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26501
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 3:37am
Subject: Les suburbs (Was: Band of Outsiders + Rossellini, Jia) sallitt1
> Today the concept of "suburbs" in France is thoroughly different,
> because it refers to immigrant minorities and hig crime whereas in
> my days it meant middle class.
Aren't there two different words for these two concepts? "Les banlieues"
for the immigrant's suburbs, and "les provinces" for the middle class
outlying regions? Have those words retained their connotations over the
years? - Dan
26502
From: Mathieu Ricordi
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 3:44am
Subject: Re: Re: Old, Old Milius Post mathieu_ricordi
Quoting hotlove666 :
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Zach Campbell"
> wrote:
> Too bad his current
>
> > projects seem to be in production or distribution limbo, last I
>
> > checked ...
> His last picture was Motorcycle Gang, an AIP remake for Showtime that's
>
> out on video.
Have you seen "Motorcycle Gang" , or his made for tv "Rough Riders"?
I've held out on both because of doubts that he was doing more
than hack work at this point, but now that he doesn't seem to be adding
anything new to his filmography I'd like to know about them.
There's also apperantly one called "Lions Share" which never
saw the light of day.
Out of the ones that seem to be in the future (although chances look slim),
a project called "The Son Tay Raid" has been classified as being in production
on IMDB for so long now that I've nearly given up hope. Also, there
were talks of another Conan film that seems to have died down.
It's quite disheartening to see someone with such potential sit pat,
but you never know--- look at what happened with Malick.
Out of the most recent contributions to cinema from Milius, I think
I'll go with the script for "Geronimo" as most impressive.
I wonder why he didn't direct it himself though.
Mathieu Ricordi
26503
From: "Aaron Graham"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 4:40am
Subject: Re: Old, Old Milius Post machinegunmc...
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666" wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Zach Campbell"
> wrote:
>
> Too bad his current
> > projects seem to be in production or distribution limbo, last I
> > checked ...
> >
> His last picture was Motorcycle Gang, an AIP remake for Showtime
that's
> out on video. Someone sent me an interview from a gamer mag: He just
> created a WWII videogame and would like to do more.
Unfortunately, it seems that King Conan is officially dead, or at least
with Milius on board: http://www.thearnoldfans.com/news/871.htm
For awhile, the Wachowski brothers were attached as producers with
Milius directing.
I've been wary about checking out Motorcycle Gang as most of those AIP
remakes have shoddy transfers on home video (finally relented with the
recent release of Dante's Runaway Daughters), but after having read Tag
Gallagher's appraisal of it in his piece on Milius, it seems worthwhile
after all.
26504
From: Adrian Martin
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 4:42am
Subject: re: Bande a part location apmartin90
Mike - according to Raoul Coutard himself, the villa was situated 'on
the edge of the Seine, in the Alfortville region'. That's Alfortville,
not Alphaville! This info comes from the excellent book on BANDE A PART
by Barthelemy Amengual, published by Editions Yellow Now in 1993.
Adrian
26505
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 4:55am
Subject: Innerspace (Was: Fantastic Voyage ) hotlove666
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> Just saw Fantastic Voyage (Fleischer) tonight too - it was shown
letterboxed
> on Fox Movie Chanel (both in Brooklyn and Detroit). The first scene
in the
> blood stream is awesome.
I recommend to those who didn't see it Innerspace, one of Joe Dante's
best films, in which Dennis Quaid is a burned out test pilot who's
shrunk for the first experimental voyage in the innards of a rabbit in
a lab. Instead, when spies (Kevin McCarthy and Fiona Lewis) try to
steal the discovery, he ends up being injected into Martin Short, a
nebbishy grocery clerk who learns how to be a hero from his
microscopic "inner man." (Meg Ryan, who met Quaid during filming, is
the object of the odd triangle between her ex-boyfriend and
his "carrier," who reminds her of someone at times...) The script is
perfect, the visuals are beautiful, and the metaphor is being filmed by
someone who knows his onions, like Fleischer, and loves the movies of
all the old comedy teams, Martin and Lewis, Abbott and Costello etc. -
which are "turned inside out" here.
26506
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 4:57am
Subject: Re: Old, Old Milius Post hotlove666
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Mathieu Ricordi
wrote:
>
> Have you seen "Motorcycle Gang" , or his made for tv "Rough Riders"?
Motorcycle Gang and Rough Riders are quite good.
26507
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 5:00am
Subject: Re: Les suburbs (Was: Band of Outsiders + Rossellini, Jia) hotlove666
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > Today the concept of "suburbs" in France is thoroughly different,
> > because it refers to immigrant minorities and hig crime whereas in
> > my days it meant middle class.
>
> Aren't there two different words for these two concepts? "Les
banlieues"
> for the immigrant's suburbs, and "les provinces" for the middle class
> outlying regions? Have those words retained their connotations over
the
> years? - Dan
No, the provinces are the countryside - like, say, Provence. The
banlieus are suburbs that have changed. If JPC went home again, he'd
probably get carved up by the characters in La Haine. Thanks a zillion
for the Rossellini DVD, Dan!
26508
From: Samuel Bréan
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 6:07am
Subject: RE: Re: Les suburbs (Was: Band of Outsiders + Rossellini, Jia) quimby_the_m...
From: "hotlove666"
>No, the provinces are the countryside - like, say, Provence. The
>banlieus are suburbs that have changed. If JPC went home again, he'd
>probably get carved up by the characters in La Haine. Thanks a zillion
>for the Rossellini DVD, Dan!
OK, let's try to clear this up. Les banlieues are suburbs, right, but that
doesn't mean they all look like the ones in "La Haine". Around Paris, you
can live in a banlieue ("j'habite en banlieue") and be in a safe, bourgeois
town. More and more people are moving to the suburbs (i.e. certain suburbs)
because it's so expensive to have an apartment in the capital. There are
suburbs (banlieues) around other cities of France, of course.
"La province" is simply somewhere in France, but not in Paris or its
suburbs. Its is generally understood as the opposite of Paris: Someone who
lives in Paris and wants to refer to an indeterminate place in France is
going to say "en province." This is of course rather snobbish, but that's
the way things are in Paris: some (most?) people think that their city is
the center of France/of the world, and that there is Paris on the one side
and everything else on the other ("parisianisme").
Samuel
26509
From: "Gabe Klinger"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 6:10am
Subject: Re: Claire Denis Vienna retro + carte blanche gcklinger
JP wrote:
> We definitely
> should pay attention toanything from a director with an "impeccable
> fashion sense."
Yeah, I know probably sounded silly writing that, but the jacket I saw her in in Toronto was
a work of art.
I will respond to Brian on L'INTRUS tomorrow.
Gabe
26510
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 9:45am
Subject: Re: Les suburbs (Was: Band of Outsiders + Rossellini, Jia) hotlove666
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Samuel Bréan wrote:
> From: "hotlove666"
> "La province" is simply somewhere in France, but not in Paris or
its
> suburbs. Someone who
> lives in Paris and wants to refer to an indeterminate place in
France is
> going to say "en province."
Thanks Samuel. I knew that actually, but when it came time to write
it out, the stunning snobbishness of it made me waffle and say "the
countryside" - I wasn't 100% sure, and I couldn't believe that what I
had always assumed, which is really shocking when you spell it out,
could be true. Obviously, it is.
Les banlieues are suburbs, right, but that
> doesn't mean they all look like the ones in "La Haine". Around
Paris, you
> can live in a banlieue ("j'habite en banlieue") and be in a safe,
bourgeois
> town.
Right. Unfortunately you DON'T have two words for it, whereas we do:
The suburbs are upscale - AOL just announced that the suburbs of
California are the most expensive place in America to buy a home -
even in "modest" suburban areas like the San Fernando Valley, where
the homes are quite nice if you don't mind anomie. But places like
the one in La Haine we'd call projects, or "the projects" - low-
income housing for poor people, which is not in the suburbs but in
the inner city. You also call that "le bainlieu" - in fact, there was
a short run of films after La Haine called bainlieu films.
Now, just to add to the murk, Robert Kramer assured me while that
craze was going on that the bainlieu films were a load of crap, that
they portrayed a situation that existed only in the imaginations of
middle-class filmmakers. I've never been to one, but my ex-, who is
from the provinces (a little village near Marseille), stayed with
friends in a Paris bainlieu and didn't get attacked, although she
didn't go out a lot. She's working-class with the "accent of the
South," so maybe the inhabitants respected that.
One thing that struck me about La Haine was that the group of three
(four?) friends was interracial. I don't know if that means there are
no race-based gang wars in the banlieus like there are in the
projects here, or if the mix was just more fantasy. I do know that
the working-class French kids I know from the South aren't racist,
and mix and mingle freely, but some of their parents are - and then
again, some of their parents, even some of their grandparents, have
intermarried.
To bring it back to film, I assume that the banlieus in La Haine or
Du bruit et du fureur are the same high-rises we see in Deux ou trois
choses - relics of a spectacular failure of city plannning. True?
26511
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 9:58am
Subject: Re: Les suburbs (Was: Band of Outsiders + Rossellini, Jia) hotlove666
And while we're at it, let me recommend another Joe Dante film that
wasn't widely seen on release: The 'Burbs, a suburban black comedy
inspired by Rear Window, although the director shudders when you
remind him of the overweening pride of the comparison (made by the
producers, Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, not by him: the original
title was Picture Window.)
It's a screechy comedy where everyone is encouraged to flame, but it
works - and would've worked even better if they had allowed him to
leave in the discovery at the end that Tom Hanks is hiding from his
family the fact that he lost his job, and a Vertigo-style nightmare
he has about that. Maybe it will turn up on the DVD, along with the
multiple endings shot to dig the film out of the hole it dug for
itslf by having lovable TH behave crazy, assuming that his new
neighbors (who look like the Addams Family) are serial killers and
causing all sorts of destruction trying to prove it. And yet it's
still funny.
Speaking of endings, I just watched Last Metro, where Truffaut
repeats word for word (as the ending of the play-within-the-play) the
dialogue that got laughed out of theatres when he used it at the end
of Mississippi Mermaid (Does love hurt? Yes, love hurts. You are so
beautiful, 'it's suffering' to look at you. You said it was a joy to
look at me. It's a joy, and it's suffering.") That's guts: taking the
ending they laughed at in his biggest flop and shoving it down their
throats by repeating it four times in his biggest hit, which would
have put his production company out of business if it had bombed too.
But you have to be a little crazy to use the ending Hitchcock told
Truffaut had been laughed at when they previewed the original ending
of Suspicion: Belmondo lets Deneuve poison him because he loves her.
Oh yeah, I forgot - Truffaut sold out when he made Last Metro......
26512
From: "thebradstevens"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 10:10am
Subject: Re: THE BIG RED ONE thebradstevens
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Adam Lemke wrote:
> How do people feel about the reworking of the soundtrack? Watching
the
> extras on the DVD, they appear to make the point that there isn¹t an
> original ³gunshot² in the film. Everything was completely recreated
to make
> the film a Dolby Digital picture‹one that could sound like a battle
was
> taking place in the theater
It seems that Fuller was fired from THE BIG RED ONE before he had a
chance to supervise the recording of the sound effects, so I guess
Schickel's assumption is that this is what Fuller would have done if
he'd still been around. I have no real problem with this.
26513
From: "thebradstevens"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 10:27am
Subject: Re: Old, Old Milius Post thebradstevens
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> >
> His last picture was Motorcycle Gang, an AIP remake for Showtime
that's
> out on video.
It's a very interesting film - essentially a remake of THE SEARCHERS
with motorbikes instead of horses. I sent a copy to Tag Gallagher
when he was researching his Milius piece.
Milius' last film was actually ROUGH RIDERS (1997), a remarkable
historical epic made for television, but absolutely on Milius' own
terms.
A few years ago, Milius was working at Miramax, trying to adapt Andy
McNab's Nick Stone books. Milius fell out with Miramax, and gave a
hilarious interview to THE GUARDIAN, in which he said "I think they
should give Harvey Weinstein to the Taliban. I'd like to see him on
the other side. I'd like to hunt him down in a cave".
26514
From: "thebradstevens"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 10:35am
Subject: Re: THE BIG RED ONE thebradstevens
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> Let me add that Schickel isn't a mogul or even a conventional
> producer type - he's a critic, whose limitations are the
limitations
> of his criticism. He's very good on content - for example, when I
was
> writing a piece on Grant and Hitchcock for Variety, Schickel's
> discussion in a text he wrote for a picture book on Grant was the
> best thing I found. No cliches, very acute on the hero's misogyny
in
> To Catch a Thief, etc. And he was quite pleased to put back all
> the "weird shit" that makes The Big Red One a Fuller film, whether
it
> displeased the studio or not - the very stuff Lorimar was at pains
to
> eliminate.
>
But in the deleted scenes section on the DVD, the editors are very
clear about the fact that they cut the scene in which Vinci believes
that his grandmother is under a tank because they thought it was too
strange.
I guess Schickel also found the idea of having two infiltrator scenes
in a row 'strange'.
I understand what you're saying about Schickel's limitations of a
restorationist being his limitations as a critic, but it didn't have
to be that way. All Schickel had to do was go into the project
determined to create a film that was as close to Sam Fuller's
intentions as possible. His only question should have been 'Is this
what Fuller would have wanted?'. Then, even if he made mistakes, they
would at least have been honest ones.
