Home Film
Art
Other: (Rants, Obits)
Links About
Contact
a_film_by Main Page
Posts From the Internet Film Discussion Group, a_film_by
This group is dedicated to discussing film as art
from an auteurist perspective. The index to these files of posts can be found at http://www.fredcamper.com/afilmby/ The purpose of these files is to make our posts more accessible, for downloading and reading and to search engines.
Important: The copyright of each post below is owned by the
person who wrote the post, and reproducing it in any form requires
that person's permission.
It is possible to email the author of any post by finding a post
they have written in the a_film_by archives at
http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/a_film_by/messages and
emailing them from that Web site.
27001
From: Craig Keller
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 7:23am
Subject: Twentynine Palms, Continued Again evillights
JPC -- My apologies for taking so long (in a_f_b time, at least) to
revisit this thread.
On May 1, 2005, at 10:18 PM, jpcoursodon wrote:
> Dumont says that they were very much alike. Which i think is
> irrelevant. If it's true, then instead of not liking the character
> I also don't like the actress. Which is itself irrelevant...
I don't find it to be irrelevant, actually. I would stand up for as
subjective an ethos in relation to the merits/demerits of an actor as
the kind you've recently espoused with regard to the General
Principle of Pleasure in experiencing art. (With which I agree.)
And doesn't the former sort of fall under the latter, anyway? There
aren't any universal "musts" with regard to the mores of Art,
contrary to frequent critical tone in-print. (Even the most
persuasive critic surely must realize in the course of some
insomniacal nights that he's only an Army of One, and not God.) I
think we too-often end up having to qualify or defend our likes/
dislikes -- (and even when we do that, it must only be because le
débat gives us pleasure, right? -- otherwise we wouldn't be a_f_b
listmembers!) -- since sometimes, maybe, we tend toward the back-of-
the-brain assumption that, "My standpoint only counts for me, it's
aberrative in relation to the two or three dour normative conceptions
of film-acting, film-aesthetic, etc." We might be forgetting the
normatives are figments! Disliking Tom Cruise's performances because
he comes off on non-movie-related chat-shows as a robotic ideologue
who speaks only in motivational-cant is perfectly valid.
(Personally, I think the Cruisean "selfless narcissim" works to his
advantage in some of his films -- at least, the ones that count,
"i.m.o." -- 'Eyes Wide Shut' [apotheosis of Cruise's narcissim in
each close-up slow-zoom] and 'Magnolia.') Likewise, I'll admit I
liked Katia's performance because it was genuine psychology before
the camera, not just the portrayal of a genuine psychology -- even if
I didn't know that she was playing the bitch off-camera, I still
sensed the actorly facade was absent on-camera. And I also liked the
performance because a tiny piece of me fell in love with her erratic
behavior, and particular nudity.
> Dumont
> also said that the two (David and Katia) disliked each other
> intensely and that served his purpose. Fine. great art born out of
> widespread universal hatred.
It's heart-warming really.
> I don't see being "quite radical" as something automatically
> praiseworthy. Nothing is easier than to be "radical".
True. "All great art is radical but not all radical things are..."
etc. But the radicalism of the ending didn't seem precious or too
arbitrarily attached, for me at least, and that's why I laud it.
Something that might be interesting to ponder: When an artist
conceives "the radical part" first, in his earliest conception of a
new work, does the resulting work seem to fail aesthetically, seem
too based-upon-gimmick? More often, at least, than those cases when
"the radical part" was come upon like a "solution" somewhere further
along the line in the course of his planning the work? It might be
too abstract a question to pose, especially when we oftentimes can't
know for sure whether we're dealing with a radical-chicken or a
radical-egg -- and in any case it might require too deep a dip into
the biographical than strictly necessary for formulating a response.
Perhaps I was using the term (radical) somewhat evaluatively,
though. Yes, it's radical for the present because, to paraphrase
Burroughs, or cut him up, it unflinchingly shows Western civilization
what's on the end of its fork (America's fork specifically) circa
2003. Not many other films I've seen have done that, and I think the
fact that it did was a good thing. Sure, no-one saw the film, but it
articulated what it had to articulate in front of those who did. I
think you called me out on the radical-thing once before with
'demonlover' too, and I admit my love for that film falls along the
same lines (although I love it for broader reasons than 'Twentynine
Palms,' and love it more intensely) -- both films are articulations
so violent in their forms they're declarations of war.
> As far as Dumont is concerned, I can't tell what he had in mind.
> His "explanations" sound terribly weak and contrived to me. Saying
> that he wanted to make a violent movie like the things he sees on
> American TV (I'm quoting form a POSITIF interview).
Imagine if Chris Marker next decides to make something overtly
inspired by his love of 'The Practice'...
> To me the self-
> destructiveness may or may not be intentional -- I don't really
> care. I still see the movie as a king of Tingely machine ( although
> devoid of the sense of fun in Tingely's machines).
What's a Tingely machine?
> As far as David:
> he is a cipher, I don't think we have a right to endow him with
> intentions (even subconscious) of self-destruction. And please let's
> refrain from always blaming the victim. Even though from the very
> beginning of the film you get the feeling that he is somehow "asking
> for it" (whatever "it" is -- and it will end up by being raped).
When I spoke, err, wrote about their willingly having put themselves
in that situation, and the violence being the natural end-result,
that doesn't mean I was putting a "they were asking for it" slant on
the expression, or even arguing that the end-result of the flirtation
with peril had necessarily to be *SPOILER* anal-rape followed by
murder-suicide. But I do think these two "adventurers" were putting
themselves in danger, and something was going to come of it.
I could be off the mark, but -- and maybe this is another reason it
flopped -- I have the feeling that most Americans wouldn't even get
this from the film -- they'd just say, "Oh, look, it's modern western
America. It's creepy in the desert." It's not creepy in the desert,
it's creepy at the gas-stations. (Which, besides being crime-
beacons, have generally made a fucking eyesore of this country.)
> It's amazing, for instance, that he always asks the girl to drive in
> the most difficult terrain although she obviously is unfamiliar with
> both the kind of vehicule and the kind of road (she doesn't even
> know where the brake and accelerator are. Can she drive at all? Why
> is he making her drive and risk an accident then?") Then he gets
> upset because the truck gets a little scratched. Give me a break!
But both characters, not just Katia, are erratic pains-in-the-ass! I
know that's kind of a trite characterization (and an unfortunate quip
given the last act) -- on both my part and Dumont's -- but, as you
said, they're ciphers. I never like taking things to a "we just
agree to disagree" juncture, but I think this is a case where what
worked for me here didn't work for you. So at this point I'll ask:
What are your feelings about 'La Vie de Jésus' and 'L'Humanité'?
>
>
> I'll have to come back to the rest of your post later. But this
> has been a stimulating ecxchange (I think we've put everybody else
> to sleep). JPC.
craig.
27002
From: Adrian Martin
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 10:44am
Subject: re: twentynine palms (the return) apmartin90
Craig, thanks for bringing back the TWENTYNINE PALMS discussion! This
was one of the best films I saw in the past year of so; I caught it a
couple of times at various festivals (it has never been released in any
form in Australia). And I was coming to Dumont fresh (I must now see
the earlier films).
Has anyone mentioned the similarity between this and TWO-LANE BLACKTOP?
The narratively-attenuated road-movie structure, the widescreen
compositions taken from inside the car, the absence of a musical score
(one of Dumont's zanier inventions: that crazy Japanese pop song on we
hear over and over) - and the great scene in Hellman's film which is
devoted to a strange sense of mounting dread in a particular place
where they stop over is in a sense expanded to an entire film by
Dumont. I wonder if he had Hellman's film in his mind.
I have learnt a lot from the discussion of TWENTYNINE PALMS by Craig,
Jean-Pierre and Dan. An important point made by Dan was this oddly
loose relation of character to plot (plus his insightful observation
that horror films often have problems tying plot moves to character
traits). In fact, Dumont articulated something very like this when
explaining the 'experimental' nature of the project: once he had his
extremely minimal narrative framework in mind - a man and woman
travelling, and at the end the great rush of violation leading to
murder and suicide - then he simply 'trusted' that as a given, as a
kind of template, into which he would pour the particular man and woman
he cast - even if a certain 'unalignment' or contradiction between the
general framework and the specific incidental details were to emerge.
For me, this links the film to that '80s movement that includes
Wenders' (rather forgotten) THE STATE OF THINGS, Godard's DETECTIVE and
many others: films which 'float' until the end, when the introduction
of 'plot' always means violence, death, trauma, catastrophe, shocking
finality that 'closes down the film' almost instantly. (And here we
also remember the more metaphoric or poetic catastrophe that concludes
TWO-LANE BLACKTOP.)
TWENTYNINE PALMS, in terms of its critical reception, I think was a
victim of a certain kind of response wherein some people (especially
American critics) found it too abstract and corny as a 'report' on or
vision of America, too much a loaded 'foreign perspective'. Not being
American, I took the film more on face-value. It's not the kind of film
that can be liked, Manny Farber-style, for its 'deep-dish cultural
specificity'. This is OK with me.
I must also say - in terms of the whole 'psychological
characterisation' discussion - that I find the film enormously 'true to
life' in a certain way: for me, it is an extremely truthful record of a
'bad encounter' between two people who should never have gotten
together. As soon as we are with them, as the film starts, it's all
downhill: miscommunications, no shared language, completely 'out of
phase' with each other emotionally, hysterical scenes ... and even the
sex scenes (which are at moments rather comical) seem to me a monument
to this kind of 'unalignment' of the man and woman (it's almost
Lacanian! There is no possible relation between man and woman ... ) . I
have been in relationships like that ... however, unlike the characters
in this film, I made it out alive! (So too, I hasten to add, did the
other parties involved!) And Dumont's film captured, for me, what it
feels like to be in the midst of such a 'bad encounter' as few other
films have done. The scene with the dog, and their different relations
to it, is indelibly etched in my memory.
I also nominate myself and Robert as Co-Preisdents of the Katia
Golubeva Fan Club. I think she's terrific in every film I've seen her
in. The scene in Claire Denis' I CAN'T SLEEP where she impulsively rams
her car into the vehicle of the theatre director who 'led her on' is
like an anticipation of much in TWENTYNINE PALMS. I must track down the
Sharunas Bartas films in which she appears.
Adrian
27003
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 1:27pm
Subject: Re: Re: Auteurs, Canon, Pleasure and Change cellar47
--- Fred Camper wrote:
> As Richard points out, our group's Statement of
> Purpose allows that
> great auteurs can make bad films, and while their
> bad films may at times
> illuminate their great ones, I've so far not found
> much use for Sirk's
> "Thunder on the Hill," Minnelli's "Kismet," or,
> well, Brakhage's "The
> Stars Are Beautiful.
>
Well being a Dolores Gray fanatic, as well as an
admirerr of Howard Keel, I have plenty of use for
"Kismet." More use than Minnelli, in fact, who wasn't
crazy about getting the assignmnet. Consequently much
of its pizzazz should be credited to the great Jack
Cole.
>
> In our group, there is likely pretty strong
> agreement that "Vertigo"
> is a masterpiece of film art. A friend who wrote me
> on occasion of
> Vertigo's 1984 release that now that he'd finally
> seen it he found it
> overrated, received a reply something like this:
> "Now that I'm no longer
> teaching and no longer dependant on film for my
> living, I can come out
> of the closet and reveal that I think there are some
> immutable facts
> about film art, and one of them that "Vertigo" is a
> masterpiece whose
> status is beyond subjective judgment. Sorry, but you
> are just plain wrong."
Well I feel just the way your friend does about "Rules
of the Game."
The films that I
> call great don't
> give me pleasures based on moods or personal
> identifications with actors
> or characters or little dialogue bits that I love or
> a narrative that
> hooks me: they present visual (and often, aural)
> systems of expression
> in which all of the parts come together in a way
> that lifts me
> completely out of myself. The pleasure of such
> experiences is immense,
> even, at their best, almost orgasmic. But these
> experiences don't work
> for me because they push my buttons by appealing to
> the specifics of my
> psychic formation. Rather, it seems to me that their
> forms convincingly
> embody their visions, so that anyone can be moved by
> them. This is why I
> tend to say that people who don't see the greatness
> of the films that I
> love just aren't getting it, even while allowing for
> the possibility
> that I'm not "getting" the films that I don't love.
I know what you mean. The reason that I value "Those
Who Love Me can Take the Train" above all other films
starts with the story, the characters, and the
performers but REALLY kicks in because of the way
Chereau has synthesized it all into a work that takes
the form of aliving organism in and of itself. The
camera movements and cutting go far beyond the
invariably assumed subjectivity of "the artist's point
of view" into something quite different. The film
ITSELF has a character -- the includes a built in d.j.
Itthinks about it self all the time -- most typically
in the hesitation before Dominique's character
standing in the station and looking about before the
gears shift and the film's title hits the screen 500
ton "Monty Python" weight. This self-suffient status
isn'tatypical of the best of French cinema as it can
clearly be seen in such diverse works as "Out 1,"
"Adieu Phillipine," and "Double Messieurs." And you
can also find it in "Fellini Satyricon," late Gus
(particularly "Gerry") and much of Cassavetes
(particularly "Love Streams") But Chereau takes it to
a new level.
> I'm much more
> willing to admit that I could be wrong about Fellini
> than that I'm wrong
> about Brakhage or Sirk.
>
Well you're wrong about Fellini. But you're part of a
VERY large group in that, so there's no reason to feel
lonely.
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
27004
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 1:42pm
Subject: Re: re: twentynine palms (the return) cellar47
--- Adrian Martin wrote:
> For me, this links the film to that '80s movement
> that includes
> Wenders' (rather forgotten) THE STATE OF THINGS,
Not forgotten by me! I think it's Wenders' best film.
I do wish more people had a chance to see Ruiz' "The
Territory," whosecastand production ambiance Wenders
ripped off to make "The State of Things."
> Godard's DETECTIVE and
> many others: films which 'float' until the end, when
> the introduction
> of 'plot' always means violence, death, trauma,
> catastrophe, shocking
> finality that 'closes down the film' almost
> instantly.
And I love "Detective" too -- which I luckily have on
a Japanese laserdisc.
(And here we
> also remember the more metaphoric or poetic
> catastrophe that concludes
> TWO-LANE BLACKTOP.)
Admiration for "Two-Lane Blacktop" goes without
saying. But seeing it mentioned just now hits a
particular personal chord. It's 6:30 AM. Last night I
was looking at some film footage I shot back in 1971
in 8mm. I madea DVD of it. It was of a trip I made to
California to visit a friend who one year later
comitted suicide. This friend,Peter Blum< was a rather
insightful critic with whom I wrote an article about
Godard that was published in the great, late Chicago
arts journal,"December." The footage I filmed includes
shots of Jonathan Rosenbaum and Warren Sonbert. I
had't looked at it in years and consequently I was
quite overcome.
Yahoo! Mail
Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour:
http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html
27005
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 1:57pm
Subject: Can a great director make a turkey? (Was: Auteurs, Canon, Pleasure and Change) sallitt1
"Can a great director make a turkey?" may not necessarily be the central
question of the auteurist debate, but historically it has been the
question out in front, the principal point of friction. Truffaut drew
considerable fire for his polemical claim that Renoir's worst film is
better than Delannoy's best. Kael's "Circles and Squares" attack on
Sarris, which did much to frame the auteurist debate in the U.S., began
with this Tolstoy quote: "Goethe? Shakespeare? Everything signed with
their names is considered good, and one wracks one's brains to find beauty
in their stupidities and failures, thus distorting the general taste. All
these great talents, the Goethes, the Shakespeares, the Beethovens, the
Michelangelos, created, side by side with their masterpieces, works not
merely mediocre, but quite simply frightful."
Auteurist vary a lot on how they would answer this question (and every
other question). But they certainly tend to go easy on accepted
directors. The general auteurist attitude seems to be, "If I'm shown a
home movie by Orson Welles, I intend to look at it carefully, compare it
to his other works, be slow to pass negative judgment, and take into
account the possibility that Welles may simply be ahead of me."
This is not a universal tendency. Truffaut once noted that reviewers on
the beat tended to pan every third film by a director. Sarris'
interpretation of this: the critic doesn't want the director to get out of
his or her jurisdiction. He pointed out that no critic in the world can
stop a cultist from seeing the next Welles film, and that the critic
naturally tries to preserve his or her power by discouraging such cults.
I sometimes group critics into "sadistic" and "masochistic" categories.
The sadistic critic positions himself or herself above the filmmaker as a
judge, and does not hesitate to put a favorite filmmaker in his or her
place. The masochistic critic looks up to the filmmaker as a source of
wisdom or pleasure, a teacher. This kind of critic is not eager to pass
negative judgment on a favorite, and pulls his or her punches when it
becomes necessary.
- Dan
27006
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 2:50pm
Subject: Re: Twentynine Palms, Continued Again jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Craig Keller
wrote:
>
> JPC -- My apologies for taking so long (in a_f_b time, at least)
to
> revisit this thread.
>
This is great! No time for a real response now, and as you say
there may be little to add...
