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24701 From: "Richard Modiano"
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 2:06am
Subject: Re: Hangover Square tharpa2002

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:

"The description of this in his mini-bio makes me want to see it.
He's obsessed with the idea that a private eye played by Victor
Mature has committed murder. At one point Mature wakes up to frind
Cregar in his apartment collecting evidence. Cregar's own apartment
is revealed to be a shrine to the murdered woman...."

I WAKE UP SCREAMING has a terrific beginning: it begins with a choker
close-up of Mature's sweat-drenched face under the bright lights of a
third degree interrogation while off-screen voices fire questions at
him. Mature actually plays a sleazy Broadway agent, not a p.i.
Cregar is a relentless homicide dectective known for always getting
his man and he's already decided that Mature did the murder, so it's
just a matter of collecting (manufacturing?) the evidence. He dogs
Mature throughout the movie by leaving reminders of Mature's fate
afetr he's been convicted; in one memorable scene Cregar plays with a
piece of string while carrying on an intimidating cat-and mouse
conversation with Mature. When he leaves he hands Mature the piece
of string which Mature finally exams: it's a noose. To say more
would involve spoilers. IWUS is probably Humberstone's best movie.

Richard
24702
From: "Richard Modiano"
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 2:28am
Subject: Re: Masahiro Shinoda (was: Top 25 directors) tharpa2002

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:

"Add him to your "one of the best Japanese directors ever" list on
the strength of long-ago viewings of Eros+Massacre and Coup d'Etat
(at MOMA). Where do I order those DVD's? He recently made a comeback
film after many years of inactivity. With Hani and Oshima he was a
leading light of the Japanese New Wave of the 70s. Hani's work is
also not to be missed - First Love, Infernal Version is amazing."

I concur. I only described Yoshida as a subject for further research
for Michael Kerpen's benefit. He was a great 'scope filmmaker as can
be seen in AKITSU ONSEN and JOEN. The last picture of his that I've
seen is ARASHI GA OKA (1988) a version of "Wuthering Heights" set in
the warring states era (late 16th century) and it was one of his
best. It should have been distributed more widely in the West (I
think it only got a general release in France.)

You can get the DVDs from amazonjapan or cd.japan with sub-titles in
French. Yoshida deserves a retrospective as much as Shinoda does.

By the way, Hani Susumu was a colleague of Haneda Smiko at Iwanami
Productions in the 1950s. He left when he moved on to directing
fiction features. His documentaries are also great (but Haneda's are
greater.)

Richard
24703
From: MG4273@...
Date: Mon Mar 21, 2005 9:45pm
Subject: I Wake Up Screaming (was: Hangover Square) nzkpzq

This film is as rivetting as everyone says, especially Laird Cregar's
performance. It is one of the earliest films classified as film noir (1941). Already,
we see elaborate grill work at the prison, used for complex lighting. The men
are in the double-breasted suits so common in noir to come - the characters
are denizens of Broadway, and totally urban, also a noir standby. And Cregar is
one of the great obsessives in the history of noir (and film in general).
It is hard to see H. Bruce Humberstone as the auteur of this film - but if he
did not create it, who did? My favorite other Humberstone is his 50's version
of "The Desert Song", which seemed like great fun when seen decades ago, but
in a very different style. On the other hand, I have only seen a small
percentage of Humberstone's work.
Steve Fisher's novel reportedly based the obsessive detective on his friend
and fellow pulp writer, Cornell Woolrich. Cregar bears no physical resemblance
to the cadaverously thin Woolrich, however, in the film version. Fisher would
go on to be a scriptwriter, including "Dead Reckoning".

Mike Grost
PS - Happy first day of Spring - and J.S. Bach's birthday!
24704
From: "cjsuttree"
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 6:26am
Subject: Re: Paul Schrader (was: Off with their heads!) cjsuttree

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, ptonguette@a... wrote:
> The one Schrader-directed film I find inarguably great (though it's
> practically unknown since it was denied a theatrical release in the
United States) is
> his 1999 melodrama "Forever Mine." It's not like anything else he's
done,
> really, and yet it feels profoundly personal. He tried to get it
made for a
> decade before it eventually happened. I prefer it to "Far From
Heaven."
>
> Peter
I haven't see Forever Mine; spotted it in a video store
once but the place went out of business soon afterwards.
The only truly good Schrader film I've seen, one that I
really like, is Light Sleeper. It is certainly very
personal, with its cocaine infused storyline and all,
although it is not clear which protagonist Schrader
resembled more, the world-weary, manipulative operator
(Susan Sarandon) or the man-child seeking grace (Willem
Dafoe). John Letour is the movie character I'll always
associate with Dafoe; he is as original and and fully
realized as any I've seen in American films of the 90s.
The film's editing and lighting is quite distinctive,
and are unlike any Schrader I've seen; thanks to them,
Light Sleeper may be his most successful attempt to evoke
(in the words of his "transcendental" essay) "disparity."
Sarandon's opulent apartment and Dafoe's stripped down
place -- and the way the camera frequently pauses on
inanimate objects -- conspire create a palpable spiritual
unease.

The film suffers from being too obvious in many ways,
and there is no denying its depiction of sex as sleaze.
(On the other hand, Lars von Trier, a critic's favorite,
is frequently guilty of exactly that, and shouldn't be
given a free pass either.) The Comfort of Strangers may be
the one Schrader film that I've seen which is not guilty
of this. Speaking of adaptions of Ian McEwawn --
when is someone going to film Attonement? It is
unquestionably McEwan's masterpiece, obviously cinematic,
and may teach the American public a thing or two about
the reality of war as well.

The Schrader-penned Bringing Out the Dead (which I
just rewatched last night) could be a companion
piece to Light Sleeper. It may be the better film
overall but the cast is not nearly as good. It is
my favorite recent Scorcese by a mile, which perhaps
only underscores how out of the mainstream I'm when
it comes to Scorcese.
24705
From: "cjsuttree"
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 8:05am
Subject: On seeing Days of Being Wild on the big screen for the first time cjsuttree

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> "Days of Being Wild" (Wong Kar-wai, 1990) is just now getting a
belated US
> release. This is a good film, full of the plastic virtues whose
absense this
> thread has often lamented in contemporary films. Almost all the
shots in this
> film are well composed, with their visual patterns being rich in
interest. The
> film is a romantic melodrama, in a genre that resembles something
like "Some
> Came Running" (Minnelli) or Sirk's films.
>
> Mike Grost

I was going to post something about this film and you just beat
me to it! I saw it last week at the single screen San Diego Ken
Theater. I was mightily impressed, both with the film and the
intrepid little theater; the owners deserve a round of applause!

Anyway, I haven't been following the "plasticity" thread (or much
of any thread), so I'll just babble about Days of Being Wild, the
last of Wong's movies I had not seen in a theater (not counting his
two new features). I used to think that Days is overpraised;
now I recant. Parts of it are so dark that you couldn't see a thing
on video. On the big screen it is a masterpiece. The camera work is
very special indeed. I wonder how Doyle manuevered the camera in
the incredibly tight spaces in Leslie Cheung's apartment. But
his best work may be the outdoor night scenes between Maggie Cheung
and Andy Lau, who take turns staring furtively at each other's
backside. The use of the hillside locale is just wonderful.
(I'm not convinced those were shot in Hong Kong, by the way.)
The cinematic style, the way the faces block each other and
go in and out of focus, makes this (even more than 2046, which
features several Peer Raben pieces) the most Fassbinder-like of
Wong's movies.

Still, it is his sophomore effort; there is a quantum leap
between this and the next film, Ashes of Time. No doubt
influenced by his admired South American writers, Days of Being
Wild has an intentionally loose narrative structure. It depicts
encounters between more than half a dozen characters, two at
a time. It is most successful when those characters have a
chance to grow on each other; you can literally see their
kinship emerge. It is least successful, and feels schematic,
when they barely share any on-screen time and all of a sudden
have to do a big emotional blow-up. Jackie Cheung (who got a
academy nomination for As Tears Go By, and is magnificent in
Ashes) has a particularly thankless and underwritten role.
Happy Together and In the Mood for Love have amorphous storylines
too, but they are fiercely focused on their protagonists. Ashes
boasts even more characters than Days, but its intricate structure
(e.g. Charlie Young threading overlapping vignettes) and narrative
economy avoid that problem. And 2046 unfolds with the precision
of a symphonic score. Wong's writing skills are very much
underappreciated, I think.

It is impossible not to be struck by the actors' incredible youth
in Days of Being Wild. Just a few years later, in Ashes,
essentially the same cast would project a supernatural
calm in the face of death and the despair of their ruined lives.
The themes of abandonment and of being orphans are obvious metaphors
for the political realities of the soon-to-be ex-colony, but the
characters in Days have yet to acquire the mythical resonance they
would possess in Ashes; in terms of philosphical and intellectual
depth, the latter is incomparably more sophisticated. Days of Being
Wild does ennui very well, it depicts alienation and existential
angst beautifully. On the other hand, Wong's greatest films
(Ashes of Time and 2046, in my opinion) do not stop there. They
look for a way out, seek to go beyond, transcend. And they
have far more of a sense of fun doing that, too.

It is amusing to be reminded that, once upon a time, Wong seemed
mistrustful of glamor and beauty. Ghostly green and blue
dominate the film's palette; Maggie Cheung is the film's
ultimate object of desire, and she is portrayed as a simply
dressed, unspoiled, pastoral beauty, far removed from the
city's corruption and decadence. (Definitely not yet the
fashion model of In the Mood for Love!) But for the most
part Days of Being Wild is all of one piece with Wong's ourve.
Like most of his films, it doesn't really have an ending; it
just sort of stops, and wraps thinigs up with a coda -- a
complete rupture in tone and narration -- as the credit
rolls. Like the rest of his 1960s trilogy (Days, In the Mood,
2046), Days is obsessively earth bound. For the most part these
films avoid showing even a slither of the blue sky, to the point
of cheating. (In one scene, the camera noticably dips and avoids
the open balcony.) This makes the few glimpses of open space
(the Angkor Wat ending in In the Mood, the Oriental rooftop
scenes in 2046) so much more precious and sublime. Incidentally,
because of its complexity, 2046 (Wong's only other film with
epic aspirations) seems destined to be shunned by critics,
just like his (co-)magnum opus Ashes of Time was. I hope that
doesn't happen. Even before seeing it on the big screen,
I'm ready to crown it -- as of 2004 of course -- the film
of the decade, century, and millenium!
24706
From: "thebradstevens"
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 10:49am
Subject: Re: I Wake Up Screaming (was: Hangover Square) thebradstevens

> It is hard to see H. Bruce Humberstone as the auteur of this film -
but if he
> did not create it, who did?

I WAKE UP SCREAMING was extensively reshot after previews. There's a
two-part documentary avaailble on DVD entitled HIDDEN HOLLYWOOD:
TREASURES FROM THE 20TH-CENTURY FOX VAULTS which includes a lot of
scenes from the preview version. I'm not sure whether or not
Humberstone was responsible for the reshot scenes that appear in the
actual film.
24707
From: "thebradstevens"
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 10:53am
Subject: Re: Paul Schrader (was: Off with their heads!) thebradstevens

> > his 1999 melodrama "Forever Mine." It's not like anything else
he's
> done,
> > really, and yet it feels profoundly personal. He tried to get it
> made for a
> > decade before it eventually happened. I prefer it to "Far From
> Heaven."

It's very interesting, but suffers from a frequent Schrader problem -
when he's not sure how to end a film, he simply has the central
character pull out a gun and start shooting people. But FOREVER MINE
is certainly notable for being the only variation on VERTIGO in which
it's the man who is doubled rather than the woman.
24708
From: Adrian Martin
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 0:08pm
Subject: Suspect Zero ? apmartin90

I was surprised to see on my lcoal DVD shelves tonight a new film by E.
Elias Merhige, Suspect Zero (2004). I have an indelible memory of his
gruelling experimental piece Begotten (1990) and I thought Shadow of the
Vampire had some qualities (the objections of Murnau purists
notwithstanding!).

