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27701
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Thu Jun 2, 2005 0:09am
Subject: Re: Words and shots (Was: A thought about BLACK NARCISSUS) jpcoursodon
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--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666" wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> When I talk about a shot here, I really mean "a shot and how it's
> used."
>
>
> and/ie who is looking at it. See Pascal Bonitzer's "Voici," which I
> translated moons ago in some academic film publication.
Isn't this a wee bit elitist and high-handed, Bill? Couldn't you give
us ignoramuses a clue? What academic film publication and when? And
what about the original text (which I haven't read)? What Cahiers
issue or whatever?
No shot exists in a vacuum of course.
How did you translate "Voici"?
JPC
27702
From: MG4273@...
Date: Wed Jun 1, 2005 8:41pm
Subject: Re: His Famous Zoom nzkpzq
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Really liked Fred Camper's analysis of Rossellini's zoom!
Some of R's early films also deal with pivotal events in history, such as
"Paisan", which shows with the Allied invasion of Italy.
I would love to be able to see more of R's later films. Oddly enough, they
used to be screened far more often than they are today. Years ago, saw "La Prise
du Pouvoir par Louis XIV," a great classic, and "Socrates". The Louis XIV
film shows R's tremendous sense of logic.
Mike Grost
27703
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Thu Jun 2, 2005 1:35am
Subject: Re: Words and shots (Was: A thought about BLACK NARCISSUS) hotlove666
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--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
> >
> > and/ie who is looking at it. See Pascal Bonitzer's "Voici," which I
> > translated moons ago in some academic film publication.
>
>
> Isn't this a wee bit elitist and high-handed, Bill? Couldn't you give
> us ignoramuses a clue? What academic film publication and when? And
> what about the original text (which I haven't read)? What Cahiers
> issue or whatever?
Not elitist, disorganized. I can't find anything at the moment. The CdC
was the one w. receding images of The Wrong Man on the cover, grey
lettering on the cover; it also contained Daniele Dubroux's great
article on recent films about women (eg The Last Woman, Jeanne
Dielman), "L'etre-ange." I believe the magazine that asked me to
translate the Bonitzer article had "Film" in the title. I know that's
not much help...
>
> How did you translate "Voici"?
>
"Here" - at least I should've.
A shot of a crucifix does not mean what a crucifix means. It
means "someone is looking at a crucifix." Pascal was riffing on Metz's
famous example of a shot of a horse meaning, supposedly, "Voici un
cheval": "Here is a horse." I later took off from Pascal's piece in a
Trafic piece on the credit sequence of Boetticher's last film, When in
Disgrace..., called, in fact, "Voici un cheval." That I can tell you
was in Issue 19, Summer '96. I may even have an extry if you don't have
it.
27704
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Thu Jun 2, 2005 1:42am
Subject: Re: Style & Meaning in Star Wars: Episode III - Costumes hotlove666
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--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
Wonderful, Mike. One correction, for what it's worth - the Star Wars
world is set in the past, not the future. Maybe if there's ever a third
trilogy, after Jedi, it will end with the final destruction of the
Galactic Empire and a small ship carrying survivors setting off for an
unexplored solar sytem with a promising young planet circling it: "That
one there, third from the sun..."
No prizes for recognizing the reference, one of the most famous in all
science fiction.
27705
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu Jun 2, 2005 2:48am
Subject: Re: Re: Words and shots (Was: A thought about BLACK NARCISSUS) sallitt1
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> A shot of a crucifix does not mean what a crucifix means. It
> means "someone is looking at a crucifix."
I don't think anyone is looking at the ringing phone in all those silent
movies. Not even the audience, really. - Dan
27706
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Thu Jun 2, 2005 3:14am
Subject: Re: Words and shots (Was: A thought about BLACK NARCISSUS) jpcoursodon
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--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666" .
>
> A shot of a crucifix does not mean what a crucifix means. It
> means "someone is looking at a crucifix." Pascal was riffing on
Metz's
> famous example of a shot of a horse meaning, supposedly, "Voici un
> cheval": "Here is a horse."
I would argue that a shot of a crucifix, or of a horse, or of
anything, means absolutely nothing until someone (a viewer) imparts it
with meaning. Saying that it means "someone is looking at a crucifix"
is meaningless. Only the someone who is looking can decide that this
is what it "means". "Meaning" does not exist in the abstract, per se.
If there's going to be meaning, we, you and I, are bringing it into
the picture. And it is therefore strictly subjective. My feeling is
that the image in itself means absolutely nothing. JPC
I later took off from Pascal's piece in a
> Trafic piece on the credit sequence of Boetticher's last film, When
in
> Disgrace..., called, in fact, "Voici un cheval." That I can tell you
> was in Issue 19, Summer '96. I may even have an extry if you don't
have
> it.
There are lots of things that I don't have, and that is one.
27707
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Thu Jun 2, 2005 3:21am
Subject: Re: Words and shots (Was: A thought about BLACK NARCISSUS) jpcoursodon
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--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > A shot of a crucifix does not mean what a crucifix means. It
> > means "someone is looking at a crucifix."
>
> I don't think anyone is looking at the ringing phone in all those
silent
> movies. Not even the audience, really. - Dan
The crucifix rang. Although it was a silent movie, I knew I had to
pick it up. Maybe Jesus was calling. The suspense was
unbearable.Suddenly there was a horse in my room, and he picked up
the... what was it? "Bonitzer calling," the horse said. And then I
woke up.
JPC
27708
From: "Blake Lucas"
Date: Thu Jun 2, 2005 4:00am
Subject: Re: Words and shots (Was: A thought about BLACK NARCISSUS) lukethedealer12
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--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666" wrote:
> >
I later took off from Pascal's piece in a
> Trafic piece on the credit sequence of Boetticher's last film, When
in
> Disgrace..., called, in fact, "Voici un cheval." That I can tell you
> was in Issue 19, Summer '96. I may even have an extry if you don't
have
> it.
Bill, do you actually mean A Kingdom For rather than unrealized When
in Disgrace?
27709
From: "Blake Lucas"
Date: Thu Jun 2, 2005 4:07am
Subject: Re: Words and shots (Was: A thought about BLACK NARCISSUS) lukethedealer12
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--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Blake Lucas"
wrote:
>> Bill, do you actually mean A Kingdom For rather than unrealized
When
> in Disgrace?
Aarghh, I meant My Kingdom For (of course). That silently ringing
phone with Jesus disguised as Bonitzer on the line must have fatally
distracted me, and if he had been wearing Sister Ruth's lipstick maybe
I would have said A Horse for Mr. Barnum.
27710
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Thu Jun 2, 2005 5:00am
Subject: Re: Words and shots (Was: A thought about BLACK NARCISSUS) hotlove666
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--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Blake Lucas"
wrote:
>
> Bill, do you actually mean A Kingdom For rather than unrealized When
> in Disgrace?
Of course - I need to brush up my Shakespeare.
27711
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Thu Jun 2, 2005 5:39am
Subject: Charlot dans l'asile de nuit hotlove666
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Karl Thiede has answered my question, for Brad, JP and anyone still
curious: Chaplin made his first feature, Life, for Essanay but shelved
it unfinished. Essanay put out some of it as Triple Trouble after he
left the company, including the flop-house sequence. A company called
Keystone Kinescope Projectors in Boston, which made toy 16mm projectors
for kids and released films to show on them, snipped out that sequence
and released it in the US in the early 30s, probably duping 35 to 16
from a print of Triple Trouble. The film was called A Sleepless Night
here and perhaps made its way via that release to France. In any event,
Truffaut saw a one-reeler of the flop-house episode called Charlot dans
l'asile de nuit and either showed it or recommended it as a source of
inspiration to Jean Gruault, his co-scenarist on Adele H., who shared
w. Truffaut a passion for silent films. If you google that title you'll
find an 8mm print on sale on e-Bay - or at least there was one last
week. Released by a company that didn't even produce it, with no say-so
from the filmmaker, A Sleepless Night/Charlot dans l'asile de nuit of
course doesn't appear in Chaplin filmographies. No truly complete
filmography listing releases like this exists - in fact, per Mr. T,
there really hasn't been a good Chaplin filmography ever, and putting
one together isn't going to be easy.
27712
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Jun 2, 2005 1:03pm
Subject: Re: Re: Words and shots (Was: A thought about BLACK NARCISSUS) cellar47
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--- hotlove666 wrote:
>
> Of course - I need to brush up my Shakespeare.
>
>
>
(That's my cue!)
The girls today in society
Go for classical poetry,
So to win their hearts one must quote with ease
Aeschylus and Euripides.
But the poet of them all
Who will start 'em simply ravin'
Is the poet people call
The bard of Stratford-on-Avon.
Brush up your Shakespeare,
Start quoting him now.
Brush up your Shakespeare
And the women you will wow.
Just declaim a few lines from "Othella"
And they think you're a helluva fella.
If your blonde won't respond when you flatter 'er
Tell her what Tony told Cleopaterer,
And if still, to be shocked, she pretends well,
Just remind her that "All's Well That Ends Well."
Brush up your Shakespeare
And they'll all kowtow.
Brush up your Shakespeare,
Start quoting him now.
Brush up your Shakespeare
And the women you will wow.
If your goil is a Washington Heights dream
Treat the kid to "A Midsummer Night Dream."
If she fights when her clothes you are mussing,
What are clothes? "Much Ado About Nussing."
If she says your behavior is heinous
Kick her right in the "Coriolanus."
Brush up your Shakespeare
And they'll all kowtow.
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27713
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu Jun 2, 2005 1:35pm
Subject: The lure of the silver screen (Was: The Exile - No Turkey) sallitt1
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>> Is it acceptable for serious auteurist types such as ourselves to
>> like that Maria Montez-Jon Hall-Sabu-Turhan Bey Technicolor cycle
>> of mid-forties? Because I must admit that I do.
>
> David and Brian are right, of course. I don't think it's possible
> to love the movies -- or even "The Cinema" -- and not to enjoy that
> kind of stuff.
I'm afraid I must stand up as an exception to this rule.... If a movie
doesn't set off my art detector, I'm generally not too interested. Maybe
this is because I wasn't a movie-loving child. - Dan
27714
From: "Michael E. Kerpan, Jr."
Date: Thu Jun 2, 2005 2:01pm
Subject: Re: The lure of the silver screen (Was: The Exile - No Turkey) michaelkerpan
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--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > I don't think it's possible
> > to love the movies -- or even "The Cinema" -- and not to enjoy that
> > kind of stuff.
{Dan's comment starts here}
> I'm afraid I must stand up as an exception to this rule.... If a movie
> doesn't set off my art detector, I'm generally not too interested.
Maybe
> this is because I wasn't a movie-loving child.
I'd hate to think that there was some sort of litmus test for "true
movie lovers". There are LOTS of types of films I either dislike or
have little interest in. And I can even believe that someone who has
no affinity for Ozu can still be a movie lover (depending on their
other likes and dislikes) -- though I would be perplexed (and would
grieve a bit).
27715
From: samadams@...
Date: Thu Jun 2, 2005 2:28pm
Subject: Re: F for Fake arglebargle31
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Watched it last night coincidentally. The complexity of the editing
is indeed stunning, although maybe "fluid" isn't the right word,
since it's obviously intended to call attention to itself,
underlining the extent to which editing is essential to the forgery
of cinema. Welles as narrator/host arranges "meetings" between
characters filmed at different times and places, but whose
conversations seem to respond to each other all the same. (There's
one moment in particular where Cliff Irving seems to be staring down
De Hory disapprovingly, although there's no suggestion that they were
actually part of the same conversation -- although, conversely, they
might have been.) I was particularly taken with the movie as a kind
of anti-auteurist gesture, focusing on the extent to which the
"signature" (with all that implies) falsifies an "expert" our
understanding of art. De Hory may paint indistinguishably from
Picasso, but when he signs "Picasso" (if he does, which he is cagy
about) he lies, and therefore is inferior, while the authorless
Chartres is held up, perhaps tongue-in-cheek, as the ultimate work of
art, perhaps as a work with no (known) creator, it can only be
examined in se and per se. I wonder how much this sentiment has to do
with the burden of being "Orson Welles," the prodigy who never
followed through and the profligate who couldn't finish a picture,
dogged by inescapable canards and unable to have his work evaluate
for itself. (Jonathan Rosenbaum says in his Criterion notes that
Welles deliberately avoided any shots that were "Wellesian," as if
trying to erase his own signature.) And yet, he delivers some of his
narration at a heaping cafe table surrounded by admirers, clearly
enjoying the benefits of being Orson Welles as well -- just another
way in which the movie contains an antithesis for every thesis.