Yes, it's radical for the present because, to paraphrase
> Burroughs, or cut him up, it unflinchingly shows Western
civilization
> what's on the end of its fork (America's fork specifically) circa
> 2003. Not many other films I've seen have done that, and I think
the
> fact that it did was a good thing.
Well, everybody (that is, everybody who likes the film) says that,
but I fail to see any profound (or even shallow) statement about the
state of western civilization in that film. Ugly gas stations and
pervert bad guys? That's deep?
>
> > To me the self-
> > destructiveness may or may not be intentional -- I don't really
> > care. I still see the movie as a king of Tingely machine (
although
> > devoid of the sense of fun in Tingely's machines).
>
> What's a Tingely machine?
>
I apologize for misspelling his name, it's Tinguely. He was a Swiss
artist (1925-1991) who built Rube Golberg-like machines, very
complicated, very useless, and often constructed so as to self-
destroy.
> > As far as David:
> > he is a cipher, I don't think we have a right to endow him with
> > intentions (even subconscious) of self-destruction. And please
let's
> > refrain from always blaming the victim. Even though from the very
> > beginning of the film you get the feeling that he is
somehow "asking
> > for it" (whatever "it" is -- and it will end up by being raped).
>
> When I spoke, err, wrote about their willingly having put
themselves
> in that situation, and the violence being the natural end-result,
> that doesn't mean I was putting a "they were asking for it" slant
on
> the expression, or even arguing that the end-result of the
flirtation
> with peril had necessarily to be *SPOILER* anal-rape followed by
> murder-suicide. But I do think these two "adventurers" were
putting
> themselves in danger, and something was going to come of it.
>
Well, adventurers always put themselves in danger. Mountain
climbers fall off and get killed, divers drown, explorers get
devoured by lions or cannibals, and you may get run over by a car
crossing the street. The girl who gets raped in "Irreversible" was
an adventurer too walking through that damn underpass... David and
kathia could have had a car breakdown in the desert and die of
thirst or sun exposure but that wouldn't have been as spectacular
as getting fucked in the ass. It wouldn't have been as grandly
representative of western civilization in the early 21st cent. as a
nice juicy rape. I think Dumont in this case is a highfalutin
panderer.
> I could be off the mark, but -- and maybe this is another reason
it
> flopped -- I have the feeling that most Americans wouldn't even
get
> this from the film -- they'd just say, "Oh, look, it's modern
western
> America. It's creepy in the desert." It's not creepy in the
desert,
> it's creepy at the gas-stations. (Which, besides being crime-
> beacons, have generally made a fucking eyesore of this country.)
>
But, Craig, Dumont says he made the film because he had visited
the desert and was scared somehow and wanted to communicate that
feeling. So it IS creepy in the desert because Dumont thinks it is
and wants us to feel that way. And we feel that way because we know
something bad is going to happen because this is a movie and
something has to happen. Myself, I never felt anything creepy about
the desert (I've driven through deserts too). Of course the gas
stations are creepy too. Everythingthing in the inhabited American
landscape tends to be.
I never like taking things to a "we just
> agree to disagree" juncture, but I think this is a case where
what
> worked for me here didn't work for you. So at this point I'll
ask:
> What are your feelings about 'La Vie de Jésus' and 'L'Humanité'?
> craig.
I liked L'HUMANITE" very much and saw it 3 or 4 times (once in a
theatre on a big screen, at the Montreal Film Fest, and that's the
way Dumont's films should be seen). But I must say that everything
that bothers be abour PALMS was somehow predictable from the
evidence of the earlier film. As for JESUS I also liked it but not a
smuch and saw it only once when it came out in france. I would have
to see it again. JPC
27007
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 2:55pm
Subject: Re: Re: Twentynine Palms, Continued Again sallitt1
> And we feel that way because we know
> something bad is going to happen because this is a movie and
> something has to happen.
I was completely prepared for the possibility that nothing (much) was
going to happen. Dumont never made this kind of film before, and I
wouldn't have put it past him at all not to give the audience a violent
release from the tedium. - Dan
27008
From: Elizabeth Nolan
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 3:22pm
Subject: Shooting through the WALL ... variant of 180 degree rule? eanmdphd
I first noticed this in MYSTIC RIVER:
After their daughter's murder, Penn and Tierry are being interviewed by
Bacon and Jackson in a ?restaurant. The three are sitting in a booth
closed on one side, Jackson sort of standing nearby. In the next shot,
probably to get a close-up, the camera apparently shots through the
wall on the side of the booth (I understand it is a breakaway walk /
how it is done, etc), but I am curious about this. It jarred me
momentarily.
I saw the same shooting through the wall in NORTH BY NORTHWEST:
When Thornhill is kissing Eve on the train, they are up against the
wall. The next shot is partially over her shoulder, but obviously, not
where a camera could be. Again, I'm curious about this shot... it's
not Eve's view, as it includes the back of her head. Still, it would
be odder to see just Thornhill's face when he is so close to Eve, yet
that is the view that she sees. I know about the 180 rule. Is
shooting through the wall a variant of it? Do certain directors do it
more than others?
Thanks, Elizabeth
27009
From: Matt Teichman
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 3:25pm
Subject: Re: Rameau's Nephew bufordrat
Andy Rector wrote:
>The most overwrought and annoying sequence, in my humble opinion, is
>the one where the young people are hanging about in the apartment,
>next to the speakers and table, playing Rameau and repeating lines
>circularly, trading roles, seemingly recording themselves until all
>becomes a garble. This sequence belabors its variations for at least
>20 minutes, discovering what Godard discovered in 20 seconds worth of
>film (8 or 9 years earlier) about direct sound, phonographs and texts
>interacting.
>
Are you talking about the hotel scene with Annette Michelson and Nam
June Paik? If so, I'm surprised to hear you didn't like it; I think of
it as one of the livlier sequences of the film, with some beautifully
sophisticated montage.
It is indeed tempting to read the film as something like "an essay in
the possibilities of sync sound technique," especially since that's the
way Snow tends to describe it. And while that may be the conceit under
which the script was written and the film realized, to me it is much
more than just a piece of conceptual art. The opening credits, for
instance, have more to offer than simply the fact that they are
unnecessarily elongated by permutations of the name "Michael Snow"--in
itself this idea is pretty banal. But something about their
relentlessness makes the scene hilarious, not in the manner of a silly
film student's exercise, but in a way that reminds me somewhat of George
Landow's sensibility (which is almost more than humorous--I'm tempted to
call it a parody of humor).
Many complain that this film is too long. Perhaps this is a valid
complaint, but then again, it's a complaint that can be leveled at just
about any feature film, as films like Kubelka's _Unsere Afrikareise_ or
Matthias Mueller's _Alpsee_ demonstrate.
-Matt
27010
From: Elizabeth Nolan
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 3:35pm
Subject: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, eanmdphd
I read discussions that seem to 'read' a lot into films.
Recently, I was listening to Lehman's commentary on NbN and he says
that the scene near the end of the movie with Leonard confronting
VanDamm about Eve was never written with any homosexual overtones, even
though the use of 'women's intuition' is mentioned by Leonard.
Leonard: You surely would have suspected. Why else would you have
decided not to tell Miss Kendall why our little treasure here has a
belly full of microfilm?
Phillip Vandamm: You seem to be trying to fill mine with rotten apples.
Leonard: Sometimes the truth does taste like a mouthful of worms.
Phillip Vandamm: Truth? I've heard nothing but innuendos.
Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, if you will. But I've never
trusted neatness. Neatness has always been the form of very deliberate
planning.
I could not access the script from the net, but I'm curious if the
'women's intution' had any quotation marks. I also appreciate that
some earlier scene / line / reference might have been omitted.
27011
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 3:35pm
Subject: Re: Shooting through the WALL ... variant of 180 degree rule? cellar47
--- Elizabeth Nolan wrote:
I know about the
> 180 rule. Is
> shooting through the wall a variant of it? Do
> certain directors do it
> more than others?
>
An interesting question. I can't recall anyone doing
it as a deliberate figure of style, though Ozu comes
close.
Kubrick moved through walls in "The Killers" and
Ophuls defies spacio-temproal niceties all the time.
And one of my favorte cuts is a reco-verso medium long
shot of Nicole Garcia taking her raincoat off in
"Duelle."
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
27012
From: "thebradstevens"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 3:42pm
Subject: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, thebradstevens
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Elizabeth Nolan wrote:
>
>
> I could not access the script from the net, but I'm curious if the
> 'women's intution' had any quotation marks. I also appreciate that
> some earlier scene / line / reference might have been omitted.
I have a copy of the published screenplay, which was given away free
with SIGHT AND SOUND a few years back. There are no quotation marks.
Leonard's line is as follows:
"Call it my woman's intuition if you will, but I've never trusted
neatness. Neatness is always the result of deliberate planning."
27013
From: "Michael E. Kerpan, Jr."
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 3:48pm
Subject: Re: Shooting through the WALL ... variant of 180 degree rule? michaelkerpan
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein wrote:
> An interesting question. I can't recall anyone doing
> it as a deliberate figure of style, though Ozu comes
> close.
Ozu "shoots through" a mirror in one of his films -- but forgetting
which one offhand. Apparently it was a real pain to shoot. ;~}
27014
From: MG4273@...
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 0:01pm
Subject: Re: Shooting through the WALL ... variant of 180 degree rule? nzkpzq
I have a vague impression that many commercial film sets are built with
breakaway, removeable walls, to give the director greater choice of camera angles
and positions to shoot the scenes. The director will have a wall removed, so a
camera can be set up to shoot a scene. Then the wall will go back, so it can
appear in another shot, taken from another part of the set.
Hitchcock's book on Truffaut cites Ingrid Bergman's memories of shooting
"Under Capricorn", with walls moving all around, right in the middle of shots (off
camera), to allow the camera to track all over the sets. She apparently found
it disconcerting...
Such "impossible" points of view (behind a moved wall) are not necessarily
violations of the 180 degree rule. There is still an imaginary line, and the
audience sees everything from the "front" of this line, as if they were in a
theater looking at action on a stage.
My impression is that many shots in such later Fritz Lang films as "The Blue
Gardenia" would be impossible if Lang had not removed one of the set walls for
them. Could be wrong...
Mike Grost
27015
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 4:08pm
Subject: Re: Twentynine Palms, Continued Again jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > And we feel that way because we know
> > something bad is going to happen because this is a movie and
> > something has to happen.
>
> I was completely prepared for the possibility that nothing (much)
was
> going to happen. Dumont never made this kind of film before, and I
> wouldn't have put it past him at all not to give the audience a
violent
> release from the tedium. - Dan
Me neither. But after all it's an American film, so something HAS to
happen... And I'm not sure what you mean by "this kind of film". The
film to me is much more like his first two films than like any
American film I can think of (despite the TWO-LANE BLACKTOP connection
that Adrian -- I think -- has pointed out). JPC
27016
From: MG4273@...
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 0:07pm
Subject: Re: Re: Shooting through the WALL ... variant of 180 degree rule? nzkpzq
In a message dated 05-05-13 12:05:15 EDT, I wrote:
<< Hitchcock's book on Truffaut cites Ingrid Bergman's memories >>
Hey, meant Truffaut's book on Hitchcock. Too bad Hitch never wroter a book on
"The Films of Francois Tuffaut" - it would have been interesting.
Mike Grost
27017
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 4:23pm
Subject: Re: Shooting through the WALL ... variant of 180 degree rule? jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> I have a vague impression that many commercial film sets are built
with
> breakaway, removeable walls, to give the director greater choice
of camera angles
> and positions to shoot the scenes. > > Mike Grost
I have seen many interior scenes in which the camera enters a
room or tracks by the room where logically a wall should be and
there is no wall, like on a theatre stage. This is not at all that
those breakaway walls that are being removed out of our sight. We
are shown a room that is missing one wall. I have always been
surprised by this practice that appears in otherwise
quite "realistic" contexts.
As for "impossible" camera placements that are readily accepted by
audiences, what about all those shots from inside a refrigerator or
a fireplace?
JPC
27018
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 4:32pm
Subject: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Elizabeth Nolan wrote:
> I read discussions that seem to 'read' a lot into films.
>
> Recently, I was listening to Lehman's commentary on NbN and he
says
> that the scene near the end of the movie with Leonard confronting
> VanDamm about Eve was never written with any homosexual overtones,
even
> though the use of 'women's intuition' is mentioned by Leonard.
>
> There's a tendency these day to see homosexual overtones or
undertones everywhere. I don't think it's so far-fetched in the case
of NORTH BY NORTWEST, though. Remember, Vandamm tells Leonard: "I
believe you're jealous!" These are "bad guys" of the creepily suave
variety, so a bit of perversion (sorry David!)adds to the
picture.But I wouldn't make a big deal of it. And one can
be "jealous" without any sexual implications
JPC
27019
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 4:34pm
Subject: Re: Re: Twentynine Palms, Continued Again sallitt1
> And I'm not sure what you mean by "this kind of film". The
> film to me is much more like his first two films than like any
> American film I can think of
That's certainly true. But L'HUMANITE started with a violent act; and in
LA VIE DE JESUS the violence grew out of the social situation in a more
natural manner. Here Dumont puts a couple in an elemental landscape and
plays everything out on his own unhurried schedule. The earlier works
didn't establish enough of a precedent that I necessarily expected
violence to follow. - Dan
27020
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 4:43pm
Subject: Re: Re: Shooting through the WALL ... variant of 180 degree rule? cellar47
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
> As for "impossible" camera placements that are
> readily accepted by
> audiences, what about all those shots from inside a
> refrigerator or
> a fireplace?
>
Billy Wilder called it "The Santa Claus Shot."
Yahoo! Mail
Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour:
http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html
27021
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 4:44pm
Subject: Re: Shooting through the WALL ... variant of 180 degree rule? sallitt1
> I know about the 180 rule. Is
> shooting through the wall a variant of it?
If the eyeline between two people is parallel to a wall, and if the people
are up against the wall, then going through the wall will also break the
180-degree rule.
My sense is that the 180-degree rule is much easier to break with impunity
if there is anything at all unusual going on in the scene. You'll notice
the rule being broken if the violation occurs during a classic
old-Hollywood decoupage, but not if there's something wild about the
blocking or the camera angle. And a scene with a bunch of people has a
bunch of eyelines, so the rule feels weaker there.
As others have observed, it's quite common to go through a wall with a
moving camera. I wouldn't say there has ever been any rule about that
(unless you count Aristotle's unity of place!). But the weirdness of
shooting from an impossible place (in the Hitchcock example) might be
enough of an extenuating circumstance that the 180-degree rule no longer
seems much of a big deal. - Dan
27022
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 4:46pm
Subject: Re: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, cellar47
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
> >
> > There's a tendency these day to see homosexual
> overtones or
> undertones everywhere. I don't think it's so
> far-fetched in the case
> of NORTH BY NORTWEST, though. Remember, Vandamm
> tells Leonard: "I
> believe you're jealous!" These are "bad guys" of the
> creepily suave
> variety, so a bit of perversion (sorry David!)adds
> to the
> picture.But I wouldn't make a big deal of it. And
> one can
> be "jealous" without any sexual implications
>
Lehman may not have intended it but Hitchcock's no
fool. And Martin Landau himself has spoken of it as an
undertone. You might say he's "Smithers" to Mason's
"Mr. Burns."
__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail Mobile
Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone.
http://mobile.yahoo.com/learn/mail
27023
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 4:48pm
Subject: Re: Shooting through the WALL ... variant of 180 degree rule? cellar47
--- Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > I know about the 180 rule. Is
> > shooting through the wall a variant of it?
>
> If the eyeline between two people is parallel to a
> wall, and if the people
> are up against the wall, then going through the wall
> will also break the
> 180-degree rule.
>
> My sense is that the 180-degree rule is much easier
> to break with impunity
> if there is anything at all unusual going on in the
> scene. You'll notice
> the rule being broken if the violation occurs during
> a classic
> old-Hollywood decoupage, but not if there's
> something wild about the
> blocking or the camera angle. And a scene with a
> bunch of people has a
> bunch of eyelines, so the rule feels weaker there.
>
I've suddenly remembered the filmmaker who breaks
spacio-temporal order consistently -- Raul Ruiz!
He's gone so far as to create POV shots from the
bottom of a glass and the sole of a shoe.
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
27024
From: Jonathan Takagi
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 5:10pm
Subject: Re: Shooting through the WALL ... variant of 180 degree rule? jontakagi
On 5/13/05, David Ehrenstein wrote:
> He's gone so far as to create POV shots from the
> bottom of a glass and the sole of a shoe.
Or the inside of a mouth. The list could go on forever...
Jonathan Takagi
27025
From: Peter Henne
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 5:10pm
Subject: Re: Re: Auteurs, Canon, Pleasure and Change peterhenne
Online Now Send IM
The choices are not always between pleasure and pain. They can be between pleasure and reflection. They can also be between pleasure and awe--this distinction seems to correspond to the old-fashioned categories, the beautiful and the sublime. I'm guessing this short list of "pleasure or x" isn't exhaustive.
I think "appreciation" ought to be pulled apart from "pleasure," since you will always experience appreciation of a well-done work of art, but not pleasure in all cases.
Manoel de Oliveira satiates my pleasure centers like you wouldn't believe.
