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This group is dedicated to discussing film as art
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25101
From: "Robert Keser"
Date: Fri Apr 1, 2005 1:26pm
Subject: Re: Random remarks on eroticism in film rfkeser
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
"5. Some performers are intrinsically erotic. Their mere presence
makes any scene "erotic" no matter how un-erotic the explicit
content of the scene is. Sabu was such a performer. ALL his films
are therefore erotic. THE THIEF OF BAGDAD is a great erotic film for
that sole reason (contrast Sabu's eroticism with the blandness of
June Duprez's princess)."
It seems fair to say that Sabu in THIEF OF BAGDAD and BLACK
NARCISSUS suggested a certain sensuality to many people, but this is
by no means universal. One friend of mine got fixated on the erotic
potential of the seemingly bland John Justin in THIEF OF BAGDAD,
collecting photos of the actor and eventually writing to him (though
stopping short of actual stalking behavior). We may question my
friend's taste, but not—I assure you—the strength of his
response.
The point is that triggering of erotic arousal is undeniably
subjective, involving the eye or brain (or related organ) of the
beholder: one man's Sabu is another man's John Justin!
Also, performers, being people subject to the workings of nature,
change as their lives progress and of course as they are presented
onscreen. For example, June Duprez may be colorless in THIEF OF
BAGDAD but she emerged a few years later as somewhat hot stuff
opposite Cary Grant in NONE BUT THE LONELY HEART and Alan Ladd in
CALCUTTA. It seems more likely to me that circumstances had changed
her, and less likely that Clifford Odets and John Farrow were
superior in developing her erotic potential onscreen than Michael
Powell.
"The filmography of such a performer could be submitted in lieu
of a
list. Janet Leigh is always erotic."
But what about Debra Paget or Dorothy Malone? Or Conrad Veidt (his
playful bondage scenes with Valerie Hobson in Powell's CONTRABAND
are certainly a high point). Or George Clooney (his enforced
intimacy with Jennifer Lopez when they are stuffed into a car trunk
in OUT OF SIGHT should seal his status as an erotic icon but it
curiously doesn't seem to do the same for her. Or am I being so
subjective that I'm misreading cultural cues?).
--Robert Keser
25102
From: "Richard Modiano"
Date: Fri Apr 1, 2005 4:06pm
Subject: Re: I Feel a List Coming On tharpa2002
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Saul" wrote:
"Can one of the people (I think there were at least 2) who listed "In
the Realm of the Senses" as an erotic film explain this to me: I
couldn't think of a film that I found further from erotic – it
was so
severe."
What one finds erotic is highly subjective, but the close-up of
Sada's face showing the tiny scorpion tatooted on her ear lobe was
erotic. From that moment on the movie became erotic for me. Also
the fleeting exposures of flesh beneath Sada's kimono, the scene of
Sada playing the samisan while on top of Kichi, Sada exposing herself
to the old tramp. Not to mention the nape of the neck fetish.
Anyway, the theme of the film was derived from Bataille's dictum of
eroticism being the consenting of life up to the point of death if we
can trust Oshima's self-described intention. Also, there were
Oshima's re-creations of famous shunga (erotic woodblock prints)in
some of the sex scenes (the samisan scene, the orgy, the repast with
the geisha looking on come to mind.) A few discussions of the film
have noted that Oshima borrowed his compositional strategies from
Hokusai's shunga. If you find shunga erotic than the movie is
erotic.
Oshima's brillant notion was to marry shunga to this notorious true
incident and thus complicate one's response to the aesthics of
eroticism. That one could still find the movie erotic may be a
measure of one's perversity.
Richard
25103
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Apr 1, 2005 5:12pm
Subject: Re: Terrence Malick's GREAT BALLS OF FIRE screenplay sallitt1
> As part of my research for a book I'm writing about Jim McBride, I
> finally managed to track down a copy of the first draft screenplay
> for GREAT BALLS OF FIRE, which was written by none other than
> Terrence Malick. It's a fascinating piece of work, with many clear
> traces of Malick's themes and motifs. Here's the opening scene.
Thanks for this! Do you know what year it was written? - Dan
25104
From: Matt Teichman
Date: Fri Apr 1, 2005 5:13pm
Subject: Re: Gotchas bufordrat
hotlove666 wrote:
>You have a right to be offended by both, or by any other film, but
>one doesn't "discover" racism in Birth of a Nation, a film made to
>defend and promote racism, the way one "discovers" normative thinking
>in Shallow Hal, a film seemingly made to denounce chastize normative
>thinking. The later is what I call a "gotcha." I get a kick out
>of "gotchas" too -- but not as much as I used to.
>
>
But you're casting Griffith's film in the language of the contemporary
viewer--this is the only reason the racism of _Nation_ seems more
self-evident. The work of "discovery" has already been performed by the
terms you chose and the decades of civil rights discourse that made them
possible. If you made the above statement during the time of the film's
release, chances are it would have sounded like a "gotcha," by your
definition.
-Matt
25105
From: Matt Teichman
Date: Fri Apr 1, 2005 5:24pm
Subject: Re: Powell/Pressburger + Feminist journals bufordrat
hotlove666 wrote:
>Incredibly, these procedures -- outlawed in England before they could get started - were performed by the thousands in my benighted country in the 19th Century. Ritual clitorectomies are a crime still committed in some parts of the world. What makes the crimes of the Orificial Surgery Society especially disgusting is that they were done in the name of science - like the Holocaust.
>
Unbelievable, isn't it?
Similar crimes are still being committed here the name of medical
science. The prescription of Paxil, for example.
Just so this doesn't go OT, I'll reiterate that the psychology
underlying these authoritarian discourses isn't very far from the
psychology underlying the position that there can be anything unethical
about enjoying a film. In my view.
-Matt
25106
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Apr 1, 2005 5:30pm
Subject: Re: Re: Gotchas cellar47
--- Matt Teichman wrote:
> But you're casting Griffith's film in the language
> of the contemporary
> viewer--this is the only reason the racism of
> _Nation_ seems more
> self-evident. The work of "discovery" has already
> been performed by the
> terms you chose and the decades of civil rights
> discourse that made them
> possible. If you made the above statement during
> the time of the film's
> release, chances are it would have sounded like a
> "gotcha," by your
> definition.
>
You forget that "The Birth of a Nation" actually
served to REVIVE the KKK, which was fading just prior
to its release.
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25107
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Fri Apr 1, 2005 5:43pm
Subject: Shallow Hal One More Time (Was:Powell/Pressburger + Feminist journals hotlove666
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Matt Teichman wrote:
> hotlove666 wrote:
>
> Just so this doesn't go OT, I'll reiterate that the psychology
> underlying these authoritarian discourses isn't very far from the
> psychology underlying the position that there can be anything unethical
> about enjoying a film. In my view.
>
Normally I would rejoice in that position, Matt - I hate Puritanism too, particularly as
its right-wing version (there is of course a left-wing version too) is morphing into full-
blown fascism before our eyes. But obviously my serial killer research has turned
into something of a long journey for me, and I'm now in the phase where, under Jane
Caputi's influence, I'm thinking through the hardcore feminist response to what is
going on in these films by trying to think like Caputi for a while.
To return to our original "T" - I was thinking back to Shallow Hal today, and the
things I love about it: Number One, the shiver I get when Hal sees the sign over the
burn unit. Number Two, the gradual realization that the spina bifida guy's witchy,
diseased-looking new gf is probably a "looker." The filmmakers are doing things with
their core conceit - even when child morphs into man during the credits - that I like
cinematically and respond to emotionally, usually with the little shiver that spells
"familiar unfamiliarity." All the moments where we see Gwyneth Paltrow but also see
evidence of her true (fat) self (the huge panties, etc.) are both comic and uncanny.
This I love, quite apart from the message, but the uncanniness supports the
message, which is larger than just "beauty is in the eye of the beholder," or involves
a larger interpretation of that proverb.
25108
From: "Aaron Graham"
Date: Fri Apr 1, 2005 5:47pm
Subject: Re: Terrence Malick's GREAT BALLS OF FIRE screenplay machinegunmc...
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
wrote:
>
> As part of my research for a book I'm writing about Jim McBride, I
> finally managed to track down a copy of the first draft screenplay
> for GREAT BALLS OF FIRE, which was written by none other than
> Terrence Malick. It's a fascinating piece of work, with many clear
> traces of Malick's themes and motifs. Here's the opening scene.
Malick sure does love the use of voice-over. You can almost imagine
Sissy Spacek reading that end passage.
What year(s) does his script take Jerry Lee up to?
25109
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Fri Apr 1, 2005 5:56pm
Subject: Re: Gotchas hotlove666
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Matt Teichman wrote:
> hotlove666 wrote:
>
> >one doesn't "discover" racism in Birth of a Nation, a film made to
> >defend and promote racism
If you made the above statement during the time of the film's
> release, chances are it would have sounded like a "gotcha," by your
> definition.
Actually, it was perceived as racist by progressives, black and white, at the time -
how could it not be? There were protests even then. They probably felt like gotchas
to Griffith, but he was living in another century.
My inclination today would be to look at it as a racist film - not the first or the last -
where the thing is displayed with unusual, even anthropological clarity. Something
like the blood and fire ceremony by the Klan is mind-boggling. But I don't think it's
the same as The General Line "deliriating" (sic) Stalinism in moments like the milk
orgasm. (We seem to have a lot of milk fetishists among us, BTW.) Jean Narboni's
article on those moments in TGL is a gotcha, but he puts it in its proper analytic
context, rather than using it to feel superior to the filmmaker. That's why I love and
regularly cite that article, which is now 30 years old. It appeared in the CdC issue on
General Line - I don't know if the BFI translated it in their new volume.
25110
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Fri Apr 1, 2005 5:57pm
Subject: Re: Terrence Malick's GREAT BALLS OF FIRE screenplay hotlove666
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Aaron Graham"
wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
> wrote:
> >
> > As part of my research for a book I'm writing about Jim McBride, I
> > finally managed to track down a copy of the first draft screenplay
> > for GREAT BALLS OF FIRE, which was written by none other than
> > Terrence Malick. It's a fascinating piece of work, with many clear
> > traces of Malick's themes and motifs. Here's the opening scene.
>
> Malick sure does love the use of voice-over. You can almost imagine
> Sissy Spacek reading that end passage.
>
> What year(s) does his script take Jerry Lee up to?
And does it include "Top that, nigger"? Jim told us that story when he had just
finished Breathless, but it was filtered out of GBOF when he made it.
25111
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Fri Apr 1, 2005 6:01pm
Subject: Re: I Feel a List Coming On hotlove666
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein wrote:
>
> --- Hadrian wrote:
>
> >
> > 1) The More The Merrier. Joel McCrea macking on Jean
> > Arthur. The sound of her
> > voice changing when he's kissing her neck is
> > perfect. Very sly scene.
Voice change erotic moment supreme: The way Victoria Shaw, when the painter
asks her if she's a virgin in The Crimson Kimono, says "Why do you ask?" Much
stronger than all the "naughty words" in Moon Is Blue (6 years before) "put together."
25112
From: "Hadrian"
Date: Fri Apr 1, 2005 7:33pm
Subject: Re: Gotchas habelove
I think we could simplify this so that Matt and Bill would agree. A "gotcha" is when a
film has one overt, obvious meaning (beauty is shallow, what's inside is what
counts) that would be acceptable, but a close reading reveals a sublter, less
acceptable meaning (ugly people deserve our disdain). A "gotcha" is not necessarily
wrong. To say, as Renoir did, that you can't make an anti-war movie while
depicting war visually, is a pretty interesting, "gotcha" point.
However, that does mean for Matt to prove his point about Shallow Hal is not a
"gotcha", he would have to prove that the SURFACE meaning of Shallow Hal is
unacceptable. Birth of a Nation is overtly racist --the plot hinges on a white vs.
black conflict, with the black side obviously being the "bad guys". Again, for Birth
of a Nation to be a "Gotcha", it would have to APPEAR to be anti-racist.
That does not mean Shallow Hal is not an offensive movie, or that Full Metal Jacket
functions well as a recruitment film for the Marines (I've personally dealt with 2
enlistees who cited it as their favorite film before joining, but I missed that thread).
25113
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Fri Apr 1, 2005 7:49pm
Subject: Re: Gotchas hotlove666
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Hadrian" wrote:
>
To say, as Renoir did, that you can't make an anti-war movie while
> depicting war visually, is a pretty interesting, "gotcha" point.
I just translated a long article about historical films in France before Napoleon, in
which there were quotes from Communist critics excoriating The Big Parade for
glorifying war by being so spectacular. (For the time it was Spielberg and Cameron
all wrapped up in one.) I wonder if JR was thinking of that controversy.
> That does not mean Shallow Hal is not an offensive movie, or that Full Metal
Jacket
> functions well as a recruitment film for the Marines (I've personally dealt with 2
> enlistees who cited it as their favorite film before joining, but I missed that thread).
Sounds like Sam was right the first time...
25114
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Fri Apr 1, 2005 7:53pm
Subject: Re: Gotchas hotlove666
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Hadrian" wrote:
>
> I think we could simplify this so that Matt and Bill would agree. A "gotcha" is when
a
> film has one overt, obvious meaning (beauty is shallow, what's inside is what
> counts) that would be acceptable, but a close reading reveals a sublter, less
> acceptable meaning
There are right-wing gotchas too – cf. the Harry Potter and Square Bob Spongepants
controversies. I always enjoyed George Lucas's Smokey and the Bandit gotcha -
"encourages kids to drink beer and drive fast."