26515
From: "thebradstevens"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 10:44am
Subject: Re: THE BIG RED ONE thebradstevens
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jonathan Rosenbaum"
wrote:
But an even bigger issue
> for me was why Sam always described his cut as so much longer than
> the film is now--and the extras on the DVD (which I haven't yet
> seen) seems to account for most of this.
To be fair, some of the 30 additional minutes on the DVD probably
couldn't be integrated into the film (Samantha Fuller's cameo, for
example), since they only exist as fragments. And even if you managed
to integrate 25 minutes of this stuff, it would still only nudge the
running time up to a little over the 3-hour mark - still nowhere near
the 4 or 4-and-a-half hours claimed by Fuller.
A friend of mine knows a guy who claims to have a tape of Fuller's
workprint (but won't show it to anyone). Is this possible? My
impression was that the people who did the restoration didn't have
access to a full-length workprint.
26516
From: "thebradstevens"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 10:48am
Subject: Re: THE BIG RED ONE thebradstevens
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
Maybe some Phantom Editor will take what's there
> and improve on it now. (Hint, hint!)
I don't mean to sound paranoid, but I really have to wonder why it
isn't possible to play those deleted scenes on the DVD without the
commentary track. Could it be that Shickel is trying to prevent
people from assembling their own versions of the film by
reintegrating this material?
26517
From: "thebradstevens"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 10:53am
Subject: Re: Claire Denis Vienna retro + carte blanche thebradstevens
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
> What a coincidence! I hear from usually reliable sources that
Denis
> is planning a remake of "Fantastic Voyage" (not with Raquel Welch,
> though).
Last I heard, Denis was going to obtain some of those tiny cameras
generally used during medical procedures, and shoot the whole thing
on location inside Beatrice Dalle.
26518
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 1:00pm
Subject: Re: Les suburbs (Was: Band of Outsiders + Rossellini, Jia) jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Samuel Bréan
wrote:
> From: "hotlove666"
> >No, the provinces are the countryside - like, say, Provence. The
> >banlieus are suburbs that have changed. If JPC went home again,
he'd
> >probably get carved up by the characters in La Haine. Thanks a
zillion
> >for the Rossellini DVD, Dan!
>
> OK, let's try to clear this up. Les banlieues are suburbs, right,
but that
> doesn't mean they all look like the ones in "La Haine". Around
Paris, you
> can live in a banlieue ("j'habite en banlieue") and be in a safe,
bourgeois
> town. More and more people are moving to the suburbs (i.e. certain
suburbs)
> because it's so expensive to have an apartment in the capital.
There are
> suburbs (banlieues) around other cities of France, of course.
> Samuel
Thanks, Samuel, for clarifying. As I noted in my post, I was
simplifying. French people have become so obsessed with crime in
some of the "banlieues" that the term "les banlieues" has become a
kind of blanket pejorative label. But of course, as Samuel points
out, there are lots of suburban towns that are still middle class
(or even in some cases upper-middle-class) and safe. This happens to
be the case in the banlieue where I grew up, a few miles from
Versailles.
JPC
26519
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 1:10pm
Subject: Re: Les suburbs (Was: Band of Outsiders + Rossellini, Jia) jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666" wrote:
>
> To bring it back to film, I assume that the banlieus in La Haine or
> Du bruit et du fureur are the same high-rises we see in Deux ou
trois
> choses - relics of a spectacular failure of city plannning. True?
You are absolutely right. You're also right in pointing out that
English (American-English) has a word for that kind of environment
("the Projects") whereas French (often an impoverished language in
practical terms) does not -- although the old "HLM" (for "Habitations
a Loyer Modere" -- pardon the lack of accents) has pretty much the
same connotations.
It's "De bruit et de fureur" (not "Du"). I know, French is tough.
JPC
26520
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 1:17pm
Subject: Re: Re: Les suburbs (Was: Band of Outsiders + Rossellini, Jia) cellar47
--- hotlove666 wrote:
> And while we're at it, let me recommend another Joe
> Dante film that
> wasn't widely seen on release: The 'Burbs, a
> suburban black comedy
> inspired by Rear Window, although the director
> shudders when you
> remind him of the overweening pride of the
> comparison (made by the
> producers, Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, not by him:
> the original
> title was Picture Window.)
>
I reccomend it as well. Actually I recomend everything
Joe does.
Curiosity/fear of the neighbors is a classic American
suburban malady. See also "Meet Me in St. Louis."
Hanks is really quite superb here- helped enormously
by the fact that his wife is played by Carrie Fisher
--in the news lately for a real-life Joe Dante
situation.
Corrie Feldman is quite good in it too -- and as I'm
sure you all know in reallife he's been involved in
with a character far creepier than any Joe could
create. And that's saying something as "The Burbs"
features Brother Theodore.
>
> Speaking of endings, I just watched Last Metro,
> where Truffaut
> repeats word for word (as the ending of the
> play-within-the-play) the
> dialogue that got laughed out of theatres when he
> used it at the end
> of Mississippi Mermaid (Does love hurt? Yes, love
> hurts. You are so
> beautiful, 'it's suffering' to look at you. You said
> it was a joy to
> look at me. It's a joy, and it's suffering.") That's
> guts: taking the
> ending they laughed at in his biggest flop and
> shoving it down their
> throats by repeating it four times in his biggest
> hit, which would
> have put his production company out of business if
> it had bombed too.
> But you have to be a little crazy to use the ending
> Hitchcock told
> Truffaut had been laughed at when they previewed the
> original ending
> of Suspicion: Belmondo lets Deneuve poison him
> because he loves her.
>
> Oh yeah, I forgot - Truffaut sold out when he made
> Last Metro......
>
Well he did. My friend, the late and much-missed
Jonathan Benair said at the time, "The way Truffaut
sees it the worst thing about the Nazis was that they
came late to the theater and upset Catherine Deneuve."
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26521
From: Craig Keller
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 2:18pm
Subject: Hong at Cannes evillights
A few additions have been added to the Cannes lineup, now viewable at
www.festival-cannes.fr -- including one new film to "In Competition" --
Hong Sang-soo's 'Tale of Cinema.'
cmk.
26522
From: "Jonathan Rosenbaum"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 2:23pm
Subject: Re: THE BIG RED ONE dreyertati
> To be fair, some of the 30 additional minutes on the DVD probably
> couldn't be integrated into the film (Samantha Fuller's cameo, for
> example), since they only exist as fragments.
What about the Samantha Fuller cameo that's already in the Schickel
version?
26523
From: "Jonathan Rosenbaum"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 2:28pm
Subject: Re: THE BIG RED ONE dreyertati
> It seems that Fuller was fired from THE BIG RED ONE before he had a
> chance to supervise the recording of the sound effects, so I guess
> Schickel's assumption is that this is what Fuller would have done if
> he'd still been around. I have no real problem with this.
This is really a stretch. If Fuller had been fired from the film, he
surely wouldn't have toured the country with it, helping to promote it
by giving interviews--which is what he was doing the first time I met
him. During this he wasn't making an effort to hide any of the things
that Lorrimer had done to the film--although he was being polite about
it.
26524
From: Craig Keller
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 2:41pm
Subject: Aspect Ratios: Kubrick, cont'd evillights
Received the 20-lb. 'Stanley Kubrick Archives' via UPS yesterday -- to
return briefly to the discussion about Kubrick's ratios and the
theatrical matting, the following is straight from the very first page
of content in the book, p. 4, in the Contents section:
A note about aspect ratios
The aspect ratios for the film stills reproduced in this book adhere to
the films' original formats, as follows:
FILM FORMAT ASPECT RATIO
Killer's Kiss 35mm 1.33:1
The Killing 35mm 1.33:1
Paths of Glory 35mm 1.33:1
Spartacus 70mm 2.2:1
Lolita 35mm 1.66:1
Dr. Strangelove 35mm 1.33:1/1.66:1 (variable)
2001: A Space Odyssey 70mm 2.2:1
A Clockwork Orange 35mm 1.66:1
Barry Lyndon 35mm 1.77:1
The Shining 35mm 1.33:1
Full Metal Jacket 35mm 1.33:1
Eyes Wide Shut 35mm 1.33:1
N.B. - Though his last three films were masked to 1.85:1 for theatrical
release, in compliance with the standard format, Kubrick composed them
to be also viewable at the full aspect ratio of the camera negative
ratio, 1.33:1. The stills herein are presented 1.33:1, as per
Kubrick's instructions.
craig.
26525
From: Craig Keller
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 2:48pm
Subject: Aspect Ratios: Martel evillights
And while on the subject of OARs, yesterday I saw Lucrecia Martel's 'La
niña santa' / 'The Holy Girl' at Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, and it seemed
like a probable, if not definite, case of 1.66 getting chopped to 1.85.
The tops of everyone's heads were missing, besides every framing
feeling generally claustrophobic (a result of the crop, not Martel's
mise en scène if I had to guess).
craig.
26526
From: "thebradstevens"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 2:51pm
Subject: Re: THE BIG RED ONE thebradstevens
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jonathan Rosenbaum"
wrote:
>
>What about the Samantha Fuller cameo that's already in the Schickel
version?
Samantha Fuller is in the Schickel restoration? That's news to me.
The deleted scenes section on the DVD includes an outtake of her
singing.
> This is really a stretch. If Fuller had been fired from the film,
he
> surely wouldn't have toured the country with it
Perhaps he was trying to make the best of a bad situation. The
documentary on the DVD includes an interview with the composer, who
claims that by the time he had been brought onto the project, Fuller
had long since been fired.
26527
From: "Blake Lucas"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 4:10pm
Subject: Re: Mississippi Mermaid (Was: Les Suburbs) lukethedealer12
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666" wrote:
>
> Speaking of endings, I just watched Last Metro, where Truffaut
> repeats word for word (as the ending of the play-within-the-play)
the
> dialogue that got laughed out of theatres when he used it at the end
> of Mississippi Mermaid >
But you have to be a little crazy to use the ending Hitchcock told
> Truffaut had been laughed at when they previewed the original ending
> of Suspicion: Belmondo lets Deneuve poison him because he loves her.
The ending is the reason I always loved the film--specifically the
moment where Belmondo acknowledges to Deneuve he knows she is
poisoning him and looks up at her and says "Go ahead...fill it up."
That really moved me, even in the shorter version first shown here.
The longer version which came out belatedly filled out this movie as
the love story that it is, but I guess they saw this in France and
still laughed at the ending.
But Bill, remember all the movies that have been derided and laughed
at which people in this group (not just me, and certainly including
you, all love)--the endlessly cited Marnie, Red Line 7000, Gertrud,
Seven Women. If some great filmmaker hadn't had the guts to make the
film out of his soul and risk this derision, the cinema would be much
poorer.
But just one more thing about the film and the longer version. When
it came out shorter here, no one seemed to understand why this
seemingly Hitchcock-inspired movie (replete with many references to
Vertigo and so on) was dedicated to Jean Renoir, notwithstanding the
paraphrase of Grande Illusion in the final shot. But where Hitchcock
would metaphysically tighten time and space around the characters,
even when he seems most invested in their liberation (The Birds,
Marnie), Renoir would lean toward freeing their spirits even as the
narrative tragically entraps them. That is what happens in
Mississippi Mermaid, and why the poisoning scene is so rich and moving.
The characters at last come to a real understanding. They are at one
with each other, and so with the world.
Actually it happens in those two Hitchcock movies, too, doesn't it?
But in a different way and to different and rather plaintive effect--
one feels the moment of reconciliation or renewal may be transient,
however deeply felt. In Truffaut, as Renoir, even the deepest
melancholy and hopelessness can be suffused with a feeling of peace
which nothing will ever dispel.
Blake
[More on Truffaut in next post]
>
26528
From: "samfilms2003"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 4:18pm
Subject: 2046 Who's cut ? samfilms2003
from Tribeca report on indiewire:
'"2046" (Spotlight), which Sony Classics will release in August, shown in the version
re-edited for accessibility after the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. (I prefer the dense
Cannes cut.)'
Is this WKW's recut - or Sony's ?
Comments ?
-Sam
26529
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 4:23pm
Subject: Re: 2046 Who's cut ? sallitt1
> '"2046" (Spotlight), which Sony Classics will release in August, shown
> in the version re-edited for accessibility after the 2004 Cannes Film
> Festival. (I prefer the dense Cannes cut.)'
>
> Is this WKW's recut - or Sony's ?
I haven't been following the web chatter on this film too closely, but my
impression is that Wong has been cutting and recutting the film for years.
I doubt that anyone else has had a whack at it. - Dan
26530
From: Craig Keller
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 4:29pm
Subject: Re: 2046 Who's cut ? evillights
On Thursday, May 5, 2005, at 12:18 PM, samfilms2003 wrote:
> '"2046" (Spotlight), which Sony Classics will release in August, shown
> in the version
> re-edited for accessibility after the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. (I
> prefer the dense
> Cannes cut.)'
>
> Is this WKW's recut - or Sony's ?
Sony can't recut Wong; it's his cut. The cut still hadn't been
"locked" at Cannes 2004.
