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23901
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu Mar 10, 2005 5:52pm
Subject: Re: Re: John M. Stahl
> When his father comes to see him, Stahl extends the scene
> allowing it to play out -- a lesser director would have structured it
> differently, built up to a dramatic revelation with lush
> orchestrations, bringing melodrama (and tears) to the fore.
The way the big revelation is saved for the last two lines (with no
reaction from the camera) is quite a zinger, isn't it? To some extent
this grows out of the studio style of the early 30s (the orchestration
gets lusher and comes in earlier as the decade progresses), but Stahl and
the writers delay the kicker for so long that it becomes - well,
audacious.
>> Margaret's tearful conversation with her ten-year-old son at the
> film's climax is clearly the "money shot," the scene that the
> audience is supposed to remember, the one that delivers the
> goods.
>
> I disagree. There are no money shots in Stahl. That would go
> against his equanimity and the freedom he gives to his characters.
> A long shot is just as powerful as a close-up in Stahl's world.
I certainly don't think that this is the "money shot" from an aesthetic
point of view. But the film has a primal contract with the audience that
exists independent of the direction. And Stahl's style isn't to subvert
it.
I don't think we're really disagreeing about very much, but I notice a
difference in approach, with you preferring to talk about the integrity of
the creation, and me preferring to emphasize the direction as acting
upon the various materials, and not necessarily being in perfect harmony
with them.
The SPOILERS are back:
> More Stahl. He doesn't go for the easy out of a suicide. He is not a
> fatalist/cheap melodramatist.
Well, I wouldn't call the end of LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN an easy out.
My guess is that Ophuls couldn't have gotten that ending through the
system without the "Europeanness" of the project acting as a sort of
buffer. You don't see very many Hollywood studio films hinge on that kind
of existential decision. - Dan
23902
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu Mar 10, 2005 6:02pm
Subject: Postscript: ONLY YESTERDAY and the Communist Party
Like lots of Hollywood films of the time, the script of ONLY YESTERDAY
features little political comments that seem to me to stick out like a
sore thumb. There's the earnest fellow at the otherwise frivolous
post-stock-market-crash party who advocates a socialist solution and is
mocked by the other guests. There's the dinner conversation in Sullavan's
parents' home, with the unsympathetic father taking militarist positions,
and both Margaret and her mother chiming in with anti-war rejoinders.
(The mom's last line, about old men making wars for young men to fight in,
is especially conspicuous, coming over a scene transition.) And there's
Billie Burke's pro-women's-emancipation speech in her first scene.
(Burke's role is big enough that her opinions can be taken as
characterization. But - not really. The lines jump out of the film in
much the same way.)
I find this sort of thing really common. A few days ago, I revisited
STAGECOACH, where Barton Churchill's nasty banker has all sorts of
right-wing economic slogans crammed into his mouth.
Most of these implied political positions aren't very extreme. But every
time I hear this sort of thing, I assume that the writers are following
Party instructions, just because of the way the lines are shoved into the
scripts in such non-organic ways. Seems to me that centrists would lack
the motivation to contort the dialogue in such a fashion.
I share the widespread horror at the later blacklisting and other
activities of HUAC. But, on occasion, I hear people dismissing the idea
that the Party ever tried to sneak ideology into movies. It just seems so
conspicuous to me. - Dan
23903
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu Mar 10, 2005 6:14pm
Subject: Re: Postscript: ONLY YESTERDAY and the Communist Party
> I find this sort of thing really common. A few days ago, I revisited
> STAGECOACH, where Barton Churchill's nasty banker has all sorts of
> right-wing economic slogans crammed into his mouth.
Oops - that's Berton Churchill (who can also be spotted in the party scene
in ONLY YESTERDAY). - Dan
23904
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu Mar 10, 2005 6:39pm
Subject: Re: Re: John M. Stahl
> I wouldn't can it a "money shot," but isn't one of the fulcrums of the
> film the massive close-up of Margaret after she spots Emerson at the
> New Year's party at the St. Regis. The isolation of her face contrasts
> rather starkly to the larger, more fluid spaces of the rest of the film.
So how'd you feel about ONLY YESTERDAY, Patrick? I was thinking that,
after LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN, the earlier film might not seem very unusual.
But the style of ONLY YESTERDAY is probably a bit more typical of Stahl.
What we really need is a screening of WHEN TOMORROW COMES. - Dan
23905
From: K. A. Westphal
Date: Thu Mar 10, 2005 6:42pm
Subject: Wilder (Was: Re: Liesen )
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein wrote:
>
> The moment when Lemmon puts on his bowler hat and
> looks at himself in MacLaine's pockey mirror is not
> only the turning point of the film but a high point in
> writing-directing. In one simple action Wilder brings
> together Lemmon's triumphant realization of his
> self-image AND its downfall in that he discovers the
> truth about the woman that he loves.
This is simply one of the greatest, purest moments in the cinema. It's
not only that it's one action, but really one image. No dialogue can
do what that scene does--no words even. Trying to describe the scene
in prose is pointless--one either overstates the connection to the
earlier or leaves it entirely too obscure. But the image of the broken
mirror is so direct and eloquent. It's a great frame-within-a-frame
shot, too, Lemmon looking at himself and realizing that his romance
with MacLaine is a romance-within-a-romance.
Wilder isn't talked about much, compositionally. But I've been looking
at some of his work again recently and I can't think of more evocative
compositions in an American film than McMurray entering Stanwyck's
chamber at the end of DOUBLE INDEMNITY or the mortuary scenes in AVANTI!
--Kyle Westphal
23906
From: thebradstevens
Date: Thu Mar 10, 2005 6:44pm
Subject: Re: Postscript: ONLY YESTERDAY and the Communist Party
But, on occasion, I hear people dismissing the idea
> that the Party ever tried to sneak ideology into movies. It just
seems so
> conspicuous to me.
It only seems conspicuous because we are so used to American films
towing the Republican Party line.
23907
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Thu Mar 10, 2005 6:55pm
Subject: Re: Postscript: ONLY YESTERDAY and the Communist Party
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
"Like lots of Hollywood films of the time, the script of ONLY
YESTERDAY features little political comments that seem to me to
stick out like a sore thumb...
"Most of these implied political positions aren't very extreme. But
every time I hear this sort of thing, I assume that the writers are
following Party instructions, just because of the way the lines are
shoved into the scripts in such non-organic ways...on occasion, I
hear people dismissing the idea that the Party ever tried to sneak
ideology into movies. It just seems so conspicuous to me."
Since it was during the Popular Front era it's hard to tell if this
sort of thing emamaneted solely from the CP or came from New Deal
liberals (who were far to the left of today's liberals)as well.
I recall seeing the complete ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN BLOOD for the
first time and noting how like Capt. Blood's "Articles of Sea"
resembled FDR's New Deal programs with workman's comp for injured
sailors, social security for sailor's families, etc.
Berton Churchill's grumbling seems more like a conservative reaction
to FDR's Federal Reserve Act than to any programs advocated by the
CP. Of course, there's Lionel Stander whistling the "International"
coming out of the elevator in I forget which picture now.
Richard
23908
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu Mar 10, 2005 6:58pm
Subject: Re: Re: Postscript: ONLY YESTERDAY and the Communist Party
> But, on occasion, I hear people dismissing the idea
>> that the Party ever tried to sneak ideology into movies. It just
> seems so
>> conspicuous to me.
>
> It only seems conspicuous because we are so used to American films
> towing the Republican Party line.
I have trouble thinking of right-wing equivalents to what I was talking
about. One that comes to mind is de Toth's CARSON CITY (not a bad film,
actually).
I'm not talking about a film embodying left or right-wing ideas.
Embodying something can create internal coherence. I'm talking about
sneaking something in. - Dan
23909
From: Fred Camper
Date: Thu Mar 10, 2005 7:03pm
Subject: Re: Re: Preminger, Borzage (was: Leisen and Borzage etc)
Richard Modiano wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
>
>
> Let me put in a word for the Llyod Douglas adaptations, THE GREEN
> LIGHT and DISPUTED PASSAGE.
Those are both quite great. I have an old essay on "Disputed Passage"
reprinted in volume 1 of Nichols's "Movies and Methods," but that was
originally written about 1970. "Green Light" has a fantastic dissolve
between a church-shaped radio with a religious broadcast and the actual
choir, a kind of space-crossing (and space-opening) move that such much
about Borzage's beliefs. "Strange Cargo" is another of the great
religious ones. A comparison of "Green Light" and "Disputed Passage"
with the Sirk film based on a Douglas novel, "Magnificent Obsession," is
instructive: unlike Sirk, Borzage takes the ethos of Douglas's writing
with sincere acceptance.
Fred Camper
23910
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Mar 10, 2005 7:26pm
Subject: Re: Re: Postscript: ONLY YESTERDAY and the Communist Party
--- Dan Sallitt wrote:
>
> I have trouble thinking of right-wing equivalents to
> what I was talking
> about.
You mean to say you've never heard of "The Deer
Hunter" or "Forrest Gump"?
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23911
From: Patrick Ciccone
Date: Thu Mar 10, 2005 7:59pm
Subject: Re: John M. Stahl
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> So how'd you feel about ONLY YESTERDAY, Patrick? I was thinking that,
really need is a screening of WHEN TOMORROW COMES. - Dan
I thought ONLY YESTERDAY was nearly a masterpiece, as I already
presumed that LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN might be something of an oddity,
even with Stahl's filmography. I think you've pointed out many of the
film's qualities, especially the relative distance afforded the
characters. I was struck by the economy that Stahl was able to use his
rather evocative settings--though we see a good deal of a couple of
the apartments, there aren't too many setups of the the rest of the
locations (the military ball, the parade, the St. Regis, Wall Street).
In that way, I thought that the elliptical elements from the script
matched the visual ellipises, if that makes sense.
Maybe sober melodramatist is the right word--even by modern tastes, I
think it would be hard to find bathos in this Stahl film.
Is the World War I footage from ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT?
PWC
23912
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu Mar 10, 2005 8:35pm
Subject: Persuasion (Was: Postscript: ONLY YESTERDAY and the Communist Party)
>> I have trouble thinking of right-wing equivalents to
>> what I was talking
>> about.
>
> You mean to say you've never heard of "The Deer
> Hunter" or "Forrest Gump"?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I have the impression that you are saying
that these films have right-wing agendas. If so, that is not what I am
talking about. I was talking about writers who insert politically
persuasive dialogue into films that are not necessarily politically
persuasive in concept. - Dan
23913
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu Mar 10, 2005 8:36pm
Subject: Re: Re: John M. Stahl
> In that way, I thought that the elliptical elements from the script
> matched the visual ellipises, if that makes sense.
Yeah, that's a good observation. Stahl conveys a kind of minimalist
feeling somehow.
> Is the World War I footage from ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT?
Yes. - Dan
23914
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Mar 10, 2005 8:49pm
Subject: Re: Persuasion (Was: Postscript: ONLY YESTERDAY and the Communist Party)
--- Dan Sallitt wrote:
>
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but I have the impression
> that you are saying
> that these films have right-wing agendas. If so,
> that is not what I am
> talking about. I was talking about writers who
> insert politically
> persuasive dialogue into films that are not
> necessarily politically
> persuasive in concept.
That means you subscribe to Ginger Rogers' mother's
theory of esthetics -- which saw "Tender Comrade" as
part of insidious Communist plot.
The insidious right-wing plots of "Woman on Pier 13,"
"The Red Menace," "Red Planet Mars," et. al. weren't
subject to congressional sub-commitee review.