Anyone seen/can recommend Suspect Zero? The note on IMDB says: "The style is
more than flamboyant - it's madness." Sounds good to me!

Adrian
24709
From: Adrian Martin
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 0:17pm
Subject: re: Paul Schrader (VERTIGO variations) apmartin90

"FOREVER MINE is certainly notable for being the only variation on VERTIGO
in which it's the man who is doubled rather than the woman."

Would Godard's NOUVELLE VAGUE (1990) also be a contender for this title?

Maybe also the trashy pleasure ABANDON (2002), directed by the
Soderbergh-TRAFFIC writer, Stephen Gaghan. Katie Holmes is an axiom of the
cinema! (Or at least of my imaginary world.)

Adrian
24710
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 2:03pm
Subject: Uchida (Was: Paul Schrader) sallitt1

> Another major Schrader reference is DAIBOSATSU TOGE/SWORD OF DOOM
> (both Uchida's version and Okamoto's version.)

Speaking of Uchida, he seems finally to have been discovered: Rotterdam
did a well-received sidebar on him, and I hear that a travelling retro
might pop up soon. I've been waiting for this for 25 years. - Dan
24711
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 2:16pm
Subject: Re: re: Paul Schrader (VERTIGO variations) cellar47

--- Adrian Martin wrote:

>
> Would Godard's NOUVELLE VAGUE (1990) also be a
> contender for this title?
>
Yes. And don't forget Malle's rendition of "William
Wilson" in "Histoires Extrordinaires" ("Spirits of the
Dead") which also stars Alain Delon and Alian Delon.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - 250MB free storage. Do more. Manage less.
http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250
24712
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 4:11pm
Subject: Re: Paul Schrader (VERTIGO variations) hotlove666

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Adrian Martin wrote:
> "FOREVER MINE is certainly notable for being the only variation on
VERTIGO
> in which it's the man who is doubled rather than the woman."
>
> Would Godard's NOUVELLE VAGUE (1990) also be a contender for this
title?

It's a conscious remake, with a redemptive ending recalling North By
Northwest - itself a redemptive "reply" to Vertigo when Roger saves
Eve on Mt. Rushmore (the shot of the clasped hands, repeated by
Godard) even though she previously sent him to his death at the
crossroads. I think it's Godard's most beautiful film.
24713
From: "thebradstevens"
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 4:45pm
Subject: Re: Paul Schrader (VERTIGO variations) thebradstevens

> > Would Godard's NOUVELLE VAGUE (1990) also be a
> > contender for this title?

I've never managed to find an English-subtitled copy of this.

> >
> Yes. And don't forget Malle's rendition of "William
> Wilson" in "Histoires Extrordinaires" ("Spirits of the
> Dead") which also stars Alain Delon and Alian Delon.

But isn't in any way a variation on VERTIGO.
24714
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 5:29pm
Subject: Re: Re: Paul Schrader (VERTIGO variations) cellar47

--- thebradstevens wrote:

>
> But isn't in any way a variation on VERTIGO.
>
>
>
>
Save for the fact that "D'entre les morts" is itself a
"School of Poe" work.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site!
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/
24715
From: "jess_l_amortell"
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 5:41pm
Subject: Re: Sarris, Roud & Experimental Film (was: The NEW American Cinema) jess_l_amortell

> I floated an idea in post #19413, proposing that the mind may work
> differently to assimilate narrative and non-narrative films. Fred
> disagreed in post #19428. My idea is only a hypothesis - but I would like
> to establish this as a two-sided issue, rather than a disagreement between
> those who understand cinema form and those who don't. - Dan

Perhaps this goes without saying, but one might also note that an appreciation of avant-garde film does not necessarily dispose one to auteurism. Fred wrote in post #24270 that "whether a person likes at least some avant-garde film is a good test of whether that person understands all cinema [as?] a formal, expressive, aesthetic medium, rather than an entertainment delivery vehicle which can have nice artistic touches." I would only quibble about "all cinema."
Not all writers known for their advocacy of the avant garde have shown a corresponding interest in the cream of classical Hollywood (Fred seems more the exception here, though not the only one). At least one passionate avant-gardist in another online forum, for example, is actually an anti-auteurist, I believe.

Even though enthusiasm for most of the avant garde may require keener, more heightened aesthetic perceptions, I would suggest that classical auteurism is in some ways the more subtle position -- at any rate, the more chronically embattled one: It's necessary to have seen enough of the right films (or at least some of them -- there probably never is "enough"), as well as the wrong ones, and to be prepared to approach them in something other than the most obvious way -- seeing beyond or around commercial trappings etc. -- an approach that I suspect may always go against the grain of many pure souls who love cinema.

A related question, about filmmakers, comes to mind. Warren Sonbert was an avant-garde filmmaker who was also an auteurist, writing about Hitchcock, Preminger and Sirk, for example. Are there any other avant-garde masters with comparable auteurist credentials? Possibly Nathaniel Dorsky, who refers to Dreyer, Ozu, Rossellini, Antonioni, but also to Ford in his wonderful essay on "Devotional Cinema."

Sorry about the suffixism and other lazy shorthand.

Jess
24716
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 6:13pm
Subject: Contemporary action/violence (Was: Standing up for Woo) sallitt1

> I feel that many film critics around the world have lost touch with a
> certain excitement about action cinema - as sometimes an almost experimental
> form - that circulated like a buzz in the mid to late '90s.

I worry about this sometimes: I feel pretty much cut off from a lot of
what goes on in today's action cinema, and I'm actually a big action fan.
But it's really hard for me to process these films. They seem to be
telling me, "Enjoy this action/violence for its own sake," and I'm too
accustomed to seeing action or violence as an expression of something
else. Maybe this isn't fair to the films.

I first felt that I was losing touch when the whole Hong Kong action craze
happened, and I couldn't make any headway. These days I've gotten to the
point where I almost stay away from action films, which is not the way I
want it.

Even way back when, there were some talented directors that I couldn't
deal with for similar reasons: Leone, Bava, Argento, etc. I feel as if
that strand of cinema has gotten rather larger.

Being squeamish about violence doesn't help me, but I don't mind putting
myself through something horrible if the film is contextualizing that
thing as horrible, and making me feel that the discomfort is a step
toward some interesting, complex place.

I also have a reactionary attitude toward movies where people fly through
the air, kill hundreds single-handedly, etc.

I'm quite sure that I'm missing some talent as a result of my prejudices,
and I'm open to the idea that I'm also missing some art. It's a difficult
problem, though - my aversions are rooted in attitudes about art that I've
developed over decades. - Dan
24717
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 6:56pm
Subject: Re: Contemporary action/violence (Was: Standing up for Woo) hotlove666

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > I feel that many film critics around the world have lost touch >
I'm quite sure that I'm missing some talent as a result of my
prejudices,
> and I'm open to the idea that I'm also missing some art. It's a
difficult
> problem, though - my aversions are rooted in attitudes about art
that I've
> developed over decades. - Dan

John Carpenter, John McTiernan, Kirk Wong, the guy who did Nowhere to
Run, John Milius when he gets work, Leone of course, Akira Kurosawa
of course, Ashes of Time, some Japanese sword-film directors I've
skipped because I never liked the genre, Takeshi Kitano, King Hu,
Chang Cheh, Liu Shia-Liang, Quentin Tarantino, Ang Lee, James
Cameron, Geoff Murphy, George Lucas, Andrew Davis - enjoy!
24718
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 8:02pm
Subject: Re: Re: Contemporary action/violence (Was: Standing up for Woo) sallitt1

>>> I feel that many film critics around the world have lost touch >
> I'm quite sure that I'm missing some talent as a result of my
> prejudices,
>> and I'm open to the idea that I'm also missing some art. It's a
> difficult
>> problem, though - my aversions are rooted in attitudes about art
> that I've
>> developed over decades. - Dan
>
> John Carpenter, John McTiernan, Kirk Wong, the guy who did Nowhere to
> Run, John Milius when he gets work, Leone of course, Akira Kurosawa
> of course, Ashes of Time, some Japanese sword-film directors I've
> skipped because I never liked the genre, Takeshi Kitano, King Hu,
> Chang Cheh, Liu Shia-Liang, Quentin Tarantino, Ang Lee, James
> Cameron, Geoff Murphy, George Lucas, Andrew Davis - enjoy!

This is too wide a selection to describe the problem I experience. Most
of the Americans here don't bother me: sometimes they tend toward
meaningless action, but that's no different from senseless horse chases in
old Westerns: nothing that a little discipline and aesthetic sense
couldn't fix. I even consider Cameron a gifted action director, and
Carpenter used to have it in him as well - I've lost track of him lately.

Tarantino does fit into the category that troubles me. I like many of his
qualities and think he's an important director, but when he let his action
philosophy run wild in the KILL BILL movies, I couldn't handle it.

You may be confused because I identified two different problems without
distinguishing between them adequately. One was "impossible action,"
which is the smaller problem for me - mostly it just leaves me cold, fails
to get the visceral response I think it's going for. The other is, I
dunno, a sensation-oriented approach to the issue of death, killing people
in fun ways for recreation, that sort of thing. I hesitate to make a
rule, because I'm afraid of excluding some film I like. - Dan
24719
From: "Jason Guthartz"
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 8:10pm
Subject: Re: Sarris, Roud & Experimental Film (was: The NEW American Cinema) Guthartz

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jess_l_amortell"
wrote:
> Are there any other avant-garde masters with comparable auteurist
credentials?

see Brakhage on M�li�s, Griffith, Dreyer, Eisenstein:

http://www.ubu.com/historical/brakhage/brakhage.html
24720
From: "Henrik Sylow"
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 8:11pm
Subject: Re: Uchida (Was: Paul Schrader) henrik_sylow

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > Another major Schrader reference is DAIBOSATSU TOGE/SWORD OF DOOM
> > (both Uchida's version and Okamoto's version.)
>
> Speaking of Uchida, he seems finally to have been discovered: Rotterdam
> did a well-received sidebar on him, and I hear that a travelling retro
> might pop up soon. I've been waiting for this for 25 years. - Dan

The "Travelling Retro" is already on the move, fresh from IFFR, first
stop Denmark. During the first week of April, five films by Uchida
will be shown at the Cinematek in Copenhagen during the NatFilm festival:

A Bloody Spear at Mt. Fuji (1955)
Love in Osaka (1959)
Yoshiwara: The Pleasure Quarter (1960)
The Mad Fox (1962)
A Fugitive from the Past (1965)

So it will only be a matter of time before they surface in the US at
some major venue. It is indeed a once in a lifetime experience and Im
already kneedeep in drool :)

Henrik
24721
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 8:17pm
Subject: Re: Contemporary action/violence (Was: Standing up for Woo) hotlove666

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:

>
> This is too wide a selection to describe the problem I experience.
Most
> of the Americans here don't bother me: sometimes they tend toward
> meaningless action, but that's no different from senseless horse
chases in
> old Westerns: nothing that a little discipline and aesthetic sense
> couldn't fix. I even consider Cameron a gifted action director,
and
> Carpenter used to have it in him as well - I've lost track of him
lately.
>
> Tarantino does fit into the category that troubles me. I like many
of his
> qualities and think he's an important director, but when he let his
action
> philosophy run wild in the KILL BILL movies, I couldn't handle it.

It didn't bother me - except of course for part 1 being too long.

> You may be confused because I identified two different problems
without
> distinguishing between them adequately. One was "impossible
action,"
> which is the smaller problem for me - mostly it just leaves me
cold, fails
> to get the visceral response I think it's going for.

So you don't get a bang out of the flying fighters in King Hu?

The other is, I
> dunno, a sensation-oriented approach to the issue of death, killing
people
> in fun ways for recreation, that sort of thing.

How about Chang Cheh or Takeshi Kitano then? I assume you haven't
seen Kirk Wong's work - The Big Hit is the one that's most readily
available.

Then of course there's horror: Argento, the Scream movies. All about
killing people in fun ways for recreation. Is that a problem for you
too?