(Just realizing a full year has passed since its debut, and we're only
now on the brink of a theatrical release in the U.S.)
craig.
26531
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 4:37pm
Subject: Re: 2046 Who's cut ? cellar47
WKW's. He tinkers endlessly. He'd be recutting the
film even now!
It's really, really great, BTW.
--- samfilms2003 wrote:
> from Tribeca report on indiewire:
>
> '"2046" (Spotlight), which Sony Classics will
> release in August, shown in the version
> re-edited for accessibility after the 2004 Cannes
> Film Festival. (I prefer the dense
> Cannes cut.)'
>
> Is this WKW's recut - or Sony's ?
>
> Comments ?
>
> -Sam
>
>
>
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26532
From: jay blanchard
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 4:49pm
Subject: Re: 2046 Who's cut ? kinojay33
Does anyone know what cut the Mei-Ah Entertainment
Region 0 - NTSC DVD is? That's the only one I've
seen, and I thought it was incredible.
jay
--- David Ehrenstein wrote:
> WKW's. He tinkers endlessly. He'd be recutting the
> film even now!
>
> It's really, really great, BTW.
>
> --- samfilms2003 wrote:
> > from Tribeca report on indiewire:
> >
> > '"2046" (Spotlight), which Sony Classics will
> > release in August, shown in the version
> > re-edited for accessibility after the 2004 Cannes
> > Film Festival. (I prefer the dense
> > Cannes cut.)'
> >
> > Is this WKW's recut - or Sony's ?
> >
> > Comments ?
> >
> > -Sam
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Yahoo! Mail Mobile
> Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your
> mobile phone.
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26533
From: "Blake Lucas"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 5:08pm
Subject: Re: Truffaut (Was: Mississippi Mermaid) lukethedealer12
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666" wrote:
> Oh yeah, I forgot - Truffaut sold out when he made Last Metro......
I couldn't tell if this is a defense, but had meant to follow up your
earlier post about "hot and cold" on Truffaut, as well as some things
I also said earlier about films of his I like, and thoughts you and
several others in the group shared, all of whom seemed to respond to
him positively as well.
I also have had a lot of ambivalence about Truffaut through the years,
and emphasized the ones I liked and not the ones I had problems with,
like The Last Metro, but more and more I've come to treasure him.
Every once in a while I get back to one and usually like it as well
or better than I did initially. My wife Linda has been a good
influence with Truffaut--for her, the flame for him never stopped
burning, although she also didn't like The Last Metro (that one may
be the last hurdle). But she did like The Woman Next Door, and I
had rejected that one too--that will be next up, and I'm prepared to
change my mind. I probably disliked Small Change most. However,
Linda made an interesting observation about Truffaut--that he was born
old. If that's so, his obsessive take on childhood (it never seems
truly happy, even if you are not Antoine-Doinel, but he can't seem to
resist imbuing it with sentiment) may make sense in a way.
Remember that his beautiful The Soft Skin was rejected by many because
he shifted direction away from the "lyricism" and "warmth" which the
first three features seemed to project. And even though people didn't
take that one to heart, he continued in that vein rather than trying to
go back to what had been successful. That takes guts. And it should
be kept in mind when we feel he finally became the thing he had scorned
(academic) by the time of the movies Small Change, Love on the Run,
Last Metro, and Woman Next Door. Maybe the limitation was in our
response. I know I was very charmed by Confidentially Yours seeing it
again, as I said before. Still, I prefer him when he is audacious,
as my other posts probably suggest--hence my preference for Adele H
and even Mississippi Mermaid over some of the others, including popular
pictures like Day for Night.
It's always good to question oneself and one's own possible
immaturity. In that respect, let me go back to those seemingly
unassailable first three. I loved them enough to once see them as a
triple feature, coming in after Shoot the Piano Player had started and
staying to see that one through to the end the second time. And of
course I'd seen them all before several times. Still, I always had a
problem with Jules and Jim. It seemed like these two sensitive guys
had this tender, affectionate, beautiful friendship and that it is
destroyed by a selfish woman who thinks only of herself and what she
wants in the moment and doesn't care about them. It used to drive me
nuts when people in the 60s would say "Oh Catherine, she's a free
spirit, the voice of feminism to come..." and so on.
Guess what, as an older person (I would never say more mature, but
maybe someone who has at least learned a few things), I returned to it
and saw it a completely different way. Catherine is the way she is,
mercurial and spontaneous, and maybe not thinking of all the
consequences, but she finally suffers just as much from this as either
Jules or Jim--and fully shares in their unhappiness. Moreover, they
both see her the way she is very early on, and seem to accept it, so
the way the relationship of the three plays out is just as much on
them. Everyone chooses and they do too. Seeing this, in a way,
inspired more respect in me for all three characters and deepened the
movie for me. And finally I overcame the feeling I used to have of
those sweet, giddy and lyrical early reels being overcome by gloom.
The movie gets better as it goes along.
Following a similar theme by the same writer, Two English Girls was a
film I didn't like at all (and Leaud carried himself as an homme
fatale much less gracefully than Moreau inhabited her
femme fatale, as you maybe suggested). But again this one too--
especially in longer, fuller version--played very diffently for me
coming back to it. These kinds of relationships are kind of painful
to watch in a way, yet Truffaut is very discerning in his appreciation
of them. Again, he is mature in understanding things, and was even
when he was very young--Jules and Jim should be an old man's film.
Truffaut only reveals his youth in the playful inspirations with which
he adorns those first three--things we might expect from someone
thrilled to make movies--but not in the deeper perceptions of those
characters and how he sees them within their worlds.
Blake
26534
From: "Blake Lucas"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 5:52pm
Subject: Re: THE BIG RED ONE lukethedealer12
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
wrote:
>
> I understand what you're saying about Schickel's limitations of a
> restorationist being his limitations as a critic, but it didn't have
> to be that way. All Schickel had to do was go into the project
> determined to create a film that was as close to Sam Fuller's
> intentions as possible. His only question should have been 'Is this
> what Fuller would have wanted?'. Then, even if he made mistakes,
they
> would at least have been honest ones.
First, what you say is the way it should be, obviously. But more and
more, it seems that restorationists are unable to have humility, to
truly efface themselves for a film. Especially when the filmmaker is
dead, they become very presumptious--surely on some level they wish it
had been they who had the gift to make the film in the first place.
That's natural maybe but I wish they'd see it and overcome it.
Schickel in this case is far from the worst offender. I'm just giving
him this timid word of defense (though partly because this restoration
was very illuminating to me, as I'll briefly explain, despite whatever
faults it may have), even though he's far from a favorite critic of
mine or anything like that. I feel his motives were good here.
I'd love to see other members weigh in how the concept
of "restoration" has been abused, whether there has been more harm
than good or the other way around, and so on. Because there is going
to be more and more of this with digital, I understand--and it seems
at times (maybe not in the case of THE BIG RED ONE) that there is
money to be made on certain things and that's at least one motive.
I don't even mind that if people remember that films are of their
times, filmmakers die, we don't know exactly how they would have
done it, these are not definitive versions, and if there was a
definitive version don't fool with it just to show off new technology
or out of your own ego. So, IT'S ALL TRUE did not pretend this is
the film we would have seen in the 1940s, but it did throw light on
a project that most of us had only heard about, made it real, and did,
through the prism of its makers' efforts, reveal some aspect of Welles
we didn't know. But I don't think this is true of "the definitive"
TOUCH OF EVIL at all, which I disliked and couldn't bear to see more
than once--and I do know both earlier versions well. This one said
far more about the people who put it together than it did about Welles
or that movie.
On THE BIG RED ONE, I saw this once in a theatre, don't have the DVD,
so I can't contribute anything to that part of the discussion. I
queried Bill about it because I saw his name in the credits at the end,
and that's when I learned (had never knew) that the whole narration
was written by McBride and not created by Fuller. That fact, and the
experience of the longer version, really illuminated THE BIG RED ONE
for me. In the 1980 version, I naively assumed that what the
narration told us ("What's important is that we survived...") was what
the film was really about. But with the restored sequences (who on
earth would cut some of those things?--the battle in the amphitheatre,
the ear cutting, just for starters) and even more, the weight of the
film, its richer and "fuller" evocation of the whole experience--even
with some of the narration left (I also wish it had been taken out
altogether)--I wouldn't believe that was what it was about even if
Fuller himself came back and said so. I can usually articulate my
sense of something but not here somehow--even after a few months--
so will need to see it again at some point. But it seemed that by
at the same time not making an "anti-war" film (in any conventional
sense) but also by not treating its characters as heroes (nor do they
seem to think of themselves that way) it was able to transcend the
usual ideas of war films and really project a vision of the world
that is the filmmaker's. I used to think of Fulller as more of a born
filmmaker than a thinker, but this film as we see it now (and again
I did not feel this in the cut-down version at all, and couldn't even
persuade myself it was major Fuller even if it was his dream project)
reveals a philosophical mind, who had some deeper awareness of the
world and the nature of things than most of his many wonderful movies
show (they have many other things going on). I do sense that he
got this from that infantry experience, and that's why the story
always meant the most to him and was the one he wanted to tell, and to
tell in a way that could only be done as cinema, and not verbalized,
even for the most indefatigable of storytellers.
Blake Lucas
26535
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 6:13pm
Subject: Re: Re: THE BIG RED ONE cellar47
--- Blake Lucas wrote:
But I don't think this is true of
> "the definitive"
> TOUCH OF EVIL at all, which I disliked and couldn't
> bear to see more
> than once--and I do know both earlier versions well.
> This one said
> far more about the people who put it together than
> it did about Welles
> or that movie.
>
Very glad to hear tha, Blake, as much of the editing
of the "definitive" version was completely against the
grain of Welles' cutting rhythms. I much prefer the
"more complete" edition of "Touch" that turned up in
the 80s.
The recut "Othello" isn't quite so bad, IMO, but the
score is turned up far too loud.
Can't imaine what might be done with the jigsaw puzzle
that is "Mr. Arkadin/Confidentisal Report," but I'm
more than happy with what we've had over the years. I
insist that it's STILL major Welles.
Curious to see the additions to "Lola Montes," but as
I've said before the biggest narrative gap would
appear to be in the last part of the Ivan Desny
sequence -- just before Lola takes a powder.
When the filmmaker is dead all we can do is make an
"educated guess." We cannot re-inhabit a mind that is
no longer there.
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26536
From: "Blake Lucas"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 6:15pm
Subject: Re: Old, Old Milius Post lukethedealer12
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Mathieu Ricordi
wrote:
>
> Out of the most recent contributions to cinema from Milius, I think
> I'll go with the script for "Geronimo" as most impressive.
> I wonder why he didn't direct it himself though.
>
>
I got "Geronimo: An American Legend" programmed into a Western
series at American Cinematheque last year and moderated a discussion
with Walter Hill and Larry Gross, the screenwriter who (with Hill)
wrote the final version. Naturally, I asked them about Milius and
your specific question.
Milius originally wrote it to direct himself. As happens, the
project never got far enough for him to do, and eventually passed
into Hill's hands. Hill and Gross both said the ideas in the final
film all basically do derive from Milius' original script, though
shape and tone of course became different by the time it was made.
Hills's conception was not in his mind that different from Milius',
though they are very different filmmakers.
I know these posts are mainly to defend Milius, and can't tell if you
imply you wish he had directed it. So let me say a word for the
realized movie and to defend Hill, because I consider this his
finest and most mature movie. It is one of only two 90s Westerns
(the other is "Unforgiven") which I deeply admire, and one of only
two Indian Westerns (along with Aldrich's "UIzana's Raid" which Hill
and Gross said was in their minds when this was made) in post-
classical years that I'd want to get out there for as a critic.
I hope to have a chance to write something substantial on it
someday, but for now will just say this. Hill's visual treatment,
especially his use of long lenses, revitalizes a subject which had
actually been done a lot in some form in earlier years (and very
well, too) and combined with his other artistic strategies, creates
a reflective distance which displays affinities with Rosselini's
historical films. And that's one thing I meant to make a point to
ask him about but somehow I didn't get to it!
Blake Lucas
26537
From: "thebradstevens"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 6:19pm
Subject: Re: THE BIG RED ONE thebradstevens
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Blake Lucas"
wrote:
"the definitive"
> TOUCH OF EVIL at all, which I disliked and couldn't bear to see more
> than once--and I do know both earlier versions well. This one said
> far more about the people who put it together than it did about
Welles
> or that movie.
But the intentions of the people who put this version of TOUCH OF
EVIL together were (as far as I can tell) absolutely pure. They
simply followed the advice given by Welles in his memo, and didn't
try to second-guess him or ignore his advice because they believed
their own ideas about what would 'work' onscreen were superior. If
you didn't like this version, perhaps you should blame Welles :-)
I found it kind of difficult to watch the first time I saw it. But it
does improve on repeated viewings. The second time I watched it was
when I was showing it to a friend who had never seen the film before
(in any version). She absolutely adored it - when I told her that the
older version had printed credits over the opening shot, she was
horrified.
Incidentally, I don't believe that anyone connected with this project
has ever described their version as 'definitive'.
