's that
in a large part owed its success to Schrader and Milius - and it seems
that after "Malice" Newman had only one more decent role in him, "The
Verdict" - in these two films, and in "Slap Shot" to a much smaller
degree, he was playing men tired off life and tired of what they had
become, (a world away from "Cool Hand Luke" and "Hombre"), men who
could see no real escape from their depression, could only see the
pain of living life, men who were, sadly, trapped inescapably in this
void - they were his most poignant peformances.
20774
From: Craig Keller
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 5:38am
Subject: Re: Re: 1981 (WAS: Sarris's 10 Best(s) - sigh)
On Monday, January 10, 2005, at 12:06 AM, Saul Symonds wrote:
> I care and though I'm not sure what year I'd pick for pop singles, I
> don't know if it'd be 1981 - what music are you referring to? John
> Lennon's "(Just Like) Starting Over",
"(Just Like) Starting Over" is 1980. However, "Nobody Told Me" might
be '81 -- or whenever 'Milk and Honey' was posthumously released.
That's probably my favorite Lennon solo single, besides "Instant Karma!
(We All Shine On)."
And for the record, the 'Some Time in New York City' album is
shamefully underrated -- it's totally magnif; Yoko songs and all.
craig.
20775
From: Craig Keller
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 5:43am
Subject: Re: Re: 1981 (WAS: Sarris's 10 Best(s) - sigh)
On Monday, January 10, 2005, at 12:38 AM, Craig Keller wrote:
> However, "Nobody Told Me" might
> be '81 -- or whenever 'Milk and Honey' was posthumously released.
Actually, "Nobody Told Me" was '84 -- way off from what I thought.
craig.
20776
From: Saul Symonds
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 5:54am
Subject: Re: 1981 (WAS: Sarris's 10 Best(s) - sigh)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Craig Keller wrote:
>
> On Monday, January 10, 2005, at 12:06 AM, Saul Symonds wrote:
> > I care and though I'm not sure what year I'd pick for pop singles, I
> > don't know if it'd be 1981 - what music are you referring to? John
> > Lennon's "(Just Like) Starting Over",
>
> "(Just Like) Starting Over" is 1980.
Yeah, but it was in the US charts till 1981. It was in the No.1
postion for one week in 1980 and two weeks in 1981. If not a '81
release, certainly an '81 single, no??
>However, "Nobody Told Me" might
> be '81 -- or whenever 'Milk and Honey' was posthumously released.
"Milk and Honey" was 1984.
> And for the record, the 'Some Time in New York City' album is
> shamefully underrated -- it's totally magnif; Yoko songs and all.
>
> craig.
I got that alubm on LP - Yoko Ono singing reminds me of an LP of
Geisha songs I got. She sounds like a cat being strangled. Though her
book, "Grapefruit" or whatever it was callled was quite interesting as
an example of the spirit and conceptual thrust of art happenings.
20777
From:
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 1:05am
Subject: OT 1981 singles (WAS: 1981)
In a message dated 01/09/2005 11:09:30 PM, asitdid@y... writes:
<< John Lennon's "(Just Like) Starting Over", Blondie's "The Tide is High" or
"Rapture", Oliva-Newton John's "Physical", Styx's "The Best Of Times",
Duran Duran's "Girls On Film", Roxy Music's "Oh Yeah" ... What singles
of these do you think make it THE BEST year for pop singles...???!!! >>
Oh those were the only singles released in 1981?
My fave single of all time is T.S. Monk's "Bon Bon Vie" (Mirage). It was
released late in 1980 but I don't think it hit radio until 1981.
Funky 4 + 1's "That's The Joint" (Sugarhill) (still, after all these years,
the best rap single I know) is often given a 1980 date but just as often a 1981
date.
Others:
LiLiPUT: "Eisiger Wind" (Rough Trade)
Taana Gardner's "Heartbeat" (West End)
Grandmaster Flash & the Furious 5: “The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on
the Wheels of Steel†(Sugarhill)
Yoko Ono: “Walking on Thin Ice†(Geffen)
Pigbag: “Papa’s Got a Brand New Pigbag†(Y)
Those are the stone cold masterpieces. Chew on those. But there are TONS of
other near-perfect singles from that year. If you're still hungry, let me know.