Lionel Stander said he used to whistle "The
Internationale" under his breath during scenes where
he had little or no dialogue.
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23915
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu Mar 10, 2005 9:03pm
Subject: Re: Persuasion (Was: Postscript: ONLY YESTERDAY and the Communist Party)
>> I was talking about writers who
>> insert politically
>> persuasive dialogue into films that are not
>> necessarily politically
>> persuasive in concept.
>
> That means you subscribe to Ginger Rogers' mother's
> theory of esthetics -- which saw "Tender Comrade" as
> part of insidious Communist plot.
Who said anything about insidious? Or aesthetics, for that matter. - Dan
23916
From: Robert Keser
Date: Thu Mar 10, 2005 10:12pm
Subject: Re: Preminger, Borzage (was: Leisen and Borzage etc)
To my mind, the prime Borzage moment—ounce for ounce—comes
toward the end of "Three Comrades", where the fragile Margaret
Sullavan heroine is close to expiring from consumption in her
hospital bed. Then Robert Taylor, in despair at the prospect of her
mortality putting an end to their love, removes his wristwatch and
flings it out the window, accomplishing a sublime metaphor.
More satisfying as a whole, though, despite its coating of MGM
gloss, is the wonderful "Smilin' Through", certainly
Jeanette MacDonald's shining hour.
But what's the problem with "Desire"? It seems to me to
successfully cross the romantic commitment of Borzage (especially in
its second half) with some prime Lubitsch material (especially the
sequence where Dietrich the jewel-thief sets up her scam—and a
score of double-entendres—as she demurely explains to the doctor
that her "husband" can no longer "perform" his
duties!)
--Robert Keser
23917
From: Fred Camper
Date: Thu Mar 10, 2005 10:15pm
Subject: Re: Re: Preminger, Borzage (was: Leisen and Borzage etc)
Robert Keser wrote:
>
> ....removes his wristwatch and
> flings it out the window, accomplishing a sublime metaphor.
Ah, but there's also the final dissolve of "The Mortal Storm," arguably
even more cinematic...
Fred Camper
23918
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Mar 10, 2005 10:16pm
Subject: Re: Borzage (Was: Leisen and Borzage etc (Was: Leiswen))
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, BklynMagus wrote:
> Dan writes:
>
> > For me, HISTORY IS MADE AT NIGHT is the extra-special one
Arthur Ripley claimed he saved it.
23919
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Mar 10, 2005 10:29pm
Subject: Homosexuality in late Wilder (Was: Leisen)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Brian Dauth" wrote:
> > Well Wilder wouldn't agree.
>
> Well, Wilder had issues with what he called
> "fairies."
Haven't seen that quote, but I wouldn't be surprised at it - he had a sharp
tongue.
>Just look at "The Front Page."
Wilder's central theme - and he is nothing if not an auteur - is The Great
Detecti key film in his filmography. The Great Detective being inevitably an
obsessional neurotic, sooner or later the question of repressed homosexuality
had to come up, and it comes up not in Private Life, where everyone thought
they saw it, but in The Front Page, which turns one of the greatest American
stage farces into a tragedy about repressed homosexuality. The gag about
Rudy and Binswinger (sp?) opening a shop together in the crawl at the end
needs to be balanced against the news that the castrated psychiatrist wrote a
book called The Joy of Impotence, which became a national bestseller.
> he often protected his words so much
> so that he inhibited the flow of his films.
I agree. Dan had some good observations on this way back when we were
debating Wilder here.
23920
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Mar 10, 2005 10:36pm
Subject: Re: Jeanette MacDonald (Was Preminger, Borzage )
--- Robert Keser wrote:
>
> More satisfying as a whole, though, despite its
> coating of MGM
> gloss, is the wonderful "Smilin' Through", certainly
> Jeanette MacDonald's shining hour.
>
Certainly not! Her finest hour was "Love Me Tonight,"
with Lubitsch's "The Merry Widow" a very close second.
And then
(all together now)
I never will forget mmmmmmmmm Jeanette MacDonald
Just to think of her gives my heart a pang
I never will forget
How that brave Jeanette
Just stood there
in those ruins
and sang
aaaaand sang --
(take it away,Jean-Pierre!)
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23921
From: Robert Keser
Date: Thu Mar 10, 2005 10:46pm
Subject: Re: Preminger, Borzage (was: Leisen and Borzage etc)
Robert Keser wrote:
"....removes his wristwatch and flings it out the window,
accomplishing a sublime metaphor."
Fred Camper wrote:
"Ah, but there's also the final dissolve of "The Mortal Storm,"
arguably even more cinematic..."
Borzage left us an embarrassment of riches! (There's even much to
enjoy in the utterly forgotten "The Big Fisherman").
Speaking of "Smilin' Through", we might pause to ponder Sidney
Franklin who directed the quite respectable 1932 version. His
Constance Talmadge comedy "Duchess of Buffalo" is brilliantly played
and very funny, and the effective "The Dark Angel" has an
astonishingly sensitive performance by Merle Oberon, possibly her
only one. Despite his hefty output in the silent era, when Franklin
gets mentioned at all these days, it's to take the rap for the white-
elephantness of "Mrs. Miniver". I wonder whether anyone has mounted
any kind of Franklin retrospective (let alone defense)?
--Robert Keser
23922
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Mar 10, 2005 10:53pm
Subject: Re: Rigorous Formalism in Bunuel?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jerry Johnson" wrote:
>
> The standard take on Bunuel's visual style is that it's "neutral,"
> or that his style is the "absence of style," or that it's primarily
> iconographic. Or maybe that's just old-fashioned thinking and I
> haven't kept up with the latest scholarship on the subject. That's
> why I'm posting this.
Look back in the archives for our thread on Neutral Style.
>
> I was watching Diary of a Chambermaid on DVD the other night and
> realized for the first time that all interiors are shot with a
> stationary camera and that all exterior scenes involve tracking
> shots. I found it very strange that I'd never noticed this before
> and was curious 1) if anyone has written about this specifically,
> and 2) if there are other examples of this kind of rigorous visual
> formalism in other Bunuel films.
I don't think you'll find it everywhere. Diary was his first film shot in France after
L'Age d'Or (Cela s'appelle l'aurore was filmed in Corsico, La mort en ce jardin
I forget where, but not in France). It was also a post-New Wave film where he
had a French cameraman and crew, and I think that affected his shooting
style. One thing that has been written about in Diary is the way the camera
moves start down a bit and rise up. As far as I know, that's not duplicated
elsewhere. (Diary was attacked in France.) For reasons JC Biette has
speculated on, the later French films were such a compendium of Industry
commonplaces (gestures, acting styles, social types, camera movement,
costumes, sets, lighting) as to be a kind of neutral style.
Bunuel devised the style of his feature films while prepping his second
Mexican film, The Great Madcap - a desperate comeback attempt after Grand
Casino bombed. Since he was handed script, cast and a lead who directed
himself, he focused on shooting and plotted out his own version of Hollywood
invisible style that became the style of all the later films until Diary. But there
were variations within the style, particularly when he started looking to
European distribution again: noir lighting in Olvidados or El, a stress on point
of view shots and offscreen sound in Crusoe, a meandering character
(pointed out by The Brad) right out of Antonioni at the beginning of Cela
s'appelle l'aurore.
> Now I plan to rewatch all of Bunuel's films that are on DVD
> (unfortunately, very few are) and try to determine what else I've
> been missing.
Recommendations from someone who's seen them all recently: Land Without
Bread, El, The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz, The Exterminating
Angel, Nazarin, Viridiana, Tristana, That Obscure Object of Desire. Crusoe is
now out on DVD, and so I believe is Simon of the Desert, both terrific. The late
French films are all delightful, but I prefer as a group the Spanish-language
films, which mostly aren't on DVD.
It might be interesting for you to see Susana immediately after Diary - also
available only on tape, it's an early rough sketch for Diary, with a very
distinctive style based on frames within frames. Also, for the cast of characters
and themes, The Young One.
The films I've listed here - except for Susana, a minor gem, and The Young
One, a major gem - are all sublime. Land without Bread stands apart as a
documentary, but you can't really understand any film of Bunuel (including the
first two shorts) without assimilating that one.
23923
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Mar 10, 2005 10:56pm
Subject: Re: Wildr and Wilder (was: Leisen )
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein wrote:
>
>he often protected his words so much
> > so that he inhibited the flow of his films. He
> > was different than Huston and Mankiewicz who saw
> > directing as an extension of the writing process.
> > Wilder saw the creation process differently.
> >
>
> Not entirely. "The Apartment," Shirley MacLaine has
> noted, began shooting with 36 uninifhsed pages of
> script. Wilder and Diamond wrote and re-wrote as they
> went along. The acotrs didn't know where the film was
> going until they got that day's pages. I think this
> accounts for a lot of the film's freshness, coupled
> with Wilder's uncanny abilityto shift from satirical
> comedy to virtual tragedy and back again.
Kudos to David for reminding us of a side of Wilder that is overlooked, and of
the emotional power he could achieve, as in The Apartment.
23924
From: Robert Keser
Date: Thu Mar 10, 2005 10:58pm
Subject: Re: Jeanette MacDonald (Was Preminger, Borzage )
David Ehrenstein wrote:
> Certainly not! Her finest hour was "Love Me Tonight,"
> with Lubitsch's "The Merry Widow" a very close second.
Sure, she's uniquely delightful in both of those (and "One Hour With
You" too), but in "Smilin' Through" she creates two distinct women
who are clearly individuated and both are completely convincing,
revealing a sensitivity that rarely surfaced in her other roles,
least of all in her Iron Butterfly period at MGM.
--Robert Keser
23925
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Mar 10, 2005 11:04pm
Subject: Re: Persuasion (Was: Postscript: ONLY YESTERDAY and the Communist Party)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
>
In nees looking at. I know where Dan's coming from. If you want to see scenes
from films written by Party members, see Thom's film Red Hollywood. I found it
interesting to read the script of Objective Burma, by two communists, which is
more jingoistic than Walsh's film of it. Lastly, Ulmer shoehorned in Red lines
("He wasn't a man- he was a way of life") as a matter of course, but that was
just him.
In other words, shoehorning may be a function of the difficulty of making real
Popular Front cinema; sometimes Party members could be overly patriotic
because that was the line at the time; and actual films where the point of view
is consistently left tend to be B's - many of Thom's examples are B's we never
heard of.
23926
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Mar 10, 2005 11:12pm
Subject: Re: Re: Jeanette MacDonald (Was Preminger, Borzage )
--- Robert Keser wrote:
> Sure, she's uniquely delightful in both of those
> (and "One Hour With
> You" too), but in "Smilin' Through" she creates two
> distinct women
> who are clearly individuated and both are completely
> convincing,
> revealing a sensitivity that rarely surfaced in her
> other roles,
> least of all in her Iron Butterfly period at MGM.
>
I've never found her iron-bound in anything. That
quality should be ascribed to her frequent co-star
Nelson Eddy (aka. The Singing Capon.) Jeanette is
always light, witty, carefree and when directed by
someone who cares, very very sexy.
I ove the moment in "The Merry Widow" when she decides
she's had it with mounrning and gets herself some new
clothes. Her sparring with Chevalier is delicious.
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23927
From:
Date: Thu Mar 10, 2005 8:14pm
Subject: Re: Jeanette MacDonald (Was Preminger, Borzage )
In a message dated 3/10/05 4:44:13 PM, cellar47@y... writes:
> aaaaand sang --
>
> (take it away,Jean-Pierre!)
