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This group is dedicated to discussing film as art from an auteurist perspective. The index to these files of posts can be found at http://www.fredcamper.com/afilmby/ The purpose of these files is to make our posts more accessible, for downloading and reading and to search engines.

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1101


From:
Date: Sun Aug 10, 2003 4:23pm
Subject: Re: McTiernan
 
In a message dated 8/10/03 12:23:30 PM, j_christley@y... writes:

>DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE (probably my favorite)

Oddly enough, this is by far my favorite of what I've seen of his
(admittedly, not much.) It just seemed to be an incredibly well oiled machine and I
actually enjoyed the Willis/Jackson team. It almost feels a little
self-conscious, the Ultimate John McTiernan Film - though, again, I've probably not seen
enough of his to make a judgment call as to the validity of the
self-consciousness factor I'm intuiting.

Anyway, thanks for the recommendations.

Peter

http://hometown.aol.com/ptonguette/index.html

 

1102


From:
Date: Sun Aug 10, 2003 4:42pm
Subject: Body Double
 
In a message dated 8/10/03 11:41:20 AM, rashomon82@y... writes:

>> I will try and see Fury and
>> Carlito's Way. Any other recommendations from anyone?

I don't think anyone's mentioned it yet, but for me De Palma's greatest is
"Body Double"; it certainly exists at the same level of "Blow Out" and "Femme
Fatale," his other two bona fide masterpieces.

Strangely, it seems to be an outside consensus choice even for diehard De
Palma supporters. I seem to remember reading negative responses by both Kael and
Armond White. But Dave Kehr perceptively writes, "The first hour of this
thriller represents the most restrained, accomplished, and effective filmmaking
he has ever done, and if the film does become more jokey and incontinent as it
follows its derivative path, it never entirely loses the goodwill De Palma
engenders with his deft opening sequences."

While I like the second half of the film more than Kehr, the first hour is
indeed stunningly realized. There's an extended sequence of Wasson following h
is beautiful next door neighbor (who in turn is being followed by someone else;
I shall say no more) through various locales - into a big indoor mall,
through the mall, back outdoors, culminating with a chase on a beach - that even
surpasses the Cannes jewel heist in "Femme Fatale" as a brilliantly modulated
sustained set-piece. It's thrilling to watch De Palma's orchestration of
perspective and point of view.

I don't think I like "Mission to Mars" quite as much as Zach does (not yet
anyway; it's been a while since I've seen it and I've not rewatched it since
seeing "Femme Fatale"), but it's definitely a whole lot more interesting than its
rep would suggest. I also think its a good deal more personal than some of
his more respectable jobs-for-hire (ie, "The Untouchables").

Peter

http://hometown.aol.com/ptonguette/index.html
1103


From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Sun Aug 10, 2003 11:02pm
Subject: Re: My Dinner With Andre (De Toth); also concepts versus ideas
 
> I wonder what the consensus is here on the great Naruse. He got
only a
> few votes in the 2002 Sight and Sound poll. Did that traveling
retro in
> 1985 convert many of you?
>

It did me. I loved all the films shown in the 1985 retrospective,
which I saw at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Unfortunately I don't
remember the films very clearly: I recall especially admiring "Wife!
Be Like a Rose!" and "Mother."

I'm surprised Naruse is not better known. His films struck me as very
accessible, very entertaining, and very moving.

Paul
1104


From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Sun Aug 10, 2003 11:03pm
Subject: Re: My Dinner With Andre (De Toth); also concepts versus ideas
 
> I wonder what the consensus is here on the great Naruse. He got
only a
> few votes in the 2002 Sight and Sound poll. Did that traveling
retro in
> 1985 convert many of you?
>

It did me. I loved all the films shown in the 1985 retrospective,
which I saw at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Unfortunately I don't
remember the films very clearly: I recall especially admiring "Wife!
Be Like a Rose!" and "Mother."

I'm surprised Naruse is not better known. His films struck me as very
accessible, very entertaining, and very moving.

Paul
1105


From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Mon Aug 11, 2003 2:19am
Subject: Re: NYC: The Fierce One
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> Anyone in NYC tomorrow (Sunday) at 7 pm is strongly encouraged by
me to
> see Kirghiz director Tolomush Okeev's excellent THE FIERCE ONE at
> Anthology. It's always fascinating to see an obscure film from a
> little-known part of the world and discover a master director.
There's
> no reason to believe this film will come around again. - Dan

Hi Dan - I'm glad I went to see this, but I regret that it didn't
really catch fire for me. I wish I liked it more, maybe you can
share your thoughts on it if you have a moment.