25115
From: "Richard Modiano"
Date: Fri Apr 1, 2005 8:10pm
Subject: Re: Gotchas tharpa2002
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
"Actually, it[THE BIRTH OF A NATION] was perceived as racist by
progressives, black and white, at the time - how could it not be?
There were protests even then."
To expand on the above with a few particulars: the Socialist Party
campained against it, W.E.B. DuBois wrote about it's reception as a
symptomatic of the extent of white racism, and the NAACP produced the
film THE BIRTH OF A RACE in answer to TBOAN, all this contemporary
with the film's release.
"My inclination today would be to look at it as a racist film - not
the first or the last - where the thing is displayed with unusual,
even anthropological clarity. Something like the blood and fire
ceremony by the Klan is mind-boggling."
It's a case study all right. Griffith sincerely believed in his
version of history and brought all his artistry to presenting it to a
public he thought ignorant of the facts. The picture was embraced by
racists of the day and fostered the revival of the KKK as David noted.
Richard
25116
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Apr 1, 2005 8:49pm
Subject: Patriarchy (Was: Powell/Pressburger) sallitt1
> And there again, it's hard not to see this planet as
> being occupied exclusively by patriarchal societies.
In which case the term perhaps loses much of its usefulness? Whereas
sociologists who compare patriarchal and matriarchal social structures at
least retain some non-rhetorical function for the word. - Dan
25117
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Apr 1, 2005 9:27pm
Subject: Violence and pleasure (Was: Powell/Pressburger + Feminist journals) sallitt1
> 4) I enjoy a fiction film in which a female character gets cut up. I
> think it's difficult to make a case for there being anything wrong with
> this. Claiming that there is sounds to me like puritanism. (i.e.
> everyone who enjoys films of women getting slaughtered should visit her
> doctor immediately for a clitorectomy)
I buy Matt's argument. For one thing, people can't help what they enjoy,
and it seems cold to apply standards of right and wrong to things outside
of people's control. For another thing, I don't see any value in denying
the existence of our atavistic responses.
Which is not to say that that pleasure should be labeled an aesthetic
response. I would like to argue that it shouldn't, even if it's
difficult to make fine distinctions in this area. - Dan
25118
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Fri Apr 1, 2005 9:38pm
Subject: Re: Patriarchy (Was: Powell/Pressburger) hotlove666
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > And there again, it's hard not to see this planet as
> > being occupied exclusively by patriarchal societies.
>
> In which case the term perhaps loses much of its usefulness? Whereas
> sociologists who compare patriarchal and matriarchal social structures at
> least retain some non-rhetorical function for the word. - Dan
It's not rhetorical - it's historical. Human societies were matriarchal, then became
patriarchal. (Or so the argument goes.) We know what both words mean, and we're
living with/in the consequences of the change.
25119
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Fri Apr 1, 2005 9:41pm
Subject: Re: Violence and pleasure (Was: Powell/Pressburger + Feminist journals) hotlove666
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > 4) I enjoy a fiction film in which a female character gets cut up. I
> > think it's difficult to make a case for there being anything wrong with
> > this. Claiming that there is sounds to me like puritanism. (i.e.
> > everyone who enjoys films of women getting slaughtered should visit her
> > doctor immediately for a clitorectomy)
>
> I buy Matt's argument. For one thing, people can't help what they enjoy,
> and it seems cold to apply standards of right and wrong to things outside
> of people's control.
When we're talking about killing, that's called the insanity defense. Re: looking, I'm
not sure what to call it.
25120
From: "Noel Vera"
Date: Fri Apr 1, 2005 9:51pm
Subject: Re: I Feel a List Coming On noelbotevera
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Saul" wrote:
>
> Can one of the people (I think there were at least 2) who
listed "In
> the Realm of the Senses" as an erotic film explain this to me: I
> couldn't think of a film that I found further from erotic – it was
so
> severe.
I kind of agree. Much prefer Gallaga's "Scorpio Nights," which was
reportedly inspired by "In the Realm."
>Did someone here say "Last Tango in Paris"? I'd also love to
> know what you found erotic about this – I loved the film – but I
can't
> quite see how some of the scenes are erotic, e.g.:
> Paul: Get the fingernail scissors … I want you to cut the
fingernails
> on your right hand … these two … I want you to put your fingers up
my ass.
> Am I missing something????????????????????????????????????????
If she doesn't clip her nails, she can furrow a heck of a
hemmorrhoid up Paul's ass.
There are people who find that erotic, believe you me.
25121
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Apr 1, 2005 9:52pm
Subject: Re: Re: Violence and pleasure (Was: Powell/Pressburger + Feminist journals) sallitt1
> When we're talking about killing, that's called the insanity defense.
> Re: looking, I'm not sure what to call it.
Don't you believe in the insanity defense? - Dan
25122
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Apr 1, 2005 10:01pm
Subject: Re: Re: Patriarchy (Was: Powell/Pressburger) sallitt1
> It's not rhetorical - it's historical. Human societies were matriarchal,
> then became patriarchal. (Or so the argument goes.) We know what both
> words mean, and we're living with/in the consequences of the change.
If it worked this way, I'd think we'd have only the vaguest idea of what
matriarchy means, unless we researched those old societies.
I come from an Arabic immigrant family, and I'm often struck by how much
more important and powerful women are in American Anglo-Saxon or
Scandinavian cultures than they are in the one I grew up in. One may not
want to use matriarchy/patriarchy to describe such cultural differences
(assuming they are found to be general, and are not just in my
imagination) - but for what better use is one saving those words? To me,
saying "Women don't run anything anywhere" is mostly a rhetorical
statement, useful where rhetoric is useful. - Dan
25123
From: "thebradstevens"
Date: Fri Apr 1, 2005 10:20pm
Subject: Re: Terrence Malick's GREAT BALLS OF FIRE screenplay thebradstevens
Happy April Fools Day :-)
25124
From: "Aaron Graham"
Date: Fri Apr 1, 2005 10:48pm
Subject: Re: Terrence Malick's GREAT BALLS OF FIRE screenplay machinegunmc...
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
wrote:
>
> Happy April Fools Day :-)
It was so subtle enough to be believable!
Dammit, and I was doing so good this year.
25125
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Fri Apr 1, 2005 11:41pm
Subject: Re: Violence and pleasure (Was: Powell/Pressburger + Feminist journals) jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > 4) I enjoy a fiction film in which a female character gets cut
up. I
> > think it's difficult to make a case for there being anything
wrong with
> > this. Claiming that there is sounds to me like puritanism.
(i.e.
> > everyone who enjoys films of women getting slaughtered should
visit her
> > doctor immediately for a clitorectomy)
>
> I buy Matt's argument. For one thing, people can't help what they
enjoy,
> and it seems cold to apply standards of right and wrong to things
outside
> of people's control.
So if I understand correctly you are arguing that since people
can't help enjoying what they enjoy, there cannot be anything wrong
about it. Very Sadean. By the same token, then, there is nothing
wrong about kidnapping a child, a woman, raping them and torturing
them to death, since the torturer cannot help enjoying what he
enjoys. JPC
For another thing, I don't see any value in denying
> the existence of our atavistic responses.
>
Enjoying seeing a woman being "cut up" is not necessarily an
atavistic response. I assume that I am as atavistic as the next
fellow but it's something I never enjoyed. Must I consider myself
puratinistic or a hypocrite because I don't? Are you saying that men
have always enjoyed seeing women being cut up, so we might as well
admit it and enjoy ourselves? JPC
> Which is not to say that that pleasure should be labeled an
aesthetic
> response. I would like to argue that it shouldn't, even if it's
> difficult to make fine distinctions in this area. - Dan
Then again being an aesthetic response might somehow "redeem"
it... JPC
25126
From: MG4273@...
Date: Fri Apr 1, 2005 7:52pm
Subject: Re: Birth of a Nation (was: Gotchas) nzkpzq
Agree with people who write that "Birth of a Nation" was widely viewed as
racist in 1914. Jane Addams, the famed liberal social worker of Hull House, also
denounced the film. And there were endless attempts to censor it.
In general, both racist and anti-racist views have been often stated for 250
years. Books like Sir Walter Scott's "Ivanhoe" (1819) are profoundly
anti-racist. The French Enlightenment philosopher Condorcet wrote in the later 1700's
(don't have the exact quote) that everyone should be treated equal by society,
whatever their race, religion or sex. This is a very powerful idea. Both
racists and anti-racists in 1914 knew exactly what they were saying.
On Griffith: Have always found "Birth of a Nation" to be one of his poorest
works, artistically as well as politically. It has little of the artistry of
his great films. Only good scene: the homecoming of the little Colonel, greeted
by Mae Marsh. I know this film was historically important (its huge financial
success did much to found the American feature film industry, ie, Hollywood),
but artistically it seems poor. So does Griffith's other most racist film,
"Dream Street".
Griffith's great artistry is found in non-racist works as:
Intolerance
Way Down East
America
Isn't Life Wonderful
Mike Grost
25127
From: "Fred Patton"
Date: Sat Apr 2, 2005 1:33am
Subject: Re: Birth of a Nation (was: Gotchas) fred_patton
Would Broken Blossoms be considered anti-racist? It's been a while, but
I remember it striking me as being about and against racism. I found it
uneven but very interesting in parts. Even perversely commercial,
given his the weight of his influence historically.
Fred Patton
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> Griffith's great artistry is found in non-racist works as:
> Intolerance
> Way Down East
> America
> Isn't Life Wonderful
>
> Mike Grost
25128
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Sat Apr 2, 2005 1:53am
Subject: BIRTH jpcoursodon
I remember how Seymour Stern would fume against those people who
dropped the article in THE BIRTH OF A NATION. His rant occupied pages
of the memorable FILM CULTURE Spring-Summer 1965 issue.
JPC
25129
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat Apr 2, 2005 1:59am
Subject: Re: Re: Birth of a Nation (was: Gotchas) cellar47
--- Fred Patton wrote:
>
> Would Broken Blossoms be considered anti-racist?
> It's been a while, but
> I remember it striking me as being about and against
> racism. I found it
> uneven but very interesting in parts. Even
> perversely commercial,
> given his the weight of his influence historically.
>
Sort of.
Racism hinges on sexuality and Griffith makes certina
to underscore the fact that the Chinaman's love for
the girl is "pure."
Still, he's played by Richard Barthemess.
Meanwhile DeMille made considerable racial hay with
"The Cheat" with faithless wife Fannie Ward getting
branded by her gambler lover Sessue Hayakawa -- to the
delight of the surrealists.
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25130
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat Apr 2, 2005 2:01am
Subject: Re: BIRTH cellar47
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
> I remember how Seymour Stern would fume against
> those people who
> dropped the article in THE BIRTH OF A NATION. His
> rant occupied pages
> of the memorable FILM CULTURE Spring-Summer 1965
> issue.
>
Oh my goodness yes. Did you ever meet Seymour, J-P ?
What a character!
Did you know he personally painted in the yellow flame
that the Klansman holds aloft on each and every issue
of "Film Culture" himself.
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25131
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Sat Apr 2, 2005 2:01am
Subject: POST 503 Found! jpcoursodon
Maurice Burnan's legendary and mythical 1934 masterpiece "Post 503",
found a few years back in the attic of a Bratislava bordello that used
to be a movie house, has been reportedly restaured by several
cinematheques working in partnership and might soon be available for
viewing, even possibly on DVD!
I have fond memories of Burnan as I was a very young cinephile when I
invited him to a screening (it was 1953 or 54) of his famous 1925
Dadaist short "La tartine de cacao" in an evening of early avant garde
films that I organized in a suburban venue near Paris. He was very
gracious and regaled a small but attentive audience with wonderful
anecdotes... A year or two later Positif published the famous Thirard
article on Maurice Burnan that sort of lift this great cineaste from
oblivion.
JPC
25132
From: "Fred Patton"
Date: Sat Apr 2, 2005 2:23am
Subject: Re: Birth of a Nation (was: Gotchas) fred_patton
Absolutely true. I consciously glossed over the routine taboo side-
stepping practice of casting a white actor. Great pains were made to
emphasize the purity as you say, and I was caught up purely in the
virtuous aspect of it.
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> --- Fred Patton wrote:
> >
> > Would Broken Blossoms be considered anti-racist?
> > It's been a while, but
> > I remember it striking me as being about and against
> > racism. I found it
> > uneven but very interesting in parts. Even
> > perversely commercial,
> > given his the weight of his influence historically.
> >
>
> Sort of.
>
> Racism hinges on sexuality and Griffith makes certina
> to underscore the fact that the Chinaman's love for
> the girl is "pure."
>
> Still, he's played by Richard Barthemess.
>
> Meanwhile DeMille made considerable racial hay with
> "The Cheat" with faithless wife Fannie Ward getting
> branded by her gambler lover Sessue Hayakawa -- to the
> delight of the surrealists.
>
>
>
> __________________________________
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25133
From: "Richard Modiano"
Date: Sat Apr 2, 2005 2:40am
Subject: Re: BIRTH tharpa2002
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
"Oh my goodness yes. Did you ever meet Seymour, J-P ?
What a character!"
I was under the impression that Stern had progressive if not socialist
views based on his (self) interview in Film Culture. When I mentioned
his name in the halls of the Cinema Studies Dept. at NYU in the 1970s
it produced much eye-rolling. I was too intimidated to ask any
questions about him so I figured he must have been an obnoxious crank.
Was he that bad?