>
Can a lowly Stephin Merritt/current popular fan (the shock horror!) take it
away?
Kevin John
P. S. Agree that LOVE ME TONIGHT and THE MERRY WIDOW smash, um, that other
one.
P. P. S. "San Francsico, open your golden gates..."
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
23928
From: Robert Keser
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 3:49am
Subject: Re: Jeanette MacDonald (Was Preminger, Borzage )
LiLiPUT1@a... wrote:
"Can a lowly Stephin Merritt/current popular fan (the shock horror!)
take it away?"
First you have to get a copy of "Michael Feinstein Live at the
Algonquin" to hear the excellent song David is referencing (Andrea
Marcovicci also recorded a version with slightly different lyrics).
"P. S. Agree that LOVE ME TONIGHT and THE MERRY WIDOW smash, um,
that other one."
But have you seen that other one?
--Robert Keser
23929
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 3:55am
Subject: Re: Re: Borzage (Was: Leisen and Borzage etc (Was: Leiswen))
>>> For me, HISTORY IS MADE AT NIGHT is the extra-special one
>
> Arthur Ripley claimed he saved it.
Did he give any details? The IMDb says he directed second unit, but it's
hard to save a film in that capacity, no? - Dan
23930
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 4:37am
Subject: Re: Re: Jeanette MacDonald (Was Preminger, Borzage )
--- LiLiPUT1@a... wrote:
>
> Can a lowly Stephin Merritt/current popular fan (the
> shock horror!) take it
> away?
>
But of course!
> P. S. Agree that LOVE ME TONIGHT and THE MERRY WIDOW
> smash, um, that other
> one.
>
> P. P. S. "San Francsico, open your golden gates..."
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been
> removed]
>
>
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Make Yahoo! your home page
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
23931
From: samfilms2003
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 5:01am
Subject: Wilder (Was: Re: Liesen )
> Wilder isn't talked about much, compositionally. But I've been looking
> at some of his work again recently and I can't think of more evocative
> compositions in an American film than McMurray entering Stanwyck's
> chamber at the end of DOUBLE INDEMNITY or the mortuary scenes in AVANTI!
Or just seeing "The Apartment" in 35mm scope !
-Sam
23932
From: samfilms2003
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 5:05am
Subject: Re: Persuasion (Was: Postscript: ONLY YESTERDAY and the Communist Party)
>
> Lionel Stander said he used to whistle "The
> Internationale" under his breath during scenes where
> he had little or no dialogue.
Aha, so we've uncovered a commie sound mixer too now..
-Sam
23933
From: Brian Charles Dauth
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 5:07am
Subject: Re: John M. Stahl
Dan writes:
> The way the big revelation is saved for the last two
lines (with no reaction from the camera) is quite a
zinger, isn't it?
I was amazed/fascinated. I was like: how long are you
going to hold this? I get such a feeling of daring from
Stahl.
> To some extent this grows out of the studio style of
the early 30s (the orchestration gets lusher and comes
in earlier as the decade progresses), but Stahl and the
writers delay the kicker for so long that it becomes - well,
audacious.
Exactly. I get the feeling that Stahl was inventing the
rules of melodrama, that nothing had been set yet this
early in talking pictures. I also wondered if his approach
was a reaction against Borzage's more sentimental
approach -- just speculation.
> But the film has a primal contract with the audience
that exists independent of the direction. And Stahl's
style isn't to subvert it.
Thinking about this, I wonder if Stahl is so early in the
cycle of talking melodramas that there isn't a tradition
to subvert yet. He seems to like to record complex
moments -- the two party sequences, the soldiers' return --
and allow the drama to emerge from them. His close-up
of Sullavan when she realizes that Boles doesn't recognize
her was stunning -- complex without being bathetic. I
felt that at that moment Stahl was showing how there
could be equal complexity/variety in an intense close-up
as in a long shot/tracking shot.
I think there was also a healthy respect on Stahl's part
for the intelligence of the audience: they had the ability to
sort out the variety he offered them. At the same time, a
school of filmmaking that emphasizes manipulating
audience emotions/reactions develops, and eventually
triumphs as the dominant approach of Hollywood
filmmaking.
> I don't think we're really disagreeing about very much
Not at all; it was your post that inspired my deeper
reflections.
> but I notice a difference in approach, with you preferring to
talk about the integrity of the creation, and me preferring to
emphasize the direction as acting upon the various materials,
and not necessarily being in perfect harmony with them.
Thinkng about it, I see a cohesion in Stahl's work in that he
allows the various elements to be in disharmony and doesn't
impose his will to make them all fit together. He will create the
container/frame wherein all these elements mix and play off
each other, but he will be restrained as much as possible in
directing/ordering the interactions. He allows some characters
to be melodramatic and some to take other tacks.
In conrast, I always get the sense when I watch Ophuls that
all his characters know that they are in a melodrama and behave
accordingly. Their choices/autonomy are more proscribed.
Ophuls is directing the audience to a particular response/insight.
For me, Stahl is directing the audience back toward themselves
and the world in which they live.
Or take "Stella Dallas." If Stanwyck doesn't get dressed up in
those garish clothes, there is no melodrama. But you have to
believe that the woman who landed Stephen Dallas (John Boles
again) in the first place, goes blood simple a few reels later
in the picture. To me that is an example of "hot" melodrama,
while Stahl films "cool" melodramas.
> The SPOILERS are back:
> Well, I wouldn't call the end of LETTER FROM AN
UNKNOWN WOMAN an easy out.
Thinking about what I wrote, I realized that it is more accurate
to say that I feel Ophuls imposes melodrama on his characters
rather than allowing his characters to choose it. Joan Fontaine
pines for her love becaue that is Ophuls vision/fantasy of
women: devoted even though they are deserted/unremembered.
For me Stahl is different. Sullavan goes with Boles because she
is fascinated that once again he has been attracted to the same
woman. You feel that she is exploring her emotions about/toward
him, and not indulging in some unrequiting longing. When
she leaves him the second time, it is her choice not to become
part of a melodrama (just like Gene Tierney's sister does in "Leave
Her to Heaven" -- she excuses herself from her sister's narrative.).
Stahl's approach is like the road less taken in cinema: characters
exercising choice in terms of narrative responses. Mankiewicz,
Preminger, Fuller (I think -- I need to reflect more on it) carried on
the tradition of autonomy, but they were the brave and lonely few.
Brian
23934
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 6:20am
Subject: Film criticism and literature
E-mail conversing with my friends Gary Morris and Tom Sutpen, and
reading a piece by another non-posting afb'er, I found A TOPIC! If
you write on film (or post on it), answer this: Is your writing
inspired by/modelled on film critics or literary authors? If both,
how many from Column A and how many from Column B? And which ones?
(Optional last question.)
23935
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 11:21am
Subject: Magdalena
Does our Filipino contingent recommend MAGDALENA THE UNHOLY SAINT, which
has opened in NYC? I couldn't find any mention of the film in past posts,
but I don't know how much of Fred's archive is indexed by Google yet. -
Dan
23936
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 2:49pm
Subject: Franklin (Was: Preminger, Borzage)
> Speaking of "Smilin' Through", we might pause to ponder Sidney
> Franklin who directed the quite respectable 1932 version. His
> Constance Talmadge comedy "Duchess of Buffalo" is brilliantly played
> and very funny, and the effective "The Dark Angel" has an
> astonishingly sensitive performance by Merle Oberon, possibly her
> only one. Despite his hefty output in the silent era, when Franklin
> gets mentioned at all these days, it's to take the rap for the white-
> elephantness of "Mrs. Miniver". I wonder whether anyone has mounted
> any kind of Franklin retrospective (let alone defense)?
I haven't seen much Franklin, but I thought his 1931 PRIVATE LIVES was
rather better than I expected. I'm open to the idea that he might be
underrated. - Dan
23937
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 3:12pm
Subject: Re: Film criticism and literature
> Is your writing
> inspired by/modelled on film critics or literary authors? If both,
> how many from Column A and how many from Column B? And which ones?
> (Optional last question.)
Are you talking about writing style or thinking style? I guess they're
hard to separate.
Film critics: Bazin (big time), Truffaut, Robin Wood.
Literary: Mailer, Sartre, Dostoyevsky, Freud.
- Dan
23938
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 3:34pm
Subject: Richard Bartlett
I've been meaning to ask the list about this guy, the most mysterious of
all submerged American genre directors. It's very hard to find anything
written about him, even in reference books. But I gather that he used to
have a faint auteurist reputation. Long ago I saw one of his Jock Mahoney
westerns, JOE DAKOTA, and was impressed with its tranquil quality - I
remember being reminded a little bit of the Tourneur westerns. But
Bartlett never crossed my path again. It looks as if he started out as a
producer/director/writer/actor on some B movies from the early 50s, then
moved on to his Jock Mahoney cycle, then headed to TV, then reemerged with
an assortment of family films in the 70s and 80s. I believe that Blake
Lucas once told me that Jean-Pierre and Tavernier had written about him in
50 ANS. Any opinions? - Dan
23939
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 3:42pm
Subject: Masters of Indian Cinema series in NYC, April
http://www.iaac.us/mic_schedule.htm
Nothing that strikes me as "canonical", but that means plenty of
opportunities for discovery to those like me, whose enthusiasm for
Indian cinema outreaches their opportunities to experience it.
Anyone who knows anything about these films, please share. Thanks.
23940
From: Brian Dauth
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 4:04pm
Subject: Re: Film criticism and literature
hl666 asked:
> Is your writing inspired by/modelled on film critics or literary
authors?
Both
> If both, how many from Column A and how many from Column B? And
which ones?
Film critics:
The two authors I most remember from my teenage years/twenties when I
first discovered film were Raymond Durgnat and Robin Wood.
Also, three series of books were very important to me. One was put
out by Praeger and another was the Cinema One series published by
several houses. I was a fiend for collecting those books. I checked
the Praeger one on Antonioni and the Axel Masden volume on Billy
Wilder out of the library so often that my parents actually suggested
that we just keep them and say I lost them and pay the cost LOL. Of
course, I didn't. Finally found both books -- one in a bookstore in
NYC and the other on the street down by Washington Sqare Park. The
Focus On . . . series was also very important to me.
More than any single author, it was the approach of these books that
influenced me -- the idea that the director was in charge of the film.
Also, the notion that a film had a subtext that went along with the
narrative story.
Literary criticism:
Gore Vidal.
Brian
23941
From: Rick Curnutte
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 4:07pm
Subject: The NEW American Cinema
Hello, all:
I haven't posted here in a long while, but I have a personal project
going that I know will spark some interest here. What I'm doing is
putting together a survey that I'd like to publish on my film
quarterly's (The Film Journal) website.
The poll is aimed at auteurist-minded critics, scholars, cinephiles,
etc., and looks to be an exhaustive update to Sarris' seminal work.
Basically, I'm looking for individual "ballots" from each person,
with directors from the years following those covered in Sarris'
book (1969-present), categorized in the same categories as in THE
AMERIAN CINEMA:
Pantheon Directors
The Far Side of Paradise
Expressive Esoterica
Fringe Benefits
Less Than Meets the Eye
Lightly Likeable
Strained Seriousness
Oddities, One-Shots & Newcomers
Subjects for Further Research
Make Way for the Clowns!
Miscellany
Please email me off-list with your ballots. I look forward to
reading them.