Kevin John
20778
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 6:43am
Subject: Re: 1981 (WAS: Sarris's 10 Best(s) - sigh)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, LiLiPUT1@a... wrote:
> But Bill, you're forgetting the greatest American film of 1981,
MOMMIE
> DEAREST. And if anyone cares, 1981 was THE very best year for pop
music singles ever.
>
> Kevin John
Sarris forgot it too - with much less excuse than me, hastening to
compile a list of his omissions from Michael Singer's Directors book.
I also omitted An American Werewolf in London.
I had dropped pop, so I know not whereof you speak, but reflecting on
the list of 1981 films that didn't make Sarris's 10 Best, it portrays
a period when studio auteurism had peaked, and the future was
frequently to be found in discredited genres and directors who
started in exploitation - Joe Dante had just made The Howling, and
another auteur-laden production that was brewing and set to self-
destruct was The Twilight Zone. Sarris didn't want to go there, so he
retreated into Strained Seriousness and Less Than Meets the Eye, 1981-
style.
Apart from my personal perplexity about him, I think the turning
point Dan has thrown out in the form of AS's 1981 list also tells us
something about the evolution of auteurism in this country. I DID
want to go there, for example, and my contributions to CdC in this
period reflected that. They included a Letter from H'wd on Mommie
Dearest.
20779
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 6:45am
Subject: Re: Contracampo/Odeon (was: "Salo" On Tour)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, LiLiPUT1@a... wrote:
> Ruy, some fellow students and I are trying to get a film society
lifted off
> at UT-Austin. Would Maison de France and the Goethe Institute send
us free
> films? If so, any contact info would be great! Feel free to email
me offlist if
> you think that more approrpriate.
>
> Kevin John
You're at UT now, Kevin? I went to St. Stephens, so I know the town,
or used to. You should meet Kelly Green, the auteur of Attack of the
Bat Monsters, who lives there.
20780
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 6:47am
Subject: Re: Sallitt on not showing (Was: OT: Sade)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, ebiri@a... wrote:
>
>
> There's a lot more pornography, I'd say, in Paul Verhoeven's films,
> but a certain class of cinephile seems to adore his work, so I'll
> keep away from that battle.
>
> -Bilge
Speaking of which, I was just refreshing my memory by fast-forwarding
thru a tape I picked up of Henry and June - now that's pornography!
20781
From: Saul Symonds
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 7:02am
Subject: Re: Sallitt on not showing (Was: OT: Sade)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666" wrote:
> Speaking of which, I was just refreshing my memory by fast-forwarding
> thru a tape I picked up of Henry and June - now that's pornography!
Well, he always did know how to stage a sex scene - a lot of directors
just fuddle it up - I was re-watching some Argento recently and
there's a brief and absolutely pathetic attempt at a sex scene in "Cat
o'Nine Tails".
20782
From: Saul Symonds
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 7:14am
Subject: Re: Sallitt on not showing (Was: OT: Sade)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, ebiri@a... wrote:
> Maybe my unfamiliarity with certain types of porn is showing here,
> but I don't see how anyone can read these films as being even
> remotely like pornography. Doesn't porn usually involve lots of
> closeups and such? The stuff in SALO is so distanced, so anonymous
> usually, that I find it hard to see anyone finding it titillating
> (putting aside for a moment the fact that what is occuring onscreen
> is actually gruesome and horrific -- I'm well aware that some people
> get off on this stuff). IRREVERSIBLE's rape scene probably wound up
> on the Net eventually, but there, too, I find it hard to see how
> anyone (again, sexual preferences aside) could even *see* enough to
> get their rocks off. I guess maybe there's some voyeuristic thing
> going on here.