However, I have to say that the widescreen photography in the short
that preceded it, THERE ARE HORSES, was fantastic, worthy of Russell
Harlan's work in HATARI! or any horse movie you'd care to name. I
can't remember offhand another movie that had such striking
horizontal lines, a keener sense of the surface of a plane
(geometrically or geologically).

Jaime
1106


From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Mon Aug 11, 2003 3:02am
Subject: new to the list
 
hello
my name is ruy, i live in rio de janeiro, brazil, 27 yrs old.
i'm an editor and founder of contracampo revista de cinema, an e-magazine
dedicated to film criticism, mostly focused on brazilian cinema,
contemporary world cinema and reflections on image, its social and symbolic
meaning.
other than movies, i enjoy music a lot (from art-noise-rockers sonic youth
to abstract hip-hoppers clouddead, from aphex twin to albert ayler, from
joão gilberto to keiji haino)
i know making lists is not the best way to introducing oneself, but i guess
it shows to some extent some of my particular tastes and the some of the
concerns i have when watching movies. there it goes:
first ten:
1934 L'Atalante, Jean Vigo
1936 Modern Times, Charles Chaplin
1938 Only Angels Have Wings, de Howard Hawks
1938 Zangiku Monogatari, de Kenji Mizoguchi
1963 Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol, de Glauber Rocha
1967 Week-end, Jean-Luc Godard
1980 Love Streams, John Cassavetes
1985 Videodrome, David Cronenberg
1992 Zendegi Va Digar Hich / Et la Vie Continue, Abbas Kiarostami
1996 Goodbye, South, Goodbye, de Hou Hsiao-hsien
another ten:
1925 Greed, Erich Von Stroheim
1932 Das Testament das Dr. Mabuse, Fritz Lang
1943 Vredens Dag, Carl Theodor Dreyer
1944 Paisà, Roberto Rossellini
1959 North By Northwest, Alfred Hitchcock
1964 Charulata, Satyajit Ray
1966 Au Hasard Balthazar, Robert Bresson
1969 79 Primaveras, Santiago Álvarez
1981 Aopção, Ozualdo Candeias
1997 Lost Highway, David Lynch

that's it.
hope i can enjoy some great film discussions and be useful in some way
among the recently released films in brazil i really liked there are:
Rohmer's l'Anglaise et le Duc, Kiarostami's Ten, McG's Charlie's Angels Full
Throttle, Haynes' Far From Heaven, Miyazaki's Chihiro, Rivette's Va Savoir.

ruy
1107


From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Mon Aug 11, 2003 3:51am
Subject: Re: new to the list
 
> i know making lists is not the best way to introducing oneself

It seems to work pretty well among film buffs! Welcome, Ruy.

> 1938 Zangiku Monogatari, de Kenji Mizoguchi

I was taken by surprise when this film (STORY OF THE LATE
CHRYSANTHEMUMS) placed in last year's Sight and Sound Top 20. I'd
always assumed that UGETSU, SANSHO and OHARU were the official Mizoguchi
classics - I didn't see CHRYSANTHEMUMS' reputation growing.

> 1969 79 Primaveras, Santiago Álvarez
> 1981 Aopção, Ozualdo Candeias

I'm not familiar with these films or filmmakers. Would you or anyone
else like to say something about them, Ruy? - Dan
1108


From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Mon Aug 11, 2003 4:33am
Subject: Re: new to the list
 
santiago álvarez was the official documentarist of the castro regime. even
if the majority of his work is really dull register of official events, he
was able to do some wonderful essays such as NOW, one of the first
videoclips ever (for the homonymus Lena Horne song) and 79 SPRINGS, for ho
chi-mihn's 79th birthday. some of you on the list may remember Godard
dissing Kubrick's account of the war on Full Metal Jacket and praising a
black and white scratched pellicule -- it's an image of 79 springs...
ozualdo candeias is a brazilian filmmaker not known at all in Brazil. aopção
has won a prize in Locarno. the film's sense of dry poetry, fragmented
narrative and precarious craft have absolutely no similar in movie
history -- as far as i know. one would say that if Robert Johnson were to be
a moviemaker, he'd be Candeias.
the tale of the late chrysanthemus has the most beautiful camera movement
ever. maybe Sansho Dayu is a more perfect film, but Zangiku has left me in a
state of trance. just like that inspiration scene in Charulata, I didn't
know that a camera could do that....