Richard
25134
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat Apr 2, 2005 3:04am
Subject: Re: Re: BIRTH cellar47
--- Richard Modiano wrote:
>
> I was under the impression that Stern had
> progressive if not socialist
> views based on his (self) interview in Film Culture.
> When I mentioned
> his name in the halls of the Cinema Studies Dept. at
> NYU in the 1970s
> it produced much eye-rolling. I was too intimidated
> to ask any
> questions about him so I figured he must have been
> an obnoxious crank.
> Was he that bad?
>
He was "a real piece of work," as the saying goes. As
I was a budding young critic back in the 60's I got
along with him quite well. But I'm sure my dealings
with Seymour would have been quite different were I
working on some faculty somewhere.
His political views were as eccentric as his cultural
ones.Nominally he was a socialsit. Yet he was in
thrall to Griffith.
He also, let us not forget, led the attack against
Upton Sinclair for abandoning Eisenstein's "Que Viva
Mexico" (Not allowing him to finish it) and turning
the rushes into guitar picks.
Since that time I've found out precisely WHY Sinclair
gave Sergei the heave-ho. Wish Seymour were still
around so I could discuss it with him.
Just recalled another name from my well-spent youth --
Kirk Bond.
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25135
From: "Jonathan Rosenbaum"
Date: Sat Apr 2, 2005 5:39am
Subject: Re: POST 503 Found! dreyertati
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
>
> Maurice Burnan's legendary and mythical 1934 masterpiece "Post 503",
> found a few years back in the attic of a Bratislava bordello that
used
> to be a movie house, has been reportedly restaured by several
> cinematheques working in partnership and might soon be available for
> viewing, even possibly on DVD!
Will You forgive me, J-P, for blowing your cover? Maurice Burnan is
one of Positif's classic Surrealist hoaxes--rivaled, if memory serves,
only by its essay on the cinema of Dubrovnia. I'm very sympathetic to
this enterprise, having in my college days invented the filmography
and biography of an American expatriate filmmaker in France named
Aaron Green. I used to occasionally drop references to him and his
work in pieces that I wrote for the Bard College newspaper, and was
gratified to hear people talk about him afterwards on a few occasions
as if he existed.
Jonathan
25136
From: "Matthew Clayfield"
Date: Sat Apr 2, 2005 5:55am
Subject: Re: POST 503 Found! mclayf00
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jonathan Rosenbaum"
wrote:
>
> I'm very sympathetic to
> this enterprise, having in my college days invented the filmography
> and biography of an American expatriate filmmaker in France named
> Aaron Green.
I think that's hilarious.
25137
From: "Noel Vera"
Date: Sat Apr 2, 2005 7:32am
Subject: Re: BIRTH noelbotevera
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> Since that time I've found out precisely WHY Sinclair
> gave Sergei the heave-ho. Wish Seymour were still
> around so I could discuss it with him.
Hokay, David, I'll bite--why did he abandon him, would the explanation
go beyond the official reason of cost overruns, and this isn't yet
another April Fool gag, is it?
25138
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sat Apr 2, 2005 8:02am
Subject: Re: Re: Violence and pleasure (Was: Powell/Pressburger + Feminist journals) sallitt1
> So if I understand correctly you are arguing that since people
> can't help enjoying what they enjoy, there cannot be anything wrong
> about it. Very Sadean. By the same token, then, there is nothing
> wrong about kidnapping a child, a woman, raping them and torturing
> them to death, since the torturer cannot help enjoying what he
> enjoys.
I'm not really into the concepts of right and wrong these days, but I
definitely hope that anyone who can stop themselves from kidnapping, etc.
will do so, and I support society's efforts to prevent kidnapping, etc.
I don't know if I want people who enjoy fictional things to renounce them.
I can't see that enjoying the fiction makes crime more likely, and I can't
tell whether avoiding fictional pleasures does the consumer any good or
harm.
> Enjoying seeing a woman being "cut up" is not necessarily an
> atavistic response. I assume that I am as atavistic as the next
> fellow but it's something I never enjoyed. Must I consider myself
> puratinistic or a hypocrite because I don't? Are you saying that men
> have always enjoyed seeing women being cut up, so we might as well
> admit it and enjoy ourselves?
Even if you think you are without violent impulse, I think that you can
look around the history of the world and see that people in general have
an enthusiastic, loving relationship with violence. I'm rather squeamish
about these things myself, but I can detect the signs that part of me has
a penchant for violence, and that another part of me is scared of this and
represses those feelings hard.
I'm happy that many of us feel that we haven't got violence in us,
because I interpret this as meaning that socialization can work. - Dan
25139
From: "Saul"
Date: Sat Apr 2, 2005 8:19am
Subject: Re: I Feel a List Coming On asitdid
Online Now Send IM
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Noel Vera" wrote:
> >Did someone here say "Last Tango in Paris"? I'd also love to
> > know what you found erotic about this – I loved the film – but I
> can't
> > quite see how some of the scenes are erotic, e.g.:
>
> > Paul: Get the fingernail scissors … I want you to cut the
> fingernails
> > on your right hand … these two … I want you to put your fingers up
> my ass.
>
> > Am I missing something????????????????????????????????????????
>
> If she doesn't clip her nails, she can furrow a heck of a
> hemmorrhoid up Paul's ass.
>
> There are people who find that erotic, believe you me.
Noel, I actually had this particular line in mind: the pig-fucking
vomit-eating fantasy:
Paul: I'm going to get a pig … and I'm going to have the pig fuck you
… and I want the pig to vomit in your face … and I want you to swallow
the vomit … you going to do that for me?
25140
From: "Matthew Clayfield"
Date: Sat Apr 2, 2005 9:39am
Subject: Re: I Feel a List Coming On mclayf00
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Saul" wrote:
>
> Noel, I actually had this particular line in mind: the pig-fucking
> vomit-eating fantasy...
It's the re-abjectification of the body that's erotic.
From 'Punch-Drunk Love':
Barry: I'm lookin' at your face and I just wanna smash it. I just
wanna fuckin' smash it with a sledgehammer and squeeze it. You're so
pretty.
Lena: I want to chew your face, and I want to scoop out your eyes and
I want to eat them and chew them and suck on them.
(beat)
Barry: Okay. This is funny. This is nice.
25141
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Sat Apr 2, 2005 0:57pm
Subject: Re: Violence and pleasure (Was: Powell/Pressburger + Feminist journals) hotlove666
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > When we're talking about killing, that's called the insanity
defense.
> > Re: looking, I'm not sure what to call it.
>
> Don't you believe in the insanity defense? - Dan
I don't believe in capital punishment period. I was thumbing thru
Psychopathia Sexualis tonight reading the cases of Lustmurder. Kraft-
Ebbing says that a doctor who proved to the court that a messed-up
youth who raped and/or eviscerated a 12-yr-old was mentally incompetent
had "saved the honor" of the nation by convincing the judge that he
should be in an asylum instead of strung up. That would be from the
early days of the insanity defense - it reminded me that there was a
time when the honor of a nation could be saved by not executing someone!
25142
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Sat Apr 2, 2005 1:00pm
Subject: Re: Patriarchy (Was: Powell/Pressburger) hotlove666
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> I come from an Arabic immigrant family, and I'm often struck by how
much
> more important and powerful women are in American Anglo-Saxon or
> Scandinavian cultures than they are in the one I grew up in
Actually, I thought it was division-of-labor in Arab households - the
husband rules outside the house, the wife rules inside the house. Wrong?
25143
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Sat Apr 2, 2005 1:11pm
Subject: Re: POST 503 Found! hotlove666
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Matthew Clayfield"
wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jonathan Rosenbaum"
> wrote:
> >
> > I'm very sympathetic to
> > this enterprise, having in my college days invented the filmography
> > and biography of an American expatriate filmmaker in France named
> > Aaron Green.
>
> I think that's hilarious.
Well, JP did say legendary AND mythical.
25144
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Sat Apr 2, 2005 1:29pm
Subject: Sin City hotlove666
Speaking of violence!
I liked it - thought it was better than Pulp Fiction, although just
as lumpy structurally. And I wasn't bothered by the idea of copying a
comic the way I am with Spiderman, maybe because Rodriguez is
presenting it as a collaboration. Anyway, I never liked b&w graphic
novels, so I guess this one enabled me to appreciate a vision - Frank
Miller's - that I would otherwise never have bothered with (although
I love DK2, which is in color - and how!). It was nice to see Eisner
(Will) et al being thanked at the end. A true fanboy venture.
Rodriguez claims that he is really a kiddy film director who made
violent films to establish himself. Actually, this is his first
violent film since El Mariachi that I've liked - perhaps because of
the borrowed vision, which is not at all "Rodriguezian." I'm looking
forward to The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3-D.
When I came out of the 7 o'clock show at the Vista, the next show was
sold out. Looks like the Weinsteins are going out on a hit.
By the way, who is Carina Chocano, the "Times Staff Writer" who
penned the LA Times pan?
25145
From: "Saul"
Date: Sat Apr 2, 2005 1:51pm
Subject: Re: POST 503 Found! asitdid
Online Now Send IM
I've sometimes considered writing reviews of 'lost films' (aka:
made-up films) that I 'found' somewhere in an Australian film archive
(which would be quite believable seeing as so many movies considered
lost have turned up here due to Australia being, in the past, and
sometimes in the present, last on the shipping route for distributed
prints). JP, was there ever a plot outline for "Post 503" or any other
info concerning this film? I haven't read or seen the Positif article
mentioned. Jonathan: is Aaron Green's biography/filmography available
anywhere? I'd love to be able to mention/reference these filmmakers
and film in future reviews/articles/etc....
25146
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat Apr 2, 2005 2:10pm
Subject: Re: Re: BIRTH cellar47
--- Noel Vera wrote:
>
> Hokay, David, I'll bite--why did he abandon him,
> would the explanation
> go beyond the official reason of cost overruns, and
> this isn't yet
> another April Fool gag, is it?
>
>
No it's not an April Fool's gag. Sinclair sent his
brother-in-law, Hunter Kimbrough, to check up on what
Eisenstein was doing. He was horrified to discover a
cache of homoerotic drawings Eisenstein had made. That
plus the considerable attention Sergei was paying
toward Mexican youths became the proverbial last
straw. There was a book that came out a number of
years back entitled "The making and Unmaking of Que
Viva Mexico" that desalt with all of this. It
consisted largely of the letters Sinclair and
Eisenstein exchanged, plus letters from Kimbrough and
others covering the many years the project came and
went.
I've often thought it had the makings of a fascinating
movie in and of itself.
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25147
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat Apr 2, 2005 2:15pm
Subject: Re: Sin City cellar47
--- hotlove666 wrote:
>
> By the way, who is Carina Chocano, the "Times Staff
> Writer" who
> penned the LA Times pan?
>
>
She's someone who has been on staff there for some
time. She got the job because they were too cheap
tohire someone new after Mahnola left for the NYT.
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25148
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Sat Apr 2, 2005 2:17pm
Subject: Re: POST 503 Found! jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666" wrote:
.
>
> Well, JP did say legendary AND mythical.
"Mythical" was indeed the not-so-well-hidden clue -- something like
the Purloined Letter... I wish Jonathan had waited a couple of days to
blow my cover, though.
The original Burnan article by Pierre-Louis Thirard appeared in
POSITIF #13 (March-April 1955). The next issue included responses by
several people who had known Burnan well, including screenwriter Jean
Ferry and film historian (and ex-surrealist turned Stalinist) George
Sadoul, who wrote a fascinating account titled "On Burnan's Tracks."
Boris Vian also sent in a letter (signed: Trt Satrape B.V. Promoteur
Insigne de l'Ordre de la Grande Gidouille du College de Pataphysique)
in which he praised Burnan for not directing A STAR IS BORN (which he -
- Vian -- considered "une enorme merdre"). Also included was a poem by
Burnan from a 1927 collection of his poetry (illustrated by de
Chirico) believed to have been entirely destroyed by Burnan in
1932.... POSITIF #200 published another Burnan poem, "Nostalgie"
mourning the evolution of both Positif and Cahiers ("Aujourd'hui les
revues sont tristes...")... Finally, POSITIF #381 (november 1992)
published Burnan's Obituary, revealing that he was Capra's advisor for
the French segments of "Why We Fight" and later did some uncredited
rewriting work on Bresson's "L'Argent" and Garrel's "J'entends plus la
guitare." He had given up directing for health reasons after 1954.
JPC
25149
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Sat Apr 2, 2005 2:29pm
Subject: Re: POST 503 Found! jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Saul" wrote:
>
>
> I've sometimes considered writing reviews of 'lost films' (aka:
> made-up films) that I 'found' somewhere in an Australian film archive
> (which would be quite believable seeing as so many movies considered
> lost have turned up here due to Australia being, in the past, and
> sometimes in the present, last on the shipping route for distributed
> prints). JP, was there ever a plot outline for "Post 503" or any
other
> info concerning this film? I haven't read or seen the Positif article
> mentioned. Jonathan: is Aaron Green's biography/filmography available
> anywhere? I'd love to be able to mention/reference these filmmakers
> and film in future reviews/articles/etc....
"POST 503" was described by Thirard as "a wonderful love story set in
the North African desert, a modern Romeo and Juliet, majestically
photographed by Rudolph Mate." He praised the acting of Pierre
Brasseur, Robert Campi, and Nikita Bottine (on whom I had a crush as a
teenager) as the fortune teller. Henri Jeanson co-scripted with
Burnan. However the filmography cites Jean-Marie Cerure as
Screenwriter (and Burnan/Jeanson as adaptors) whereas Thirard's
article mentions the obscur Henri Fouquie as the author of the
original screenplay. It is not clear at this time whether the
restauration will bring light to this thorny filmographic conundrum.