Sam
27716
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Jun 2, 2005 2:47pm
Subject: Re: Re: F for Fake cellar47
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--- samadams@... wrote:
I was particularly taken with the
> movie as a kind
> of anti-auteurist gesture, focusing on the extent to
> which the
> "signature" (with all that implies) falsifies an
> "expert" our
> understanding of art. De Hory may paint
> indistinguishably from
> Picasso, but when he signs "Picasso" (if he does,
> which he is cagy
> about) he lies, and therefore is inferior, while the
> authorless
> Chartres is held up, perhaps tongue-in-cheek, as the
> ultimate work of
> art, perhaps as a work with no (known) creator, it
> can only be
> examined in se and per se. I wonder how much this
> sentiment has to do
> with the burden of being "Orson Welles," the
> prodigy who never
> followed through and the profligate who couldn't
> finish a picture,
> dogged by inescapable canards and unable to have his
> work evaluate
> for itself.
Never forget the primary source for "Fa For Fake" is
footage shot not by Welles, but Francois ("Those Who
Love Me Can Take the Train") Reichenbach. Welles
wasn't even present during the shooting of the bulk of
what constitutes "Fa For Fake."
(Jonathan Rosenbaum says in his
> Criterion notes that
> Welles deliberately avoided any shots that were
> "Wellesian," as if
> trying to erase his own signature.) And yet, he
> delivers some of his
> narration at a heaping cafe table surrounded by
> admirers, clearly
> enjoying the benefits of being Orson Welles as well
> -- just another
> way in which the movie contains an antithesis for
> every thesis.
>
Well that's anpother kind of signature. For by the
time of "F For Fake," Welles had become associated in
the public mind as a TV raconteur on the Johnny Carson
and Merv Griffin shows. "F For Fake" takes this TV
persona into a new area.
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27717
From: MG4273@...
Date: Thu Jun 2, 2005 10:49am
Subject: The Immortal Story (Welles) - visual style nzkpzq
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Notes on visual style in "The Immortal Story" (Orson Welles, 1968):
The title shot shows two sails of a boat in the foreground, and a deep focus
stair between two buildings. This is similar to the first shot of Mr. Arkadin,
which shows two large pieces of machinery in the foreground, and a deep focus
outdoor passage between them. The Mr. Arkadin shot is all on one level,
whereas here we already have one of Welles' staircases. This title shot already has
two series of Chinese banners, which will play a major role in many of the
film's exteriors.
The film's second shot shows a panorama of buildings and balconies. These are
full of Chinese banners, shutters, balcony regions, windows, and other
rectangular regions, arranged in a series of horizontal bands across the screen. The
effect is like a work of abstract painting. Its rectilinear qualities evokes
Mondrian. Its bands of abstract images recalls paintings by Klee and
Kandinsky. Welles' filmmaking in Citizen Kane recalled German Expressionism, including
Fritz Lang. Here he is evoking German abstract painting of the same era.
When the businessmen come out to discuss Mr. Clay, they are shown against
another set of buildings with balconies. These too furnish a series of
rectilinear regions arranged into a broader grid. Here, many of the regions consist of a
series of repeated bars or slats - shutters, staircases, partitions,
undersides of balconies. These echoes between the various kinds of repeated bars give
a visual unity to the design. It also suggests an ingenious, fascinating world
behind the characters - a sort of visual fantasy land in which the eye can
wander delightedly. The multi-storied nature of the buildings recalls a bit the
multi-storied staircase in The Magnificent Ambersons. Like the staircase in
that film, the buildings in The Immortal Story contain angles, including
sections which join together at other than 90 degrees. Welles juxtaposes shots of
these building sections, stressing the angles between them, and the heads of his
players. It gives a complex background to the dialogue. The buildings also
recall the balconied, many-storied courtyard of the building housing Akim
Tamiroff at the end of Mr. Arkadin.
Welles has a series of repeating mirrors in Mr. Clay's home. These allow
reflections to infinity, as in Citizen Kane. They also recall the fun-house
mirrors in The Lady From Shanghai. In The Immortal Story, a second mirror is placed
at right angles to the infinite repeating mirrors. One can see its frame
reflected inside the frame of the repeating mirrors, and vice versa. These mirror
frames extend the imagery of box-like rectangular regions, that run through the
early sections of the movie. The frames are at right angles to each other,
something Welles frequently uses for complex effects in his films: see the
famous opening of Touch of Evil, for example. Later in the film, we see the sailor
in the mirrors, walking past, while the early shots show a seated Mr. Clay,
eating. The sailor shots are staged so that his reflections come in close pairs,
with longer gaps between the pairs. The shots show Welles' delight at
experimenting with different kinds of mirror effects in his movies.
In Mr. Clay's home, we see a series of repeated arches. These echo other
repeated arches in the street. Both sets recall downtown Venice in Touch of Evil,
and its colonnades of arches, . Here, the arches are more than one level deep,
however: we see arches framed within arches, including a door in deep focus
in the background. The arches are echoed by the arch of Mr. Clay's chair. This
is one of the most striking images of the film, with the chair arch being the
mirror image of the room arches. The double level of arches recalls the
Mexican arcade in Mr. Arkadin, and Katina Paxinou’s home, in which one
parabolic-arched doorway is seen at right angles within another, to highly unusual effect.
The file drawers recall the huge filing room in Touch of Evil. Each drawer
here is of a different color of wood. They make another series of varied
rectangles arranged in horizontal rows, like the opening shots of the film. However,
they are stretched out at an angle behind Mr. Levinsky, giving a 3D effect.
Mr. Clay's home has one of the most complex staircases in Welles. This
recalls a long tradition of staircase shots, both in Welles, and in the film noir
that Welles influenced. Here, pairs of people encounter each other on the
stairs, also a Welles tradition. The stair has vertical bars, like the doors in the
house, and the balconies outside early in the film.
The moving camera shot in which the heroine first walks along with Levinsky
is perhaps the most dazzling in the movie. They pass by and under a series of
hanging Chinese signs and banners. The shot recalls Josef von Sternberg, who
frequently employed tracking shots along paths in which many objects hang in the
foreground. However, these signs are more solid than Sternberg’s typical nets
or curtains. The shot’s brilliant use of varied colors for the signs is also
unique.
The heroine and Levinsky pass by a huge Chinese umbrella, the start of a
series of circular forms that will gradually invade the picture. Next, they are in
a beautiful shot with mist, also a Sternberg-like effect. They wind up by a
building whose step-like, zigzag border is echoed by a series of step-like
seats underneath a tree.
The sailor is in an alley, near the shadow of a palm tree when introduced.
The last shots of him leaving the grounds also contain palm trees. Similarly,
when the sailor gets out of jail near the start of Mr. Arkadin, he is seen near
a palm tree on a Mediterranean street. While on the porch at the end of The
Immortal Story, the heroine is shown surrounded by vines, just as she was
surrounded by flowers earlier in the bedroom.
The dinner scene with the sailor recalls the paintings of Vermeer. There is a
huge gold chandelier, much like those that appears in Vermeer's paintings.
And we see wine in a crystal glass and bottle, also a favorite study of Dutch
still life painting. The flaming red background here is not Dutch-like, but it
does underscore the painterly quality of these shots. Both the glass and the
base of the bottle have spherical shapes, and are filled with red wine. Soon, we
will see the candles in the bedroom surrounded by spherical red guards. This
shot, in which the candles, candelabra, and the spherical guards are all
partly reflected in the mirror, is one of the most complex in the film.
The porch at the end has a peaked roof, like the train station to come in F
for Fake. An early shot here contrasts the tall vertical rectangle of a doorway
to the left, with a squarer region behind Mr. Levinsky to the right. The two
regions are in dynamic balance. Later, many shots of the porch will stress
that it is partly screened in by lattice work, and partly not, an odd effect.
This too will be used to give a sort of balance between two different regions of
the shot.
Welles' chair in the finale has a spherical head. It adds curves to the
otherwise rectilinear porch. So does the spiral shell.
Mike Grost
27718
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu Jun 2, 2005 4:37pm
Subject: Re: Re: Words and shots (Was: A thought about BLACK NARCISSUS) sallitt1
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>>> A shot of a crucifix does not mean what a crucifix means. It
>>> means "someone is looking at a crucifix."
>>
>> I don't think anyone is looking at the ringing phone in all those
> silent
>> movies. Not even the audience, really. - Dan
>
> The crucifix rang. Although it was a silent movie, I knew I had to
> pick it up. Maybe Jesus was calling. The suspense was
> unbearable.Suddenly there was a horse in my room, and he picked up
> the... what was it? "Bonitzer calling," the horse said. And then I
> woke up.
I am happy to have played straight man for our surrealist members, but I
still hope to get some comments on this idea, which I think is provocative
(and which relates somewhat to Rohmer's discussion of Chaplin and
Keaton, collected in THE TASTE FOR BEAUTY). The ringing doorbell in
silent films (I'm going back to the doorbell instead of the phone, because
the phone is sometimes established in space in other shots, whereas the
doorbell practically never is) is an extreme example of a very common
occurence, where the spatial qualities of an image are all but obliterated
because the image delivers its message too well. I propose a paradox:
that, even though the camera always shows space, the filmmaker (or
photographer) has to do some work to overcome the mind's tendency to slap
a label on the image and rob it of its ability to represent space. Not
all filmmakers are interested in this goal. - Dan
27719
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu Jun 2, 2005 4:53pm
Subject: Re: Wenders (Was: Twentynine palms) sallitt1
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>> Except for the
>> TOKYO-GA documentary, I
>> don't think I've liked anything by Wenders since
>> 1982.
>
> Wel I quite love "Wings of Desire."
For some reason I had a hideous time with WINGS OF DESIRE, and left the
theater muttering obscenities under my breath. Now I can't remember it at
all. - Dan
27720
From: MG4273@...
Date: Thu Jun 2, 2005 1:52pm
Subject: Re: Wenders (Was: Twentynine palms) nzkpzq
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In a message dated 05-06-02 12:53:43 EDT, Dan Sallitt writes:
<< For some reason I had a hideous time with WINGS OF DESIRE, and left the
theater muttering obscenities under my breath. Now I can't remember it at
all. >>
The first half of "Wings of Desire" (Wim Wenders) consists largely of the
actors standing around, while psychobabble runs through their heads. The sort of
Psychoanalysis 101 jargon that might be mouthed at a 1970's Encounter Group.
It is really, really annoying, to people (such as myself) who do not like this
sort of thing. I bailed at this point and stopped watching. Couldn't find any
visual style, at all.
This has got to be one of my most disappointing experiences ever with what is
often cited as a "great classic" of film.
Mike Grost
27721
From: "Richard Modiano"
Date: Thu Jun 2, 2005 6:00pm
Subject: Re: Words and shots (Was: A thought about BLACK NARCISSUS) tharpa2002
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--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
"The ringing doorbell in silent films...is an extreme example of a
very common occurence, where the spatial qualities of an image are
all but obliterated because the image delivers its message too well."
Dosen't your objection depend on what the filmmaker is trying to
establish with such a shot? It seems to me that in this example the
filmmaker is using the shot to reduce redundancy, a simple metonymic
use of the image. Or is there something else at work here?
"I propose a paradox: that, even though the camera always shows
space, the filmmaker (or photographer) has to do some work to
overcome the mind's tendency to slap a label on the image and rob it
of its ability to represent space. Not all filmmakers are interested
in this goal."
Isn't this absence of illusory space only temporary since presumably
another shot will follow (eventually) that re-establishes space? It
seems to me that this is like what happens when viewing a sumi-e
painting, the moment when the eye rests on the line of text that
asserts the flatness of the picture plane and travels to the rest of
the picture thus returning to illusory space.
Richard
27722
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Thu Jun 2, 2005 6:11pm
Subject: Re: Words and shots (Was: A thought about BLACK NARCISSUS) hotlove666
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--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
I propose a paradox:
> that, even though the camera always shows space, the filmmaker (or
> photographer) has to do some work to overcome the mind's tendency to
slap
> a label on the image and rob it of its ability to represent space.
Not
> all filmmakers are interested in this goal. - Dan
The most obvious psatial quality of that doorbell shot is size. If
you're seeing it in a theatre, it's the size of a locomotive. A shot
that actually foregrounds that - perhaps as a nod to Rohmer's example -
would be the finger approaching the doorbell in Shoot the Piano Player.
27723
From: "iangjohnston"
Date: Thu Jun 2, 2005 6:14pm
Subject: Re: Wenders (Was: Twentynine palms) iangjohnston
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--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
s:
>
> > The first half of "Wings of Desire" (Wim Wenders) consists
largely of the
> actors standing around, while psychobabble runs through their
heads. The sort of
> Psychoanalysis 101 jargon that might be mouthed at a 1970's
Encounter Group.