Rick Curnutte
Editor, THE FILM JOURNAL
23942
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 4:29pm
Subject: Re: The NEW American Cinema
Interesting project, Rick.
Did Sarris offer any concise definitions for each category? If not,
would you be comfortable making those distinctions for the benefit of
clarification?
Also I wonder if it might be worthwhile to have discussion on the
pros and cons of using Sarris' framework.
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Rick Curnutte"
wrote:
>
> Hello, all:
>
> I haven't posted here in a long while, but I have a personal
project
> going that I know will spark some interest here. What I'm doing is
> putting together a survey that I'd like to publish on my film
> quarterly's (The Film Journal) website.
>
> The poll is aimed at auteurist-minded critics, scholars,
cinephiles,
> etc., and looks to be an exhaustive update to Sarris' seminal work.
>
> Basically, I'm looking for individual "ballots" from each person,
> with directors from the years following those covered in Sarris'
> book (1969-present), categorized in the same categories as in THE
> AMERIAN CINEMA:
>
> Pantheon Directors
> The Far Side of Paradise
> Expressive Esoterica
> Fringe Benefits
> Less Than Meets the Eye
> Lightly Likeable
> Strained Seriousness
> Oddities, One-Shots & Newcomers
> Subjects for Further Research
> Make Way for the Clowns!
> Miscellany
>
> Please email me off-list with your ballots. I look forward to
> reading them.
>
> Rick Curnutte
> Editor, THE FILM JOURNAL
23943
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 4:30pm
Subject: Re: Masters of Indian Cinema series in NYC, April
> http://www.iaac.us/mic_schedule.htm
>
> Nothing that strikes me as "canonical", but that means plenty of
> opportunities for discovery to those like me, whose enthusiasm for
> Indian cinema outreaches their opportunities to experience it.
>
> Anyone who knows anything about these films, please share. Thanks.
The only one I've seen for sure is JUNOON. I don't recall it being one of
my favorite Benegal films, but he can be a very interesting, thoughtful
director, well worth checking out.
I haven't seen either of these Mrinal Sen films, but I like him in
general. He's not a visual stylist to my mind, but a smart, analytical
guy who's good at showing the workings of social groups.
I think I may have seen COMPANY LIMITED, but I guess it didn't make an
impression on me.... - Dan
23944
From: acquarello2000
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 4:43pm
Subject: Re: Masters of Indian Cinema series in NYC, April
> The only one I've seen for sure is JUNOON. I don't recall it being
one of
> my favorite Benegal films, but he can be a very interesting, thoughtful
> director, well worth checking out.
Agreed. Shyam Benegal's "Junoon" contains a lot of the elements that
people have come to expect from his work - legacy of the caste system,
fading colonialism, the sacrifices of women in a paternalistic society
- but this time, set within a period piece which makes the film feel
quite atypically "plotted" (the scope is also a bit more lavish).
Usually, I find the stories in Benegal's films to be just a vehicle
for the character dynamics; "Junoon" feels more like the converse.
I can definitely recommend Aparna Sen's "36 Chowranghee Lane" which
tackles similar issues of uprootedness and culture isolation that Hou
Hsiao Hsien does for Taiwan. Sen is a disciple of Satyajit Ray's
cinema though, so it's a fairly conventional filmmaking and structure
(with flashbacks). The film is about a retired Anglo-Indian teacher
and her friendship with an old student.
Mrinal Sen's "Ek din Achanak" (not to be confused with one of his
early masterpieces, "Ek din Pratidin") feels a bit underformed, which
partly reflects on how the family didn't really know anything about
their patriarch, but also seems to be a pacing issue. I think that
this may be a statement on bourgeois complacency (even during
life-altering crisis), but it still made for a tedious final hour (or so).
acquarello
23945
From: Jonathan Rosenbaum
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 4:45pm
Subject: Re: Film criticism and literature
If
> you write on film (or post on it), answer this: Is your writing
> inspired by/modelled on film critics or literary authors? If both,
> how many from Column A and how many from Column B? And which ones?
> (Optional last question.)
A: Manny Farber, Serge Daney
B: William Faulkner, Marcel Proust, Roland Barthes
C (filmmakers): Alain Resnais
23946
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 4:56pm
Subject: Re: Re: Film criticism and literature
--- Jonathan Rosenbaum
wrote:
>
> A: Manny Farber, Serge Daney
> B: William Faulkner, Marcel Proust, Roland Barthes
> C (filmmakers): Alain Resnais
>
>
>
>
A: Raymond Durgnat, Manny Farber, Guliermo Cabrere
Infante, Michel Mourlet.
B: Frank O'Hara, Gore Vidal, Christopher Isherwood.
C: (filmmakers): Raul Ruiz, Chris Marker, Todd Haynes.
__________________________________
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Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site!
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/
23947
From: Rick Curnutte
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 5:18pm
Subject: Re: The NEW American Cinema
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Kevin Lee"
wrote:
>
> Interesting project, Rick.
>
> Did Sarris offer any concise definitions for each category? If
not,
> would you be comfortable making those distinctions for the benefit
of
> clarification?
>
> Also I wonder if it might be worthwhile to have discussion on the
> pros and cons of using Sarris' framework.
I don't really want to get into a debate over the Sarris model. My
using it is for reference and a point of perspective. If anyone is
unhappy with the model, I would simply suggest not participating.
Feel free to have said discussion over Sarris' framework, but I don'
really wish to get into it regarding this particular project.
Regarding clarification, I pulled the following from the They Shoot
Pictures Don't They? website:
Pantheon Directors: These are the directors who have transcended
their technical problems with a personal vision of the world. To
speak any of their names is to evoke a self-contained world with its
own laws and landscapes. They were also fortunate enough to find the
proper conditions and collaborators for the full expression of their
talent. Includes John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Ernst Lubitsch, Jean
Renoir and Charles Chaplin.
The Far Side of Paradise: These are the directors who fall short of
the Pantheon either because of a fragmentation of their personal
vision or because of disruptive career problems. Includes Frank
Capra, Blake Edwards, Joseph Losey, Vincente Minnelli and Douglas
Sirk.
Expressive Esoterica: These are the unsung directors with difficult
styles or unfashionable genres or both. Their deeper virtues are
often obscured by irritating idiosyncrasies on the surface, but they
are generally redeemed by their seriousness and grace. Includes
Stanley Donen, Joseph H. Lewis, Don Siegel, Frank Tashlin and Budd
Boetticher.
Fringe Benefits: These directors occupied such a marginal role in
the American cinema that it would be unfair to their overall
reputations to analyze them in this limited context in any detail.
Includes Claude Chabrol, Sergei Eisenstein, Roberto Rossellini,
Michelangelo Antonioni and Roman Polanski.
Less Than Meets the Eye: These are the directors with reputations in
excess of inspirations. In retrospect, it always seems that the
personal signatures to their films were written with invisible ink.
Includes David Lean, Lewis Milestone, Billy Wilder, John Huston and
Rouben Mamoulian.
Lightly Likable: These are talented but uneven directors with the
saving grace of unpretentiousness. Includes John Cromwell, Delmer
Daves, Henry Hathaway, Mervyn LeRoy and Andrew L. Stone.
Strained Seriousness: These are talented but uneven directors with
the mortal sin of pretentiousness. Their ambitious projects tend to
inflate rather than expound. Includes Jules Dassin, John
Frankenheimer, Stanley Kubrick, Sidney Lumet and Robert Rossen.
Oddities, One-Shots, and Newcomers: These are the eccentrics, the
exceptions and the expectants, the fallen stars and the shooting
stars. They defy more precise classification by their very nature.
Includes John Boorman, John Cassavetes, Francis Ford Coppola,
Charles Laughton and Lindsay Anderson.
Subjects for Further Research: These are the directors whose work
must be more fully evaluated before any final determination of the
American cinema is possible. There may be other unknown quantities
as well, but this list will serve for the moment as a reminder of
the gaps. Includes Clarence Brown, Tod Browning and Henry King.
Make Way for the Clowns!: These are the most conspicuous of the non-
directorial auteurs, and, as such, they cannot be subsumed under any
directorial style. They are ultimately the funniest footnotes to the
auteur theory. Includes Jerry Lewis.
Miscellany: No description given. Assumedly, all directors that
didn't quite fit into one of the above categories. Includes John
Brahm, William Dieterle, Stuart Heisler, David Miller and Elliott
Nugent.
Rick
23948
From: George Robinson
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 5:53pm
Subject: Re: The NEW American Cinema
Sarris had been thinking of a rewrite himself in the early '80s. I know
because I worked with the late Tom Allen (of blessed memory) and a
friend of mine on revamping Sarris's files at the Voice and a home
office he had in the Village back then.
Unfortunately, for whatever reason, he eventually settled for a new
edition of the old text (with filmography mistakes still uncorrected, if
I remember rightly) and a new introduction.
I love the idea of an update, but I have to admit that I think the old
categories probably need as much revamping as the lists of directors.
That said, I will play by Rick's rules and submit a list sometime soon.
George (doesn't play well with others) Robinson
--
If art reflects life, it does so
with spiral mirrors.
-- Bertolt Brecht
23949
From: Robert Keser
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 6:34pm
Subject: Re: The NEW American Cinema
Great idea, Rick (although it's another time-eater)!
Sarris's model may be creaky (where do we put Errol Morris or
Frederick Wiseman, for example) but working in the original
categories seems correct to respect his pioneering efforts. It also
makes sense to preserve the same terms of reference in order to
rationalize comparisons of the new generations to the old.
--Robert Keser
23950
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 6:42pm
Subject: Re: Film criticism and literature
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Brian Dauth" wrote:
> More than any single author, it was the approach of these books that
> influenced me -- the idea that the director was in charge of the film.
> Also, the notion that a film had a subtext that went along with the
> narrative story.
>
> Literary criticism:
>
> Gore Vidal.
>
Thanks, Brian. Actually I meant literature - we are writers after all, and having
nothing but film critics as models would be pretty impoverishing. Of course
Vidal is both literature and literary criticsm - and film criticism and film theory!
Have you read his book about film?
23951
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 6:44pm
Subject: Re: Re: The NEW American Cinema
> Sarris's model may be creaky (where do we put Errol Morris or
> Frederick Wiseman, for example)
Well, Sarris found a place for Flaherty.
> but working in the original
> categories seems correct to respect his pioneering efforts. It also
> makes sense to preserve the same terms of reference in order to
> rationalize comparisons of the new generations to the old.
The trouble is that the cinema has changed: now it's less a matter of
finding art within a commerce model, and more a matter of finding art
within a pile of would-be artists. Sarris' categories aren't designed for
the current state of cinema. But, what the heck, I'll play when I get a
few spare hours. - Dan
23952
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 6:52pm
Subject: Re: The NEW American Cinema
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, George Robinson wrote:
> I love the idea of an update, but I have to admit that I think the old
> categories probably need as much revamping as the lists of directors.
I agree - not because it's a bad taxonomic system, but because it's a mix of
several criteria - esthetic, budgetary, social and historical - and therefore very
much of the year 1968. How many new American directors have come along
who started in silents? That's all of the Pantheon INCLUDING Welles, who
made two silent films at the beginning, if you want to get nitpick-y about it.
Then you have a mix of that generation and a brand new generation on the
Far Side of Pardise, to which Borzage and Walsh are relegated (in error)
despite having started in silents, but in which Ray and Minnelli are at home as
representatives of a generation and a school with which Borzage and Walsh
have nothing to do. And the all-important Expressive Esoterica refers
essentially to systems of financing and distribution that no longer exist,
although one could more easily find analogues for them than for the first two
"thumbs-up" categories. The only categories that seem to be purely esthetic
are Less Than Meets the Eye, Strained Seriousness and Lightly Likeable,
eternally with us.