JPC
25150
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sat Apr 2, 2005 3:32pm
Subject: Re: Re: Violence and pleasure (Was: Powell/Pressburger + Feminist journals) sallitt1
> I don't believe in capital punishment period.
Neither do I. But I'm okay with the idea of disposing of criminals in
different ways according to an appraisal of their ability to comply with
the law. - Dan
25151
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sat Apr 2, 2005 3:36pm
Subject: Re: Re: Patriarchy (Was: Powell/Pressburger) sallitt1
> Actually, I thought it was division-of-labor in Arab households - the
> husband rules outside the house, the wife rules inside the house.
That's absolutely not my impression, but I don't mean to claim
jurisdiction on this. - Dan
25152
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sat Apr 2, 2005 6:40pm
Subject: Re: Re: I Feel a List Coming On sallitt1
For me, any list of memorable erotic moments in cinema would shade quickly
into areas that have nothing to do with cinema craft or art. But here are
a few scenes that I don't think have been mentioned yet, where direction
plays a role in creating the frisson.
1) There's a remarkable moment in Cukor's CAMILLE, during the early part
of the Armand-Marguerite romance, after Robert Taylor sinks to his knees
and says, "I can't leave," where Garbo impulsively covers Taylor's face
with small, rapid kisses. For that brief moment, I have the feeling that
censorship has been thrown away, and that the actors are going to do
something forbidden before they regain control of themselves. It's also
moving that Garbo, usually too self-contained to convey sex, suddenly
shifts into a gear where it's very easy to imagine having sex with her.
2) Someone mentioned Dorothy Malone, but no one has recalled that
startling scene in BATTLE CRY where she undresses in an armchair. One
feels as if one has seen her naked.
3) Staying with Raoul Walsh, there's a peculiar moment in GUN FURY where
bad guy Philip Carey pushes or pulls kidnapped fiancee Donna Reed to make
her leave a room along with the outlaw gang. Reed's demeanor and
expression, and the casual attitude of possession, somehow manages to
convey what Hollywood is forbidden to convey in such stories, that Reed
has been used sexually by her captors. (There might be some story context
that supports this interpretation. I think we saw Carey advance on Reed
in a preceding scene.)
4) As I have introduced the theme of power imbalance, there's that uncanny
scene in JAMAICA INN where Laughton binds and gags Maureen O'Hara. As
Truffaut observed in the Hitchcock interview, the situation seems to
connect to the inner submissive in O'Hara's character.
5) Continuing with fetishism: in one of Jane Campion's short films - A
GIRL'S OWN STORY, probably still her most accomplished work - a young
brother and sister play provocative, infantile games that will eventually
lead to a bad place. Trying to convince the truculent brother to play,
the sister imitates a cat, meowing and rubbing her face against her
brother's knee. Totally unnerving.
6) Tobe Hooper's THE FUNHOUSE follows a fairly standard teen-horror story,
with protagonist Elizabeth Berridge and her friend going on a double-date
in the eponymous structure. Hooper sticks to the sex-before-violence
rhythm of the genre, but he pulls a tiny variation: good girl ("final
girl"? Am I using that correctly?) Berridge is casually undressed during
the communal necking, and the camera finds her with her breasts uncovered.
In an unobtrusive way, Hooper is blurring a well-established psychological
boundary, and it feels a bit wanton. (Something similar might happen in
Lynch's FIRE WALK WITH ME - but I can't remember it well enough to say for
sure.)
7) On the theme of nudity enhanced by formal play: in Rudolph's WELCOME TO
L.A., Keith Carradine and Geraldine Chaplin are in Chaplin's apartment,
about to consummate their eccentric courtship. On a closeup of
Carradine's face, we hear some noises, then hear Chaplin say, "I'm naked
now." Staying on Carradine makes us think that the nudity will be elided
- but then we cut to a sustained shot of Chaplin's full frontal nudity,
even more surprising because of the formal sleight-of-hand.
That's all for me, Chance. - Dan
25153
From: "Robert Keser"
Date: Sat Apr 2, 2005 7:34pm
Subject: Re: I Feel a List Coming On rfkeser
Dan Sallitt wrote:
"1) There's a remarkable moment in Cukor's CAMILLE, during the early
part of the Armand-Marguerite romance, after Robert Taylor sinks to
his knees and says, "I can't leave," where Garbo impulsively covers
Taylor's face with small, rapid kisses. For that brief moment, I
have the feeling that censorship has been thrown away, and that the
actors are going to do something forbidden before they regain
control of themselves. It's also
moving that Garbo, usually too self-contained to convey sex,
suddenly shifts into a gear where it's very easy to imagine having
sex with her."
That's very interesting because I was going to mention the very
*next* moment in CAMILLE, when Garbo gives him the key with
instructions to let himself back in after the party breaks up. They
have now locked into their mutual attraction and have started to
build their clandestine liaison that will be hidden from the other
partygoers but they know will be fulfilled physically in private.
All this plays out in the shadows in her boudoir filled with
gleaming objects and flounces and mirrors. Seems erotic to me!
--Robert Keser
25154
From: Matt Teichman
Date: Sat Apr 2, 2005 7:35pm
Subject: Re: Gotchas bufordrat
hotlove666 wrote:
>Actually, it was perceived as racist by progressives, black and white, at the time -
>how could it not be? There were protests even then. They probably felt like gotchas
>to Griffith, but he was living in another century.
>
>
Precisely my point. Griffith didn't seem to think of the film as a
commercial for racism, and neither did his admirers. Accusing someone
of playing "gotcha" strikes me as a feeble complaint, because it's one
that Griffith could have used against his detractors, and, needless to
say, it wouldn't have carried any weight.
On another note, I thought your defense of _Shallow Hal_ on the basis of
those dislocating moments was quite strong. In a way, one could argue
that the Farrellys' obsession with prosthetics (easily the most
interesting thing about their films, from the elastic tongue in _Dumb
and Dumber_ to the zipped scrotum in _There's Something About Mary_) is
a kind of understated satire of the tendency in commercial filmmaking to
exploit (in the pejorative sense) actors' physical idiosyncracies. Here
I think of Philip Kwok, who adamantly forbade the directors he worked
with to make reference to his missing fingers. Still, the moments you
mention seem to me more like undercurrents that run against what the
film is more generally up to--not quite enough to "save" it. But I will
admit that there is room for disagreement here.
-Matt
25155
From: Matt Teichman
Date: Sat Apr 2, 2005 7:44pm
Subject: Re: Gotchas bufordrat
Hadrian wrote:
>However, that does mean for Matt to prove his point about Shallow Hal is not a
>"gotcha", he would have to prove that the SURFACE meaning of Shallow Hal is
>unacceptable.
>
Actually, I think "beauty is shallow, what's inside is what counts" is
worse than unacceptable--it's a meaningless slogan that apologists for
beauty culture repeat to themselves to justify the violence they
continue to inflict.
-Matt
25156
From: Matt Teichman
Date: Sat Apr 2, 2005 7:49pm
Subject: Re: Violence and pleasure (Was: Powell/Pressburger + Feminist journals) bufordrat
jpcoursodon wrote:
> So if I understand correctly you are arguing that since people
>can't help enjoying what they enjoy, there cannot be anything wrong
>about it. Very Sadean. By the same token, then, there is nothing
>wrong about kidnapping a child, a woman, raping them and torturing
>them to death, since the torturer cannot help enjoying what he
>enjoys. JPC
>
>
Let me get this straight--saying that it's okay to enjoy a film of
someone pouring raspberry juice on herself and pretending to die amounts
to saying that it's okay to kidnap children and torture them? Are you
serious?
-Matt
25157
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Sat Apr 2, 2005 8:04pm
Subject: Re: Violence and pleasure (Was: Powell/Pressburger + Feminist journals) jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Matt Teichman wrote:
> jpcoursodon wrote:
>
> > So if I understand correctly you are arguing that since people
> >can't help enjoying what they enjoy, there cannot be anything wrong
> >about it. Very Sadean. By the same token, then, there is nothing
> >wrong about kidnapping a child, a woman, raping them and torturing
> >them to death, since the torturer cannot help enjoying what he
> >enjoys. JPC
> >
> >
> Let me get this straight--saying that it's okay to enjoy a film of
> someone pouring raspberry juice on herself and pretending to die
amounts
> to saying that it's okay to kidnap children and torture them? Are
you
> serious?
>
> -Matt
Are YOU serious?
You are saying that since the rape, torture etc... are "fake" it's
perfectly normal and right to enjoy them?
What is enjoyable about torture and rape, whether fake or real?
Shouldn't the person who "enjoys" them at least examine the reasons
of such enjoyment? Rather than proudly proclaiming that
there's "nothing wrong" about it.
JPC
25158
From: Matt Teichman
Date: Sat Apr 2, 2005 10:18pm
Subject: Re: Violence and pleasure (Was: Powell/Pressburger + Feminist journals) bufordrat
jpcoursodon wrote:
>> <>
>
> Are YOU serious?
>
> You are saying that since the rape, torture etc... are "fake" it's
>perfectly normal and right to enjoy them?
>
> What is enjoyable about torture and rape, whether fake or real?
>
>
You speak as if we're talking about one single thing, "rape," that comes
in two varieties: fake and real. I call that equivocating (e.g. the
kind of reasoning behind inferences like "Sharp things can cut wood,
Mark's singing is sharp, therefore Mark's singing can cut wood"). To
insinuate that what happens when one person rapes another is in any way
synonymous with what happens when two actors simulate rape for a film is
to deliver the experience of rape victims a profound insult.
As for our reasons for deriving pleasure from things, I think it's silly
to suppose we have much of a grip on why we enjoy anything. Who knows
what's enjoyable about the taste of veal, or the sound of a waterfall,
or the elasticity of a buttock, or the look of 7245? Surely different
things are enjoyable to different people, but it's difficult to see how
the attempt to taxonomize the human population into clear and distinct
subclasses on the basis of what they enjoy can be anything but oppressive.
-Matt
25159
From: "Fred Patton"
Date: Sat Apr 2, 2005 10:29pm
Subject: Re: Violence and pleasure (Was: Powell/Pressburger + Feminist journals) fred_patton
I agree that the enjoyment of depicted torture and rape is
questionable. And I have lots of questions. The word enjoyment itself
sounds slippery. Is one titilated? Pleasantly horrified? Absolutely
riveted and aghast? Steadfastly confronting what is regarded as horror?
Is the appreciation rather in the merits of it's performance, like
appreciating a scene from a ballet? "Yes, his actions were dispicable,
but my did he have style!" Is the key based on whether one identifies
with the assualter or assaulted? Can the fabrication of rape and
torture be therapeutic or cathartic? And to make a crazed leap, would
child pornography be okay if it were simulated or even animated? IF we
can say that they are both wrong, it would seem to me that
the "depiction" of murder is on a different level than the "depiction"
of rape, which in turn are on a different level than the "depiction"
(if we take the simulated or animated case) of sexually abusing
children. But the way of depicting the act itself spans a wide ranging
gray. Is it gratuitously graphic? Largely suggestive? It seems a
slippery slope is involved, and I wonder if and where a line should be
drawn.
And as for Matt Teichman's comment:
"Actually, I think "beauty is shallow, what's inside is what counts" is
worse than unacceptable--it's a meaningless slogan that apologists for
beauty culture repeat to themselves to justify the violence they
continue to inflict."
I happen to agree completely in general, but I only saw bits and pieces
of this film. Did it really advocate or seek change, not that it has
to? Doesn't the fact of a body double forefeit the gesture? Why does
his finding beauty in her HAVE to correspond to shallow physical
delusions? Why does the pretty character's ugly personality have to be
transformed into an ugly actress? Doesn't this not undercut the moral
compaign if there is one? There's also the film "Dog Fight" which, I
don't remember that well, and where the ugliest girl is sought out, but
then her other qualities come into play--no body doubles. Seemed more
real. And as for, "Real Woman Have Curves", it seemed to be advocating
change (mindset/behavior/comfort/self-esteem), not that it choose
extreme examples. But I THINK that Shallow Hal was meant as fun
entertainment, treating it's advocates like freaks for entertainment
value. I think of Matt Dillon's "goofy bastards" remark in SOMETHING
ABOUT MARY--it's a film having as much fun with it's subjects than
advocating for them. Imagine if THE HOUSE IS BLACK followed this
strategy... But SHALLOW HAL it IS a comedy after all... and it IS
shallow.
Fred Patton
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon" >
You are saying that since the rape, torture etc... are "fake" it's
> perfectly normal and right to enjoy them?
>
> What is enjoyable about torture and rape, whether fake or real?
>
> Shouldn't the person who "enjoys" them at least examine the reasons
> of such enjoyment? Rather than proudly proclaiming that
> there's "nothing wrong" about it.
>
> JPC
25160
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Sat Apr 2, 2005 11:08pm
Subject: Re: Violence and pleasure (Was: Powell/Pressburger + Feminist journals) jpcoursodon
I think you are the one who is equivocating.I didn't say that "fake"
and "real" are the same thing. But I assume (I have to assume) that
you find real rape, real torture abhorrent. Then why would you enjoy
the depiction of it just because it is "fake"? Isn't there something a
little bit troubling there? isn't it worth some probing on the part of
the enjoyer? JPC
Who knows
> what's enjoyable about the taste of veal, or the sound of a
waterfall,
> or the elasticity of a buttock, or the look of 7245?
