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Posts From the Internet Film Discussion Group, a_film_by
This group is dedicated to discussing film as art
from an auteurist perspective. The index to these files of posts can be found at http://www.fredcamper.com/afilmby/ The purpose of these files is to make our posts more accessible, for downloading and reading and to search engines.
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emailing them from that Web site.
23001
From: Fred Camper
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 6:47am
Subject: Re: Brakhage's "Arabics 3" with/out sound
Jason,
Thanks for posting your thoughts on this! Of course I'm favorably
disposed to people who agree with me, but I was glad to hear how much
you like the film. As far as I know I'm alone in thinking that the
"Arabics" as a whole are Brakhage's greatest achievement. He certainly
didn't "decline," his late films are some of his best, but the line of
thinking that began with his tentative move into subjective camerawork
in "Desistfilm" and proceeded through a quest for freeing the seeing of
objects according to their names (as discussed in the first paragraph of
"Metaphors on Vision" (available in English and Portuguese at
http://www.fredcamper.com/Brakhage/Metaphors.html ) reaches an extreme
of "abstraction" in the Arabics.
"Egyptians" and the three "Babylonians" that followed are arguably just
as great, but they're much shorter.
About the projection speed, while 18 fps is correct, Brakhage allowed
that 24 fps was OK. They were shot in super-8 at 18 fps but never
printed in super-8; he always intended that they would be blown up to 16mm.
Fred Camper
23002
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 6:55am
Subject: Bruce Lee: Revolutionary Hero? (Was: Ecriture/ideology /new cinemas)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Modiano"
wrote:
>
> To answer that question one would have to be familiar with modern
> Korean history and current events in the ROK. "Korea's Place in
the
> Sun" by Bruce Cummings is a good place to start for the history,
and
> for the current situation there's Asia Times, The Far Eastern
> Economic Review and the Bulletin of Concernede Asian Schoalers.
Some general works worth consulting are "Culture nd
> Imperialism" by Edward Said and just about anything by Frederic
> Jameson is worth reading on this subject.
> For the present, one thing to note is the emergence of cinema in
the West with the apex of Euro-American imperialism, and its emegence
in Japan with the rise of modern capitalism there. National cinemas
> under colonialism is another interesting topic to consider.
>
> Richard
Thanks, Richard. I have some reading to do. But I'd be surprised if
there isn't already something in print about the ideology of martial
arts films from, say, HK. Like the western, it seems to be a genre
shot thru with ideology. I do seem to recall that Lee was seen as a
revolutionary hero in the Third World when he was a star. Maybe I
should ask David Chuute. While I'm at it, I'll ask him to join
a_film_by. And Roger Garcia.
23003
From: Jason Guthartz
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 7:36am
Subject: Re: Million Dollar Baby
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon" wrote:
> ...calling Eastwood "Dirty Harry" is such a
> lowblow, meaningless gesture that it makes me question your super-
> highbrow attitude. *** If you read
> French... I'll be glad to send you a copy.
Sorry, I don't read French. Subtract 10 points from my Highbrow Index
Rating.
But if were to post a translation of the piece, or an abridged
version, I'd be eager to read it!
-Jason
23004
From: Jason Guthartz
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 8:07am
Subject: Re: Brakhage's "Arabics 3" with/out sound
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
> [The Arabics] were shot in super-8 at 18 fps but never
> printed in super-8; he always intended that they would be blown up
to 16mm.
Fred,
Were the "Arabics" made with a camera, hand-painted or something else?
You say they were "shot" (maybe you're using the term generically) but
I can't imagine how one would photograph those qualities of light with
a camera while getting such complete darkness. Then again, the images
did seem to resemble light being reflected off of objects, with focus
changes.
-Jason
23005
From: Fred Camper
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 8:22am
Subject: Re: Re: Brakhage's "Arabics 3" with/out sound
The Arabics were photographed with a camera, but Brakhage did various
things to alter the function of the lens; I'm not sure exactly what, but
things like putting distorting glass or other distorting objects in
front of it (this one I am sure of), unscrewing it partway, throwing the
image very out of focus, et cetera. The "Romans," "Egyptians," and
"Babylonians" were shot the same way. "Persians" and "Chinese" were
handpainted.
Fred Camper
23006
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 11:49am
Subject: Peckinpah was: Melville (was: male-male bonding)
> > Have recently been theorizing that Peckinpah had a
> > gay side, based on
> > the number of crotch and ass shots in JUNIOR BONNER
> > (but then it is
> > about rodeo).
> >
> I think not. There are gay characters in "Bring Me the
> Head of Alfredo Garcia" as I recall.
And they're pure evil. Likewise in CROSS OF IRON, where Max Schell
seduces a gay officer and then blackmails im into killing James
Coburn's men. Moral: gays are bad.
There's this fascinating moment at the start of THE GETAWAY where
Steve McQueen is building a model brdge in his jail cell. Peck
intercuts this with Ali McGraw in bed with McQueen (flashback,
flashforward or fantasy?) and with male prisoners showering, then
McQueen crushes the model he's making and holds his head in his hands.
Worth remembering that homophobia really means FEAR of homosexuality,
not hatred. Peck used to create tension on set by suggesting that,
for instance, Warren Oates had suggested that Joel McCrea's
perfomance "seemed kinda faggy" etc. Fear of being gay or being
thought gay seems to be one of Bloody Sam's biggest motivations in
life and film. Must've been kind of exhausting.
D Cairns
23007
From: George Robinson
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 0:26pm
Subject: Bad news from ScreenDaily
My friend Ira Hozinsky passes the following along to the list:
Did you see this headline from Screen Daily International yesterday? As
a non-subscriber, I can't read the article, and haven't found a
reference to this anywhere else:
/CLASSIC FILM OUT-TAKES LOST IN STUDIO CLEAR-OUT
Footage from Heaven's Gate, Raging Bull, Pink Panther and Woody Allen
films binned in UA storage clear-out.
http://www.screendaily.com/story.asp?storyid=21011&tl=True
<http://www.screendaily.com/story.asp?storyid=21011&tl=True>/
Anybody know more?
-- g
If art reflects life, it does so
with spiral mirrors.
-- Bertolt Brecht
23008
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 1:58pm
Subject: Scorsese, Eastwood and boxing (Was: Million Dollar Baby)
> Another Oscar irony I'm anticipating: What if Clint beats Marty for
> the director Oscar, for a boxing movie that pales next to Scorsese's
> own "Raging Bull."
I think that RAGING BULL probably contains the best evidence that Scorsese
can be an exceptional director. But I have a very low opinion of the
boxing scenes. Certainly Eastwood gets the nod in terms of boxing
verisimitude, even taking into account Hilary Swank's unfortunate reliance
on roundhouse knockout punches.
I remember reading that one of the boxing technical advisors on RAGING
BULL, disgruntled, said, "Jesus, it looks like those guys are shooting at
each other out there." Scorsese decided to go for a grandiose ballet of
blood and agony, to express - what? I don't have a problem with departing
from naturalism, but the bigger-than-life effect seems sentimental and
immature to me. - Dan
23009
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 2:12pm
Subject: Re: Re: Million Dollar Baby
> I don't understand why everybody thinks that the depiction of
> Maggie's family is a 'caricature" and a "mistep" and "unwise".
> Because they're "poor people" they should be represented as noble
> and caring and disinterested?
When characters are simplified so that we can hate them more easily, I
often resent the film for it.
I don't want to make rules, because sometimes filmmakers can play
complicated games with seemingly simple responses. And it's definitely
important for movies to show how horrible people can be. But I usually
don't care for it when a film makes the audience comfortable about
dividing the world up into good and bad people. - Dan
23010
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 2:31pm
Subject: Re: Re: Million Dollar Baby
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
> The few very vocal MDB-haters on this Group seem
> to me to have
> the kind of attitude that, had they lived in the 40s
> and 50s, they
> would have hated almost every single Hollywood film
> that we, on this
> Group, love and revere today.
Well THIS MDB-hater was born in 1947 and grew upmadly
in love with Hollywood movies, beginning with "Singin'
in the Rain" which I first saw at Radio City Music
Hall in 1952.
It is now part of my DNA.
__________________________________________________
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23011
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 2:34pm
Subject: Re: Re: Million Dollar Baby
--- peckinpah20012000
wrote:
>
> I think you should also consider your own remarks
> in terms
> of "cheap insults" since you make several of them
> yourself rather
> than engage in relevant critical debate on a Web
> Site which is
> supposedly designed to avoid "flame wars." I'd also
> consider you
> look at the writings of H.E. Bates, Emile Zola, and
> the work of
> British Jewish working-class playwright Arnold
> Wesker for a more
> balanced picture.
I know this work quite well, and I seriously doubt
Eastwood would be interested in making a film of "The
Kitchen." I'm sorry Lindsay Anerson didn't get around
to it.
Finally, for your information,
> I've been on
> welfare, hated every minute of it, and have more
> experience of
> particular traits of human behavior than you ever
> will have.
>
Living as I am in dire povertyin racist Los Angeles --
where the police just shot an unarmed 13 year-old boy
at point blank range, I think I know a thing or two
about human behavior.
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23012
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 2:34pm
Subject: Post # 22999 (was Re: Million Dollar Baby)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, ptonguette@a... wrote:
> We're trying to encourage
> a discussion of film as art not primarily from the point of view
of personal
> tastes asserted and undefended, but rather by encouraging a
discussion of the
> intersection(s) of style and meaning.
>
when our largest threads tend not to be about
> films from the point of view of style and form, our group loses
its
> uniqueness, and many who joined based on the promise of the
Statement may just quit
> reading the group.
This is a legitimate reminder of the primary purpose of the Group,
but it also reminds us of the somewhat idealistic nature of that
purpose. You can't really discuss a film exclusively from the point
of view of style and form. "Content", for lack of a better word,
always tends to raise its ugly head. Not to mention "meaning".
In a review of MDB I recently wrote I think I tried to
discuss "the intersection of style and meaning" Peter mentions. And
it certainly would never have occurred to me to bring up the topic
of "how the movie treats the working class" -- either in that review
or on a_film_by. When some members started attacking the film as "an
insult" to the working class I felt I had to respond to a criticism
I considered not only unfair but absurd. I agree such a discussion
shouldn't find its way into a forum such as ours, but this sort of
things is almost unavoidable.It has happened before and it will
probably happen again. The Group should be moderated (that is,
moderate itself) but if too many strictures are imposed (either from
the outside or self-imposed) we run the risk of silencing a lot of
people who might have something to say. As it is, only a very small
percentage of the members ever post, and it's practically always the
same group of people.
JPC
23013
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 2:39pm
Subject: Re: Million Dollar Baby
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
.
>
> Well THIS MDB-hater was born in 1947 and grew upmadly
> in love with Hollywood movies, beginning with "Singin'
> in the Rain" which I first saw at Radio City Music
> Hall in 1952.
>
> It is now part of my DNA.
>
You were five and you remember? I envy you. It must have been
quite an experience. I was 18, I think, and it was at the MacMahon
Cinema. But I think it's part of my DNA too.
> __________________________________________________
>
23014
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 2:45pm
Subject: Re: Scorsese, Eastwood and boxing (Was: Million Dollar Baby)
--- Dan Sallitt wrote:
>
> I remember reading that one of the boxing technical
> advisors on RAGING
> BULL, disgruntled, said, "Jesus, it looks like those
> guys are shooting at
> each other out there." Scorsese decided to go for a
> grandiose ballet of
> blood and agony, to express - what? I don't have a
> problem with departing
> from naturalism, but the bigger-than-life effect
> seems sentimental and
> immature to me.
It's there to express a subjective impression --
boxing as seen from inside of Jak'e mind. Likewise
"The Aviator" is Howard Hughes glory days as Hughes
would have made a movie of them.
"Immature" I would grant you because both characters
are stuck in a kind of adolescent fantasy fugue state.
But I don't regard Scorsese's treatment of such states
as "sentimental."
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23015
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 2:52pm
Subject: Re: Re: Million Dollar Baby
--- Dan Sallitt wrote:
>
> I don't want to make rules, because sometimes
> filmmakers can play
> complicated games with seemingly simple responses.
> And it's definitely
> important for movies to show how horrible people can
> be. But I usually
> don't care for it when a film makes the audience
> comfortable about
> dividing the world up into good and bad people. -
Neither do I. Looking at "The Aviator" again last
night I was struck athow DeCaprio's charm carries the
film over many a rough patch in that played
differently -- without changing a line or scene --
Hughes could have come off as acomplete loon from
start to finish. The film instead depricts him as
brave, foolish, deluded, romantic and borderline
bi-polar -- reight about to slip across the border. As
a result our feelings about him shift from scene to
scene. He's always fascinating but never
conventionally "heroic."
Similarly Alan Alda's Senator Brewster is a corrupt
politician, but Scorsese doesn't have him play as
super-slmy corrupt -- because brewster wouldn't see
himself that way. He comes off as "too smart for his
own good," which forstall's an easy "hiss the villain"
posture. Likewise Alec Baldwin's Juan Trippe.
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23016
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 2:55pm
Subject: Re: Re: Million Dollar Baby
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
> You were five and you remember? I envy you. It
> must have been
> quite an experience.
When I came home I immediately launched into my own
version of "Make 'Em Laugh" on the living room sofa.
__________________________________
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23017
From: thebradstevens
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 2:59pm
Subject: Re: Peckinpah was: Melville (was: male-male bonding)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "cairnsdavid1967"
wrote:
>
> > > Have recently been theorizing that Peckinpah had a
> > > gay side, based on
> > > the number of crotch and ass shots in JUNIOR BONNER
> > > (but then it is
> > > about rodeo).
> > >
> > I think not. There are gay characters in "Bring Me the
> > Head of Alfredo Garcia" as I recall.
>
> And they're pure evil. Likewise in CROSS OF IRON, where Max Schell
> seduces a gay officer and then blackmails im into killing James
> Coburn's men. Moral: gays are bad.
PAT GARRETT & BILLY THE KID can certainly be read as a film about a
homosexual relationship (see my piece in Ian Cameron's THE MOVIE BOOK
OF THE WESTERN).