> It is really, really annoying, to people (such as myself) who do
not like this
> sort of thing. I bailed at this point and stopped watching.
Couldn't find any
> visual style, at all.
> This has got to be one of my most disappointing experiences ever
with what is
> often cited as a "great classic" of film.
>
> Mike Grost
All I can say is that the "psychobabble" -- courtesy of Peter Handke
and Bruno Ganz -- sounds great in German. "Als das Kind Kind war..."
I love the sound of it every time I hear it start up.
I thought the problem with the non-believers was that it had too
much "visual style", rather than none at all?
Ian
27724
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Jun 2, 2005 6:41pm
Subject: Re: Re: Words and shots (Was: A thought about BLACK NARCISSUS) cellar47
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--- hotlove666 wrote:
>
> The most obvious psatial quality of that doorbell
> shot is size. If
> you're seeing it in a theatre, it's the size of a
> locomotive. A shot
> that actually foregrounds that - perhaps as a nod to
> Rohmer's example -
> would be the finger approaching the doorbell in
> Shoot the Piano Player.
>
Don't forget the falling keys in "After Hours."
And don't forget that all of this began with Christian
Metz's declaraction that a shot of gun means at the
bare minimum "Here is a gun." Who may be holding that
gun or looking at that gun is another matter.
>
>
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27725
From: Peter Henne
Date: Thu Jun 2, 2005 9:11pm
Subject: Re: Re: F for Fake peterhenne
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Sam:
I don't think "fluidity" need imply smooth narrative. This word is often applied to certain abstract paintings, e.g. Joan Mitchell's. So why not the self-reflexive shuttling of F, which does all make a kinetic sense?
David:
Agree that Welles' refusal to ease into a signature is itself a trait of the man's style. In related ways Welles worked to avoid falling into a predictable pattern. Here's an excerpt from his 1958 Cahiers du Cinema interview:
"I work, and have worked, with the 18.5 solely because other cineastes have not availed themselves of it. Cinema is like a colony: there are few colonists. When America was wide open, when the Spanish were on the frontier of Mexico, the French in Canada, the Dutch in New York, you can be sure that the English made their way to places that were still unoccupied. I don't prefer the 18.5: I'm simply the only one to have explored its possibilities.... the essential job of every responsible artist is to cultivate what lies fallow.... If everyone worked with a wide-angle lens, I'd shoot all my films in 70mm, because I take its possibilities very seriously."
Welles was willing to cast off many of those visual qualities long associated with him, and in F he did so to a striking degree, though he didn't go the 70mm route.
Peter Henne
David Ehrenstein wrote:
(Jonathan Rosenbaum says in his
> Criterion notes that
> Welles deliberately avoided any shots that were
> "Wellesian," as if
> trying to erase his own signature.)>
Well that's anpother kind of signature. For by the
time of "F For Fake," Welles had become associated in
the public mind as a TV raconteur on the Johnny Carson
and Merv Griffin shows. "F For Fake" takes this TV
persona into a new area.
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27726
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Thu Jun 2, 2005 10:21pm
Subject: Re: Words and shots (Was: A thought about BLACK NARCISSUS) jpcoursodon
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--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
>
> --- hotlove666 wrote:
>
> >
> > Of course - I need to brush up my Shakespeare.
> >
> >
> >
>
> (That's my cue!)
>
> The girls today in society
> Go for classical poetry,
> So to win their hearts one must quote with ease
> Aeschylus and Euripides.
> But the poet of them all
> Who will start 'em simply ravin'
> Is the poet people call
> The bard of Stratford-on-Avon.
>
> Brush up your Shakespeare,
> Start quoting him now.
> Brush up your Shakespeare
> And the women you will wow.
> Just declaim a few lines from "Othella"
> And they think you're a helluva fella.
> If your blonde won't respond when you flatter 'er
> Tell her what Tony told Cleopaterer,
> And if still, to be shocked, she pretends well,
> Just remind her that "All's Well That Ends Well."
> Brush up your Shakespeare
> And they'll all kowtow.
>
> Brush up your Shakespeare,
> Start quoting him now.
> Brush up your Shakespeare
> And the women you will wow.
> If your goil is a Washington Heights dream
> Treat the kid to "A Midsummer Night Dream."
> If she fights when her clothes you are mussing,
> What are clothes? "Much Ado About Nussing."
> If she says your behavior is heinous
> Kick her right in the "Coriolanus."
> Brush up your Shakespeare
> And they'll all kowtow.
>
>
> YOU LEFT A LOT OUT, DAVID! What about:
Just recite an occasional sonnet
And your lap'll have "honey" upon it.
When your baby is pleading for pleasure
Let her sample your "Measure for Measure."
Better mention "The Merchant of Venice"
When her sweet pound o'flesh you would menace.
If her virtue at first she defends --well
Just reminds her that "All's Well That Ends Well,"
And if still she won't give you a bonus
You know what Venus got from Adonis!
And now we'll be both banished to OT.
JPC
>
> __________________________________
> Discover Yahoo!
> Stay in touch with email, IM, photo sharing and more. Check it
out!
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27727
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Thu Jun 2, 2005 10:52pm
Subject: Re: Words and shots (Was: A thought about BLACK NARCISSUS) jpcoursodon
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--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666" wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> I propose a paradox:
> > that, even though the camera always shows space, the filmmaker (or
> > photographer) has to do some work to overcome the mind's tendency
to
> slap
> > a label on the image and rob it of its ability to represent
space.
> Not
> > all filmmakers are interested in this goal. - Dan
>
> The most obvious psatial quality of that doorbell shot is size. If
> you're seeing it in a theatre, it's the size of a locomotive. A shot
> that actually foregrounds that - perhaps as a nod to Rohmer's
example -
> would be the finger approaching the doorbell in Shoot the Piano
Player.
I think I had tried to respond to both Dan and Bill in message #
27706 -- which, unlike the following one, was not "surrealistic" --but
I may have been doing it only marginally.
I don't see how the message (meaning) contained in a shot of an
object (such as the doorbell) eliminates "space' from the viewer's
mind. I can think at the same time that the shot is telling me: "A
doorbell is ringing" AND that the doorbell is just a doorbell on a
wall that is part of of an entire construction -- to which, as Richard
has pointed out -- we shall be returning within seconds, when the shot
is replaced by another. This is what happens with all inserts (that
type of shot is usually an insert -- often not filmed by the director
himself). A closeup of some object that is conveying some information.
Nothing prevents the object to exist in space while conveying that
information.
My point in #27706 was, I think, that nothing on the screen
actually "means" anything unless a viewer imparts that meaning.
Depending upon how I view it, a crucifix may be either a symbol of
immense religious and emotional value, or just an object like a stone,
or an artifact like a hammer. If I have a nail to drive in a wall and
have no hammer at hand, only a crucifix, it will do as a hammer. (then
I can hang the crucifix to the nail). There will be any number of ways
to view/interpret the scene (assuming someone has filmed it). Polysemy
of the cinematic image.
JPC
27728
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Thu Jun 2, 2005 10:58pm
Subject: Re: Words and shots (Was: A thought about BLACK NARCISSUS) jpcoursodon
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--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
>
> --- hotlove666 wrote:
>
>
> >
> > The most obvious psatial quality of that doorbell
> > shot is size. If
> > you're seeing it in a theatre, it's the size of a
> > locomotive. A shot
> > that actually foregrounds that - perhaps as a nod to
> > Rohmer's example -
> > would be the finger approaching the doorbell in
> > Shoot the Piano Player.
> >
>
> Don't forget the falling keys in "After Hours."
>
> And don't forget that all of this began with Christian
> Metz's declaraction that a shot of gun means at the
> bare minimum "Here is a gun." Who may be holding that
> gun or looking at that gun is another matter.
> >
> >
Which is why I would suggest (pardon my French pedantry)
that "VOICI" should be translated as "HERE IS" rather than "HERE"
(which means something different, if anything). JPC
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Discover Yahoo!
> Get on-the-go sports scores, stock quotes, news and more. Check it
out!
> http://discover.yahoo.com/mobile.html
27729
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Thu Jun 2, 2005 11:07pm
Subject: Mike Grost on The Immortal Story jpcoursodon
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I can't help cheering Mike's superb analysis of this very great film.
And Bill was deploring recently that we never discuss form on
a_film_by!
JPC
27730
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Fri Jun 3, 2005 1:08am
Subject: Re: Words and shots (Was: A thought about BLACK NARCISSUS) hotlove666
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There are a couple of ways to look at the doorbell shot spatially.
One is, where in space IS the doorbell - eg the trick played on the
spectator near the end of Silence of the Lambs. The doorbell as
metonymy, as Richard said.
I think Dan is talking about the intrinsic spatial qualities of the
shot itself. What I'm suggesting is that with any insert of an object
like this, the main spatial quality of the shot is the sheer size of
the blown-up object. And because I'm inept in dealing with
abstractions (ANY shot of a doorbell, as opposed to a specific one),
all I can think of are Hitchcock's giant objects and Eisenstein's. I
think something that Eisenstein foregrounds is already there in
Hitchcock and the example of the doorbell I gave from Truffaut: Blown
up to 20-feet high, ordinary objects become monstrous and actually
suggest all sorts of meanings, but first of all "monstrosity." This
would be the doorbell as metaphor, I guess.
Now there may be lots of shots of doorbells where this doesn't
happen, so that the doorbell is just an abstract indicator that
someone is ringing the doorbell, but at the moment, I'm dealing with
an abstract for-instance shot of a doorbell, which is of course
devoid of spatial qualities by definition.
I'm nonetheless inclined to believe that Dan and Rohmer are right,
and it's an important point. In that context, the monstrousness of
the inserts in Eisenstein or Hitchcock - where the size of an object,
I suspect, has connotations of cosmic power: his objects are always
driving the plot in some way - is an example of the work Dan says you
have to do to "put space back" into a shot - insert or otherwise -
that has been drained of it by being made a mere scripted place-
holder.
27731
From: MG4273@...
Date: Thu Jun 2, 2005 10:15pm
Subject: Re: Mike Grost on The Immortal Story nzkpzq
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Thanks JPC, for the kind words.
The post did not say so, but this is my all-time favorite Welles movie - and
they are all really remarkable. Loved seeing it in 1973, at a college
cafeteria which showed movies on weekends at dinner - they booked the film to watch
while people were eating dorm food... It didn't hurt it at all. The recent
re-broadcast on TCM allowed a second (and third) viewing.
Also loved seeing Mr. Arkadin again, an endlessly inventive work.
Mike Grost
27732
From: Adrian Martin
Date: Fri Jun 3, 2005 5:38am
Subject: Re: Voici apmartin90
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In case no bibliophile with groaning shelves has answered this yet, let
me reach into the 'F' (not for Fake) section of my periodicals to
declare conclusively: Bill K's very useful translation of, and intro
to, Bonitzer's "Here: The Notion of the Shot and Subject in the Cinema"
appeared in FILM READER no. 4, Northwestern University, 1979. This was
an excellent academic journal that only lasted, I think, to issue 5,
but had many good pieces and translations in its day, including a good
CITIZEN KANE dossier, and a terrific piece (on Joan Crawford, if I
recall correctly) by Jean-Loup Bourget. Bill's translation appeared in
a special 'Point of View' dossier.
I have several times in my life quoted Bill's great line in this '79
intro, where he refers to a group of films (by Jacquot, Ruiz, Eustache,
Truffaut) as works which "display the erotic paradoxes of classical
cinema (Hitchcock's cinema, not Eisenstein's) and reflect its
extinguished brilliance at quirky angles, and with a lunar pallor".
Erotic paradoxes, anyone?
Adrian
27733
From: LiLiPUT1@...
Date: Fri Jun 3, 2005 3:58am
Subject: Re: Re: Voici scil1973
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In a message dated 6/3/05 12:44:42 AM, apmartin@... writes:
> and a terrific piece (on Joan Crawford, if I recall correctly) by Jean-Loup
> Bourget.
>
If it's the same one that appeared in Marcia Landy's anthology on melodrama,
I think it's terrible.
Kevin John
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
27734
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Fri Jun 3, 2005 8:14am
Subject: Re: Voici hotlove666
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--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Adrian Martin wrote:
>
> I have several times in my life quoted Bill's great line in this '79
> intro, where he refers to a group of films (by Jacquot, Ruiz,
Eustache,
> Truffaut) as works which "display the erotic paradoxes of classical
> cinema (Hitchcock's cinema, not Eisenstein's) and reflect its
> extinguished brilliance at quirky angles, and with a lunar pallor".
>
> Erotic paradoxes, anyone?