Enjoying the spectacle (fake, I grant you) of a woman being
tortured is quite different from enjoying the taste of veal, and
pretending they're basically the same thing and equally unexplainable
is more than a bit disingenuous. Moreover people on this Group
including you and I spend a lot of time explaining why we enjoy (or
don't enjoy) cinematic representations -- that's pretty much what
criticism is all about. JPC
Surely different
> things are enjoyable to different people, but it's difficult to see
how
> the attempt to taxonomize the human population into clear and
distinct
> subclasses on the basis of what they enjoy can be anything but
oppressive.
>
Who is attempting to taxonomize the human population into
subclasses? Certainly not me. I'm just saying that if you enjoy seeing
women tortured in movies you might ask yourself why it is so
pleasurable to you. Just like life, taste shouldn't remain unexamined.
JPC
25161
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Sat Apr 2, 2005 11:14pm
Subject: Violence and Pleasure jpcoursodon
Very good points raised by Fred Patton. Of course the nature of
the "pleasure" has to be probed.
25162
From: MG4273@...
Date: Sat Apr 2, 2005 7:06pm
Subject: Re: The Birth of a Nation (was: Gotchas) nzkpzq
In a message dated 05-04-02 14:36:31 EST, Matt Teichman writes:
<< Griffith didn't seem to think of "The Birth of a Nation" as a commercial
for racism, and neither did his admirers. >>
At the risk of beating this to death, Griffith seems to have regarded "The
Birth of a Nation" as a depiction of one version of Southern history. It goes:
"After the War Between the States, evil, subhuman, black savages ran rampant,
till they were controlled by the Ku Klux Klan and other noble white
supremicists". Griffith certainly believed this to be a true account of history. So
perhaps did the majority of white Southerners of his era - and many whites in the
North, too. This version of history has been thoroughly discredited by
historians, today.
If this version of history is not racist, what is? Admittedly, racism is a
broader thesis than this - "The Birth of a Nation" says nothing about Asians or
Jews, two other major targets of racism. Still, the core thesis of "The Birth
of a Nation" seems essentially and explicitly racist.
I fear I am OT - none of this has to do with visual style, or the artistry
Giffith displayed in his great films such as "Way Down East" or "Isn't Life
Wonderful". But one might point out that those films also have their political and
social points of view - feminist, in favor of sensitive rather than macho men
and in defense of unwed mothers in "Way Down East"; a concern for poor
working people and their sufferings in "Isn't Life Wonderful". In all three films,
Griffith's points of view come over loud and clear. He is a political filmmaker
of great dynamism and vividness, whose ideas are always expressed with
overwhelmingly clarity and lack of ambiguity to the audience. I happen to agree with
the ideas in "Way Down East" or "Isn't Life Wonderful", and disagree with the
racist history in "The Birth of a Nation".
Mike Grost
25163
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 2:44pm
Subject: Re: Violence and pleasure (Was: Powell/Pressburger + Feminist journals) hotlove666
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Fred Patton"
wrote:
> I happen to agree completely in general, but I only saw bits and
pieces
> of this film.
I'd need to know which pieces you saw to know what I'm defending.
Did it really advocate or seek change, not that it has
> to? Doesn't the fact of a body double forefeit the gesture?
Why does the pretty character's ugly personality have to be
> transformed into an ugly actress? Doesn't this not undercut the
moral
> compaign if there is one?
That's a gotcha.
But I THINK that Shallow Hal was meant as fun
> entertainment, treating it's advocates like freaks for
entertainment
> value. I think of Matt Dillon's "goofy bastards" remark in
SOMETHING
> ABOUT MARY--it's a film having as much fun with it's subjects than
> advocating for them.
Peter Farrelly is the guardian to a mentally challenged man - has
been for 10 years. A childhood friend of the brothers who is mentally
challenged appears in all their films, including Mary. He has had a
lot to do with raising their consciousness about the issue. Peter
Farrelly is making a documentary about a mentally challenged man
named Rocket Valiere who is their neighbor on Martha's Vineyard. He
plays an important part in Stuck on You and takes over the film
during the end credits. They just produced a film about the Special
Olympics with the (rare) cooperation of that organization - a comedy
with a message and leading roles for three mentally challenged
Olympians, as well as extra roles for 150 more. They regularly use
non-standard people in their movies (the spina bifida guy in Shallow
Hal is another friend) because they are against the politics of the
norm - that's also why they made Shallow Hal. It could be called a
major sub-theme of their films.
Imagine if THE HOUSE IS BLACK followed this
> strategy...
Indeed...
>But Shallow Hal is a comedy after all, and it IS shallow.
See the whole thing before saying that.
25164
From: "Hadrian"
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 2:44pm
Subject: Re: Gotchas habelove
> Actually, I think "beauty is shallow, what's inside is what counts" is
> worse than unacceptable--it's a meaningless slogan that apologists for
> beauty culture repeat to themselves to justify the violence they
> continue to inflict.
>
> -Matt
1) "beauty is shallow". It's not meaningless, it's simplistic. A simplistic meaning.
2) Even if it was meaningless....Meaninglessness is worse than unacceptable? More
offensive? How is that so? I would think meaninglessness would be relatively
harmless. More harmless than what you implied in your criticism, which was that
the films meanings were actually harmful. I suppose an argument could be made
that meaninglessness is worse than unacceptability, but that's an awfully high
moral standard.
3) When do apologists for beauty culture repeat the slogan "beauty is shallow"?
That would seem to be the opposite of an apology, and he opposite of what beauty
culture actually says, which is "beauty is important". An apology would be "beauty is
pleasure and pleasure is the only good we have" or "beauty is representative of the
holy, and therefore good", or even simply as many movies constantly imply "beauty
is good, ugliness is evil." This is not Shallow Hal.
Hadrian
The second havlfe
25165
From: "Hadrian"
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 2:44pm
Subject: Re: Violence and pleasure (Was: Powell/Pressburger + Feminist journals) habelove
> You are saying that since the rape, torture etc... are "fake" it's
> perfectly normal and right to enjoy them?
>
> What is enjoyable about torture and rape, whether fake or real?
>
> Shouldn't the person who "enjoys" them at least examine the reasons
> of such enjoyment? Rather than proudly proclaiming that
> there's "nothing wrong" about it.
>
> JPC
Perhaps one could enjoy the discomfort of not enjoying them. Or the spectacle of
seeing something they shouldn't see. Or the cathartic release of the tensions
caused by their internal fears (they saw and survived!). Or just feeling feels good.
Why do people enjoy rollercoasters? And jumping out of airplanes? And I like a
movie that takes me through the ringer..Even if you don't personally enjoy it, these
feelings are not unusual or exceptional, so I don't think one needs to assume there
IS something wrong with it.
Interestingly, Quentin Tarantino compared the relationship of the filmmaker to the
audience as that of an S to an M, in an S & M relationship. In which case, subjecting
yourself to these feelings at the hands of the director is a control issue, each of us
with our own safety zone...and some people really don't like the idea of being
spanked at all. Then the idea of Hitchcock as a sadist certainly comes to mind. This
is all probably a subject for another thread.
Hadrain
25166
From: MG4273@...
Date: Sat Apr 2, 2005 9:45pm
Subject: The Golden Coach (Jean Renoir) nzkpzq
Just a very brief note: just saw "The Golden Coach" (Jean Renoir) on DVD. It
is so beautiful, that I applauded and yelled Bravo in my own living room.
Years ago, saw "Paris Does Strange Things" with my Mother one afternoon. It
was shown on Canadian TV. Was similarly quite overwhelmed by the film's beauty
and joy.
Mike Grost
25167
From: "Hadrian"
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 2:44pm
Subject: Re: Violence and pleasure (Was: Powell/Pressburger + Feminist journals) habelove
> Why does
> his finding beauty in her HAVE to correspond to shallow physical
> delusions?
Because that's how Shallow Hal --the stand-in for the average audience member,
who the Farrelly Brothers see as shallow-- sees the world. Milton Erickson, the
most powerful manipulative therapist of the 20th century, the father of
hypnotherapy (and the unintentional father of NLP, etc.), was extremely successful
in changing peoples behavior --curing phobias, getting someone to dress better,
etc. The core of his technique, was always to agree with the patient, and never to
argue with them. And then lead them down the path of their own beliefs to a new
place. Pace and lead.
> Why does the pretty character's ugly personality have to be
> transformed into an ugly actress? Doesn't this not undercut the moral
> compaign if there is one?
Now we're onto an interesting question. It's certainly a SUBTLE point, which is why
this whole issue is a gotcha. to say their point is "undercut" is to say they misplayed
their hand, and reversed the meaning of the film --which is something that I think
can be argued. But it's NOT the same as an explicitly endorsing an unacceptable
view. It is the definition of a trained critical eye coming to an unexplicit conclusion.
That's why I think this is similar to the Renoir "you can't make an anti-war movie
with war in it" remark. You're basically saying you can't make an anti-shallowness
movie, while indulging in the audiences responses to ugliness. Which might be
valid. I'll have to think about it.
>I think of Matt Dillon's "goofy bastards" remark in SOMETHING
> ABOUT MARY--it's a film having as much fun with it's subjects than
> advocating for them.
The "goofy bastards" remark is clearly an exaggerated remark meant to be more a
mockery of Matt Dillon's character, who is portrayed in a negative light consistently
throughout the film. This is mistaking a joke making fun of racism, for racism.
> > JPC
25168
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Sun Apr 3, 2005 3:38am
Subject: Re: Violence and pleasure (Was: Powell/Pressburger + Feminist journals) jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Hadrian" wrote:
This
> is all probably a subject for another thread.
>
> Hadrain
It is. Why not change the subject title?
25169
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Sun Apr 3, 2005 3:41am
Subject: Re: Violence and pleasure (Was: Powell/Pressburger + Feminist journals) jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Hadrian" wrote:
>
>
>
> > Why does
> > his finding beauty in her HAVE to correspond to shallow physical
> > delusions?
>
> Because that's how Shallow Hal --the stand-in for the average
audience member,
> who the Farrelly Brothers see as shallow-- sees the world. Milton
Erickson, the
> most powerful manipulative therapist of the 20th century, the
father of
> hypnotherapy (and the unintentional father of NLP, etc.), was
extremely successful
> in changing peoples behavior --curing phobias, getting someone to
dress better,
> etc. The core of his technique, was always to agree with the
patient, and never to
> argue with them. And then lead them down the path of their own
beliefs to a new
> place. Pace and lead.
>
> > Why does the pretty character's ugly personality have to be
> > transformed into an ugly actress? Doesn't this not undercut the
moral
> > compaign if there is one?
>
> Now we're onto an interesting question. It's certainly a SUBTLE
point, which is why
> this whole issue is a gotcha. to say their point is "undercut" is
to say they misplayed
> their hand, and reversed the meaning of the film --which is
something that I think
> can be argued. But it's NOT the same as an explicitly endorsing an
unacceptable
> view. It is the definition of a trained critical eye coming to an
unexplicit conclusion.
>
> That's why I think this is similar to the Renoir "you can't make
an anti-war movie
> with war in it" remark. You're basically saying you can't make an
anti-shallowness
> movie, while indulging in the audiences responses to ugliness.
Which might be
> valid. I'll have to think about it.
>
> >I think of Matt Dillon's "goofy bastards" remark in SOMETHING
> > ABOUT MARY--it's a film having as much fun with it's subjects
than
> > advocating for them.
>
> The "goofy bastards" remark is clearly an exaggerated remark meant
to be more a
> mockery of Matt Dillon's character, who is portrayed in a negative
light consistently
> throughout the film. This is mistaking a joke making fun of
racism, for racism.
>
>
> > > JPC
What are my initials doing in this thread to which I have not
contributed one iota as far as I can remember??? I don't even know
what you people are talking about (haven't seen the movies
discussed). JPC
25170
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Apr 3, 2005 3:59am
Subject: Re: Re: Gotchas cellar47
--- Hadrian wrote:
>
> 1) "beauty is shallow". It's not meaningless, it's
> simplistic. A simplistic meaning.
>
>
Sondheim in "Passion" (his musical version of Scola's
"Passione d'Amore") had a better maxim:
"Beauty is Power,
Longing a Disease."
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
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25171
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Apr 3, 2005 4:02am
Subject: Re: The Golden Coach (Jean Renoir) cellar47
--- MG4273@... wrote:
> Just a very brief note: just saw "The Golden Coach"
> (Jean Renoir) on DVD. It
> is so beautiful, that I applauded and yelled Bravo
> in my own living room.
> Years ago, saw "Paris Does Strange Things" with my
> Mother one afternoon. It
> was shown on Canadian TV. Was similarly quite
> overwhelmed by the film's beauty
> and joy.
>
>
Isn't it amazing? It's one of my very favorite
Renoirs. My favorite scene is the bullfight shown only
as a close-up of Anna Magnani reacting to it.
Obviously she ranks as the film's co-auteur.
Truffaut named his company "Les Films du Carosse"
after the film. And it's influence on Rivette is quite
obvious.
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
25172
From: "K. A. Westphal"
Date: Sun Apr 3, 2005 5:07am
Subject: Re: The Birth of a Nation (was: Gotchas) chelovek_s_k...
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
Griffith certainly believed this to be a true account of history. So
> perhaps did the majority of white Southerners of his era - and many
whites in the
> North, too. This version of history has been thoroughly discredited by
> historians, today.