Peter Henne
Fred Camper wrote:
When Mike Hammer
slams the drawer on the sleazy doctor's hand, his scream is mirrored in
the distorted spaces of the film as a whole -- unpleasant, yes, but also
aestheticized in a powerful way, expressions of a distorted and
contorted and upside-down world in which values are lost.
---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
27026
From: "Brian Dauth"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 5:58pm
Subject: Re: Auteurs, Canon, Pleasure and Change cinebklyn
Richard writes:
> Many people have had the experience of undervaluing a film on first
viewing and than coming around to a better appreciation later because
of they've grown.
But isn't it also possible to outgrow a film or filmmaker? Isn't it
possible that a first viewing can overvalue a film as well as
undervalue it?
> I would say that the formalist view is that appreciation equals
pleasure.
Such a view gives me pause. Equating appreciation with pleasure does
not work for me.
hl666 writes:
> Short answer: "It must give pleasure"
Wallace Stevens, "Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction"
Slightly longer:
"We reason of these things with later reason
And we make of what we see, what we see clearly
And have seen, a place dependent on ourselves."
Full text:
http://home.earthlink.net/~scofield99/data/W_Stevens_NotesSupreme.htm
Fred writes:
> But also, it seems obvious that simply because a work has a
recognizable style doesn't make it good: examples from other arts are
abundant.
I would agree.
> But I can't accept simply talking about "pleasure" without talking
about what kind of pleasure.
Agreed. I recognize the pleasure of an ice-cold glass of lemonade on
a hot day or the refreshing tang of a sea breeze as I walk along the
beach. While I would identify both as giving me pleasure, it is a
pleasure different and distinct from what I receive from movies.
> If someone told me that the pleasure they find in Sirk's films lies
in their loud colors and outrageously campy acting and stories, I
might suddenly explain that I had a plane to catch and walk away.
Why? Is there something wrong with that type of pleasure? Are they
lesser forms of pleasure?
> An explication of the pleasure of Hawks's adventure films that
restricts itself to talking about his exciting stories and effective
performances would leave me thinking I had shared little with the
person I was listening to.
But if those are the only areas in which that viewer experiences
pleasure, is it fair to view him or the discussion as being
restricted? Restriction implies not only a conscious or unconscious
narrowing, but also the availability to all viewers of a more open
field of vision.
> Taste is to some extent subjective, a product of both individual
tastes and the tastes of a sub-group or culture. But is it totally
subjective?
How can it be otherwise unless you assert an essential "human nature"
that every human being is born with? Is that what you are claiming?
> If so, why have so many across the centuries derived such intense
and visionary pleasures from Homer (even in translation), Chartres
Cathedral, Shakespeare, Bach, Titian?
You are imputing causes by pointing out correlations – that is a
logical fallacy. The fact that many people have been inspired by the
same works of art does not tell us anything concrete about either
those works of art or the people.
> True, there are other great older artists who were rediscovered
only in the 20th-century -- showing, perhaps, that culture factors
into it to some extent.
I certainly believe that culture and acculturation play a significant
role.
> My real point is that I can distinguish between the considerable
pleasures I derive from the careful pacing, moving time-crossing
structure, and superb acting in Leone's "Once Upon a Time in
America," and the mind-cleansing, transpersonal, visionary explosions
of Sirk's "The Tarnished Angels" or Brakhage's "The Text of Light"
So there are not just differences among pleasures, but hierarchies as
well?
Also, what do you mean when you say something is "mind-cleansing"
and "transpersonal"? I have seen the term "transpersonal" used with
regard to psychology and Eastern mysticism, but I am not sure of how
you are invoking it in this instance.
> The films that I call great don't give me pleasures based on moods
or personal identifications with actors or characters or little
dialogue bits that I love or a narrative that hooks me: they present
visual (and often, aural) systems of expression in which all of the
parts come together in a way that lifts me completely out of myself.
I understand, but a "lifting completely out of oneself" seems like a
very personal and idiosyncratic experience from which I would be hard-
pressed to extrapolate a universal definition of great artistry.
> Rather, it seems to me that their forms convincingly embody their
visions, so that anyone can be moved by them.
But doesn't this assertion put us back in the essentialist trap? If
anyone can be moved by them, then anyone/everyone must be equipped
with the ability to be moved in this way. Futhermore, if they are
not moved, isn't because of a conscious or unconscious choice on
their part not to bring this inherent ability into play?
> This is why I tend to say that people who don't see the greatness
of the films that I love just aren't getting it . . .
I would agree that they aren't getting it (e.g., I am not moved by
Sirk), but the questions remain: a) whether or not everyone possesses
the same capacity to "get it"; and b) whether one commonality among
all great art is its ability to lift those who get it out of
themselves.
David E. writes:
> The reason that I value "Those Who Love Me can Take the Train"
above all other films starts with the story, the characters, and the
performers but REALLY kicks in because of the way Chereau has
synthesized it all into a work that takes the form of a living
organism in and of itself.
&
> The film ITSELF has a character -- the includes a built in d.j.
&
> I thinks about it self all the time
If the film has character, thinks about itself, and takes the form of
a living organism, would this be a case where autonomy was actual and
not illusionary?
Brian
27027
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 6:22pm
Subject: Re: Re: Auteurs, Canon, Pleasure and Change cellar47
--- Brian Dauth wrote:
"If the film has character, thinks about itself, and
takes the form of
a living organism, would this be a case where autonomy
was actual and
not illusionary?"
No, it's illusionary -- but in a different way from
what's usually presented. A spectator has autonomy. A
film does not because it has a beginning, a middle and
an end. Godard's famous "Yes, but not necessarily in
that order" evokes a critical function that good
filmmkaing encourages. The great innovation that home
video offers is the ability to break the film apart
and examine it in detail. "Those Who Love" me actively
encourages such detailed analysis.
Eisenstein presumably did, as the bulk of his writings
concern specific moments in his films -- shots,
sequences. Yet he always ends up in the same place
--with the same set of meanings. One can find a lot
more in Eisenstein than he would allow, but that's not
what he wants -- and thus his severe limitations as an
artist.
Yahoo! Mail
Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour:
http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html
27028
From: LiLiPUT1@...
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 2:35pm
Subject: Re: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, scil1973
In a message dated 5/13/05 11:46:52 AM, cellar47@... writes:
> And Martin Landau himself has spoken of it as an
> undertone. You might say he's "Smithers" to Mason's
> "Mr. Burns."
>
Except that Smithers' homosexuality is far from an undertone. But even at
that, I'm sure there are some freakshows who think that to call Smithers gay
would be reading too deep into things. Witness what happened when the producers of
The Simpsons announced that someone would be coming out as gay this season.
Every article I read about it speculated Smithers as a candidate. How the fuck
could someone come out if they're already out?!?!? So we might as well be
watching NORTH BY NORTHWEST every Sunday night. Proof that the "you're reading too
deep into it" crowd is full of shit can be had, as always, in Patricia
White's book Uninvited - Classical Hollywood Cinema and Lesbian Representability.
Kevin John, a deep reader of surfaces
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
27029
From: Fred Camper
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 6:56pm
Subject: Re: Re: Auteurs, Canon, Pleasure and Change fredcamper
David Ehrenstein wrote:
> ....One can find a lot
> more in Eisenstein than he would allow
>... but that's not what he wants....
Perhaps those other things *were* also things that he wanted, and it's
just that he couldn't include them in his writings because he didn't
know how to write about them, or that he couldn't include them because
though he *did* know how to write about them he realized he sure as hell
better keep his mouth shut about them as a citizen of Stalin's USSR.
Fred Camper
27030
From: "Blake Lucas"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 6:58pm
Subject: Re: Can a great director make a turkey? (Was: Auteurs, Canon, Pleasure and Change) lukethedealer12
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
>
> I sometimes group critics into "sadistic" and "masochistic"
categories.
> The sadistic critic positions himself or herself above the filmmaker
as a
> judge, and does not hesitate to put a favorite filmmaker in his or
her
> place. The masochistic critic looks up to the filmmaker as a source
of
> wisdom or pleasure, a teacher. This kind of critic is not eager to
pass
> negative judgment on a favorite, and pulls his or her punches when
it
> becomes necessary.
You do not say which of these two groups you put yourself in, and even
though I know you I can't guess the answer. Just curious.
I don't have much time to jump in on this very articulate debate about
"pleasure," "bad films by great filmmakers," and so on, though do mean
to at least post something on "The Exile" sometime today, I hope. But
in the meantime, no one should have jumped to the conclusion (and I
don't think too many actually did) that I was saying something like
"Even the forlorn, impossible to defend "The Exile" is not a turkey
because it was made by the great Max Ophuls." Not at all. I happen
to love this one and think it's wonderful--it seemed like others agree.
I do think great filmmakers fail--and even in relatively small,
creatively focused bodies of work by filmmakers who do not have the
same degree of ongoing opportunity as some others--it tends to happen
just as much.
As an auteurist, though, I tend to be pleased when some seemingly
"forlorn, impossible to defend" work is defended and admired by
someone. A title much bandied about lately, "Skidoo," is a good
example. I wasn't one of the ones taking up for it. Though I don't
think it's Preminger's worst (and would vote for "Junie Moon" which
I had a really tough time with), I kind of have a feeling I wouldn't
think about him the way I do if it were even one of his best. But I
very much enjoyed all the warm things said about it, enough to want
to take another look sometime.
As far as pleasure is concerned, I vote for pleasure. I don't even
think it's an issue. Someone Like Laura Mulvey created a non-issue, in
my opinion. To me she is no goddess of criticsm, any more than CdC
on "Young Mr. Lincoln" is a sacred text. One of these days I'll weigh
in on both, if I live long enough, and that's a promise.
But JPC said something it is always well to bear in mind. Some works
may not give as immediate pleasure as others, but if we know they are
by artists we admire and generally take pleasure in, we are inclined
to work on them. For me "Muriel" was not immediately pleasurable at
all, as compared to "The Band Wagon," which definitely was. But on
many repeat viewings of both I'd say I now take equal pleasure in both
and would put them on the same level.
"The Exile," needless to say, is supremely pleasurable to me.
Blake
>
27031
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 7:11pm
Subject: Re: Re: Can a great director make a turkey? (Was: Auteurs, Canon, Pleasure and Change) sallitt1
>> I sometimes group critics into "sadistic" and "masochistic"
> categories.
>
> You do not say which of these two groups you put yourself in, and even
> though I know you I can't guess the answer. Just curious.
I'd certainly put myself in the "masochistic critic" category. As you
well know, there are a lot of films by major directors that I don't care
for; but I'm always wondering if the director is right and I'm wrong.
Seems to me that auteurists tend toward being masochistic critics. Kael
is, to me, the classic example of a sadistic critic. - Dan
27032
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 7:21pm
Subject: Re: Re: Auteurs, Canon, Pleasure and Change cellar47
--- Fred Camper wrote:
>
> Perhaps those other things *were* also things that
> he wanted, and it's
> just that he couldn't include them in his writings
> because he didn't
> know how to write about them, or that he couldn't
> include them because
> though he *did* know how to write about them he
> realized he sure as hell
> better keep his mouth shut about them as a citizen
> of Stalin's USSR.
>
Maybe. But I'm not so sure. Never forget that despite
all his troubles, Eisenstein was Stalin's favorite
filmmaker. He flourished, while his teacher Meyerhold,
like so many others, vanished into the Gulag.
Discover Yahoo!
Use Yahoo! to plan a weekend, have fun online and more. Check it out!
http://discover.yahoo.com/
27033
From: "second_aq"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 3:43pm
Subject: Subtitleless ventures -Ophuls in french second_aq
One of problems of excluding non subtitled versions from a
retrospective is you frustate people who speak the language anyway and
others who want to learn or hear it. I have seen italian movies at the
Cinematheque in Paris without subtitles, reading articles about it
afterwards. But I remember an instance of loud whispering near me of
somebody translating most of the dialogue of a movie to a person who
didn't understand the language . That was in Montreal, it was an
american movie about Latin America "Under Fire" by Roger
Spottiswoode. As the language whispered was spanish, I understood the
connection between those specxtators and the subject and it didn't
bother too much.
Luc
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Blake Lucas"
wrote:
>
> But the head of the film department at the museum here
> refused to program four 30s Ophuls films in various languages which
> did not have subtitles (interestingly, he left in a few other earlier
> ones). The four were "Divine" (especially highly regarded by Ophuls
> aficionados), "Yoshiwara," "Werther," "Sans Landemain." I felt
> quite bitter about their exclusion, as I'm sure a lot of people did.
> I still haven't seen any of those four and wonder if I ever will.
> I went to everything else--mostly films I knew well, and enjoyed the
> earlier unsubtitled ones quite a bit (there were printed synopses to
> read before the films), and was very grateful to see those.
>
27034
From: "Blake Lucas"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 7:50pm
Subject: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, lukethedealer12
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Elizabeth Nolan wrote:
> Recently, I was listening to Lehman's commentary on NbN and he says
> that the scene near the end of the movie with Leonard confronting
> VanDamm about Eve was never written with any homosexual overtones,
even
> though the use of 'women's intuition' is mentioned by Leonard.
>
>
I haven't heard this commentary, but Lehman's seeming innocence amazes
me. I always thought this as much of a given in the movie as the fact
that Roger goes through most of it in that same gray suit.
I read David and JPC's responses before writing this--they fall on the
side of a homosexual Leonard but sound as if maybe it's arguable. But
I think there's no doubt Hitchcock directed it that way and Landau
played it that way, and I'm guessing they'd both readily say so (sounds
like Landau did). I wouldn't even need the "woman's intuition" line
though that certainly nails it.
Charlton Heston is famously on record as saying there is no homoerotic
subtext between Ben-Hur and Massala except in Gore Vidal's mind. I
found that about as hard to believe as this but watched the first few
scenes of "Ben-Hur" when it came on TV soon after reading that and saw
again the way these two characters reacted to each other after not
seeing each other for many years. Then there's the spear-throwing.
And does the rest of the whole story even make sense otherwise?
There's nothing like thwarted love/love turned to hate to drive a
narrative.
OK, Heston's an actor and maybe he really is as innocent as he seems
(but then why did he play it the same way Boyd did?). But Lehman's
a writer, and Leonard's antagonism to Eve is never far from the
surface throughout the film. I really thought the reason so obvious
that literally a child could understand it.
By the way, in his first "Hitchcock's Films" (I don't know if it is
still there), Robin Wood refers to "the homosexual spy Leonard"
(p. 102) as a given and gives a little discussion to him in these
terms at several points. This was long before Wood came out, of
course, and I don't know how he'd feel now about looking at the
character in the negative light he saw him in then.
I've always loved Leonard. Landau's looks and marvelous performance
are one more great asset of a great movie. I don't know too
much about Landau's struggles to establish himself, but I believe
this movie debut made his career, didn't it?
(P.S. If a moderator is reading this, no insult is intended to
Lehman or Heston, whose contributions to these and many other films
I respect and admire).
27035
From: "samfilms2003"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 7:56pm
Subject: Subtitleless ventures (Was Re: Mizoguchi on DVD -- in Japan -- at last) samfilms2003
>"Fred Patton" wrote:
Sorry for this much back quoting and a "me too" post but I
could not agree more.
The effect on pacing is the most surprising part of doing this with
DVD - perhaps because, in the small screen space of (my) typical
DVD viewing the experience tends toward the 'readerly' to begin
with.
(also the cinematographer in me gets to see nuances in light,
shadings, etc)
-Sam Wells
> There's the rhythm of camera movements, zooms, edits, physical
> movement including nuanced gestures that come together to construct
> the visual rhythm. There is also a rhythm to subtitle scanning, how
> the eye might run from left to right to quickly or less quickly
> decode the spoken, which is typically unintended and haphazard with
> the visual music.
>But
> with DVD's pro-choice, I've been trying to have a subsequent go
> without subs whenever I can manage, and typically I discover a
> richer viewing experience, and not the hybrid novel reading /
> picture viewing that seems to cohere more completely in one's
> corrective mind than it does.
27036
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 8:08pm
Subject: Re: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, cellar47
--- Blake Lucas wrote:
>
> I read David and JPC's responses before writing
> this--they fall on the
> side of a homosexual Leonard but sound as if maybe
> it's arguable. But
> I think there's no doubt Hitchcock directed it that
> way and Landau
> played it that way, and I'm guessing they'd both
> readily say so (sounds
> like Landau did). I wouldn't even need the "woman's
> intuition" line
> though that certainly nails it.
>
Even without the line it's there as a subtextual
shorthand. Maybe Lehman's resistance springs from the
fact that to him the subject would demand full-scale
treatment and Leonard's secondary character. Maybe
he's uncomfortable with the idea. But that just shows
Hitchcock's sophstication. He needed an extra
motivational link between Landau and mason. After all,
mason may be the head man but he does nothing himself.
He merely (suavely) gives orders that his underlings
carryout. And Saint, working undercover, is one of
these underlings. But she has a special status as
she's Mason's girlfriend too. So having Landau's
Lenoard as a romantic interloper fits perfectly.
In other words there's no need to analyze this all
that much. It's Hitchcock at his "functional" best.