>
Are there any other kind? Thanks, Adrian - I have always been proud of
that line, which also slyly refers to Pacscal's own lunar pallor, and
could now refer to his films as well.
27735
From: MG4273@...
Date: Sat Jun 4, 2005 10:42am
Subject: My Date With the President's Daughter (Alex Zamm) nzkpzq
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"My Date With the President's Daughter" (Alex Zamm, 1998) is a comedy feature
made for TV - the US Cable TV "Disney Channel". This produces a mountain of
feature-length films, which are rarely viewed by anyone over 18. They are never
reviewed, and are never discussed or viewed by film historians, except on
very rare occasions (such as Charles Burnett's "nightjohn".). Many of these have
teenage protagonists.
"My Date With the President's Daughter" is a pleasing comedy. Had it been
made in 1938 by Columbia, people would still be talking about it. Although it is
more low key, and unfortunately not as funny, as the best of screwball 1930's
comedy.
"My Date With the President's Daughter" is not especially political. It was
made during the Clinton years, when the US was at peace and the economy was
booming. Many people viewed the President and the First Family with affection. A
film like this, which treats the President as just another guy, would probably
not be makeable today. This comment is not intended to lecture the list about
politics - just to suggest the light-hearted context of this film no longer
exists, and seems to belong to another era of history already. One might also
add that the Presdient and his daughter in this film are in no way clones of
Bill or Chelsea Clinton - they are completely fictional characters.
The subject of this film is not poltics. Its subject is worlds in collision.
Characters are constantly rubbing up with people and events outside of their
own experience. There is a sort of pop surrealism operating here. The film is
also surrealistic, in its suggestion that sexual desire can cut through walls
of social convention, and lead to strange encounters.
The teen-age hero of this film is especially likeable. He is a nice and
square kid, un-hip and un-popular. He is very intelligent, but does not have all
the answers. His strange adventures, which start when he asks a nice girl he
meets in the mall for a date, just keep spiralling in all directions.
One does not want to over-sell this film. A single viewing does not suggest
it is rich in visual style. Still, it is a pleasing entertainment, and one with
some nice encounters.
Mike Grost
27736
From: "thebradstevens"
Date: Sat Jun 4, 2005 5:14pm
Subject: Re: My Date With the President's Daughter (Alex Zamm) thebradstevens
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The Disney Channel has also produced some interesting films by Maggie
Greenwald and Susan Seidelman.
27737
From: "thebradstevens"
Date: Sat Jun 4, 2005 5:18pm
Subject: From Sirk to Mao? thebradstevens
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While reading THE GUARDIAN's review of Jung Chang's MAO: THE UNKNOWN
STORY, I notced that the book's co-author was one Jon Halliday. In
the review, Halliday is described as Chang's "historian husband". Is
this the same Jon Halliday who wrote SIRK ON SIRK?
27738
From: MG4273@...
Date: Sat Jun 4, 2005 3:38pm
Subject: Re: My Date With the President's Daughter (Alex Zamm) nzkpzq
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In a message dated 05-06-04 13:25:19 EDT, Brad Stevens writes:
<< The Disney Channel has also produced some interesting films by Maggie
Greenwald and Susan Seidelman. >>
Another worthwhile film from the same outlet:
"The Color of Friendship" (Kevin Hooks, 2000)
This is a well-done story about a white high-schooler who comes from South
Africa to the US during the apartheid period, and her culture-shock difficulty
adjusting to racial integration in the US. It is straightforwardly told,
style-wise, but full of fascinating content.
"My Date With the President's Daughter" is far sillier than this; it is a
light comedy with little didactic import. Still, it has its moments.
It is surely worth remembering that the world of film is very vast, and that
art might lurk in neglected corners of it.
Mike Grost
27739
From: "peckinpah20012000"
Date: Sat Jun 4, 2005 8:24pm
Subject: Re: From Sirk to Mao? peckinpah200...
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--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
wrote:
> While reading THE GUARDIAN's review of Jung Chang's MAO: THE UNKNOWN
> STORY, I notced that the book's co-author was one Jon Halliday. In
> the review, Halliday is described as Chang's "historian husband". Is
> this the same Jon Halliday who wrote SIRK ON SIRK?
It is. But Halliday is also an historian who has collaborated with
Bruce Cummings on alternative readings of the Korean war. He also
wrote the old BFI monograph on PASOLINI but under the pseudonym of
Oswald Stack. This is because the semiological and Lacanian group
behind SCREEN had it in for Pasolini because of his alternative, non-
Metzian approach to semiotics which you will find contained in
Pasolini's book collection on the subject titled HERETICAL EMPIRICISM
(sic ?)
Tony Williams
27740
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Sat Jun 4, 2005 9:32pm
Subject: Revenge of the Pink Panther hotlove666
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This is the only Panther movie I missed - in fact, I wasn't even aware
I'd missed it. I was out of the country a lot the year it played. It's
the last one made before Sellers' death - to distinguish it from the
ones made AFTER his death, in which he still "appears" - so for me it
was closing a circle: I snuck into The Pink Panther maybe 20 times my
freshman year in college, always arriving in time for Fran Jeffries'
dance. Seeing Revenge last night (a letterbox cassette I scored at
Amoeba for 2 bucks), I said goodbye to Sellers and Clouseau, as Edwards
perhaps did making it.
Sellers does not look fit in this one, which I guess is why Burt Kwouk
(Cato) becomes a major character - he can do the tougher slapstick in
place of the star. No one in his right mind would ever claim anything
but minor status for ROTPP as an Edwards-Sellers film, although as
usual Maltin gets the "good parts" wrong: The slapstick chases in HK
that he seems to have enjoyed smell of death... until you realize that
Edwards is harking back to the wonderful chase (and fireworks) at the
end of The Pink Panther, rather than to the Keystone Cops. Certainly
does seem like a self-conscious wrapping up of things, in any event.
What struck me - so much that I had to check the package to make sure I
was watching the write tape - is the slow build-up to the order to
assassinate Clouse: all those non-comic gangster scenes played out
mostly in static all-in-ones that exploit the Scope frame. Even more
surprising: They continue. In the middle of the film there's a long
scene between Robert Webber as the head gangster and his mistress
played by Dyan Cannon where he tells her their affair is over: it goes
on for 5 minutes, and is again played as an all-in-one w. wide Scope
framing.
It's as if the imbalance struck by the PPs after the first - even Shot
in the Dark, IMO - between the "straight" plot and Sellers, who becomes
cartoon-y and eats up the whole movie starting wit Shot - is being
redressed. After all, Clouseau was originally one character among four
or five in a farce with a serious edge to it: Ustinov was going to play
the part. What finally happens in ROTPP is that he gets back his
realistic frame to play against, even though he has become a completely
fantastic character, his "disguises" a series of comedy sketches. Lewis
seems to be an influence: The long opening sequence re: The Patsy,
other things in the film re: Family Jewels.
But the separation between the two plots - the two "lines" of the
story - is as systematic as the separation between the "brothel"/"real
life" lines that Belle de Jour is built around. So much so that when an
element from the Clouseau plot "crosses the line," it becomes a gag in
and of itself: The two elevator scenes, for instance: Cato (blinded by
fake glasses) blundering into the elevator with one group of gangsters,
or Sellers, in his "Godfather disguise," farting in the elevator with
another group: Edwards keeps the camera locked down and directs a whole
choreography of eyes rolling, shifting, fixing or disclaiming guilt or
looking down after the offensive sound is heard that really is like a
Tati gag. Identified as the offender, Clouseau/Brando turns his back to
the rest of the people in the elevator in shame.
In fact, as I watched ROTPP, I thought of all those directors today who
use a locked-down camera filming wide shots - no need to name names,
but I'm thinking "art house" - who get so much less out of the device
than Edwards does here. Of course, for Edwards this was the end of one
thing and the beginning of another: After TROTPP he made 10, SOB and
victor/Victoria! When I do rewatch 10 one of these days I'm going to
look for those wide all-inones to see if he carried the experiment over
into his new existence. Anyway, there's a lot of Antonioni creeping in
around the edges obn this one, a lot of death. All in all, I think I
like it better than any of the Clouseaus except the original PP.
27741
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat Jun 4, 2005 10:03pm
Subject: Re: Revenge of the Pink Panther cellar47
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--- hotlove666 wrote:
>
> In fact, as I watched ROTPP, I thought of all those
> directors today who
> use a locked-down camera filming wide shots - no
> need to name names,
> but I'm thinking "art house" - who get so much less
> out of the device
> than Edwards does here. Of course, for Edwards this
> was the end of one
> thing and the beginning of another: After TROTPP he
> made 10, SOB and
> victor/Victoria! When I do rewatch 10 one of these
> days I'm going to
> look for those wide all-inones to see if he carried
> the experiment over
> into his new existence.
Actually he didn't.
What you're talking about here relatest to Edwards not
only trying to minimize the impact of being forced to
work with Sellers' insanity (and I'm tlaking literal
insanity here) but his considerable personal contempt
for Sellers at this point in their respective careers.
"S.O.B." is a work of dizzying comic freedom.
Anyway, there's a lot of
> Antonioni creeping in
> around the edges obn this one, a lot of death.
Which in "The Passenger" are the same thing.
But Edwards is trying for something else -- work
completely in opposition to a project he'd come to
loathe and make it "work" in spite of itself.
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27742
From: "Jonathan Rosenbaum"
Date: Sat Jun 4, 2005 10:47pm
Subject: Re: From Sirk to Mao? dreyertati
Offline Offline
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Halliday is also an historian who has collaborated with
> Bruce Cummings on alternative readings of the Korean war. He also
> wrote the old BFI monograph on PASOLINI but under the pseudonym of
> Oswald Stack. This is because the semiological and Lacanian group
> behind SCREEN had it in for Pasolini because of his alternative, non-
> Metzian approach to semiotics which you will find contained in
> Pasolini's book collection on the subject titled HERETICAL
EMPIRICISM
> (sic ?)
>
> Tony Williams
Apparently another factor--according to Paul Willemen--was Pasolini
saying something in support of the police. I thought it was virtually
the epitome of SCREEN's political solipsism in that era that such
a "principled" political stand was designed to be understood by
practically no one apart from a few members of an inner circle.
Jonathan
27743
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat Jun 4, 2005 11:11pm
Subject: Re: Re: From Sirk to Mao? cellar47
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--- Jonathan Rosenbaum
wrote:
>
> Apparently another factor--according to Paul
> Willemen--was Pasolini
> saying something in support of the police. I thought
> it was virtually
> the epitome of SCREEN's political solipsism in that
> era that such
> a "principled" political stand was designed to be
> understood by
> practically no one apart from a few members of an
> inner circle.
>
Pasolini spoke in defense of the police who were sent
to put down May 68 demonstrators. Why? If you know
Pasolini it was a typical gesture of solidarity with
the lower classses -- from whose ranks the police came
from -- and disdain for the bourgeoisie -- from whose
ranks the demonstrators came from.
This was, of course, way above SCREEN's head.
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27744
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Sat Jun 4, 2005 11:50pm
Subject: Re: Revenge of the Pink Panther jpcoursodon
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--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666" wrote:
Anyway, there's a lot of Antonioni creeping in
> around the edges obn this one, a lot of death. All in all, I think I
> like it better than any of the Clouseaus except the original PP.
Dream of an intoxicated auteurist: Antonioni directs a Clouseau
episode and in exchange Edwards directs an Antonioni project (take
your pick, all are great fun). JPC
27745
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 0:46am
Subject: Re: Re: Revenge of the Pink Panther cellar47
Offline Offline
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--- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
> Dream of an intoxicated auteurist: Antonioni
> directs a Clouseau
> episode and in exchange Edwards directs an Antonioni
> project (take
> your pick, all are great fun).
I can easily imagine a Blake Edwards version of "Blow-Up."
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27746
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 1:29am
Subject: Re: Revenge of the Pink Panther jpcoursodon
Offline Offline
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--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
>
> --- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
>
> >
> > Dream of an intoxicated auteurist: Antonioni
> > directs a Clouseau
> > episode and in exchange Edwards directs an Antonioni
> > project (take
> > your pick, all are great fun).
>
> I can easily imagine a Blake Edwards version of "Blow-Up."
>
> Of course, but I was thinking more in therms of "La Notte" or some
such. JPC
>
> __________________________________
> Yahoo! Mail Mobile
> Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone.
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27747
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 1:55am
Subject: Re: Re: Revenge of the Pink Panther cellar47
Offline Offline
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--- jpcoursodon wrote:
> >
> > Of course, but I was thinking more in therms of
> "La Notte" or some
> such.
Well Julie Andrews does have a Jeanne Moreau side.
Monica Vitti might be a stretch.