Peckinpah once described himself as a 'male lesbian', and the opening
scene of BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA is essentially a lesbian
rereading of the Garden of Eden Myth, with two men taking the role of
the snake that causes the fall from paradise (and into the nightmare
of patriarchal masculinity). The two overt homosexuals are certainly
portrayed negatively, but then so are all the other males in this
film (which contains several 'paired' males, beginning with the two
men who interrupt the women embracing at the beginning, and
culminating in Warren Oates' journey with the rotting head of Alfredo
Garcia).
23018
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 3:13pm
Subject: Ordinary People and the problem of decline (Was: Million Dollar Baby)
> I hope I'm not the only one on the group who prefers "Ordinary People"
> to "Raging Bull"! I haven't seen many of his subsequent films, but I
> think that Redford started out as an interesting filmmaker.
I'm with you. I really liked ORDINARY PEOPLE: revisited it several times
and didn't change my mind. But I never liked another Redford-directed
film, never even thought one was interesting.
I'm fairly secure in my auteurism, but the one-shot filmmaker is
definitely a challenge to the whole auteurist concept. And my experience
is that it's not uncommon at all for me to like a director's early films,
and then observe a seemingly permanent decline. This troubles me whenever
it happens. Was I simply fooling myself into thinking that the direction
was what made the early film good?
(I had one of these bad experiences this week, after seeing Christophe
Honore's MA MERE. I quite liked his last film 17 TIMES CECILE CASSARD,
which I think was his debut. But the direction of MA MERE just seemed so
unfortunate to me from beginning to end that I couldn't imagine the same
guy making a film I liked. This happens to me more often than I care to
admit.)
I'm aware that a lot of auteurists dislike ORDINARY PEOPLE (and/or like
QUIZ SHOW), so I don't mean to make Redford the test case for this
phenomenon. But I wonder if other auteurists have noted the quick-decline
syndrome, and if so whether they question their own judgment as a result.
- Dan
23019
From: Jonathan Takagi
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 3:41pm
Subject: Re: Re: Le Pont du Nord - NYC Screening
On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 22:02:58 -0000, hotlove666 wrote:
> Another all-exteriors Paris film, never shown in NY, ironically: Loin
> de Manhattan (Far from Manhattan). A gaggle of Parisian critics and
> esthetes are chasing after the great painter Rene Dimanche. It's Jean-
> Claude Biette's answer to Othon.
Where can one see this? I must track it down! :)
I read an interview with Biette where he said that he named the film
partly out of a dislike for Woody Allen's "Manhattan".
Jonathan Takagi
23020
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 3:50pm
Subject: Re: Peckinpah was: Melville (was: male-male bonding)
>> I think not. There are gay characters in "Bring Me the
>> Head of Alfredo Garcia" as I recall.
>
> And they're pure evil.
It's a little more complicated than that, though, in that the characters
are first established as hardened killers for hire, and their
homosexuality is revealed only in their final scene. (Have I got this
right? It's been a little while. And I'm trying to avoid spoilers.)
The effect is kind of weird: on the one hand, the homosexuality is
presented as "insolite," a little bizarre; and yet this is necessarily the
moment of greatest audience empathy for the characters.
> Worth remembering that homophobia really means FEAR of homosexuality,
> not hatred.
If you go back to the roots, it actually seems to mean fear of sameness,
no? It should be "homosexophobia," or something like that, to say what it
wants to say. - Dan
23021
From: Craig Keller
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 4:34pm
Subject: Varda at Film Forum Tonight
Agnès Varda is doing a Q&A after the 6:30 screening of 'Cinévardaphoto'
tonight at Film Forum in New York, and will introduce the 8:20
screening as well.
craig.
23022
From: samfilms2003
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 4:35pm
Subject: Re: Million Dollar Baby
Sorry I meant to type cheez (processed) as in Cheez-Whiz.
"my bad"
Otherwise, I might surmise that the AFB members, had they
"been around" in the forties / fifties might have, if one can interpolate
sensiblity across time (I'm not so sure of this) responded less to
hot button issues ("Waterfront") than to - well why not say it,
asthetics and moral implications if you wish, from there ("Force
Of Evil").
To be fair about it (see I am I really am ;-) I could see "Hank's
famous intuition was right after all" as a flash point on the
fifites era "A Film By" list (the mimeographed broadsides
delivered by carrier pigeon, remember ?)
-Sam
Read my last post, don't inhale it ;-)
23023
From:
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 11:38am
Subject: Re: Post # 22999 (was Re: Million Dollar Baby)
JPC,
Thank you for drawing attention to our post which, to follow my own advice as
co-moderator, should have had a new subject line.
It's too bad that your review of MDB is not available in English. But if
it's available online, even in French, I think we probably have enough
French-speaking readers where I'd encourage you to post a link to it. Remember that in
our Statement of Purpose we encourage members to treat posts as they would a
published piece - I think Fred and I agree that this is not a hard and fast
rule, obviously, but it is an ideal. Since you wouldn't have gotten into the
"working class" aspect of MDB in your review, my own advice would be to refrain
from discussing it here.
I realize such conversations are inevitable and there's nothing wrong with
that. Fred and I very, very rarely post notes of this nature because we realize
that many of the discussions not related to our primary purpose are fleeting.
But occasionally we sign onto the group one evening and find 20-odd posts on
a topic that really does stray from our reason for being. Hence our post.
I think it's important to mention that both Jason and Ruy expressed similar
reservations about the MDB thread prior to Fred or I even reading it. The
point is not to silence posters; indeed, it is to make sure that valued
contributors like Jason and Ruy CONTINUE to post and hopefully post more often!
This doesn't mean that the group should become paranoid about including a
reference to visual style in every post they write. I would hope that this is
obvious. Indeed, the group has been very open to Dan and Zach's (to name two)
ideas about how acting is a legitimate form of movie style, ideas which I
personally find fascinating. But the MDB posts for the most part have no reference
whatsoever to cinematic form, visual or otherwise. So I think it will
benefit all to remember the reason why Fred and I founded the group and the reason
why many of the current membership signed up.
Peter Tonguette
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
23024
From: Henrik Sylow
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 4:40pm
Subject: Re: Million Dollar Baby
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, jpcoursodon wrote:
>
>
> >
> > The few very vocal MDB-haters on this Group seem
> > to me to have
> > the kind of attitude that, had they lived in the 40s
> > and 50s, they
> > would have hated almost every single Hollywood film
> > that we, on this
> > Group, love and revere today.
Amen!
23025
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 4:48pm
Subject: Re: Bad news from ScreenDaily
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, George Robinson
wrote:
> My friend Ira Hozinsky passes the following along to the list:
>
> Did you see this headline from Screen Daily International
yesterday?
I emailed a query to Michael Friend, restorationist at Sony, who used
to be at MGM-UA. If he's speaking to me (someone from the Cahiers did
a bad thing while he was at the Academy: no responsibility of mine,
but Michael bears grudges) I'll let you know what he says.
23026
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 4:59pm
Subject: Re: Varda at Film Forum Tonight
Ask her about "Lion's Love" and what are the chances
for a new print being struck!
It's one of her best films and not as well known as it
should be.
--- Craig Keller wrote:
>
> Agnès Varda is doing a Q&A after the 6:30 screening
> of 'Cinévardaphoto'
> tonight at Film Forum in New York, and will
> introduce the 8:20
> screening as well.
>
> craig.
>
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23027
From: Fred Camper
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 5:00pm
Subject: All members please read (was: Post # 22999 (was Re: Million Dollar Baby))
Here are three important posts discussing group procedures, in case
you've missed them.
http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/a_film_by/message/22999
http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/a_film_by/message/23012
http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/a_film_by/message/23023
Part of the problem, as Peter suggests in the last, is *volume*. A few
OT posts on almost anything that doesn't violate our "firm prohibitions"
are not a problem. A few posts that violate our notion of discussing
film from an aesthetic/formal point of view are not a problem. I agree
with JPC that OT posts are inevitable, and have said so more than once.
The problem comes when the group is overwhelmed by such posts, as has
happened more than once recently.
I've observed (and been a part of) the "ecology" of more than one
Internet discussion group. It is always the case that only a minority of
the people signed up ever post, as JPC notes. The problem comes when the
energy and free time of a few people cause their posts to dominate,
however worthy those posts may be. When JPC writes, "only a very small
percentage of the members ever post, and it's practically always the
same group of people," the fact is that some members feel crowded out by
giant threads on subjects other than what this group is supposed to
focus on. Look at the recent "All About Eve" thread. I was kind of
interested in all this since it's a film I love and it went to issues of
how people interpret characters and what film criticism is. The film
being a gay icon, I suppose the "is he or isn't he" question was a bit
inevitable too. But very little of this thread was about the film as a
work of art. And there were a zillion posts within a few hours of each
other. Our group's members have something unique to contribute to film
discourse, and that's what the group should focus on.
Not every post that you disagree with needs to be responded to. If you
do respond, it doesn't have to be within the next hour. There's
something to be said for thinking things over and responding, oh, the
next day. Use our "chat" function for quick discussions. If you find
yourself making more than four posts in a day about the same topic none
of which goes to our group's purpose, it might be a good idea to
restrain that "send" finger.
It was useful from my point of view to see Ruy's and Jason's comments. I
know both of them, and for me they're among our most valued members, and
they apparently feel as we do.
Neither Peter nor I enjoy the time we spend reminding people of the
group's purpose. I know this because in the hour or so we spent working
out our joint post we both mentioned other things we'd rather be doing.
These are all things we've said before, and I hope we won't have to say
them again. Perhaps we'll work on incorporating them into our Statement.
Fred Camper
23028
From: BklynMagus
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 5:21pm
Subject: Re: Ordinary People vs. Raging Bull
I remember being shocked in 1980 when "Ordinary People"
beat "Raging Bull" at the Oscars.
But 25 years down the line, I find the films have reversed
position in my estimation.
The original emotional impact "Raging Bull" had on me has
dissipated and has not been recaptured on repeat viewings.
The last time I saw it (Scorsese retro at AMMI) I was bored.
All the flash and technique of the boxing sequences seemed
deployed not for illumination, but to elevate LaMotta to an
unearned status of hero -- as if his bouts contained some
urgent moral purpose that compensated for the immoral/
amoral aspects of his everyday life. Dan captured some
of what I feel when he noted that the bigger-than-life
technique was immature (though I am unsure how it is
sentimental. Maybe in that Scorsese's style elevates
pugilism to a romantic significance not always associated
with boxing as practiced outside of movies).
"Ordinary People" has seemd to grow in its cool dissection of
upwardly mobile middle class surburban lives. I remember
thinking that the colors were slightly off when I first saw the
film, and only later realized that the colors were off in the
sense that this entire family was off. The colors seem to
resolve themselves in the latter stages of the film as the
characters' lives reached resolution.
Also, getting the characters in the same frame seemed to be
harder at the beginning than later in the film (Sutherland
trying to get everyone in a family photo).
This visual representation of familial distance is repeated in "Quiz
Show," most prominently in the scene set in a classroom where
Van Doren tells his father what he did.
Finally, I read the interview with Serge Daney that hl666 referred
to. My first thoughts would be that Redford questions the prevailing
cultural model of the desirability of being upwardly mobile, while
Scorsese for his part endorses the cultural notion of the lone hero
going against the trend: LaMotta may be violent and abusive, but
he is a hero in the ring; Hughes may be a wealthy and privileged
capitalist, but he goes against the grain.
Brian
23029
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 5:24pm
Subject: Post # 22999 (was Re: Million Dollar Baby)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, ptonguette@a... wrote:
the MDB posts for the most part have no reference
> whatsoever to cinematic form, visual or otherwise. So I think it
will
> benefit all to remember the reason why Fred and I founded the group
and the reason
> why many of the current membership signed up.
I haven't read them because I haven't seen the film, but the same
remarks apply to the Christo-like mile-long thread on Aviator. I'm
the one who plaintively raised the question of visual style there.
There was little response -- not none, but little - as there was to
Brian's important post on two scenes from All About Eve re:
Mankiewicz's supposed absence of style. (I just rented the film and
will go back and respond when I've seen it again.) So I assume that
there's not huge interest in that subject, or more likely, that it is
hard to talk about without sitting down and doing some analysis.
But film - and I'm deliberately using the term as broadly as possible
here - is a notoriously impure art, and looking at only one side of
it just doesn't make any sense. The posts here are generally of a
high enough quality that I am stimulated even when they focus on the
director's personality ad infinitum. That's why I inserted "Goombah
or Genius" into the Scorsese thread, to at least get the assumptions
that seemed to be guiding some of the posts onto the table. And good
discussion of visual style has to encompass more than just the
visual. On the other hand, liking or dismissing a film because it's
dismissive of the working class (or gays) may lead to interesting
discussion, but is not the end-all and be-all of the film under
discussion all by itself. The stricture cuts both ways, as JPC noted.
This is why I posted on "ecriture and ideology." What Serge meant
by "ecriture" was an extension of Astruc's "camera stylo" - writing
with the camera. The most elaborate handrwiting has to be about
something; on the other hand, after a decade of CdC militancy had led
to the extinction of discussion of anything but politics (and no
pictures in the mag), he was reasserting what had always been the CdC
line, even at the highly fruitful outset of all the political
discussions (68-72): We have always been interested in films
where "writing" (which often means things on the level of the
screenplay - not just lighting and use of space) is in excess of the
ideology. That's the real point of the famous Young Mr. Lincoln text.
Ford's "writing" not only exceeded but subverted the film's ideology
in the very process of trying to "inscribe" it. (I'm no longer fond
of the vocabulary, but that was then, and we need those ideas now,
apparently, so I'm reverting.)
But assuming that the Baby thread deals at some length with the
working class elements in the film to the exclusion of all else
(although I believe Dan - whose post I selectively opened - says
something about caricature in general in Eastwood), I will still
reread it when I see the film because I'm sure that my leftist
sensibility will be affected by those scenes and characters, and a
discussion just of that is useful - especially since such discussions
rarely appear in the corporate press, which is written by members of
one class, notoriously prone to see itself as the whole human race.
That's why, in my still unanswered (except for JPC and Richard)
ecriture and ideology post, I raised the question of what HK martial
arts films - and more generally, the flood of good films from Asia -
MEAN. It's nice to know every martial arts coordinator and discuss
the fine points of Woo's baroque vs. To's baroque, but at the end of
the day, like westerns, these simple films are loaded with meaning
for the society that produced them, and I assume The Day the Pig Fell
in the Well is too. I'd like to know more about those issues - even
if it's one-sidedly political - in order to enrich my experience of
these amazing movies, from chop-socky to the sublime (Hong).