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
27037
From: "samfilms2003"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 8:10pm
Subject: Re: Shooting through the WALL ... variant of 180 degree rule? samfilms2003
>MG4273@a... wrote:
> I have a vague impression that many commercial film sets are built with
> breakaway, removeable walls, to give the director greater choice of camera angles
> and positions to shoot the scenes.
Yes.
-Sam
27038
From: "Michael E. Kerpan, Jr."
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 8:20pm
Subject: Re: Auteurs, Canon, Pleasure and Change michaelkerpan
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein wrote:
> Maybe. But I'm not so sure. Never forget that despite
> all his troubles, Eisenstein was Stalin's favorite
> filmmaker. He flourished, while his teacher Meyerhold,
> like so many others, vanished into the Gulag.
Meyerhold never made it to the Gulag. He was tortured and then shot
in a Moscow prison.
Ironically, his death was precipitated by (not caused by, as it was
inevitable) the flight of Japanese actress Yoshiko Okada (an early Ozu
star) and her lover, stage director Ryoukichi Sugimoto. These two
fled Japan because they were viewed as subversives (and because they
were involved in an adulterous relationship, and wanted to flee their
spouses as well as the Japanese military police). They had Japanese
communist friends who worked with Meyerhold, and planned to join them
in Moscow. Unknown to the couple, their Moscow friends had recently
fled to Paris (as Stalin had decided that the Japanese communists in
the USSR might all be spies), and the two were arrested shortly after
they set foot on Sakhalin Island. Sugimoto was shot rather promptly,
but Okada was tortured -- and eventually "confessed" that she and her
Moscow friends were indeed spies. Because these friends had been
Meyerhold proteges, her confession was used to help paint Meyerhold as
a spy master who led the Japanese spy ring. Okada WAS sent to the
Gulag -- and spent at 10 years there. After she was finally released,
she worked for Russian Radio, broadcasting Japanese-language classical
music and literature programs to Japan -- and later as a drama
teacher and translator. She finally returned to Japan in the 1970s
(where Yoji Yamada promptly put her to work in the latest Tora-san film).
27039
From: "samfilms2003"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 8:22pm
Subject: Re: Auteurs, Canon, Pleasure and Change samfilms2003
> Fred Camper wrote:
> Or you can watch "Yi Yi" and see the film I saw, full of exquisite and
> sensuous fields of color which seemed expressive of a deep ambivalence,
> an ambivalence mirrored in the oddly chaotic landscape with highways
> running through it.
And at the same time see a film which beautifully and directly
addresses the Asian cliche (i.e. imposed on)/conundrum of individuality vs
family identity, the *formal* notion of characterization as place holder
of said identities - which Yang boldly suggests, I think, can be fluid,
as if particle trajectories of identities in a cloud chamber (do Yang and
Hou make cloud-chamber cinema ?) -- culminating, for me in the
astonishing last scene with the grandmother and grandaughter,
where the grandaughter gives voice to grandma's silence.
(ie if you think I'm saying "Yi Yi" is a masterpiece you're right)
-Sam Wells
27040
From: Fred Camper
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 8:32pm
Subject: Re: Re: Auteurs, Canon, Pleasure and Change fredcamper
samfilms2003 wrote:
> if you think I'm saying "Yi Yi" is a masterpiece you're right
Me too.
Fred Camper
27041
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 8:41pm
Subject: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, LiLiPUT1@a... wrote:
>
> Proof that the "you're reading too
> deep into it" crowd is full of shit can be had, as always, in
Patricia
> White's book Uninvited - Classical Hollywood Cinema and Lesbian
Representability.
>
> Kevin John, a deep reader of surfaces
>
>
OK Kevin, you win, I'm full of shit. Everybody's gay and from now on
I'll try to read heterosexual undertones or overtones into every movie.
Seriously, the point is, whether Leonard is homosexual or not is of
little concern because his sexual orientation doesn't have any impact
on the film's plot, atmosphere, direction -- which is what really
counts. Maybe his boyfriend is the other hood (what's his name?) but
he still lusts after Vandamn, who is cuter. And he is jealous because
his object of desire prefers a gorgeous (female) blonde. It makes
perfect sense. But what does it bring to the story or our enjoyment of
it?
JPC
27042
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 8:52pm
Subject: Re: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, cellar47
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
> Seriously, the point is, whether Leonard is
> homosexual or not is of
> little concern because his sexual orientation
> doesn't have any impact
> on the film's plot, atmosphere, direction -- which
> is what really
> counts. Maybe his boyfriend is the other hood
> (what's his name?) but
> he still lusts after Vandamn, who is cuter. And he
> is jealous because
> his object of desire prefers a gorgeous (female)
> blonde. It makes
> perfect sense. But what does it bring to the story
> or our enjoyment of
> it?
>
It helps tighten the suspense noose, and allows
Hitchcock to do some interesting things. For example
it would have been rather jarring for a villain, more
or less out of the blue, to tromp on Cary Grant's
fingers on Mount Rushmore. Because Leonard has a
personal as well as a professional motive it twists
the knife a little more.
To me it's simply an Extra Added Attraction -- not
calling for "in depth" analysis at all.
__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail Mobile
Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone.
http://mobile.yahoo.com/learn/mail
27043
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 9:03pm
Subject: Anatomy of Hell, anyone? jpcoursodon
Breillat's films have been discussed several times here but I don't
remember any sustained discussion of this one, which I saw for the
first time yesterday. I'd like views and opinions. I found it one of
the most idiotic films I've seen in a long time, on the lofty theme
of "Men hate women and women hate themselves and sex is hell." The
first line spoken by the "heroine" gives the tone. She has just
slashed her wrists (unfortunately for us she survives). A guy walks
in and asks: "Why did you do that?" She answers: "Because I am a
woman." And it gets worse.
She hires a gay guy to watch her nude and tell her how disgusting
she looks. I soon was identifying with the gay guy and feeling
increasingly repulsed by her whitish body sprawled on a bed like
some jellyfish. They move very slowly, like in a Duras film, and
exchange highly literary remarks in such heavily accented French
that I had to read most of the subtitles... To break the monotony
the guy sticks a broom handle up her ass (actually it's not a broom
but some kind of gardening tool; and maybe it's up her vagina,
that's not clear; Breillat can be so delicate...). He also applies
lipstick to her labia and asshole. IS THIS A SPOILER? OOPS! I don't
know what he does next because I turned the thing off to have dinner
(I have a strong stomach) but I'll know tonight. DON'T MISS THE NEXT
THRILLING CHAPTER!
JPC
27044
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 9:08pm
Subject: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> It helps tighten the suspense noose, and allows
> Hitchcock to do some interesting things. For example
> it would have been rather jarring for a villain, more
> or less out of the blue, to tromp on Cary Grant's
> fingers on Mount Rushmore. Because Leonard has a
> personal as well as a professional motive it twists
> the knife a little more.
Not at all. Heterosexual villains do that sort of thing all the
time. Villains are sadistic more often than not. You don't have to
be gay to tromp on Cary Grant's fingers.
>
> To me it's simply an Extra Added Attraction -- not
> calling for "in depth" analysis at all.
>
Agreed.
JPC
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Yahoo! Mail Mobile
> Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone.
> http://mobile.yahoo.com/learn/mail
27045
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 9:20pm
Subject: Re: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, cellar47
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
> Not at all. Heterosexual villains do that sort of
> thing all the
> time. Villains are sadistic more often than not. You
> don't have to
> be gay to tromp on Cary Grant's fingers.
> >
Maybe.But gay villian like this are more fun. Think
too of Wendell Corey in "Desert Fury," and my favorite
romantic couple Earl Holliman and Lee van Cleef in
"The Big Combo."
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
27046
From: "Blake Lucas"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 9:27pm
Subject: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, lukethedealer12
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> --- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
> >
> > Seriously, the point is, whether Leonard is
> > homosexual or not is of
> > little concern because his sexual orientation
> > doesn't have any impact
> > on the film's plot, atmosphere, direction -- which
> > is what really
> > counts. Maybe his boyfriend is the other hood
> > (what's his name?) but
> > he still lusts after Vandamn, who is cuter. And he
> > is jealous because
> > his object of desire prefers a gorgeous (female)
> > blonde. It makes
> > perfect sense. But what does it bring to the story
> > or our enjoyment of
> > it?
I think all of these speculations kind of make sense, and to me they
are interesting. I personally find it makes a better work when even
minor characters (and he isn't that minor) have some coloration,
something to make them more interesting. Look at any good Western
with say a group of four outlaws as antagonists--they could just be
four outlaws but if they all have personal idiosyncracies and an
interesting individuality, the movie is much more engaging (maybe
some are killers or rapists, and others are just greedy, or down on
their luck--I'm thinking of "The Bravados" directed by Henry King).
Here, we like "North by Northwest" to keep going back to it,
obviously. In an already great scene where the villains take Roger
to the house in the opening act and then Leonard and Vandamm come
in and they pour that glass of whiskey down him, knowing the
undercurrents of these relationships just make the scene better.
As Mason so wonderfully says "Games...must we?"
> It helps tighten the suspense noose, and allows
> Hitchcock to do some interesting things. For example
> it would have been rather jarring for a villain, more
> or less out of the blue, to tromp on Cary Grant's
> fingers on Mount Rushmore. Because Leonard has a
> personal as well as a professional motive it twists
> the knife a little more.
>
> To me it's simply an Extra Added Attraction -- not
> calling for "in depth" analysis at all.
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Yahoo! Mail Mobile
> Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone.
> http://mobile.yahoo.com/learn/mail
27047
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 9:28pm
Subject: Re: Anatomy of Hell, anyone? cellar47
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
I
> found it one of
> the most idiotic films I've seen in a long time,
SING OUT LOUISE!!!
They move very slowly, like in a
> Duras film, and
> exchange highly literary remarks in such heavily
> accented French
> that I had to read most of the subtitles...
Bingo! That's where she got the idea -- from Duras'
"Blue Eyes, Black Hair."
To break
> the monotony
> the guy sticks a broom handle up her ass (actually
> it's not a broom
> but some kind of gardening tool; and maybe it's up
> her vagina,
> that's not clear; Breillat can be so delicate...).
See? Duras didn't need gardening tools to convey
masochistic self-disgust! All she needed was a willing
slave. And in Yann Andrea she found one.
Breillat had to be content with a porn star.
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
27048
From: "Blake Lucas"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 9:56pm
Subject: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, lukethedealer12
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
>> Maybe.But gay villian like this are more fun. Think
> too of Wendell Corey in "Desert Fury," and my favorite
> romantic couple Earl Holliman and Lee van Cleef in
> "The Big Combo."
>
I cannot help but comment, so fond am I of all these characters.
Holliman and Van Cleef don't make the film all by themselves
(it's a stunning, artistic work in every way) but they add
a great deal. "Desert Fury" is an underrated gem of Technicolor
noir as I assume everyone knows by now and stars the irreplaceable
Lizabeth Scott (take me, Lizabeth!). Still Corey's gay villain
does just about steal that one. He's mesmerizing.
Interestingly, Wendell Corey was equally mesmerizing as villainous
press agent "Smiley" in "The Big Knife" (Aldrich) and almost stole
that one, too, at least in his scenes. I wish he'd had more roles
like these.
Lee Van Cleef is the most memorable of the four outlaws Gregory Peck
pursues in "The Bravados" (he cries and pleads for his life as Peck
prepares to kill him, a bigger scene than he'd ever had up to that
time). Stephen Boyd is the lascivious, evil rapist (is there any
other kind?)--he was really great too. Albert Salmi is the cynical,
card-loving guy who kind of looks on at the others with an "I get
you guys" attitude. Henry Silva is the wary Indian--basically down
on his luck and wanting to help his family so he's a member of the
gang, too. Not a gay villain among them, but they're all memorable
even so. Gay or straight, give a guy a villain to play.
And Lizabeth Scott lives (literally, I believe).
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
27049
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 10:21pm
Subject: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Blake Lucas"
wrote:
>
>
> Interestingly, Wendell Corey was equally mesmerizing as villainous
> press agent "Smiley" in "The Big Knife" (Aldrich) and almost stole
> that one, too, at least in his scenes. I wish he'd had more roles
> like these.
>
I think I like Corey best when he is not a villain but just weak
and disgusted with what he is forced to do -- vide "I Walk Alone"
or "Thelma Jordon" (often misspelled "Jordan"). Interestingly he was
Jesse James in "Alias Jessie James," which I haven't seen.
JPC
>> And Lizabeth Scott lives (literally, I believe).
>
I never understood why everybody raves about Scott. She's a
terrible actress with a silly lisp. Is this OT?
JPC
> >
> > __________________________________________________
> > Do You Yahoo!?
> > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> > http://mail.yahoo.com
27050
From: "Brian Dauth"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 11:02pm
Subject: Re: Auteurs, Canon, Pleasure and Change cinebklyn
Henrik writes:
Mulvay said, that pleasure depends on pre-existing psychological
patterns at or within the spectator, and is as such a narcissistic
identification, where the spectator identifies with himself and his
own ideology.
Very Freudian and highly arguable. There are models of human
psychology other than Freud.
> As pleasure is based on whats within the spectator, so is
displeasure. It suggests, that we cannot identify with character,
ideology, plot, narration and/or signifiers.
With respect, I think that equating the pleasurable with what one can
identify with is reductive. I would, therefore, go on to argue that
the displeasurable is not just that which a person cannot identify
with.
> Displeasure blinds the viewer of the qualities in the text, as it
doesn't allow the spectator to identify with character, ideology,
plot, narrative and/or signifiers. And being blind, one cannot
appreciate, and in terms critic, the text.
But I do not need to identify with character or narrative in order to
discern qualities in the text. Also, it could be argued that
pleasure is more of a blinding factor than displeasure.
> I do believe, that a better understanding of what "peas" are would
allow a step towards an identification with them.
But I do not believe that a better understanding leads to a deeper
identification which results in pleasure rather than displeasure. I
think pleasure is far more complicated than that.
> However, I believe, that displeasure should entice us to dig
deeper, and by understanding the differences between ours and the
filmmakers ideology (to say one), begin to appreciate and value their
work.
I agree. If we are turned off by something, we should be willing to
dig deeper. But I also think that there comes a moment when it is
time to call off the search.
Peter writes:
> Some would say that positing pleasure as a necessary element for
aesthetic experience is a conservative way to go, e.g., the
minimalist and conceptualist strands in art of the '60s and '70s.
In the current political/cultural climate, I would venture that
opposition to pleasure is the conservative stance. I think it very
much depends on the cultural moment one finds oneself in.
> Some traditions put pleasure pretty low on the aesthetic scale,
such as medieval architecture--the whole point is to inspire awe, not
please.
But aren't these also cultures that see art as being created in
service of religion? Is there any notion of "art for art's sake?" in
pre-Romantic times?
> When you look at Goya's war prints, are you feeling pleasure? On
the level of appreciating formal invention, yes, but most certainly
the horrible depictions are part and parcel of the art, and
registering them as grotesque enters your aesthetic experience.
I may register them as grotesque, but I do not feel them as
grotesque. Just as I may register someone being mutilated on screen,
but do not feel it.
> I think that means feeling revulsion at the representations of torn
flesh, pitiless cruelty, etc. It's not very pleasant, but many have
found these prints supreme art.
I might feel revulsion at torn flesh in real life, not at its
representation. I am not revulsed by the ending of
Mankiewicz's "Suddenly, Last Summer" as cousin Sebastian is
devoured. I am waiting for the aesthetically pleasurable moment when
Catherine's scream awakens her (and the film) from the dream/memory
of what happened that day at Cabeza de Lobo.
Mike writes:
> This pleasure is aesthetic, and involves deep thinking, but it is a
pleasure-oriented cosmos all the same.
Mike points out something I should have said: for me cinematic
pleasure has both an intellectual component as well as an
emotional one.
> When I was a college student taking an Introduction to Music
Appreciation class, the distinguished musicologist who taught the
class told us all, "Remember, few things in life will give you more
pleasure than classical music." He was right.
He was right within a given context. For me it would be that few
things in life give more pleasure than John Coltrane, Branford
Marsalis, and Jason Moran.
> By extreme contrast, the academic study of the novel emphasizes
pain. Critics praise good novels as "wrenching, disturbing,
upsetting, traumatic", etc. Critics seek out the most depressing,
morbid experiences, and try to inflict them on readers.
I wonder if this represents a shift, whereby artists not longer just
want to depict pain, suffering, etc., but want their audience to feel
it as well.
> Film studies are suspended between these two poles. There are
people who emphasize joy and delight in film. But there are also
many, steeped in academic traditions of the novel, who
hate "entertainment", and try to find the most painful film
experiences, treating them as the summit of film art.
The "eat your peas" folk.
> You can watch "Yi Yi", and experience the death of a loved one,
guilt over failing a parent, the tortures of adultery, being fired
from one's job, unrequited love, middle aged angst, being a kid being
sadistically abused by a school teacher, etc.
I must dissent here. I do not experience any of these things as I
watch the film (which I feel is terrific). These experiences are
merely depicted.
Fred writes:
> I dunno, I think we're using "pleasure" too simply.
I agree. While wondering where pleasure fits in, we should also look
at what we mean by pleasure.