> If this version of history is not racist, what is?
I may have mentioned this before, but when I was researching *THE*
BIRTH OF A NATION for a paper, I cross-checked Griffith's attitudes
with a history text from the late 1870s--Barne's Popular History of
the United States, published by A.S. Barnes in New York. About
Reconstruction:
"The effect of these various congressional measures [Amendment XIV]
was largely to exclude from office the better class of the Southern
people, and to throw the political power into the hands of an ignorant
population."
You can read that along either racial or socioeconomic lines if you wish.
I don't mean to be a Griffith apologist. His films are of obvious
interest, as Mike writes. There's no denying the racism, but in the
case of THE BIRTH OF A NATION, there's a lot more going on than
racism. The fear of miscegenation is the racial aspect of a more
general and inclusive conservative paranoia--which I'm not defending
either. Truth be told, THE BIRTH OF A NATION makes a lot more sense
politically after viewing ORPHANS OF THE STORM, what with its florid
equation of the French revolution with Bolshevism.
Griffith is so interesting rhetorically and I don't think it can be
divorced from his aesthetic. The intertitles suggest Griffith mounted
WAY DOWN EAST as a paen to monogamy. He fails supremely in that, but
it's glorious anyway, especially the sequence by the lake in the
middle of the film that proves, to me at least, how fine an artist
Griffith was when it came to realizing the archetypal; he fails only
when he applies ideals of beauty and righteous to specific cases.
But that suggests he's a poor thinker, able to conceive great images
(with Bitzer, granted) but unable to convey and understand the real
meaning there. Yet INTOLERANCE is infinitely more intellectually
complex and rigorous than Dreyer's homage, LEAVES FROM SATAN'S BOOKS.
It's the only instance I know of Dreyer being simplistic -- Satan
himself forces evil upon human beings because it is the way of the
world and part of his masochistic duel with God. Griffith may not be
coherent, but his tapestry of responsibility, love, and ego is so much
richer.
--Kyle Westphal
25173
From: "Fred Patton"
Date: Sun Apr 3, 2005 7:38am
Subject: Re: Violence and pleasure (Was: Powell/Pressburger + Feminist journals) fred_patton
I admit that I should see the whole film before attempting to dismiss
it. This will just explain better what are my difficulties with it's
humor. I've just had time to watch about a half-hour, but I have some
concrete examples. I've still got some premature conclusions, which
can be taken as just suspicions.
A woman co-worker, who seems to function as a moralizing mouth-piece,
says to Hal, "When are you going to get it? They're just well-formed
molecules. And by the way, her tits weren't even real."
Her tone evokes sour grapes, affirming that yes, she too realizes
that a nice pair is really advantageous. A little later in the
conversation, Hal says, "Am I supposed to apologize for having high
standards?"
The woman responds, "High standards? In the five years I've known
you, ever woman—I should say girl—that you've gone after has been
completely out of your league."
Now, we, the audience, know that Hal's equating high standards with
physical appearance is, well, shallow. This retort by his co-worker
that Hal's "out of his league" reinforces this system of measure, but
I'm nitpicking, here. And she could be said to be dressing him down
on his own terms.
Soon after Hal is "fixed," he flags down a cab that a woman was
already waiting for. She's unarguably beautiful Hollywood-wise. It's
slickly done, with the cab drivers intercut reactions supporting the
conceit. This actress' performance of playing the ugly duckling is
effective caricature to accentuate the seeming pathetic condition of
her actually being, well, ugly. Her overblown laugh about being
mistaken for a model made me think that the joke was on two levels.
In the club scene that follows where three beautiful women are
juxtaposed with a very overweight woman and two exaggeratedly made-
down women fuels my notion that this comedy's whole gag machine is
having fun at the expense of those poor unattractive people. It was
the excessiveness of the make-downs that made my pain all the more
acute. If it were just Hal's problem, that would be one thing. But
it's the way that the glamorously challenged are conducting
themselves, as well--the way that everyone seems to be in on the
joke. Rather paranoid, perhaps.
The laughs appear to all go in one direction, upon the looked-down-
upons. When the ugly, overweight or handicapped are shown in a great
light, it's as their antithesis, the physically alluring. And when
the beautiful are shown in the negative light, it's in the image of
those it is "advocating", or as I feel, having fun with. Shallow Hal
seems to reinforce the shallowness it critiques. At the same time of
all of this, there is such stellar, subtle dialogue and no lack of
style visually speaking. I can't criticize this work technically, and
SOMETHING ABOUT MARY was a riot. I just find myself uncomfortable
with the fact that the casualties of the rapid-fire jokes are those
that I feel I'm being prompted to see in a more "beautiful" light.
My issues are thus purely ideological and not cinematic. I find the
methods problematic. I don't know how well comedy can perform such
agency, anyway. And certainly, it doesn't have to. The approach seems
at cross-purposes, especially given filmmakers' background that I
didn't know about. Can the outcome of this morality tale overcome all
the laughs that accumulated throughout the film? We can laugh about
imperfections, and they've probably never been made funnier. On the
other hand, this kind of laughter has always been part of the pain
and self-consciousness.
Fred Patton
25174
From: "Fred Patton"
Date: Sun Apr 3, 2005 7:41am
Subject: Re: Violence and pleasure (Was: Powell/Pressburger + Feminist journals) fred_patton
The problem for me is that it's not just Hal's view; it's the point-
of-view of the film. Everyone seems in on the joke. The male co-
worker at the beginning of the movie lectures Hal about it's
shallowness, he is playing the classic straight-man as the gag
machine continues rolling. The bow-tie was a nice touch.
"Hadrian" wrote:
"to say their point is "undercut" is to say they misplayed their
hand, and reversed the meaning of the film --which is something that
I think
can be argued. But it's NOT the same as an explicitly endorsing an
unacceptable view."
Agreed.
"Hadrian" wrote:
"That's why I think this is similar to the Renoir "you can't make an
anti-war movie with war in it" remark. You're basically saying you
can't make an anti-shallowness movie, while indulging in the
audiences responses to ugliness. Which might be valid. I'll have to
think about it."
But I don't believe that one can't make an anti-shallowness movie. I
just don't believe that being shallow, mean or crass is the best
approach.
"Hadrian" wrote:
"The "goofy bastards" remark is clearly an exaggerated remark meant
to be more a mockery of Matt Dillon's character, who is portrayed in
a negative light consistently throughout the film. This is mistaking
a joke making fun of racism, for racism."
Yes, I agree that it's consistent with Dillon's characterization, but
the problem is that it is SO DAMN FUNNY! Everyone remembers this
line. In fact, I still can't get this line out of my head when I see
a handicapped person. This is no good, and perhaps I now need this
hypnotherapy. I was doing just fine BEFORE. I don't think the joke
was squarely on Matt Dillon—he said something that was so funny, and
you just had to laugh. But while his having the gall to say such a
thing is funny, the idea itself seems even more lastingly funny. Or
my sense of humor is too perverse to begin with, but really, I do
love those goofy bastards, especially the one I see in the mirror
each day.
Fred Patton
25175
From: "Noel Vera"
Date: Sun Apr 3, 2005 8:08am
Subject: Kubrick's archives noelbotevera
Anyone read this Guardian article before?
http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,4120,1177734,00.html
25176
From: "Noel Vera"
Date: Sun Apr 3, 2005 8:34am
Subject: Re: I Feel a List Coming On noelbotevera
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Saul" wrote:
> Noel, I actually had this particular line in mind: the pig-fucking
> vomit-eating fantasy:
>
> Paul: I'm going to get a pig … and I'm going to have the pig fuck you
> … and I want the pig to vomit in your face … and I want you to
swallow
> the vomit … you going to do that for me?
If, moments later, you have the trimmed fingers of a beautiful girl
rammed up your ass, any talk of pig vomit tends to feel irrelevant.
Plus, I'm not a fan of PTA or of Punch Drunk Love (which I do think is
PTA's best work to date), but Matthew has a point--lovers tend to
develop their own language, which to outsiders may have a strange,
even shocking, secret code.
25177
From: "Zach Campbell"
Date: Sun Apr 3, 2005 2:41pm
Subject: Vittorio De Seta (et al) rashomon82
As I'm sure many New Yorkers are aware, April is bringing the
esteemed Vittorio De Seta to Tribeca and MoMA. I've waited a long
time for a chance to see THE BANDITS OF ORGOSOLO, but I'm curious if
any list members know his Tribeca-playing second feature ALMOST A
MAN (1966), or the documentary playing about him (DETOUR DE SETA,
with Scorsese presenting "rare documentary shorts").
Also, as far as the Tribeca goes, I'm open to comments if anyone has
them about the programs. Here are the films I'm most interested in
seeing, lemme know if I'm on the right track (or wasting my time):
- The new James Benning film (13 LAKES)
- The new Caveh Zahedi film (I AM A SEX ADDICT)
- Omar Amiralay's two films, 1970's ESSAY ON THE EUPHRATES DAM (15m)
and FLOOD IN BAATH COUNTRY (46m)
New ones by Potter, Denis, Araki, and Winterbottom will/should be
released so I'll probably skip those.
--Zach
25178
From: "Matthew Clayfield"
Date: Sun Apr 3, 2005 2:50pm
Subject: Re: Vittorio De Seta (et al) mclayf00
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Zach Campbell" wrote:
>
> - The new James Benning film (13 LAKES)
As I've mentioned here before, after last year's Benning retrospective
at the Brisbane International Film Festival, I'd kill to catch "13
Lakes" or "Ten Skies".
25179
From: Matt Teichman
Date: Sun Apr 3, 2005 6:31pm
Subject: Re: Violence and pleasure (Was: Powell/Pressburger + Feminist journals) bufordrat
jpcoursodon wrote:
> I think you are the one who is equivocating.I didn't say that "fake"
>and "real" are the same thing. But I assume (I have to assume) that
>you find real rape, real torture abhorrent. Then why would you enjoy
>the depiction of it just because it is "fake"? Isn't there something a
>little bit troubling there? isn't it worth some probing on the part of
>the enjoyer? JPC
>
>
The degree of performative contradiction in the above passage makes it
difficult to find a response. If you really agree with me that there is
no basis for comparison between rape and simulated rape, then what you
ask makes about as much sense as "If you really believe violence is
abhorrent, then why would you enjoy seeing the sun rise?" If you don't
agree with me there, then we can boil our disagreement down to what I
wrote in my previous post.
> Enjoying the spectacle (fake, I grant you) of a woman being
>tortured is quite different from enjoying the taste of veal, and
>pretending they're basically the same thing and equally unexplainable
>is more than a bit disingenuous. Moreover people on this Group
>including you and I spend a lot of time explaining why we enjoy (or
>don't enjoy) cinematic representations -- that's pretty much what
>criticism is all about. JPC
>
>
While there certainly are differences between enjoying veal and enjoying
a film, I don't think they're all that relevant in this context (if you
want to argue that they are, I'm listening).
I believe I'm in agreement with the Group's statement of purpose when I
say that whenever we seek to come up with accounts of why we enjoy
films, it is mainly in order to bring out something about the films.
Not for the purposes of defining/marketing ourselves. Perhaps things
are different on a_film_by_OT.
> Who is attempting to taxonomize the human population into
>subclasses? Certainly not me. I'm just saying that if you enjoy seeing
>women tortured in movies you might ask yourself why it is so
>pleasurable to you. Just like life, taste shouldn't remain unexamined.
>JPC
>
>
Your line of questioning has precedent, and terrifying precedcent at
that. It is part of a tradition that locates identity in affective
response, and which gives certain responses the label "abberant," as
though there were a normative definition of "the human" lying outside
the bounds of cultural prejudice. It is the discourse, for example, of
the 50s psychiatrist who wants to view homosexuality as an abberation,
and sees it as the duty of medical science to correct it ("Maybe you
should ask yourself why you're attracted to boys...").
-Matt
25180
From: "Noel Vera"
Date: Sun Apr 3, 2005 6:33pm
Subject: Major Dundee noelbotevera
Hoberman on Peckinpah's train wreck (might need NYT registration to
see this):
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/03/movies/03hobe.html?
25181
From: Matt Teichman
Date: Sun Apr 3, 2005 6:40pm
Subject: Re: The Birth of a Nation (was: Gotchas) bufordrat
MG4273@... wrote:
>In a message dated 05-04-02 14:36:31 EST, Matt Teichman writes:
>
><< Griffith didn't seem to think of "The Birth of a Nation" as a commercial
>for racism, and neither did his admirers. >>
>At the risk of beating this to death, Griffith seems to have regarded "The
>Birth of a Nation" as a depiction of one version of Southern history. It goes:
>"After the War Between the States, evil, subhuman, black savages ran rampant,
>till they were controlled by the Ku Klux Klan and other noble white
>supremicists". Griffith certainly believed this to be a true account of history. So
>perhaps did the majority of white Southerners of his era - and many whites in the
>North, too. This version of history has been thoroughly discredited by
>historians, today.
>
>
Just to clarify: we are in agreement on all of the above. When I wrote
that Griffith didn't seem to think of his film as a commercial for
racism, I only mean that that isn't what he intended it to be. In other
words, only someone who notices the racism in a film is equipped to
describe it as "racist."
-Matt
25182
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Apr 3, 2005 6:45pm
Subject: Re: Re: The Birth of a Nation (was: Gotchas) cellar47
--- Matt Teichman wrote:
> >
> >
> Just to clarify: we are in agreement on all of the
> above. When I wrote
> that Griffith didn't seem to think of his film as a
> commercial for
> racism, I only mean that that isn't what he intended
> it to be.