So the only kind of discussion I'd discourage is discussion that
seeks to limit discussion, Peter. Your post was aimed at opening up
discussion, enriching it, and I'm all for that. But nothing human (or
inhuman) is alien to the artform we're talking about, so nothing
should be decreed as off-topic, unless it has nothing whatsoever to
do with cinema - and even some occasional OT discussion can serve to
enrich the main discussion. When I first started here, references to
homosexuality were viewed as intrusive, but David has educated us to
much we needed to know on the topic, and I'm thrilled he has.
Personally, I think that the topic in all its diemnsions has a lot to
teach us about this artform, and again, the repression of it by the
mainstream press makes necessary to address it here.
As a frequent poster, JPC, I do take umbrage at the idea that it's
always the same people who post. Lots of people post here, with many
new frequent posters appearing lately, and one post by a lurker who
has been following the conversation can be as enriching as fifty by
one of us blabbermouths. That has been happening a lot lately - long
may it continue.
23030
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 5:31pm
Subject: Re: Ordinary People vs. Raging Bull
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, BklynMagus wrote:
> I remember being shocked in 1980 when "Ordinary People"
> beat "Raging Bull" at the Oscars.
>
> But 25 years down the line, I find the films have reversed
> position in my estimation.
I have always preferred the Redford. Raging Bull is simply not one of
my favorite Scorseses. Louis Skorecki wrote the CdC rave about OP -
at a time when the magzine was redeiscovering the power of melodrama,
which OP is. I should mention that Ordinary People is one of the
films - if not THE film - that Gus Van Sant says has most influenced
his career, which makes it easier to deal with seeming anomalies like
Finding Forrester. I'm not too crazy about the overuse of the musical
theme, but I agree with everything you say about Redford's visuals.
He drew it all out in advance - it wasn't spontaneous, but it also
wasn't accidental.
23031
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 6:07pm
Subject: Re: Re: Ordinary People vs. Raging Bull
--- hotlove666 wrote:
I should mention that Ordinary People
> is one of the
> films - if not THE film - that Gus Van Sant says has
> most influenced
> his career, which makes it easier to deal with
> seeming anomalies like
> Finding Forrester.
I was just about to bring that up. And that's because
of a curious confluence of factors.
1) He comes from an "Ordinary People" family
and
2) "Ordinary People" was the sine qua non (or is it
"cine qua non" ?) of "serious" Hollywood filmmaking at
the time time Gus emerged from the "underground."
"Good Will Hunting" is very much influenced by
"Ordinary People." However the film that he's made
about his actual families (both real and spiritual) is
the highly un-Redford-like "My Own Private Idaho"
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23032
From: samfilms2003
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 6:39pm
Subject: Post # 22999 (was Re: Million Dollar Baby)
> This is why I posted on "ecriture and ideology." What Serge meant
> by "ecriture" was an extension of Astruc's "camera stylo" - writing
> with the camera.
Well no matter what you want to say about Martin Scorcesse, the
"stylo" is there. I mean, is there someone on this list that *couldn't*
recognize a Marty film after 2 mins when channel surfing on cable TV ?
That's why I didn't know how I might respond when that question came
up here, it seemed amazing to ask it.
(this is for Frameworkers I guess, but if you can derive an algorithm from
Ernie Gehr & Hollis Frampton structures, I'm not sure you almost couldn't
do the same from Thelma Schoonmaker !)
-Sam (the only person on earth who likes "The Color Of Money" as much
as "Raging Bull")
23033
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 6:41pm
Subject: Re: Post # 22999 (was Re: Million Dollar Baby)
I'm okay with the moderators discouraging any thread that threatens to
alienate valued members. I don't even need a good reason.
But I'm hoping that, if form is used as a criterion for on-topic-ness,
form won't be defined too narrowly!
Just looking at the parts of the M$B thread that I participated in, I see
the following issues:
1) Caricature as part of the film's role in positioning the audience vis a
vis the film universe.
2) "Breathing" in Eastwood. Zach introduced the idea; I adapted it to
discuss an Eastwood tendency to create small sections of films that are
delimited (usually by a change of location) and devoted to expansive,
unhurried observation of behavior.
3) Eastwood's style acquiring a different vibe in the post-MTV era.
Authorship as a function of historical context.
4) Zach's concept of "the aging body" in Eastwood, which he put forth as a
function of various formal elements.
5) The documentary aspect of casting - the fact that Hilary Swank can
actually do physical things and throw a punch.
5a) Implied authorship/historical context issue: Swank's fame is
exclusively from another role that emphasized her masculine qualities.
6) Euthanasia vs. bank robbery: how do we identify a film's attitude vis a
vis the events it portrays?
==================
All these issues are either purely formal or depend on formal
considerations. Often, things like composition, emphasis, rhythm,
performance, etc. are the low-level "building block" elements that are
deployed to discuss wider-ranging formal concepts.
- Dan
23034
From: thebradstevens
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 7:12pm
Subject: Re: Ordinary People vs. Raging Bull
My first thoughts would be that Redford questions the prevailing
> cultural model of the desirability of being upwardly mobile,
while
> Scorsese for his part endorses the cultural notion of the lone hero
> going against the trend: LaMotta may be violent and abusive, but
> he is a hero in the ring
>
That's totally absurd. RAGING BULL is quite clear about the fact that
Jake La Motta is both trapped within, and simultaneously a victim of,
the nightmare world of patriarchal masculinity. He never ceases to be
a human being (because he's a victim as well as an oppressor), but to
suugest that Scorsese finds something heroic about him is nothing
short of ridiculous.
I haven't seen ORDINARY PEOPLE since it was first released, but my
memory is that it implies everything will be fine once the mother is
exiled from the family's inner circle, thus allowing the males to
bond in peace. A film Jake La Motta would surely love.
I'm sure Redford's use of color is very skillful, but that doesn't
change the fact that it is merely a skillful way to put across a
reactionary masculinist worldview. One need only compare ORDINARY
PEOPLE with the films of Sirk, who used 'style' to undermine such a
worldview.
23035
From: BklynMagus
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 7:20pm
Subject: Re: One-Shot Auteurism
I think there can be a one-shot auteur. In my
heart, my favorite filmmakers are those with
long careers that can be charted over decades
in terms of tens of films. But I do not think that
auteurism demands that an artist produce x
number of films over y number of years.
Early on I used to collect the little square books
that Praeger published. One was by Raymond
Durgnat on Luis Bunuel. At the beginning he laid
out 5 (I believe -- I am at work and cannot check)
different types of filmmakers: those that peak early;
those that find their theme early and continue
mining that vein all their career; those that find
their theme late; and those that evolve (this is an
approximation -- I will get the exact list when I get
home. Warning: I am going to a Sam Fuller double
bill at Walter Reade tonight so it wil be late).
I am not sure that Redford has that much to say as an
auteur. In many ways "Quiz Show" was a restatement
and refinement of OP. This time the star brother
survives and is shown to be not as much of a star as
believed. What the films share in common is a
depiction of the deforming power of parental expectations.
QS expands this theme into a larger cultural mileu where
society at large is seen as having/needing certain
individuals to fulfill its mass expectations. The closing
credits playing over a crowd applauding and laughing in
grotesque slow-motion to the strains of "Mack the
Knife" effectively makes this point for me.
Other directors have different arcs. Off the top of my
head I would note:
Hitchcock: seems the ideal -- long career with distinct
phases and growth.
Mankiewicz: the Fox years and then the auteur-for-hire
years with 3 personal projects sprinkled in.
Wilder: Life with Brackett; the 50's (an uneven time at best);
Life with I.A.L. Diamond. Wilder is a different auteur
with Brackett than he is with Diamond.
Imamura: Four distinct phases: 1958-68 (First phase with
10 movies -- all contemporary); 1969-1978 (the
documentaries); 1979-1989 (Return with 5 films -- 4
historical and one contemporary); 1997 - Present (Late
Masterpieces -- 3 films). For me Imamura is an
auteur, but with a distinct signature in each phase.
Lynch: Knew his themes early and releases films
periodically to go over the same ground in different
ways.
Just some thoughts.
Brian
23036
From: Fred Camper
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 7:41pm
Subject: Re: Post # 22999 (was Re: Million Dollar Baby)
Dan, all the things you mention look like relevant to me. Speaking for
myself, what bothered me about the thread is that it was getting
personal, and also subjective matters of interpreting social attitudes
seemed to be dominating the thread.
People are doubtless going to find that their carefully constructed
posts about cinema don't necessarily get an answer, or many answers.
It's easier to debate "hot" social aspects of a film most have seen than
a careful critique of a film most have not seen in a long time. That
shouldn't discourage posters from posting their most serious thoughts.
Remember that our posts are archived on the Web -- and I've been working
for a while on a project to make the archives more accessible, and more
finable by search engines, which you'll all hear of soon. Also, just
because people don't reply doesn't mean that your post hasn't been read,
and found to be of interest, by many. The problem is that so many reply
to express opinions about "is he gay" and the like that people who post
more worked-out analyses of films tend to compare and find the responses
they get wanting. There are some topics on which everyone can have an
opinion, such as the Correct way to depict the working class. Just
because one has an opinion on something doesn't mean one should post it
here. The way to make our discussions better is for people to follow our
Statement, and treat posts as published articles, and use the group's
chat room for chat.
I'm still hoping to find one of those heated threads end after an
exchange of four or five posts in an hour with a "see you in chat at 10."
Fred Camper
23037
From: BklynMagus
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 8:57pm
Subject: Re: Ordinary People vs. Raging Bull
thebradstevens wrote:
> RAGING BULL is quite clear about the fact that
Jake La Motta is both trapped within, and
simultaneously a victim of, the nightmare world
of patriarchal masculinity.
I do not see that at all. All of Scorsese's manic
peacock camerawork works against this
interpetation in my view. Such technique
in my mind is an attempt to make a case for
hero consideration.
> He never ceases to be a human being
Whether or not LaMotta ceases to be a human
being depends on the moral doxology of the
viewer. Watching how he treats his wife will
raise different feelings in different viewers.
> . . . but to suugest that Scorsese finds
something heroic about him is nothing short of
ridiculous.
The over-the-top techniques used in LaMotta's
bouts are to me an indication of Scorsese's
heroic view LaMotta.
> I haven't seen ORDINARY PEOPLE since it was
first released, but my memory is that it implies
everything will be fine once the mother is exiled
from the family's inner circle . . .
Yes, once the source of the deforming expectations
has been dealt with, life can slowly begin to get back
to normal. In OP it is the mother; in QS it is the
father.
> . . . thus allowing the males to bond in peace.
The removal of an irritant usually allows peaceful
bonding to occur between any genders/sexes.
> I'm sure Redford's use of color is very skillful, but
that doesn't change the fact that it is merely a skillful
way to put across a reactionary masculinist worldview.
Such a reading only stands up if there is evidence in the
film that Redford believes that females are an
intrinsically deforming force in the lives of their families.
Is there some evidence that Redford believe MTM's
character is emblematic of all mothers/women?
> One need only compare ORDINARY PEOPLE with the
films of Sirk, who used 'style' to undermine such a
worldview.
Sirk has always left me cold. However, I have always been
curious if there were any writing at the time his movies were
released or statements made by him that indicated that
he was attempting to undermine this worldview with his
style. Or was this a later belief to which he acquiesced
when interviewed?
Brian
PS: I have always thought Otto Preminger's "Daisy Kenyon"
to be a far better melodrama than any produced by Sirk.
23038
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 9:19pm
Subject: Re: Re: Ordinary People vs. Raging Bull
--- BklynMagus wrote:
> I do not see that at all. All of Scorsese's manic
> peacock camerawork works against this
> interpetation in my view. Such technique
> in my mind is an attempt to make a case for
> hero consideration.
>
Well not for the rest of us.
>
> The over-the-top techniques used in LaMotta's
> bouts are to me an indication of Scorsese's
> heroic view LaMotta.
>
You mean it's all just like Leni Riefenstahl, right?
Please!
> PS: I have always thought Otto Preminger's "Daisy
> Kenyon"
> to be a far better melodrama than any produced by
> Sirk.
>
>
>
At last the source of the problem identifies itself!
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23039
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 9:28pm
Subject: Re: Re: Ordinary People vs. Raging Bull
>> cultural model of the desirability of being upwardly mobile,
> while
>> Scorsese for his part endorses the cultural notion of the lone hero
>> going against the trend: LaMotta may be violent and abusive, but
>> he is a hero in the ring
>
> That's totally absurd. RAGING BULL is quite clear about the fact that
> Jake La Motta is both trapped within, and simultaneously a victim of,
> the nightmare world of patriarchal masculinity. He never ceases to be
> a human being (because he's a victim as well as an oppressor), but to
> suugest that Scorsese finds something heroic about him is nothing
> short of ridiculous.
All credit to Scorsese for daring to show La Motta's darkness so
comprehensively and still not make him a villain. But the romanticism
with which Scorsese enhances and amplifies the violence of the ring has
the effect of casting La Motta as an epic warrior. I'm not at all sure
that Scorsese knows what effect he's having: he seems taken over by the
feeling of amping things up.
I can't find a way to relate to David's concept that the epic/romantic
stuff is La Motta's vision of the ring. (The actual psychology of being
in that kind of situation is actually more like a Straub film, or
something: everything is reduced, fragmentary, hyperlucid. But I guess
that's neither here nor there.) To imagine yourself larger than life, but
bathed in gore and lit semi-nightmarishly...? What it resembles for me is
the psychological cocktail that you find in some comics, pulp fiction,
video games: a fantasy of power fused with a projection of sadism. - Dan
23040
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 9:56pm
Subject: Re: Re: Ordinary People vs. Raging Bull
--- Dan Sallitt wrote:
>
> I can't find a way to relate to David's concept that
> the epic/romantic
> stuff is La Motta's vision of the ring.
Go back and take a look at the church dance scene
(which is a hommage to "The Leopard" among other
things.) It spells out that the film is largely
constructed in and aroudn Jake's POV -- the way he
sees the world.