> When Mike Hammer slams the drawer on the sleazy doctor's hand, his
scream is mirrored in
the distorted spaces of the film as a whole -- unpleasant, yes, but
also aestheticized in a powerful way, expressions of a distorted and
contorted and upside-down world in which values are lost.
Unpleasant for the character in the film, but not for the audience
watching the fim.
Peter writes:
> The choices are not always between pleasure and pain. They can be
between pleasure and reflection. They can also be between pleasure
and awe—this distinction seems to correspond to the old-fashioned
categories, the beautiful and the sublime. I'm guessing this short
list of "pleasure or x" isn't exhaustive.
Thinking about pleasure and what you have written, why is it
necessary that pleasure have any opposite other than its absence? (I
am admittedly not a fan of binary thinking. I am Jamesian in the
sense that I always believe there is an "and."). I am not displeased
by the films of Douglas Sirk. It is merely that pleasure does not
arise in me when I am watching them.
> I think "appreciation" ought to be pulled apart from "pleasure,"
since you will always experience appreciation of a well-done work of
art, but not pleasure in all cases.
I agree. I think appreciation can occur whether there is pleasure,
displeasure, or neither.
Brian
27051
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 11:06pm
Subject: Re: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, cellar47
--- Blake Lucas wrote:
>
> And Lizabeth Scott lives (literally, I believe).
>
> >
She most certainly does.
http://ehrensteinland.com/htmls/g006/liz.html
She's attended American Cinematheque screenings of
"Desert Fury" and "Pitfall" in recent years, and was
very gracious and charming at each.
Every so often I see her shopping at the Ralph's on
Pico near Beverly Crest.
__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail Mobile
Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone.
http://mobile.yahoo.com/learn/mail
27052
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 11:07pm
Subject: Re: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, cellar47
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
> >
> I never understood why everybody raves about
> Scott. She's a
> terrible actress with a silly lisp. Is this OT?
>
You're most definitely camp-challenged, J-P.
__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail Mobile
Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone.
http://mobile.yahoo.com/learn/mail
27053
From: LiLiPUT1@...
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 7:24pm
Subject: Re: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, scil1973
In a message dated 5/13/05 3:43:22 PM, jpcoursodon@... writes:
> Seriously, the point is, whether Leonard is homosexual or not is of
> little concern because his sexual orientation doesn't have any impact
> on the film's plot, atmosphere, direction -- which is what really
> counts.
>
For you. The history of homosexuality in the cinema (and elsewhere) is one of
fleeting gestures, stolen glances, gossip and whispers, not plot, atmosphere
and direction (and please, certainly not "evidence"). Does this mean I get
nothing from the latter three? Of course not. But they are not the ONLY (nor
even, at times, the central) pleasures that really count.
Kevin John, a surface reader of depths
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
27054
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 11:31pm
Subject: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, hotlove666
As noted in Hitchcock at Work, it's in Lehman's incomplete first
draft (so much for Landau's statement to me that he dreamed it up and
suggested to Hitchcock), which was submitted to the Production Code
Office, who warned Hitchcock about making Leonard too geffeminate.
This is the same bunch that totally missed gay script referenes re:
Bruno in drafts of Strangers on a Train - I guess the interevening
years had brought a new sophistication. Hitchcock left it in and
didn't have Landau play it effeminately, but he did (if I can believe
anything Landau says) have the actor fitted for a suit made by
Grant's personal tailor, knowing that Grant would recognize the drape
of the jacket and be unnerved. It could also be a doppelganger thing,
as Hitchcock was perfectly aware of Grant's sexuality.
When I asked Lehman recently via mail why they made Ed Lauter a
Mormon and looped a Mormon funeral ceremony at the last minute in
Family Plot, he said he couldn't remember that kind of detail any
more. This is why I prefer dealing w. documents, or at least cross-
checking statements against documents. Studio filmmaking at one time
created the mother of all paper trails, and it's a good idea to
follow it whenever we can. Of course, I'd never have known the suit
story if Landau hadn't told me, but given the fabulation factor, it
now has to be checked in the costume files...
Hitchcock's last duel with the Code folks was NBNW. They made him
loop a line at the end, "Come along Mrs. Thornhill," to show that Eve
and Roger are married. After considering a closeup of their feet
hovering over a suitcase w. a just-married sign in the lower berth
(storyboarded), he stole a c.u. of Saint from the cafeteria scene and
had Grant loop the line. Then he sent a note to production: "We're
going to need a shot of the train going into the tunnel at the end."
27055
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 11:32pm
Subject: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> --- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
> > >
> > I never understood why everybody raves about
> > Scott. She's a
> > terrible actress with a silly lisp. Is this OT?
> >
>
>
> You're most definitely camp-challenged, J-P.
>
>
> I know several people who like her a lot but not at all in a
camp spirit. And I suspect there's nothing campy in Blake's love of
her. Am I mistaken? JPC
> __________________________________
> Yahoo! Mail Mobile
> Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone.
> http://mobile.yahoo.com/learn/mail
27056
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 11:42pm
Subject: To Hell and Back jpcoursodon
After watching the end of ANATOMY OF HELL and disliking it as much as
the rest, I watched the long Breillat interview (in French with
subtitles) on the DVD and was absolutely enthralled by everything
Breillat was saying and the way she said it. It's an absolutely
wonderful interview and it troubled me considerably, because I don't
think it can change my feelings about the film, but she sort of made
me ashamed of not responding to her film the way she would like us to
respond. She is so convincing! Such a power of seduction! Totally
different from the person you'd imagine she is from the films. I have
to mull this over some more.
JPC
27057
From: MG4273@...
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 7:50pm
Subject: Re: Auteurs, Canon, Pleasure and Change nzkpzq
One thing that is begining to occur to me. I almost always identify with the
characters on the scren, and feel whatever they are feeling. This works both
for pleasure and for pain.
Maybe other people do not experience films in this same way. An interesting
thought.
On personality tests, I always score extremely high on "empathy" - the
ability to feel what other people are feeling. This is neither good nor bad in
itself, one hastens to add - but it is a very strong trait in me. When the leads in
"Singin in the Rain" sing "Good Morning", I feel their joy. When that girl in
"Yi Yi" feels her neglect with the trash bag killed her grandmother (hope I'm
getting the plot right after a single viewing) I felt the tortures of the
damned. Going through "Yi Yi" felt like being tortured in a dentist's chair,
experiencing all the painful emotions felt by the characters, such as losing your
job, being abused by a teacher, etc.
By contrast, Brian writes: "I do not experience any of these things as I
watch the film (which I feel is terrific). These experiences are merely
depicted."
This would make one's whole experience of the film totally different (and
how!).
It also might explain all the pleasure I seem to feel from "light
entertainment", such as comic whodunit mysteries, music videos, little love stories like
"Win a Date With Tad Hamilton!" When I see a music video, I tend to identify,
say, with the dancers in it, and feel all their joy with the dance,
experiencing the rhythm of the music, the sensuous colors, the whole joy of the dance.
It is an overwhelmingly vivid experience, as if I were dancing myself. It is a
transport to a world of joy.
If other people are not experiencing this, it would explain why they are so
much less interested in seeing music videos than I am.
Mike Grost
27058
From: "Blake Lucas"
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 0:09am
Subject: Re: Desert Fury(Was:North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition,) lukethedealer12
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
> >
> > I know several people who like her a lot but not at all in a
> camp spirit. And I suspect there's nothing campy in Blake's love
of
> her. Am I mistaken? JPC
No. And I'd like to go over every scene and line in her movies with
you JPC to show why I believe she is not only supremely attractive
but a wonderful actress with reserves of depth, vulnerability,
reflection, a quietly yearning quality which I find piercing. And
yes, I also adore her voice.
Of course I realize you have seen her at least as much as I have and
probably more so I know your opinion is no more lightly taken.
David, I knew of her appearance at least at the "Desert Fury"
screening--and couldn't make it that night! That really hurt.
Also because I've never seen that movie on the big screen. Of
course I consider "Pitfall" one of her very best movies.
One more thing occurred to me later about Wendell Corey in "Desert
Fury" which also bears on what Kevin wrote a little while ago about
"stolen glances" and so on. Leonard in NBNW may be a minor character
(or on the line), Holliman and Van Cleef in "The Big Combo" played
characters who were minor for sure, but we remember them and most
especially that they were a gay couple. But Corey in "Desert Fury" is
not a minor character but a major one. While Burt Lancaster plays
the good guy ready to pick up the pieces for Scott when everything
else is inevitably destroyed, and Mary Astor is Scott's interesting
mother, it is Scott, Hodiak and Corey equally who are the main
characters. And despite the seeming prohibition on gayness in
Hollywood films, the whole film is about the fact that Hodiak is
sexually involved with both of the other two. Let's face it, the
adult audience knows there are men who may be drawn into sexual
relationships with people of both sexes at the same time. This
doesn't need to be spelled out. Scott and Corey's attitudes toward
each other are only one thing that makes it crystal-clear. But
one of the most interesting things in the movie to me is that the
male protagonist, Hodiak, is a weak character--in both relationships
it is the other who is the strong, driving force. And while we
might be used to appreciating something like this when it's a woman
(Scott), it's even more interesting in the case of the homosexual,
Corey, in every way the "man" in this relationship. At one point
he says to Hodiak something like "without me, you're nothing." And
it's certainly true.
By the way, we are supposed to name directors when we discuss films.
It was Lewis Allen.
Blake
> > __________________________________
> > Yahoo! Mail Mobile
> > Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone.
> > http://mobile.yahoo.com/learn/mail
27059
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 0:20am
Subject: Re: Re: Desert Fury(Was:North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition,) cellar47
--- Blake Lucas wrote:
But Corey in
> "Desert Fury" is
> not a minor character but a major one. While Burt
> Lancaster plays
> the good guy ready to pick up the pieces for Scott
> when everything
> else is inevitably destroyed, and Mary Astor is
> Scott's interesting
> mother, it is Scott, Hodiak and Corey equally who
> are the main
> characters. And despite the seeming prohibition on
> gayness in
> Hollywood films, the whole film is about the fact
> that Hodiak is
> sexually involved with both of the other two. Let's
> face it, the
> adult audience knows there are men who may be drawn
> into sexual
> relationships with people of both sexes at the same
> time. This
> doesn't need to be spelled out.
Well actually it is spelled out in Hodiak's speech
about how Corey picked him up at the Automat in Tims
Square. I go into this at length in my practially
book-length essay "Desert Fury, Mon Amour." (Which you
can find in "Film Quarterly: 40 Years -- a Selection."
__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail Mobile
Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone.
http://mobile.yahoo.com/learn/mail
27060
From: "samfilms2003"
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 1:43am
Subject: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, samfilms2003
> > And Lizabeth Scott lives (literally, I believe).
> She most certainly does.
>
> http://ehrensteinland.com/htmls/g006/liz.html
David's like Alvy Singer in "Annie Hall" --
"I've got Marshall McLuhan right here" ;-)
-Sam
27061
From: Fred Camper
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 2:16am
Subject: Re: Re: Auteurs, Canon, Pleasure and Change fredcamper
In reply to Brian in
http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/a_film_by/message/27026
Me:
"If someone told me that the pleasure they find in Sirk's films lies in
their loud colors and outrageously campy acting and stories, I might
suddenly explain that I had a plane to catch and walk away."
Brian:
"Why? Is there something wrong with that type of pleasure? Are they
lesser forms of pleasure?"
and
"So there are not just differences among pleasures, but hierarchies as
well?"
Yes and yes. I'll have more to say about this and some of your other
points later, but it seems to me a given that there are different forms
and different degrees of pleasure. The view of Sirk I described, and
which I have heard more than once before, doesn't interest me. It seems
like a "taste," rather than an engagement with the profoundly
interlinked systematic structures and themes of his films. I don't see
the difference between this taste and a liking for certain foods or
certain colors. One can find "loud colors" and campy acting and stories
in all manner of junk.
Me, then Brian:
"If so, why have so many across the centuries derived such intense and
visionary pleasures from Homer (even in translation), Chartres
Cathedral, Shakespeare, Bach, Titian?"
"You are imputing causes by pointing out correlations - that is a
logical fallacy. The fact that many people have been inspired by the
same works of art does not tell us anything concrete about either those
works of art or the people."
Sorry, the fact that a few artists have deeply moved many people while
the great majority of artists from any period are forgotten certainly
does offer some pretty convincing evidence about the works and the
people, in my view.
Brian:
"Also, what do you mean when you say something is 'mind-cleansing' and
'transpersonal'?"
I thought I explained this. You feel like you are seeing the world
through the mind of another person, and in a way not idiosyncratic to
your tastes and ideas. Thus you are taken out of yourself. This hardly
ever happens to me "completely" -- I retain some of my tastes and
preferences during the viewing experience -- but the core of the
aesthetic effect lies in this visionary "seizing." It's "transpersonal"
because it could happen to anyone, and doesn't depend on the personality
of the viewer, except insofar as it depends on the ability of the viewer
to lose his personality, which is the point: you lose the specifics of
your tastes and become more like other humans.
Fred Camper
27062
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 2:19am
Subject: Re: Desert Fury(Was:North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition,) jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Blake Lucas"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
> wrote:
> > >
> > > I know several people who like her a lot but not at all in a
> > camp spirit. And I suspect there's nothing campy in Blake's love
> of
> > her. Am I mistaken? JPC
>
> No. And I'd like to go over every scene and line in her movies
with
> you JPC to show why I believe she is not only supremely attractive
A matter of taste, Blake. To me she's not attractive at all. For one
thing I hate her mouth. But this is neither here nor there and has
no place on this serious forum.
> but a wonderful actress with reserves of depth, vulnerability,
> reflection, a quietly yearning quality which I find piercing. And
> yes, I also adore her voice.
Again, matter of taste. Her voice, with the lisp, just makes me
laughs whenever she opens her mouth.
For the record, Tavernier (who wouldn't know camp from a hole in
the ground) thinks she's great.
JPC
27063
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 2:22am
Subject: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "samfilms2003" wrote:
> > > And Lizabeth Scott lives (literally, I believe).
>
> > She most certainly does.
> >
> > http://ehrensteinland.com/htmls/g006/liz.html
>
> David's like Alvy Singer in "Annie Hall" --
> "I've got Marshall McLuhan right here" ;-)
>
> -Sam
David always has a rabbit to pull out of a hat -- that's his Orson
side.
27064
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 2:23am
Subject: Re: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, cellar47
I think it would be fun to run a newspaper!
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "samfilms2003"
> wrote:
> > > > And Lizabeth Scott lives (literally, I
> believe).
> >
> > > She most certainly does.
> > >
> > > http://ehrensteinland.com/htmls/g006/liz.html
> >
> > David's like Alvy Singer in "Annie Hall" --
> > "I've got Marshall McLuhan right here" ;-)
> >
> > -Sam
>
> David always has a rabbit to pull out of a hat --
> that's his Orson
> side.
>
>
>
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
27065
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 2:28am
Subject: Re: Auteurs, Canon, Pleasure and Change jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
> In reply to Brian in
, except insofar as it depends on the ability of the viewer
> to lose his personality, which is the point: you lose the specifics
of
> your tastes and become more like other humans.
>
> Fred Camper
Fascinating thread, Fred, but how in the world do you "lose" your
personality? This sounds like becoming something out of those pods in
INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. Of course I could understand it giving
it a zen twist (preferably after getting a little high). JPC
27066
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 3:18am
Subject: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> I think it would be fun to run a newspaper!
Someday you'll get your comeuppance, David!
27067
From: "Blake Lucas"
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 3:24am
Subject: Re: Desert Fury(Was:North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition,) lukethedealer12
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
>
> Well actually it is spelled out in Hodiak's speech
> about how Corey picked him up at the Automat in Tims
> Square. I go into this at length in my practially
> book-length essay "Desert Fury, Mon Amour." (Which you
> can find in "Film Quarterly: 40 Years -- a Selection."
>
After I wrote my post, I was out driving around and remembered your
essay "Desert Fury, Mon Amour." I was planning to come back and
inquire about it so you've already answered my question about
where it's collected. I want to read it again.
Naturally, you know the film backwards, much more than I do after
a couple of viewings on TV (but with good color at least). I
appreciate you didn't refute my sense of the dynamics of the
relationships, so feel I did basically get the film, but please tell
me the actual line of dialogue Corey had which was so good (I don't
think it's what I said). It seems to me it was something like (to
Hodiak) "They look at you and they're really seeing me." Is that
about right?
You know, Lizabeth Scott was also scheduled for "Dark City"
screening. We made it to that, but she cancelled. Too bad, because
that film not nearly as good as "Pitfall" and not nearly as
interesting as "Desert Fury."
>
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Yahoo! Mail Mobile
> Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone.
> http://mobile.yahoo.com/learn/mail
27068
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 3:48am
Subject: Re: Re: Desert Fury(Was:North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition,) cellar47
--- Blake Lucas wrote:
It seems to me it was
> something like (to
> Hodiak) "They look at you and they're really seeing
> me." Is that
> about right?
>
That's right. Corey is tired of doing everything for
Hodiak and not getting credit for it.
__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail Mobile
Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone.
http://mobile.yahoo.com/learn/mail
27069
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 3:49am
Subject: Re: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, cellar47
What does it matter what you say about people?