23953
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 6:52pm
Subject: Re: Preminger, Borzage (was: Leisen and Borzage etc)
Thanks to all for their Borzage recommendations. Have seen MANNEQUIN
and the hard-to-get Remarque adaptations courtesy of the Lindsay
Anderson Archive, and have a copy of STRANGE CARGO that i must sit
down and watch - the conflicting responses make me particularly
intrigued. And LILIOM sounds like a treat!
23954
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 6:56pm
Subject: Wilder (Was: Re: Liesen )
Wilder often was writing his films as he shot them: the last line of
SOME LIKE IT HOT was dreamt up the night before, and in the case of
SABRINA he got caught up with a plot problem and had to protract the
filming while he solved it. Hepburn helped by pretending to forget
her lines.
The use of shaving mirror reflections in LOST WEEKEND and THE
APARTMENT, the swimpool shot in SUNSET BOULEVARD and the stairlift
POV shot in WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION are further evidence of his
playful eye as a filmmaker - much more than just a writer who
protected his material, even if that was his initial goal.
Seems part of his aversion to Leisen was ML banning him from the set.
Brackett obviously had less of a problem as he continued to write for
Leisen after he split with Wilder.
23955
From: Robert Keser
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 7:04pm
Subject: Re: The NEW American Cinema
Dan Sallitt wrote:
"Well, Sarris found a place for Flaherty."
But Flaherty admitted (maybe grudgingly) that he was making films
that were fictional, unlike Errol Morris or Wiseman.
"The trouble is that the cinema has changed: now it's less a matter
of finding art within a commerce model, and more a matter of finding
art within a pile of would-be artists."
To me, art within a commerce model seems very relevant: this very
group has seen Mike championing "Torque" and Adrian defending teen
comedies and many of us raising the flag for the Farrelly Bros. and
others squeezing meaning out of Shyamalan and Spielberg.
Everywhere I look, I see a whole lot of Expressive Esoterica, some
prime candidates for Strained Seriousness, and others ripe for Less
Than Meets the Eye!
--Robert Keser
23956
From: Brian Dauth
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 7:10pm
Subject: Re: Film criticism and literature
hl666 asks:
> Have you read his book about film?
Yes. I am a big fan of his work -- both fiction and criticism.
As for literature: William Faulkner, Joseph Conrad, Patrick White,
John Cheever, James Baldwion, William S. Burroughs.
Brian
23957
From: Rick Curnutte
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 7:53pm
Subject: Re: The NEW American Cinema
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Robert Keser"
wrote:
>
> Great idea, Rick (although it's another time-eater)!
>
> Sarris's model may be creaky (where do we put Errol Morris or
> Frederick Wiseman, for example) but working in the original
> categories seems correct to respect his pioneering efforts. It
also
> makes sense to preserve the same terms of reference in order to
> rationalize comparisons of the new generations to the old.
This is exactly the reason I've kept the categories intact. Plus, I
wouldn't like to take the thunder from Sarris' breaking of ground,
especially since his foundation is precisely the model I intended to
follow from the get-go.
That being said, if anyone would like to write up something to
accompany their list that speaks to why the Sarris categories may be
obsolete or, at the very least, in need of updating, please feel
free. Also, please have no qualms about sending along commentary
with your lists.
I plan on publishing this, if time allows, in the next issue of THE
FILM JOURNAL, which should go up on or around April 1. So if you can
have your lists to me by March 31, it would be great.
Rick
23958
From: George Robinson
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 7:56pm
Subject: Sarris's Categories [was Re: The NEW American Cinema]
I am complete agreement. However, I think that the whole arrangement
makes a bit more sense if you look at the first seven cateories
(Pantheon through Strained Seriousness) as a ranking, 1-7, with the
Fringe Benefits directors as a sort of sui generis tip of the hat, then
consider the remaining categories as all constituting "subjects for
further research." Remember that the book was first conceived back in
1962, when Sarris threw down the gauntlet from the pages of Film
Culture, and completed somewhere around '67. Nobody had ever tried doing
this kind of meta-ranking of American cinema before; now we do something
like it all the time.
So I suspect what I will do for Rick's project is a straightforward
ranking of directors in 1-6 slots (using Sarris's criteria as a useful
guideline), a Fringe Benefits list for people like Assayas who are
dabbling in English-language film (go see "Clean," it's terrific, his
best film in a long, long time), and then some separate categories for
the one-offs. That's probably the closest you can get to matching the
original structure. (Certainly Jim Carrey deserves consideration for the
Clowns chapter; he's as much the auteur of his earlier hits as any
director. Likewise Eddie Murphy, although he's not my cup of hemlock.)
By the way, Rick, I assume we can re-evaluate anyone in the Sarris lists
who was still working regularly from 1969 on (i.e,, Peckinpah, Coppolla,
etc.). I don't mean, say, Hawks, on the strength of Rio Lobo, or
Hitchcock for Family Plot, but Edwards, for instance, has made at least
a dozen features since the book was published.
George (always subject to further research) Robinson
hotlove666 wrote:
>I agree - not because it's a bad taxonomic system, but because it's a mix of
>several criteria - esthetic, budgetary, social and historical - and therefore very
>much of the year 1968. How many new American directors have come along
>who started in silents? That's all of the Pantheon INCLUDING Welles, who
>made two silent films at the beginning, if you want to get nitpick-y about it.
>Then you have a mix of that generation and a brand new generation on the
>Far Side of Pardise, to which Borzage and Walsh are relegated (in error)
>despite having started in silents, but in which Ray and Minnelli are at home as
>representatives of a generation and a school with which Borzage and Walsh
>have nothing to do. And the all-important Expressive Esoterica refers
>essentially to systems of financing and distribution that no longer exist,
>although one could more easily find analogues for them than for the first two
>"thumbs-up" categories. The only categories that seem to be purely esthetic
>are Less Than Meets the Eye, Strained Seriousness and Lightly Likeable,
>eternally with us.
>
>
>
23959
From: Rick Curnutte
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 8:11pm
Subject: Sarris's Categories [was Re: The NEW American Cinema]
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, George Robinson
wrote:
> By the way, Rick, I assume we can re-evaluate anyone in the Sarris
lists
> who was still working regularly from 1969 on (i.e,, Peckinpah,
Coppolla,
> etc.). I don't mean, say, Hawks, on the strength of Rio Lobo, or
> Hitchcock for Family Plot, but Edwards, for instance, has made at
least
> a dozen features since the book was published.
Of course. Anyone from the original list who has worked, or did
work, a substantial amount since the original publication is fair
game here, though my personal interest lies more in how still-
working directors rank amongst auteurists...but don't let that
dissuade you.
Rick
23960
From: Peter Henne
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 8:21pm
Subject: Re: Film criticism and literature
Oh, what a wonderful way to stroke my ego at the end of the work week. When I was a film critic, I felt influenced by Sarris, not only for his compressed genius but his particular way with alliteration. I felt that '60s jazz (Coltrane, Coleman, Taylor, Ayler etc.) crept into structuring the flow of my writing. I wanted to live up to the ambition of Lester Bangs, the rock 'n' roll critic. I still think Bangs is a model for a radical, negating, and supremely funny kind of criticism for any arts, and I wish someone in film would take his lead. I highly recommend the collection of Bangs pieces edited by Greil Marcus, "Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung."
Like Brian Dauth, I grew along with collecting the books in the Cinema One, UC/Praeger, and also Barnes/Tantivy series of film books. With a few exceptions, they're still great! Durgnat's book on Franju is simply a beautiful monograph; here's an ideal case of lining up an artist with an interpreter who complements his sensitivity.
Peter Henne
hotlove666 wrote:
Is your writing
inspired by/modelled on film critics or literary authors?
---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site!
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
23961
From: Andy Rector
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 8:29pm
Subject: Re: Film criticism and literature
>Is your writing
> inspired by/modelled on film critics or literary authors? If both,
> how many from Column A and how many from Column B? And which ones?
> (Optional last question.)
Film critics or literary authors? More so inspired by filmmaking
(the need to keep ideas and possibilities alive for utility), but of
course:
A: Daney, Rosenbaum, Gilberto Perez, Jean-Andre Fieschi, Rivette,
Noel Burch, Moullet...
B: Kafka, Melville, Brecht
C: Straub/Huillet
D: Godard
23962
From:
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 3:35pm
Subject: Re: Film criticism and literature
Is your writing inspired by/modelled on film critics or literary authors?
Film Critics: Andrew Sarris, Andre Bazin, Roy Armes, Sheldon Renan, Peter
Bogdanovich.
Literary Critics: Russell Nye, Vladimir Propp, David Pringle, Francis M.
Nevins
Mystery writers: Poe, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Jacques Futrelle, G. K.
Chesterton, Agatha Christie, John Dickson Carr, Ellery Queen, Hake Talbot, Isaac
Asimov, Edward D. Hoch
Poets: Homer, Aeschylus, Dante, Shakespeare, Spenser, Blake, Coleridge, Keats
Novelist: Charlotte Bronte
Mike Grost
23963
From: George Robinson
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 9:03pm
Subject: Re: Re: Film criticism and literature
Film critics:
Sarris, my first and still one of my most important influences
Bazin, of course
Godard -- I love the cryptic lunacy of his critical writing, not to
mention the punning
Jonathan Rosenbaum -- not just for the clarity and intelligence of his
judgment but for his ability and willingness to relate film to politics
in a profound way
Noel Burch
David Bordwell
(Not a published writer but a key influence on my thought, my good
friend Ira Hozinsky)
Literary and other critics:
Meyer Shapiro
Northrop Frye
Roland Barthes
Maurice Blanchot
John Berger
Walter Benjamin
Bertolt Brecht
Filmmakers, etc.:
Godard
Chris Marker
Robert Bresson
John Berger
Groucho Marx
Two other categories that probably won't turn up on this list too often,
but these are areas in which I write or have written for many years and
these people have shaped my thinking about film as much as anyone.
Jewish thinkers:
Emmanuel Levinas
David Hartmann
Rashi
Martin Buber
Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
(and a bunch of rabbis you've never heard of)
Sportswriters and journalists:
Red Smith
Jimmy Cannon
Jim Murray
W.C. Heinz
I.F. Stone
Edward R. Murrow
This is the kind of list that I hate -- you always leave off somebody
really important and feel like a fool afterwards.
George (feels like a fool) Robinson
23964
From: jess_l_amortell
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 9:08pm
Subject: Sarris's Categories [was Re: The NEW American Cinema]
You could also consider doing a sidebar (or a separate survey) on directors of the period who were arguably overlooked in Sarris' original listing. Here you have many who are uniquely informed to make such a judgment (for example, Filipe Furtado recently proposed Fregonese and Ludwig as the major omissions) and I'd be interested to see their collected choices. Sarris' original categories would need no defending in this case and, in fact, it would be interesting to see in which categories the nominated directors were placed.
23965
From: Aaron Graham
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 9:23pm
Subject: Re: Film criticism and literature
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
>Is your writing inspired by/modelled on film critics or literary
>authors? If both, how many from Column A and how many from Column B?
>And which ones? (Optional last question.)
Of course, I consider myself a baby compared to almost everybody else
on this list, but I have a hard time not answering polls like these.
Film Critics: Sarris, Bazin, Truffaut, Bogdanovich, Joseph McBride,
(and this may sound like a horrible kiss-up, but it's true), Bill
Krohn.