But just because we're seeing the world "through his
mind" doesn't mean Scorse has us meld with his mind.
The amazing thing about te way the film works is that
while we're there with Jake Scorsese gives access to
Vicky and Joey as well.When Vicky announces to Jake
that she's leaving him it's a big surprise to him --
but not to us. The corresponds with the fact that Jake
thinks he can control Vicky by sheer breute force --
yet she strikes back, even though he has enough
strength to literallykill her. I've always felt that
one of the most impressive moments in all of Scorsese
is the scene where Vicky locks herself in the bathroom
and won't let Jake in. The way Cathy Moriarty says
"No" to his plea to open the door thoroughly explains
why she won out over a long list (I know all the names
but I've neevr mentioned them -- even in my book) of
others for the part. Not surprisingly we're inside the
bathroom with her -- rather than outside the door with
him. And if he's supposed to be the "hero" we'd be
there with him on the other side of the door -- and
we're not. A fortiori if the film presented Jake
unproblematically as heroic everything in it would be
contrived to support for his side of things --
which it emphatically does not.
(The actual
> psychology of being
> in that kind of situation is actually more like a
> Straub film, or
> something: everything is reduced, fragmentary,
> hyperlucid. But I guess
> that's neither here nor there.) To imagine yourself
> larger than life, but
> bathed in gore and lit semi-nightmarishly...? What
> it resembles for me is
> the psychological cocktail that you find in some
> comics, pulp fiction,
> video games: a fantasy of power fused with a
> projection of sadism. - Dan
>
>
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23041
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 11:58pm
Subject: Expressionism (Was: Ordinary People vs. Raging Bull)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein wrote:
>
A fortiori if the film presented Jake
> unproblematically as heroic everything in it would be
> contrived to support for his side of things --
> which it emphatically does not.
Great comments, David - now I have to resee it. The word Expressionism
immediately comes to mind for early Scorsese at least - you clearly feel it
applies to The Aviator as well - which opens up the whole issue of films
showing us the world as it appears to the main character. Was anyone else
bothered, for example, by Secretary, which seemed to be going in and out of
the Gyllenhall character's reality, or was that just good Belle de Jour
referencing? (Specifically, the scene where she's nailed to the desk waiting
for him to return wasn't real.)
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
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23042
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Feb 17, 2005 0:32am
Subject: Re: Expressionism (Was: Ordinary People vs. Raging Bull)
--- hotlove666 wrote:
>
> Great comments, David - now I have to resee it. The
> word Expressionism
> immediately comes to mind for early Scorsese at
> least - you clearly feel it
> applies to The Aviator as well - which opens up the
> whole issue of films
> showing us the world as it appears to the main
> character.
The term I'd use is Mannerist.
Was anyone else
> bothered, for example, by Secretary, which seemed to
> be going in and out of
> the Gyllenhall character's reality, or was that just
> good Belle de Jour
> referencing? (Specifically, the scene where she's
> nailed to the desk waiting
> for him to return wasn't real.)
"Belle de Jour" is very much the model.It's also
another good example of exploring a character's
consciousness -- or in this case UNconsciousness.
Bunuel is, of course, a much moreslippery character
than Scorsese.
But ways of creating subjectivity fascinate me. I, for
example, don't regard "The Lady in the Lake" as a
failure at all. Sure POV shots can't reproduce the
absolute consciousness of a fictional character. But
they're expressive nonetheless.
And then there's "Providence" which puts us inside a
work of fiction and then takes us out into a "reality"
that may well be just as fictional.
After a hedgehog is prominently featured. (A supreme
fetish object for Resnais -- see the caged on in "Pas
Sur La Bouche.")
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23043
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Feb 17, 2005 1:06am
Subject: Re: Expressionism (Was: Ordinary People vs. Raging Bull)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein wrote:
> And then there's "Providence" which puts us inside a
> work of fiction and then takes us out into a "reality"
> that may well be just as fictional.
>
> After a hedgehog is prominently featured. (A supreme
> fetish object for Resnais -- see the caged on in "Pas
> Sur La Bouche.")
"The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing." Isaiah
Berlin saw this gnomic Greek sentence (the total surviving work of some pre-
Socratic philosopher, I forget his name) as describing the difference between
those who relate everything to a single central vision or system, and those
who live "centrifugally," pursuing many unrelated, even contradictory aims.
Dante, Plato, Lucretius, Pascal, Hegel, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Ibsen and
Proust are hedgehogs; Shakespeare, Herodotus, Aristotle, Montaigne,
Erasmus, Molière, Goethe, Pushkin, Balzac and Joyce are foxes.
23044
From:
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 8:40pm
Subject: Re: Post # 22999 (was Re: Million Dollar Baby)
I started the thread about whether Addison DeWitt in "All About Eve" was a
gay character.
My posts suggested that there was a consistent pattern of hidden gay
protagonists in the films of Bresson and Ozu, running through much of their entire
bodies of work. And suggested there was a similar character in Preminger's
"Laura". I went on to doubt that anything similar was happening in "All About Eve",
giving reasons.
I have done a lot of thinking on this subject, over the years. My Ozu website
in 1998 was apparently the first writing on Ozu anywhere to discuss purported
gay characters hidden within his films.
Admittedly, this has little to do with visual style, or form in these
directors' films - something I agree is of great importance. It is purely a
discussion at the level of themes and character - two subjects which have a very long
history in auteurist studies.
Mike Grost
23045
From: jaketwilson
Date: Thu Feb 17, 2005 2:07am
Subject: Post # 22999 (was Re: Million Dollar Baby)
> I have done a lot of thinking on this subject, over the years. My
Ozu website
> in 1998 was apparently the first writing on Ozu anywhere to discuss
purported
> gay characters hidden within his films.
> Admittedly, this has little to do with visual style, or form in
these
> directors' films - something I agree is of great importance. It is
purely a
> discussion at the level of themes and character - two subjects
which have a very long
> history in auteurist studies.
As an infrequent poster (these days) just wanted to say that I'd be
sorry to see theme/character-focused discussion vanish from a_film_by.
Also that speculation on the unspoken sexualities of characters often
can and should be related to discussion of "visual style" given that
editing & camera placement often bring out meanings in film which
aren't (and sometimes can't be) declared on a script level. Robin
Wood's speculation about a possible homoerotic connection between
Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson in RIO BRAVO, intimated through editing
choices, is an example of this. And a while back I remember seeing a
Z-grade youth skateboarding film called GRIND with no artistic
ambitions whatsoever -- but I was a little amazed by the intimate
(though chaste) close-ups in the scene where the gang of male friends
rent a "honeymoon suite".
I agree incidentally that Addison isn't gay and that Sanders
typically comes over as suavely heterosexual. But not always, as in
PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY (which wouldn't have worked with Clifton Webb,
whose persona, I also agree, has connotations of impotence as much as
feyness).
JTW
23046
From: Fred Camper
Date: Thu Feb 17, 2005 3:48am
Subject: Re: Re: Post # 22999 (was Re: Million Dollar Baby)
Mike and JTW,
I don't think that except for a few small personal insults there was any
topic or any specific post in that Mankiewicz thread that we were trying
to exclude. We've specifically said more than once that not every post
need mention film form. It was more that when there eight or ten post
with the same subject line by the same poster in a single day, and eight
or ten replies by another, and they not only don't involve visual style
but are starting to get personal (questions about sexual proclivities),
things seem to be getting out of control. As we've said before, this
kind of back and forth isn't why we started the group, and doesn't seem
likely to be of interest to that many others. After an exchange of a few
posts on the same topic between the same posters in a single evening, it
might be good to just wait a day to reply, or take it to chat. I'd say
the same thing a back-and-forth that did involve visual style, actually.
Perhaps that one would take a few more posts before seeming annoying,
but all we're going to do with exchanges like the ones that concerned us
is to drive many other members away.
Fred Camper
23047
From: samfilms2003
Date: Thu Feb 17, 2005 4:02am
Subject: Re: Ordinary People vs. Raging Bull
>
> > RAGING BULL is quite clear about the fact that
> Jake La Motta is both trapped within, and
> simultaneously a victim of, the nightmare world
> of patriarchal masculinity.
>
> I do not see that at all. All of Scorsese's manic
> peacock camerawork works against this
> interpetation in my view. Such technique
> in my mind is an attempt to make a case for
> hero consideration.
Why not say a kind of god with feet of clay, then ?
I can't think of anything more appropriate for Jake
LaMotta than "manic peacock" camera work !
..well you could do something more against stylistic
type, but then it's not a Marty Movie...
>>Dan wrote: I can't find a way to relate to David's concept that the epic/romantic
stuff is La Motta's vision of the ring.
Well I think it is; the light blinds the camera negative !
-Sam
23048
From:
Date: Thu Feb 17, 2005 0:24am
Subject: All members please read: an OT board
One of our members, Saul Symonds, has started a group for off-topic posts and
threads. He says he'll admit only people who are already members of
a_film_by. The url is
http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/a_film_by_OT/ We invite anyone
interested to join.
We still welcome OT posts here when occasioned by film discussions. Perhaps
it's those threads that veer off into directions totally unrelated to our
purpose, or become conversational exchanges dominated by personal details and the
like, that should be taken to the OT board.
Peter and Fred
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
23049
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Feb 17, 2005 6:56am
Subject: Post # 22999 (was Re: Million Dollar Baby)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> I started the thread about whether Addison DeWitt in "All About
Eve" was a
> gay character.
> My posts suggested that there was a consistent pattern of hidden
gay
> protagonists in the films of Bresson and Ozu, running through much
of their entire
> bodies of work. And suggested there was a similar character in
Preminger's
> "Laura". I went on to doubt that anything similar was happening
in "All About Eve",
> giving reasons.
> I have done a lot of thinking on this subject, over the years
That's because you love a mystery, Mike! I do too.
23050
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Feb 17, 2005 8:11am
Subject: The Carnival (Was: Post # 22999 )
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
> Mike and JTW,
>
this kind of back and forth isn't why we started the group
Indeed. I know. But...
I understand why The Founders are upset, because not only have things
gotten out of control in terms of the size and frequency and variety
of posts appearing here: David and Brian had a brief personal
exchange...right in front of everyone.
Let me just say, for starters, different strokes for different folks.
I loved that exchange: loved hearing them make friends after being at
daggers drawn, exchange literary favorites (all of which I never
heard of) and talk the talk; loved hearing David play elder
statesman - which he is, in addition to being one of the most learned
members we have - and recommending a semester of "Remedial Sondheim"
to the (48-year-old) young squirt, and so on. Witty, intelligent,
human - the stuff of life as it can be lived virtually on the Net in
this brave new world of ours, but better than it is lived elsewhere,
thanks to the Founders' careful construction of this place, like
people giving a first-class party.
It was as if - Fred will know what I mean - they had created a Roger
and Howards' where people talked about something on the break besides
the quality of the print.
To finish with that exchange, I'd say that it could ONLY have
happened as it did on the Net, where a unique mixture of public forum
and private conversation seems to be possible - and where it can
arise spontaneously while talking about something else: In this case,
coincidentally, the films of Mankiewicz, who incarnated the qualities
on display. I for one would feel cheated to have missed it.
But the reason for the tensions that have arisen is that, as Fred
says, this isn't why he and Peter and their unnamed collaborators
started the group. Moreover, even in discussions of films, the
storyboards have been tossed out the window, shredded, trampled in
the mire. As the author of a book that talked for the first time
about how often and how fruitfully Hitchcock did that with HIS
storyboards, let me congratulate The Founders on the way they have
allowed this thing they created to grow like Topsy, with only
occasional grumblings about it turning into a Frankenstein monster.
Renoir, who militantly disbelieved in blueprints, would be proud of
them.
And horticulturalists, please spare me the inevitable pruning
metaphors: a) because they're inevitable and b) because the one thing
I will never forgive The Founders for is madlyangelic girl. The old
hands will know what I mean. Of COURSE she was exploiting us! WHAT DO
YOU GUYS THINK WOMEN DO TO MEN? It's social behavior! Who knows where
it would have led. Now we're back to one woman member...
Anyway, let me make three practical suggestions:
1) I never read the posts in the e-mails I'm sent. I look at the
messages of the day and cherrypick, working forward from the ones
that are pink, meaning I've seen them, or if I'm off-site, from my
own last post, since I know I read everything I wanted to before
that. I usually end up reading everything anyway.
2) I could do this a hell of a lot better if the heated discussion of
Addison Dewitt's loafer tonnage weren't billed as part 53 of
Mankiewicz vs. Rivette. Encore un effort, countrymen. Maybe if you
have to think what to call the fucking thing, it will slow your
finger as it approaches the Send button, diverting your latest droll
sally into the discreet shadows of Saul's chatroom, and thereby
gladdening Fred's heart. We owe him that! Occasionally.
3) Fred, I post short and I post long and I post a lot. Try it some
day when you have time. Your admirable wish to set an example for the
rest of us means that you are far too often absent from the feast you
invited us to - unless I missed something, the entire Mankiewicz
discussion, including Brian's still unanswered visual analysis of two
scenes from Eve, happened without you, after an initial gnomic
formulation about words seeping into the sets, and Mankiewicz is one
of your favorite directors! Try firing off a series of teeny,
unreflective, half-baked posts in response to something that
interests you that much. Let a few insults creep in, just to spice
them up, or if that's not your style, a few typos. In other words,
enjoy the virtual conversation component of your creation, which
would only exist in the form it has taken as part of a complex,
impure collective creation where MANY MODES OF DISCOURSE intermingle
promiscuously.
The pleasure of the text, as that guy used to say.
23051
From:
Date: Thu Feb 17, 2005 3:55am
Subject: Re: The Carnival (Was: Post # 22999 )
Bill,
You know, I have often remarked to Fred that I'm very proud of the group,
even though it has evolved and changed from precisely what we had in mind.
Nevertheless, it seems to me that we have a wonderful virtual community with many
truly distinguished members who seem to enjoy participating here. I know I do.
So I don't think we're now trying to re-shape the group into something it's
not.
But occasionally we do feel a need to step in if the talk is straying far and
wide from not only our original purpose, but from the Statement every member
present has agreed with before being admitted. And, as I posted the other
night, it wasn't just us co-moderators who felt this way, but Ruy and Jason and
Saul and other contributors and ex-contributors who we've been in touch with
via email. While I acknowledge your earlier point about the value of
wide-ranging discussions and perspectives, something we certainly have, an auteurist
group probably shouldn't have more posts on the working class than it does on
mise-en-scene! So I guess you could say that we felt obligated to do something.