I guess I'm just curious to see where the problem starts for you. If
Kill Bill is problematic, I assume that the above are too, except
maybe for Kitano?
24722
From: "Noel Bjorndahl & Carole Dent"
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 11:56am
Subject: Re: I Wake Up Screaming (was: Hangover Square) noelbjorndahl

Humberstone is certainly not what I would regard as an auteur, but within the Fox (and later, Warner) house styles he certainly exhibited moments of flair, especially in Hello Frisco Hello, an entertaining showcase for Alice Faye's considerable musical and thespian talents. There's also Three Little Girls in Blue, cited by Sarris as one of his "guilty pleasures", and awash with Fox technicolor arresting in its vulgar audacity; a vigorous Western, Fury at Furnace Creek with Victor Mature making the most of some limited but enjoyable opportunities; and finally, at Warner, a very kitsch remake of The Male Animal, She's Working Her Way Through College, with strident interior domestic decor, and Virginia Mayo effortlessly creating a large ripple in Ronald Reagan's foursquare sense of order. To invokeSarris again, Humberstone was generally Lightly Likeable.

Noel ------ Original Message -----
From: MG4273@...
To: a_film_by@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2005 1:45 PM
Subject: [a_film_by] I Wake Up Screaming (was: Hangover Square)

This film is as rivetting as everyone says, especially Laird Cregar's
performance. It is one of the earliest films classified as film noir (1941). Already,
we see elaborate grill work at the prison, used for complex lighting. The men
are in the double-breasted suits so common in noir to come - the characters
are denizens of Broadway, and totally urban, also a noir standby. And Cregar is
one of the great obsessives in the history of noir (and film in general).
It is hard to see H. Bruce Humberstone as the auteur of this film - but if he
did not create it, who did? My favorite other Humberstone is his 50's version
of "The Desert Song", which seemed like great fun when seen decades ago, but
in a very different style. On the other hand, I have only seen a small
percentage of Humberstone's work.
Steve Fisher's novel reportedly based the obsessive detective on his friend
and fellow pulp writer, Cornell Woolrich. Cregar bears no physical resemblance
to the cadaverously thin Woolrich, however, in the film version. Fisher would
go on to be a scriptwriter, including "Dead Reckoning".

Mike Grost
PS - Happy first day of Spring - and J.S. Bach's birthday!

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24723
From: "Michael E. Kerpan, Jr."
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 8:27pm
Subject: Re: Uchida (Was: Paul Schrader) michaelkerpan

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Henrik Sylow"
wrote:

> A Bloody Spear at Mt. Fuji (1955)
> Love in Osaka (1959)
> Yoshiwara: The Pleasure Quarter (1960)
> The Mad Fox (1962)
> A Fugitive from the Past (1965)

Too bad they couldn't round up any of the 30s films.

> So it will only be a matter of time before they surface in the US at
> some major venue. It is indeed a once in a lifetime experience and Im
> already knee deep in drool :)

As far as I can tell, Shochiku's Shimizu retrospective never traveled
much -- despite the fact that most people who did get to see these
films were quite enthusiastic about them. Shochiku really had high
hopes for generating interest in Shimizu -- but not even the Harvard
Film Archive was willing to take a chance on this (and Shochiku REALLY
wanted them to -- when they came for the kickoff the Ozu
retrospective they were already plugging Shimizu to the HFA).
24724
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 8:32pm
Subject: Re: Re: Contemporary action/violence (Was: Standing up for Woo) sallitt1

> So you don't get a bang out of the flying fighters in King Hu?

No, I just sit there. If I don't sense the limits of an action, then I
can't feel it in my body. It becomes pure design, like a James Whitney
film or something.

> How about Chang Cheh or Takeshi Kitano then? I assume you haven't
> seen Kirk Wong's work - The Big Hit is the one that's most readily
> available.
>
> Then of course there's horror: Argento, the Scream movies. All about
> killing people in fun ways for recreation. Is that a problem for you
> too?
>
> I guess I'm just curious to see where the problem starts for you.

No, that's fine - I don't expect others to share this limitation. Yeah,
all of the above bother me, even Kitano, who's a bit different, of course,
but who devotes some imagination to doing interesting physical damage. I
named Argento and Bava as precursors of the thing that bothers me. Don't
know Cheh or Wong.

A movie like SE7EN doesn't display the kind of brio that really puts an
amen to it for me, but even so, I get troubled by the fact that the
horrible deaths are sui generis, there for our pleasure and nothing else.

On the other hand, I endure the queasiness in Romero's MARTIN and come out
feeling good about the film.

In principle, I'm not bothered by people enjoying violence in a fictional
situation. - Dan
24725
From: "Michael E. Kerpan, Jr."
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 8:44pm
Subject: Violence in Kitano (was: Contemporary action/violence) michaelkerpan

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666" wrote:

> I guess I'm just curious to see where the problem starts for you. If
> Kill Bill is problematic, I assume that the above are too, except
> maybe for Kitano?

Well, setting aside the first two films (which I haven't seen yet and
probably don't much want to see) ....

Kitano definitely does not (generally) make _action_ films. ;~}

And the violence is never there for enjoyment (well there is
"Zatoichi"). Moreover, the violence is not only sporadic, but takes
up very little of the time one spends in Kitano's films. And the
violence is genuinely shocking (more than it is graphic). I have
practically memorized "Sonatine" -- and yet knowing to the second when
each eruption of violence will occur, I still am "surprised" when it
happens.

Finally, there is a non-violent (or much less violent) side to
Kitano's film making career. Interestingly, most of these don't
feature Kitano the star ("Kikujiro" being the main exception). And
despite my liking for Kitano the actor, these tend to be my Kitano
favorites ("Sonatine" being the one "violent film" on that list). As
much as I dislike film violence, I am generally ensnared by Kitano's
work.

There is also a remarkably Kitano-esque work that hails from Korea --
SONG Hae-sung's "Failan" (with CHOI Min-sik and Cecilia Cheung).
24726
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 9:00pm
Subject: Re: Re: Uchida (Was: Paul Schrader) sallitt1

>> A Bloody Spear at Mt. Fuji (1955)
>> Love in Osaka (1959)
>> Yoshiwara: The Pleasure Quarter (1960)
>> The Mad Fox (1962)
>> A Fugitive from the Past (1965)
>
> Too bad they couldn't round up any of the 30s films.

It looks as if there were 13 Uchida films at Tokyo Filmex (which I believe
is where the program originated) and seven at Rotterdam. Even at TF, only
one of the films was from the 30s. I was hoping at least that we'd get a
shot at EARTH, which has such a good reputation. Well, I don't mean to
look a gift horse in the mouth, assuming it is eventually given.

Of the Denmark screenings, the only one I've seen is the YOSHIWARA film
(it used to be known here as MURDER IN YOSHIWARA), which is very
impressive. - Dan
24727
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 9:36pm
Subject: Argento/Tourneur (Was: Contemporary action/violence) hotlove666

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > So you don't get a bang out of the flying fighters in King Hu?
>

>
> A movie like SE7EN doesn't display the kind of brio that really
puts an
> amen to it for me, but even so, I get troubled by the fact that the
> horrible deaths are sui generis, there for our pleasure and nothing
else.
>
> On the other hand, I endure the queasiness in Romero's MARTIN and
come out
> feeling good about the film.
>
> In principle, I'm not bothered by people enjoying violence in a
fictional
> situation. - Dan

I'm aswim in gore right now becuse of this f*ing Serial Killer book.
I doubt if many on this list have watched all 8 Friday the 13ths back
to back lately. No doubt I have grown calloused as a result; at the
same time, I'm trying to think my way thru the problem, as opposed to
just observing my reactions.

Very little of this stuff is art, for starters - and almost none of
it is art on the level of Martin. But Se7en is art - Yoel actually
cites Fincher as one of his Three Aces - and that doesn't excuse it
in your eyes.

I just reread lst night for the first time in about 15 years a
brilliant pulp novel, The Red Right Hand. After skimming through a
pile of early books with SKs, I suddenly found myself immersed in a
minor masterpiece, which reminded me of the art/trash distinction all
over again.

Certainly there's a lot of mishandling of the Human Form Divine in
The Red Right Hand, and to no noticeable moral end. Philosophical,
perhaps; esthetic, for sure. Are there books that, for you, fall into
the Kill Bill/Se7en trap, or is this just something that happens w.
images? Because a lot of the gore on the screen these last 20 years
comes out of books.

For example, the Argento trope of the lone woman walking
apprehensively through some dark place while death stalks her comes
right out of Black Alibi, the Cornell Woolrich book that was pretty
faithfully transcribed by Lewton and Tourneur in The Leopard Man.

I know those guys are synonymous with the total opposite of the
problem you allude to, but really, the difference between the scenes
where the girl is stalked by the big cat or the young woman is
trapped in the cemetery and the same situation as portrayed over and
over again by Argento - in Tenebre, for example, which I just saw for
the first time - is only one of degree. And it all goes back to a
pulp novel by CW that probably had roughly the same impact on Forties
readers that those images have on us today.

Or am I missing something?
24728
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 9:45pm
Subject: The Seven Dylans hotlove666

Bob Dylan has finally given permission to a Hollywood studio to make
a film about his life. He will be portrayed by seven actors - one of
them a black woman.

Todd Haynes, the Oscar-nominated director, confirmed last week he was
searching for a woman who could do justice to the short, white Jewish
singer's "inner blackness". The seven will play Dylan during
different eras in his 43-year career. Haynes is considering female
actors, including the pop singer Beyonce Knowles, the tennis champion
Venus Williams and the television presenter Oprah Winfrey.
24729
From: "thebradstevens"
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 10:02pm
Subject: Re: I Wake Up Screaming (was: Hangover Square) thebradstevens

> PS - Happy first day of Spring - and J.S. Bach's birthday!

It's my birthday too - but does anyone care?
24730
From: "Matt Armstrong"
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 10:07pm
Subject: Re: The Seven Dylans matt_c_armst...

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
>
> Bob Dylan has finally given permission to a Hollywood studio to
make
> a film about his life. He will be portrayed by seven actors - one
of
> them a black woman.
>
> Todd Haynes, the Oscar-nominated director, confirmed last week he
was
> searching for a woman who could do justice to the short, white
Jewish
> singer's "inner blackness". The seven will play Dylan during
> different eras in his 43-year career. Haynes is considering female
> actors, including the pop singer Beyonce Knowles, the tennis
champion
> Venus Williams and the television presenter Oprah Winfrey.

Sounds like the same conceit used in Solondz's
upcoming "Palindromes." I hate biopics, but Haynes could do
something interesting with the form. Anyone see the other Dylan
film "Masked and Anonymous?"
24731
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 10:16pm
Subject: Re: The Seven Dylans cellar47

There's also a white woman, and I've been encouraging
Todd to get Sherri Lansing to come out of retirement
and act for him.

--- hotlove666 wrote:
>
> Bob Dylan has finally given permission to a
> Hollywood studio to make
> a film about his life. He will be portrayed by seven
> actors - one of
> them a black woman.
>
> Todd Haynes, the Oscar-nominated director, confirmed
> last week he was
> searching for a woman who could do justice to the
> short, white Jewish
> singer's "inner blackness". The seven will play
> Dylan during
> different eras in his 43-year career. Haynes is
> considering female
> actors, including the pop singer Beyonce Knowles,
> the tennis champion
> Venus Williams and the television presenter Oprah
> Winfrey.
>
>
>
>
>
>

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site!
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/
24732
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 10:16pm
Subject: Re: The Seven Dylans jpcoursodon

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
The seven will play Dylan during
> different eras in his 43-year career. Haynes is considering female
> actors, including the pop singer Beyonce Knowles, the tennis
champion
> Venus Williams and the television presenter Oprah Winfrey.

Oprah as Dylan, that sounds like a sure-fire bet for an Academy
Award. Then Dylan could play Oprah in a biopic of Winfrey in which
he would express her "inner Jewishness." JPC
24733
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 10:18pm
Subject: Re: I Wake Up Screaming (was: Hangover Square) hotlove666

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
wrote:
>
>
> > PS - Happy first day of Spring - and J.S. Bach's birthday!
>
> It's my birthday too - but does anyone care?