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Sallitt"
To:
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2003 12:51 AM
Subject: Re: [a_film_by] new to the list


> > i know making lists is not the best way to introducing oneself
>
> It seems to work pretty well among film buffs! Welcome, Ruy.
>
> > 1938 Zangiku Monogatari, de Kenji Mizoguchi
>
> I was taken by surprise when this film (STORY OF THE LATE
> CHRYSANTHEMUMS) placed in last year's Sight and Sound Top 20. I'd
> always assumed that UGETSU, SANSHO and OHARU were the official Mizoguchi
> classics - I didn't see CHRYSANTHEMUMS' reputation growing.
>
> > 1969 79 Primaveras, Santiago Álvarez
> > 1981 Aopção, Ozualdo Candeias
>
> I'm not familiar with these films or filmmakers. Would you or anyone
> else like to say something about them, Ruy? - Dan
>
>
>
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> a_film_by-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
1109


From: Fred Camper
Date: Mon Aug 11, 2003 4:48am
Subject: Mizoguchi's Late Crysanthemums/Zangiku Monogatari
 
Welcome, Ruy.

I'll second you on "Zangiku."

I do think that some later Mizoguchi films are greater, but the thing
about "Zangiku" is how "different" it is from his later films. In this
film he perfects and extends the peculiarly hypnotic instability of some
of the camera movements in his other 30s films. "State of trance" is
good, because the film has a quality that leaves you thinking, "How
could anyone see or think like that?" In some ways his later films were
more conventional; "Zangiku" sits on some kind of edge, straddling
enchantment and delirium.

- Fred
1110


From: Joseph Kaufman
Date: Mon Aug 11, 2003 7:30am
Subject: Pronouncing de Toth
 
I think the discussion as to how to pronounce Andre de Toth's last
name was on this list and not with the Cinebuds.

I queried Andre's friend Dennis Bartok directly about the
pronunciation this weekend, citing the mention of him as an authority
here. He said he thought the correct Hungarian pronunciation would
be to rhyme "Toth" with growth," not "goth." IIRC this is the
opposite of what we were left with before.
1111


From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Mon Aug 11, 2003 3:39pm
Subject: Re: Re: NYC: The Fierce One
 
>>Anyone in NYC tomorrow (Sunday) at 7 pm is strongly encouraged by
> me to
>>see Kirghiz director Tolomush Okeev's excellent THE FIERCE ONE at
>>Anthology. It's always fascinating to see an obscure film from a
>>little-known part of the world and discover a master director.
>
> Hi Dan - I'm glad I went to see this, but I regret that it didn't
> really catch fire for me. I wish I liked it more, maybe you can
> share your thoughts on it if you have a moment.

Bill also asked for comments on THE FIERCE ONE, so I'll keep it general
for those who haven't seen the film.

Okeev (sometimes spelled Okeyev) seems to have been quite well-known in
Kyrgyzstan. His first film was in 1965, and his last in 1986; when he
died in 2001, they named the studio there after him. As you may know,
the Soviet Union cared about building up the film industries in the
various Soviet states, so we're not talking primitive art here.

The first thing that strikes you is Okeev's way of filming the
mountainous landscapes of the area. He uses a pretty stable frame,
though he often reframes with tracks and zooms (I like his zooms better
than almost anyone's); he tends to shoot from a slightly elevated angle,
so that the mountains and valleys fill the frame, often without too much
sky. It's quite beautiful. I don't believe there's a landscape shot in
the film that's just landscape: he's always tracking people, often in
long shot or extreme long shot, and their movements within the story.
Though the landscape has an abstracting kind of power, he keeps things
pretty concrete with his visual storytelling. For such a
landscape-filled film, it has an odd intimacy.

The dynamics of the story have to do with the collision between
compassion and the hardness required to live a marginal existence in a
difficult environment. The excellent script (co-written by
Konchalovsky) finds a great metaphor: a boy adopts a wolf cub and raises
him as a dog. As with so many good films, the two opposing forces bleed
into each other: compassion seems so fragile in this environment, but
its advocates (the boy, and a surrogate father figure who tries to help
him) cling stubbornly, almost irrationally to it as if it were food or
shelter; and the hard man in the script (the boy's uncle) is never more
than a few millimeters away from sensitivity, manifested as a kind of
perplexed anguish.

Okeev is very good at reframing, and has good instincts about two-shots
vs. single shots. Often a track or zoom makes only a slight shift in
the frame, just enough to change emphasis. There are some rather
spectacular reframings (one where the boy runs through a passage in a
bamboo wall, and the camera follows to reveal a family tableau in front
of a mountainscape; another where two fighting men fall through a
ground-level thatched roof and emerge from the debris below), but
there's also a lot of attention to the emotional charge of simple shots.
The closeups in the film have a lot of force as a result of Okeev's
selectivity, a force augmented by the slightly jagged editing.