I think the group's longevity as >an auteurist board< will benefit in the
end.
Peter
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
23052
From: Adrian Martin
Date: Thu Feb 17, 2005 2:09pm
Subject: Sontag tributes in SYNOPTIQUE
Dear friends - A big recommendation to all to check out the articles on
Susan Sontag and her relation to film, in the latest issue of the Canadian
on-line journal SYNOPTIQUE, www.synoptique.ca. Jonathan has an especially
good piece there.
There is also a lot on 'style in cinema' - various essays and a round-table
discussion - plus a fascinating 'style gallery' with clips. To warm the
hearts of formalists of all persuasions among us !!!
Adrian
23053
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Thu Feb 17, 2005 2:33pm
Subject: Re: The Carnival (Was: Post # 22999 )
Bill, I loved your post! I was getting a bit disgruntled about
the Group, and you changed my mood. There is indeed a quality of
human exchanges that might become stifled by too much regulation or
self-censorship. I liked your comparison with "Roger and Howard"
which brought back fond New York memories.
I disagree with you, though, on madlyangelicgirl. I thought the
founders were right in banning a person whose sole interest in the
group was to get her term papers written for her by members. I hope
you were joking when you said that it was OK because that's what
women do. A bit sexist, no? (I won't get into the OT issue of
whether this is true or not). So we're down to one woman on the
Group; so what? Do we want third rate token minority
representatives? I'm sure you remember we both tried to rope in some
quality females for the group, with no success. To me that remains a
puzzle and an annoyance, but what can you do?
I agree about that other annoyance: threads that retain the same
topic title although they have considerably drifted away from the
original theme. I have mentioned it several times in the past, and
have changed titles more than once, although I have been guilty of
laziness more than once too.
About the creation of a parallel OT forum, the risk may be that in
many cases we'll be wondering which of the two we should go to.
Still, it's a most valid proposition.
And, Bill, I love the spirit of "Many modes of discourse"
and "Pleasure of the text."
"On ecrit avec son desir et je n'en finis pas de desirer," as that
guy also said. (sounds better in French than in English, somehow).
23054
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Thu Feb 17, 2005 3:32pm
Subject: Re: Peckinpah was: Melville (was: male-male bonding)
> PAT GARRETT & BILLY THE KID can certainly be read as a film about a
> homosexual relationship (see my piece in Ian Cameron's THE MOVIE
BOOK
> OF THE WESTERN).
I need to see the movie again as well as reading yr article. Thanks
for the suggestion though - I'll check it out.
> Peckinpah once described himself as a 'male lesbian', and the
opening
> scene of BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA is essentially a
lesbian
> rereading of the Garden of Eden Myth, with two men taking the role
of
> the snake that causes the fall from paradise (and into the
nightmare
> of patriarchal masculinity).
I'd forgotten there was more than one woman present. I guess this
casts Emilio Fernandez in the role of God - a worrying prospect!
Still, he IS called El Jefe!
> The two overt homosexuals are certainly
> portrayed negatively, but then so are all the other males in this
> film (which contains several 'paired' males, beginning with the two
> men who interrupt the women embracing at the beginning, and
> culminating in Warren Oates' journey with the rotting head of
Alfredo
> Garcia).
I think we're meant to find Bennie a SOMEWHAT sympathetic figure
though. I know I did. It's true that the film does offer more
sympathetic women than men, thinking of it.
D Cairns
23055
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Thu Feb 17, 2005 3:37pm
Subject: Re: Peckinpah was: Melville (was: male-male bonding)
> It's a little more complicated than that, though, in that the
characters
> are first established as hardened killers for hire, and their
> homosexuality is revealed only in their final scene. (Have I got
this
> right? It's been a little while. And I'm trying to avoid
spoilers.)
I think the fact that one of them (wife-murderer Gig Young?) elbows a
whore unconscious right at the start is meant to be an indicator of
his sexual persuasion - she touches his thigh so he decks her. I
think Peckinpah has some strange ideas about same-sex types, and I
think this is his way of hinting to the audience...
> The effect is kind of weird: on the one hand, the homosexuality is
> presented as "insolite," a little bizarre; and yet this is
necessarily the
> moment of greatest audience empathy for the characters.
Or else it's intended to make the presumed straight male audience
hate them and want them to die? It's hard to be sure.
The gayness of the scavenger bounty hunters in THE WILD BUNCH seems
to be almost a neutral quality - it's meant to be amusing and
strange, but if we believe LQ Jones it's not meant to be an indicator
of their badness.
> > Worth remembering that homophobia really means FEAR of
homosexuality,
> > not hatred.
>
> If you go back to the roots, it actually seems to mean fear of
sameness,
> no? It should be "homosexophobia," or something like that, to say
what it
> wants to say.
You're right, damnit.
In which case, that makes me a homophobe because I like variety! But
a homosexophile because "some of my best friends are gay."
D Cairns
23056
From: Fred Camper
Date: Thu Feb 17, 2005 4:01pm
Subject: Re: Re: The Carnival (Was: Post # 22999 )
Bill,
You may be surprised to hear that, like JPC, I like your post a lot too.
If you look at our Statement you'll see that many of David E's
one-liners don't quite fit, yet I like many of David's one-liners a lot,
and that's his style at least some of the time, and heaven forbid that I
try to insist that people here write essays in my style. I agree with
you about wanting many types of discourse. And like Peter, I think our
group is a great success.
For me, a lot of the problem is *volume*. Many people here, myself
included, have complicated careers and limited time to read things here.
I think if the last two big threads, Mankiewicz and Raging
Bull/Ordinary People, had been (in the case of the first, as you say)
properly titled and had been six or eight posts a day, we would not have
intervened, except with regard to a couple of possible personal flames.
The problem is not so much the type of discourse, but that OT discourse
threatens to overwhelm us. And I'm also not sure we would have
intervened had not two valued members, Jason and Ruy, also noted how far
we were straying.
Part of the problem is that the gnoimic short posts you're encouraging
and statements about personal preferences are much easier to write than
long and thoughtful posts, and so they can tend to crowd out the latter,
but we're determined not to see that happen. I can't remember who it
was, but someone once wrote me that he felt the excess of chatty posts
and back-and-forths between a few people were "sucking all the air out
of the room." This may not be how everyone perceives it, but I also
don't think he was alone. What we're talking about is a mid-course
adjustment, not a big change. If more people followed your method of
mostly replying once a day, a lot of the "chat" factor would be removed.
Just to correct the record a bit, we didn't ban madlyangelicgirl. After
she made something like a total of four posts, each of which was ONLY
asking for "homework help" (she would paste in her class assignments and
ask us to help her write them), and after (I think it was) Dan posted a
note wondering about whether she should be doing this, we stated that
our group was for lovers of cinema, and a lover of cinema who also
posted about cinema but was a film student was free to post occasional
questions about class assignments, but we were not a group for people
who were only seeking homework help. We then added that to our Statement
of Purpose. We didn't name her specifically or write to her, but she
then unsubscribed on her own. Perhaps this wasn't someone who even
*liked* cinema! She would have been welcome to stay and post her
homework help questions if that wasn't all she posted.
Fred Camper
23057
From: BklynMagus
Date: Thu Feb 17, 2005 4:12pm
Subject: Sam Fuller's Korean War Movies
I saw "The Steel Helmet" and "Fixed Bayonets" last night
and here are my first impressions.
1. His dialogue is like spoken headlines -- tabloid cinema.
I just love it.
2. "FB" is a war movie about a retreat. How did he ever
get 20th Century Fox (where WWII was fought an extra
20 years) to go along? I loved the shot of the battallion
retreating right to left, passing by the immobile platoon
members as the camera tracks left to right. The combination
of the despairing faces of the platoon left behind; the white
unifoms and the snowy landscape; and the song on the
soundtrack -- almost as if the collective unconscious of the
platoon were singing the song -- left me feeling like I was
watching kabuki.
3. The ending where everything now is black is contrast
to a movie that was mostly white.
4. "TSH": Just setting the majority of a war film in a Buddhist
temple makes me smile. With both films I got such a sense
of realism -- not because of the sets -- but because of some
alchemical interaction of the performances, screenplay and
mise en scene. I have seen other war films that are much
more "realistic" in terms of attention to detail and verisimiltude,
but which have seemed to me more inauthentic than Fuller's
work.
5. Finally, once again I happily submitted to Fuller's working
on my emotions (I think only Mizoguchi is as adept of having
my emotions go through as many changes in one movie).
Brian
23058
From: joe_mcelhaney
Date: Thu Feb 17, 2005 4:17pm
Subject: Re: Sontag tributes in SYNOPTIQUE
Thanks for the link, Adrian.
I never met Sontag but (like many New Yorkers) saw her in public
frequently over the years. She most strongly stands out in my mind
not so much for her writing on cinema (Jonathan R. is correct, I
think, in not regarding her as a great film critic) as for her
vigilant cinephilia, which could be inspiring. Even while she would
write about the "decay" of cinema and general decline in cinephilia,
she continued to be (so far as I could see) a constant filmgoer. At
times, she seemed almost childlike in her straightforward enthusiasm
just for being at the movies, with a big bucket of popcorn in her lap
and her legs draped over the empty chair in front of her. At a Film
Forum screening of "Jeanne Dielmann" she rushed into the lobby to buy
a ticket only to be told by the woman at the box office that they
were sold out. She was incredulous: "But I HAVE to see this film!"
I thought: I haven't felt that way about being shut out of a movie
since I was 19. I remember going to the first New York screening of
Rivette's "Jeanne la pucelle" (the complete version) and she was
standing on a very long line to get in. In a loud, theatrical voice -
- clearly intended for all to hear -- she said, "Oh, it's so
heartwarming to see that so many people will still turn out for a
film like this." And it was.
She and I shared at least one major passion, for Alain
Resnais's "Mélo." Every time I would go to a screening of the film
she would be there, surrounded by friends. I know she had a
reputation for traveling with entourages (although I would, in fact,
often see her alone at the movies) my impression at these screenings
of "Mélo" was that she was bringing people specifically to see this
film and that she wanted them to recognize and appreciate how great
it was. (Or perhaps this was just my fantasy.) During a Syberberg
series at Anthology she was often there, somewhat gaunt, hair very
short (presumably growing back after a new round of chemo)and usually
alone. This passion for cinema (as her passion for all things)
seemed to sustain her in the face of illness.
My favorite memory of her involves a Mizoguchi series at Film Forum.
She was sitting in the row in front of me, alone, slumped down in her
seat. Roberta Hill, one of the legendary New York cinephiles and co-
star of "Cinemania," walked in with her usual shopping bag
overflowing with screening schedules. She spotted Sontag, sat next
to her and began chatting. "Well, hello there," said Roberta. "I
haven't seen you around for a while." Apparently not their first
meeting or conversation. A discussion ensued about Mizoguchi, most
of it dominated by Roberta's insights. "He…makes…you…feel…every…
raindrop," said Roberta. "Yeah…yeah" said a slightly tense Sontag.
It went on like that. Two women, one steeped in intellectual
traditions, highly glamorous and movie star-like; and the other about
as un-glamorous as it is possible for someone to be ("comic relief,"
as Roberta describes herself in "Cinemania")and whose entire day is
dominated by madly dashing from one movie to another. But here they
were for a few minutes, united in their love of cinema. And
Mizoguchi. I only wish "Cinemania" had caught it on film.
23059
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Feb 17, 2005 5:05pm
Subject: Re: Peckinsexual (Was Peckinpah / Melville (male-male bonding)
--- cairnsdavid1967 wrote:
>
> I think the fact that one of them (wife-murderer Gig
> Young?) elbows a
> whore unconscious right at the start is meant to be
> an indicator of
> his sexual persuasion - she touches his thigh so he
> decks her.
That's "Future wife-murderee" And yes to Peckinpah men
who like men "that way," MUST hate women.
I
> think Peckinpah has some strange ideas about
> same-sex types, and I
> think this is his way of hinting to the audience...
>
Yep. But gay thugs aren't anything new. See "Desert
Fury" and "The Big Combo."
> The gayness of the scavenger bounty hunters in THE
> WILD BUNCH seems
> to be almost a neutral quality - it's meant to be
> amusing and
> strange, but if we believe LQ Jones it's not meant
> to be an indicator
> of their badness.
>
But they're very much a sideshow. The main attraction
is Ernest Borgnine and William Holden -- a
relationship that threatens to turn into a four-hankie
love story. More than anything else this demonstrates
the fine line between homophobia and homoerotica.
Parker Tyler ahd much to say about this. But with the
rise of out gay films and out gay filmmakers such sub
rosa cognitive dissonance is a fit subject solely for
obscure academic research.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - now with 250MB free storage. Learn more.
http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250
23060
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Feb 17, 2005 5:07pm
Subject: Re: Sam Fuller's Korean War Movies
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, BklynMagus wrote:
> 2. "FB" is a war movie about a retreat. How did he ever
> get 20th Century Fox (where WWII was fought an extra
> 20 years) to go along?
I happen to know that there were two other films about retreat,
because they were made by good directors: Retreat, Hell! (Joseph H.
Lewsi, 1952) and Hold Back the Night (Allan Dwan, 1956). Sam, as
usual, got there first with Fixed Bayonets: 1951. This has left me
with the impression that the studios were helping explain to people
that we had lost - the Lewis film's title sums up the ideological
thrust of this by implying that retreat is heroic.
Sam made Steel Helmet with Robbert Lippert, an honorable independent
producer, and it made so much money that he had his pick of studio
contracts - he went with Zanuck because they hit it off, and because
the Fox contract allowed him 6 months on and 6 months off, during
which he started his independent company and made films like
Verboten! and Run of the Arrow. And Zanuck immediately "challenged"
him to remake Steel Helmet because "you won't have the guts to copy
yourself!"
What he had in mind was a project already in the works that adapted
The Immortal Sergeant (no rights to pay) to Korea. He already had a
script by two writers, but he wanted Sam's authenticity. The theme of
The Immortal Sergeant: You have to have the guts to lead. (Very
Zanuck.) And it had the whole thing of the dead sergeant's voice
being heard on the soundtrack and so on.