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27748
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 2:31am
Subject: Re: Revenge of the Pink Panther hotlove666
Offline Offline
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--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> Monica Vitti might be a stretch.
Edwards has been thinking in his retirement about a female Clouseau
(just hinted at in the last scene of Son, when the Daughter appears
at the funeral and is equally inept), and Vitti, who's a good comic
actress, would have been at least as good as Begnini. Imagine
L'eclisse with the Vitti character constantly running into doors,
tripping over her own feet. Edwards says that the film he would like
to imitate (as a comedy!) is some British film about a woman who
trips hilariously getting off a bus at the beginning, etc., then
turns out to have some degenerative nerve disease.
Incidentally, there are some funny moments in Revenge - like the
whole first Sellers scene where he's trying on his Tolouse-Lautrec
disguise. Two Mafia messengers ring the doorbell of the disguise
shop, and when Clouseau answers, they hand him a lit bomb out of a
30s comic strip. He gropes around for change to give them a tip, then
apologetically explains: "Sorry, I'm a little short."
The racist gags (constant use of "yellow" re: Cato) were presumably
Sellers improvs that the director couldn't cut around. But it is
interesting to see HK-style fight scenes already cropping up in a
1978 film. I know John Carpenter looked at Warriors of the Mystic
Mountain before making Big Trouble in Little China; I wonder if
Edwards was an early HK borrower. In any case, the broad slapstick
and cartoon imagery of the late Clouseaus would have assured them an
Asian popular audience.
27749
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 3:07am
Subject: Re: re: Group Business (cinematic deafness) sallitt1
Offline Offline
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> "... the group has lost its
> main purpose as a place to discuss film primarily from a visual
> standpoint"
>
> Hey, now I can get mad too! VISUAL AND AURAL, please, cinema is IMAGE
> AND SOUND.
I just revisited the Statement of Purpose and was relieved that a search
for the word "visual" returned no matches. The recurring phrase is "film
as art."
Bazin rejected the idea of film as a visual medium. I know he's not
everyone's touchstone, but he would certainly be allowed to post here. -
Dan
27750
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 3:13am
Subject: Re: Scorsese summarized for all-time sallitt1
Offline Offline
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>> Also, surprised to hear that you think MEAN STREETS is
>> overrated.
>
> It's a nice little movie, but it's been asked to carry
> a whole lot more weight that it can. Moreover the
> praise heaped on it has led to far many presumably
> thoughtful people overlooking its predecessor, "Who's
> That Knocking at My Door." While seen by fewer people
> it's a MUCH more important film for Marty in that its
> most heartfelt expression of cinephilia AND his most
> naked admission of incomprehension of women.
At the risk of sounding like a provocateur, WHO'S THAT KNOCKING AT MY DOOR
is still the only Scorsese work that I would call an outright good film. -
Dan
27751
From: Matt Teichman
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 3:23am
Subject: Re: Group Business (cinematic deafness) bufordrat
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Dan Sallitt wrote:
>Bazin rejected the idea of film as a visual medium. I know he's not
>everyone's touchstone, but he would certainly be allowed to post here. -
>Dan
>
>
Which Bazin text do you have in mind here?
-Matt
27752
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 3:21am
Subject: Re: Re: Revenge of the Pink Panther cellar47
Offline Offline
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--- hotlove666 wrote:
>
> Edwards has been thinking in his retirement about a
> female Clouseau
> (just hinted at in the last scene of Son, when the
> Daughter appears
> at the funeral and is equally inept), and Vitti,
> who's a good comic
> actress, would have been at least as good as
> Begnini. Imagine
> L'eclisse with the Vitti character constantly
> running into doors,
> tripping over her own feet.
Edwards would have been a good choice for "Modesty
Blaise II" had the original not been Too Hip for the
House.
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27753
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 3:23am
Subject: Re: Scorsese summarized for all-time cellar47
Offline Offline
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--- Dan Sallitt wrote:
>
> At the risk of sounding like a provocateur, WHO'S
> THAT KNOCKING AT MY DOOR
> is still the only Scorsese work that I would call an
> outright good film. -
You've risked a lot more than being called a mere
ocateur."
So to you "New York New York," "The King of Comedy,"
"After Hours," "Casino" and "The Aviator" are just so
much chopped liver, eh?
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27754
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 3:27am
Subject: Re: Group Business (cinematic deafness) jpcoursodon
Offline Offline
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--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
>
> Bazin rejected the idea of film as a visual medium. I know he's not
> everyone's touchstone, but he would certainly be allowed to post
here. -
> Dan
I should brush up my Bazin (sorry, David, no lyrics) but I don't quite
recall where AB wrote that cinema was not visual.
Of course it's amusing to argue such things as: music is really a
visual medium, while film is basically musical etc... Baudelaire,
Rimbaud showed the way...
JPC
27755
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 3:31am
Subject: Re: Re: Group Business (cinematic deafness) sallitt1
Offline Offline
Send Email Send Email
>> Bazin rejected the idea of film as a visual medium. I know he's not
>> everyone's touchstone, but he would certainly be allowed to post here. -
>>
> Which Bazin text do you have in mind here?
I'm thinking of "The Evolution of the Language of Cinema." Bazin opposed
"those directors who put their faith in the image" to "those who put their
faith in reality"; he's polite about it, but he is speaking in defense of
the latter. - Dan
27756
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 3:36am
Subject: Re: Scorsese summarized for all-time sallitt1
Offline Offline
Send Email Send Email
>> At the risk of sounding like a provocateur, WHO'S
>> THAT KNOCKING AT MY DOOR
>> is still the only Scorsese work that I would call an
>> outright good film. -
>
> You've risked a lot more than being called a mere
> ocateur."
Oh, well, I live dangerously.
> So to you "New York New York," "The King of Comedy,"
> "After Hours," "Casino" and "The Aviator" are just so
> much chopped liver, eh?
That is *not* a collection of my favorite Scorseses...but, no, not chopped
liver. I almost always think his talent shows, but his sensibility seems
limited to me. - Dan
27757
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 3:36am
Subject: Re: Revenge of the Pink Panther jpcoursodon
Offline Offline
Send Email Send Email
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
>
> --- hotlove666 wrote:
>
>
> >
> > Edwards has been thinking in his retirement about a
> > female Clouseau
> > (just hinted at in the last scene of Son, when the
> > Daughter appears
> > at the funeral and is equally inept), and Vitti,
> > who's a good comic
> > actress, would have been at least as good as
> > Begnini. Imagine
> > L'eclisse with the Vitti character constantly
> > running into doors,
> > tripping over her own feet.
>
> Is there good physical comedy possible in beautiful, sexy
actresses doing pratfalls? I'm not saying categorically No, but it
has been tried so very little and to such poor results that I would
tend to suspect it just doesn't work. All sorts of reasons for that
I won't get into... JPC
> Edwards would have been a good choice for "Modesty
> Blaise II" had the original not been Too Hip for the
> House.
The original's hipness was just heavy-handed at the time, and now
looks so old-fashioned. Perhaps twenty years from now I'll find it
irresistible. JPC
>
>
> __________________________________
> Discover Yahoo!
> Find restaurants, movies, travel and more fun for the weekend.
Check it out!
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27758
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 3:39am
Subject: Re: Group Business (cinematic deafness) jpcoursodon
Offline Offline
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--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> >> Bazin rejected the idea of film as a visual medium. I know he's
not
> >> everyone's touchstone, but he would certainly be allowed to post
here. -
> >>
> > Which Bazin text do you have in mind here?
>
> I'm thinking of "The Evolution of the Language of Cinema." Bazin
opposed
> "those directors who put their faith in the image" to "those who put
their
> faith in reality"; he's polite about it, but he is speaking in
defense of
> the latter. - Dan
Oh, and reality and the image are mutually exclusive?
Again, I have to re-read that text. JPC
27759
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 3:39am
Subject: Re: Re: Revenge of the Pink Panther sallitt1
Offline Offline
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> But it is interesting to see HK-style fight scenes already cropping up
> in a 1978 film.
Bruce Lee was mighty popular back then. - Dan
27760
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 3:43am
Subject: Re: Re: Group Business (cinematic deafness) sallitt1
Offline Offline
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>> I'm thinking of "The Evolution of the Language of Cinema." Bazin
>> opposed "those directors who put their faith in the image" to "those
>> who put their faith in reality"; he's polite about it, but he is
>> speaking in defense of the latter. - Dan
>
> Oh, and reality and the image are mutually exclusive?
Well, no....
> Again, I have to re-read that text. JPC
Okay, let's pick the thread up then. - Dan
27761
From: bear@...
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 3:48am
Subject: Re: Scorsese summarized for all-time noelmu_2000
Offline Offline
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Quoting Dan Sallitt :
> > So to you "New York New York," "The King of Comedy,"
> > "After Hours," "Casino" and "The Aviator" are just so
> > much chopped liver, eh?
>
> That is *not* a collection of my favorite Scorseses...but, no, not chopped
> liver. I almost always think his talent shows, but his sensibility seems
> limited to me. - Dan
Dan, I've heard you express your lack of enthusiasm for Scorsese before and I
understand where you're coming from though I don't agree. I'm curious, though
... what do you think of Michael Powell? What's always impressed me most about
Scorsese is his adherence to Powell's theory of the "composed film." When he's
on his game -- most recently in the opening sequence of GANGS OF NEW YORK and
roughly the first hour of THE AVIATOR -- the rhythm of the editing, the sound
design, the camera moves and the performances have a musical quality that
transcends what's actually happening on the screen. The action is rendered
almost as pure, raw emotion.
His biggest problem is that he usually can't sustain the mood for a full
feature. As much as I love Scorsese, only one of his movies would make my
all-time favorites list, and that's GOODFELLAS, which holds together best
because its essential motivations are base and trashy. It feels unpretentious
and true.
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27762
From: bear@...
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 3:49am
Subject: Re: Scorsese summarized for all-time noelmu_2000
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bear@... ....
Sorry, forgot to sign that last post. This is Noel Murray.
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27763
From: "Richard Modiano"
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 3:51am
Subject: Re: From Sirk to Mao? tharpa2002
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--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "peckinpah20012000"
wrote:
"...Halliday is also an historian who has collaborated with Bruce
Cummings on alternative readings of the Korean war."
The book is called "Korea: The Unknown War" and was intended as the
companion volume to a PBS series of the same title directed by
Halliday and co-written with Cummings. Supposed to be telecast in
1988, PBS got cold feet and insisted on changes, and since WGBH of
Boston was the producer the changes were made over the objections of
Halliday and Cummings and withpout their involvement. It was finally
shown in 1989 or '90.
Cummings is the author of "The Origins of the Korean War" a 2 volume
study that makes use of all available sources (USA, USSR, PRC, ROK
but not North Korea.) He accompanied Kim Dae Jung back to Korea
(along with a congressman and a State Dept. official) so that if
security forces tried to assasinate him (like what happened to
Benigno Acquino when he returned to the Phillipines) there'd be
witnesses.
Halliday is an Asia hand from the Viet Nam War era specializing in
East Asia. I heard of him in this capacity before I knew that he
authored the Sirk book.
Richard
27764
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 4:09am
Subject: Re: Scorsese summarized for all-time sallitt1
Offline Offline
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On Sat, 4 Jun 2005, bear@... wrote:
Is that Noel? I didn't know that you were here.
> Dan, I've heard you express your lack of enthusiasm for Scorsese before
> and I understand where you're coming from though I don't agree. I'm
> curious, though ... what do you think of Michael Powell?
I love Powell, actually.
> What's always
> impressed me most about Scorsese is his adherence to Powell's theory of
> the "composed film." When he's on his game -- most recently in the
> opening sequence of GANGS OF NEW YORK and roughly the first hour of THE
> AVIATOR -- the rhythm of the editing, the sound design, the camera moves
> and the performances have a musical quality that transcends what's
> actually happening on the screen. The action is rendered almost as pure,
> raw emotion.
I do see some common ground between those guys: for instance, they do
sometimes seem to use editing more for rhythm and less to express the
difference between any two consecutive shots. Powell seems to have a
pretty direct Eisenstein influence at times; Scorsese's images are maybe a
little more fluid, and so they don't seem to collide as much in an edited
sequence as Powell's or Eisenstein's.
I've felt that "musical" feeling at times about Scorsese. There was a
point in KUNDUN - I can't remember exactly when, but in one of those "time
is passing" interludes that is carried mostly by rhythm - when I thought,
"Geez, who else could harmonize all these elements so well?"
I generally don't have as many "musical" feelings about Powell. The
editing takes over sometimes, but there's often a lot of stasis in his
style, a kind of staring at paradoxes.