From literature (all-encompassing, off the top of my head): Harlan
Ellison (a recommendation: "The Glass Teat"), Dante, Shakespeare,
Nabakov, William S. Burroughs, David Goodis, Hammett, Thomas Wolfe,
Elmore Leonard, Poe, Mailer, Vidal.
-Aaron
23966
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 9:23pm
Subject: Re: Re: Film criticism and literature
--- George Robinson wrote:
>
> Jewish thinkers:
> Emmanuel Levinas
> David Hartmann
> Rashi
> Martin Buber
> Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
> (and a bunch of rabbis you've never heard of)
>
>
Don't forget my favorite rabbi -- Jacques Derrida!
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
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http://mail.yahoo.com
23967
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 9:27pm
Subject: Re: Film criticism and literature
> This is the kind of list that I hate -- you always leave off somebody
> really important and feel like a fool afterwards.
>
> George (feels like a fool) Robinson
You left off the most important - authors of literature.
23968
From: Robert Keser
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 9:59pm
Subject: Re: Film criticism and literature
Film criticism as thinking:
The two volumes of JPC's "American Directors" are the
only film books that traveled with me around the world for over
thirty-five years, so they would probably get first place in my
pantheon. Also: Durgnat, Thomas Elsaesser, Gilberto Perez, William
Routt, David Walsh, plus just about everyone on this list
(seriously).
Film criticism as writing style:
Graham Greene, Otis Ferguson, Manny Farber and many of the above.
Other essays and journalism:
Joseph Mitchell, Gore Vidal, Lewis Thomas; also Adrian Searle and
Jonathan Jones on art.
Literature:
I never read fiction anymore, but in the past I read almost
everything written by Evelyn Waugh, Faulkner, E.M. Forster, William
Burroughs, and Turgenev, plus all thirteen volumes of Chekhov's
short stories.
--Robert Keser
23969
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 10:01pm
Subject: Re: Re: Film criticism and literature
> Sarris, my first and still one of my most important influences
I adore Sarris, and he was terrifically important to me, but I left him
off because I don't think I ever assimilated him into my own writing or
thinking. His mind is mysterious to me, which is part of what made him so
good. - Dan
23970
From: George Robinson
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 10:25pm
Subject: Re: Re: Film criticism and literature
Hey, I love Derrida, but I'd be lying if I said I understood him.
g
David Ehrenstein wrote:
>
>Don't forget my favorite rabbi -- Jacques Derrida!
>
>
23971
From: Matthew Clayfield
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 10:29pm
Subject: Re: Film criticism and literature
I don't know if these writers (and filmmakers) have influenced my
writing style or anything, but they've certainly made me -want- to
write, which is as big a deal as any:
a: Jonathan Rosenbaum, Adrian Martin
b: Susan Sontag, Roland Barthes, Hunter S. Thompson, James Joyce,
Roald Dahl
c: Jean-Luc Godard, Olivier Assayas
d: Claude Lévi-Strauss
Needless to say, I hope to be able to expand upon this list at some
point in the not-too-distant future. I only started reading and
writing criticism with any seriousness last year and I think the list
kind of reflects that -- which isn't to take away from the two critics
I've mentioned either!
23972
From: George Robinson
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 10:32pm
Subject: Re: Re: Film criticism and literature
No -- that was a deliberate omission, because that list would go on for
pages and I doubt if any of us can spare the bandwidth.
But since you asked, a quick and dirty list --
Kafka, Edmond Jabes, Auden, Whitman, Beckett, Dashiell Hammett, Paul
Celan, Henry James, Gertrude Stein, Shakespeare, Dante, Homer (but not
Jethro), Austen, George Eliot,
For that matter, one could add musicians and music critics, another
group I inadvertently left out
Charlie Parker
Gary Giddins
Duke Ellington
Francis Davis
Woody Herman
Count Basie
Ravel, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart
Albert Ayler, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman
Hendrix and Dylan and Springsteen and David Byrne
Sonic Youth and Yo La Tengo and Godspeed You Black Emperor
Jon Landau
Oh, god I forgot Manny Farber and Raymond Williams.
And so on and so on. . . . you get the idea.
(Damned thing is starting to turn into an Oscar acceptance speech. Oh
shit, I left out my mom and dad, my agent, my wife and the cats. Oh
well, the cats are the only ones who'll complain.)
George (I'd like to thank all the little people -- leprechauns, elves,
homunculi) Robinson
hotlove666 wrote:
>
>
> You left off the most important - authors of literature.
>
>
>
23973
From: Matthew Clayfield
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 10:50pm
Subject: Re: Film criticism and literature
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, George Robinson wrote:
> Oh, god I forgot Manny Farber and Raymond Williams.
At the risk of sounding like a cultural philistine, Manny Farber's
work has never really done it for me personally. His use of language
is incredible and his focus on cinematic minutiae glorious, but I just
find that he's so damned negative all the time that, eventually,
reading his work just becomes depressing – even when writing a
celebratory piece on Hawks, Farber seemingly can't help but have it
mutate into a damning piece on Huston. In this respect (but no
others), he actually reminds me a little of Ray Carney, only
(thankfully) not as insular in the range of his interests nor so
self-congratulatory or anti-intellectual. Sure, both writers have the
occasional piece of writing that doesn't rely on polemic point-scoring
against lesser films and filmmakers, but the vast majority of what
I've read from both of them seems fuelled by this kind of negativity.
Maybe, in Farber's case, I'm just reading the wrong pieces? I'd like
to think I might be.
I don't doubt that there's a fine reason for so many a_film_by members
citing Farber's influence on them, but I'm interested in knowing just
what that influence was. I'm also wondering if my dislike of his work
stems from something more generational.
23974
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 10:59pm
Subject: Re: Film criticism and literature
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Aaron Graham"
wrote:
>
> Film Critics: Sarris, Bazin, Truffaut, Bogdanovich, Joseph
McBride,
> (and this may sound like a horrible kiss-up, but it's true), Bill
> Krohn.
>
> From literature (all-encompassing, off the top of my head): Harlan
> Ellison (a recommendation: "The Glass Teat"), Dante, Shakespeare,
> Nabakov, William S. Burroughs, David Goodis, Hammett, Thomas
Wolfe,
> Elmore Leonard, Poe, Mailer, Vidal.
>
> -Aaron
Coming in on this thread very late, and in a rotten mood after
passing most of the day in the Emergency Room (sprained ankle,
crutches, the pits)...I am overwhelmed by the amount of literary
culture displayed here (I'm not picking out Aaron's post, i could
have used almost any other). My problem is trying to figure out how
such a wide variety of authors as shown in the list above and in
many other posts can actually be seen as "influence" on one's
writing (on film or other subjects). Aren't some of the posters
confusing literary tastes and literary influences? Of course you can
argue that we have been influenced by every writer (critic or other
of both)that we have liked (even by those we don't like, through
approaching writing from the opposite direction). But isn't
such "influence" considerably diluted?
Rather than Lists (I have voiced my dislike of Lists earlier
here!)it might be more interesting (but certainly more difficult) to
describe specific ways in which one or more writers have shaped our
own writing. I say "more difficult" because I for one wouldn't know
how to do it.
JPC
23975
From: thebradstevens
Date: Sat Mar 12, 2005 0:04am
Subject: Re: Film criticism and literature
>
> At the risk of sounding like a cultural philistine, Manny Farber's
> work has never really done it for me personally. His use of language
> is incredible and his focus on cinematic minutiae glorious, but I
just
> find that he's so damned negative all the time that, eventually,
> reading his work just becomes depressing – even when writing a
> celebratory piece on Hawks, Farber seemingly can't help but have it
> mutate into a damning piece on Huston. In this respect (but no
> others), he actually reminds me a little of Ray Carney, only
> (thankfully) not as insular in the range of his interests nor so
> self-congratulatory or anti-intellectual. Sure, both writers have
the
> occasional piece of writing that doesn't rely on polemic point-
scoring
> against lesser films and filmmakers, but the vast majority of what
> I've read from both of them seems fuelled by this kind of
negativity.
> Maybe, in Farber's case, I'm just reading the wrong pieces? I'd like
> to think I might be.
>
> I don't doubt that there's a fine reason for so many a_film_by
members
> citing Farber's influence on them, but I'm interested in knowing
just
> what that influence was. I'm also wondering if my dislike of his
work
> stems from something more generational.
Farber's ideas are wonderful, but he seldom applied them well to
actual films (most of his 'detailed' analyses are riddled with major
factual errors), and his impulses were often dreadful (of course,
it's nice that he liked Hawks, but I'm pretty certain that my reasons
for liking Hawks have little connection with Farber's reasons for
liking Hawks). He frequently used the word 'melodrama' as a term of
abuse, as if to define a film as a melodrama was to imply that there
was no need to take it seriously. Frankly, I can't understand why so
many critics I admire find him inspirational.
23976
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Mar 12, 2005 0:19am
Subject: Re: Film criticism and literature
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon" wrote:
> Rather than Lists (I have voiced my dislike of Lists earlier
> here!)it might be more interesting (but certainly more difficult) to
> describe specific ways in which one or more writers have shaped our
> own writing. I say "more difficult" because I for one wouldn't know
> how to do it.
>
> JPC
First of all, condolences on the ankle. I broke mine 7 years ago. Don't like to
remember it. A sprain is less of a problem - if you get it looked at.
Unfortunately, I did a brody en roiute to Amoeba (used videos) two weekends
ago and landed on one knee and both palms. I happened to be talking to an
orthopedic nurse 30 mins. later, so I did everything right and my knee's fine.
But I never saw a chiropracter, so my thumb joints are still a bit sore. I have to
go in next week. PS - You'll read more about my chiropracter in the April CdC.
Now: I too wonder if some haven't been confusing faves w. influences. My
starting point was Tom's observation that his film writing is more influenced by
literary authors than by critics. This seemed an interesting angle to follow up
on. I do notice that many like Proust, Conrad, Faulkner and James - that
would mean (and has meant in those cases, I believe) long torturous
sentences, not in great favor (I speak from experience) at pubs that aspire to
trhe Vnity fair style, like Film Comment. But I love 'em!
Farber has been an influence - good and bad - on lots of good film crix. I
mean for style. Curiously, even though Sarris has had a bigger impact here,
people seem more reluctant to imitate his style, which as George says is
epigrammatical and alliterative. Too recognizable? But so's Farber, and
imitating Farber can really get you in trouble.
I know my own style was influenced by myriad French crix et al., and I can
testify that writing for translation into French - and sometimes in French - can
really affect how you write. I know for example that writing Hitchcock at Work
and Luis Bunuel for publication in English has changed my style for the better,
and I expect that to become more apparent in Serial Killer Dreams.
A last personal testament: The same detective writers - Queen, Carr,
Christiew (whom I'm discovering late) - cited by Mystery Mike have profoundly
influenced how I go about criticism, and what I look for in a film. See my piece
on Suspicion in the last Hitchcock Annual for a blatant example.
23977
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Mar 12, 2005 0:24am
Subject: Re: Film criticism and literature
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Matthew Clayfield" <
the_silver_bullet@m...> wrote:
r's case, I'm just reading the wrong pieces? I'd like
> to think I might be.
>
> I don't doubt that there's a fine reason for so many a_film_by members
> citing Farber's influence on them, but I'm interested in knowing just
> what that influence was. I'm also wondering if my dislike of his work
> stems from something more generational.