What Sam did when he rewrote the script was to simply combine his
movie with Zanuck's, and his movie was a rough sketch for the Mark
Hamill character in Big Red One: the ace rifleman who can't shoot
somebody if he sees his eyes. "Buck fever." So the two movies exist
side by side.
Sam showed me the drawing he gave the art department of what he
wanted the one set where most of it happens to look like - he drew it
in one move of the hand. And he had Zanuck give him an office where
he could write his draft and hear the pounding of the hammers coming
in the window. He made full use of the studio resources, which he had
for the first time, to make a film whose visual abstraction you have
described, and it is visually stunning. I love to watch it. But I
prefer Steel Helmet (and in general the films he made during his 6
months "off") because it's all Sam.
Yes, Dan, I realized all this after reading the script and production
files. But the script flaws are there in the movie, whose ideological
project is Zanuck's, brilliantly subverted by Fuller. And by the way,
ignorance isn't a requirement for preferring Fixed Bayonets to Steel
Helmet (a remake of Lost Patrol, BTW) BECAUSE of that tension. Sam
always played the studio pipe organ like the genius he was.
In fact, reviewing his films from the p.o.v. of their treatment of
the City for an article I recently did, I realized that the
abstraction of studio soundstage work was his first mode, even as an
indie, and that it was something of a struggle to integrate location
shooting. (For that reason I consider House of Bamboo to be second-
tier Fuller - all those postcard shots.)
But there were always tradeoffs to be made when he worked at the
studio, like the ending of 40 Guns. Again, I'm moved by the beauty of
the existing ending, but I supect Sam's ending would've been even
stronger. ("I can't sell this picture in the midwest if the hero
kills the girl," Zanuck gently explained to him.)
I have moved from believing that Sam NEEDED Zanuck (a theory that
contradicted the maverick thesis) to preferring the indies, which I
guess is a taste that comes with time - the indies really break the
mold, and you have to learn to go there, or at least I did.
The truth about all this is in a very long interview I did with Sam
the night of Zanuck's funeral (he didn't go), where I asked one
question -"They say he was a good writer" - and listened in awe while
Sam improvised a flawless memoir-eulogy for his old friend that was a
character study like one of his films. When I say "like one of the
films," I mean that while you can tease all sorts of meanings out of
it (some of which are replayed in this post), it ultimately exists as
a thing in itself, teasing us out of thought.
23061
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Feb 17, 2005 5:10pm
Subject: Re: Sam Fuller's Korean War Movies
--- BklynMagus wrote:
"FB" is a war movie about a retreat. How did he
> ever
> get 20th Century Fox (where WWII was fought an extra
>
> 20 years) to go along?
This stems for Fuller's relationship with Zanuck --
which was apprently excellent.Fuller could turn out
first-rate work for a very reasonable price. Fox
needed "programmers" yto fill out their doubel bills.
Zanuck trusted Fuller to deliver on time and on budget
therefore Sam was afforded a degree of freedom seldom
found in studio-era Hollywood.
BTW, did you spot James Dean? It was wone of his
earliest roles.
__________________________________
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23062
From: samfilms2003
Date: Thu Feb 17, 2005 5:14pm
Subject: Cinemania (Re: Sontag tributes in SYNOPTIQUE)
> A discussion ensued about Mizoguchi, most
> of it dominated by Roberta's insights. "He…makes…you…feel…every…
> raindrop," said Roberta.
Well Cinemania needed more of this; along the lines of afb member
Jack Angstreich's (paraphrased) "you'd have to make love to Rita
Hayworth in *black and white*"
> I only wish "Cinemania" had caught it on film.
Really.
Cinemania was too much mania not enough cine.
-Sam
23063
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Feb 17, 2005 5:44pm
Subject: Re: Sam Fuller's Korean War Movies
Jan. 1-15, 1951, was something like the Tet Offensive: 500,000 enemy
troops pushed our forces 50 miles south of the 38th Parallel and
recaptured Seoul. There was heavy fighting for position after that -
the battle of Heartbreak Ridge was in September - but truce talks
began July 10 of the same year. On Nov. 27, 1951, the two sides
agreed on the 38th Parallel as the line of demarcation, and military
operations de-escalated rapidly. So the job of explaining the defeat
and the partition began in 1951.
Ecriture vs. ideology anyone?
23064
From: thebradstevens
Date: Thu Feb 17, 2005 4:47pm
Subject: Re: Peckinpah was: Melville (was: male-male bonding)
> > The effect is kind of weird: on the one hand, the homosexuality
is
> > presented as "insolite," a little bizarre; and yet this is
> necessarily the
> > moment of greatest audience empathy for the characters.
>
> Or else it's intended to make the presumed straight male audience
> hate them and want them to die? It's hard to be sure.
Their commitment to each other at the moment of death actually comes
across as rather touching.
CROSS OF IRON suggests that Steiner (James Coburn) is a repressed
homosexual. When he runs away to the battlefield, leaving the nurse
he had been sleeping with behind, she asks him if he really loves war
so much: "Or are you afraid of what you would be without it?".
>
> The gayness of the scavenger bounty hunters in THE WILD BUNCH seems
> to be almost a neutral quality - it's meant to be amusing and
> strange, but if we believe LQ Jones it's not meant to be an
indicator
> of their badness.
I don't mean to sound naive, but I must have seen THE WILD BUNCH 20
times, and it never occured to me that the bounty hunters were
supposed to be gay.
23065
From: Gabe Klinger
Date: Thu Feb 17, 2005 8:10pm
Subject: Re: Sontag tributes in SYNOPTIQUE
This is a wonderful account, Joe.
Why isn't it in the Synoptique issue?
23066
From: peckinpah20012000
Date: Thu Feb 17, 2005 9:57pm
Subject: Re: Peckinpah was: Melville (was: male-male bonding)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
wrote:
>>
> CROSS OF IRON suggests that Steiner (James Coburn) is a repressed
> homosexual. When he runs away to the battlefield, leaving the
nurse
> he had been sleeping with behind, she asks him if he really loves
war
> so much: "Or are you afraid of what you would be without it?".
>
> I think Steiner is more inclined to want to be with his men in a
dnagerous situation like any good officer (e.g. Dax in PATHS OF
GLORY) though I think he's crazy to leave Senta Berger. The gay
issue is more in terms of Stransky's blackmail of Lt. Triebig
something Andrew Britton earlier explored in "Sexuality and Power"
(Framework 6) and "Sideshows: Hollywood in Vietnam" MOVIE 27/28
(1980-81). However, this raises the perennial issue of "Why Men Love
War" explored by William Broyles and other writers.
> >
> >
>
> I don't mean to sound naive, but I must have seen THE WILD BUNCH
20
> times, and it never occured to me that the bounty hunters were
> supposed to be gay.
I think Peckinpah described the relationship between Strother and
L.Q. as two close buddies who would enjoy fucking an animal
together. However, I don't think this applies to the other "red
necked peckerwoods" in Thornton's group.
Tony Williams
23067
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Thu Feb 17, 2005 10:45pm
Subject: Re: Sam Fuller's Korean War Movies
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
"Ecriture vs. ideology anyone?"
You bet. THE BRIDGES OF TOKO-RI has the penultimate shot of Holden
in the ditch saying, "The wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong
time" before being killed. But then it's followed by Fredrick March
as the Admiral extolling Holden's bravery and committment to the
cause. I guess it was supposed to recuperate Holden's bitterness but
it wasn't convincing, at least to me.
FIXED BAYONETS has the great cut back to the look-out who's been
killed/replaced by a North Korean soldier in the same posture and
framed the same way as his American predessor.
I'd move HOUSE OF BAMBOO up half a tier for the 'scope interiors and
the way Fuller uses the shoji screens to divide the space; he really
understands Japanese interior design in a way no other Hollywood
director has (consider how Logan uses similar interiors in SAYONARA
also a 'scope movie; there's nothing happening. Too bad Fuller
didn't make that one as well.)
On the other hand, HELL AND HIGH WATER is second tier Fuller and
probably the weakest of his Fox movies (but let me hasten to add that
I still enjoy it.)
Richard
23068
From: Sam Adams
Date: Thu Feb 17, 2005 11:06pm
Subject: Notre Musique OAR redux
Apologies for re-hashing a long-dormant thread, but can the person who posted Godard's
article on the necessity of projecting NM in 1:33 please re-provide the link (offlist if need
be)? It opens in Philadelphia next week and I'd like to make my best case when advising
the local arthouse as to the correct ratio. (These are people who press-screened
METROPOLIS in 1:85, so they need to be given plenty of advance notice.)
Sam
23069
From: Zach Campbell
Date: Thu Feb 17, 2005 11:21pm
Subject: Los Muertos
Just got back from Lisandro Alonso's extraordinary (I think) LOS
MUERTOS. Hopefully other New Yorker a_film_by-ers are catching it
today or tomorrow, and that everyone else gets the chance to see it
if they haven't already. No doubt I've harped on this subject here
before, but until someone gives me some affirmation or proves I'm
crazy ...
With each film I see by one of "them" I am more and more convinced
that we are in the midst of a postnational cinematic art movement,
conscious of the globe but played out in the sticks--Alonso,
Guiraudie, Apichatpong, Odoul (at least DEEP BREATH; haven't seen
ERRANCE), Reygadas, and maybe (I can only say by reputation and a
few affirming words of criticism) Lucrecia Martel. Maybe more that
I don't know yet. In LOS MUERTOS we have motifs that pop up again
and again in this weird Renewed Wave: long, slow, dialogue-light
(or -free) scenes; the wilderness (especially thick wooded areas; a
few shots in LOS MUERTOS are practically shared with BLISSFULLY
YOURS and TROPICAL MALADY!); the butchering of animals for food (LA
LIBERTAD, DEEP BREATH); loose communities of people extended all
over a thinly-populated space; and an insertion of modernist (or
postmodernist?) poetry and mythos in the formal and structural
elements--see the mid-film credits in BLISSFULLY YOURS, the weird
dream-logic of NO REST FOR THE BRAVE, the amazing camera movements
that close JAPON (and open LOS MUERTOS), the music that accompanies
the credits of both Alonso films, and the numerous innovations in
the second half of TROPICAL MALADY (which may be the most amazing
sequence of 'narrative' cinema from the past five years). No one of
these films exactly embodies the movement, but the similarities
between them all seem to comprise this exhilirating web of formal
and thematic concerns. These films are plunging us (or at least me)
into new, richly textured, profound mysteries.
--Zach
23070
From: peckinpah20012000
Date: Thu Feb 17, 2005 11:32pm
Subject: Re: Sam Fuller's Korean War Movies
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Modiano"
wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
> wrote:
>
> "Ecriture vs. ideology anyone?"
>
> You bet. THE BRIDGES OF TOKO-RI has the penultimate shot of
Holden
> in the ditch saying, "The wrong war in the wrong place at the
wrong
> time" before being killed. But then it's followed by Fredrick
March
> as the Admiral extolling Holden's bravery and committment to the
> cause. I guess it was supposed to recuperate Holden's bitterness
but
> it wasn't convincing, at least to me.
>
> > Richard
I believe the original James Michener novel conveys an even grimmer
picture of the Holden character['s death, one who does not want to
go to war but is drafted away from his civilian life. He definitely
dies "in the shit" falling in a manure-laded ditch. Then the novel
ends with the Admiral extolling the virtues of men like that who go
to war. I don't think Michener meant it to be ironic - consciously.
Also, most Korean War novels are much more pessimistic than their
film versions, particularly the one Bill mentions that was adapted
by Allan Dwan starring John Payne. The films also reflect
uncertainty over what became to be known as "the forgotten war" but
are not as directly ambivalent or caustic as the novels.
Tony Williams
23071
From: Matt Armstrong
Date: Fri Feb 18, 2005 1:54am
Subject: The Wayward Cloud
Blogger Filmbrain has an early review of Tsai Ming-Liang's "sequel"
to "What Time is it There?" It's another musical and it appears that
Tsai is at last courting controversy for something other than his
style. Spoiler alert activated and go here:
http://filmbrain.typepad.com/filmbrain/2005/02/berlinale_diary_4.html
23072
From: Henrik Sylow
Date: Fri Feb 18, 2005 2:16am
Subject: Auteurs and product placement
A week ago or so I asked if the signs of "Pepsi" and "Coca Cola" in
"Godfather - Part 2" were product placements. Im still very interested
to hear if anyone knows about these.
Anyway...
The other night I saw the notorious fight between Robinson and La
Motta and it dawned on me, that the fight I saw had no television
commercials added, so in addition to my question above, is "Pabst Blue
Ribbon" in "Raging Bull" product placement aswell?
What I really wonder about is, where does product placement interact
with the auteur? Is it on the production side, is it a conscious
choise on the directorial side? Is it part of the mise-en-scene? In
short, how does product placement interact with auteurism?
Henrik
23073
From: iangjohnston
Date: Fri Feb 18, 2005 2:39am
Subject: Re: Notre Musique OAR redux
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Sam Adams" wrote:
>
> Apologies for re-hashing a long-dormant thread, but can the person
who posted Godard's
> article on the necessity of projecting NM in 1:33 please re-
provide the link (offlist if need
> be)? It opens in Philadelphia next week and I'd like to make my
best case when advising
> the local arthouse as to the correct ratio. (These are people who
press-screened
> METROPOLIS in 1:85, so they need to be given plenty of advance
notice.)
>
> Sam
I don't know of any link myself, but I guess the source is Godard's
piece in "Cahiers du Cinema" (no. 591, June 2004).
Ian
23074
From: Michael E. Kerpan, Jr.
Date: Fri Feb 18, 2005 2:45am
Subject: Re: Auteurs and product placement
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Henrik Sylow"
wrote:
> What I really wonder about is, where does product placement interact
> with the auteur? Is it on the production side, is it a conscious
> choise on the directorial side? Is it part of the mise-en-scene? In
> short, how does product placement interact with auteurism?
In the case of Ozu, responsibility rested quite solidly with Ozu
himself. He would always make certain that the labels of the beer
bottles etc. could be seen -- because he liked getting "gifts" of
large quantities of beer and alcohol to sustain his lengthy writing
bouts (with his collaborator(s).