> His biggest problem is that he usually can't sustain the mood for a full
> feature. As much as I love Scorsese, only one of his movies would make
> my all-time favorites list, and that's GOODFELLAS, which holds together
> best because its essential motivations are base and trashy. It feels
> unpretentious and true.
GOODFELLAS strikes me as one of the better ones too. And RAGING BULL has
extraordinary things in it (though I hate the boxing scenes).
I dunno, the guy often seems somewhat adolescent to me: kind of grandiose,
and not very thoughtful. - Dan
27765
From: "Richard Modiano"
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 4:09am
Subject: Re: Revenge of the Pink Panther tharpa2002
Offline Offline
Send Email Send Email
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
"Is there good physical comedy possible in beautiful, sexy actresses
doing pratfalls? I'm not saying categorically No, but it has been
tried so very little and to such poor results that I would tend to
suspect it just doesn't work. All sorts of reasons for that I won't get
into..."
Since beautiful, sexy actresses have done physical action and stunts
(Michelle Yeoh, Maggie Chung, Anita Mui, Zhang Ziyi among others)with
good results, an ingenious director should be able to achieve similiar
results with pratfalls and other physical comedy.
Richard
27766
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 5:29am
Subject: Re: Re: A thought about BLACK NARCISSUS sallitt1
Offline Offline
Send Email Send Email
> Digression from or excess to the narrative line, whether in an image, a
> camera movement, a character action, is in itself a way that the Archers
> exerted their sensibility (-ies), and a site for further expression.
Talkin' 'bout excess: did you see THEY'RE A WEIRD MOB? That film is
crazy! Scenes or shots drag on to the point of surrealism, and it's hard
to tell if it's comedy or something else. I kind of liked the film,
though I couldn't get a handle on every part of it. - Dan
27767
From: Fred Camper
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 5:59am
Subject: Statement of Purpose Change (was: Group Business (cinematic deafness)) fredcamper
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In response to discussions here, and Dan's recent post at
http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/a_film_by/message/27749 , we have
made a change to our Statement of Purpose.
We have changed the passage that read:
On the contrary, it is one of the tenets of auteurism that some
directors of narrative movies made with large crews imprint their
visions primarily through the mise en scene - through composition,
camera movement, editing, blocking, light, and so on - and not
necessarily through the story or screenplay.
to
On the contrary, it is one of the tenets of auteurism that some
directors of narrative movies made with large crews imprint their
visions primarily through the mise en scene - through composition,
camera movement, editing, blocking, light, use of sound, directorial
control of acting styles, and so on - rather than primarily through the
choices of subject matter, and screenplay if any.
Peter, Aaron, and Fred
Your co-moderators
27768
From: "thebradstevens"
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 10:23am
Subject: Re: Revenge of the Pink Panther thebradstevens
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--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
> Dream of an intoxicated auteurist: Antonioni directs a Clouseau
> episode and in exchange Edwards directs an Antonioni project (take
> your pick, all are great fun). JPC
S.O.B. is essentially a variation on the exploding house scene in
ZABRISKIE POINT.
And just watch John Malkovich's reaction when Sophie Marceau admits
to having killed her father in BEYOND THE CLOUDS. The look of open-
mouthed horror that appears on his face is pure Blake Edwards.
27769
From: "allegra@..."
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 11:17am
Subject: Re: Re: Group Business (cinematic deafness) allegra423
Online Now Send IM
Send Email Send Email
Regarding the following exchange:
>> Bazin rejected the idea of film as a visual medium. I know he's not everyone's touchstone, but he would certainly be allowed to post here. -
>>
> Which Bazin text do you have in mind here?
>> I'm thinking of "The Evolution of the Language of Cinema." Bazin opposed "those directors who put their faith in the image" to "those who put their faith in reality"; he's polite about it, but he is speaking in defense of the latter. - Dan
You may also wish to check the chapter, "The Myth of Total Cinema," in which Bazin writes: "The primacy of the image is both historically and technically accidental."
Leslie
Dan Sallitt wrote:
>> Bazin rejected the idea of film as a visual medium. I know he's not
>> everyone's touchstone, but he would certainly be allowed to post here. -
>>
> Which Bazin text do you have in mind here?
I'm thinking of "The Evolution of the Language of Cinema." Bazin opposed
"those directors who put their faith in the image" to "those who put their
faith in reality"; he's polite about it, but he is speaking in defense of
the latter. - Dan
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27770
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 0:51pm
Subject: Re: Revenge of the Pink Panther jpcoursodon
Offline Offline
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--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Modiano"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
> wrote:
>
> "Is there good physical comedy possible in beautiful, sexy
actresses
> doing pratfalls? I'm not saying categorically No, but it has been
> tried so very little and to such poor results that I would tend
to
> suspect it just doesn't work. All sorts of reasons for that I
won't get
> into..."
>
> Since beautiful, sexy actresses have done physical action and
stunts
> (Michelle Yeoh, Maggie Chung, Anita Mui, Zhang Ziyi among others)
with
> good results, an ingenious director should be able to achieve
similiar
> results with pratfalls and other physical comedy.
>
> Richard
He should, maybe, but the point is that no one ever does it. There
must be a reason.
How come all the great film comedians (all the film comedians,
great or otherwise, really) have been males? Why no female Chaplin
or Keaton? Why no female Laurel and Hardy? Why no Marx Sisters?
Maybe it's more a subject for feminist and "gender" studies than for
a_film_by but I find it quite interesting to ponder.
I'm not saying, of course, that "beautiful, sexy" actresses are
by nature unable to do physical comedy, but their potential ability
has practically never been exploited. As though it was taken for
granted that the two wouldn't mix, that there is some kind of taboo
attached to it.
Even in a screwball comedy that at times verges on slastick --
"Bringing Up Baby" -- you'll note it's Grant who does all the
pratfalls.
JPC
27771
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 1:13pm
Subject: Re: Group Business (cinematic deafness) jpcoursodon
Offline Offline
Send Email Send Email
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "allegra@p..." wrote:
>>
> You may also wish to check the chapter, "The Myth of Total Cinema,"
in which Bazin writes: "The primacy of the image is both historically
and technically accidental."
>
> Leslie
>
> This is quoted out of context. Bazin was just challenging the once
widespread opinion that silent film was superior to sound film, "a
kind of primitive perfection." The quoted sentence means that the fact
that film was first image without sound (or color)was just a technical
accident (because the early pionners all sought "integral imitation of
nature.")
JPC
27772
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 1:31pm
Subject: Re: Scorsese summarized for all-time cellar47
Offline Offline
Send Email Send Email
--- Dan Sallitt wrote:
> That is *not* a collection of my favorite
> Scorseses...but, no, not chopped
> liver. I almost always think his talent shows, but
> his sensibility seems
> limited to me.
There are extents and limits to just about every
sensibility. He seems far more aware of his than most
-- a current egregious example of sensibility
limitation being that of his ex-student, Oliver Stone.
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27773
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 1:39pm
Subject: Re: Re: Revenge of the Pink Panther cellar47
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--- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
> The original's hipness was just heavy-handed at
> the time, and now
> looks so old-fashioned. Perhaps twenty years from
> now I'll find it
> irresistible.
Oh I don't know, J-P. "Modesty Blaise" is the most
exquisitely refined piece of intentional camp since
"Ivan the Terrible part II". Consequently you've
either got a taste for it or you don't -- no middle
ground. For me it's the gift that keeps on giving.
Vitti, Stamp, Falk, Revill and above all Bogarde are
now part of my DNA.
And did you know that the servant giving Vitti her
breakfast and stock quotes went on to become Mr.Chow
of Hockney fame?
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27774
From: "thebradstevens"
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 1:42pm
Subject: Re: Revenge of the Pink Panther thebradstevens
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--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
> How come all the great film comedians (all the film comedians,
> great or otherwise, really) have been males? Why no female Chaplin
> or Keaton?
Elaine May's performance in her own film A NEW LEAF should be more
than enough to earn her the right to be called one of the great film
comedians. See also Marion Davies in SHOW PEOPLE.
27775
From: "allegra@..."
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 1:44pm
Subject: Re: Re: Group Business (cinematic deafness) allegra423
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Send Email Send Email
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon@y..." jpcoursodon@... wrote:
> This is quoted out of context. Bazin was just challenging the once widespread opinion that silent film was superior to sound film, "a kind of primitive perfection." The quoted sentence means that the fact that film was first image without sound (or color)was just a technical accident (because the early pionners all sought "integral imitation of nature.")
You're absolutely right, of course; it's always dangerous to quote out of context. If I may, I'd liek to add something Bazin also wrote in that chapter: "In any case, there was not a single inventor who did not try to combine sound and relief with animation of the image -- whether it be Edison with his kinetoscope made to be attached to a phonograph, or Demenay and his talking portraits, or even Nadar who shortly before producing the first photographic interview, on Chevreul, had written: "My dream is to see the photograph register the bodily movements and the facial expressions of a speaker while the phonograph is recording his speech." While this certainly does not change the verity of your assertion, it may suggest that Bazin did not consider film a visual medium to the extent that sound was a distant second.
jpcoursodon wrote:
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "allegra@p..." wrote:
>>
> You may also wish to check the chapter, "The Myth of Total Cinema,"
in which Bazin writes: "The primacy of the image is both historically
and technically accidental."
>
> Leslie
>
> This is quoted out of context. Bazin was just challenging the once
widespread opinion that silent film was superior to sound film, "a
kind of primitive perfection." The quoted sentence means that the fact
that film was first image without sound (or color)was just a technical
accident (because the early pionners all sought "integral imitation of
nature.")
JPC
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27776
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 1:44pm
Subject: Re: Scorsese summarized for all-time cellar47
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--- Dan Sallitt wrote:
>
> > His biggest problem is that he usually can't
> sustain the mood for a full
> > feature. As much as I love Scorsese, only one of
> his movies would make
> > my all-time favorites list, and that's GOODFELLAS,
> which holds together
> > best because its essential motivations are base
> and trashy. It feels
> > unpretentious and true.
>
You class anxieties are showing!
> GOODFELLAS strikes me as one of the better ones too.
> And RAGING BULL has
> extraordinary things in it (though I hate the boxing
> scenes).
>
Really? To quote "All ThatJazz," "What's the matter,
folks? Don't you like musical comedy?"
> I dunno, the guy often seems somewhat adolescent to
> me: kind of grandiose,
> and not very thoughtful. -
Again, that would be Oliver Stone.
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27777
From: bear@...
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 1:54pm
Subject: comediennes (was: Revenge of the Pink Panther) noelmu_2000
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Quoting jpcoursodon :
> How come all the great film comedians (all the film comedians,
> great or otherwise, really) have been males? Why no female Chaplin
> or Keaton? Why no female Laurel and Hardy? Why no Marx Sisters?
I can think of some who may or may not have gotten their due. In the silent era,
Beatrice Lillie did some very funny work, full of physicality and warmth. From
the "golden age," I'd stack Carole Lombard up against any of her comic co-stars
and even the baggy-pantsers plying their trade at the time.
In '50s and '60s, comic female performances have tended to be more restrained
and character-driven, though I'll always stop and watch any scene that Paula
Prentiss appears in ... she's innately funny, as well as being strikingly
beautiful.
Currently, the best comediennes pop up in character roles -- Catherine Keener,
Sarah Silverman, etc. -- and not so much in leads, though some great
actress-actresses have done some fine comic work. Kate Winslet, for example,
and Emma Thompson.
Probably my favorite current comic actress is Maura Tierney, who's stone face
and expressive arms haven't been given a full workout since her NEWSRADIO days.
-Noel Murray
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27778
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 2:10pm
Subject: Re: comediennes (was: Revenge of the Pink Panther) sallitt1
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>> How come all the great film comedians (all the film comedians,
>> great or otherwise, really) have been males? Why no female Chaplin
>> or Keaton? Why no female Laurel and Hardy? Why no Marx Sisters?
Isn't Lucille Ball usually cited at this point?
I haven't got a formed opinion on this subject. One must be careful with
the "How come all the great X have been males?" template: lots of factors
are involved.
> Probably my favorite current comic actress is Maura Tierney, who's stone
> face and expressive arms haven't been given a full workout since her
> NEWSRADIO days.
I'm not sure if I know her. I'm endlessly impressed with Selma Blair's
comic abilities. - Dan
27779
From: MG4273@...
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 10:28am
Subject: Re: comediennes (was: Revenge of the Pink Panther) nzkpzq
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American TV has alsways been full of comediennes.
Lucille Ball in "I Love Lucy", Joan Davis in "I Married Joan", and Eve Arden
in "Our Miss Brooks" were big in the 1950's. In the 1960's, we had Imogene
Coca in "Grindl" and Carol Burnett in her own show. I grew up watching all of
these shows. Later, such largely female ensembles as "Alice" and "The Facts of
Life" were some of the more endearing sitcoms.