He's a satirist. Satirists are misunderstood.
23978
From: Matthew Clayfield
Date: Sat Mar 12, 2005 0:57am
Subject: Re: Film criticism and literature
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
wrote:
>
> Farber's ideas are wonderful...
I agree. My relationship with his writing is a strange one.
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
>
> He's a satirist. Satirists are misunderstood.
Clearly!
23979
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat Mar 12, 2005 1:12am
Subject: Re: Re: Film criticism and literature
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
>
> Coming in on this thread very late, and in a
> rotten mood after
> passing most of the day in the Emergency Room
> (sprained ankle,
> crutches, the pits)...
I was wondering where you were, J-P. I turst you'll be
back in shape shortly.
I am overwhelmed by the amount
> of literary
> culture displayed here
Hey -- I heven't even weighed in!
Here goes: Proust, Musil, Irving Rosenthal, Frank
O'Hara, Firbank, Thomas Mann, Jane Bowles, Genet,
Zola,
J.G. Ballard.
My problem is trying to
> figure out how
> such a wide variety of authors as shown in the list
> above and in
> many other posts can actually be seen as "influence"
> on one's
> writing (on film or other subjects). Aren't some of
> the posters
> confusing literary tastes and literary influences?
> Of course you can
> argue that we have been influenced by every writer
> (critic or other
> of both)that we have liked (even by those we don't
> like, through
> approaching writing from the opposite direction).
> But isn't
> such "influence" considerably diluted?
>
>Not by me.
All the arts are one.
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23980
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Sat Mar 12, 2005 1:30am
Subject: Re: Film criticism and literature
If I understand the nature of Bill's question, the idea is to name
who influenced one's thinking about film and who from literature
influenced one's writing style.
In the case of thinking about film and in the order that I
encountered them: Robin Wood, Andrew Sarris, Andre Bazin, Fred
Camper, Paul Stiver (unpublished,) Tanaka Junichiro, Peter Henne and
the people on this list.
Writing style: Paul Goodman, William Burroughs (in his "factualist"
essays, but I like the cut-ups too, though that method dosen't lend
itself to list-posting,)Charles Olson, Ann Waldman.
I like Stan Brakhage's prose style and I like reviews of movies by
poets like Michael McClure (who contributed to "Film Culture") and
Jack Kerouac's notes for NOSFERATU written for the New Yorker Theater.
Bad writing for me is jargon-ridden academic film criticism.
Concerning the cut-ups, Burroughs also developed a related process he
called the "fold-in" in which you combine your text with another
person's text, or you can fold-in the texts of two different
authors. It might be interesting to fold-in reviews of the same film
by different authors.
Richard
23981
From:
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 9:36pm
Subject: Re: Film criticism and literature
Get Well Soon, J-P!
In a message dated 05-03-11 18:04:42 EST, JPC writes:
<< My problem is trying to figure out how such a wide variety of authors as
shown in the list above and in many other posts can actually be seen as
"influence" on one's writing (on film or other subjects) >>
Dante influenced my criticism, especially the final Paradise section of his
Comedy. As critics have pointed out, he somehow managed to write about Heaven
in concrete terms. Instead of the vague rapture it would inspire in lesser
mortals, he actually dreamed up concrete ways to depict it and talk about such an
abstract concept. Thirty-three cantos worth, too!
This has often been my model in discussing film or other art. Instead of
indulging in vague raptures about the greatness of Fritz Lang or Vincente
Minnelli, have tried to talk in concrete terms about their achievements, and of what
their films actually consist. I know I'm nowhere as good as Dante - but at
least one can try and learn from the giants! It is my attempt to explore the
"Heaven" of great film.
Vladimir Propp's book "The Morphology of the Folk Tale" finds mathematical
patterns & forms in the plots of Russian fairy tales. Have tried to find
patterns (different ones from that found by Propp) in many writers: see the
discussion of "Fox cycles" in the work of Gardner Fox in my essay on "Adam Strange"
(one of the high points of comic book history):
http://members.aol.com/MG4273/strange.htm
It is fascinating to see that Bill Krohn thinks that the great mystery
writers (he cites the Big Three of Carr, Christie and Queen) influenced his film
criticism. (It was Anthony Boucher who first identified these three authors as
the pinnacle of modern mystrery fiction). Certainly, reading the great
puzzle-plot mystery writers sharpens ones thinking skills. SS Van Dine opened his
pioneering history of mystery fiction with a quote from Marlowe's "Dr. Faustus":
"Sweet Analytics, tis thou hast ravished me."
A good motto for both mystery writers and critics.
Mike Grost
23982
From: Fred Camper
Date: Sat Mar 12, 2005 5:09am
Subject: Re: Re: Film criticism and literature
At first I wasn't going to respond, as I didn't think I had anything
original to add in the way of influences, but then I thought about it.
The film critics who influenced me most at the beginning (for me, the
mid-1960s) were (in order) Jonas Mekas (for his great enthusiasm, good
taste, and polemical style -- wonderfully parodied by Feiffer years ago
as arguing that "last week's underground film that everybody walked out
on was really a TEST to see if we dared face the TRUTH"); Andrew Sarris
(for his connection of style and theme), Jacques Rivette (only a few
pieces, read in translation) and Robin Wood (largely for "Hitchcock's
Films").
I honestly don't think my prose style has been influenced by the writers
I most love (who would include Henry James, Rainer Maria Rilke (read
only in translation), and Gerard Manley Hopkins). I don't think I'm a
good enough writer to claim "influence" from them, so I try instead for
a clear expository style.
But I do have one influence that no one else has claimed yet, from math
and physics. Learning to solve "real" physics problems in high school
(I'm talking about things that involve Maxwell's equations and surface
integrals and the like), and learning to prove mathematical theorems,
and studying the definition-postulate-theorem structures of geometry or
analysis (the real number system) or group theory I think inspired me a
few years later to try to construct a film criticism that would take the
form of a "proof." This is absurd, of course; you can't prove anything
in film criticism. But trying to argue from cause (stylistic element
described as precisely as possible) to effect (theme, mood, "meaning") I
think helped me become a bit more precise, especially in an era when
film criticism consisted largely of impressionistic mood pieces.
Fred Camper
23983
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sat Mar 12, 2005 5:23am
Subject: Re: Re: Film criticism and literature
> I honestly don't think my prose style has been influenced by the writers
> I most love (who would include Henry James, Rainer Maria Rilke (read
> only in translation), and Gerard Manley Hopkins). I don't think I'm a
> good enough writer to claim "influence" from them
Citing an influence doesn't mean you're putting yourself on the same
level. Influence doesn't even have to have a good effect on the
influencee.
> But I do have one influence that no one else has claimed yet, from math
> and physics.
> trying to argue from cause (stylistic element
> described as precisely as possible) to effect (theme, mood, "meaning") I
> think helped me become a bit more precise, especially in an era when
> film criticism consisted largely of impressionistic mood pieces.
Yeah, I thought of mentioning that too. Having a math education really
had more effect on my thinking about film than reading any writer.
Math teaches you to turn the knife on yourself, not to get warm and fuzzy
about an idea just because you thought it up. The goal is to develop an
intuition that keeps you awake at night until you admit to yourself that
you didn't really prove that theorem, that your idea didn't really get
you from A to B. - Dan
23984
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sat Mar 12, 2005 5:37am
Subject: Re: Re: The NEW American Cinema
> "The trouble is that the cinema has changed: now it's less a matter
> of finding art within a commerce model, and more a matter of finding
> art within a pile of would-be artists."
>
> To me, art within a commerce model seems very relevant: this very
> group has seen Mike championing "Torque" and Adrian defending teen
> comedies
Yeah, I agree, something like TORQUE bring us back to the utility of
auteurism.
But, like, who goes in "Less Than Meets the Eye" these days? Not Ron
Howard and Rob Reiner: they aren't taken as seriously by the critical
establishment as Huston and Wyler were, and so it defeats the purpose of
the politique to tear them down.
So one winds up filling that category with personal filmmakers whose art
bugs one. Whereas the original point was that their signatures should be
written in invisible ink.
I'm oversimplifying, but I do think the rules changed after the old
Hollywood collapsed. Sarris's categories would make more sense now
applied to episodic TV, or something that's still a bit infra dig. - Dan
23985
From: jaketwilson
Date: Sat Mar 12, 2005 6:17am
Subject: Re: Film criticism and literature
> I don't doubt that there's a fine reason for so many a_film_by
members
> citing Farber's influence on them, but I'm interested in knowing
just
> what that influence was. I'm also wondering if my dislike of his
work
> stems from something more generational.
I remember feeling that way ("This guy hates everything!") but I see
his negativity as a way of generating fresh perceptions in the
reader - rather than being awed by the reputations of Ford or
Hitchcock or whoever, he forces you to re-examine their works to see
how far his charges stick. I agree that trying to copy his style
directly is a bad idea, but I find that commitment to truth-telling
inspirational -- he seems totally focused on his response to what's
in front of his eyes, with no preconceptions about either the subject-
matter or what a critical essay should look like. There is absolutely
no cant in his work and no dead language; every phrase is newly
minted, which is what makes his writing so continuously funny (e.g.
his likening of Burt Lancaster to "a pompous orangutan" -- I can't
watch SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS now without thinking of that).
Most of my early and probably formative encounters with criticism
involved antiquated Anglo-American writing on literature -- Eliot,
Leavis, Empson, R.P Blackmur, etc. I still prefer critics who are
frank about what they love and hate to those who leave you guessing
or have no opinions of their own.
JTW
23986
From: Aaron Graham
Date: Sat Mar 12, 2005 6:20am
Subject: Re: Film criticism and literature
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
> > From literature (all-encompassing, off the top of my head):
Harlan
> > Ellison (a recommendation: "The Glass Teat"), Dante, Shakespeare,
> > Nabakov, William S. Burroughs, David Goodis, Hammett, Thomas
> Wolfe,
> > Elmore Leonard, Poe, Mailer, Vidal.
My problem is trying to figure out how
> such a wide variety of authors as shown in the list above and in
> many other posts can actually be seen as "influence" on one's
> writing (on film or other subjects). Aren't some of the posters
> confusing literary tastes and literary influences?
I can certainly understand your concern regarding some of the
previous posts in this topic (and, admittedly, I may have went
overboard with some of my choices!), but I'd like to think that most
of the authors I mentioned here have influenced my writing, whether
it be Ellison's fiery wit, or Elmore Leonard's simple yet effectual
prose. As for the others, it may just be a certain kind of
sensibility that has influenced me, but that could tie into literary
tastes.
-Aaron
23987
From: Elizabeth Nolan
Date: Sat Mar 12, 2005 6:25am
Subject: confusing faves w. influences
I'm glad somebody made this distinction. There were so many
over-lapping answers, I wondered how many of you were subjecting your
own original and personal (or auteur) styles to outside influences.
Thanks for all the answers -- further guidance in my own readings about
cinema.
Elizabeth
23988
From: jaketwilson
Date: Sat Mar 12, 2005 6:35am
Subject: Re: Film criticism and literature
> Math teaches you to turn the knife on yourself, not to get warm and
fuzzy
> about an idea just because you thought it up. The goal is to
develop an
> intuition that keeps you awake at night until you admit to yourself
that
> you didn't really prove that theorem, that your idea didn't really
get
> you from A to B.