Nope.
24734
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 10:19pm
Subject: Re: The Seven Dylans jpcoursodon

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> There's also a white woman, and I've been encouraging
> Todd to get Sherri Lansing to come out of retirement
> and act for him.
>
> David, why don't you apply to play one of the seven? You're
black and know all the songs and beside, Todd is your pal.
JPC
24735
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 10:20pm
Subject: Re: The Seven Dylans hotlove666

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
> wrote:
> > There's also a white woman, and I've been encouraging
> > Todd to get Sherri Lansing to come out of retirement
> > and act for him.
> >
> > David, why don't you apply to play one of the seven? You're
> black and know all the songs and beside, Todd is your pal.
> JPC

Black, Jewish and gay - that's three Inner Dylans for the price of
one.
24736
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 10:22pm
Subject: Re: The Seven Dylans hotlove666

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> There's also a white woman, and I've been encouraging
> Todd to get Sherri Lansing to come out of retirement
> and act for him.

There's an Inner Dylan who returns phone calls?

Have him have her take off her top again (cf. Rio Lobo)!
24737
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 10:22pm
Subject: Re: I Wake Up Screaming (was: Hangover Square) jpcoursodon

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
> wrote:
> >
> >
> > > PS - Happy first day of Spring - and J.S. Bach's birthday!
> >
> > It's my birthday too - but does anyone care?
>
> Nope.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! although this may be OT...
24738
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 10:35pm
Subject: Re: Re: The Seven Dylans cellar47

--- jpcoursodon wrote:

> >
> > David, why don't you apply to play one of the
> seven? You're
> black and know all the songs and beside, Todd is
> your pal.

Bu I'm plotting to MARRY Todd, J-P

http://www.bonusround.com/book3-10/images/outfest04-45.jpg

Working with him would get in the way.

Besides he has his hands full up in Portland, trying
to write the script while fending off roving bands of
Wild Boys who raom the streets up there, trying to
nail either him or Gus or both.

Drop a bomb on Portland and it's the end of gay cinema
in the U.S.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site!
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/
24739
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 10:46pm
Subject: Re: The Seven Dylans jpcoursodon

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> --- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
> > >
> > > David, why don't you apply to play one of the
> > seven? You're
> > black and know all the songs and beside, Todd is
> > your pal.
>
>
> Bu I'm plotting to MARRY Todd, J-P
>
> http://www.bonusround.com/book3-10/images/outfest04-45.jpg
>
> Working with him would get in the way.
>

Why? You could be a kind of Straub-Huillet couple.

> Besides he has his hands full up in Portland, trying
> to write the script while fending off roving bands of
> Wild Boys who raom the streets up there, trying to
> nail either him or Gus or both.
>

You have serious competition there...
>>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site!
> http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/
24740
From: "peckinpah20012000"
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 11:23pm
Subject: Re: The Seven Dylans peckinpah200...

:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
> wrote:
> > >
> Have him have her take off her top again (cf. Rio Lobo)!

Will there be a director's cut issued soon including this
particular scene?

Tony Williams
24741
From: MG4273@...
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 6:32pm
Subject: Who Is Stanley Kubrick? nzkpzq

For a great number of auteurs, there are short signposts indicating what to
look for in their cinema, what they accomplished artistically.
For Hitchcock, first critics dubbed him "The Master of Suspense". Then
Truffaut & others suggested Hitchcock has an extraordinary ability to tell stories
through visual terms - Andrew Sarris' Hitchcock entry in "The American Cinema"
also takes this tack.
When I see a Hitchcock film, I watch for both of these key accomplishments of
Hitchcock.
Similarly, people admire Fritz Lang for the geometric quality of his images.
Or Max Ophuls for the inventiveness and complexity of his camera movements,
and his treatment of romance.
Unfortunately, I have never seen any such guide to what other people like in
Kubrick. Some sort of concrete assertion about what is good about his films.
This is not nescessarily a flaw in Mr. Kubrick, of course. It says nothing
positive or negative about his films.
But it does often prevent me from understanding other people's enthusiasm for
him.
I often can make up such ideas on my own, without benefit of critics. The
first viewing of "Chung-king Express" wowed with its pictorial gifts. Any Wong
film now prompts a search for composition, camera movement, and visual beauty -
a most succesful search for composition in "Days of Being Wild", just seen
here at the fabulous Detroit Film Theater.
But have failed so far to come up with Gripping Stuff to look for in Kubrick.
The assertion (by Oudart???) that Kubrick's films deal with "the breakdown of
a group mind" is certainly a big plus here. So are Bill Krohn's suggestions
that narrative itself is breaking down in the 2nd half of "Full Metal Jacket"
(not yet seen by me), and Brad Stevens' suggestion that Kubrick films often end
with a character transformed: the Starchild in 2001, the recruits turned to
killers in "Jacket".
So far, it's a start!
But how does all this play out in practise? Say, the duel between HAL and the
astronauts in 2001, and HAL's misfunction into a murderer. HAL is one of the
"group minds" in Kubrick. This sequence seems "moderately interesting". It
"holds the attention": it is far from boring, but it does not totally grip as
storytelling, or seem to have anything of deep significance to say about life or
society, etc. It seems to be the product of a filmmaker of "middle rank".
Similarly, it is clear that lot of Kubrick films have camera movements down
corridors: the chateau in "Paths of Glory", the apartments and streets of "Eyes
Wide Shut". I enjoy these camera movements - BUT: They seem far less complex
than the camera movements in Ophuls, for instance. Once again, they seem on a
"mid level" of visual inventiveness.
As a parting subject: I was mildly interested throughout "Eyes Wide Shut". It
is never dull. But it also seemed pointless and trivial to me. Why do people
find the protagonist's nocturnal adventures significant, or fascinating, or
whatever the heck they do find them? I have no idea, on the most literal level,
how others are responding to this. Why is it a "masterpiece"?
This post is not intended to lay down the law about Kubrick, or express a
definitive judgment. Au contraire! It is a status report from a baffled viewer,
trying to get a deeper insight into a filmmaker who is frequently labelled a
genius, but whose films are rarely discussed in concrete terms.

Mike Grost
24742
From: MG4273@...
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 6:43pm
Subject: Re: Argento/Tourneur (Was: Contemporary action/violence) nzkpzq

In a message dated 05-03-22 16:43:15 EST, you write:

<< For example, the Argento trope of the lone woman walking
apprehensively through some dark place while death stalks her comes
right out of Black Alibi, the Cornell Woolrich book that was pretty
faithfully transcribed by Lewton and Tourneur in The Leopard Man. >>

This sequence is precisely why I have never been able to enjoy "The Leopard
Man", despite being a big admirer of Tourneur. Watching it always makes me feel
like a cad, trying get enjoyment out of a movie about a girl being stalked.
It is pretty unpleasant stuff. It places the viewer in the uncomfortable
position of watching something horrible, and trying to treat it as "entertainment".
The only Val Lewton film I've ever actually liked is "I Walked With a
Zombie". The endless critical discussion of Lewton's alleged genius, whether he or
the directors are the auteurs of the Lewton films, whether Lewton was something
special in Hollywood history, etc has always left me baffled!
I believe "I Walked With a Zombie" is a Tourneur-authored film - at least in
its magnificent visual style.

Mike Grost
24743
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 11:55pm
Subject: Re: The Seven Dylans hotlove666

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "peckinpah20012000" <
peckinpah20012000@y...> wrote:
>
> :
> >
> > --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
> > wrote:
> > > >
> > Have him have her take off her top again (cf. Rio Lobo)!
>
> Will there be a director's cut issued soon including this
> particular scene?
>
> Tony Williams

It's already in there, Tone.
24744
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 11:58pm
Subject: Re: Who Is Stanley Kubrick? hotlove666

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:

Visoionary is usually used for Kubrick.

The "group mind" idea applied to FMJ comes from Deleuze's more general
formulation that any K film is about a brain that breaks down.

I took it in another direction in my recent essay aboutr Kubriuck's City -
parallel to the one you like on Fuller. I'll e-mail oit to you offline.
24745
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 0:07am
Subject: Re: Re: Argento/Tourneur (Was: Contemporary action/violence) cellar47

--- MG4273@... wrote:
The endless critical discussion of Lewton's
> alleged genius, whether he or
> the directors are the auteurs of the Lewton films,
> whether Lewton was something
> special in Hollywood history, etc has always left me
> baffled!

Then you haven't seen "The Seventh Victim."

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site!
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/
24746
From: MG4273@...
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 7:16pm
Subject: Re: Argento/Tourneur (Was: Contemporary action/violence) nzkpzq

In a message dated 05-03-22 19:11:26 EST, David E writes:

<< Then you haven't seen "The Seventh Victim." >>

Yes I have. (Don't you just love my witty banter?)
It seemed like a mildly unpleasant film of no great interest, when seen
decades ago.
I know it has a huge cult reputation, and that I should try seeing it again.
I've actually seen Mark Robson's "Peyton Place" twice. Does that help?

Mike Grost
24747
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 0:31am
Subject: Re: Re: Argento/Tourneur (Was: Contemporary action/violence) cellar47

--- MG4273@... wrote:
> In a message dated 05-03-22 19:11:26 EST, David E
> writes:
>
> << Then you haven't seen "The Seventh Victim." >>
>
> Yes I have. (Don't you just love my witty banter?)
> It seemed like a mildly unpleasant film of no great
> interest, when seen
> decades ago.
> I know it has a huge cult reputation, and that I
> should try seeing it again.
> I've actually seen Mark Robson's "Peyton Place"
> twice. Does that help?
>

Uh, nope.

Mark Robson is not then film's auteur.

Do you know Rivette's "Duelle"?

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site!
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/
24748
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 0:49am
Subject: Re: Argento/Tourneur (Was: Contemporary action/violence) hotlove666

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein wrote:
>
> --- MG4273@a... wrote:
> > In a message dated 05-03-22 19:11:26 EST, David E
> > writes:
> >
> > << Then you haven't seen "The Seventh Victim." >>
> >
> > Yes I have. (Don't you just love my witty banter?)
> > It seemed like a mildly unpleasant film of no great
> > interest, when seen
> > decades ago.

Not many H'wd films begin and end w. a quote from one of Donne's Holy
Sonnets! I assume Lewton is the author, butg I'd like to know how important
screenwriter Dewitt Bodeen was in this case.

> > I've actually seen Mark Robson's "Peyton Place"
> > twice.

John Michael Hayes is going around claiming to be the author of Rear
Window, - "Hitchcock told me a few ideas and left me to write the script on my
own while he concentrated on Dial M" - but I've never seen him claim to be he
author of Peyton Place, which got him an Oscar nomination. I wonder why...
24749
From: "Josh Mabe"
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 3:07am
Subject: Joan McCracken is the shit brack_28

I've been queuing up some old Hollywood that I've seen recommended
on this list in my Netflix account and I just watched the pretty
damn amazing "Good News." So I have to know... is this really the
only film with Joan McCracken? ...is there maybe some filmed
performance elsewhere outside a film? She just blew my mind in this
and it'd be a shame if this was the only thing out there. I gather
from Imdb that she had a big stage career but always had health
problems and died young.

J. Mabe
24750
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 4:50am
Subject: Re: Joan McCracken is the shit cellar47

Isn't she something? She was married to Jack Dunphy
who left her for Truman Capote -- though he continued
to care for her and was quite upset when she married
Bob Fosse. Fosse later left her for Gwen Verdon, but
McCracken was the prototype for the Fosse dancer. She
lived for some time in that fabled Brooklyn Heights
coop apartment with W.H. Auden, Paul and Jane Bowles,
Gypsy Rose Lee, Virgil Thompson and Carson McCullers.
She was "the girl who falls down" in the original cast
of "Oklahoma!" And yes she died much, much too young.

But we'll always have "Good News."