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
>
> wrote:
> > I think it would be fun to run a newspaper!
>
>
> Someday you'll get your comeuppance, David!
>
>
>
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search.
http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250
27070
From: "Henrik Sylow"
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 8:21am
Subject: Re: Anatomy of Hell, anyone? henrik_sylow
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon" wrote:
> Breillat's films have been discussed several times here but I don't
> remember any sustained discussion of this one, which I saw for the
> first time yesterday. I'd like views and opinions. I found it one of
> the most idiotic films I've seen in a long time, on the lofty theme
> of "Men hate women and women hate themselves and sex is hell." The
> first line spoken by the "heroine" gives the tone. She has just
> slashed her wrists (unfortunately for us she survives). A guy walks
> in and asks: "Why did you do that?" She answers: "Because I am a
> woman." And it gets worse.
>
> She hires a gay guy to watch her nude and tell her how disgusting
> she looks. I soon was identifying with the gay guy and feeling
> increasingly repulsed by her whitish body sprawled on a bed like
> some jellyfish. They move very slowly, like in a Duras film, and
> exchange highly literary remarks in such heavily accented French
> that I had to read most of the subtitles... To break the monotony
> the guy sticks a broom handle up her ass (actually it's not a broom
> but some kind of gardening tool; and maybe it's up her vagina,
> that's not clear; Breillat can be so delicate...). He also applies
> lipstick to her labia and asshole. IS THIS A SPOILER? OOPS! I don't
> know what he does next because I turned the thing off to have dinner
> (I have a strong stomach) but I'll know tonight. DON'T MISS THE NEXT
> THRILLING CHAPTER!
>
> JPC
The use of the rake handle and the lipstick is to note, that for him,
the female openings are mere orifices. While she is sleeping, he first
paints the labia, then the rectum, then her mouth. For him, these
openings are not sexually significant, but merely orifices. This is
further noted upon during the second night, during which his fingering
of her vagina produces a leaking liquid (saliva) in her mouth, and
definitively, when he gets a rake and inserts in her ass while she sleeps.
For Breillat, sexuality is above body. In a later scene, the woman
takes a fresh tampon and says,
"Look at it. It has the same size as a penis, I can insert it without
any form of preparation and I don't feel anything doing it. If so, why
should I feel anything having sex? It is not intercourse that matters,
but the act itself."
In my opinion, her to date most brutal deconstruction of sexuality,
where Breillat directly suggests that the physical act of sex has no
meaning.
In "Romance X", Breillat explored the strict distinctions between love
and sex: "How can you love a man who doesn't fuck you?" The response
is significant: "I don't like men who fuck me." In "Anatomy of Hell",
Breillat explores the distinctions between the physical act of sex and
sex.
When I (with provocation in mind) asked Breillat why she was so
obsessed with "disgusting images" (in "Anatomy of Hell", she for
instance suggests that its the same curiosity by which a boy explores
the vagina of a little girl, that he later views a squashed dead bird
with), she basically blew a furious rage at me. To her these
"disgusting" images are of huge importance.
One such is the menstrual blood tea sequence. Here the woman takes a
soaked tampon, makes tea from it and handing it to the man, saying,
"In ancient times, the men would drink the blood of their enemy to
gain their strength. If you really hate me, you must drink my blood."
and later during the first intercourse, his groin and penis is covered
in menstrual blood and he is fascinated with its wetness. Not only
does Breillat hereby suggest, that both disgust and desire is beyond
our control. According to the Catholic Church, menstrual blood is
impure, but if Pagan, it represents fertility. Thus, I read the blood
as catharsis.
About the characters, Adrian in his last post about "Anatomy of Hell"
noted, that one must see them as abstractions. Breillat often makes
her characters into objects that serve only to speak Breillat's own
psychosexual thoughts. Her mise-en-scène becomes very surreal, almost
like late Buñuel: deconstructed thoughts, posing instead of acting. I
would also mean, that their anonymity, only known as "The Man" and
"The Woman", points towards them as abstractions.
Henrik
27071
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 0:58pm
Subject: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> What does it matter what you say about people?
>
> --- jpcoursodon wrote:
> > --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
> >
> > wrote:
> > > I think it would be fun to run a newspaper!
> >
> >
> > Someday you'll get your comeuppance, David!
> >
> >
> >
> You're some kind of a man, David!
>
> (and if we continue this little game we're gonna get
reprimanded!)
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search.
> http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250
27072
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 1:16pm
Subject: Re: Anatomy of Hell, anyone? jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Henrik Sylow"
wrote:
> In my opinion, her to date most brutal deconstruction of sexuality,
> where Breillat directly suggests that the physical act of sex has
no
> meaning.
>
>
> When I (with provocation in mind) asked Breillat why she was so
> obsessed with "disgusting images" (in "Anatomy of Hell", she for
> instance suggests that its the same curiosity by which a boy
explores
> the vagina of a little girl, that he later views a squashed dead
bird
> with), she basically blew a furious rage at me. To her these
> "disgusting" images are of huge importance.
>
> About the characters, Adrian in his last post about "Anatomy of
Hell"
> noted, that one must see them as abstractions. Breillat often makes
> her characters into objects that serve only to speak Breillat's own
> psychosexual thoughts. Her mise-en-scène becomes very surreal,
almost
> like late Buñuel: deconstructed thoughts, posing instead of
acting. I
> would also mean, that their anonymity, only known as "The Man" and
> "The Woman", points towards them as abstractions.
>
> Henrik
Talk about Spoilers! You've practically described the entire
film, Henrik!
Obviously the film is an 'abstraction" and there is no intention
to provide a narrative let alone any "realism." "The man" and "The
Woman" Breillat says are really "The First Man" and "The First
Woman". The abstraction (if I wrote a review of the film I'd title
it "La Philosophie dans le boudoir")interestingly/shockingly clashes
with the extreme physicality of displayed genitalia and secretions --
the "unwatchable" that Breillat insists IS watchable and must be
shown. There is no doubt that this is an extremely courageous film --
yet I wish it had one tenth of the intelligence and humanity and
warmth that Breillat displays in that absolutely wonderful interview
on the American DVD. Instead of her fascinating insights the film
gives us mostly platitudes on the verbal level. Perhaps she stuck
too closely to her book... JPC
I had missed Adrian's post on the film and will look it up.
27073
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 1:22pm
Subject: Re: Re: Anatomy of Hell, anyone? cellar47
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
>
> Talk about Spoilers! You've practically described
> the entire
> film, Henrik!
> Obviously the film is an 'abstraction" and there
> is no intention
> to provide a narrative let alone any "realism." "The
> man" and "The
> Woman" Breillat says are really "The First Man" and
> "The First
> Woman". The abstraction (if I wrote a review of the
> film I'd title
> it "La Philosophie dans le
> boudoir")interestingly/shockingly clashes
> with the extreme physicality of displayed genitalia
> and secretions --
> the "unwatchable" that Breillat insists IS
> watchable and must be
> shown. There is no doubt that this is an extremely
> courageous film --
> yet I wish it had one tenth of the intelligence and
> humanity and
> warmth that Breillat displays in that absolutely
> wonderful interview
> on the American DVD. Instead of her fascinating
> insights the film
> gives us mostly platitudes on the verbal level.
> Perhaps she stuck
> too closely to her book...
Breillat's blowing up at Hendrik is very much in
keeping with the film's smug presumptuousness.
Or to put it another way, she's no Georges Bataille.
Discover Yahoo!
Find restaurants, movies, travel and more fun for the weekend. Check it out!
http://discover.yahoo.com/weekend.html
27074
From: "Saul"
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 1:38pm
Subject: Re: Anatomy of Hell, anyone? asitdid
Online Now Send IM
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon" wrote:
> that's not clear; Breillat can be so delicate...). He also applies
> lipstick to her labia and asshole. IS THIS A SPOILER? OOPS! I don't
> know what he does next because I turned the thing off to have dinner
> (I have a strong stomach) but I'll know tonight. DON'T MISS THE NEXT
> THRILLING CHAPTER!
>
Crickey! The film wasn't that confrontational -- and it seems less so
as time passes -- I first saw it at the Berlin Film Festival 04 --
they wouldn't let us in -- rules about clearing aisles for fire
regulations -- the film has started and finally we were let in five
minutes after it began to a cinema so packed i had to stand the whole
time, which wasn't really all that long so i didnt mind -- the first
shot i saw was the woman wiping the man's come off her face, which was
perhaps kind of fitting ... I'm glad u mentioned the lipstick/vagina
scene, cause I think thats's the film's most expressive moment -- true
male-female communication only comes through these orifices: the anus,
and vagina, (so says CB). By linking them with the mouth, and hence
speech, she is making a link between vaginal and anal excretions and
dialogue-communicaton. Drinking her blood is perhaps the deepest
converstaion/communication the man can have with her, the one way he
can truly understand her essence. Still, it was a pretentious
pseudo-philosophical wank with a Sadean structure, hideous
psychological flashback construction, some lines I couldnt help
laughing at "at least frogs have the advantage of being green" or
whatever it was -- it was essential she had a porn star because his
penis was the only was he communicated, and therefore size was
important -- pity Breillat wasn't sure how to end the film and gave us
the typical surrealist/avant-garde cop out "metaphorical" ending. It
was closer to porn than anything, not in it's graphicness, but in it's
fascination with bodily excretions. Porn film evinces an almost
childlike interest in such sticky gooey "creations" -- they play with
semen, marvel at it, like a little child plays with his own feces and
with proudness and wonder shows it to his parents as something he's
created, which in fact he has. Though this film makes her cameo in
"Une femme de menage" all the more perplexing. One day someone will
make a truly revolutionary movie about male-female sexuality and it
will render such films as "Anatomie de l'enfer" useless -- though the
Rimbaud connection through the title could be used in a critical piece
to add layers of meaning to the film -- in the end, who cares?
27075
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 1:54pm
Subject: Re: Re: Anatomy of Hell, anyone? cellar47
--- Saul wrote:
One
> day someone will
> make a truly revolutionary movie about male-female
> sexuality and it
> will render such films as "Anatomie de l'enfer"
> useless -- though the
> Rimbaud connection through the title could be used
> in a critical piece
> to add layers of meaning to the film -- in the end,
> who cares?
>
>
No need to be revolutionaty. I just saw Sally Potter's
new film, "Yes." It's about male-female sexuality and
it's teriffic.
Potter isn't interested in bodily fluids, yet she
manages to actally say something of use.
In imambic pentameter.
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
27076
From: MG4273@...
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 10:02am
Subject: Renoir and Characterization nzkpzq
Recently saw "The Elusive Corporal" (Jean Renoir, 1962). This is a good
movie. The opening shots of a field of mud in which the POWs live reminded one of
the vast expanses of beach at the end of "The Woman on the Beach" - one of the
great moments of mise-en-scene in Renoir. And the film's finale, on a bridge
in Paris, brought back equally strong memories of "Boudu Saved From Drowning".
Renoir certainly has a gift for evocative imagery.
There was an earlier exchange on a_film_by about characterization or the lack
of it in Renoir. This film suggests some paradoxical aspects of this. There
are a large number of characters here, many of whom only get a bit of screen
time. Their behavior is often startlingly human. Renoir often finds off-trail,
oddball ways for them to act, that reveal their humanity. This creates a
feeling a warmth, and a sense of revelation of human nature. But strictly speaking,
it is often not "characterization" in the traditional sense. We do not get
in-depth portraits of the interior life and personalities of individuals in the
film. Many of the glimpses are just too brief. And they also sometimes reflect
more human universals - the desire to be free, or the ugly side of national
pride, or paradoxes of courtesy - than they do individual psychology.
By contrast, such films as "A Lawless Street" (Joseph H. Lewis, 1955) or "All
Over the Guy" (Julie Davis, 2001), really do offer a relentless, trenchant
look inside their characters. (I picked a classic and modern film as examples of
strong characterization).
This paradox of Renoir perhaps gets at what Bill Krohn was talking about
earlier. While Renoir is famous for his warmth and humanity, lots of individuals
in his films often do not make a strong impression. I took - and failed - the
Krohn Challenge of remembering anything special about the characters in "The
Rules of the Game", for instance. Even such ultra-memorable people in Renoir as
Boudu, Rauffenstein in "Grand Illusion", and the actress in "The Golden Coach"
perhaps benefitted by the performanaces of acting legends such as MIchel
Simon, Erich von Stroheim and Anna Magnani, rather than anything that comes from
Renoir. The characters in "Toni" are perhaps the most genuinely individuaded of
any in a Renoir film.
Finally, some whining. Too many current critics praise recent films in which
there is little real characterization, and say things like "Characterization
is part of the evil bourgeois illusionism of traditional Hollywood film. It has
no place in the modern cinema!" I wish critics (including a_film_by-er's)
would take a pro or anti characterization stand, and stick with it consistently
in their writing about film. I am pro-characterization.
Mike Grost
27077
From: "Saul"
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 2:28pm
Subject: Re: To Hell and Back asitdid
Online Now Send IM
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon" wrote:
> After watching the end of ANATOMY OF HELL and disliking it as much as
> the rest, I watched the long Breillat interview (in French with
> subtitles) on the DVD and was absolutely enthralled by everything
> Breillat was saying and the way she said it. It's an absolutely
> wonderful interview and it troubled me considerably, because I don't
> think it can change my feelings about the film, but she sort of made
> me ashamed of not responding to her film the way she would like us to
> respond. She is so convincing! Such a power of seduction! Totally
> different from the person you'd imagine she is from the films. I have
> to mull this over some more.
>
Perhaps just a simple case of someone who has interesting ideas, but
not the skills to cinematically render them? That's not to dissimilar
from those directors, (I won't mention names as some here might find
such mentions a little incendiary...), who when interviewed sound like
there's nothing but porridge between their ears, yet make such
beautiful and entrancing films that you realize they can create
something on a level that seems to transcend them. But it's not
uncommon for an artist to be more profound in their work than in real
life, to find an expressive synthesis with their deepest feelings that
they don't otherwise (much as is the case with Hunter S. THompson and
which I discussed in my review of the doco "Breakfast with Hunter",
which I finished writting merely hours before hearing on the news that
he shot himself:
http://www.lightsleepercinemag.com/reviews/breakfastwithhunter.php)
The case JPC mentions is curious cause it's the opposite. I wish you'd
tell us a bit more about what she said that won u over so strongly??
Two directors whom come to mind whom I am entranced by when
interviewed are, obviously, Welles and Lang.
27078
From: "Fred Patton"
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 3:27pm
Subject: Re: Renoir and Characterization fred_patton
Maintaining an anti-characterization or pro-characterization stand
seems across the board seems arbitrarily limiting. The heart of the
issue would to me be establishing how the characterization or lack
thereof operating withing the given film. I don't believe a film has to
work with a story template, and massage it into a familiar, ready
consumable. Characterization could actually impede the ground a
particular film is trying to cover depending on it's proportion. In
terms of sadistic versus masochistic critical responses, I think it
pays to attempt to zig where you would have preferred to zag, and in
which case, beginning with the proposition that perhaps the film has a
good reason for its seemingly reckless originality.
Characterization can be absolutely wonderful and gushable, but it's no
cure-all elixir. A more typical level of characterization would weigh
down a more ideological, parable type of film such as Mrinal Sen's
Genesis. Is there no place for these aberrant types of films? Must the
beaten trail be adherred to religiously? Seems to me, it could induce
anthropomorphic myopia. Just as there are angles and distances at which
to frame the given subject matter, there are alternative distances to
fix upon given personalities.
But I realize, you are limiting these remarks to narrative cinema and
an implicit pact, contract, or mandate to convey story. And some
stories just won't do, will they? Stories of gestures and their
interplay, sories of aggravated monotony, stories of an individual's
stature of an individual alone in a ground or a towering cityscape.
As one is paying money, maybe each film should make a disclosure of
sorts along the lines of, "I intend to scare the hell out of you with
quasi realistic farce (meaning still logical abeit physically
impossible) taking into account the precedent established by Friday the
Thirteenth." And alternatives, such as, "I plan to tell you no story at
all, but rather subject you to the incomprehensible rituals surrounding
life an death in an unfamiliar language and venue, and gradually
increase your understanding through repetition and a grudgingly granted
context."
And in these two arbitrary examples, while the crowded mutliplex may
rock and roll with gasps, ooohs and ahhs, I might be found in the
obscure theater down the street with an entire row to myself,
absolutely stunned to tears by what might have been better received as
an ethnographic essay or anthropological study.
All mischief aside, I think there's a very solid place for robust
characterization, and I can cuddle up with all the remarkable, well-
drawn personalities, living one life after another at 24 frames per
second. This all goes to say, there is a precedent for regulating opium
parlors vis a vis the silver screen!
I look forward to catching up with THE ELUSIVE CORPORAL and any
developments along this thread after two weeks of vacation, despite bad
behavior.
Fred Patton
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
Finally, some whining. Too many current critics praise recent films in
which there is little real characterization, and say things
like "Characterization is part of the evil bourgeois illusionism of
traditional Hollywood film. It has no place in the modern cinema!" I
wish critics (including a_film_by-er's) would take a pro or anti
characterization stand, and stick with it consistently in their writing
about film. I am pro-characterization.