And for the life of me I can't see it as being
intended as anything else!
Does everyone recall how the film ends?
__________________________________________________
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25183
From: Matt Teichman
Date: Sun Apr 3, 2005 6:47pm
Subject: Re: Gotchas bufordrat
Hadrian wrote:
>1) "beauty is shallow". It's not meaningless, it's simplistic. A simplistic meaning.
>
>
It's meaningless because of the depth metaphor on which it's premised.
What is a "deep person"? (no dirty wisecracks, Bill)
>3) When do apologists for beauty culture repeat the slogan "beauty is shallow"?
>That would seem to be the opposite of an apology, and he opposite of what beauty
>culture actually says, which is "beauty is important". An apology would be "beauty is
>pleasure and pleasure is the only good we have" or "beauty is representative of the
>holy, and therefore good", or even simply as many movies constantly imply "beauty
>is good, ugliness is evil." This is not Shallow Hal.
>
>
If only things were so simple, and everyone always said what they
meant... In practice, beauty culture propagates through the domain of
the unsaid, through presuppositions and implicatures--never through
explicit declarations like the ones you give. Hannah Arendt's argument
on the "banality of evil" comes to mind.
-Matt
25184
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Sun Apr 3, 2005 7:01pm
Subject: Re: Violence and pleasure (Was: Powell/Pressburger + Feminist journals) hotlove666
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Matt Teichman
wrote:
>
> Your line of questioning has precedent, and terrifying precedcent
at
> that. It is part of a tradition that locates identity in affective
> response, and which gives certain responses the label "abberant,"
as
> though there were a normative definition of "the human" lying
outside
> the bounds of cultural prejudice. It is the discourse, for
example, of
> the 50s psychiatrist who wants to view homosexuality as an
abberation,
> and sees it as the duty of medical science to correct it ("Maybe
you
> should ask yourself why you're attracted to boys...").
Matt - We started off talking about the meaning of serial killer
films - my department - and have segued to Jean-Pierre's emotional
reaction to portrayed violence. All I can say about the latter is
that he is not just arguing rhetorically - he is a Hitchcock fan, but
got really mad at him when he made Frenzy. So did Dan, in his milder
way, and I gather that Mike G. refuses even to watch this kind of
material. I'm so inured to screen violencebecause of all this
viewing that I can't base much on my reactions, which are
(temporarily I hope) not those of a normal human being. But I do hope
the original question - why all these (mostly mediocre) films, and
what do they mean? - isn't lost in the shuffle.
>
> -Matt
25185
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Apr 3, 2005 7:44pm
Subject: Re: Re: Violence and pleasure (Was: Powell/Pressburger + Feminist journals) cellar47
--- hotlove666 wrote:
But I do hope
> the original question - why all these (mostly
> mediocre) films, and
> what do they mean? - isn't lost in the shuffle.
>
It means that there's a level on which the spectacle
of murdering woman is normative.
There are, of course, different ways to go with this.
People love to g to the movies to be frightened. Val
Lewton thrillers, particularly "I Walked with a
Zombie"and "The Seventh Victim" were obviously done
with women moviegoers in mind. The major turning point
was "Paysho" which dispatched a key character, quite
graphically for the time. The Italain "Giallo" films
(the first f which was Bava's "Blod and Black Lace")
followed, ritualizing and aestheticizing murdering
women to an elaborate degree. Argento wne further. In
"Suspiria" one of the first murders we see is
accomplished largely in order to complete the decor of
the set.
DePalma took this in a slightly different direction,
toying with sexual guilt while spurring our interest
in the design of the mise en scene as killing device.
The actual killing, it seems to me, is of less
interest to him than what leads up to it.
In "The Silence of the Lambs" its WORDS that kill more
than anything else, in a cat-and mouse game for
psychological domination of a woman by a man -- mental
rape.
In that sense "Hannibal" is an improvement in that for
once the climactic spectacles (Giannini at the halfway
point, Liotta at the end) all involve the murders of men.
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25186
From: "Henrik Sylow"
Date: Sun Apr 3, 2005 7:53pm
Subject: Re: Violence and pleasure (Was: Powell/Pressburger + Feminist journals) henrik_sylow
I have with interest followed the recent discussed, and as having
grown up as a gorehound, I have a wide range of defensive
explainations at hand, as we during the 80s were attacked from all
sides. Now older, and far from as polarized as I was 20 years ago, I
have spend time questioning why I was so attracted to extreme violence
and why it was / is used.
Personally, I still love a good murder and so on. Argento once said,
that there is nothing as visually beautiful, than to kill a beautiful
woman on film, and with some reservations I do agree.
Blood is when used as such a very powerful erotic image, and combined
with the image of a (often naked) beautiful woman, there is an
aesthetic quality about it. But this is rare. Yet consider the initial
intercourse in Almodovar's "Matador" or the bloodsoaked Clare Higgins
in "Hellraiser". To me, these are very conscious erotic use of
violence and blood.
However in the vast majority of cases, violence and blood (and gore)
are used solely for the sake of cheap thrills, as a showboat for SPFX
and to repulse. But even here, the mise-en-scene and the execution of
the effect can be really "wow". Consider the chestburster in "Alien"
or the eye-piercing in "Zombie".
I remember Peter Jackson talking about standing up and applauding when
Mrs. Vorheese was decapitated in "Friday the 13th", and I join ranks.
I still to this day enjoy a well executed splatter or gore effect a lot.
But the use of violence and gore is not appreciated as "fine art", or
art for that matter. Its considered amoral and low. In 91, the German
police stormed a theatre in Berlin (in full combat gear) and seized
the print of Buttgereits "Nekromantik 2". Jürg was subsequently
arrested and charged with showing violence without an artistic
quality. He later won the case at the German supreme court, who ruled,
that just because one didn't liked what he did, one could not put ones
taste about his, and that taste couldn't determine what was good art
or not.
As long as the director stands by his images, as long as they serve a
purpose, violence in any form can be viewed with pleasure, the same
way as one will find pleasure in a beautiful staged carchase, action
sequence, love scene and so forth. And if they do, such use of
violence should be applauded and appreciated. And even though I do
find the endscene in "Nekromantic" perhaps the most sick idea I've
seen to date, the mere image and the idea behind it, is to me art.
My objection is, when a director distances himself from the images,
when he doesn't want to take responsibility for the violence he is
portraing. I find the centerpieces of films like Cameron's "Titanic"
or Bay's "Pearl Harbor" far more revolting than any rape, murder or
dismemberment in generic horrorfilms. The worst example I can think of
is the scene in "True Lies", where Arnold and Curtis make up in a
loving kiss, set against a nuclear explosion. That is directly disgusting.
Henrik
25187
From: "Noel Vera"
Date: Sun Apr 3, 2005 8:59pm
Subject: Re: Violence and pleasure (Was: Powell/Pressburger + Feminist journals) noelbotevera
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Henrik Sylow"
wrote:
>
> I have with interest followed the recent discussed, and as having
> grown up as a gorehound, I have a wide range of defensive
> explainations at hand, as we during the 80s were attacked from all
> sides. Now older, and far from as polarized as I was 20 years ago, I
> have spend time questioning why I was so attracted to extreme
violence
> and why it was / is used.
What Henrik says, more or less. I've got a high tolerance for
gore/violence myself, and tend to view a murder scene with an eye
towards how effectively done it is.
25188
From: "Hadrian"
Date: Sun Apr 3, 2005 9:00pm
Subject: Re: Violence and pleasure (Was: Powell/Pressburger + Feminist journals) habelove
> What are my initials doing in this thread to which I have not
> contributed one iota as far as I can remember??? I don't even know
> what you people are talking about (haven't seen the movies
> discussed). JPC
Sorry about that JPC, I don't know how I did that, but I did.
Hadrian
25189
From: "Hadrian"
Date: Sun Apr 3, 2005 9:11pm
Subject: Re: Gotchas habelove
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Matt Teichman wrote:
> Hadrian wrote:
>
> >1) "beauty is shallow". It's not meaningless, it's simplistic. A simplistic
meaning.
> >
> >
> It's meaningless because of the depth metaphor on which it's premised.
> What is a "deep person"? (no dirty wisecracks, Bill)
This is semantics. Are we really going to get into a heady deconstruction of a
commonly understand dichotomy: deep/shallow.
I could have said, "Physical beauty is a shallow indicator of a a persona's
attractiveness". Shallow as in thin, and one-layered, and not indicitive of the whole.
so that when one only need to dig a little to discover other more important traits,
that are of a clearly different quality than the surface.
Honestly, I think it's a little silly for me to have to supply a meaning for the depth
metaphor, would has been apt enough for common usage, and surely one you
understand. Again, you could argue that it's a weak metaphor, but hardly that
it's MEANINGLESS.
Anyways, I could just phrase it differently. Would it be more meaningful if i said,
"beauty is only skin deep." Does that a clear enough meaning?
> If only things were so simple, and everyone always said what they
> meant... In practice, beauty culture propagates through the domain of
> the unsaid, through presuppositions and implicatures--never through
> explicit declarations like the ones you give.
No, they don't use the explicit declarations I just gave. That was my own
summation of what I thought they were saying through implication, presupposition,
etc. as opposed to yours. I think mine made more sense, honestly. It's the old
Ockham's Razor: try the simplest solution first, and only if they doesn't work, look
for the more complicated answer.
Hadrian
25190
From: "Hadrian"
Date: Sun Apr 3, 2005 9:14pm
Subject: Re: Gotchas habelove
> > 1) "beauty is shallow". It's not meaningless, it's
> > simplistic. A simplistic meaning.
> Sondheim in "Passion" (his musical version of Scola's
> "Passione d'Amore") had a better maxim:
>
> "Beauty is Power,
> Longing a Disease."
>
That is certainly a more interesting premise.
hadrian
25191
From: "Hadrian"
Date: Sun Apr 3, 2005 9:28pm
Subject: Re: shallow hal habelove
> But I don't believe that one can't make an anti-shallowness movie. I
> just don't believe that being shallow, mean or crass is the best
> approach.
you're probably right. I should make clear I think Shallow Hal to be the Farrelly
Brother's most unsuccessful film --this may be part of the reason.
>
> Yes, I agree that it's consistent with Dillon's characterization, but
> the problem is that it is SO DAMN FUNNY! Everyone remembers this
> line. In fact, I still can't get this line out of my head when I see
> a handicapped person.
It's definitely a key to the Farrelly's technique. Jason Alexander is essentially
fulfilling the same function in Shallow Hal. I think it's a kind of Tourrette's, yelling
out the most horrible thing to pop into your head, and honestly, I don't think it's all
a bad thing.
This is no good, and perhaps I now need this
> hypnotherapy. I was doing just fine BEFORE. I don't think the joke
> was squarely on Matt Dillon—he said something that was so funny, and
> you just had to laugh.
I think it's a complicated joke. No, it's not just on Matt Dillon, it's also on ourselves.
Our minds are filled with all kinds of weird, uncomfortable, and inappropriate
thoughts, and I think comedy is often a way to lance that boil. So many comic
characters are people who are just monstrous jerks! I think Bill Murray was
wonderful at that sort of thing, and today Ricky Gervais is mesmerizing in the
tastelessness of his characters. If you want to be funny, you have to be willing to
explore these dark areas, I think. Maybe that's why the Surreallists were so damn
funny.
> But while his having the gall to say such a
> thing is funny, the idea itself seems even more lastingly funny. Or
> my sense of humor is too perverse to begin with, but really, I do
> love those goofy bastards, especially the one I see in the mirror
> each day.
Agreed!
Hadrian
25192
From: Peter Henne
Date: Sun Apr 3, 2005 10:21pm
Subject: Re: Re: Violence and pleasure (Was: Powell/Pressburger + Feminist journals) peterhenne
Online Now Send IM
Clearly, emotional and aesthetic responses are not simply involuntary. For starters, we learn to appreciate art. As you learn more, your responses change and deepen. What you liked a year ago may no longer evoke the same feeling. This is called "refinement."
I'm a great believer in personal responsibility. I'm responsible for my moral outlook and my aesthetic makeup. I'm responsible for critically examining how far society, my family, etc. has ingrained morals and aesthetics in me. Those struggles are not only purposeful but the task of a lifetime. I don't agree with the picture that we are victims of our feelings or social prejudice, as Matt said. Life experience bears out the opposite case. Some movie scenes I used to be aroused by no longer turn me on, but instead feel mean or insipid, and it's largely because my aesthetics evolved: I kept seeing movies, comparing, asking questions. Who in this group hasn't gone through the same kind of change? Your own choices shape your taste and thus the kinds of responses you will have.
Personal experience or lack thereof plays a hand in aesthetic response in another way. If you had been raped, or witnessed one, or suffered alongside a loved one who had been raped, the pleasurable response you previously felt at depictions of rape (and I believe there are different kinds) may now be radically altered. If so, I think the simplest explanation would be that the actual rape had been a learning experience for your aesthetics--an eye opener about what rape means. The very possibility of this change in consciousness is worth reflecting on.
Peter Henne
I'm just saying that if you enjoy seeing
>women tortured in movies you might ask yourself why it is so
>pleasurable to you. Just like life, taste shouldn't remain unexamined. ***[As JPC is misidentified as the writer, I'm not sure who wrote this]***
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25193
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Sun Apr 3, 2005 11:13pm
Subject: Re: Violence and pleasure (Was: Powell/Pressburger + Feminist journals) hotlove666
Thanks for the detailed response, Fred.