Mainstream porn might involve lots of close-up, (or meat-shots),
mainly because uncreative directors can't think of what else to do
with their camera. A friend recently showed me some German porn, and
the director, or cameraman, (I'm not sure how duties are delineated in
German porn films)was actually composing images with depth, that
contrasted couples in different positions, and had a reliance on the
pan and zoom method (perfected by Visconti), using it to create
different sexual vistas from a single room.
I don't think the distancing in 'Salò' or the fact that it's difficult
to see what's happening in 'Irréversible' make much difference to
their status as "porn" for some people. Watching a woman forced to eat
shit is enough for some people to "get their rock off" as you so
eloqently put it.. :) In 'Irréversible' what probably got people off,
(speaking now of the people it did get off), was not so much anything
sexual, but the actual abuse that was laid on Bellucci - a woman
having her face smashed into concrete gets some people off - there was
a definantly kinkily masochistic element to Le Tenia's taunts, ("Is
that blood or are you just wet") - though perhaps more are excited by
her being forcably screwed. THe shaky camera can even add to the
excitment - a kind of forced 'peering in' to see what's happening.
20783
From:
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 5:16am
Subject: UT (WAS: Contracampo)
In a message dated 01/10/2005 12:45:10 AM, hotlove666@y... writes:
<< You're at UT now, Kevin? I went to St. Stephens, so I know the town,
or used to. You should meet Kelly Green, the auteur of Attack of the
Bat Monsters, who lives there. >>
That's right! You DID mention your living in Austin at one point. Divine city
(save for the repulsive traffic around I-35)! Yes, I'm at UT doing my Phd.
(Yes, I'll get to work on that bio tout de suite!) Haven't seen Attack of the
Bat Monsters but will try to find it tout de suite too.
Kevin John
20784
From: Saul Symonds
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 11:02am
Subject: The Greatest American Film of 1981 (WAS: Sarris's 10 Best(s) - sigh)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, LiLiPUT1@a... wrote:
> But Bill, you're forgetting the greatest American film of 1981, MOMMIE
> DEAREST. And if anyone cares, 1981 was THE very best year for pop
music singles ever.
>
> Kevin John
A link to my review of THE BEST film of 1981 is below, "Cannibal
Ferox", (though I always preferred the American release title, "Make
Them Die Slowly", devoid on any Latin words and much more evocative of
the actual film), from the great auteur Umberto Lenzi - a man of such
importance, I think all threads of discussion in this group should be
shut down for several weeks while all memebers engage in a
shot-by-shot analysis of his entire oeuvre, the results of which
should be published in several languages.
http://www.lightsleepercinemag.com/reviews/cannibalferox.php
-- Saul.... :)
20785
From: thebradstevens
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 11:22am
Subject: Edwards' WILD ROVERS (was Re: Their last film)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
> wrote:
> . WILD
> > ROVERS looks more and more like a masterpiece each time I see it
> > (though I'm not sure if the director's cut which has always been
> > available in the UK, was ever shown in America).
>
> This is big news to me and wd be big news to Edwards. What's the
> running time? When was it released?
It runs 132 minutes, as opposed to the 109-minute American cut. It
was released to UK cinemas back in the early 70s - I assume Edwards
convinced the British distributor to release his cut after the film
was butchered in the US. This version was released panned-and-scanned
on video here by MGM in the 80s (though MGM listed a 109-minute
running time on the packaging, so they clearly had no idea what they
were releasing). A beutiful letterboxed print now plays regularly on
TCM UK.
Edwards' cut ends with a flashback to William Holden attempting to
ride a wild horse - the credits play over this. But one of the other
UK subscription channels (not TCM) recently screened an odd variation
of the film - it's basically the long version, but it contains a
slightly truncated ending, with the credits playing over a shot of a
landscape (as they also do in the 109 minute cut).
20786
From: thebradstevens
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 11:32am
Subject: Re: Edwards maudit (Was: Their last film)
> He was setting Bo Derek up as a symbol of the mindless hedonism of
my
> generation
I gather that you haven't seen 10 in quite some time, but trust me,
you're misremembering. The film is unambiguously on the Bo Derek
character's side. When she deflates Dudley Moore's
pathetic 'romantic' fantasies and treats Moore as nothing more than a
casual lay, the film is quite clear that the joke is on him. Moore's
offended moral outrage when Derek tells her husband that she is in
bed with another man (instead of lying to her husband, which is what
Moore expects her to do) is presented as totally unreasonable. See
Andrew Britton's piece on the film in MOVIE.