Mike Grost
27079
From: MG4273@...
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 11:57am
Subject: Re: Renoir and Characterization nzkpzq
Characterizatuion used to be so important to narrative filmmakers. Hitchcock
told Truffaut, for instance, that his (Hitchcock's) main current goal was to
beef up the characterization in his films. The result was a film like "Marnie".
This movie spends an endless amount of time trying to get inside its two main
protagonists' heads. Without these characters, no one would be interested in
"Marnie" at all - you wouldn't even have a movie.
Or look at "The Big Combo" (Joseph H. Lewis, again). Here it is fifty years
later, and people are still talking about the hit men in this film! That is
because they are such unique, interesting people, unlike anyone else seen on
screen. Lewis' films in general are rich in characterization.
I am usually struck forcefully and negatively by narrative films that are
lacking in characterization. This is true whether they are a bad Hollywood film
in which the characters are little more than stick figures, a common problem of
today's scriptwriters. Or if they are an art film in which the characters are
just types wandering around in some ritual. It seems to be throwing away one
of the main potentials of narrative film. Admittedly, a film can survive
anything, and directors can be creative in different ways.
Mike Grost
27080
From: "peckinpah20012000"
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 5:36pm
Subject: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, peckinpah200...
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> What does it matter what you say about people?
>
> I like Lizabeth Scott too and think she is great in DEAD RECKONING
and PITFALL, a very underrated actress. I've not seen DESERT FURY but
these postings have stimulated me to acquire the films.
But, David, as gender historian in this group, do you know what
exactly was the "awful truth" concenring her relationship with
Tallulah Bankhead which led to her sueing a publication in the 1950s?
Tony Williams
> >
> >
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search.
> http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250
27081
From: "Saul"
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 5:36pm
Subject: Re: Renoir and Characterization asitdid
Online Now Send IM
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> Characterizatuion used to be so important to narrative filmmakers.
[...] Lewis' films in general are rich in characterization.
> I am usually struck forcefully and negatively by narrative films
that are
> lacking in characterization. This is true whether they are a bad
Hollywood film
> in which the characters are little more than stick figures, a common
problem of
> today's scriptwriters. Or if they are an art film in which the
characters are
> just types wandering around in some ritual. It seems to be throwing
away one
> of the main potentials of narrative film.
Mike, my question is this, and I don't mean to sound naïve, but: what
do YOU mean by "characterisation", which can mean many things to many
people? what do YOU want from a film character? what elements, devoid
of narrative, acting, etc., do you see as essential to
characterisation? and how do u see this as fitting into the larger
expressive work of a film as a whole?
what I mean to say is, I'd like to know exactly where u stand on this
topic, otherwise any comment from me refuting your posts would be
rather pointless.
27082
From: "Saul"
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 5:42pm
Subject: Re: Renoir and Characterization asitdid
Online Now Send IM
I meant to add, before my computer decieded to post the msg for me,
beyond just stating "in-depth portraits of the interior life and
personalities of individuals", etc, etc, etc, (Yul Brynner voice)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Saul" wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> > Characterizatuion used to be so important to narrative filmmakers.
> [...] Lewis' films in general are rich in characterization.
> > I am usually struck forcefully and negatively by narrative films
> that are
> > lacking in characterization. This is true whether they are a bad
> Hollywood film
> > in which the characters are little more than stick figures, a common
> problem of
> > today's scriptwriters. Or if they are an art film in which the
> characters are
> > just types wandering around in some ritual. It seems to be throwing
> away one
> > of the main potentials of narrative film.
>
> Mike, my question is this, and I don't mean to sound naïve, but: what
> do YOU mean by "characterisation", which can mean many things to many
> people? what do YOU want from a film character? what elements, devoid
> of narrative, acting, etc., do you see as essential to
> characterisation? and how do u see this as fitting into the larger
> expressive work of a film as a whole?
>
> what I mean to say is, I'd like to know exactly where u stand on this
> topic, otherwise any comment from me refuting your posts would be
> rather pointless.
27083
From: Adam Lemke
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 5:53pm
Subject: Re: Re: Anatomy of Hell, anyone? moviemiser412
It¹s also important to note that this isn¹t even a rake handle, but actually
a ³Trident² linking him to Neptune. Actually the coastline setting and some
of the extreme and the eventual happenings in the film mirror the nymph that
lures Neptune in a mythological story (forgive, as I¹m not familiar enough
to say more).
The three-prong symbol of the Trident is very interesting, and one could
probably right an entire essay on it¹s place in Breillat¹s filmic universe.
For now, here is a astronomical definition of Neptune, which applies
perfectly to Breillat¹s film.
³Considered a 'higher octave' of Venus, Neptune liberates one from
intellectual consciousness, bringing extremes of beauty and love to the
senses and emotions. It transcends and escapes Saturnian boundaries
altogether, elevating consciousness and sensory perception to defy
conventional material restrictions and personal separateness, and instead
merge with all that there is to be aware of in the world. It challenges the
individual to differentiate between subtle and barely conscious essential
truth, on the one hand, and tantalising mirage, on the other - since it
presents both. It evokes vision, which when positively expressed manifests
as idealism; when negatively expressed, as escapism.²
Best,
Adam
On 5/14/05 4:21 AM, "Henrik Sylow" wrote:
>
>
> The use of the rake handle and the lipstick is to note, that for him,
> the female openings are mere orifices. While she is sleeping, he first
> paints the labia, then the rectum, then her mouth. For him, these
> openings are not sexually significant, but merely orifices. This is
> further noted upon during the second night, during which his fingering
> of her vagina produces a leaking liquid (saliva) in her mouth, and
> definitively, when he gets a rake and inserts in her ass while she sleeps.
>
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
27084
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 6:08pm
Subject: Re: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, cellar47
--- peckinpah20012000
>
> But, David, as gender historian in this group, do
> you know what
> exactly was the "awful truth" concenring her
> relationship with
> Tallulah Bankhead which led to her sueing a
> publication in the 1950s?
>
I don't recall her sueing anyone, much less as regards
Tallulah. "Confidential" trafficked in a lot of
innuendo re Scott's lesbianism, but nothing that
affected her career. It ran its course like so many
others. And for the record she was being kept by Hal
Wallis -- besides her other romantic activities.
The thought of Lizabeth Scott chatting with Tallulah
is hilarious. I can see -- and hear -- them now.
Yahoo! Mail
Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour:
http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html
27085
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 6:19pm
Subject: Re: Renoir and Characterization jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> This paradox of Renoir perhaps gets at what Bill Krohn was talking
about
> earlier. While Renoir is famous for his warmth and humanity, lots
of individuals
> in his films often do not make a strong impression. I took - and
failed - the
> Krohn Challenge of remembering anything special about the
characters in "The
> Rules of the Game", for instance.
I don't quite understand what you mean by "anything special." I
would say that I remember a lot of things about most of the
characters in RULES OF THE GAME -- their mannerisms, their speech,
their attitudes... I could go on forever describing them. Every
single person is different and individual and NOT a stereotype. So
what is this "special" thing you are seeking and do not find there?
If anything I'd say that there sometimes TOO MUCH characterization
in Renoir. See LA GRANDE ILLUSION with its careful sampling of all
social levels... Perhaps I need your definition
of "characterization" and then I may be able to take a stand. JPC
27086
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 6:24pm
Subject: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> --- peckinpah20012000
> >
> > But, David, as gender historian in this group, do
> > you know what
> > exactly was the "awful truth" concenring her
> > relationship with
> > Tallulah Bankhead which led to her sueing a
> > publication in the 1950s?
> >
>
> I don't recall her sueing anyone, much less as regards
> Tallulah. "Confidential" trafficked in a lot of
> innuendo re Scott's lesbianism, but nothing that
> affected her career. It ran its course like so many
> others. And for the record she was being kept by Hal
> Wallis -- besides her other romantic activities.
>
> The thought of Lizabeth Scott chatting with Tallulah
> is hilarious. I can see -- and hear -- them now.
>
>
> She probably wouldn't have had a career at all
without Wallis.
> Yahoo! Mail
> Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour:
> http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html
27087
From: "Richard Modiano"
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 6:32pm
Subject: Re: Vulcans vs. Empaths (Was Auteurs, Canon, Pleasure and Change) tharpa2002
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
"One thing that is begining to occur to me. I almost always identify
with the characters on the scren, and feel whatever they are
feeling. This works both for pleasure and for pain. Maybe other
people do not experience films in this same way. An interesting
thought."
When I lived in NYC I used to take out of town visitors to see
Picasso's "Guernica" when it was still at MOMA. Everyone had some
sort of emotional reaction (one friend even wept.) On the other
hand, there were people who looked at the painting carefully and had
no discernable emotional response. Some people have a greater
affectrive filter than others it seems.
My theory is that an affective response to art is a matter of one's
sensibility and one's emotional disposition. To take an exotic
example, it's generally agreed that the Yakushushi Trinity in the
main hall of Yakushuji temple is a superb piece of art. This
knowledge is the accumulated experience of countless individuals; the
art histories tell us that it is so. Yet, in itself, this knowledge
acquired by others can have no meaning whatsoever for the
individual. It will only become meaningful when she has accumulated
similar experiences herself—when she has trained her eye by
seeing a certain amount of sculpture, of Japanese sculpture in
particular, and has come thereby to apprciate the Trinity for
herself. With art, in other words, it seems necessary for the
individual to retrace for herself the same grounds that others have
already trodden.
The question arises, though, whether anybody, provided she fosters
her critical faculties, will automatically find the Yakushushi
Trinity admirable. It seems unlikely. The trained eye may even
occasionally find it dull. It's precisely this reason that the
evaluation of a work of art varies from person to person. I would
say that the major factor behind this variation is one's sensibility
(and there are several factors involved in the formation of
sensibiliy, not the least of which is the period into which one is
born.) It's sensibility and not art theory that accounts for
one's response to art. The value attached to the work stems neither
from any particular theory or view of history, but from the
unequivocal evidence of the individual's own senses: she looks,
and she finds beauty. It is sense and sensibility and not , in any
direct way, knowledge and reason that are at work here. Of course
this is the Emapth's arguement; the Vulcan will have a different and
probably contrary theory.
Richard
27088
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 6:37pm
Subject: Re: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, cellar47
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
She probably wouldn't have had a career at all
> without Wallis.
Probably not for an "A" studio. I can see her slogging
away at PRC or Monogram.
Wallis was quite an interesting producer.
__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail Mobile
Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone.
http://mobile.yahoo.com/learn/mail
27089
From: Fred Camper
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 7:50pm
Subject: Re: Re: Vulcans vs. Empaths (Was Auteurs, Canon, Pleasure and Change) fredcamper
Richard Modiano wrote:
> Of course
> this is the Emapth's arguement; the Vulcan will have a different and
> probably contrary theory.
It will serve as a measure, doubtless to the amusement of the great
majority of at least the U.S. members of our group, of how completely
"out of it" I am when I reveal that I had no idea what you were talking
about, and a dictionary didn't help, until a brief 'Net search revealed
that you are apparently referring to a (to me) unwatchably idiotic TV
program that had an enormous cult following the 1960s when I was an MIT
student -- and has perhaps an even bigger cult following today. I
remember well how my attempt to view "The Wrong Man" (I think it was)
for the first time on a dorm TV disrupted by the arrival of dozens of
student-Trekkies. I realized I then had to check the "Star Trek"
broadcast schedule before trying to watch anything.
I still have no idea what the difference between an "Empath" and a
"Vulcan" is, but I take your point that different sensibilities differ.
Perhaps others are having as intense and complex aesthetic experience
with Fellini as I have with Bresson. But don't I think that these things
are totally outside of an individual's control. If I don't like
something that's supposed to be great, or that people whose judgments I
deeply respect love, I ask myself why, I examine my viewing for "wrong
angles" and hidden prejudices and barriers, and I try to look again. To
someone who doesn't "get" the temple masterpiece you name, perhaps
looking at other works of the same period, or reading poetry of the same
period, or looking at earlier or later related works as well, will help.
To someone who has seen it all and still doesn't get it, perhaps reading
the defenses of those will love it will help -- or perhaps what's needed
is a vacation from art viewing via a long hike in the forest. Or, true,
perhaps she'll never love it.
But I don't want to put the failure to appreciate great art in the same
category as just not liking one particular vegetable or another --
though George Bush the Father sure was wrong about not liking broccoli.
Fred Camper
27090
From: "Michael E. Grost"
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 7:52pm
Subject: Re: Vulcans vs. Empaths (Was Auteurs, Canon, Pleasure and Change) nzkpzq
Should clarify. (And love Richard Mondiano's new heading!)
Vulcans might be feeling a lot while watching a film. They might be
experiencing compassion and concern for the people on the screen, and
people like the film's characters in life. They might be feeling all
sorts of artistic responses. What they are apparently NOT feeling is
some sort of moment by moment transcription of the characters'
emotional states on screen.
When I saw "Yi Yi", Empath that I am, when a character got fired, I
experienced getting fired along with him. When a character had a
family tragedy, I seemed to experience that tragedy. It was a rough
and miserable way to feel. I assumed that 1) all viewers felt these
things; and 2) the main goal of the film was to torture its audience,
putting themn through a sadistic wringer of as many bad experiences
as possible.
All of this might only be an Empath-response. Not nescessarily the
one that the film intended.
I find it hard to imagine that anyone who experienced "Yi Yi" as I
did would regard it as anything but an awful experience. However, my
experience might be completely unintended by the film. Who knows?
Mike Grost
27091
From: "Michael E. Grost"
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 8:14pm
Subject: Re: Vulcans vs. Empaths (Was Auteurs, Canon, Pleasure and Change) nzkpzq
One more try. And thanks for everyone's patience!
Fred, I am NOT Claiming that art-appreciation is limited to
individual psychology, that one person is predestined to like
Fellini, another Bresson. Your points here are very well taken.
What I am trying to get at is this:
Brian claimed that when watching "Yi Yi", that the film did not
intend to make the audience experience emotionally, say, what it was
like to get fired. He claimed that the film "merely depicted" that.
Apparently, he sees the film as a serious look at a society in which
such unemployment takes place.
Apparently, for many viewers, watching "Yi Yi" is a calm,
contemplative experience, which holds a mirror up to life, and allows
us to observe it.
By contrast, my INITIAL REACTION to the film is that it was intended
to make viewers feel the sheer pain of getting fired. When I saw
those scenes, I seemed to "live" the experience of getting fired, at
an emotional level. It was really really painful. Like being attacked
by someone with a club, and being beaten from the screen. The film
seemed to have little purpose other than to bludgeon viewers.
These are clearly wildly divergent reactions to a movie.
I SPECULATED that perhaps this had to do with individual psychology.
On personality tests, I score strongly on "empathy", the ability to
imagine and re-feel for oneself what other people are feeling.
Apparently some people have high empathy-rates, and others low. This
is not a moral issue - just part of normal human variation.
It might well have a strong impact on how one sees movies. I
typically feel everything that the characters are feeling on screen.
A lifetime of watching Hollywood movies, where such character
indentification is usually strongly encouraged, has probably cemented
this approach.
It might be the WRONG approach. It might be one I have to abandon to
appreciate "Yi Yi".
By contrast, it might be one other people have to cultivate a bit
more to appreciate music videos, say, where experiences of joy seem
to be flowing off the screen to me, and dullness to other viewers!
Thanks everyone for their patience.
Mike Grost
27092
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 8:27pm
Subject: Re: Re: Vulcans vs. Empaths (Was Auteurs, Canon, Pleasure and Change) cellar47
--- Fred Camper wrote:
> Perhaps others are having as intense and complex
> aesthetic experience
> with Fellini as I have with Bresson.
Over here, fred! As a matter of fact, I'm going to see
"A Man Escaped" tonight at the Los Angeles County
Museum of Art. One of my all-time faves and I haven't
seen it in a good number of years.
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
27093
From: "Blake Lucas"
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 8:44pm
Subject: No Name on the Bullet (Jack Arnold) lukethedealer12
This outstanding 1959 Western plays late tomorrow night (actually
Monday, May 16) at 4 AM Eastern (1 AM Western) on TCM. It will be
shown letterboxed, and I believe TCM has had it long enough to have
shown it once before at some other strange hour. If this was since
I joined the group, no one wrote about it, but if it was before
possibly they did. In any event, I highly recommend this movie to
Arnold fans, Western aficionados, and other venturesome types.
Since I'm hoping people will see the movie, I won't linger long on
the subject, which is unusual. Audie Murphy plays a notorious
gunman who arrrives in town--his reputation is that of a hired
killer, but somehow his vicitims are always goaded into drawing
first so he kills them in fair fight. We see the whole process in
the action of the film--most of the characters are so guilty about
something in their life that they are sure they are the one he has
come to kill, (no one knows who it is), and so they do really stupid
and self-destructive things while Murphy does not nothing but react
(until he is ready to act), not even especially bemused by their
behavior because he has probably seen it all many times. The one
exception among the guilty townsfolk is a doctor/blacksmith
(Charles Drake) with whom Murphy plays an ongoing game of chess.