MEK
23075
From: Aaron Graham
Date: Fri Feb 18, 2005 3:03am
Subject: Re: Auteurs and product placement
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Henrik Sylow"
wrote:
> What I really wonder about is, where does product placement interact
> with the auteur? Is it on the production side, is it a conscious
> choise on the directorial side? Is it part of the mise-en-scene? In
> short, how does product placement interact with auteurism?
>
> Henrik
I've read that Scorsese likes to refer to Cutty Sark Scots Whiskey in
most of his pictures. In "Raging Bull", somebody audibly orders one;
in "Goodfellas", DeNiro hijacks a shipment, etc. In his case I'm sure
it's part of his overall directorial vision.
The potential product placement you mention in "The Godfather, Part
II" also has piqued my curiosity. I wonder if Coppola mentions it on
the DVD commentary track?
-Aaron
23076
From: Craig Keller
Date: Fri Feb 18, 2005 5:19am
Subject: Notre musique / Masculine Feminine / youth
> Apologies for re-hashing a long-dormant thread, but can the person who
> posted Godard's
> article on the necessity of projecting NM in 1:33 please re-provide
> the link (offlist if need
> be)? It opens in Philadelphia next week and I'd like to make my best
> case when advising
> the local arthouse as to the correct ratio. (These are people who
> press-screened
> METROPOLIS in 1:85, so they need to be given plenty of advance notice.)
I'll email a scan of the essay (more like, pictorial groupings with
captions) off-list. Let me know if you need a translation too.
Speaking of Godard + OARs, I just picked up the 'Tout va bien' /
'Lettre à Jane' disc from Criterion; haven't put it in yet but I'm
assuming the latter is 1.33, and the former (I know) is 1.66. I've
heard that this was the preferred ratio for 'La Chinoise,' 'Week-end,'
and 'Tout va bien' (most recently from Frodon), but I'm anxious to put
this in and see if it "looks" right, or whether regardless of any
"original theatrical release precedents," it should have been left
unmatted.
And, having come back from a screening of the beautiful new print of
'Masculine Feminine' earlier in the day, it goes without saying that I
have proper aspect ratios on the mind. As mind-blowingly brilliant as
ever; from one "fait précis" to the next as amorphous/peripatetic as
the features and formats in a glossy -- no-one's done anything remotely
close to this kind of master-text youth reportage since.
On a much smaller scale, I definitely recommend members seek out Shunji
Iwai's recent 'Hana & Alice,' starring the superb Anne Suzuki. I would
be interested to see some of our young 20-something critics formulate
in print or online some ideas of what films, if any, could be said to
represent cornerstones of a contemporary,
intellectually-curious/-exciting "youth cinema," or rather, cinema of
the youth. And even more interesting than reading a critique from
these quarters would be watching one.
craig.
23077
From: Matthew Clayfield
Date: Fri Feb 18, 2005 5:42am
Subject: Re: Notre musique / Masculine Feminine / youth
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Craig Keller wrote:
> I would
> be interested to see some of our young 20-something critics formulate
> in print or online some ideas of what films, if any, could be said to
> represent cornerstones of a contemporary,
> intellectually-curious/-exciting "youth cinema," or rather, cinema of
> the youth. And even more interesting than reading a critique from
> these quarters would be watching one.
>
> craig.
I'm hard pressed to come up with any examples off the top of my head,
Craig, though thank you for putting into words what I'm hopefully
about to embark upon trying to create! I made a short film earlier
this year that was fuelled by this desire to be a kind of youth
reportage, though as far as it being
"intellectually-curious/-exciting," I don't know!
23078
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Feb 18, 2005 7:30am
Subject: Fuller and Space (Was:: Sam Fuller's Korean War Movies
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Modiano"
wrote:
> I'd move HOUSE OF BAMBOO up half a tier for the 'scope interiors
and
> the way Fuller uses the shoji screens to divide the space; he
really
> understands Japanese interior design in a way no other Hollywood
> director has
He was pretty successful at reconstituting the five cardinal points
of his archetypal city, although he still had to build four of them
at Fox, including the gang HQ hidden behind the facade of a
respectable business a la Underworld USA or Baron of Arizona: in this
case the pachenko parlor where Stack goes crashing thru the screen
and looks up to see Ryan and Co. waiting for him. Fuller even found
Stack a home on the water.
The thing I discovered reseeing all the films to write about Fuller
and the City was that Farber's reference to "cozy" spaces is spot-on -
Fuller likes worlds where everything is in one place, like Park Row.
Steel Helmet is one set, and so are the Street in Shock Corrdor, with
the rooms built off it (making possible a violent tracking shot at
the end when Breck attacks the killer guard, reminiscent of Evans'
violent all-in-one around four parts of the Park Row set when he
finds out what Charity's thugs have done), the shelter in White Dog,
which is the whole last part of the film, and the concentration camp-
like chicken farm in Day of Reckoning.
Ff you watch the set in Verboten, everything but Nuremberg happens in
one town with Fuller's five cardinal points - it's just that the
town's appearance changes with the passage of time. Even Underworld
USA reuses the same Columbia street, slightly redressed, for
different locations, and when Robertson gets gunned down, he smashes
into the same row of garbage cans in the same alley where his father
got beaten to death at the beginning, as if the film were just one
long tracking shot. That was the idea he had for filming The Rifle:
the whole story of the Vietnam War filmed in one tracking shot.
The "small world" idea is what Fuller's all-in-ones are about.
There's no need for a complicated camera move to describe the heroes'
apartment in Crimson Kimono, and he even cuts into it at a couple of
points, but the single shot outlines the cozy interior of the space -
the "Shack" - where the two guys have their nest. Fuller called his
house in LA The Shack, after Widmark's home in Pickup - there were
actually shacks like that built for lobster fishing along the water
line in NYC - which every character in the film visits at some point.
And that domestic symbol kind of extends its coziness to the whole
world of the film, where everyone but the spies seems to have known
each other forever.
When he can't actually cram everything together, he likes to
juxtapose spaces, like the Japanese district and Police HQ in Crimson
Kimono, which really do face each other in LA, or the amazing pan,
stitched together from two shots, that links Manila and its harbor to
the giant garbage dump near the end of Madonna and the Dragon. I
think that's what Farber loves about the shot in Run of the Arrow
where Lee surrenders to Grant about 20 feet from where Steiger is
getting his leg bandaged. No one else would dream of filming it that
way!
Fuller's "small world" is a version of what Bakhtine calls "the scene
of Carnival."
As for the early habit of filming on sets, he was able to adopt, but
I feel Fuller's nostalgia flowing through the long, peaceful tracking
shot of Marshall Thompson, dressed like Fuller, coming out of his
trailer and making his leisurely way to the Venice set in White Dog,
puffing on his cigar and studying the script as he arranges the final
details of the shot in his mind. Of course after that the camera
keeps going until it frames the dog sleeping ominously near the set.
Has anyone, by the way, made more expressive use of a circular dolly
a la Hitchcock than the one at the end of White Dog when she hugs the
dog and a 180 first conceals him and then comes around the other side
to reveal his teeth bared in a snarl? AH sort of invented that move
in Suspicion to show the light and dark side of Johnny during the
first kiss, and he made it a peak moment in Vertigo. Today it's just
a meaningless flourish by directors who feel they have to keep the
camera moving.
23079
From:
Date: Fri Feb 18, 2005 9:11am
Subject: Movie Video DataBase
People trying to find out who directed various muisc videos can check out:
Movie Video DataBase
At:
http://www.mvdbase.com
This is definitely relevant to an auteurist forum such as ours.
Mike Grost
23080
From: Matthew Clayfield
Date: Fri Feb 18, 2005 4:06pm
Subject: Harmony Korine
I just watched "julien donkey-boy" (1999) for the first time and was
really quite impressed by it. A lot of it didn't always work, sure,
but as a whole -- even a fragmented one -- I found it to be extremely
satisfactory. I liked that Korine's seemingly demented aesthetic was
never one of arbitrary choices; nothing about Korine's style, when you
look at the film as a whole, suggests that his sole intention was to
induce what Hoberman cited in his review as cine-stupefaction.
Instead, to me, the film felt incredibly organised -- scored like
music -- all about rhythm, repetition, colours, texture (especially
that of video) etc. Whatever Korine had to say about schizophrenia or
mental illness -- and I have a very strong feeling that was ultimately
nothing at all -- comes second to his near-musical arrangement of the
film's various parts. I don't know. The film did it for me.
I've not seen "Gummo" as yet, and I know that Korine has only made the
two pictures, but I was wondering what other a_film_by members thought
of him. Certainly, he strikes me as being a very love-or-hate-him sort
of filmmaker...
23081
From: samfilms2003
Date: Fri Feb 18, 2005 4:07pm
Subject: Re: Fuller and Space (Was:: Sam Fuller's Korean War Movies
> Fuller's five cardinal points -
What are "Fuller's five cardinal points" ?
thanks
-Sam W
23082
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Feb 18, 2005 4:13pm
Subject: Re: Harmony Korine
--- Matthew Clayfield
wrote:
>
> I've not seen "Gummo" as yet, and I know that Korine
> has only made the
> two pictures, but I was wondering what other
> a_film_by members thought
> of him. Certainly, he strikes me as being a very
> love-or-hate-him sort
> of filmmaker...
>
>
He's the art house Herschel Gordon Lewis. Consider
"Kids." Lot's of "provocative" material that's really
just one step away from a tent show "educational film"
like "Mom and Dad."
Gus swears by him. I remain unconvinced.
Meanwhile with her latest film "The Heart is Deceptive
Above All Things," Asia Argento appears to have stolen
his act.
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23083
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Fri Feb 18, 2005 5:02pm
Subject: Re: Peckinsexual (Was Peckinpah / Melville (male-male bonding)
> That's "Future wife-murderee"
Either "murderee" is a typo or I've got it wrong - I thought HE
killed her, then himself. "Future" is of course quite correct -
though it's now in the past.
> Yep. But gay thugs aren't anything new. See "Desert
> Fury" and "The Big Combo."
Haven't seen former. Who's gay in the latter? I remember Richard
Conte as something of a ladykiller in that. Need to see it again in
one of my weekly noirathons.
> But they're very much a sideshow. The main attraction
> is Ernest Borgnine and William Holden -- a
> relationship that threatens to turn into a four-hankie
> love story. More than anything else this demonstrates
> the fine line between homophobia and homoerotica.
It's necessary for Peckinpah to express his homophobia openly and
vociferously, in order to celebrate male bonding so emotionally,
without being accused of being gay!
> Parker Tyler ahd much to say about this. But with the
> rise of out gay films and out gay filmmakers such sub
> rosa cognitive dissonance is a fit subject solely for
> obscure academic research.
Well, wherever films are studied for their insights into the artist's
mind, this kind of thing is quite interesting! For instance, I don't
think Peckinpah's value is in his portrayal of a world I recognise,
it's in his self-exposure.
23084
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Fri Feb 18, 2005 5:05pm
Subject: Re: Peckinpah was: Melville (was: male-male bonding)
> > > The effect is kind of weird: on the one hand, the homosexuality
> is
> > > presented as "insolite," a little bizarre; and yet this is
> > necessarily the
> > > moment of greatest audience empathy for the characters.
> Their commitment to each other at the moment of death actually
comes
> across as rather touching.
Agree, but am not totally certain this is intended.
> CROSS OF IRON suggests that Steiner (James Coburn) is a repressed
> homosexual.
I never got this, but it's an interesting reading.
> I don't mean to sound naive, but I must have seen THE WILD BUNCH 20
> times, and it never occured to me that the bounty hunters were
> supposed to be gay.
"A little gay" in LQ's words. So maybe just a quality of performance
rather than a full-blown sexual orientation, but the way they
squabble and make up is quite funny when seen in this light.
23085
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Fri Feb 18, 2005 5:07pm
Subject: Re: Peckinpah was: Melville (was: male-male bonding)
> > she asks him if he really loves
> war
> > so much: "Or are you afraid of what you would be without it?".
> >
> > I think Steiner is more inclined to want to be with his men in a
> dnagerous situation like any good officer (e.g. Dax in PATHS OF
> GLORY) though I think he's crazy to leave Senta Berger.
But what that line means is an interesting question. WHAT does Senta
think Coburn would be without war? She might mean he'd be psychotic.
But she might also mean he'd not be "a real man".
> I think Peckinpah described the relationship between Strother and
> L.Q. as two close buddies who would enjoy fucking an animal
> together. However, I don't think this applies to the other "red
> necked peckerwoods" in Thornton's group.
LQ describes the playing of the characters as "making them a little
bit gay".
23086
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Feb 18, 2005 5:44pm
Subject: Re: Fuller and Space (Was:: Sam Fuller's Korean War Movies
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "samfilms2003" wrote:
>
> > Fuller's five cardinal points -
>
> What are "Fuller's five cardinal points" ?
>
> thanks
>
> -Sam W
the shack, the police hq, the gang hq, the joint, the zone
23087
From:
Date: Fri Feb 18, 2005 5:43pm
Subject: Re: Auteurs and product placement
>
> > What I really wonder about is, where does product placement
interact
> > with the auteur? Is it on the production side, is it a conscious
> > choise on the directorial side? Is it part of the mise-en-scene?
In
> > short, how does product placement interact with auteurism?
> >
> > Henrik
>
> I've read that Scorsese likes to refer to Cutty Sark Scots Whiskey
in
> most of his pictures. In "Raging Bull", somebody audibly orders
one;
> in "Goodfellas", DeNiro hijacks a shipment, etc. In his case I'm
sure
> it's part of his overall directorial vision.
>
> The potential product placement you mention in "The Godfather,
Part
> II" also has piqued my curiosity. I wonder if Coppola mentions it
on
> the DVD commentary track?
>
I can't recall off the top of my head where Coca Cola and Pepsi
appear in THE GODFATHER, PART 2, but Coppola did famously want to
recreate the old Times Square inch by inch, including the smoking
Camel sign and everything. Maybe he was just being historically
accurate?
Of course, the presence of Coca Cola and Pepsi in a film that is
about the corruption of the American Dream couldn't possibly be
relevant, could it? Heh.
As for Pabst Blue Ribbon in RAGING BULL, I believe it occurs during
a scene where Scorsese is using the actual recording of the original
fight, no?