--- Josh Mabe wrote:
>
> I've been queuing up some old Hollywood that I've
> seen recommended
> on this list in my Netflix account and I just
> watched the pretty
> damn amazing "Good News." So I have to know... is
> this really the
> only film with Joan McCracken? ...is there maybe
> some filmed
> performance elsewhere outside a film? She just blew
> my mind in this
> and it'd be a shame if this was the only thing out
> there. I gather
> from Imdb that she had a big stage career but always
> had health
> problems and died young.
>
> J. Mabe
>
>
>
>

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
24751
From: "Blake Lucas"
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 6:41am
Subject: Re: I Wake Up Screaming (was: Hangover Square) blakelucaslu...

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
wrote:
>
>
> > PS - Happy first day of Spring - and J.S. Bach's birthday!
>
> It's my birthday too - but does anyone care?

From one Monte Hellman aficionado to another, Happy Birthday, Brad.

Blake
24752
From: "Noel Vera"
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 6:55am
Subject: Re: Who Is Stanley Kubrick? noelbotevera

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
>
> The "group mind" idea applied to FMJ comes from Deleuze's more
general
> formulation that any K film is about a brain that breaks down.
>

I was working on the idea that Kubrick's films--particularly his
later ones--are intent on creating "mindscapes"--carefully outlined
spaces constructed out of images from the film that reflect the
filmmaker's state of mind. Examples might include the Overlook
Hotel, the Discovery spaceship (anyone noticed how it resembles a
lengthy spinal cord that ends in a bulbous cranium?), the sniper's
lair and field of fire in FMJ.
24753
From: LiLiPUT1@...
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 1:55am
Subject: Happy B-day, Brad! (was: I Wake Up Screaming) scil1973

In a message dated 3/23/05 12:43:05 AM, blakelucaslukethedealer@...
writes:

> > > PS - Happy first day of Spring - and J.S. Bach's birthday!
> >
> > It's my birthday too - but does anyone care?
>
Fuck Bach! Read your notes to the ace DRILLER KILLER DVD. They were rad. So I
care. Happy B-Day, Brad!

Kevin John

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
24754
From: "Blake Lucas"
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 6:59am
Subject: Re: Joan McCracken is the shit blakelucaslu...

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> Isn't she something? She was married to Jack Dunphy
> who left her for Truman Capote -- though he continued
> to care for her and was quite upset when she married
> Bob Fosse. Fosse later left her for Gwen Verdon, but
> McCracken was the prototype for the Fosse dancer. She
> lived for some time in that fabled Brooklyn Heights
> coop apartment with W.H. Auden, Paul and Jane Bowles,
> Gypsy Rose Lee, Virgil Thompson and Carson McCullers.
> She was "the girl who falls down" in the original cast
> of "Oklahoma!" And yes she died much, much too young.
>
> But we'll always have "Good News."
>
This added note isn't on film, exactly, but Joan McCracken was
second female lead in Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Me and Juliet,"
a still unappreciated show that should have been Broadway's
The Band Wagon (in fact, it played the same year, 1953), only it's
the opposite because this time the totally arty, affected and
pretentious show within a show is a smash hit! Joan is heard on two
songs on the soundtrack album with that wonderful voice but
unfortunately, you can't watch her dance on a record. Her dancing
was quite big in the show, obviously. Best of two numbers she sings
is "It's Me."

Under the circumstances, I can only say Amen to David's last line
above. Thank God for Good News!

>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
24755
From: "Noel Vera"
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 7:03am
Subject: 25 heroes (was: Top 25 directors) noelbotevera

Robert Altman
Lino Brocka
Charles Burnett
Larry Cohen
David Cronenberg
Gerardo de Leon
Vittorio de Sica
Carl Theodor Dreyer
Guru Dutt
Federico Fellini
Ritwik Ghatak
Jean-Luc Godard
D.W. Griffith
Alfred Hitchcock
Buster Keaton
Akira Kurosawa
Fritz Lang
Chris Marker
Hayao Miyazaki
FW Murnau
Mario O'Hara
Yasujiro Ozu
Jean Renoir
Isao Takahata
Orson Welles
24756
From: "Damien Bona"
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 7:21am
Subject: Re: Joan McCracken is the shit damienbona

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>She lived for some time in that fabled Brooklyn Heights
> coop apartment with W.H. Auden, Paul and Jane Bowles,
> Gypsy Rose Lee, Virgil Thompson and Carson McCullers.

For the sake of nit-picking accuracy, it wasn't a co-op apartment
but rather an old boarding house that these and other artists shared
on Middagh Street in Brooklyn Heights in the early 40s. There's a
book coming out about the place -- "February House" -- which was
later razed to make room for the Brooklyn-Quens Expressway.
24757
From: "Fernando Verissimo"
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 8:12am
Subject: Re: Who Is Stanley Kubrick? f_verissimo

This is a very difficult question, actually. You're not the first one to ask
it.

In Positif n. 464 (a special issue dedicated to Kubrick) there is a special
section called "Le Tombeau de Stanley Kubrick", where several filmmakers
were asked to answer one that is very much the same question: "Quel est,
selon vous, l'apport de Stanley Kubrick au cin�ma?"

Here's some (abbreviated) answers to that question -- in French.

GIANNI AMELIO
Kubrick a �t� le plus grand "auteur de genre" de notre temps.

THEO ANGELOPOULOS
Distant, perfectionniste, solitaire, il a r�ussi � faire de chacun de ses
films un �v�nement.

JOHN BOORMAN
C'�tait un metteur en sc�ne pour les metteurs en sc�ne.

CATHERINE BREILLAT
D'avoir fait une ouvre.

JANE CAMPION
Il �tait comme un guide au sein de notre culture.

CLAUDE CHABROL
Pour moi, c'est l� son apport principal: la d�monstration par l'exemple de
chaque seconde de film que TOUT est possible, que TOUT est permis, sous
contr�le absolu de TOUT.

MICHEL DEVILLE.
Une ouvre de CIN�ASTE.

BRUNO DUMONT
Kubrick croit au spectateur, � sa puissance, donc � la possibilit� du
cin�ma. Ses films sont des MOYENS d'expression l� o� tant d'autres sont
encore des ABOUTISSEMENTS.

ATOM EGOYAN
Son intelligence.

EMIR KUSTURICA
Quand vous changez d'objectif, en quoi cela affecte-t-il notre vision du
monde? Kubrick m'a presque donn� toutes les r�ponses que je cherchais.

PATRICE LECONTE
L'id�e d'un ent�tement. Faire un film, c'est choisir un cap et le garder
sans d�vier d'un degr�e.

MIKE LEIGH
Stanley Kubrick est le grand humoriste du cin�ma.

DUSAN MAKAVEJEV
La contribuition de Stanley Kubrick au cin�ma mondial et � nos vies est
STANLEY KUBRICK.

MARIO MARTONE
Avoir donn� forme � des "archetypes", et donc avoir restitu� une profondeur
mystique au XXe si�cle.

LAETITIA MASSON
Une odyss�e des genres, de la violence, de l'obsession, du lyrisme, des
folles amours.

SIDNEY POLLACK
Stanley Kubrick fut le premier metteur en sc�ne am�ricain � travailler dans
le syst�me des studios hollywoodiens qui ait r�ussi � maintenir une
ind�pendence et un contr�le absolus.
C'�tait un moraliste avec un sens �clatant du spectacle.

ALAIN RESNAIS
Plus encore que les autres tsars du cin�ma, il a prouv� que la volont�
imp�riale d'un metteur en sc�ne peut �tre une forme d'action dramatique.

MARTIN SCORSESE
Grande question. (...) Regarder un film de Kubrick, c'est comme regarder le
sommet d'une montagne. Vous levez les yeux et vous vous demandez comment
quesqu'un a pu monter si haut.

OLIVER STONE
Stanley Kubrick a donn� au cin�ma de l'intelligence.

fv
24758
From: MG4273@...
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 3:27am
Subject: Re: Happy B-day, Brad! (was: I Wake Up Screaming) nzkpzq

Congratulations, Brad Stevens!
Hope you have a wonderful birthday.
Hint: make all of March your Birthday Month!

Mike Grost
24759
From: MG4273@...
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 3:56am
Subject: Bill Krohn's Samuel Fuller article nzkpzq

I DID think the excerpts from this article in a_film_by were terrific!
When and where can we read the entire article?

Mike Grost
24760
From: "Fernando Verissimo"
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 9:25am
Subject: Top 25 directors f_verissimo

in no particular order

Orson Welles
George Romero
Glauber Rocha
Alfred Hitchcock
Abbas Kiarostami
Michael Mann
William Friedkin
Tsai Ming-liang
John Carpenter
Roman Polanski
Carl Th. Dreyer
F.W. Murnau
Ernst Lubitsch
Fritz Lang
Chantal Akerman
John Cassavetes
Stanley Kubrick
Martin Scorsese
John Ford
Samuel Fuller
Mario Bava
Tex Avery
Howard Hawks
Charles Chaplin
Jonathan Demme

+ 5 to keep an eye on

M. Night Shyamalan
John McNaughton
Larry Clark
Wes Anderson
David Gordon Green
24761
From: "cairnsdavid1967"
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 1:40pm
Subject: Re: Who Is Stanley Kubrick? cairnsdavid1967

> This is a very difficult question, actually. You're not the first
one to ask
> it.

To paraphrase another posting, Stanley Kubrick is the shit!

Things to watch for in Kubrick: symmetry in composition, playing with
point of view, experiments in narrative structure, obsession with
photographic quality and lighting, a uniquely bleak view of humanity
as a flawed experiment...

If you find it difficult to see why anyone would enjoy the films of
someone with a dark and misanthropic view of the world, then Kubrick
may not be for you. But the artistic quality is there.

His paradox is maybe his obsession with intricate and balanced and
beautifully meticulous rendering of worlds and minds and systems in
chaos. It's comparable to Ophuls' "treatment of romance" which seems
very elegant and beautiful but is also cruel, cynical and despairing.

Yes, the Discovery in 2001 is a brain and spinal cord. The disrupted
mind is not just HAL but the whole spaceship's systems, including the
human components. The spaceship is also a spermatozoa which flies
into the void, up the tunnel of lights and a baby pops out the other
end.

D "Bowman" Cairns
24762
From: "cairnsdavid1967"
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 1:48pm
Subject: Re: Argento/Tourneur (Was: Contemporary action/violence) cairnsdavid1967

> This sequence is precisely why I have never been able to enjoy "The
Leopard
> Man", despite being a big admirer of Tourneur. Watching it always
makes me feel
> like a cad, trying get enjoyment out of a movie about a girl being
stalked.

But I think we are meant to empathise with the girl, feel that WE are
being stalked along with her...

Making her a young girl is obviously meant to evoke protecvtive
emotions in us. In Argento I think it's always meant to evoke
sadistic desires, but I don't think Lewton and Tourneur's minds
worked quite that way. Lewton only tortures his characters in order
to torture the audience - but in a nice way!

> It is pretty unpleasant stuff. It places the viewer in the
uncomfortable
> position of watching something horrible, and trying to treat it
as "entertainment".

But that's everything - that's OEDIPUS REX! The word entertainment is
perhaps the problem here. "Drama" would be less problematic.

> The endless critical discussion of Lewton's alleged genius, whether
he or
> the directors are the auteurs of the Lewton films, whether Lewton
was something
> special in Hollywood history, etc has always left me baffled!
> I believe "I Walked With a Zombie" is a Tourneur-authored film - at
least in
> its magnificent visual style.

This is why they were good together - as writer producer Lewton is
able to indulge his interests, while leaving Tourneur alone to do his
job making the sound and images and performances great.

The unsettling qualitites tend to come from Lewton, who is an auteur
in his use of recurring personal themes and obsessions, whereas the
viusla qualities come from his directors, some of whom were still
great without him.
24763
From: "cairnsdavid1967"
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 1:53pm
Subject: Re: Hangover Square (changes) cairnsdavid1967

> > > Cregar loved the book, thought the movie would make a star of
> him,
> > > and went on suspension rather than do the script they came up
> with.
> >
> > What were the changes?

The book is set at the onset of WWII, and the main plot was a quasi-
allegory of this.