20787
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 2:02pm
Subject: Re: Contracampo/Odeon (was: "Salo" On Tour)
I think their scope is limited to Brazil or South America, but I think that
there are similar institutions on the States, unless french films got banned
with french fries by the simian-face W and their entourage of morons.
----- Original Message -----
From:
To:
Sent: Monday, January 10, 2005 2:40 AM
Subject: Re: [a_film_by] Contracampo/Odeon (was: "Salo" On Tour)
>
> Ruy, some fellow students and I are trying to get a film society lifted
off
> at UT-Austin. Would Maison de France and the Goethe Institute send us free
> films? If so, any contact info would be great! Feel free to email me
offlist if
> you think that more approrpriate.
>
> Kevin John
20788
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 2:05pm
Subject: Re: Re: 1981 (WAS: Sarris's 10 Best(s) - sigh)
>> But Bill, you're forgetting the greatest American film of 1981,
> MOMMIE
>> DEAREST.
>
> Sarris forgot it too - with much less excuse than me
I haven't got the list with me, but my recollection was that Sarris was
fairly kind to MOMMIE DEAREST when he blurbed or reviewed it. I think he
also mentioned it somewhere in that ten-best article.
> Apart from my personal perplexity about him, I think the turning
> point Dan has thrown out in the form of AS's 1981
I'd say that the shift in perspective happened gradually in the five years
before 1981. Sarris' 1980 lists aren't entirely different in tone.
> also tells us
> something about the evolution of auteurism in this country.
Your point is well taken: non-prestige cinema in America was getting a
little more grody, and some talented critics might not have felt like
sifting through it anymore. - Dan
20789
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 2:30pm
Subject: Re: Re: Sallitt on not showing (Was: OT: Sade)
It's "Throw at'em" pornography. For Verhoeven, spectacle IS pornography,
spectacle equals exploitation. If one is very well educated and with
indisputable taste, one might never find out much of anything about
Verhoeven: it questions good taste and it questions the way we see film.
Instead of making shitty mockumentaries in 2004, Mr. Moore should have
acquired the rights for Starship Troopers and have it re-released
nation-wide with the title DESTINATION BAGHDAD. The next president would be
a democrat.
----- Original Message -----
From:
To:
Sent: Monday, January 10, 2005 2:51 AM
Subject: [a_film_by] Re: Sallitt on not showing (Was: OT: Sade)
> There's a lot more pornography, I'd say, in Paul Verhoeven's films,
> but a certain class of cinephile seems to adore his work, so I'll
> keep away from that battle.
20790
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 2:36pm
Subject: Re: Re: Sallitt on not showing (Was: OT: Sade)
Was Bill kidding or just mixing everything? Henry and June is a Philip
Kaufman film, and a very bad one, and not a bit similar to Verhoeven's
mise-en-scene strategies. Ask Rivette, he's got it all right.
BTW, the Monica Bellucci raping scene actually is available on the internet.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Saul Symonds"
To:
Sent: Monday, January 10, 2005 5:02 AM
Subject: [a_film_by] Re: Sallitt on not showing (Was: OT: Sade)
20791
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 2:52pm
Subject: Re: Re: 1981 (WAS: Sarris's 10 Best(s) - sigh)
--- Saul Symonds wrote:
and it seems
> that after "Malice" Newman had only one more decent
> role in him, "The
> Verdict" - in these two films, and in "Slap Shot" to
> a much smaller
> degree, he was playing men tired off life and tired
> of what they had
> become, (a world away from "Cool Hand Luke" and
> "Hombre"), men who
> could see no real escape from their depression,
> could only see the
> pain of living life, men who were, sadly, trapped
> inescapably in this
> void - they were his most poignant peformances.