-Bilge
23088
From: thebradstevens
Date: Fri Feb 18, 2005 5:48pm
Subject: Re: Harmony Korine
Apart from GUMMO and JULIEN DONKEY-BOY, Korine also made ABOVE THE
BELOW, a very striking record of David Blaine's 'man in the box'
stunt. It's available on DVD in the UK.
23089
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Feb 18, 2005 5:55pm
Subject: Re: Re: Peckinsexual (Was Peckinpah / Melville (male-male bonding)
--- cairnsdavid1967 wrote:
>
> Either "murderee" is a typo or I've got it wrong - I
> thought HE
> killed her, then himself. "Future" is of course
> quite correct -
> though it's now in the past.
>
Typo.
> > Yep. But gay thugs aren't anything new. See
> "Desert
> > Fury" and "The Big Combo."
>
> Haven't seen former.
See it and read my "Film Quarterly" analysis. (It's in
the "Forty Years- A Selection" volume)
Who's gay in the latter?
Earl Holliman and Lee van Cleef.
>
> It's necessary for Peckinpah to express his
> homophobia openly and
> vociferously, in order to celebrate male bonding so
> emotionally,
> without being accused of being gay!
>
Apparently. But to quote the film's opening line (one
of my all-time favorites) "I know what you MEANT to do
-- it's what you DID that I don't like!"
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23090
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Feb 18, 2005 5:57pm
Subject: Re: Re: Ordinary People vs. Raging Bull
> And if he's supposed to be the "hero" we'd be
> there with him on the other side of the door -- and
> we're not. A fortiori if the film presented Jake
> unproblematically as heroic everything in it would be
> contrived to support for his side of things --
> which it emphatically does not.
I don't necessarily want to revive this thread, but it was never my
position that Scorsese unequivocally saw La Motta as a hero. There's a
great deal of complexity in the way he positions the audience vis a vis La
Motta in some scenes. I feel that the boxing scenes infused La Motta with
a kind of pulpy grandeur that ruined the scenes and hurt the film - but my
suspicion is that Scorsese did this unthinkingly, not that he intended to
glorify La Motta. - Dan
23091
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Feb 18, 2005 6:02pm
Subject: Re: Expressionism (Was: Ordinary People vs. Raging Bull)
> The word Expressionism
> immediately comes to mind for early Scorsese at least - you clearly feel it
> applies to The Aviator as well -
I feel it all the way through his career - not exclusively, but often, and
especially in his frequent moments of visual dynamism. He's probably
closer to Minnelli than to anyone else in this regard.
> Was anyone else
> bothered, for example, by Secretary, which seemed to be going in and out of
> the Gyllenhall character's reality, or was that just good Belle de Jour
> referencing? (Specifically, the scene where she's nailed to the desk waiting
> for him to return wasn't real.)
I don't recall that scene...I wound up kind of liking SECRETARY, but I
think it had serious problems establishing a coherent directorial
viewpoint. The weird, subjective feeling of the early scenes just seemed
all wrong, for instance. - Dan
23092
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Feb 18, 2005 6:06pm
Subject: Re: Re: The Carnival (Was: Post # 22999 )
> Just to correct the record a bit, we didn't ban madlyangelicgirl. After
> she made something like a total of four posts, each of which was ONLY
> asking for "homework help" (she would paste in her class assignments and
> ask us to help her write them), and after (I think it was) Dan posted a
> note wondering about whether she should be doing this
Uh, was it me? Doesn't sound like my MO. - Dan
23093
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Feb 18, 2005 6:12pm
Subject: Secretary (Was: Expressionism )
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
I wound up kind of liking SECRETARY, but I
> think it had serious problems establishing a coherent directorial
> viewpoint. The weird, subjective feeling of the early scenes just seemed
> all wrong, for instance. - Dan
That's my point. When she goes to apply for the job, the outside of the building
makes it look like a magic house in a fairytale; she's Little Blue Ridinghood.
And at the end where she has stationed herself at the desk, not even getting
up to go to the bathroom, while her friends and family and a news crew gather
round, it simply can't be happening. But It's not followed through consistently.
My speculation was, how much is this kind of in-and-out "as the character
sees the world/himself" a current convention? At the end of Ed Wood, the big
premiere of Plan 9 with the silhouettes in the audience, Burton says it's
happening in Wood's head. But only there, I'd say.
23094
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Feb 18, 2005 6:27pm
Subject: Re: Re: Ordinary People vs. Raging Bull
--- Dan Sallitt wrote:
>
> I don't necessarily want to revive this thread, but
> it was never my
> position that Scorsese unequivocally saw La Motta as
> a hero. There's a
> great deal of complexity in the way he positions the
> audience vis a vis La
> Motta in some scenes. I feel that the boxing scenes
> infused La Motta with
> a kind of pulpy grandeur that ruined the scenes and
> hurt the film - but my
> suspicion is that Scorsese did this unthinkingly,
> not that he intended to
> glorify La Motta.
Unthinking? James de la vie!
This "pulpy grnadeur" underscores the point I was
making about "Raging Bull's" subjectivity. This is how
LaMotta sees himself. But Scorsese provides us with
ways of looking AROUND and THROUGH said subjectivity
to clearly indicate the blinders LaMotta has on about
himself and everyone else.
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23095
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Feb 18, 2005 6:28pm
Subject: Re: Secretary (Was: Expressionism )
> And at the end where she has stationed herself at the desk, not even
> getting up to go to the bathroom, while her friends and family and a
> news crew gather round, it simply can't be happening.
I thought that this could actually be happening, in the sense that
Dietrich actually walked into the desert in MOROCCO: it's a climactic,
extreme existential commitment, and its dreamlike aspect almost seems
appropriate as such. In both cases the film has to end soon, because
dwelling on consequences would introduce an undesired realist tone....
But the directorial incoherence, especially in the crucial early scenes,
makes all this much harder to put together. - Dan
23096
From: Craig Keller
Date: Fri Feb 18, 2005 6:33pm
Subject: Re: Harmony Korine
On Friday, February 18, 2005, at 11:06 AM, Matthew Clayfield wrote:
> I've not seen "Gummo" as yet, and I know that Korine has only made the
> two pictures, but I was wondering what other a_film_by members thought
> of him. Certainly, he strikes me as being a very love-or-hate-him sort
> of filmmaker...
I love his films very much. He strikes me as the grand comedian of
American cinema right now -- even within the confines of two features.
'julien donkey-boy' strikes me as even more impressive than 'Gummo,'
possibly because his character development goes further as a result of
tightening the milieu to one Yonkers household, and there's more
opportunity to play one family-member off of another. It also helps to
ground the "absurdity" of the characters; rather than something
completely divorced from reality, the film kind of takes on a
graphic-novel tone, and negotiates reality and a satirical reality
quite successfully, in my opinion. (I think about the wrestling match
in the living room, or Herzog's cough-medicine fantasias.)
In addition to 'Above the Below,' as Brad pointed out (it's a film I'm
dying to see), I'd also note he directed a segment on an earlier David
Blaine compilation piece (maybe it's just one or two of the initial ABC
TV primetime specials?), at least according to the package -- I haven't
seen them since they aired, but it seems plausible enough if I recall
some of the street scenes. Additionally, HK got about
fifteen-minutes-of-footage deep into his Buster Keaton-influenced
'Fight Harm' before he realized he would end up permanently crippled if
he continued. He's been contemplating assembling the footage -- I'm
sure it will turn up at some retrospective at some point.
Last I heard, he had found financing for a third feature, and was in
pre-production or production. (I read this around the time of the
Blaine-in-England thing -- there's a long'ish Guardian article out
there somewhere on his involvement where he mentions this.) Prior to
that, one of his European producers had passed away, effectively
cutting off the financial life-line in the process; before that, his
house in Connecticut burned down and thus destroyed the sole copies of
a completed feature script that existed only on his computer and maybe
some print-outs. And, inbetween that and the Blaine special, he fell
into a drug-hell. And published 'A Crackup at the Race Riots,' which
is a must-read.
With regard to 'Kids' and David's criticism of the film, I'd keep in
mind that the script was written when he was sixteen. All
melodramatics and queasy twists aside, his dialogue, even penned so
young, remains quite remarkable.
In closing, some excerpts from a transcript of Harmony's appearance on
Letterman in 1997, plugging 'Gummo' --
LETTERMAN: Where did you shoot the movie?
KORINE: I grew up in Nashville in Tennessee, and I wanted to make a
different film. I wanted to make a different kind of movie, because I
don't see cinema in the same -- on the same kind of terms or the same
way that narrative movies have been made for the past hundred years. I
mean, we started with Griffith and we ended up with -- I don't know
what the hell is going on now but -- (Audience applauds.)
===
KORINE: I grew up in Nashville in Tennessee, and I wanted to make a
different film. I wanted to make a different kind of movie, because I
don't see cinema in the same -- on the same kind of terms or the same
way that narrative movies have been made for the past hundred years. I
mean, we started with Griffith and we ended up with -- I don't know
what the hell is going on now but -- (Audience applauds.)
LETTERMAN: What does "Gummo" mean as the title?
KORINE: Well, "Gummo" was the fifth Marx Brother.
LETTERMAN: Can you name all the Marx Brothers?
KORINE: Yeah, but well --
LETTERMAN: Well, let's go.
KORINE: All right. Well, you have Zeppo, Harpo.
LETTERMAN: Zeppo, Harpo, Chico.
KORINE: Obviously Groucho. It's really pronounced "Chicko," because he
liked to chase chicks. He also liked to gamble, and when he would play
golf he would gamble.
LETTERMAN: So are you a big fan of the Marx Brothers?
KORINE: Yeah, but "Gummo" quit because he liked to wear women's clothes.
LETTERMAN: Is that right? He quit the group, "Gummo" did?
KORINE: Yeah, because he wanted to sell cardboard boxes.
===
LETTERMAN: This thing will set 'em straight.
KORINE: But basically nothing has changed, so I wanted to see moving
images coming from all directions.
LETTERMAN: Well, that's what you have. You have assembled a series of
very striking vivid disturbing impressions.
KORINE: Yeah, well, that's basically my style (laughter).
LETTERMAN: Yeah. May I ask how much the movie cost to make?
KORINE: 80 mil. (Letterman cracks up.)
LETTERMAN: 80 million dollars, and every penny is up there on the
screen, ladies and gentlemen.
===
KORINE: Yeah. I like Eddie Cantor. I like Al Jolson. I want to do a
minstrel with Tom Cruise, and I want him to play it on his knees.
===
LETTERMAN: The movie is called "Gummo". It opened today, and this is
the genius behind the film.
KORINE: Yeah.
LETTERMAN: Harmony Korine.
KORINE: It's a new kind of movie. I just want people to know that
things need to change. We can make films differently.
LETTERMAN: You represent the avant-garde.
KORINE: I am a commercial film maker. I am a patriot. I hide in trees.
All right. All right.
(Dave and Harmony shake hands and audience applauds.)
===
craig.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
23097
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri Feb 18, 2005 7:08pm
Subject: Re: Expressionism (Was: Ordinary People vs. Raging Bull)
>
> > Was anyone else
> > bothered, for example, by Secretary, which seemed to be going in
and out of
> > the Gyllenhall character's reality, or was that just good Belle
de Jour
> > referencing? (Specifically, the scene where she's nailed to the
desk waiting
> > for him to return wasn't real.)
>
> I don't recall that scene...I wound up kind of liking SECRETARY,
but I
> think it had serious problems establishing a coherent directorial
> viewpoint. The weird, subjective feeling of the early scenes just
seemed
> all wrong, for instance. - Dan
Strange that you don't recall that scene, Dan, because it's a
long, dragged-out one and one of the most "extreme" and puzzling in
the movie! But I agree that the film lacked a coherent viewpoint.
For one thing, the happy ending, with its shift from kink to vanilla
bliss, is a total copout, unless it's taken as being tongue-in-
cheek and ironic. It's hard to take the auteur to task for lack of
verisimilitude, though. The entire movie is deliberately distanced
from "reality": there's never been such a lawyer working in that
kind of weird environment etc...(Bill has pointed out the fairy tale
atmosphere of the scene when she comes for the interview). It's
clear that the director didn't want (didn't dare) to treat his
subject realistically and felt he had to distance it through a kind
of expressionism. It's a very unsettling and unsatisfactory movie on
a sado-masochistic theme that is very seldom tackled (if at all) in
film (outside of the porn area, of which I know nothing). JPC
23098
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri Feb 18, 2005 7:14pm
Subject: Re: The Carnival (Was: Post # 22999 )
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > Just to correct the record a bit, we didn't ban
madlyangelicgirl. After
> > she made something like a total of four posts, each of which was
ONLY
> > asking for "homework help" (she would paste in her class
assignments and
> > ask us to help her write them), and after (I think it was) Dan
posted a
> > note wondering about whether she should be doing this
>
> Uh, was it me? Doesn't sound like my MO. - Dan
Actually I think it was me. Sorry, Bill, if I broke up a budding
romance! JPC
23099
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri Feb 18, 2005 7:18pm
Subject: Re: Secretary (Was: Expressionism )
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
....
>
> But the directorial incoherence, especially in the crucial early
scenes,
> makes all this much harder to put together. - Dan
Indeed, the film starts as though it was going to be quite
realistic, and it certainly foils our expectation by getting more
and more of a wacky fantasy as it moves along. I doubt that the
director really knew what he wanted.
23100
From: samfilms2003
Date: Fri Feb 18, 2005 7:19pm
Subject: Re: Ordinary People vs. Raging Bull
>>
>>I feel that the boxing scenes infused La Motta with
> a kind of pulpy grandeur that ruined the scenes and hurt the film - but my
> suspicion is that Scorsese did this unthinkingly, not that he intended to
> glorify La Motta. - Dan
But again Dan, isn't La Motta all about the pulpy granduer ?
I don't believe there's an unthinking moment on the screen here.
Any more than the young Henry Hills' eyeing the wiseguys on the corner;
"Can't We Be Sweethearts" on the track is unthinking..
And for La Motta, the grandeur gets less grand and increasingly pulpier..
Whatever else you can say about Martin Scorcesse, there's no gnostic
arcana there - if it's in the shots, it's what it is, no less than Samuel
Fuller, no ? ("It's In His Kiss")
-Sam W
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