26538
From: "thebradstevens"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 6:25pm
Subject: Re: Old, Old Milius Post thebradstevens
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Blake Lucas"
wrote:
> Milius originally wrote it to direct himself. As happens, the
> project never got far enough for him to do, and eventually passed
> into Hill's hands. Hill and Gross both said the ideas in the final
> film all basically do derive from Milius' original script, though
> shape and tone of course became different by the time it was made.
> Hills's conception was not in his mind that different from Milius',
> though they are very different filmmakers.
A friend of mine who interviewed Milius several years ago asked him
about GERONIMO, and Milius claimed to hate the film, insisting that
the characterization of Geronimo had nothing to do with what he wrote.
26539
From: "Blake Lucas"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 6:35pm
Subject: Re: Band of Outsiders + Rossellini, Jia lukethedealer12
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
> >
>
> Mike, I have no idea where Godard shot it, but I can tell you it
> is typical of every suburb of Paris I knew (and I was born and
> raised in them) -- Those suburbs are bleakly and wonderfully
> photogenic, in a Feuillade kind of way.
> Today the concept of "suburbs" in France is thoroughly different,
> because it refers to immigrant minorities and hig crime whereas in
> my days it meant middle class. (I'm simplyfying because this is
> probably borderline OT). JPC
"Probably borderline OT?"
I don't see that at all, JPC. Mike's post and this reply of yours were
the most interesting ones I read all night, and I'm certainly
interested in "The Big Red One" and while I don't know Claire Denis
(inexcusable, I know) her "carte blanche" selections alone convince me
I should, along with all those words of praise of course.
Back to this. Use of locations in movies has always been at the very
heart of mise-en-scene and what it is all about. And French cinema
has always shown this especially vividly. The Lumieres went out and
shot in these same places (or ones like them) and it immediately became
clear that the camera did not just record reality but engaged it
artistically--the incipient poetry was recognized from the beginning.
We all know how Feuillade plays into this. How about Renoir? How
about Becker? And on to the New Wave, and especially maybe to the
likes of Rivette and Godard.
The very fact you refer to the changing idea of suburbs also reflects
on what one sees in films. The filmmaker endlessly engages in a
dialectic between a reality he pursues (which may even just be people
moving about on a decorated soundstage) and the artistic vision he
also pursues, and the first is always disappearing. When we see
Band of Outsiders again (I really enjoyed coming back to this one
in theatrical rerelease a few years ago) we see a world that is kind
of gone now, and also the way Godard at the time perceived and filmed
that world and his fictional characters/real people playing them,
who inhabited it. Band of Outsiders is endlessly talked about in
terms of its playful side, calling attention to the fact that it is
a cinematic construction there for our delectation--yet somehow,
the fact that it is this has the paradoxical effect of crystallizing
the emotional honesty, sometimes very harsh, which pervades the
realization of the relationships of the three central characters. It
also can make the viewer (as Mike's post showed) fascinated by the
physical world in which the film takes place.
Not to digress too much, but how a filmmaker catches the mood of a
location, and the way this changes for an audience as the world
changes and we come back to the film, is a fascination of cinema and
the process of creating cinema. Godard is one of those who shows a
lot of colors in this respect. Two or Three Things I Know About Her
once seemed liked an almost futuristic vision of a Paris to be, but
it was already becoming this, and now has been described in another
recent post, of a remnant of some high rise fantasy that never came
true. But the world before Two or Three Things will never come back
as it was. And so, just to look at that film now, in its 'Scope and
color images, is to feel a dramatic effect, independent of anything
any figure within it says or does.
Blake
26540
From: "Gabe Klinger"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 6:36pm
Subject: Re: 2046 Who's cut ? gcklinger
For contractual reasons, WKW had to cut Maggie Cheung into the film -- but the only
footage of her in the new version is a 'scope blow up of footage from IN THE MOOD FOR
LOVE. That's really the only discernable change.
Gabe
26541
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 6:48pm
Subject: Re: THE BIG RED ONE hotlove666
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
wrote:
> A friend of mine knows a guy who claims to have a tape of Fuller's
> workprint (but won't show it to anyone). Is this possible? My
> impression was that the people who did the restoration didn't have
> access to a full-length workprint.
They didn't. Bretherton had cut up Sam's work print when he did his
cut. Erica Flaum (assistant editor of the Fuller cut) had a tape in her
garage but threw it out. Maybe someone got that - that would be great
news!
26542
From: "Blake Lucas"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 6:53pm
Subject: Re: Old, Old Milius Post lukethedealer12
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
wrote:
>
> A friend of mine who interviewed Milius several years ago asked
him
> about GERONIMO, and Milius claimed to hate the film, insisting
that
> the characterization of Geronimo had nothing to do with what he
wrote.
This is not inconsistent with what I wrote before or even what Hill
and Gross said. That was their perception, and they never
represented or characterized Milius' reaction to the realized film.
Whether he hated it or not, I do admire it, partly for the reasons I
said, and even his distaste doesn't preclude that he may have made a
vital contribution in the earlier script.
At such time as I have the opportity to do the in-depth look I would
like to do, I'd certainly seek out Milius' script for comparison.
By the way, I have some affection for the work of Milius, as
director as well as writer, and I too, have been sorry to see his
career kind of founder (DEADWOOD emmy notwithstanding, I don't think
Walter Hill is exactly thriving either). John Milius--wrong guy for
the wrong time, and I'm sure he'd be the first to say so. Too bad.
By the way, there is a little documentary on THE SEARCHERS some
a_f_b members may have seen. Milius wrote some (all?) of the
narration for this and I remember that I enjoyed it very much--his
insights were cogent, and very much him, too.
26543
From: "Blake Lucas"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 6:53pm
Subject: Re: Old, Old Milius Post lukethedealer12
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
wrote:
>
> A friend of mine who interviewed Milius several years ago asked
him
> about GERONIMO, and Milius claimed to hate the film, insisting
that
> the characterization of Geronimo had nothing to do with what he
wrote.
This is not inconsistent with what I wrote before or even what Hill
and Gross said. That was their perception, and they never
represented or characterized Milius' reaction to the realized film.
Whether he hated it or not, I do admire it, partly for the reasons I
said, and even his distaste doesn't preclude that he may have made a
vital contribution in the earlier script.
At such time as I have the opportity to do the in-depth look I would
like to do, I'd certainly seek out Milius' script for comparison.
By the way, I have some affection for the work of Milius, as
director as well as writer, and I too, have been sorry to see his
career kind of founder (DEADWOOD emmy notwithstanding, I don't think
Walter Hill is exactly thriving either). John Milius--wrong guy for
the wrong time, and I'm sure he'd be the first to say so. Too bad.
By the way, there is a little documentary on THE SEARCHERS some
a_f_b members may have seen. Milius wrote some (all?) of the
narration for this and I remember that I enjoyed it very much--his
insights were cogent, and very much him, too.
26544
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 7:02pm
Subject: Re: THE BIG RED ONE hotlove666
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jonathan Rosenbaum"
wrote:
>
> > It seems that Fuller was fired from THE BIG RED ONE before he had a
> > chance to supervise the recording of the sound effects, so I guess
> > Schickel's assumption is that this is what Fuller would have done
if
> > he'd still been around. I have no real problem with this.
>
> This is really a stretch. If Fuller had been fired from the film, he
> surely wouldn't have toured the country with it, helping to promote
it
> by giving interviews--which is what he was doing the first time I met
> him. During this he wasn't making an effort to hide any of the things
> that Lorrimer had done to the film--although he was being polite
about
> it.
He certainly concealed it during the lead-up to Cannes. Nothing was
said to me when we interviewed him for CdC or the long period after
that when the film was being finished by other hands. The interview
describes scenes that aren't in the release version, because he didn't
know what they were doing at that point. He was silent as the grave. He
even hid the fact that the film was being "sneaked" at USC, but my then-
gf, who did the interview with me, went with Joe McBride and reported
back that the film was had been fucked with, but was "still a million
times better than Apocalypse, Now."
Then two things happened that changed that. I heard on the grapevine
what had happened and told Daney - I was naive in those days - and he
blew Sam's cover in his piece. (I didn't write anything more for the
Cahiers after that in protest, until Serge moved to Libe.) And Kirk
Douglas, a friend who owed Sam and was the head of the Jury, kept the
bowdlerized version of the film from getting the Palm d'Or - not
because he knew it was cut, but because he's a rogue, as Christa puts
it.
After that Sam's rap changed. He was perfectly right to keep his mouth
shut as long as he did, although I wish he'd trusted me to do the same -
I would have, if he'd explained what was happening. In fact the full
extent of his rage about what Lorimar did was only expressed to
Christa - he never stopped blowing off about it. Again, who can blame
him?
26545
From: "thebradstevens"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 7:07pm
Subject: Re: Old, Old Milius Post thebradstevens
--
> By the way, there is a little documentary on THE SEARCHERS some
> a_f_b members may have seen. Milius wrote some (all?) of the
> narration for this and I remember that I enjoyed it very much--his
> insights were cogent, and very much him, too.
I believe that Milius simply read the narration - he didn't write it.
26546
From: "Blake Lucas"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 7:15pm
Subject: Re: Old, Old Milius Post lukethedealer12
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
wrote:
> --
> > By the way, there is a little documentary on THE SEARCHERS some
> > a_f_b members may have seen. Milius wrote some (all?) of the
> > narration for this and I remember that I enjoyed it very much--his
> > insights were cogent, and very much him, too.
>
> I believe that Milius simply read the narration - he didn't write it.
26547
From: "Blake Lucas"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 7:17pm
Subject: Re: Old, Old Milius Post lukethedealer12
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
wrote:
> --
> > By the way, there is a little documentary on THE SEARCHERS some
> > a_f_b members may have seen. Milius wrote some (all?) of the
> > narration for this and I remember that I enjoyed it very much--his
> > insights were cogent, and very much him, too.
>
> I believe that Milius simply read the narration - he didn't write it.
Thanks for clarifying. I guess I liked the way he read it then.
If I remembered him writing it it's because it just sounded so much
like his ideas about the film which I've seen over the years.
Too bad that little film wasn't made years earlier when more of the
original participants were still around. It was kind of interesting,
even so.
26548
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 7:20pm
Subject: Re: Truffaut (Was: Mississippi Mermaid) hotlove666
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Blake Lucas"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
Blake,
I wish I had time to write the long reply your post desrevees, but I
don't today, so let me just clarify: I was being very sarcastic when
I said "oh I forgot, he sold out w. Last Metro." I just resaw it, and
it's one of his best films. (Even though I felt as David and Jonatahn
Benair did when I first saw it.) But I like everything I've been
reseeing, and I'll reserve comment until I have reseen Green Room and
Two English Girls, the ones we all embraced because they were flops,
as if we were trying to take him back from the popular audience that
had embraced Day for Night et al. From what I've seen so far it's an
incredibly strong body of work that gets better with time. And again,
let me stress the formal qualities - and the great visaul beauty of
the films. When you resee Woman Next Door, I predict that the use of
wide shots will surprise you. It's very modern.
Your comment that he was "born old" is astute. When he was a child
his mother obliged him to sit in a chair and read - he couldn't even
go out and play - because she couldn't stand noise and movement. He
seems to have read an incredible amount of fiction, memoirs,
psychology and history before he started making films, not to mention
seeing many, many films. Emotionally, he was complex - we're talking
about someone who attempted suicide over a girl when he was 17 - a
serious attempt: he made 25 cuts in his arm. But what he sucked out
of all those books and films is in his first films, and even 400
Blows is quite mature, something first films often aren't,
particularly these days! The real Catherine (Helen Grund) was alive
when Jules and Jim came out, and she wrote Truffaut expressing her
amazement at how he had gotten it right.
26549
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 7:24pm
Subject: Re: THE BIG RED ONE hotlove666
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Blake Lucas"
wrote:
I used to think of Fulller as more of a born
> filmmaker than a thinker, but this film as we see it now (and again
> I did not feel this in the cut-down version at all, and couldn't even
> persuade myself it was major Fuller even if it was his dream project)
> reveals a philosophical mind, who had some deeper awareness of the
> world and the nature of things than most of his many wonderful movies
> show (they have many other things going on).
It's in the films - it just isn't in the dialogue.
26550
From: "Blake Lucas"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 7:45pm
Subject: Re: Restorations (Was:THE BIG RED ONE) lukethedealer12
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
wrote:
>
> But the intentions of the people who put this version of TOUCH OF
> EVIL together were (as far as I can tell) absolutely pure. They
> simply followed the advice given by Welles in his memo, and didn't
> try to second-guess him or ignore his advice because they believed
> their own ideas about what would 'work' onscreen were superior. If
> you didn't like this version, perhaps you should blame Welles :-)
>
I wanted to see members share thoughts on these restorations and you
did, which I appreciate. I knew many would disagree with me about
this TOUCH OF EVIL. I also knew that some others also dislike it.
Regardless of conscious "intentions" (and remember that road to
hell...), I read a number of interviews with Schmidlin, Murch, et al
at the time and they all acted like they were personally responsible
for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Though I didn't personally see
it, there was apparently some reference to "channeling" Welles.
And they don't need to say it's "definitive" because it is being
treated that way. Go to see the film now, and this is what you will
see (I saved tape of the last, longer version--the earliest, shorter
one hasn't been in years).