Does that sound familiar? The allusion is encouraged by the
suggestion that Murphy is indeed a figure sent by Satan--as he rides
toward town at the beginning, he stops outside a farm or ranch, and
a dog growls at him for no reason. He reacts unemotionally to
this. But actually, as a look at death and a death figure, the
figure reminds me much more of a Val Lewton film than an Ingmar
Bergman one (it is after all an unpretentious programmer, or at
least makes that pretense)--though it is a film of ideas, it seems
not to be one of symbols nor even a dream play, at least I don't
perceive it that way.
No Name is basically a B Western, but so beautifully produced that
you almost wouldn't know it. What often impresses me about Arnold is
his spareness--even in his very imaginative science-fiction films.
Here he concentrates with great precision on the most lucid staging
and framing of each conversation and interaction, and when there is
action, it is executed with dispatch. He has a gift of seeming
modesty and simplicity, but to great effect. Where I feel this most
here is in the climactic scenes (one disclaimer: I was always so
anxious to see this again that when AMC had it about ten years ago I
watched it flat--even though this was in that station's good days
and they had the letterboxed versions, unlike TCM they tended not to
push them and wound up showing the ones they did show only some of
the time). The film builds to a climax which begins in the hotel,
with what seems like a possible erotic encounter between Murphy and
Joan Evans--actually, the Murphy character has no relationships with
any emotion in them, and only enjoys his friendly/philosophical
interaction with Drake--that suddenly ends in a very interesting and
effective moment. But what is really interesting (again, hope this
plays the same letterboxed, and I'm pretty sure it will) is that as
Murphy leaves her room and comes down the stairs and walks out of
the hotel, the space around him becomes still, airless, almost empty.
The morally deteriorating town seems to be dissolving into the
ghostliness of a civilization figuratively and almost literally
dying. The narrative (script by Gene L. Coon) comes to an
interesting end soon after, but visually the film already seems
to be over, the characters who play out the rest simply enacting the
unexpected coda of some old ritual.
So Arnold gets the most expressiveness out of the least means
(incidentally, he is credited co-producer so was in effect his own
producer), turning out an interesting movie in a genre with which he
is not usually associated. Actually, Arnold made three Westerns
during his Universal-International tenure (which No Name actually
ended). The first was the more conventional The Man from Bitter
Ridge--good but not exceptional; of course I like it. The second
was even better than this one, in my opinion, the absolutely
beautiful Red Sundown. Saw an original 35 print of that one a few
years ago and I only wish everyone else reading this could have been
watching it with me. But if any of the three has a reputation,
it is No Name on the Bullet.
Just a word about Audie Murphy, an actor who never seems to get any
respect. He gives a very effective performance as the killer John
Gant--no sentiment is extended to the character, nor any empathy
encouraged, and yet he is strangely sympathetic. That doesn't
surprise me, because I generally like him. Andrew Sarris' excellent
Don Siegel entry (one of his best as lays out the idea of "the
doomed peculiarity of the anti-social outcast" and then evokes
that "gallery of loners" while also discerningly noting that
Siegel "does not adjust his compostions to their psychological
quirks" and so on) is disfigured for me by his gratutiously cruel
insistence that Murphy's "stone-faced virtuosness in The Gun Runners
seems beyond any director's control." Many directors did well with
Murphy, including Budd Boetticher in The Cimarron Kid early on,
Joseph L. Mankiewicz in The Quiet American (Murphy's title character
is a foil to Michael Redgrave--who gives an extraordinary, nuanced
peformance--but Murphy grasped this completely, plays it that way,
and holds his own), and a special favorite of mine Posse from Hell
(1961, Herbert Coleman) in which Murphy's bitter hero makes John
Gant look sweet. John Huston insisted on casting Murphy to fine
effect in The Red Badge of Courage, and used him again in The
Unforgiven (1960), in which Murphy, as the most volatile brother, is
the standout in a cast which includes Lilian Gish, Charles Bickford,
Burt Lancaster and Audrey Hepburn. In the same year as No Name,
Murphy starred with Sandra Dee in The Wild and the Innocent (Jack
Sher), a lovely fable of innocence and experience and also
excellent. I don't like to recommend more than one movie at a time
or might suggest Night Passage (1957; James Neilson) which goes on
two hours before No Name on the Bulllet. Here Murphy plays James
Stewart's outlaw brother and again holds his own with a universally
admired actor. No one ever watches Night Passage because it's a
movie Anthony Mann was to direct and dropped out of, so it's just
assumed it can't be interesting. But although I'm an auteurist, and
love Mann more than most directors, this is unfair. When I have a
chance to watch it again letterboxed I will write something about it
then.
One final footnote about No Name on the Bullet, because this happend
to come up during a thread about characterization, which Mike
laments no longer seems to get the same attention. Others justly
observed that some films lean more toward abstraction and simply
don't require the same care with this element But as I believe No
Name on the Bullet, though made in the days of classical narrative,
is best appreciated as a film leaning to the abstract and
ritualistic, more a film of ideas than characters, it's worth noting
that even here, characters are handled with a precision and
effectiveness that many contemporary narrative films lack, and that
moreover, the narrative itself plays well, by comparison with many
contemporary films, some of them debated here in recent months, in
which there is a great show of interesting characters and an
absorbing narrative being the principal concern of of the filmmakers.
Blake Lucas
27094
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 8:49pm
Subject: Re: Vulcans vs. Empaths (Was Auteurs, Canon, Pleasure and Change) jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Michael E. Grost"
wrote:
When I saw "Yi Yi", Empath that I am, when a character got fired, I
> experienced getting fired along with him. When a character had a
> family tragedy, I seemed to experience that tragedy. It was a
rough
> and miserable way to feel. I assumed that 1) all viewers felt
these
> things; and 2) the main goal of the film was to torture its
audience,
> putting themn through a sadistic wringer of as many bad
experiences
> as possible.
Isn't that what Greek tragedy might appear to be doing? And at a
humbler level, a lot of film melodrama (all those old weepies) that
we admire so much? What about catharsis? What about empathy?
> All of this might only be an Empath-response. Not nescessarily the
> one that the film intended.
> I find it hard to imagine that anyone who experienced "Yi Yi" as I
> did would regard it as anything but an awful experience.
How can a rewarding aesthetic experience be an "awful experience"?
(of course you might retort: "How can an awful experience be a
rewarding aesthetic experience?") Still your response seems
dangerously close to that of the old-time spectators who reportedly
used to wait for the villain at the stage door to do him in.
However, my
> experience might be completely unintended by the film. Who knows?
>
> Mike Grost
It certainly was.
27095
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 9:06pm
Subject: Re: No Name on the Bullet (Jack Arnold) hotlove666
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Blake Lucas"
wrote:
But if any of the three has a reputation,
> it is No Name on the Bullet.
Beloved by the diversely dynamic duo of Richard Schickel (a big
Arnold fan) and Greg Ford, who argued years ago when we were talking
Arnold that it was Arnold's last good film, because its liberal
allegory (the Other is in our heads) was overtaken by the (brief)
upsurge of progressivism in American life after JFK's (briefer)
administration. I've had a chance to check into Arnold's later career
and no longer completely buy that. Bachelor in Paradise rocks, and
Global Affair would if it hadn't been recut. Arnold was also
increasingly devoting his talents to tv, work that needs to be
evaluated in its own right - a Love Boat episode about a man who
spends the voyage in the bathroom because of a mean-looking dog
outside the door (it was all in his head) is quintessential Arnold,
and there may be more.
He had two chances to restart his feature career: the 3-D remake of
Creature from the Black Lagoon (script by Nigel Kneale, producer John
Landis, who then had to drop out after Twilight Zone) and The Lost
World, which Arnold, Albert Whitlock and Harold Michelson were going
to make to show the young squirts how it's done. I have some
beautiful boards that were done by Hitchcock illustrator Mentor
Heubner showing just what an imaginative project this would have been.
The Arnold Westerns are also interesting w/in the context of
Universal westerns. Blake loves all of 'em, but I maintain that
Boetticher was reacting against the institutional clutter (sets,
props, research, psychoanalytic insights) in the ones he did at Uni
when he made the Ranowns, so stripped-down. The two Arnold westerns
I've seen (haven't seen Bitter Ridge) accomplish the same purifying,
abstracting process AT Universal.
None of the above should be read as a dismissal of The Cimmaron Kid
or Man from the Alamo, which are bitchun flicks.
27096
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 9:08pm
Subject: UFOs over the Rio Grande hotlove666
http://www.rense.com/general61/rio.htm
27097
From: MG4273@...
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 6:00pm
Subject: Defining Characterization nzkpzq
Both Saul and JPC asked for a definition of characterization. Can only
proceed from examples.
In "Marnie" (Hitchcock), we learn the whole life history of the heroine, from
childhood experiences on. We are shown how she feels and reacts in a huge
variety of circumstances: on the job, with family, in a romantic relationship,
with in-laws, with animals, with rich and poor people, men and women, etc. We
get a very full look at what she is like as a person, and how she responds to
the world. This is "characterization". It is clearly one of the film's main
goals - the movie spends a lot of time on this.
In "The Big Combo" (Joseph H. Lewis), there are two hitmen, Fante and Mingo,
who work for the villian. At first they seem like generic henchmen, of the
kind found in a million crime thrillers. But soon, we are seeing their goofy
personalities, and their off-trail reactions to things. Next we see them at home,
away from the job. They turn out to be a gay couple, and also the most gentle
and loving pair in the picture, gay or straight. We get all sorts of close-up
views of what they are like as people, right up to their last appearance in
the film. This is "characterization", too.
In "All Over the Guy" (Julie Davis), the lovers get whole life histories.
Gradually we learn about their entire life experiences, how they reacted
emotionally and psychologically. We see them interact with a huge variety of
circumstances and kinds of people, including situations not found in generic romantic
comedies.
It is my impression that an awful lot of pre-1975 narrative film placed a
huge premium on "characterization". This even extended to films which are
admittedly not as character-centered as, say, "Marnie". Take "Fantastic Voyage"
(Richard Fleischer). This is a science fiction epic, and much of the emphasis in on
spectacular science fiction adventures. Still, a good deal of effort has gone
into establishing characterizations. The heroine has a consistent personality
throughout the film. She is an expert technician, she has a sense of wonder
viewing the events inside the human body (the film's sf subject), she is quiet,
she is loyal to her elderly doctor boss (Arthur Kennedy), she is articulate,
she volunteers for things, she is grateful for the opportunity to be on the
journey, etc. We also learn her life history in detail. Similarly the hero is an
outsider, he asks questions, he sees the humorous side of things, he is
afraid, he actively tries to understand the world around him, and he is an active
questioner, the only one who suspects things are wrong, and who tries to form
an independent judgement. These personalities are consistent throughout the
film, and are revealed in countless ways throughout the story.
By contrast, in a lot of current Hollywood films, the hero is macho and
tough, the heroine is well built, and that is all we ever learn about them. There
does not seem to be an effort to develop them as personalities at the
"Fantastic Voyage" level, let alone at the "Marnie" level. Similarly, a lot of current
art films seem to be dispensing with this kind of characterization. We never
learn much about the personalities on the two leads in "Vendredi soir" (Claire
Denis), for example. Or the characters in "The White Balloon" (Panafi) or
"Platform" (Jia) - we don't really learn a lot about most of them, although there
is plainly a little more characterization than in the Denis. This seems like a
deliberate artistic strategy. It is an important aspect of the films. But not
one that seems confronted by most critics today.
Do we really want a cinema without characterization?
Do critics think films without characterization are more artistic than films
that have characterization?
Is characterization merely part of "bourgeois illusionism", as some writers
claim, and an artistic affront?
Films such as "All Over the Guy" (Julie Davis, 2001) or "Nowhere in Africa"
(Caroline Link, 2001) are rich in character development. This does not seem to
lead to any ground swell of interest in them from cinephiles, however. Why
not? Are they working is a bad area - or merely a currently unfashionable one?
Are films without characterization simply "crude"? They often seem crude to
me, in at least this aspect of their work. Other cinephiles don't seem to think
so at all.
Mike Grost
27098
From: "peckinpah20012000"
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 10:34pm
Subject: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, peckinpah200...
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> >
>
> I don't recall her sueing anyone, much less as regards
> Tallulah. "Confidential" trafficked in a lot of
> innuendo re Scott's lesbianism, but nothing that
> affected her career. It ran its course like so many
> others. And for the record she was being kept by Hal
> Wallis -- besides her other romantic activities.
>
> The thought of Lizabeth Scott chatting with Tallulah
> is hilarious. I can see -- and hear -- them now.
But wasn't she Tallulah's understudy on the Broadway stage
production of THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH which resulted in the rumors? My
information concerning the lawsuit against Confidential comes from
Max Pierce, "Lizabeth Scott: The Sphinx from Scranton," FILMS IN THE
GOLDEN AGE 29 (2002): 24 which mentions that she hired Jerry Giesler
to file a $2.5 million dollar lawsuit in 1955against the magazine
which mentioned that she was "prone to indecent, illegal and highly
offensive acts in her private and public life." The suit was settled
out of court but the press did not report this. As a result, her
screen career was damaged and THE WEAPON, filmed in 1955, was not
released until 1956.
We must also remember her co-starring with Dean and Jerry in SCARED
STIFF.
Tony Williams
>
>
> Yahoo! Mail
> Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour:
> http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html
27099
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 10:59pm
Subject: Re: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, cellar47
--- peckinpah20012000
wrote:
>
> But wasn't she Tallulah's understudy on the
> Broadway stage
> production of THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH which resulted
> in the rumors? My
> information concerning the lawsuit against
> Confidential comes from
> Max Pierce, "Lizabeth Scott: The Sphinx from
> Scranton," FILMS IN THE
> GOLDEN AGE 29 (2002): 24 which mentions that she
> hired Jerry Giesler
> to file a $2.5 million dollar lawsuit in 1955against
> the magazine
> which mentioned that she was "prone to indecent,
> illegal and highly
> offensive acts in her private and public life." The
> suit was settled
> out of court but the press did not report this. As a
> result, her
> screen career was damaged and THE WEAPON, filmed in
> 1955, was not
> released until 1956.
>
> We must also remember her co-starring with Dean and
> Jerry in SCARED
> STIFF.
>
Moreimportant she starred with Elvis in "Loving You"
-- his best early vehicle. That was her last film
before "Pulp"
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0779507/
"prone to indecent,
> illegal and highly
> offensive acts in her private and public life."
Sounds like Tallulah.
And Jerry Giesler was the lawyer to call in the old
days.
Must get that book!
__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail Mobile
Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone.
http://mobile.yahoo.com/learn/mail
27100
From: "Blake Lucas"
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 11:28pm
Subject: Re: No Name on the Bullet (Jack Arnold) lukethedealer12
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666" wrote:
> The Arnold Westerns are also interesting w/in the context of
> Universal westerns. Blake loves all of 'em, but I maintain that
> Boetticher was reacting against the institutional clutter (sets,
> props, research, psychoanalytic insights) in the ones he did at Uni
> when he made the Ranowns, so stripped-down. The two Arnold westerns
> I've seen (haven't seen Bitter Ridge) accomplish the same purifying,
> abstracting process AT Universal.
>
This is a simplication of my point of view, and is not true. I don't
mind you saying it, especially, except that it undermines my post on
No Name on the Bullet, as if it were interchangeable with any other
50s title from the studio library. I don't feel that way at all.
It is true that I tend to like the U-I studio style overall, and am
more or less "out of the closet" on this. Westerns are a genre I
love, especially in the 50s--and I think I have a pretty good feel for
the place they have in each of the studios (and independents), all of
whom contributed their share. But I still approach films as an
auteurist, Bill, and discern different approaches not just between
Arnold and Boetticher, but all directors who do these films, whether
at U-I or anywhere else. It's true that Budd Boetticher was less
happy at U-I than Arnold, and in fact I talked to him about this
myself--his main complaint was about the circumstances of production,
much less conducive for him than those of Ranown, where he had more
autonomy, but he acknowledged that some of his films there were good
(and had posters of some of them adorning his home), and did like one
producer, Aaron Rosenberg, who more successfuly nurtured the career of
Anthony Mann there (as well as producing films of Walsh, Vidor and
others). I don't entirely disagree about the "purifying" process to
which you refer, but it isn't necessarily confined to those directors.
And I certainly don't buy that the Ranowns are without "psychoanalytic
insights," whatever that means.
I may not (and do not) "love 'em all." I am close to having seen them
all. Are you? Or are you perhaps just kissing off a bunch of films
signed Sherman, Fregonese, Juran, Mate, Hibbs, Hopper, Bartlett, Haas,
Keller, Biberman, et al. because it's easier that way? I personally
don't think that if I have a chance to defend, say Richard Bartlett's
Joe Dakota or Abner Biberman's Gun for a Coward in a_film_by, it in
any way undermines the magisterial contribution to the genre of a
Budd Boetticher, nor do I think that circumstances of production,
which can be helpful and encouraging even in films like the Ranowns,
in any way diminish his individuality or anyone's.
All of which is by way of saying I recommended No Name on the Bullet
as one film, and as others come up within this context, it will be the
same way.
Blake
a_film_by Main Page
Home Film
Art
Other: (Rants, Obits)
Links About
Contact