In the book Bone only kills at the very end, whereas in the film he's
a murderer from the start. In the book he's not a composer, just "the
big drinking man". Alcoholism is central to the book, hence the
title. Hardly anyone touches a drop in the film.

There is no detective or police investigation in the book since Bone
only kills at the end. The last page had me in tears.

Hamilton wrote to the press complaining about these changes, and
Brahm wrote back defending them. He argued that the period setting
(imposed by the studio to reuse sets from THE LODGER) was necessary
since with modern detection Bone would have been swiftly caught. He's
clearly wrong, since serial killers are notoriously hard to catch,
and anyway in the book Bone isn't liable to arrest since he doesn't
murder anyone till the very end.

D "George Harvey Bone" Cairns
24764
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 2:01pm
Subject: Re: Argento/Tourneur (Was: Contemporary action/violence) sallitt1

> I'm trying to think my way thru the problem, as opposed to
> just observing my reactions.

There are multiple issues here, which I haven't done a good job of sorting
out, and which may not be problems in an objective sense.

> Very little of this stuff is art, for starters - and almost none of it
> is art on the level of Martin. But Se7en is art - Yoel actually cites
> Fincher as one of his Three Aces - and that doesn't excuse it in your
> eyes.

It's not all or nothing. I was quite impressed with the final
confrontation in SE7EN, and remember thinking, "This guy understands what
cross-cutting means."

The outrageousness of the murders, though it is built into the plot, seems
to me like a direct appeal to our pleasure in seeing/contemplating
horrible deaths. All that variety....

Here again, two things are going on. One is that I'm squeamish. (Which,
according to psychoanalytic thought, means an unconscious love of violence
inhibited by a powerful repression.) The other is that the prurient
appeal kind of jumps out of the work of art instead of working within it.
If the prurience in question were about sex, for instance, I'd be absorbed
instead of squeamish, but I'd still feel that the film had sacrificed its
chance to be good by making that direct appeal its centerpiece.

> Are there books that, for you, fall into
> the Kill Bill/Se7en trap, or is this just something that happens w.
> images?

Sure, books can do it. But I started out talking about a certain tendency
in modern action cinema. I'd now say that this tendency seems to have a
number of different qualities, not just one.

> Black Alibi, the Cornell Woolrich book that was pretty
> faithfully transcribed by Lewton and Tourneur in The Leopard Man.

There have always been films like THE LEOPARD MAN that are built around
our fear of/desire for the mutilation and death of the characters. It's
true that I have trouble with that fear/desire, and don't enjoy those
films much (though I see some nice stuff in them sometimes, around the
edges, as it were). But, as I said, I started out talking about a
tendency that seems to have a number of different characteristics, not
just this one (or necessarily this one).

> I know those guys are synonymous with the total opposite of the
> problem you allude to, but really, the difference between the scenes
> where the girl is stalked by the big cat or the young woman is
> trapped in the cemetery and the same situation as portrayed over and
> over again by Argento - in Tenebre, for example, which I just saw for
> the first time - is only one of degree.

You're right. But I didn't stop going to Tourneur films because of THE
LEOPARD MAN, nor to Fincher films because of SE7EN. (Though I did slow
down on Fincher eventually.) I had the sense that the stuff that bothered
me was an option that the filmmakers wouldn't exercise every time, and
that there was other interesting stuff that might get the spotlight next
time out. With Argento, on the other hand, I sort of gave up (though I
try to check in with him every ten years or so). I think that's partly
because he's part of a genre/time/place that I have trouble with, and he
doesn't seem to move out of it too easily. I pretty much stopped going to
Hong Kong action films in the 80s and 90s, though the squeamishness factor
wasn't always so high there: again, I felt that the constraints of
production were making it unlikely that I'd enjoy myself much. I'm sure
there are exceptions, at least partial ones, that I miss out on as a
result. - Dan
24765
From: Fred Camper
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 1:46pm
Subject: Re: Who Is Stanley Kubrick? fredcamper

Fernando Verissimo wrote:

> In Positif n. 464....

CLAUDE CHABROL
> Pour moi, c'est l� son apport principal: la d�monstration par l'exemple de
> chaque seconde de film que TOUT est possible, que TOUT est permis, sous
> contr�le absolu de TOUT....

I'm traveling, and haven't followed the whole thread, so I'm breaking my
own rule in replying to a thread incompletely read, but why is what
Chabrol says not almost infinitely more true of Brakhage, or Kubelka, or
any of the major avant-gardists? Statements like this one seem to me an
example of the mypoia that results from equating cinema with one very
particular kind of cinema. Think of all the things Brakhage has done
that are not in fact possible in Kubrick's cinema: silent films, films
with no actors (and films with actors who don't speak in lip-sync --
Brakhage has made some of those too), painting on the film strip, out of
focus imagery for almost the whole film, and on and on.

I've seen "only" eight Kubricks, but Mike Grost's recent post in this
thread expresses my reactions pretty well. Is there anything there?
Sure. Do I find anything complex enough to deeply engage me on the level
of visual cinematic architecture and aesthetic expression? So far,
absolutely not. Why others (Craig?) should be angered by that, given
that Kubrick isn't exactly wanting for attention or praise, is beyond
me. If auteurism has meant anything historically, it has included the
individual's right to counter received opinion with personal evaluations.

Fred Camper
24766
From: "Saul"
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 2:23pm
Subject: Re: Top 25 directors asitdid
Online Now Send IM

How come the same names come up time and time again? Here's a list,
I'm sure some of these names have been mentioned, but I've tried to
speak of those who seem to be have left out of these lists a little....

Hans-J�rgen Syberberg
Werner Herzog
Lewis Milestone
David Butler (for Doris Day mostly...*sigh*)
Jean-Jacques Beineix
John Milius
Hal Ashby
Peter Weir (Aussie work)
Bruce Beresford (Aussie work)
Robert Youngson
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Michael Winner (wildly uneven � '72 was a good hat trick)
Sidney Lumet
Walter Hill (well, we'll always have "The Driver")
Lloyd Bacon
Joseph L. Mankiewicz (I'll never forget "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir")
The Maysles'
Richard Lester
Michael Cimino
Michael Cimino
Michael Cimino
Nagisa Oshima
Robert Stevenson (for a beautiful film from `42: "Joan of Paris")
John Howard Davies (a good TV director)
Lina Wertm�ller
Liliana Cavani
Hiroyuki Imaishi
Allan Moyle (because "Pump up the Volume" is one film I can think of
from the early 90's that did mean something to disaffected youth)
John G. Avildsen (underrated perhaps, perhaps not � from "Joe" onwards
it's clear he is good with staging certain kinds of scenes, and does
have a recognizable mise-en-scene)
Alejandro Jodorowsky ("Santa sangre" and "Fando y Lis" stand up best
today, perhaps also "Tusk" � "El Topo" and "Holy Mountain" don't so much)
Gordon Douglas (Geez, for "Saps at Sea")
Volker Schl�ndorff
Jean Vigo
Frederick Wiseman
Raymond Longford
Istv�n Szab�
Fred Schepisi ("The Devil's Playground" is one of the best Aussie
films on the 70's � can we all just forget "Roxanne"?)
Ted Kotcheff (Lost and Found: "Wake in Fright")
Martin Sul�k (for: "Krajinka")
Morten Henriksen (for: "The Magnetist's Fifth Winter")
Theo Angelopoulos
Gillo Pontecorvo ("The Battle of Algiers", "Queimada" and "Kap�" being
three movies that each had a profound impact on me - and three of the
most impressive films I've seen)
Katsuhiro �tomo
Stanley Donen (for "Funny Face" though I can think of at least one
person here who might want to change that to "Seven Brides for Seven
Brothers"...)
Guillermo del Toro
William Cameron Menzies (for the best McCarthyist-paranoia film I've
seen: "The Whip Hand")
Roy Boulting
Georges M�li�s
Dziga Vertov
John Frankenheimer
Hiroyuki Kitakubo
Isao Takahata (those who do not believe just how powerfully moving and
depressing a cartoon can be, watch "Grave of the Fireflies")
Hiroyuki Okiura
Rintaro
Hayao Miyazaki
Yoshiaki Kawajiri (they might look crude at first, specially in the
cheaper productions, but he's got a flowing beauty all of his own)
Roy Ward Baker (The definitive Titanic film: "A Night to Remember")
Mamoru Osh�
Tinto Brass ("Salon Kitty")
Charles Walters (who remembers "Ask Any Girl"?)

(It's 1.30am and my brain is too sore to do anything more comprehensie
now - though I'm sure there's some forgotten names I've forgotten)

(P.S. Bill. I did the whole "Nightmare" and "Friday" series in a
single non-stop day-lomg night-long session that left me rather
dazed...ending with "Freddy meets Jason")
24767
From: "Fred Patton"
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 3:11pm
Subject: Re: 25 heroes (was: Top 25 directors) fred_patton

Always a pleasure to see Dutt not forgotten - if it takes lists to
nurse legacies, so be it. Pyaasa is a republic of bliss in the golden
era of Bollywood, despite it's precisely contrary content. If I could
only see it theatrically with an even good print... Consequently, the
problem with subtitles is all the more excrutiating when poetry takes
the field; I can only expect that Sahir Ludhianvi's Urdu verse
translated to Hindi and then English at least conveys the contours of
it's meanings. For pure Bollywood musical I look no further than Raj
Kapoor's Awaara, with all its Wellesian devices and stylings coming
together with infectuous dance numbers.

Fred Patton

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Noel Vera"
wrote:
>
> Guru Dutt
24768
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 3:21pm
Subject: Re: Top 25 directors jpcoursodon

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Saul" wrote:
>
> How come the same names come up time and time again? Here's a list,
> I'm sure some of these names have been mentioned, but I've tried to
> speak of those who seem to be have left out of these lists a
little....
>

> David Butler (for Doris Day mostly...*sigh*)

All aboard the "On Moonlight Bay" time machine (Jonathan R. is
the engineer)... DD singing (Calamity Jane): "Then I shouted from
the highest hill/Even told the golden daffodil/Now my heart's an
open door/And my secret love no secret anymore.... Doris doing a
Maurice Chevalier impersonation (actually it's Jack Carson!) in It's
a Great Feeling. But was Butler an auteur??? Anybody seen his
mindboglingly idiotic 1930 "SF" musical "Just Imagine"?

JPC

> Lina Wertm�ller

Oh no, please!

Gordon Douglas (Geez, for "Saps at Sea")

and don't forget "Them!","Walk a Crooked Mile", "Rio
Conchos", "The Detective". In our book Tavernier praised "I Was a
Communist for the FBI", which I haven't seen.
>
> Gillo Pontecorvo ("The Battle of Algiers", "Queimada" and "Kap�"
being
> three movies that each had a profound impact on me - and three of
the
> most impressive films I've seen) Right on!

> Stanley Donen (for "Funny Face" though I can think of at least one
> person here who might want to change that to "Seven Brides for
Seven
> Brothers"...) "On how to be lovely..."

No reason to change.

Donen directed or co-directed at least four of my five favorite
musicals. The other two: "Singin'", of course, and "Pajama Game".

> Charles Walters (who remembers "Ask Any Girl"?) Sure do!
>
24769
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 3:28pm
Subject: Re: Re: Top 25 directors cellar47

--- Saul wrote:

> Charles Walters (who remembers "Ask Any Girl"?)
>

Me for one. Ray Durgnat loved it.

Patrice Chereau
Charles Laughton
Federico Fellini
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
Alain Resnais
Max Ophuls
Luchino Visconti
Jacques Tati
Jacques Rivette
Chris Marker
Charles Walters
Jacques Demy
Andy Warhol
Yasujiro Ozu
Robert Bresson
Preston Sturges
Chuck Jones
Bruce Conner
Jack Smith
Joseph Cornell
James Whale
Jean Vigo
Todd Haynes
Martin Scorsese
Agnes Varda

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
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24770
From: "Richard Modiano"
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 4:26pm
Subject: Re: Top 25 directors tharpa2002

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Saul" wrote:

"Robert Youngson"

The silent comedy complier? If so, Keaton hated him for him re-
cutting COPS for WHEN COMEDY WAS KING.