A memo is not an editing room. And Welles' thoughts on films were
always evolving in the process until he was finished with a film
(which he rarely was, by some accounts, and that's part of the
problem here). And as David observed:
"much of the editing of the "definitive" version was completely
against the grain of Welles' cutting rhythms."
I'd add that the sound is more reflective of Murch's ideas about
sound than Welles'. The two men are of different times--I consider
Murch very creative in his approach to sound, but it is a different
creativity.
There's a lot more that could be said, and I'm interested, time
allowing, because even though I only saw this version once, I know
the film well enough to have had a very keen sense of everything
that was done. But, you know, I also think I didn't come up with
a very good example in context of THE BIG RED ONE. That movie was
Sam Fuller's dream project--those bankrolling it knew that and were
presumably contracting for that. Those restoring it were also aware
of it, and for me they did give me a better sense of why it meant
so much to him, at the least, whatever mistakes they made.
Above you say, "perhaps you should blame Welles." Unfortunately,
this is really true in a way. This was a studio film--he should
have got it cut in a form reasonably satisfactory to him much
quicker and more than likely they would have left it alone or in
something like his version. Because they just could not have cared
very much about a movie like this one. Not getting the job done and
calling attention to yourself is just not smart in these
circumstances. But it's very Welles.
I don't care how much of an artist you are--or if your name is Orson
Welles--it is not an alibi for every mishap of a career. Compare
Sam Fuller, who managed to get it done his way over and over in
those studio system days (but not in the days of THE BIG RED ONE!),
and he was certainly no less independent, either personally or
artistically.
26551
From: "Aaron Graham"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 8:47pm
Subject: Re: Old, Old Milius Post machinegunmc...
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Blake Lucas"
wrote:
> Thanks for clarifying. I guess I liked the way he read it then.
> If I remembered him writing it it's because it just sounded so much
> like his ideas about the film which I've seen over the years.
>
> Too bad that little film wasn't made years earlier when more of the
> original participants were still around. It was kind of interesting,
> even so.
I believe the intention with the film in discussion ["A Turning of the
Earth: John Ford, John Wayne, and The Searchers"] was to use whatever
outtakes, home movies and other odds and ends that still survive - much
like the "Wild Bunch" Oscar-winning documentary, "An Album in Montage.
Milius recited correspondence from Wayne, Ford & others, but his
unmistakable inflections tend to make everything sound like poetry. He
also lent his voice to the making-of on "The Outlaw Josey Wales" dvd.
26552
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 8:48pm
Subject: Re: Band of Outsiders + Rossellini, Jia hotlove666
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Blake Lucas"
wrote:
. Use of locations in movies has always been at the very
> heart of mise-en-scene and what it is all about. And French cinema
> has always shown this especially vividly.
When the encyclopedic work La ville (the city) et le cinema being
edited by Thierry Jousse is finally done, I hope it gets into the
questions that have been raised here. I understand that Paris, being
such a huge topic, is being divided up among several writers. There is
a book by Jean Douchet on Paris as a Cinema City - a picture book with
a lot of text - that unfortunately hasn't been translated.
26553
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 8:51pm
Subject: Re: Old, Old Milius Post hotlove666
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Aaron Graham"
wrote:
For those playing ketchup w. JM, let me stress the pleasure to be had
from his first feature, Dillinger - one of his best, and an enormously
enjoyable film, like Big Wednesday.
26554
From: BklynMagus
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 10:55pm
Subject: Re: Truffaut (Was: Mississippi Mermaid) cinebklyn
hl666 writes:
> When you resee Woman Next Door, I predict
that the use of wide shots will surprise you.
It's very modern.
I just wanted to say that I was lucky enough to
have started my filmgoing early enough that I
saw some late Truffaut's as they were released
and even see him introduce them at the NY Film
Festival.
The one I will always remember (and think his
best work) is "The Woman Next Door." Not only
is it beautifully made, but from the very start, when
the narrator pushes the camera back so that we
can see her in full frame along with her leg brace,
we know that Truffaut is going to show the whole
human condition, disfigurement and all.
The other shot I love is of Depardieu at work,
piloting a mini-oil tanker around a wave tank --
the ultimate visual comment on his character and
that type of man.
Brian
26555
From: "peckinpah20012000"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 11:04pm
Subject: Re: THE BIG RED ONE peckinpah200...
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666" wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jonathan Rosenbaum"
>
>
> Douglas, a friend who owed Sam and was the head of the Jury, kept
the
> bowdlerized version of the film from getting the Palm d'Or - not
> because he knew it was cut, but because he's a rogue, as Christa
puts
> it.
>
> I liked Kirk Douglas as an actor before I read THE RAGMAN'S SON. It
appears that a different image is now slowly emerging (thanks to
Bernard Gordon and others) which links up with horror stories
concerning SPARTACUS and THE LAST SUNSET.
Perhaps when Kirk departs this "mortal coil", the full story will
emerge. But it was really shameful of him if the above story is true.
Tony Willaims
26556
From: "Maxime Renaudin"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 11:25pm
Subject: Claire Denis jaloysius56
Pretty annoyed by l'Intru, which I don't dislike more than any one of
his last five films (from Nenette et Boni), I went to watch again J'ai
pas sommeil. I didn't dream that one, definitely her best work, and
presumably one of the best films of the 90's. My disappointment
looking at her way since then is only greater. A dead end.
I don't deny the constant beauty of this visual poem, but I can see
only dead matter here. Proud and lone, images stand as self-
sufficient, disregarding all others. They don't watch each other; they
don't talk to each other. They add up. I see there the sad
renunciation of the organic tissue that seems to me necessary to
recreation of any state of the world, of the mind. The esotericism of
the narration is not in question. Her approach hasn't changed a bit
since J'ai pas sommeil. Elliptic, split up over many fronts. But the
gaze has changed. The uprooting of the images leaves the world inert
and soulless. The horses running through the snow, I see only the
white and the motion.
26557
From: Mathieu Ricordi
Date: Thu May 5, 2005 11:51pm
Subject: Re: Re: Old, Old Milius Post mathieu_ricordi
Quoting Blake Lucas :
> I know these posts are mainly to defend Milius, and can't tell if you
>
> imply you wish he had directed it. So let me say a word for the
>
> realized movie and to defend Hill, because I consider this his
>
> finest and most mature movie.
> Blake Lucas
I actually do wish Milius had directed it, this is not to take away
from what Walter Hill did with the material but rather an evocation
of my desire to see Milius working more and be able to complete
projects he started (I also happen to like him a great deal more
than Hill so call it a reaction from a vexed fan, a simple
law of nature). Your defence of the "Geronimo" we're left with
is by no means unreasonable, and actually quite lucid/backable.
I find Walter Hill to be quite underrated in some circles, and
quite overrated in others (the two usually operating as a result of the
other). He's definetly more than just a routine run-of-the-mill
action-for-kicks director, and I believe his defenders and ardent
admirers when they say there's a larger/analytical/moral vison
behind his stylized thrills. But I usually find his insistence
on situatonal progression and character evolution (coming squarly
from the action itself) to be sometimes lacking in dramatic and
emotional impact (in a few words: granduer,opulent languidity, moments of
repose). I also find he has the worst ear for music, and this is a major
flaw in "Geronimo", which needed more from the soundtrack to
accompany its vision. There's no way of knowing how different/better
the film would have been with John Milius behind the camera, but
I can wager their would have been a more poetic and operatic musical
usage, and more calm, meditative scenes of power like
the incredible Robert Duvall death scene/speech (which I think
shows the clearest and most obvious Milius signature, much like
the Duvall scenes in "Apocalypse Now"). Instead of the Long-Lens
motif you speak of, Milius would have probably offered us his
glorious deep-focus effects (which isn't necessarily better, as you
argued Hill gets the most out of his selection).
Overall, I liked "Geronimo", and as a revisionist native-American
picture found it weaker than Michael Mann's "Last of The Mohicans",
and much better than Costner's "Dances Than Wolves". We can
never know what might have been if Milius had been the director
(we can just speculate and/or pine like me) but of course
that doesn't do any good, the fact is some directors who take the
torch from others preform brilliantly (Chaplin's "Monsieur Verdoux"
from Welles), and some frusterate us (Shoemaker's "Phone Booth" from
Larry Cohen). I just get angry when a filmmaker spends a lot of time
on a project he beleives and it can't get off the ground, only
to see it be taken by somebody else and changed (whether for
better or worse). For Milius I've heard/read it's happened a lot, and
that he's rarely (if ever) been happy with the new versions (you
should hear his distaste for "Judge Roy Bean"). I think
the same thing happened with James Toback and "Bugsy".
Whatever others have done with Milius's budding seeds, here's a
director who has been prevented a frightening number of times
from getting his vision on screen, and yes, I wish this weren't so.
Mathieu Ricordi
26558
From: "samfilms2003"
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 0:00am
Subject: Re: 2046 Who's cut ? samfilms2003
> WKW's. He tinkers endlessly. He'd be recutting the
> film even now!
>
> It's really, really great, BTW.
That's what I would have thought, but who can you trust ?
Well it's Sony not - oh skip it..
So it's fluid until August I guess ;-)
-Sam W
26559
From: Mathieu Ricordi
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 0:00am
Subject: Re: Re: Old, Old Milius Post mathieu_ricordi
Quoting hotlove666 :
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Aaron Graham"
>
> wrote:
> For those playing ketchup w. JM, let me stress the pleasure to be had
>
> from his first feature, Dillinger - one of his best, and an enormously
>
> enjoyable film, like Big Wednesday.
Right you are, "Dillinger" is a very good film, and to me a much
better depression-era gangster on the lam movie than "Bonnie and Clyde".
For one thing the relationships are much more complex, the fugitive hunt
carried out with much more intesity, and the humour more ironic/inteligent.
In an Interview Milius said "I look at it now, and it looks real crude",
but less polish doesn't at all mean less imagination or impressiveness
in the mise en scene.
Mathieu Ricordi
26560
From: "samfilms2003"
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 0:01am
Subject: Re: 2046 Who's cut ? samfilms2003
> Does anyone know what cut the Mei-Ah Entertainment
> Region 0 - NTSC DVD is? That's the only one I've
> seen, and I thought it was incredible.
I think this is the one I have the chance to see and have been
holding out for da big screen.....
-Sam
26561
From: "Maxime Renaudin"
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 0:03am
Subject: Re: THE BIG RED ONE jaloysius56
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens" > in
> His only question should have been 'Is this
> what Fuller would have wanted?'.
I'm sorry if this has been largely discussed here, but what do we know
for sure about that? Did Fuller leave something relevant to rely on?
If not, can 'what Fuller would have wanted?' be anything but wishful
thinking? Does the process of assembling all surving footage together
eventually makes the movie?
Will the restored version be released in some US theaters? According
to IMDb, it is now in the UK. Is that a fact? Tell me yes and I fly.
26562
From: "samfilms2003"
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 0:12am
Subject: Re: Claire Denis samfilms2003
>Elliptic, split up over many fronts. But the
> gaze has changed. The uprooting of the images leaves the world inert
> and soulless. The horses running through the snow, I see only the
> white and the motion.
You're making it sound kind of appealing to me, I want you to know ;-)
(after Beau Travail she's got my ticket $ for this, jacket or not I should
confess)
-Sam W
26563
From: "Blake Lucas"
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 0:13am
Subject: Re: Kirk's Works (Was: THE BIG RED ONE) lukethedealer12
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "peckinpah20012000"
wrote:
> > I liked Kirk Douglas as an actor before I read THE RAGMAN'S SON.
It
> appears that a different image is now slowly emerging (thanks to
> Bernard Gordon and others) which links up with horror stories
> concerning SPARTACUS and THE LAST SUNSET.
>
> Perhaps when Kirk departs this "mortal coil", the full story will
> emerge. But it was really shameful of him if the above story is true.
>
Can't you still like him as an actor even if these and many
more "horror stories" turn out to be true? This is the movie business
we're talking about--I wouldn't want to change my opinion of some of
the greatest directors (or anyone else) based on things I've heard
about them, their treatment of others and utter selfishness and
ruthlessness in getting their own way (Hmmm, maybe Kirk just couldn't
get the role of Jonathan Shields in THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL out of
his mind).
I might get after him about SPARTACUS for sure, but not for a reason
that would make many a_f_b members very happy. On the other hand,
though LAST SUNSET tribulations are well-known, including Aldrich's
disenchantment with producer-star Douglas and the fact that he
(Aldrich) doesn't quite want to own this one, I for one have always
found it a beautiful, haunting film and Douglas just wonderful in his
poetic gunman role. And saying this now is based on seeing it again
in 35 in recent months in crisp new color print.
Blake
26564
From: "Maxime Renaudin"
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 0:17am
Subject: Re: THE BIG RED ONE in London ? jaloysius56
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Maxime Renaudin" >
> Will the restored version be released in some US theaters? According
> to IMDb, it is now in the UK. Is that a fact? Tell me yes and I fly.
I guess I could kill myself right now. I've just seen that the BRO was
shown at the London NFT 2 times a day until thursday (today...) Could
someone in London confirm, please, that the film will be shown
somewhere later?