>
>
>
>
You're forgetting Newman's greatest late performance
-- "Mr. and Mrs. Bridge."
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The all-new My Yahoo! - What will yours do?
http://my.yahoo.com
20792
From: Aaron Graham
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 4:22pm
Subject: Re: 1981 (WAS: Sarris's 10 Best(s) - sigh)
> --- Saul Symonds wrote:
>
> and it seems
> > that after "Malice" Newman had only one more decent
> > role in him, "The
> > Verdict" -
No love for "The Color of Money" or Robert Benton's "Nobody's Fool"?
-Aaron
20793
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 4:24pm
Subject: Some of my 1981 favorites (was: 1981)
No one mentioned any of several of my favorite American films of
1981: "True Confessions", "Four Friends", "Prince of the
City", "Pennies from Heaven", "Reds"... Does that make me as bad as
or worse than AS?... As far as foreign films, two Truffaut were
released in the US in 1981 (Last Metro and The Woman Next Door)and I
would definitely have included "La Femme de l'aviateur," one of
Rohmer's best. Two other very good French films released that year
here: Doillon's "La Drolesse" (1979) and Beraud's "La Tortue sur le
dos". Let's not forget "Scanners". And I just found out that "India
Song" (1975) was belatedly released in the USA in 1981! It was a
pretty good year...
20794
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 4:40pm
Subject: Re: Some of my 1981 favorites (was: 1981)
> No one mentioned any of several of my favorite American films of
> 1981: "True Confessions", "Four Friends", "Prince of the
> City", "Pennies from Heaven", "Reds"... Does that make me as bad as
> or worse than AS?...
I believe a number of these were mentioned by Sarris.
> and I
> would definitely have included "La Femme de l'aviateur," one of
> Rohmer's best.
That was a 1982 release in LA - was it released earlier in NYC?
> Two other very good French films released that year
> here: Doillon's "La Drolesse" (1979) and Beraud's "La Tortue sur le
> dos".
God, I wish I could see the Beraud. Did that actually get a theatrical
release in the US? I greatly admire his PLEIN SUD - it looks as if he
mostly worked in TV after that.
> Let's not forget "Scanners".
Sarris listed it, didn't he?
I didn't make a list in 1981, but I think my two favorites at the time
were RICH AND FAMOUS and DRAGONSLAYER. - Dan
20795
From: J. Mabe
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 4:55pm
Subject: 3x María Antonieta Pons
Does anyone have an opinion on these three Mexican
films starring María Antonieta Pons: La Hija del
penal (1949); La Engañadora (1956); Un Cuerpo de mujer
(1949). I know the last one is shot by Gabriel
Figueroa, and that alone might make it worth watching.
I ask because these three are up for auction on eBay
in complete 16mm prints... no subtitles, though.
-Josh Mabe
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The all-new My Yahoo! - What will yours do?
http://my.yahoo.com
20796
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 5:00pm
Subject: Re: Some of my 1981 favorites (was: 1981)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > and I
> > would definitely have included "La Femme de l'aviateur," one of
> > Rohmer's best.
>
> That was a 1982 release in LA - was it released earlier in NYC?
>
It was released in New York in October '81 (by NEWYORKER FILM)
> > Two other very good French films released that year
> > here: Doillon's "La Drolesse" (1979) and Beraud's "La Tortue sur
le
> > dos".
>
> God, I wish I could see the Beraud. Did that actually get a
theatrical
> release in the US? I greatly admire his PLEIN SUD - it looks as
if he
> mostly worked in TV after that.
It was released by NEW LINE in early '81. Very fine film (about a
blocked writer, played by the great Francois Stevenin). . I remember
interviewing Beraud in New York at the time. Unfortunately I have
never seen Plein Sud.
>
> > Let's not forget "Scanners".
>
> Sarris listed it, didn't he?