"William Cameron Menzies (for the best McCarthyist-paranoia film I've
seen: 'The Whip Hand')"

It started out as an anti-facist film about revanchist Nazis who are
plotting a comeback under the leadership of Adolf Hitler who's alive
and well as revealed at the climax. Needless to say, it was
extensively re-shot. The paranoia survived, however.

Richard
24771
From: George Robinson
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 4:45pm
Subject: 25 directors bressonozu

This was excruciating to do. The last cuts were pretty hard -- Melville,
Wiseman, Tarkovsky, Hawks, Hitchcock, the Tavianis, Bela Tarr, Rivette,
Sembene, Gitai (and the avant-garde people I couldn't figure out what to
do with -- Sonbert, Brakhage, Deren, Breer).

What I tried to do was to assemble a list of filmmakers who changed the
way I look at films, think about films. I have tended with this list to
opt more often for the "writerly" text than the "readerly" one; that's
why van der Keuken made it and Wiseman didn't. Even the more mainstream
American filmmakers here are ones whose works are as interesting to me
for the fractures and dislocations in their films -- Fuller, Boetticher,
even Ford -- than their obvious artistic mastery. (Which makes me regret
omitting Preminger and Minnelli and Sirk and Nick Ray). I'm also sort of
disturbed that it's a list mainly of "dead white guys" except for
Akerman and Duras, Ozu and Mizoguchi.

And as is always the case with these lists, ask me again in a couple of
hours and half the names might be different.

A list of 50 might be easier to assemble. Not that I want to do that either.

George Robinson

1. Chantal Akerman

2. Budd Boetticher

3. Robert Bresson

4. Luis Bunuel

5 Claude Chabrol

6. Carl Th. Dreyer

7. Marguerite Duras

8. John Ford

9. Samuel Fuller

10. Jean-Luc Godard

11. Chuck Jones

12. Buster Keaton

13 Krzystof Kieslowski

14. Sergio Leone

15. Chris Marker

16. Kenji Mizoguchi

17. Manoel da Oliveira

18. Max Ophuls

19. Yasujiro Ozu

20. Jean Renoir

21. Francesco Rosi

22. Jean-Marie Straub/Danielle Huillet

23. Dziga Vertov

24. Johan van der Keuken

25. Orson Welles
24772
From: "samfilms2003"
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 5:26pm
Subject: Re: Top 25 directors samfilms2003

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Saul" wrote:

> Isao Takahata (those who do not believe just how powerfully moving and
> depressing a cartoon can be, watch "Grave of the Fireflies")

You're not kidding but is this film a closed system I wonder ? Not sure.
I'm suspicious when pm and d seem the only reactions possible so to
speak.

> Mamoru Osh�

I'm with you here. This guy won't let me deny Anime.

I like both Tarkovsky & Soderbergh "Solari" but I'd love to see what
he would do with it !
(times when I wish I was a high powered producer I guess)

-Sam
24773
From: "Michael E. Kerpan, Jr."
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 5:48pm
Subject: Re: Top 25 directors michaelkerpan

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "samfilms2003" wrote:

> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Saul" wrote:

>> Isao Takahata (those who do not believe just how powerfully moving and
>> depressing a cartoon can be, watch "Grave of the Fireflies")

> You're not kidding but is this film a closed system I wonder ? Not sure.
> I'm suspicious when pm and d seem the only reactions possible so to
> speak.

There are at least two "Graves of the Fireflies" (GotF). There is
GotF the first time you watch it. And then there is GotF revisited,
after sufficient reflection. Although Takahata does absolutely
everything he can to tip his first-time watchers off as to the
ultimate outcome, from the very beginning of the film, most initial
viewers are nevertheless so stunned by the end that all they take away
is pain and sadness. I would submit that most people simply can't see
and experience the film Takahata intended one to see until comes back
to it, fully prepared to watch critically.

In fact, the film is full of almost as much beauty as it is of terror
-- and tells a story that is extremely morally complex. The "final
end" of the film, on re-visitation, is one that produces quite mixed
emotions.
24774
From: "Charles Hoehnen"
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 6:41pm
Subject: Re: Top 25 directors year90ninezero

I felt I had to chime in, because I can't remember reading Rossellini's name
on any of these lists (not to say I just didn't miss it), and because I'm a
listaholic. Personally, I don't feel it's necessary to intentionally reach
for the more obscure directors. It seems to me that a developed, critical,
and passionate film-scholar-enthusiast-critic-potato will inevitably sway
towards a unique canon.

These will probably be added when I see more of their films: Chris Marker,
Pier Paolo Pasolini, Chantal Akerman, Jacques Rivette, Ming-liang Tsai,
Olivier Assayas, Takeshi Kitano, Jafar Panahi, Michael Haneke, Lukas
Moodysson, etc.

F.W. Murnau
Buster Keaton
Luis Bu�uel
Alfred Hitchcock
Yasujiro Ozu

Jean Renoir
Howard Hawks
Robert Bresson
Roberto Rossellini
Orson Welles

Ingmar Bergman
Jacques Tati
Nicholas Ray
Seijun Suzuki
Michelangelo Antonioni

Eric Rohmer
Jean-Luc Godard
John Cassavetes
Agnes Varda
Andrei Tarkovsky

Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Dusan Makavejev
Anne-Marie Mi�ville
David Cronenberg
Claire Denis

And I couldn't quite fit these unfortunates: Tod Browning, Jean Vigo,
Joseph Losey.

Charlie Hoehnen / year90ninezero@...

_________________________________________________________________
Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE!
http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/
24775
From: "Damien Bona"
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 6:42pm
Subject: Re: 25 directors damienbona

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, George Robinson
wrote:
> This was excruciating to do. The last cuts were pretty hard

George, what happened to Robert Aldrich? I always associate him with
you. And vice versa.
24776
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 6:45pm
Subject: Re: Who Is Stanley Kubrick? hotlove666

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "cairnsdavid1967"
wrote:
the Discovery in 2001 is a brain and spinal cord. The disrupted
> mind is not just HAL but the whole spaceship's systems, including
the
> human components. The spaceship is also a spermatozoa which flies
> into the void, up the tunnel of lights and a baby pops out the
other
> end.
>
> D "Bowman" Cairns

Absolutely to both. It's also a skeletal fish swimming at the bottom
of a black sea: images of infinite height and infinite depth
combined, to use Harold Bloom's definition of the defensive ratio
called "hyperbole," aka the Sublime. 2001 perfectly follows the
6 "revisionary ratios" by which a great poet defends against the
images of his predecessors (more fully explained in an article I did
for Vertigo).
24777
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 6:53pm
Subject: Re: Top 25 directors hotlove666

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Saul" wrote:
>
> > (P.S. Bill. I did the whole "Nightmare" and "Friday" series in a
> single non-stop day-lomg night-long session that left me rather
> dazed...ending with "Freddy meets Jason")

Your impressions? I'd be most interested to hear!
24778
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 6:58pm
Subject: Re: 25 heroes (was: Top 25 directors) hotlove666

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Fred Patton"
wrote:
> >
> > Guru Dutt

What about Ritwik Ghatak? Eternally linked to Dutt in my mind because
of Charles Tesson's article: "Decouvrons Ritwik Ghatak et Guru Dutt."
So far, unless I'm mistaken, he's not on any of the VSLs (Very
Strange Lists), but he's a master.
24779
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 7:01pm
Subject: Re: Top 25 directors hotlove666

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
>
> All aboard the "On Moonlight Bay" time machine (Jonathan R. is
> the engineer)...

I'm on board - that chapter is one of the great imaginative
achievements of the 20th Century, IMHO. Acid does make a difference...
24780
From: "Fred Patton"
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 7:22pm
Subject: Re: 25 heroes (was: Top 25 directors) fred_patton

Ritwik Ghatak seems much less forgotten in auteurist parts than
Dutt. THE CLOUD-CAPPED STAR is a masterpiece, and Bfi is helping
people in the DVD era (re)discover. Dutt is much better represented
on DVD, ironically, because though the New Wavers seemed to have
lacked support at home, Dutt, Raj Kapoor, Bimal Roy and others form
parts of the golden years of Indian cinema and are still enjoyed by
citizens and ex-patriates abroad. This is also to their detriment
abroad, as Bollywood becomes marginalized esoterica, but surely, as
in Hollywood, there were masters operating within the system. The
Indian New Wavers tend to be remembered, though less so perhaps for
Mrinal Sen, who's QUIET ROLLS THE DAWN approaches the melodrama from
the opposite direction of THE CLOUD-CAPPED STAR. Unfortunately,
Sen's work is rather difficult to see.

Fred

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Fred Patton"
> wrote:
> > >
> > > Guru Dutt
>
> What about Ritwik Ghatak? Eternally linked to Dutt in my mind
because
> of Charles Tesson's article: "Decouvrons Ritwik Ghatak et Guru
Dutt."
> So far, unless I'm mistaken, he's not on any of the VSLs (Very
> Strange Lists), but he's a master.
24781
From: "dmgurney"
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 9:08pm
Subject: Keeping an eye out for new talent (was: Top 25 directors) dmgurney

I liked the list, and at this point, most of the more established auteurs whom I
love have already been mentioned. But in the interest of expanding the field
a bit, I felt that I should put a plug in for an emerging talent. Just last week, I
was treated to Mutual Appreciation, the sophomore effort from Andrew
Bujalski. His first film, Funny Ha Ha, was sadly never picked up for
distribution, and I fear that Mutual Appreciation may suffer the same
undeserved fate. In both films, Bujalski succeeds in getting amazing
performances from his cast, and in light of this, he often gets compared to
Cassavetes, which I think is entirely fair. It is extremely exhiliarating to have
such a young filmmaker showing an interest real human drama (also with an
eye and ear out for comedy). I would highly recommend Mutual Appreciation
to any of you who are lucky enough to be in proximity to a screening, but for
the rest of you, Funny Ha Ha is available on dvd and should not be missed.

dave
24782
From: George Robinson
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 9:19pm
Subject: Re: Aldrich [was 25 directors] bressonozu

I'm flattered to have my name yoked with the director of Kiss Me Deadly
(although I'm not quite sure what it means). In fact, my first
nationally published piece was for Velvet Light Trap on the
(loose)trilogy of Attack!, The Big Knife and Kiss Me Deadly. It's
ironic, too, because I've been dismayed in recent years by how much
Aldrich has been forgotten. His best work is profoundly subversive --
like Peckinpah's -- hovering at the edge of the dying studio system and
manipulating genre expectations in order to kick an audience in its
upholstered assumptions. The late films -- post-Twilight's Last Gleaming
-- are pretty minor although not without a certain demented charm, but
the best work -- almost any of the '50s films, Flight of the Phoenix,
the Bette Davis diptych, The Dirty Dozen, Lylah Clare and, most of all,
Ulzana's Raid are great, great films. Period.

g

Damien Bona wrote:

>--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, George Robinson
>wrote:
>
>
>>This was excruciating to do. The last cuts were pretty hard
>>
>>
>
>
>George, what happened to Robert Aldrich? I always associate him with
>you. And vice versa.
>
>
>
24783
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 9:24pm
Subject: Re: Top 25 directors jpcoursodon

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
> wrote:
> >
> > All aboard the "On Moonlight Bay" time machine (Jonathan R.
is
> > the engineer)...
>
> I'm on board - that chapter is one of the great imaginative
> achievements of the 20th Century, IMHO. Acid does make a
difference...

Do you mean you were on acid when you read it or JR was when he
wrote it? JPC
24784
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 9:35pm
Subject: Re: Aldrich [was 25 directors] jpcoursodon

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, George Robinson
wrote:
> I'm flattered to have my name yoked with the director of Kiss Me
Deadly

Even if Aldrich had made only that one film, "Kiss Me
Deadly", he would belong on any sane person's 25 directors List --
along with Laughton. Fortunately he made a whole bunch of great
films, although I do believe "KISS" is his absolute towering
masterpiece and one of the greatest movies ever made.