This retort by his co-worker
> that Hal's "out of his league" reinforces this system of measure,
but I'm nitpicking, here. And she could be said to be dressing him
down on his own terms.
She's fed up with his double standard - it's ok for him to judge
women superficially, but they have to respond to him for what he is.
And "her tits weren't even real" isn't sour grapes - it's catty.
>
> Soon after Hal is "fixed," he flags down a cab that a woman was
> already waiting for. She's unarguably beautiful Hollywood-wise.
It's
> slickly done, with the cab drivers intercut reactions supporting
the
> conceit. This actress' performance of playing the ugly duckling is
> effective caricature to accentuate the seeming pathetic condition
of
> her actually being, well, ugly. Her overblown laugh about being
> mistaken for a model made me think that the joke was on two levels.
Your observation of the scene is sharp - the actress is great - but
I'm not sure what you mean by two levels. We aren't supposed to laugh
at her, if that's what you suspect. It's just the first scene where
we are aware of the diference between what Hal sees and what everyone
else sees.
>
> In the club scene that follows where three beautiful women are
> juxtaposed with a very overweight woman and two exaggeratedly made-
> down women fuels my notion that this comedy's whole gag machine is
> having fun at the expense of those poor unattractive people. It was
> the excessiveness of the make-downs that made my pain all the more
> acute. If it were just Hal's problem, that would be one thing. But
> it's the way that the glamorously challenged are conducting
> themselves, as well--the way that everyone seems to be in on the
> joke. Rather paranoid, perhaps.
The comedy in the scene isn't really at their expense - it's mainly
about Hal's buddy's flabbergasted reaction. In the shots where we see
Hal's dancing partners through the buddy's eyes, they are just
dancing like everyone else. If anyone is doing a silly dance it's
Jack Black.
>
I just find myself uncomfortable
> with the fact that the casualties of the rapid-fire jokes are those
> that I feel I'm being prompted to see in a more "beautiful" light.
If you mean jokes like the buddy's references to "rhinos" and the
like, he is being held up to ridicule every time he opens his mouth,
and he is eventually revealed to be overcompensating for an
inferiority complex because he's not normal - he has a tail.
Can the outcome of this morality tale overcome all
> the laughs that accumulated throughout the film? We can laugh about
> imperfections, and they've probably never been made funnier. On the
> other hand, this kind of laughter has always been part of the pain
> and self-consciousness.
I don't see the the movie getting laughs out of the cracks about
overweight women or women who's toes are too long -- it's
straightforward satire of the two idiots who talk like that.
And gags like the chair collapsing under slender Gwyneth also don't
provoke laughter at a fat woman, because we don't SEE a fat woman.
Now, about "beauty is only skin-deep" -- it's a proverb, as is the
corollary "true beauty is within." I don't mind these two proverbs
because they use the words "deep" and "within," as you half-jokingly
suggested I should, and I don't attribute the proverbs to the beauty
industry. They are proverbs regular people say every day. My ex-wife
is kind of a special case, because she not only says it, she lives
it - she married me! And she is constantly observing that this or
that person - Serge Gainsbourg, for example - who is not
conventionally pretty or handsome, is "beautiful." She means it. No
hidden agenda. So I kind of like those proverbs, actually.
Shallow Hal is the mise-en-scene of these two proverbs. And as a
result it drives a wedge between "seeing" and "believing" that
becomes more and more interesting from a cinematic point of view -
and perhaps even from an ideological point of view - as it unfolds.
On the unanswerable gotcha that showing an evil gold-digger as ugly
is endorsing standards of beauty and ugliness, because it equates
ugliness with sin, I'm sure it has occurred to everyone who sees the
movie and to the Farrellys when they were writing it.
Thought experiment: I'd be uncomfortable seeing the scene with the
spina bifida guy's witchy girlfriend if my date, sitting next to me,
happened to look just like that. I also assume that any woman who
looks just like that would be made uncomfortable by the scene.
But really, no one looks just like that - she's a caricature wicked
witch, like the horrible nurse in the burn unit, with everything that
bad hair and exaggerated makeup and the rest of Hollywood's magic can
do to make her signify "evil." In other words, even women who are
skinny and have long noses don't look like that. She's a medieval
symbol of cupidity, not a real person - except that, to satirize
golddiggers, she has been given the mannerisms of one. I doubt if
anyone looks at her and says: "That's me."
Is it a contradiction to use that symbolism? Sure, but it's a logical
contradiction, which is permited in art, not a pernicious one. It's
the old satirical trick of turning the world on its head to show the
reality. I hope that all the necessary writing we've seen since the
80s about "the beauty myth" (the author of that particular book is
not one of my favorite people, by the way) hasn't made it impossible
for that very old moral symbolism to be used. Any more than the
equation of the color black - which really doesn't look anything like
any person of color I know - with evil now needs to be expurgated
from the culture in the name of anti-racism. For one thing, how would
we enjoy the chapter on "The Whiteness of the Whale" if we didn't
have a point of reference?
25194
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Sun Apr 3, 2005 11:14pm
Subject: Re: Violence and pleasure (Was: Powell/Pressburger + Feminist journals) hotlove666
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> In "The Silence of the Lambs" its WORDS that kill more
> than anything else, in a cat-and mouse game for
> psychological domination of a woman by a man -- mental
> rape.
>
> In that sense "Hannibal" is an improvement in that for
> once the climactic spectacles (Giannini at the halfway
> point, Liotta at the end) all involve the murders of men.
Hannibal L. is never shown to be a lady-killer. All the victims in his
past are men, too.
25195
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Sun Apr 3, 2005 11:44pm
Subject: Re: Violence and pleasure (Was: Powell/Pressburger + Feminist journals) jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Peter Henne
wrote:
>
> Peter Henne
>
> I'm just saying that if you enjoy seeing
> >women tortured in movies you might ask yourself why it is so
> >pleasurable to you. Just like life, taste shouldn't remain
unexamined. ***[As JPC is misidentified as the writer, I'm not sure
who wrote this]***
>
> Actually I DID write the above, and stand by it. JPC
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site!
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
25196
From: MG4273@...
Date: Sun Apr 3, 2005 7:47pm
Subject: Violence Vs Storytelling (was: Violence and pleasure) nzkpzq
I am not a gorehound - and find most gory scenes in movies just something
very dull and fairly icky I have to endure.
A big aesthetic change that I lament:
"Entertainment" used to mean "storytelling", to many people. Often today, it
means "violence, gore and horror effects".
An old time Western, such as "A Lawless Street" (Joseph H. Lewis), used to
spend a great deal of its running time on plot, characterization, and character
interaction - "storytelling". These became enormously complex over the course
of the film, and very absorbing.
By contrast, a modern movie such as "Se7en" spends a lot of its time on
designer gore and horror effects. The plot and characters are largely secondary,
and not especially well developed.
This seems like a huge step down for the cinema.
In fact, I suspect that the replacement of "storytelling" by "violence" in
the popular arts after around 1970 or so is the single biggest factor in the
artistic decline of commercial movies, and comic books.
When I go to a film like "Se7en", I feel I am at a conversation in which I am
not wanted, and my tastes are ignored. Both the director and the audience are
there to exchange gory imagery with each other - pure and simple. My desire
for a story and characters is not part of the equation. (By the way, I went to
this picture after getting a misleading impression about it from a trailer,
which seemed to paint it as a Hitchcock-style thriller).
Usually I just stay away from really violent modern movies. I do not
disapprove of others seeing them - and am not trying to be a killjoy. But I do mourn
the great world of popular storytelling they replaced.
Mike Grost
25197
From: Adrian Martin
Date: Mon Apr 4, 2005 0:34am
Subject: re: i feel a list coming on apmartin90
We haven't run out of erotic-cinema moments yet, have we ?? Like Bill,
I react a little against over-'refinement' in this area of taste, and
wish to speak up for some great moments of the flesh !!
BRESSON. Of course, few directors had such an eye for male AND female
beauty. When the armour comes off in LANCELOT DU LAC: wow !
MCBRIDE. His BREATHLESS remake is tremendously sexy. And a sex scene in
BIG EASY was an 'anthology piece' for a while back in the 80s and 90s.
Like Rafelson, he has an admirably sex-centred sensibility!
BOROCZWCK. My favourites are IMORAL TALES - Fabrice Luchini declaring
"now I know the meaning of the sea"! - and the demented DR JEKYLL AND
HIS WOMEN. Everything - I do mean everything - in his films tends to be
eroticised. His little '70s short A PARTICULAR COLLECTION showing off
ancient sex aids and toys is a hoot.
HEAR NO EVIL. Perhaps only Mike G will know this 1994 deafness-thriller
apart from me, but nobody kisses like that Marlee Matlin ...
IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES. Don't believe the doubters! It's an erotic
masterpiece. When she gets on top of him and so gracefully and deftly
slips his sex inside her, I almost pass away in a dead faint everytime.
SEX AND ZEN. Because I never realised one could do so much with women's
nipples in relation to every available nearby surface.
DWOSKIN. Hey, Jean-Claude Brisseau might have saved himself some
'research' if he had imbibed the oeuvre of the great Dwoskin, who seems
so unknown among AFB members, although his work is fully equal to
Brakhage's, in my opinion. And a great deal sexier! Almost every
Dwoskin film is a sex extravaganza. MOMENT is a wonderful portrait of
female masturbation. INTOXICATED BY MY ILLNESS is an amazing lyric poem
about pleasure and pain confused and intermingled. A recent tribute he
made to an ex-lover is an intense tribute to the flesh, and to the joys
of sex, in the face of her death. No one can talk about 'the gaze' in
cinema without Dwoskin films like DYN AMO and so many others. When will
there be a Criterion box-set of Dwoskin sex films ?????? I live in
hope.
BREILLAT. I agree with Henrik that some of her films, esp. the
misunderstood ANATOMY OF HELL , are not meant to be erotic: they are
essays, allegories of sexual experience and gender roles. But when she
is more in her gritty Pialat mode, the sex turns out either 'muckier'
or in fact quite ecstatic. I like the sex in BRIEF CROSSING, and like
Jean-Pierre I too feel the tenderness in the bondage scenes in ROMANCE
- paradoxically (or perhaps not really), these scenes function as as a
haven for the heroine, precisely when the forces of social power get
suspended, rechannelled, renegotiated into a pleasurable ritual.
BUFFALO 66. People look at me oddly when I say this, but Gallo and
Ricci are really very gorgeous as a couple in this film. (BROWN BUNNY,
however, didn't work for me.)
There are many other examples but it's all too exciting to write about
calmly !!!
Adrian
25198
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Apr 4, 2005 1:19am
Subject: Re: re: i feel a list coming on cellar47
--- Adrian Martin wrote:
>
> BUFFALO 66. People look at me oddly when I say this,
> but Gallo and
> Ricci are really very gorgeous as a couple in this
> film.
And Ricci will REALLY look at you oddly. She's
denounced the film and has said making it was the
biggest mistake of her career so far.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Personals - Better first dates. More second dates.
http://personals.yahoo.com
25199
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Mon Apr 4, 2005 1:23am
Subject: Re: i feel a list coming on jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Adrian Martin wrote:
>
> There are many other examples but it's all too exciting to write
about
> calmly !!!
>
> Adrian
But surely, Adrian, you can type with one hand.
25200
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Mon Apr 4, 2005 1:39am
Subject: Re: i feel a list coming on jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Adrian Martin
wrote:
>
>
> BRESSON. Of course, few directors had such an eye for male AND
female
> beauty. When the armour comes off in LANCELOT DU LAC: wow !
>
And that's not "over refinement"?!
>
MCBRIDE. His BREATHLESS remake is tremendously sexy.
A total turn-off to me. So crude, almost infantile. Very American,
of course. I hated that movie by a director I really liked.
And a sex scene in
> BIG EASY was an 'anthology piece' for a while back in the 80s and
90s.
Can't remember that scene although I didn't dislike the film (I
should check out what i wrote about it in "50 Ans"). So, not a big
impression on me sex-wise.
>
Like Rafelson, he has an admirably sex-centred sensibility!
I liked the sex on the table on his remake of Postman. So go
figure...
>
> BOROCZWCK. My favourites are IMORAL TALES - Fabrice Luchini
declaring
> "now I know the meaning of the sea"! - and the demented DR JEKYLL
AND
> HIS WOMEN. Everything - I do mean everything - in his films tends
to be
> eroticised. His little '70s short A PARTICULAR COLLECTION showing
off
> ancient sex aids and toys is a hoot.
I loved that, but can't remember anything about Immoral Tales.
>
> HEAR NO EVIL. Perhaps only Mike G will know this 1994 deafness-
thriller
> apart from me, but nobody kisses like that Marlee Matlin ...
>
Oh, you've been kissed by Matlin?
> IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES. Don't believe the doubters! It's an
erotic
> masterpiece. When she gets on top of him and so gracefully and
deftly
> slips his sex inside her, I almost pass away in a dead faint
everytime.
As David is wont to say, "Chacun son goo".
>
> SEX AND ZEN. Because I never realised one could do so much with
women's
> nipples in relation to every available nearby surface.
>
Never saw that. But one of my regrets in life has been
neglecting women's nipples. When Sex and Zen was made it was too
late anyway...
The point of the above comments is really to paraphrase Barthes when
he wrote his lists of "I like" "I don't like" and added, this is
totally unimportant except to say that: I am not like you, I am
different (I'm too lazy to dig up the exact quote). JPC
ML>
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