Even in the silent era, there were lots of females whose comedy work is
rarely shown today. Bebe Daniels, Harold Lloyd's leading lady, made lots of solo
outings like "She's a Shiek", which spoofs Rudolph Valentino. Have never had a
chance to see these.
Mike Grost
27780
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 3:28pm
Subject: Re: Statement of Purpose Change (was: Group Business (cinematic deafness)) sallitt1
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> In response to discussions here, and Dan's recent post at
> http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/a_film_by/message/27749 , we have
> made a change to our Statement of Purpose.
I appreciate you taking my post into consideration, but you didn't have to
make the change on my account - I wasn't feeling restricted. Nailing down
the meaning of mise-en-scene is a big order! We've all had to come to our
own understanding with the phrase. - Dan
27781
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 3:41pm
Subject: Re: Re: Words and shots (Was: A thought about BLACK NARCISSUS) sallitt1
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> "The ringing doorbell in silent films...is an extreme example of a
> very common occurence, where the spatial qualities of an image are
> all but obliterated because the image delivers its message too well."
>
> Dosen't your objection depend on what the filmmaker is trying to
> establish with such a shot? It seems to me that in this example the
> filmmaker is using the shot to reduce redundancy, a simple metonymic
> use of the image. Or is there something else at work here?
The examples I've been choosing are pure storytelling devices. The
doorbell shot vanished, like the smoking gun in Westerns, when sound came
in.
It's true that the effect I'm talking about depends on what the filmmaker
is trying to accomplish. I mentioned earlier that the same shot would
feel quite different in an abstract film. Most filmmakers used the shot
functionally, though, the way typists use a shift key.
> Isn't this absence of illusory space only temporary since presumably
> another shot will follow (eventually) that re-establishes space?
It's certainly true that a filmmaker might use the doorbell shot
functionally and then return immediately to an exploration of space.
I'm being a little slippery here. I wanted to introduce the doorbell shot
to establish the idea that a concept might obliterate the spatial content
of a shot. My belief - which I currently lack the knowledge to
demonstrate effectively - is that a lot of shots, not just purely
functional ones like the doorbell shot, are organized in such a way that
their spatial qualities are overridden. - Dan
27782
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 4:13pm
Subject: Re: Re: Words and shots (Was: A thought about BLACK NARCISSUS) sallitt1
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> I don't see how the message (meaning) contained in a shot of an object
> (such as the doorbell) eliminates "space' from the viewer's mind.
> Nothing prevents the object to exist in space while conveying that
> information.
I guess I can't really argue with this. I'm really just putting my
reaction out there, and checking it against others.
I'm curious how this works for you, though. It sounds as if every shot,
no matter how it's composed, conveys a sense of space to you. Does this
level the playing field? If I felt the space in a doorbell shot, I don't
know what I would feel in a Keaton movie. - Dan
27783
From: Fred Camper
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 4:13pm
Subject: Re: Statement of Purpose Change (and Matt Hulse audio works) fredcamper
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Dan Sallitt wrote:
> ....you didn't have to make the change on my account...
It wasn't just your post, but Adrian's earlier one on sound and the
earlier exchanges involving Zach about acting. My "bias" is certainly
visual, and it seemed important that the Statement of Purpose not be
overly skewed in that direction.
The film and video maker Matt Hulse has recently been touring a program
of all audio works, that is, sound compositions designed to be
experienced like movies, in a darkened theater. It's not bad; my capsule
review is at
http://onfilm.chicagoreader.com/movies/capsules/26708_AUDIBLE_PICTURE_SHOW_ORIGINAL_AUDIO_WORKS_FOR_DARKENED_CINEMAS
But I don't think they're films exactly; for that the sound would have
to be on celluloid and the pieces shown on a projector, probably with
the lamp on even if the image were all black. Then they would be the
cinematic equivalent of those truly silent films, such as Brakhage's and
Gehr's and Frampton's, that were actually intended to be shown silent,
with the little white scratches or dots on the prints the equivalent of
the random noises in a theater during a silent film, or, worse, the pops
and crackles sometimes heard when a noisy sound system is mistakenly
left on during a silent film.
Fred Camper
27784
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 4:15pm
Subject: Re: Re: Words and shots (Was: A thought about BLACK NARCISSUS) sallitt1
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> I'm nonetheless inclined to believe that Dan and Rohmer are right,
> and it's an important point. In that context, the monstrousness of
> the inserts in Eisenstein or Hitchcock - where the size of an object,
> I suspect, has connotations of cosmic power: his objects are always
> driving the plot in some way - is an example of the work Dan says you
> have to do to "put space back" into a shot - insert or otherwise -
> that has been drained of it by being made a mere scripted place-
> holder.
Yes, exactly. The conversation started with a discussion of Michael
Powell's strange treatment of shots like the rain on the leaves at the end
of BLACK NARCISSUS, which is practically a doorbell shot: "The rainy
season has arrived." - Dan
27785
From: "Fred Patton"
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 4:27pm
Subject: Re: Words and shots (Was: A thought about BLACK NARCISSUS) fred_patton
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In #27718, Dan Sallit wrote:
"...a very common occurrence, where the spatial qualities of an
image are all but obliterated because the image delivers its message
too well...I propose a paradox: that, even though the camera always
shows space, the filmmaker (or photographer) has to do some work to
overcome the mind's tendency to slap a label on the image and rob it
of its ability to represent space. Not all filmmakers are
interested in this goal."
Though the frame is always the full rectangular area, a viewer
gravitates to visual regions of interest in serial fashion (even
with rapid interleaving of focus). Image elements that deliver their
message before they are fully penetrated visually create gaps in the
composite ROI. One's eyes are already focusing on the next bit of
detail to decode, as thus exclude the already decoded elements. And
of course, indispensable subtitles always have a high priority,
whether intended or not.
Bill Krohn in #27722 notes upon the sheer impression of size of a
shot insert, which is interesting in the case of an object that
delivers it's meaning too well, since it dominates the whole frame
and there is nowhere else to go.
Richard Modiano in #27721 wrote: "Isn't this absence of illusory
space only temporary since presumably another shot will follow
(eventually) that re-establishes space?"
This represents one case. The other case is when an exhausted space
is reconstituted by duration, defamiliarizing it. If the insert or
regions of already decoded frame are lingered on long enough, the
eye will naturally return, looking more closely at the objects,
which are now being looked upon with their finally acknowledged
physicality. To use Dan's words, the image once again represents
space.
Each separate region of interest within the frame is contiguous, but
may compete with other regions of interest that are separated by the
gaps of uninteresting regions, hence the viewer's need/compulsion to
alternate focus. Extreme examples are Mike Figgis' TIME CODE, Eija-
Liisa Ahtila's IF 6 WAS 9, and Paul Morrissey & Andy Warhol's
CHELSEA GIRLS. A more subtle example, which I happen to find
absolutely electrifying, is Apichatpong Weerasethakul's BLISSFULLY
YOURS where a tree splits the frame between two young lovers and a
depressed older woman. The tree remains a dead zone of
unacknowledged physicality because more interesting content is being
offered on both sides of the frame.
Sound can come in and evoke another dimension, because one
instinctively may want to ascribe the sound to something within the
frame, unless it is already established off-screen. This can re-
invigorate dead spaces, even if just momentarily during the semantic
scan for sound association.
Lastly, when strong "choreography" is involved, it can implicate the
viewers eyes into the choreography based upon the camera's moves in
relation to the shifting regions of interest on-screen. The opening
of Michelangelo Antonioni's LA NOTTE has a strong opening in this
fashion. Antonioni also has a habit of making the mundane seem
abstract by preceding it with abstract art, then moving onto found
art, industrial or otherwise, and lingering over it so that it
becomes defamiliarized long enough to assume the new aspect.
FJ Patton
27786
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 4:54pm
Subject: Re: Revenge of the Pink Panther jpcoursodon
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--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
> wrote:
>
> > How come all the great film comedians (all the film comedians,
> > great or otherwise, really) have been males? Why no female Chaplin
> > or Keaton?
>
> Elaine May's performance in her own film A NEW LEAF should be more
> than enough to earn her the right to be called one of the great film
> comedians. See also Marion Davies in SHOW PEOPLE.
I agree that Elaine May is great in A NEW LEAF, but the film is not
what I would call "physical" (let alone slapstick) comedy, which is
what I was talking about. (and then, it's just one film, not a body of
work.)
One problem in such discussions in English is that the
word "comedy" covers a whole range of very dissimilar stuff, from the
Keystone Kops to "Adam's Rib."
You could argue that acting is always "physical", of course. I used
the word for lack of a specific term in English for that sort
of "comedy" (although "slapstick" will do, but it's a bit confining.
Does Keaton do slapstick?)
JPC
27787
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 4:58pm
Subject: Re: Group Business (cinematic deafness) jpcoursodon
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--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "allegra@p..."
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon@y..."
jpcoursodon@y... wrote:
>
> > This is quoted out of context. Bazin was just challenging the
once widespread opinion that silent film was superior to sound
film, "a kind of primitive perfection." The quoted sentence means
that the fact that film was first image without sound (or color)was
just a technical accident (because the early pionners all
sought "integral imitation of nature.")
>
> You're absolutely right, of course; it's always dangerous to quote
out of context. If I may, I'd liek to add something Bazin also
wrote in that chapter: "In any case, there was not a single
inventor who did not try to combine sound and relief with animation
of the image -- whether it be Edison with his kinetoscope made to be
attached to a phonograph, or Demenay and his talking portraits, or
even Nadar who shortly before producing the first photographic
interview, on Chevreul, had written: "My dream is to see the
photograph register the bodily movements and the facial expressions
of a speaker while the phonograph is recording his speech." While
this certainly does not change the verity of your assertion, it may
suggest that Bazin did not consider film a visual medium to the
extent that sound was a distant second.
>
I beg to disagree. His examples just illustrate the point he made in
the brief sentence you originally quoted. JPC
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
27788
From: "Noel Murray"
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 5:08pm
Subject: Noel Murray intro (and A FACE IN THE CROWD) noelmu_2000
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--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> Is that Noel? I didn't know that you were here.
Just joined a week ago.
Not sure if introductions are expected of new members, but though some
of you know me already, here's a brief summary for those who don't (as
well as an explanation of why I'm here, which will provide some
movie-related content). I'm Noel Murray. I'm 34, and I write about
film (among other things) for THE ONION A.V. CLUB and NASHVILLE SCENE.
I live in Conway, Arkansas, which is a small college town near Little
Rock. I'm married with two young children -- a son almost 4 and a
daughter almost 1. My wife Donna Bowman writes occasionally for THE
ONION and the SCENE, but she's primarily an academic. She's got a PhD
in theology, and is the associate director of the Honor's College here
at the University Of Central Arkansas. I myself teach a class at UCA
every spring, on one of three rotating topics: comics, criticism, and
film.
I'm only a quasi-auteurist, since I'm as likely to seek out an old
movie because of its star or subject as its director. But I've been
coming around a little over the past year, ever since I got a TiVo.
That little box is a boon to cineastes, making it easier to record
movies on TCM or FMC or anywhere they happen to be, and easier to
watch them after they've been recorded. And since TiVo lets you enter
the names of favorite directors, it's a snap to keep track of when
AMC's scheduled an Anthony Mann western (in cruddy pan-and-scan,
alas), or the Encore Western channel is showing some Budd Boetticher.
I gorged on Lang, Wyler, Wellman, Ray and Hawks early on, but also
watched a lot of movies directed by relative nobodies. I'm frequently
drawn to comedies and melodramas set in the time in which they were
made, like FATHER WAS A FULLBACK, STELLA DALLAS and GUIDE FOR THE
MARRIED MAN (all of which are by directors of significance), and when
I stumble across movies I really enjoy on TCM like THREE GUYS NAMED
MIKE or THE YOUNGEST PROFESSION, I'll sometimes add their directors to
my TiVo WishList, to check out their other work.
Anyway, long story short, if you want a recipe for cooking up an
auteurist, my method's a pretty good one. Watch a Fritz Lang movie
back-to-back with something by Don Weis and it's immediately clear
that one's by an artist and one's by a skilled craftsman.
I'm here on this group primarily to read some of the ongoing
discussion about why that is. I still don't have a keen eye for shot
selection or camera moves, even after working as a professional critic
for over a decade. Performance, theme and relevance attract me more.
So consider me a respectful pupil here, looking for insights into the
mechanics of mise-en-scene.