JPC

> >
24785
From: George Robinson
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 9:42pm
Subject: Re: Re: Aldrich [was 25 directors] bressonozu

You'll get no argument from me. The only real hard part is who he
replaces on the list I posted before. (Probably Duras, but there have
been so few women filmmakers mentioned on these lists. . . .)

g

jpcoursodon wrote:

> Even if Aldrich had made only that one film, "Kiss Me
>Deadly", he would belong on any sane person's 25 directors List --
>along with Laughton. Fortunately he made a whole bunch of great
>films, although I do believe "KISS" is his absolute towering
>masterpiece and one of the greatest movies ever made.
>
> JPC
>
>
24786
From: BklynMagus
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 10:52pm
Subject: Re: Aldrich [was 25 directors] cinebklyn

George wrote:

> but the best work -- almost any of the '50s
films, Flight of the Phoenix, the Bette Davis
diptych, The Dirty Dozen, Lylah Clare and,
most of all, Ulzana's Raid are great, great films.
Period.

At various times I have claimed that "Ulzana's Raid"
was my favorite Western -- so nice of Walter Hill to
remake it as "Geronimo" and never mention it.

I also have to praise "Hustle" which I think is great
as well.

Brian
24787
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 11:05pm
Subject: Re: Top 25 directors hotlove666

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon" wrote:
>
> Do you mean you were on acid when you read it or JR was when he
> wrote it? JPC

Neither. It wouldn't be worth much if you had to be stoned to read it. But JR
was no psychedelic virgin when he wrote it.
24788
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 11:06pm
Subject: Re: Aldrich [was 25 directors] hotlove666

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon" wrote:
>
>
> Even if Aldrich had made only that one film, "Kiss Me
> Deadly", he would belong on any sane person's 25 directors List --
> along with Laughton.

Love 'em both, but A. I. Bezzerides had a lot more to do w. Kiss Me Deadly
than James Agee did with Night of the Hunter, as it turns out.
24789
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Wed Mar 23, 2005 11:59pm
Subject: Re: Top 25 directors jpcoursodon

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
> >
> > Do you mean you were on acid when you read it or JR was when he
> > wrote it? JPC
>
> Neither. It wouldn't be worth much if you had to be stoned to read
it. But JR
> was no psychedelic virgin when he wrote it.

And to think I'm still a virgin after all those years! JPC
24790
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Thu Mar 24, 2005 0:06am
Subject: Re: Aldrich [was 25 directors] jpcoursodon

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
> >
> >
> > Even if Aldrich had made only that one film, "Kiss Me
> > Deadly", he would belong on any sane person's 25 directors List -
-
> > along with Laughton.
>
> Love 'em both, but A. I. Bezzerides had a lot more to do w. Kiss
Me Deadly
> than James Agee did with Night of the Hunter, as it turns out.

It's a great script, but does that in any way diminish Aldrich's
contribution? There is not one shot in the entire film that is not
as inventive and personal as anything in Welles. I can't think of
many films I could say the same thing of(as a matter of fact, I
can't think of one). JPC
24791
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Thu Mar 24, 2005 0:10am
Subject: Re: Aldrich [was 25 directors] jpcoursodon

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, George Robinson
wrote:
> You'll get no argument from me. The only real hard part is who he
> replaces on the list I posted before. (Probably Duras, but there
have
> been so few women filmmakers mentioned on these lists. . . .)
>

I love Duras, but I wouldn't hesitate one minute to dump her
overboard if the choice was between "Kiss Me Deadly" and a Duras
film (even "India Song" or "Detruire, dit-elle", my favorites). JPC
24792
From: "Blake Lucas"
Date: Thu Mar 24, 2005 0:41am
Subject: Re: Aldrich [was 25 directors] blakelucaslu...

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, BklynMagus wrote:
>
> At various times I have claimed that "Ulzana's Raid"
> was my favorite Western -- so nice of Walter Hill to
> remake it as "Geronimo" and never mention it.
>
That's not quite a true or fair statement. I programmed Geronimo:
An American Legend into an American Cinematheque Western series last
year and moderated afterward with Hill and screenwriter Larry Gross.
When I introduced Aldrich into the conversation first by evoking
Lancaster's Macintosh (and John McIntrye's Sieber in Apache) they
both said that all the way through making Geronimo, it was Ulzana's
Raid they were using as a model and the movie they were trying to
equal. Incredibly, though I don't rate Hill the equal of Aldrich in
the overall scheme of things, I think they succeeded. These are the
only two Indian Westerns I value in the whole post-classical
period. They are both superb, complex works with many affinities,
though also some very significant differences, mostly stylistic.

Geronimo: An American Legend is hands down Hill's best movie in my
opinion, though I know it's not the common one. He's never quite
touched that level of maturity elsewhere though made some movies I
personally am taken with (like Southern Comfort). In any event,
Hill could not have been clearer in his admiration for Aldrich (not
surprising) and his work. He also said that he knew Aldrich and
that the older director encouraged him when he was starting out.
24793
From: "Blake Lucas"
Date: Thu Mar 24, 2005 0:46am
Subject: Re: Aldrich [was 25 directors] blakelucaslu...

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
>

> Even if Aldrich had made only that one film, "Kiss Me
> Deadly", he would belong on any sane person's 25 directors List --
> along with Laughton. Fortunately he made a whole bunch of great
> films, although I do believe "KISS" is his absolute towering
> masterpiece and one of the greatest movies ever made.
>
> JPC
>
An easy statement to support, and to those who don't agree I suggest
that Mike Hammer/Ralph Meeker might just grin and beat you up.

As for Aldrich, seeing his name absent from so many lists might cause
him to plaintively caress the words "Remember me..."
24794
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Thu Mar 24, 2005 1:13am
Subject: Re: Aldrich [was 25 directors] jpcoursodon

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Blake Lucas"
wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
> wrote:
> >
>
> > Even if Aldrich had made only that one film, "Kiss Me
> > Deadly", he would belong on any sane person's 25 directors List -
-
> > along with Laughton. Fortunately he made a whole bunch of great
> > films, although I do believe "KISS" is his absolute towering
> > masterpiece and one of the greatest movies ever made.
> >
> > JPC
> >
> An easy statement to support, and to those who don't agree I
suggest
> that Mike Hammer/Ralph Meeker might just grin and beat you up.
>

Or squeeze my hand in a drawer...
> As for Aldrich, seeing his name absent from so many lists might
cause
> him to plaintively caress the words "Remember me..."

When I am gone away Gone far away into the silent land

But if darkness and corruption leave... (that's the key to the
key) JPC
24795
From: "Saul"
Date: Thu Mar 24, 2005 3:57am
Subject: Re: Top 25 directors asitdid
Online Now Send IM

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666" wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
> >
> > Do you mean you were on acid when you read it or JR was when he
> > wrote it? JPC
>
> Neither. It wouldn't be worth much if you had to be stoned to read
it. But JR
> was no psychedelic virgin when he wrote it.

Looks like I'll have to add a section to my "(Oral) History of Film
Criticism" entitled: ACID DAYS (or perhaps: ACID DAZE)
24796
From: "Richard Modiano"
Date: Thu Mar 24, 2005 4:09am
Subject: 25 Top FILMMAKERS tharpa2002

Using the term filmmaker allowed me to include someone like Laughton
who only directed one film but contributed to several other films as
an actor, Haneda Sumiko who only makes documentaries and those
filmmakers who work in the avant garde.

1. Aldrich, Robert
2. Baillie, Bruce
3. Brakhage, Stan
4. Bresson, Robert
5. De Toth, Andre
6. Deren, Maya
7. Ford, John
8. Fuller, Samuel
9. Haneda Sumiko
10. Hawks, Howard
11. Hitchcock, Alfred
12. Keaton, Buster
13. Lang, Fritz
14. Laughton, Charles
15. Markopoulos, Gregory
16. Mizoguchi Kenji
17. Murnau, F. W.
18. Narsue, Mikio
19. Ophuls, Max
20. Ozu Yasujiro
21. Preminger, Otto
22. Rosselini, Roberto
23. Sternberg, Josef von
24. Welles, Orson
25. Yamanaka, Sadao

Richard
24797
From: "samfilms2003"
Date: Thu Mar 24, 2005 4:14am
Subject: Re: Top 25 directors samfilms2003

> There are at least two "Graves of the Fireflies" (GotF). There is
> GotF the first time you watch it. And then there is GotF revisited,
> after sufficient reflection.

I did watch twice, although arguably not with "sufficient reflection"

> In fact, the film is full of almost as much beauty as it is of terror
> -- and tells a story that is extremely morally complex. The "final
> end" of the film, on re-visitation, is one that produces quite mixed
> emotions.

I could agree here, but still....

I'll put it on the further investigation list.

-Sam
24798
From: "Noel Vera"
Date: Thu Mar 24, 2005 4:40am
Subject: Re: 25 heroes (was: Top 25 directors) noelbotevera

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Fred Patton"
wrote:
>
> Always a pleasure to see Dutt not forgotten - if it takes lists to
> nurse legacies, so be it. Pyaasa is a republic of bliss in the
golden
> era of Bollywood, despite it's precisely contrary content. If I
could
> only see it theatrically with an even good print...

I SAW it on the big screen--the Indian embassy was kind enough to
import all dozen or so of his films for a once-in-a-lifetime
screening. The songs weren't subbed, which was annoying, but
visually--Jesus, I think he's a match for Stanley Donen or Minelli.

> it's meanings. For pure Bollywood musical I look no further than
Raj
> Kapoor's Awaara, with all its Wellesian devices and stylings
coming
> together with infectuous dance numbers.

For all that, it had a core of anger at class differences and a
theme of determinism vs. free will running through it.

> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Noel Vera"
> wrote:
> >
> > Guru Dutt

People mention Ritwik Ghatak--great filmmaker, and not just because
of his best known film, Meghe Dakha Tara. Titash Ekti Nadir Naam is
a flawed epic with images to rival Eisenstein (this I saw on the big
screen too; it was awe-inspiring). Am currently trying to find his
masterpiece, Ajantrik.

Ghatak also planned to do a film on Vietnam, shot entirely in India
(take THAT, Kubrick!).
24799
From: "Noel Vera"
Date: Thu Mar 24, 2005 4:55am
Subject: Re: Top 25 directors noelbotevera

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "samfilms2003" wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Saul" wrote:
>
> > Isao Takahata (those who do not believe just how powerfully
moving and
> > depressing a cartoon can be, watch "Grave of the Fireflies")
>
> You're not kidding but is this film a closed system I wonder ? Not
sure.
> I'm suspicious when pm and d seem the only reactions possible so to
> speak.
>

Think Ozu, animated. Takahata captures the minutae of life so
beautifully you could sit and watch his films all day without
blinking (not just here, but also in "Omohide poro poro" and
in "Hohokekyo tonari no Yamada-kun--which I much prefer by far than
Edward Yang's "Yi-Yi." That he can portray ordinary life this way,
and that it only happens to be set during wartime, that's where the
tragedy hits home.

"Hotaru no haka" is essentially two kids playing at home, fighting,
trying to make the most out of a small tin of fruit suckers. What's
not to like about it?
24800
From: Peter Henne
Date: Thu Mar 24, 2005 5:25am
Subject: 25 Directors peterhenne
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The names within each tier are in no particular order.

FIRST TIER:

Carl-Theodor Dreyer
Kenji Mizoguchi
Jean-Luc Godard
Andrei Tarkovsky

SECOND TIER:

Robert Bresson
Roberto Rossellini
Nagisa Oshima
Sergei Paradjanov
Stanley Kubrick
John Cassavetes
John Ford
Jean Renoir
Alfred Hitchcock
Federico Fellini
Ingmar Bergman
Nicholas Ray
Alain Resnais
Jacques Rivette
Manoel de Oliveira
Fritz Lang
Jean-Marie Straub and Danielle Huillet
F.W. Murnau
Josef von Sternberg
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Sam Peckinpah

--Peter Henne

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