I love what Dan is saying here, and I think his own criticism bears
it out. Not being a math person (or a "maths" person, as we'd say
where I live) I can only hope that a comparable rigour might arise
from paying enough attention to the use of language. By this I mean,
trying to avoid the easy cadences of the default critical voice
(everyone knows how criticism "should" sound) and continually asking:
do these words really express what I think and feel, or just an
approximate/simplified/cleaned-up version thereof? Though of course
we can never "prove" anything, or tell the whole truth...
JTW
23989
From: Noel Vera
Date: Sat Mar 12, 2005 7:22am
Subject: Re: Masters of Indian Cinema series in NYC, April
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "acquarello2000"
wrote:
> Usually, I find the stories in Benegal's films to be just a vehicle
> for the character dynamics; "Junoon" feels more like the converse.
Haven't seen this particular Benegal, but I really liked "Kalyug,"
his corporate-family take on the Mahabharata. What did you think of
that one?
> I can definitely recommend Aparna Sen's "36 Chowranghee Lane" which
> tackles similar issues of uprootedness and culture isolation that
Hou
> Hsiao Hsien does for Taiwan.
This was a surprise winner in the Manila International Film Festival
back in the '80s--yes, Imelda Marcos's pet project. People wondered
why this won, and the jury's answer was "because it's good"--and it
was.
Mani Ratnam's "Bombay" I liked for about the first hour; then he
seems to lose control of his material.
23990
From: Noel Vera
Date: Sat Mar 12, 2005 7:30am
Subject: Re: Magdalena
Holy freak, I was wondering what that was, until I googled it--Santa
Santita (the way they translate these titles)! I have the VCD,
haven't watched it yet. I haven't heard good things about it, though
I do like the director, Laurice Guillen.
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> Does our Filipino contingent recommend MAGDALENA THE UNHOLY SAINT,
which
> has opened in NYC? I couldn't find any mention of the film in
past posts,
> but I don't know how much of Fred's archive is indexed by Google
yet. -
> Dan
23991
From: Noel Vera
Date: Sat Mar 12, 2005 7:47am
Subject: Re: Film criticism and literature
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> Is your writing inspired by/modelled on film critics or literary
authors?
Off the top of my head:
Critics: Bazin, Agee (you won't find much direct influence--call
them inspirations), Joe Bob Briggs, Graham Greene, Constantino
Tejeros (iconoclast film critic based in Manila).
Writers: Cervantes, Hugo, Edgardo Reyes (who wrote the great short
novel "Sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag," on which Brocka based his film), JG
Ballard, Philip Dick, Graham Greene, Anthony Burgess.
23992
From: Andy Rector
Date: Sat Mar 12, 2005 8:55am
Subject: Re: Film criticism and literature
Even though I forgot to add Farber (and Nicole Brenez) to my
personal list I think that he proceeds the way a critic should for
the reason that Jake points out: focus on what has occurred in front
of his eyes regardless of preconceived essay form or film form.
Farber is a satirist for sure, but not only that. From where I'm
sitting
he's a model because he takes a stance in his criticism; he has a
particular world view that comes out in the pieces on Walsh, FIXED
BAYONETS, etc that becomes clear as day in the White Elephant vs.
Termite art distinction and finally kept him close to the ground for
Snow, Duras, and the Straubs while the bloated ships continued to
soar ever higher above his head.
As it happened this world view that sided with the bluntness and
grace of something like MANPOWER or Boetticher had to do with
space. If Farber is outraged that Gehr or Akerman aren't "input"
for Hollywood, that is not odd-- it was Farber who stuck to his
guns. Remember Farber comes out of the New Deal (and luckily
beyond). He came out of the New York art scene which greased the
palms of many (after all the cold war was on) and it seems that the
contradictions of that world, and a solidarity with craft which in
his case means space, led to his "against" and "for" positions. I'd
like to know how many friends Manny made by expressing deep
disappointment about Matisse's work in the Nation.
Even then Farber (and Patricia Patterson by the way) doesn't
bludgeon you with a lecture but does an astonishing dance on the
theme of film/culture/material. The seat of his pants may change
within the same piece making him dynamic and dialectical yet
obstinately vernacular unlike David Walsh who sounds like a
sensitive Marxist when
reviewing MILLION DOLLAR BABY and a petit bourgeois when reviewing
WORKERS, PEASANTS by Straub/Huillet.
Someone voiced a complaint about the inaccuracy of Farber; I can't
think of an instance of misinformation-- besides, every citing that
Noel Burch makes is absolutely factual, every theoretical precept
precise, and yet a conclusion can be totally expedient or even
spurious (see Sadean Aesthetic in The Philistine Controversy, ed. by
Beech).
I should have thought a little harder before I made my literary list
before. I don't think much about Melville (even less Kafka) when I
write-- Brecht is the only one on my list that is a constant
reference (besides the film critics). Not just his theory but his
literary side. After all it was b.b. who said inartistic matter can
be an aid, that some bits require a "bad" style (slackness,
inelegance) so that "beauties" may arise elsewhere. I believe I can
live up to that.
My question is to Tom who, through Bill, seems the only one openly
professing DIRECT LITERARY INFLUENCE (as opposed to essayistic
influence): WHO, and WHAT?
yours,
andy
"Plagiarism should be encouraged, honored...!"
-Renoir
23993
From: Noel Vera
Date: Sat Mar 12, 2005 9:22am
Subject: Re: Film criticism and literature
> > Is your writing inspired by/modelled on film critics or literary
> authors?
My list mostly reflects writers I'm actually comfortable with than
writers I consider truly great (tho some of them are, definitely).
As to HOW they influenced me, well--
Bazin, Agee, Greene--as I said, no real direct influences; just that
they happen to be my standards for graceful, understated prose,
evenhandedness (something I rarely achieve, myself), and impeccable
taste (tho what Agee sees in "Monsieur Verdoux" I'll probably never
understand).
Joe Bob Briggs--for his ability to take on a different persona in
his articles, and for reminding me not to take things too seriously.
Constantino Tejeros--for his no-balls-barred, fuck-you attitude
towards conventional wisdom on Philippine cinema.
Cervantes--a critic, a great one. Incisive and hilarious, a surgeon
with a sense of humor.
Hugo--for his exhaustively detailed journalism. And for being a
negative example of windy political essaying.
Edgardo Reyes (who wrote the great short novel "Sa Mga Kuko ng
Liwanag," on which Brocka based his film)--for his beautifully
onomatopeaic prose on Manila's sights, sounds, smells.
JG Ballard--not only for showing us that the mind is the ultimate
frontier, but also for his chilly emotional distance.
Philip Dick--not only for his out-there ideas, but for the ever-
present sympathy he holds for losers, outsiders, the common man.
Graham Greene, Anthony Burgess--converted Catholics both. I have
this thing for converts and their sometimes desperate, sometimes
moving theology.
Those are a few of my influences; some are like the ground I walk
on, some are like the sun's warmth. Don't know how else to put it.
23994
From: Noel Vera
Date: Sat Mar 12, 2005 9:33am
Subject: Re: Film criticism and literature
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Noel Vera"
wrote:
>
> > > Is your writing inspired by/modelled on film critics or
literary
> > authors?
> Bazin, Agee, Greene--as I said, no real direct influences; just
that
> they happen to be my standards for graceful, understated prose,
> evenhandedness (something I rarely achieve, myself), and
impeccable
> taste (tho what Agee sees in "Monsieur Verdoux" I'll probably
never
> understand).
For 'impeccable taste,' let me substitute 'impeccable intuition'--I
like Joe Bob for his complete lack of taste.
23995
From: Matthew Clayfield
Date: Sat Mar 12, 2005 10:02am
Subject: Re: Film criticism and literature
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Andy Rector" wrote:
> (and Nicole Brenez)
Can someone tell me a good place to start with Brenez? 'Cause I'm
interested.
23997
From: Andy Rector
Date: Sat Mar 12, 2005 10:57am
Subject: Re: Film criticism and literature
> > (and Nicole Brenez)
>
> Can someone tell me a good place to start with Brenez? 'Cause I'm
> interested.
I first encountered her work in 2001 at the For Ever Godard
conference where she presented one of the most exhilarating and
beautifully rigourous papers on Godard called FORMS OF A QUESTION.
It was just that, an elucidation of the different images and sounds
of Godard AS forms of question (to flatten her point considerably),
interspersed with great clips from among others FRANCE/TOUR... and
capped off by a clip of Godard being interrogated and beaten from
his CHANGER D'IMAGE. This essay is available in the book FOR EVER
GODARD edited by Temple, Williams, Witt...
http://www.forevergodard.com/
I then found english translations of her written work only a little
later via Sensesofcinema.com:
http://www.google.com/u/AHCCA?q=nicole+brenez
What is there are lists, interviews, proclaimations, and short
pieces (the WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE piece is tremendous); mostly
shards that nevertheless announce one of the most original, commited
critics of form around. The best thing about her: always a burning
objective at hand in every piece--she seeks unity, political and
cinematic.
Most impressive of all is THE ULTIMATE JOURNEY and Adrian Martin's
introduction to it:
http://www.latrobe.edu.au/screeningthepast/reruns/brenez.html
She's also on Rouge.com with a vehement call for a new archival
network, The Vogel Call.
I wonder if she has had any response.
And of course there's Movie Mutations!
Let's hope for more translations of her work.
yours,
andy
23998
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Mar 12, 2005 11:29am
Subject: Re: confusing faves w. influences
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Elizabeth Nolan wrote:
> I'm glad somebody made this distinction. There were so many
> over-lapping answers, I wondered how many of you were subjecting
your
> own original and personal (or auteur) styles to outside influences.
>
> Thanks for all the answers -- further guidance in my own readings
about
> cinema.
>
> Elizabeth
But ER, what writers (not critics) have taught you to write. Are
their literary authors who do that for you - when you write a
screenplay, for example?
23999
From: thebradstevens
Date: Sat Mar 12, 2005 11:34am
Subject: Farber (was Re: Film criticism and literature
> Someone voiced a complaint about the inaccuracy of Farber; I can't
> think of an instance of misinformation
Robin Wood's PERSONAL VIEWS includes a fairly devastating critique of
Farber's mistakes concerning TOUCH OF EVIL: for example, Farber
refers to the grocery store clerk as a 'deaf mute', even though she
has a conversation with Charlton Heston (during which she informs him
that she is blind).
Farber describes a shot from THE BIG SLEEP, which he insists is "one
of the finest moments in 1940's film": "Bogart, as he crosses the
street from one bookstore to another, looks up at a sign". Nice try,
but what actually happens is that, as Bogart crosses the street, he
hears thunder rumbling from overhead, and looks up at the storm
clouds. This is far from being a minor point, because it is the
rainstorm that starts a few moments later which obliges Bogart to
stay in bookstore number two.
Now I know some of Farber's admirers insist that what Farber does is
to describe the film playing in his own head rather than the one on
the screen. Godard used to do the same thing, but he always managed
to say something interesting about the film he was ostensibly
analyzing. I rarely feel that Farber does this. The TOUCH OF EVILs
and BIG SLEEPs playing in his head may be fascinating, but I don't
feel that he has anything interesting to say about the ones playing
on a screen.
24000
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Mar 12, 2005 11:37am
Subject: Re: Film criticism and literature
When I began writing Letters from Hollywood for CdC, my model was
Joan Didion's essays, especially "Having Fun" in The White Album. She
was the major influence on my writing at that point. The convoluted
sentences tended spring up when I was slipping into the
critical/analytical mode, which I had learned how to do from French
writers, but Didion's clean style is what I turned to when I started
writing for publication in English 5 years ago. My reviews for The
Economist seem to be influenced by Farber.
2
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