To end on a film discussion note, I recently watched A FACE IN THE
CROWD again for the second time. I saw it first about a decade ago,
and it struck me as overwrought in the manner of a lot of late
`50s/early `60s "issue" dramas, albeit still interesting from a
historical/sociological perspective. Watching it again, juiced up on
about six months of watching a half-dozen or more old movies a week, I
was a lot more impressed by Kazan's work. I know Kazan has a rep as an
actors' director, and not necessarily a distinctive visual stylist,
but while the performances in A FACE IN THE CROWD are definitely
striking, but what I found more astonishing were the varied approaches
to look and tone. It's expressionistic at times, then classically
"Hollywood," then gritty and low, then busy and urbane, then
docu-realistic. There's one shot in particular that I can't shake: a
long hallway shot, lit from above, that looks like it could've been
lensed in the `70s. It feels bracingly modern.
Whether Kazan integrates all of this into something cohesive, I'm not
sure -- that's partly why I joined this group, to learn -- but again,
it's obvious that someone of significant intelligence and
sophistication is behind the camera.
27789
From: "thebradstevens"
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 5:46pm
Subject: Re: Revenge of the Pink Panther thebradstevens
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--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
>
> I agree that Elaine May is great in A NEW LEAF, but the film is
not
> what I would call "physical" (let alone slapstick) comedy, which is
> what I was talking about. (and then, it's just one film, not a body
of
> work.)
Mabel Normand?
27790
From: "Robert Keser"
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 5:50pm
Subject: Re: Words and shots (Was: A thought about BLACK NARCISSUS) rfkeser
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For reasons that my limited brain can't quite pin down, this
entire thread keeps reminding me of a strategy that Truffaut
uses in "La Peau Douce" of using insert shots that show the
hands of his characters turning lights on or off, putting keys
into locks, and so on. This uniquely conveys an almost subliminal
feeling of people manipulating, monitoring and adjusting the
devices that surround us, acknowledging a kind of machine context
for modern life. The momentary spotlight on objects suggests the
ending of "L'Eclisse" but it really operates differently
as these shots are woven into the telling of the story (rather
than self-consciously isolated as in the Antonioni). Has anyone
ever run across any discussion of this?
--Robert Keser
27791
From: Matt Teichman
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 6:21pm
Subject: Re: faith in the image/faith in reality bufordrat
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I think that's a great piece to invoke as a response to the idea of film
as a purely visual (or even purely audiovisual) medium, because of
Bazin's emphasis on indexicality. Photographic films certainly are
visual, but they aren't visual in the same sense as, let's say, computer
animations (with the exception of computer animations that employ motion
capture), because their kind of visuality is contingent upon our
understanding of how photographs are made. Whites, blacks, and greys on
a strip of celluloid they are, but whites, blacks, and greys with an
irrevocable tie to the pretext of their shooting.
-Matt
Dan Sallitt wrote:
>>Which Bazin text do you have in mind here?
>>
>>
>
>I'm thinking of "The Evolution of the Language of Cinema." Bazin opposed
>"those directors who put their faith in the image" to "those who put their
>faith in reality"; he's polite about it, but he is speaking in defense of
>the latter. - Dan
>
>
27792
From: "Brian Charles Dauth"
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 6:31pm
Subject: Re: faith in the image/faith in reality cinebklyn
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Matt writes:
>I think that's a great piece to invoke as a response
to the idea of film as a purely visual (or even purely
audiovisual) medium, because of Bazin's emphasis
on indexicality.
What does indexicality refer to?
Thanks.
Brian
27793
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 6:47pm
Subject: Re: Revenge of the Pink Panther jpcoursodon
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--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
> wrote:
>
> >
> > I agree that Elaine May is great in A NEW LEAF, but the film is
> not
> > what I would call "physical" (let alone slapstick) comedy, which
is
> > what I was talking about. (and then, it's just one film, not a
body
> of
> > work.)
>
> Mabel Normand?
A worthy candidate, but so much of her stuff is unavailable...
She seems to have been mostly a partner/sidekick for male comics in
the early Keystones, most famously Chaplin, also Fatty Arbuckle...
always playing the love interest. When she moved to feature films she
seems to have pretty much abandonned slapstick for romantic comedy
(the string of Goldwyn productions between 1918 through 1923. These
are definitely "subjects for further research").
She was a model for commercial painters when she was 15 or 16 and
was considered a beauty, so she would fit the label of "beautiful
actress" (but I don't know about sexy!)doing slapstick. One of her
employers is reported to have told her when she asked if she should go
into movies "Most funny women look funny. You don't, you look
beautiful, and yet you know how to be funny, so you should give it a
try."
She took to it beautifully and she seems to have played an important
role in the developing of the Keystone style of comedy. Robert
Sherwood wrote that she taught Chaplin his crat as a director.
And then there was Louise Fazenda...
JPC
27794
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 6:51pm
Subject: Re: Re: Words and shots (Was: A thought about BLACK NARCISSUS) cellar47
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--- Robert Keser wrote:
> For reasons that my limited brain can't quite pin
> down, this
> entire thread keeps reminding me of a strategy that
> Truffaut
> uses in "La Peau Douce" of using insert shots that
> show the
> hands of his characters turning lights on or off,
> putting keys
> into locks, and so on. This uniquely conveys an
> almost subliminal
> feeling of people manipulating, monitoring and
> adjusting the
> devices that surround us, acknowledging a kind of
> machine context
> for modern life. The momentary spotlight on objects
> suggests the
> ending of "L'Eclisse" but it really operates
> differently
> as these shots are woven into the telling of the
> story (rather
> than self-consciously isolated as in the Antonioni).
> Has anyone
> ever run across any discussion of this?
>
No but we could start one.
Don't forget "2 ou 3 choses que je sais d'elle" with
that famous cup of coffee. Then there's the house in
"Mon Oncle" and the entire city in "Playtime."
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27795
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 7:25pm
Subject: Re: Words and shots (Was: A thought about BLACK NARCISSUS) hotlove666
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--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Robert Keser" wrote:
this
> entire thread keeps reminding me of a strategy that Truffaut
> uses in "La Peau Douce" of using insert shots that show the
> hands of his characters turning lights on or off, putting keys
> into locks, and so on. This uniquely conveys an almost subliminal
> feeling of people manipulating, monitoring and adjusting the
> devices that surround us, acknowledging a kind of machine context
> for modern life. The momentary spotlight on objects suggests the
> ending of "L'Eclisse" but it really operates differently
> as these shots are woven into the telling of the story (rather
> than self-consciously isolated as in the Antonioni
Truffaut's endless inserts in Soft Skin were a consequence of having
just interviewed Hitchcock, although his experiments w. Hitchcock
style had already started in Antoine et Colette. I think the primary
meaning is the dominant mood of the film: anxiety (cf. the doorbell
shot in Shoot). The main character apparently suffers (like Hitchcock
himself) from a generalized anxiety condition at first conveyed by
his fear of being late to the airport, which becomes focused on his
affair when that starts: Truffaut said at one point that he had made
Lachenay appear to be almost a madman. But you are right that some
inserts (the light switches, for instance) don't have that meaning,
and an Antonionesque sense of modern life (conveyed in similar
fashion in the companion film to Soft Skin, A Married Woman) is
perhaps the overriding meaning of the ensemble. Also, the film itself
is an "infernal machine," to translate literally the French word
Truffaut used a propos of 400 Blows: Like a Lang character, Lachenay
is caught in an elaborate Fate-trap leading ineluctably to his death,
and all the inserts also convey that.
Again, these are examples of inserts which exceed their story
function and which, in Dan's terms, exist spatially.
27796
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 7:38pm
Subject: Re: faith in the image/faith in reality hotlove666
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--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Brian Charles Dauth"
wrote:
> What does indexicality refer to?
>
A photo is an index (a Charles Pierce synonym for a trace, a
metonymy: effect standing for cause) of the objects recorded thereon.
Bazin's opposition of faith in the image and faith in reality is at
the heart of his esthetic, and permits me to make a distinction
between what I think we focus on here and what I think we focus on in
our new film & politics group. My metaphor for the difference is a
graph: The y-axis maps the relationship between the auteur and the
film; the x-axis situates the film on another axis that includes
reality, on the one hand, and other media (also a Bazinian concern).
Because of Bazin, Cahiers auteurism has always been as much about the
x-axis as it has been about the y-axis, although that may be true of
European auteurism in general: As JP would be the first to point out,
Positif was into film and politics long before the Cahiers. Whereas
in the US auteurism has tended to focus on the y-axis: the
relationship between the auteur and his/her work.
27797
From: Fred Camper
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 9:31pm
Subject: Re: Re: faith in the image/faith in reality fredcamper
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hotlove666 wrote:
> .... a distinction
> between what I think we focus on here and what I think we focus on in
> our new film & politics group....
Bill, I don't see myself as focusing on films in relationship only to
each other and to the "auteur," but on the meaning of an auteur's work
as a specific way of seeing the world, ways of seeing that have social,
ideological, and political implications. My writing nearly always tries
to articulate the meanings expressed, the types of consciousnesses
evoked, by films, and this has been true of many other posts here as
well. It may not come down to the level of arguing about who to vote
for, but for example the defense of an aesthetic centered more on acting
offered by Zach and others suggests to me a defense of a more character
centered cinema. How we see individual wills in relationship to social
structures, how much independence of action we believe individuals have,
goes to the heart of meaning.
Since you mentioned your group, as a non-member I am curious about some
aspects of it, and so I've posted a query about it to the OT board, at
http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/a_film_by_OT/message/137
Fred Camper
27798
From: "thebradstevens"
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 10:51pm
Subject: Harry Keller's SIX BLACK HORSES thebradstevens
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Just watched SIX BLACK HORSES, a 1961 western directed by Harry
Keller from a screenplay by Burt Kennedy. I was intrigued by a plot
synopsis which suggested that this might have been among the
inspirations for Monte Hellman's THE SHOOTING. Though Hellman claims
never to have seen it, the resemblances are intriguing enough.
But what a terrific film! The screenplay recalls the best of
Kennedy's work for Budd Boetticher (Audie Murphy even gets to
say "There's some things a man can't ride around"), and Harry
Keller's direction is quite wonderful, with a consistently
intelligent use of landscape and a fine sense of composition. He also
seems to have been a skilled actor's director.
Keller is, of course, notorious for having reshot parts of TOUCH OF
EVIL, an assignment that has probably led cinephiles to assume that
Keller was a hack in no way deserving of serious attention. But I'll
certainly be keeping an eye out for more Keller films - his IMDB
filmography lists a long series of B westerns, as well as TAMMY AND
THE DOCTOR, starring Sandra Dee and Peter Fonda!
27799
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Mon Jun 6, 2005 0:27am
Subject: Re: faith in the image/faith in reality jpcoursodon
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--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Brian Charles Dauth"
> wrote:
>
> > What does indexicality refer to?
> >
> A photo is an index (a Charles Pierce synonym for a trace, a
> metonymy: effect standing for cause) of the objects recorded
thereon.
>
> Bazin's opposition of faith in the image and faith in reality is
at
> the heart of his esthetic, and permits me to make a distinction
> between what I think we focus on here and what I think we focus on
in
> our new film & politics group. My metaphor for the difference is a
> graph: The y-axis maps the relationship between the auteur and the
> film; the x-axis situates the film on another axis that includes
> reality, on the one hand, and other media (also a Bazinian
concern).
> Because of Bazin, Cahiers auteurism has always been as much about
the
> x-axis as it has been about the y-axis, although that may be true
of
> European auteurism in general: As JP would be the first to point
out,
> Positif was into film and politics long before the Cahiers.
Whereas
> in the US auteurism has tended to focus on the y-axis: the
> relationship between the auteur and his/her work.
Although I'm too lazy to brush up my Bazin, I just would like to
know what is meant by "reality" in this discussion. Reality as
opposed to what? To naive me, everything is real or else nothing is.
Bill, are you equating "politics" with "reality"?
Although everything is political, isn't politics as unreal as
anythin else?
Sorry if this sounds sophomoric. Second childhood maybe.
JPC
27800
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Jun 6, 2005 0:30am
Subject: Re: Re: faith in the image/faith in reality cellar47
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--- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
> Although I'm too lazy to brush up my Bazin, I
> just would like to
> know what is meant by "reality" in this discussion.
> Reality as
> opposed to what? To naive me, everything is real or
> else nothing is.
>
To bazin reality was the girl grinding the morning
coffee in "Umberto D" and William Wyler movies.
> Bill, are you equating "politics" with "reality"?
>
>
> Although everything is political, isn't politics
> as unreal as
> anythin else?
>
> Sorry if this sounds sophomoric. Second childhood
> maybe.
>
Not at all.
I have no use for the "real." It gets in the way of
reality.
Cinema uses the real. That is all.
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