26565
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 0:29am
Subject: Re: Re: Claire Denis cellar47
--- samfilms2003 wrote:
> (after Beau Travail she's got my ticket $ for this,
> jacket or not I should
> confess)
>
Then you'll appreciate this Cinta Wilson piece in
"Salon"
http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2005/05/05/gregoire_colin/index.html
about Gregoire Colin
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
26566
From: "Blake Lucas"
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 1:13am
Subject: Re: Hill and Milius-Now Not So Old (Was:Old, Old Milius Post) lukethedealer12
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Mathieu Ricordi
wrote:
>
> I find Walter Hill to be quite underrated in some circles, and
> quite overrated in others (the two usually operating as a result
of the
> other). He's definetly more than just a routine run-of-the-mill
> action-for-kicks director, and I believe his defenders and ardent
> admirers when they say there's a larger/analytical/moral vison
> behind his stylized thrills.
The description you offer of him kind of works for me overall, more
in other of his films I like than "Geronimo" which is less of an
action film (not much action, you will observe--it is far more on
the reflective side). There's too much action--most of it
meaningless--in later American cinema, but Hill has been known to
imbue it with something, the stunning climax of "Southern Comfort"
being a supreme example.
That said, he's very uneven--I am more interested to champion him
than many who have made greater reputations in recent years, but his
really good ones, maybe a third of the whole body of work, don't add
up to the work of a great or major director, just a very talented
one. He is distinctive though--he pushes the so-called "action
genres" into a kind of abstraction which is perhaps the only place
they can really go in (dare I use the word) "post-modernism" or
whatever the actual equivalent is (I'd probably prefer to call it
"post-classicism.")
But I usually find his insistence
> on situatonal progression and character evolution (coming squarly
> from the action itself) to be sometimes lacking in dramatic and
> emotional impact (in a few words: granduer,opulent languidity,
moments of
> repose).
He really isn't very interested in characters, I don't think. His
characters tend to be almost opaque--they can be forcefully played
though; his instinct for casting is often very good. He isn't
interested in the usual dramatic and emotional impact either, not of
the classical kind, and I've learned not to look for it in his
films, but to look for the shape and vision of the whole, which is,
again, more abstract, though here with that sense of history.
I also find he has the worst ear for music, and this is a major
> flaw in "Geronimo", which needed more from the soundtrack to
> accompany its vision. There's no way of knowing how
different/better
> the film would have been with John Milius behind the camera, but
> I can wager their would have been a more poetic and operatic
musical
> usage,
I don't get this at all, I'm afraid. Hill brought Ry Cooder into
the cinema, a real gift in my opinion--scores for "Long Riders" and
"Southern Comfort" (the Cajun music in the aforementioned climactic
scene) are among their standout elements, beautifully used in the
films. At the discussion, Hill said he felt Cooder surpassed
himself in the "Geronimo" score and talked about exactly what he did
and what the compositional elements were (opposing ones, but I don't
want to try to characterize it if I don't remember exactly what he
said). And I kind of agree. I love the score--it suits the film.
and more calm, meditative scenes of power like
> the incredible Robert Duvall death scene/speech (which I think
> shows the clearest and most obvious Milius signature, much like
> the Duvall scenes in "Apocalypse Now").
You may be right about the Duvall death scene, though I think Hill
kind of plays it down (that Hill managed to get two of the last
Western icons anyone would want in Duvall and Hackman, both superb,
is another point for him and the film). But Milius definitely did
not write the film's finest character scene--written in the final
version only--almost a single long take (about a minute and a half)
of Scott Wilson as an ex-confederate soldier living beneath the
border, which begins with him lighting a match on his thumb. I
consider this the greatest single scene performance of an actor in
the cinema, as Hill's usual lack of density in character falls by
the wayside and we somehow learn all about this man's past, his
present, his whole life and how he feels about his life.
Instead of the Long-Lens
> motif you speak of, Milius would have probably offered us his
> glorious deep-focus effects (which isn't necessarily better, as you
> argued Hill gets the most out of his selection).
No doubt you are right about this, and that indicates how completely
different the film would be.
> Overall, I liked "Geronimo", and as a revisionist native-American
> picture found it weaker than Michael Mann's "Last of The
Mohicans",
> and much better than Costner's "Dances Than Wolves".
Fair enough, except that I never use the words "revisionist"
or "Native-American" for reasons I won't explain here. Obviously I
like it better than either of those, though wouldn't mind seeing
"Mohicans" one more time ("Dances" did not stand up well at all
on second viewing--its portentuousness began to become overwhelming).
We can
> never know what might have been if Milius had been the director
> (we can just speculate and/or pine like me) but of course
> that doesn't do any good, the fact is some directors who take the
> torch from others preform brilliantly (Chaplin's "Monsieur Verdoux"
> from Welles), and some frusterate us (Shoemaker's "Phone Booth"
from
> Larry Cohen). I just get angry when a filmmaker spends a lot of
time
> on a project he beleives and it can't get off the ground, only
> to see it be taken by somebody else and changed (whether for
> better or worse). For Milius I've heard/read it's happened a lot,
and
> that he's rarely (if ever) been happy with the new versions (you
> should hear his distaste for "Judge Roy Bean"). I think
> the same thing happened with James Toback and "Bugsy".
>
I absolutely agree with this in principle, and of course, it makes
sense for you to be frustrated over what has happened to Milius (and
many others before him, of course). But it is well to remember that
these projects are not always (or even often) taken away in some
criminal manner by some other director. Different things happen,
and no one is really to blame, usually. And as you say, you have
to try to judge the results. That doesn't mean that we don't want
directors we like to keep their own projects, of course. And I'd
have loved to see Milius' "Judge Roy Bean." I wouldn't have minded
seeing him do "Apocalypse Now" (not his project, I know) for that
matter.
> Whatever others have done with Milius's budding seeds, here's a
> director who has been prevented a frightening number of times
> from getting his vision on screen, and yes, I wish this weren't so.
>
> Mathieu Ricordi
26567
From: "Blake Lucas"
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 1:18am
Subject: Re: Old, Old Milius Post lukethedealer12
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Mathieu Ricordi
wrote:
>
>
>
> Quoting hotlove666 :
>
> > --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Aaron Graham"
> >
> > wrote:
>
> > For those playing ketchup w. JM, let me stress the pleasure to
be had
> >
> > from his first feature, Dillinger - one of his best, and an
enormously
> >
> > enjoyable film, like Big Wednesday.
>
>
> Right you are, "Dillinger" is a very good film, and to me a much
> better depression-era gangster on the lam movie than "Bonnie and
Clyde".
> For one thing the relationships are much more complex, the
fugitive hunt
> carried out with much more intesity, and the humour more
ironic/inteligent.
> In an Interview Milius said "I look at it now, and it looks real
crude",
> but less polish doesn't at all mean less imagination or
impressiveness
> in the mise en scene.
>
> Mathieu Ricordi
All this and Milius is one of the few (Hellman and Peckinpah most
notably) to see the great Warren Oates as a lead. Of course, I'm
not suggesting he should have been cast in the lovely "Big Wednesday"
--somehow he just doesn't go with the surf in the same way...
26568
From: Adrian Martin
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 1:54am
Subject: re: Restorations apmartin90
Blake Lucas wrote:
"I read a number of interviews with Schmidlin, Murch, et al
at the time and they all acted like they were personally responsible
for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. "
Blake, you are entitled to your strong opinion, but aren't you being
just a little disrespectful here to our AFB colleague Jonathan - who
you don't even dare name with that 'etc'?
Adrian
26569
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 2:07am
Subject: Re: Truffaut (Was: Mississippi Mermaid) hotlove666
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, BklynMagus wrote:
> hl666 writes:
> I just wanted to say that I was lucky enough to
> have started my filmgoing early enough that I
> saw some late Truffaut's as they were released
> and even see him introduce them at the NY Film
> Festival.
That's lucky because you weren't burdened with memories of the First
Three, which made it hard for me and others to keep up with him after
that. I became a cinephile because of Shoot the Piano Player. I don't
think I've ever SEEN The Woman Next Door in a theatre. I skipped it
during its first release, for some reason, then watched it years
later, having taped it off tv, and only saw it in the right aspect
ratio a few days ago, thanks to the DVD edition. I'm still absorbing
it.
It's hard for me to believe looking at Last Metro now that I - a
cinephile! - didn't get it when it opened: the daringly elliptical,
subtly irrational, subtly dreamlike construction that supports rather
than undermining the classicism of the story and the mise-en-scene,
which is filled with forms he had imbibed from Lubitsch and Renoir
and Hitchcock and turned into something original.
Those of us who turned up our noses have treats in store for us when
we revisit those films. My big problem now is that it's hard to keep
Truffaut and Godard in focus at the same time - at the back of my
head, I'm already downgrading Godard (the phenomenon of what the
French call "communicating vessels"). The truth is that their first
films were a dialogue that was only interrupted in the 70s... if then.
26570
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 2:11am
Subject: Re: Kirk's Works (Was: THE BIG RED ONE) hotlove666
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Blake Lucas"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "peckinpah20012000"
> wrote:
>
> Can't you still like him as an actor even if these and many
> more "horror stories" turn out to be true?
Christa still likes him - so do I after finally meeting him and
interviewing him a couple of years ago. You simply cannot be in his
presence without liking him, no matter what you may have heard. He IS
that character you see on the screen - or rather, all of those
characters.
26571
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 2:29am
Subject: Re: THE BIG RED ONE hotlove666
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Maxime Renaudin"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens" > in
> > His only question should have been 'Is this
> > what Fuller would have wanted?'.
>
> I'm sorry if this has been largely discussed here, but what do we
know
> for sure about that?
There's the script for the order of scenes, which wouldn't have
changed much; there are the scenes in the promo reel, not in the
release version but edited under his supervision (and ignored in some
cases by the restorers, I gather from The Brad's post); because
Bretherton made his trims in Sam's rough cut, there are sequences
that survive more or less intact in the release version, where you
just need to add things - like showing all of Zab's run on Omaha,
filmed all-in-one and eviscerated by Bretherton, or adding a few
squiggles to the elaborate sequence of the fake dead Germans under
the cross, which I always pointed to for people who wanted to know
what Sam's film would be like; my long interview with him, which
Schickel didn't have, unfortunately, and what Sam told me, Christa
and others many times, such as that he hated the narration, hated the
score, wanted Beethoven and Wagner (Ride of the Valkyries for
Schroeder's leitmotif: he hummed it for me after his stroke, when he
could still do tunes, but not words and sentences)) and didn't want
any title cards indicating time and place. You can make a stab at it
with all that information, but you have to respect the filmmaker's
wishes where they're known.
Joe told me Sam wasn't in the editing room when he worked on White
Dog - they were under the gun, and Sam was happy to stay away and let
a good editor was finish it in a way that respected his plan. Welles
was an editing-room guy; Sam wasn't; neither was Hitchcock - he'd
look at a cut in a screening room, where he could seee the thing like
a spectator, and give the editor notes afterward. The one place I got
to follow that process was Strangers on a Train, where all of "Box
1," with the editor's documents in it, is archived at USC as it was
the day they shipped it. I don't know what happened to "Box 1" on
TBRO. Shickel told me they couldn't find it.
26572
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 2:31am
Subject: Re: THE BIG RED ONE in London ? hotlove666
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Maxime Renaudin"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Maxime Renaudin" >
> > Will the restored version be released in some US theaters?
According
> > to IMDb, it is now in the UK. Is that a fact? Tell me yes and I fly.
>
> I guess I could kill myself right now. I've just seen that the BRO
was
> shown at the London NFT 2 times a day until thursday (today...) Could
> someone in London confirm, please, that the film will be shown
> somewhere later?
I can't believe it still isn't out in France!!! These people are
nuts!!!!!
26573
From: "Blake Lucas"
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 2:55am
Subject: Re: Restorations lukethedealer12
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Adrian Martin wrote:
> Blake Lucas wrote:
>
> "I read a number of interviews with Schmidlin, Murch, et al
> at the time and they all acted like they were personally responsible
> for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. "
>
> Blake, you are entitled to your strong opinion, but aren't you being
> just a little disrespectful here to our AFB colleague Jonathan - who
> you don't even dare name with that 'etc'?
>
> Adrian
You are absolutely right. In truth, I forgot his involvement
in the project, probably because I so respect the breadth and
depth of his grasp of cinema and have for a long time.
I don't know if Jonathan was in the longest of the interviews I read,
which was the one I had in mind above, because I don't remember him in
it specifically. I do remember (I'm certain it was him, though don't
have this now) a scholarly article he wrote about the memo before the
restoration (in FILM QUARTERLY?), which I read with a lot of interest,
and remember now the role he played in the whole project beginning
with that. I'd never doubt his sincerity. I don't necessarily doubt
the sincerity of anyone involved, despite what statements they may
have made and my personal opinion of this project. I did want to
throw out before the tendency in restorations to overreach, which is a
subject I'm sure Jonathan himself would be as interested to debate and
articulate in doing so as anyone.
If you do read this Jonathan, please accept my apology.
Blake
26574
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 3:07am
Subject: Re: Re: THE BIG RED ONE cellar47
--- hotlove666 wrote:
>
> Joe told me Sam wasn't in the editing room when he
> worked on White
> Dog - they were under the gun, and Sam was happy to
> stay away and let
> a good editor was finish it in a way that respected
> his plan.