>
> I didn't make a list in 1981, but I think my two favorites at the
time
> were RICH AND FAMOUS and DRAGONSLAYER. - Dan
Dan, this is where I part with many of you guys on this
list. "Rich and Famous" is just about my least favorite Cukor; I
found it unbearably vulgar. Maybe I should try again, but I'm not
looking forward to the experience (last night I watched "Heller in
Pink Tights" for the umpteenth time. That's great late Cukor! In
spite of everything). JPC
20797
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 5:18pm
Subject: Re: Some of my 1981 favorites (was: 1981)
--- Dan Sallitt wrote:
>
> I didn't make a list in 1981, but I think my two
> favorites at the time
> were RICH AND FAMOUS and DRAGONSLAYER. - Dan
>
My 1981 list:
"Palermo oder Wolfsburg" -- Werner Schroeter's
neo-realist German expressionist masterpiece (Visconti
meets Murnau)
"Bloody Kids" -- Stephen Frears' mot important early
film, the key to such later developments as "My
Beautiful Laundrette," "Sammy and Rosie Get laid" and
"Dirty Pretty Things."
"City of Women" -- Fellini's most neglected film.
"Second-Hand Hearts" -- The prosecuation should show
this to the jurors at Blake's trial!
"Atlantic City" -- "Teach me stuff."
"So Fine" -- The greatest brainy screwball comedy
since Sturges.
"Ms. 45"
"S.O.B."
"Memoirs of a Survivor" -- Julie Christie and Leonie
Mellinger in David Gladwell's superb adaptation of
Doris Lessing.
"Simone Barbes ou la Vertu" -- produced by Paul
Vecchiali and directed by Marie-Claude Treihlou.
beauitfully observed slice of lesbian life about a
sad-eyed ticket taker, finishing her shift then going
to a sapphic night club whose floor show (girls in
armor) is hilarious. Anathema to the Gaspard Noe
school of sensationalism. A very tender film about
solitude.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
All your favorites on one personal page – Try My Yahoo!
http://my.yahoo.com
20798
From: Tom Sutpen
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 5:27pm
Subject: Re: 3x Mar�a Antonieta Pons
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "J. Mabe" wrote:
> Does anyone have an opinion on these three Mexican
> films starring Mar�a Antonieta Pons: La Hija del
> penal (1949); La Enga�adora (1956); Un Cuerpo de mujer
> (1949). I know the last one is shot by Gabriel
> Figueroa, and that alone might make it worth watching.
> I ask because these three are up for auction on eBay
> in complete 16mm prints... no subtitles, though.
*****
My advice (for what it's worth): Snap them up; especially the one
Figueroa shot. I doubt if you'll be able to track them down again, so
consider this an opportunity worth seizing.
Tom Sutpen
20799
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 5:36pm
Subject: Re: Some of my 1981 favorites (was: 1981)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
>
>
> "Simone Barbes ou la Vertu" -- produced by Paul
> Vecchiali and directed by Marie-Claude Treihlou.
> beauitfully observed slice of lesbian life about a
> sad-eyed ticket taker, finishing her shift then going
> to a sapphic night club whose floor show (girls in
> armor) is hilarious. Anathema to the Gaspard Noe
> school of sensationalism. A very tender film about
> solitude.
>
> I agree. Surprisingly, this very little-known film is available
in the US on DVD.
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> All your favorites on one personal page – Try My Yahoo!
> http://my.yahoo.com
20800
From: Brandon
Date: Mon Jan 10, 2005 5:31pm
Subject: Buster Keaton's co-directors
Buster Keaton is listed all over the place as a film auteur, so I was
wondering how much credit for his work should be given to his many
co-directors, such as Edward Cline and Clyde Bruckman. Bruckman supposedly
directed "The General" and has plenty of writing credits, and Cline
directed plenty of the great Keaton shorts, and later worked with W.C.
Fields. Keaton is usually given sole credit for his films - I never see
"The General" listed as a Clyde Bruckman picture, or "Cops" as an Eddie
Cline film. Were these guys considered auteurs in their own right, or were
they just hired to help master Keaton get his films made?
When looking them up on IMDB, I noticed that Edward Cline made a Snuffy
Smith movie in 1942... never seen that one!
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