Well that's really fascinating. I was lucky enough to
have been on the set for two weeks and watched Sam
shoot several scenes. It's clear that he went into
this project knowing exactly what he wanted -- and
therefore knew how it would cut. There was no waste --
just pure cinema. After a film as epic as "The Big Red
One," making "White Dog" -- which recalled in many
ways some of his earliest projects -- much have been a
tonic for him. It certainly looked as if it was.
Yahoo! Mail
Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour:
http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html
26575
From: "Blake Lucas"
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 3:13am
Subject: Re: Truffaut (Was: Mississippi Mermaid) lukethedealer12
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
I became a cinephile because of Shoot the Piano Player.
Always my favorite, too, at least until Adele H came along. I'm
quite keen to get back to it (Piano Player). Hell, maybe I just
need a Marie Dubois fix!
I interviewed Georges Delerue in my Reader days--more of a gentleman
than anyone I ever met in the movie business. Interestingly, he
loved Shoot the Piano Player--his favorite score, he said--but
didn't care for Jules and Jim, even though others love that score
(and the movie) just as much.
>
>
> Those of us who turned up our noses have treats in store for us
when
> we revisit those films. My big problem now is that it's hard to
keep
> Truffaut and Godard in focus at the same time - at the back of my
> head, I'm already downgrading Godard (the phenomenon of what the
> French call "communicating vessels"). The truth is that their
first
> films were a dialogue that was only interrupted in the 70s... if
then.
Bill, I would be careful about any tendency to pit Truffaut and
Godard against each other (the fact Godard did it is no excuse).
It's not a contest. No one needs to be downgraded, do they? They
each made their own distinctive contribution (and JLG still is here
to continue to do so).
That doesn't take away anything you've said lately about Truffaut,
and especially the great visual beauty that continued to mark his
films as he soldiered on. The important thing, of course, was not
just to overcome some preconception based on the First Three, but
to overcome any later preconceptions as well. When one doesn't do
this, one has only oneself to blame for missing out. You get into
the kind of situation of "Fritz Lang was great in the days of German
Expressionism, but now, making Beyond a Reasonable Doubt, he's just
a hack." Very enlightened thinking.
Like you I don't have time right now to address everything I'd like
to about Truffaut. But one more interesting thing comes to mind,
and that's his relationship to Hitchcock and Renoir. Two such
strong cinematic personalities, and Truffaut is never afraid to
show he feels that way in his own films, yet I believe he himself
emerged with just as strong an individual personality as either.
Blake
26576
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 3:38am
Subject: Re: Truffaut (Was: Mississippi Mermaid) hotlove666
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Blake Lucas"
wrote:
> >
> I interviewed Georges Delerue in my Reader days--more of a gentleman
> than anyone I ever met in the movie business.
Good manners are still almost universal in France. I guess that's one
reason people like Bush and Dick "Go Fuck Yourself" Cheney hate them so
much.
I interviewed Delerue after Truffaut's death: a genius and a gentleman.
One funny anecdote, really about Truffaut, a paranoid who was reluctant
to let anyone get too close, except for selected (mostly old) friends,
children and of course women. In all the years they worked together,
Delerue told me, they never had dinner together. But when they were in
London recording the score for Vivement Dimanche, Truffaut finally
invited the composer to have dinner with him. "That's when I realized
he was dying," said Delerue.
26577
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 3:42am
Subject: Re: Truffaut (Was: Mississippi Mermaid) hotlove666
And one last thought about the apolitical Last Metro, with its facile
caricature villain, Daxiat, whom it is so reassuring for audiences to
be able to hiss. (NOT! A big theatre owner in Paris almost refused to
play the film because of "all the talk about Jews.") Watch the scene
where he's spewing his bile over the radio and think Rush Limbaugh,
Anne Coulter...
26578
From: Craig Keller
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 5:13am
Subject: Re: Re: Truffaut evillights
On Thursday, May 5, 2005, at 11:38 PM, hotlove666 wrote:
> In all the years they worked together,
> Delerue told me, they never had dinner together. But when they were in
> London recording the score for Vivement Dimanche, Truffaut finally
> invited the composer to have dinner with him. "That's when I realized
> he was dying," said Delerue.
In line with that... The following is from the Cahiers numéro spécial,
Dec. 1984, following his death -- which of course you yourself, Bill,
contributed to. They're two extracts which I recently sent to someone
(my translation) from Eric Rohmer's long testimonial --
"The word 'buddy' [copain] was totally excluded from our vocabulary.
Everyone had his life, but the sentimental life, in particular, was
almost absolutely secret. Each of our private lives could be allowed
to slip through in our work in traces, and I think this was especially
the case with regard to Truffaut's oeuvre, in which the
autobiographical aspect is, for me, particularly detectable -- not in
'The 400 Blows,' since that corresponds to a period that I didn't
really know, but in 'Stolen Kisses' and 'Antoine and Colette.' But I
have nothing more to say beyond what he himself wanted to tell me
about."
and:
"I read one of Truffaut's remarks in a newspaper the other day,
according to which he had said that the only link between the Cahiers
folks who made up the Nouvelle Vague was love of pinball. When I read
this I was taken aback, because with regard to myself, I never loved
pinball machines; I played them a bit but I wasn't very good at them,
and I know that Truffaut played them a bit more than me. But you
wouldn't say he loved pinball for pinball's sake; when you love the
cinema you can't love wasting your time on games of chance. In
reality, you could say we loved getting together in the little cafés in
which we generally found ourselves after coming out of the movies --
which were rather anonymous cafés; we didn't frequent the great
literary cafés, like Le Flore. In these little cafés, while we had a
bite to eat as we waited to go off to the movies, we'd be sitting next
to the pinball machines, and it's here that we had our discussions."
craig.
26579
From: "Noel Vera"
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 8:49am
Subject: Fantastic Voyage (Was: Innerspace) noelbotevera
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666" wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> > Just saw Fantastic Voyage (Fleischer) tonight too - it was shown
> letterboxed
> > on Fox Movie Chanel (both in Brooklyn and Detroit). The first
scene
> in the
> > blood stream is awesome.
>
> I recommend to those who didn't see it Innerspace, one of Joe
Dante's
> best films
Giving due respect to Fantastic Voyage, it's a wonderful premise, and
Fleischer pulls it off with great flair, set designs, sfx, and all.
But the science behind all that, and especially when they enter the
body (never mind the whole idea of miniaturization) isn't very solid.
I like to rag on Isaac Asimov, but I'll give him this--his adaptation
of the movie was more persuasive, scientifically speaking (heck, he
wrote books on biochemistry), and his sequel was more persuasive still
(but then what he was essentially doing in that book was describing
biochemical reactions writ large).
Count me in as a fan of Dante's Innerspace, too--an inventively fleet-
footed, genre-bending comedy thriller of first rank.
26580
From: "thebradstevens"
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 9:44am
Subject: Re: THE BIG RED ONE thebradstevens
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Maxime Renaudin" <
> I'm sorry if this has been largely discussed here, but what do we
know
> for sure about that? Did Fuller leave something relevant to rely
on?
> If not, can 'what Fuller would have wanted?' be anything but
wishful
> thinking? Does the process of assembling all surving footage
together
> eventually makes the movie?
This is one of those cases where I would have to say that the answer
is yes. Since we can't know that Fuller would have rejected any
particular scene that he shot, we should include everything -
particularly since Fuller always insisted that his cut ran over 4
hours, while the restoration runs under 3. Leaving out scenes simply
because one happens to personally dislike them is not responsible
restoration work - it's actually nothing more than a repeat of what
Lorimar did to the film back in 1980.
There's a wonderful scene in the film in which one of the soldiers
believes that a WWI memorial is actually a WWII memorial since the
names are the same, and Lee Marvin observes that "they always are".
Given that many scenes in the film were cut by Lorimar simply because
the execs didn't like them, then rejected from the restoration
because the restorationists didn't like them, I'm tempted to note
that this is one of the few things Fuller got wrong: the names do
change...but nothing else does.
26581
From: Jesse Paddock
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 0:26pm
Subject: Re: Aspect Ratios: Martel jesse_paddock
Everything I've read about this film seems to indicate that her
claustrophobic mise en scene is intentional. Hoberman even mentions
that she attributes it to her poor eyesight:
http://www.villagevoice.com/film/0517,hoberman1,63406,20.html
jesse
On 5/5/05, Craig Keller wrote:
>
> And while on the subject of OARs, yesterday I saw Lucrecia Martel's 'La
> niña santa' / 'The Holy Girl' at Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, and it seemed
> like a probable, if not definite, case of 1.66 getting chopped to 1.85.
> The tops of everyone's heads were missing, besides every framing
> feeling generally claustrophobic (a result of the crop, not Martel's
> mise en scène if I had to guess).
>
> craig.
>
> ________________________________
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
> To visit your group on the web, go to:
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>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> a_film_by-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
26582
From: Jesse Paddock
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 0:39pm
Subject: Re: Re: 2046 Who's cut ? jesse_paddock
> > Does anyone know what cut the Mei-Ah Entertainment
> > Region 0 - NTSC DVD is? That's the only one I've
> > seen, and I thought it was incredible.
>
>>> I think this is the one I have the chance to see and have been
>>> holding out for da big screen.....
That's the (more) finalized cut, the one that got released
theatrically in Hong Kong back in the fall, and subsequently cleaned
up at 2004's Hong Kong Film Awards. As far as I know, it hasn't been
touched since then.
26583
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 1:04pm
Subject: Re: Truffaut (Was: Mississippi Mermaid) jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666" wrote:
> And one last thought about the apolitical Last Metro, with its
facile
> caricature villain, Daxiat, whom it is so reassuring for audiences
to
> be able to hiss. (NOT! A big theatre owner in Paris almost refused
to
> play the film because of "all the talk about Jews.") Watch the scene
> where he's spewing his bile over the radio and think Rush Limbaugh,
> Anne Coulter...
Daxiat may seem a "facile caricature villain" to you but I can
assure you he is no caricature. There were dozens of very vocal jew-
hating, Communist-loathing, Nazi-loving collaborationists -- some of
them quite famous and approved by thousands -- who were considerably
more extreme and repulsive. They sound like caricatures, but sadly
they were all too real. JPC
26584
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 1:24pm
Subject: Re: Truffaut jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Craig Keller
wrote:
>
>
> and:
>
> "I read one of Truffaut's remarks in a newspaper the other day,
> according to which he had said that the only link between the
Cahiers
> folks who made up the Nouvelle Vague was love of pinball. When I
read
> this I was taken aback, because with regard to myself, I never
loved
> pinball machines; I played them a bit but I wasn't very good at
them,
> and I know that Truffaut played them a bit more than me. But you
> wouldn't say he loved pinball for pinball's sake; when you love
the
> cinema you can't love wasting your time on games of chance. In
> reality, you could say we loved getting together in the little
cafés in
> which we generally found ourselves after coming out of the movies -
-
> which were rather anonymous cafés; we didn't frequent the great
> literary cafés, like Le Flore. In these little cafés, while we
had a
> bite to eat as we waited to go off to the movies, we'd be sitting
next
> to the pinball machines, and it's here that we had our
discussions."
>
To put this in context, it should be noted that the pinball
machine played a very important part in French social life
throughout the fifties and sixties. Every cafe (and people still
spent a lot of time in cafes)had at least one, often several -- they
started coming into France from the USA soon after the end of the
war and quickly became ubiquitous and enormously popular among
younger people. They were often known (rather pessimistically)
as "Tilts" and the phrase "faire tilt" became a widespread slang
expression meaning something like "to ring a bell" or "make an
impression". Pinball machines are present in many French movies of
the time.Perhaps someone should write a thesis on "The Pinball
machine in French Cinema." JPC
26585
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 2:49pm
Subject: Re: Re: Truffaut cellar47
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
Pinball machines are present in many
> French movies of
> the time.Perhaps someone should write a thesis on
> "The Pinball
> machine in French Cinema."
Well to get the ball rolling they figure quite
prominently in "Vivre sa Vie." Belmondo turns himself
into a human pinball at one point in "A Woman is a
Woman."
"Liberty Belle" gets its title from a pinball machine.
And then there's its repalcement, video games, which
figure inone of Varda's best films "Kung Fu Master."
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26586
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 4:52pm
Subject: Re: Claire Denis sallitt1
> Proud and lone, images stand as self-
> sufficient, disregarding all others. They don't watch each other; they
> don't talk to each other.
I must admit that this is how I feel about Denis. She seems so tempted by
lyricism that she drops everything to pursue it. Maybe I should see I
CAN'T SLEEP, which Maxime recommends: I haven't found one I liked yet. -
Dan
26587
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 6:02pm
Subject: Good Gus Interview about his new film "Last Days" cellar47
http://film.guardian.co.uk/cannes2005/story/0,15927,1477228,00.html
Some very interesting remarks about shooting methods
and the influence of Bela Tarr.
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26588
From: Jonathan Takagi
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 6:21pm
Subject: Re: Good Gus Interview about his new film "Last Days" jontakagi
He also wrote a piece on Kurt Cobain for yesterday's Libération. Yesterday
it (and a big chunk of the newspaper) was posted in English. When I first
looked at it, I thought my browser had gone crazy!
http://www.liberation.fr/page.php?Article=294210
Jonathan Takagi
26589
From: "Noel Vera"
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 6:42pm
Subject: "Critic After Dark:" the good news, the bad news noelbotevera
Unfortunately, the Manila edition won't be pushing through.
But--I'm hoping to interest the publishers in another project.
And the book is still available for ordering here:
http://www.bigomagazine.com/theshop/books/NVcritic.html
26590
From: "Richard Modiano"
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 6:51pm
Subject: Re: Restorations tharpa2002
It seems that film restoration has yet to develop standards about
what is and isn't acceptable, what is and isn't ethical. It's
repeating the history of restoration in painting and sculpture which
took about 70 years to decide on mutually agreeable standards (and
then after such standards became the norm, several works had to
be "unrestored.")
There's still some confusion about what is restoration and what is
conservation. For example, the work that UCLA Film and Television
Archives did on "Stagecoach" was conservation since they didn't fill
in any missing parts or replace damaged areas. On the other hand
their work on "The Power and the Glory" was a restoration since they
removed scrathes, fixed damaged frames and shot a new piece of film
to replace a missing insert of a close-up.
Going by the standards of the art world "The Big Red One" is not a
restoration since it departed from the intentions of the artist in
several crucial respects. Moreover, restorations of paintings or
sculptures are under taken completely out in the open with all the
assembled materials available for scrutiny by other art experts and
museum curators. The restorers have to defend their decisions in
open court so to speak. This hasn't been the case with film
restoration so far, so that the restored film is presented as a fait
accompli. Until there are standards in place film restoration is
going to be hit or miss.
Richard
26591
From: BklynMagus
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 8:45pm
Subject: Advise and Consent cinebklyn
Last night I watched Otto Preminger's "Advise and Consent."
The dvd is good, bare minimum of extras, but who cares with
a film this great.
What was most interesting was watching it with the echoes of
the discussion of Claire Denis in my mind. In contrast to the
deadness that Maxime noted, Preminger's frame is vibrantly
alive. I felt as if each camera move and each cut were
organically connected to each other. Not only were the
characters talking to each other, but the shots were as well.
The way that Preminger captures the various voices and
philosophies of the characters -- how they play off, conflict,
and build on -- each other is amazing. There is so much
energy within Preminger's classical frame.
Denis on the other hand composes much "prettier" shots,
but they are far emptier, despite their being less classical.
Also, there doesn't seem to be the same organic connection
between shots that I find in Preminger. Denis' films feel
more arbitrary, (as I posted before), as if they were found
in the editing room, and not in the shooting. Preminger, on
the other hand, feels as if the shooting was where it all came
together, and the editing was more of a refinement.
Denis' films seem as if they are bound to theory -- "I can
make a film like a mosaic" or "I can make a film with no
narrative." In contrast, Preminger film's feel as if they a
guided by a philosophy -- Preminger's -- in writing, acting,
direction, editing etc. To tie this in with what hl666 had
posted recently: the theory approach is one where the
method of telling the story is the most important thing. The
philosophy approach is one that emphasizes what is being
said.
Spoilers
I was also struck by the sexual charge of the scene where
Don Murray has his shirt off and is brushing his teeth. I had
never felt such eroticism before in Preminger's work -- even
greater than in "Carmen Jones."
Also, the daring (and cynicism) to have Abe Lincoln (Henry
Fonda) lie under oath is terrific.
When the movie was over, I wanted to re-watch it immediately.
Sadly, I had to come to work, so that pleasure awaits me
tonight.
Brian
26592
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 8:53pm
Subject: Re: Advise and Consent cellar47
--- BklynMagus wrote:
>
> The way that Preminger captures the various voices
> and
> philosophies of the characters -- how they play off,
> conflict,
> and build on -- each other is amazing. There is so
> much
> energy within Preminger's classical frame.
>
This is precisely what captured the imagination of
Preminger's autuerist fans -- particularly the group
at "Movie." it was seen as a direct rebuke to
Eisenstein's monatge theory -- which was accepted as
gospel by the cticial academy at that time.
The aducadity of Fonda's casting is typical of
Preminger at his best. Likewise his casting of
Laughton, in his very last role. He's having a roaring
good time and you can sense Preminger enjoying him.
Yahoo! Mail
Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour:
http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html
26593
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 9:59pm
Subject: Re: Truffaut (Was: Mississippi Mermaid) hotlove666
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> > And one last thought about the apolitical Last Metro, with its
> facile
> > caricature villain, Daxiat, whom it is so reassuring for
audiences
> to
> > be able to hiss. (NOT! A big theatre owner in Paris almost
refused
> to
> > play the film because of "all the talk about Jews.") Watch the
scene
> > where he's spewing his bile over the radio and think Rush
Limbaugh,
> > Anne Coulter...
>
>
> Daxiat may seem a "facile caricature villain" to you but I can
> assure you he is no caricature. There were dozens of very vocal jew-
> hating, Communist-loathing, Nazi-loving collaborationists -- some
of
> them quite famous and approved by thousands -- who were
considerably
> more extreme and repulsive. They sound like caricatures, but sadly
> they were all too real. JPC
I have to start using quotation marks - I was being heavily
sarcastic, referring back to certain reviews that appeared here when
the film was released. And my point is that if you think Daxiat is a
caricature, look at what we have now. If there were a neocon putsch
tomorrow, Coulter and Limbaugh would start speaking EXACTLY like
Daxiat, only it wouldn't be about Jews...for a while, anyway. In
fact, Truffaut and Jean-Claude Grumberg, who came in just before
start of principle photography and wrote a lot of the material
(spoken by Lucas and Daxiat) relating to anti-Semitism, was working
from contemporary documents supplied by Truffaut.
Last Metro was sandbagged by critics who had picked up the facile
form of political criticism being practiced at the time, which is
still very much with us. I think Daxiat is an interesting example of
that - he says to Deneuve that she's wrong not to be interested in
politics, because "everything is political." Sound familiar? And I
think Truffaut is speaking from the heart when Deneuve or Bennent
says, after reading Daxiat's review, "I feel as if I just received an
anonymous letter." (Incidentally, out of respect or whatever, he
never got one of those from the Cahiers, whom he had helped maintain
their independence when they bought out Filipacchi, then left saying
he could no longer relate to what they were doing.)
On the other hand, think of this: Daxiat is a venomously polemical
critic whose real motive for attacking Lucas and others is that he
wants to be the director of a theatre himself. (In fact, he proposes
a deal to Poiret, Deveneuve's replacement director, to "save" the
Montmartre by taking it over themselves.) This of course is what
Truffaut was accused of doing a a critic - and I gather he came to
regret having in fact, more or less, done that. So Daxiat is him, as
well...
I still haven't seen Laisse-Passer, but I wonder if it wasn't
somewhat inspired by Last Metro? That would be no dishonor - it's one
of Truffaut's very best films, if I haven't made my opinion clear
already.
26594
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 10:07pm
Subject: Re: Restorations hotlove666
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Modiano"
wrote:
> It seems that film restoration has yet to develop standards about
> what is and isn't acceptable, what is and isn't ethical. It's
> repeating the history of restoration in painting and sculpture
which
> took about 70 years to decide on mutually agreeable standards (and
> then after such standards became the norm, several works had to
> be "unrestored.")
Then there is my field, literature, where the principles for editing
manuscripts keep having to be revised. When I first looked into this
area, the idea of "copy text" already smelled bad to me, and lo and
behold, thanks to deconstruction, it has been called into question by
the profession. The hottest new edition of Hamlet is three separate
contemporary versions, not one melded one. And as I will keep
emphasizing, criticism, interpretation and, yes, theory play into
questions of film restoration too. The question of what is "proper"
and what isn't needs thought, and as you say, the debate - re:
principles and re: details - has to be public. Whereas right now
we're in a period where people are sneaking around in the shadows
knifing rivals or forcing their way into projects just to get their
names on them, for the prestige. A lot like the film business itself.
26595
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 10:14pm
Subject: Re: Advise and Consent hotlove666
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, BklynMagus wrote:
> Last night I watched Otto Preminger's "Advise and Consent."
>
> The dvd is good, bare minimum of extras, but who cares with
> a film this great.
An historic reminder: this group was formed because someone on
another list was ragging on Preminger in a very dismissive way. The
film was Rosebud, but the principle is what matters. I think you'll
find, Brian, that this group is very enamored of Preminger, whose
critical reputation in France has sadly fallen in recent years
(except among the Macmahnians, who always saw him as a giant and
still do). Time for some retrospectives! I'm pushing for one in
Torino for starters, but it's a struggle.
And yes, as David says, you are reinventing the Movie rationale for
piting Preminger against Eisenstein. I think things are more
complicated - for one thing, people who don't look like "montage
directors" sometimes are. This isn't true of OP, but check out my
article in Adrian's magazine Rouge about Cruising. On the other hand,
the vibrant, organic complexity you are talking about is not what one
can expect from a montage director...unless you consider, say, Jules
and Jim to be an example.
26596
From: Craig Keller
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 10:19pm
Subject: Marker in Today's NYTimes evillights
An excerpt from this long article, by Roberta Smith, on debut solo
shows in New York --
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/06/arts/design/06smit.html?8hpib
"One thing is certain: it is never too late to have a New York debut,
or to learn new tricks. At 83, the legendary and reclusive French
filmmaker Chris Marker, whose work is precedent for artists like
Chantal Akerman and Isaac Julien, is taking the plunge as an
installation artist. Mr. Marker's "Owls at Noon Prelude: The Hollow
Men," at the Museum of Modern Art, is the first segment of a
meditation on what he calls "the erratic liner of Century XX." He made
it entirely on a computer using a program written with assistance from
Nikolai Zinoviev.
"Multiplying two video channels across eight screens, the work
alternates found images of the trenches, body-strewn battlefields and
ruined cities of World War I with excerpts from and additions to "The
Hollow Men," T. S. Eliot's bitter, dirgelike poem about the war
written in 1925, four years after Mr. Marker's birth. Though some of
the images are familiar, Mr. Marker, characteristically, makes
mesmerizing use of his medium and its black-and-white palette.
"The images are shrouded in manipulated textures and (somewhat cornily)
layered with faces. The words, gliding across alternate screens in both
directions, complicate space and perception, revealing their meanings
bit by bit, culminating in the poem's famous last lines: "This is the
way the world ends/ Not with a bang but a whimper." Replicating
memory's retention of traumatic events in scraps of images and
language, and recalling a world tragedy whose effects are still felt,
this piece reverberates painfully with the present."
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
26597
From: MG4273@...
Date: Fri May 6, 2005 7:39pm
Subject: Re: Advise and Consent nzkpzq
In a message dated 05-05-06 18:16:39 EDT, you write:
<< An historic reminder: this group was formed because someone on
another list was ragging on Preminger in a very dismissive way. The
film was Rosebud, but the principle is what matters. I think you'll
find, Brian, that this group is very enamored of Preminger >>
Bill is right: just about everyone on a_film_by is wildly, passionately
enthused about Preminger (myself included).
Have only seen "Advise and Consent" once, and that in pan-and-scan. Am
looking forward to the DVD!
Cable TV has been showing a letterboxed "Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell".
This is unexpectedly riveting.
Mike Grost
26598
From: "samfilms2003"
Date: Sat May 7, 2005 0:03am
Subject: Re: Claire Denis samfilms2003
> > Proud and lone, images stand as self-
> > sufficient, disregarding all others. They don't watch each other; they
> > don't talk to each other.
Really, to be a little more serious -- "L'Intrus I dunno yet -- but if "Beau Travail"
isn't *about* "watching each other* - images, characters, then it's about
nothing or I saw another film with the same title !
> I must admit that this is how I feel about Denis. She seems so tempted by
> lyricism that she drops everything to pursue it.
I don't know why she should drop it at all -- if anything for me that's the
difference between "Chocolat" and "Beau Travail" -- "Chocolat" is good but
almost feels like theory illustrated; BT sings - and takes the risks in doing
THAT....
> Maybe I should see I
> CAN'T SLEEP, which Maxime recommends:
Again, here it's in fact all in the watching, the interpreting of the watching,
the tragic acts of dreaming while awake...
-Sam W (in exile from Frameworks ;-)
26599
From: "samfilms2003"
Date: Sat May 7, 2005 0:09am
Subject: Re: Advise and Consent samfilms2003
> I think things are more
> complicated - for one thing, people who don't look like "montage
> directors" sometimes are.
Even when the Eisenstein of "Ivan the T 1&2" doesn't look like the montage director of
"October" all you'd have to do is run the film at 48 or 72 fps ;-)
>. On the other hand,
> the vibrant, organic complexity you are talking about is not what one
> can expect from a montage director...unless you consider, say, Jules
> and Jim to be an example.
Really ?
Brakhage ?
Denis ? ;-)
-Sam W
26600
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Sat May 7, 2005 1:50am
Subject: Montage or not Montage jpcoursodon
I am perplexed about recent posts. Where are we, in some kind of 101
Film Course? Comparing Preminger and Denis (!) and Eisenstein;
and "taking sides"? Isn't it all a bit silly? Of course, if I really
knew what you guys are talking about I might feel differently. JPC
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