Okeev's identification is split between animals and people as if it were
the most natural thing in the world. The dog-wolf Koksarek is probably
the most complicated character in the film, torn between love of the boy
and innate brutality: he experiences inhibition, wavers between sides,
finally acts with unmitigated self-contradiction. He gets equal visual
emphasis within the family scenes - not just the occasional closeup, but
lengthy point-of-view sequences - and the narrative follows him into the
wilderness with detail and poignancy. Perhaps all the film's most
memorable shots belong to him: his flight from human society, down the
long course of a sun-flecked river bed; a telephoto shot of him
retreating wounded into the ocean after the slaughter of his pack; his
terrible final moments.

The story startles us in the last half-hour by diving head-first into
his complexities instead of resolving them. I don't know if the film
qualifies as a tragedy in the Greek sense of the word, but tragedy here
would mean more than "something bad happens": the major characters
(including the wolf) suffer from their own misplaced (though
sympathetic) instincts.

Kent Jones mentioned yesterday that he and Alla Verlotsky are working on
an Okeev project, so with some luck we might get to see his other films.

- Dan
1112


From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Mon Aug 11, 2003 3:42pm
Subject: Re: Re: NYC: The Fierce One: Read this first
 
> Bill also asked for comments on THE FIERCE ONE, so I'll keep it general
> for those who haven't seen the film.

It looks as if I got carried away and didn't keep it general. There are
a few spoilers in my account of the story - sorry. - Dan
1113


From: Fred Camper
Date: Mon Aug 11, 2003 4:11pm
Subject: Re: Re: NYC: The Fierce One
 
I agree with Dan's description of the film, and some but not all of his
sentiments. But I also suspect that while Dan may like most of the films
I like, he likes a lot more than I do, which is a common feature of my
tastes when compared to other reasonably compatible film viewers.

I was fascinated by the way landscape was filmed, but visually the film
never quite came together for me as a real and particular vision of
landscape and characters, or characters and animals and nature. It was
better than most of the Central Asian things I saw, many of which were
pretty good or terrific, so it's certainly a better than average movie
by a good deal. But (semi-spoiler) one night scene of wolves
slaughtering sheep, while stunning in itself, was so visually different
from the rest as to seem discordant.

I did like very much the subtlety with which the relationships between
humans, animals, and the land were articulated. The cruelty of the boy's
uncle at first seems harsh but actually starts to make some sense in
terms of their living conditions and culture, but the film never reduces
itself to a kind of "humans are cruel like animals" oversimplification,
but is pretty nicely nuanced.

I agree that the lead wolf was excellent, but he was nowhere near as
great as Bresson's lead donkey in "Au Hasard, Balthazar."

I have a very short capsule review at
http://65.201.198.5/movies/capsules/24088_FIERCE_ONE

- Fred
1114


From: Elizabeth Nolan
Date: Mon Aug 11, 2003 4:56pm
Subject: HIGH NOON as a Love Story
 
478
From: Damien Bona  
Date: Fri Jul 11, 2003 10:00pm
Subject: Re: High Noon (don't worry)


And for this being a Message Movie, I felt it was also rather
ideologically unsound. Wasn't it convenient that the sole person in
the movie who takes a moral stand against violence ends up plugging a
guy in the back? And this leads to the awful resolution of the plot--
so, everything is happy, the town becomes a whitebread, churchgoin'
place without that awful dark-skinned Mexican Ms. Ramirez around, and
presumably Gary Cooper and his new, blonde, traditional wife live
happily ever after? Really, if nothing is lost, where is the tragedy
in the film? And, if the movie is not a tragedy--if it doesn't exude
any sense of loss--then not only does it go back to what I said about
the movie being an awful Western, but the film doesn't put very much
up at stake. Where is the dramatic weight that makes this movie as
deep as it tells us it is? If Cooper ends up losing nothing at all,
and only the criminals die, how black-and-white a depiction of the
world is that? *Sigh* . . .




I saw HIGH NOON in an ART DESIGN IN THE MOVIES class at UCSD. I viewed
it as a 'love story' because many of the films selected were such.
If you look at it in the O'Henry vein of THE GIFT, much is lost...Kane
gives up the entire WEST (we do not even get a view of it) and Mrs.
Kane gives up her 'Quaker pacifist' to get what she wants, her husband.
This is a great tragedy for these two individuals, he loses the West
he loves, she becomes the killer she loathes.

Interesting aside: in that the class screened two Grace Kelly movies
(HN and Rear Window), I mentioned to some students that I was surprised
that the professor didn't mention that Grace Kelly when on to become
Princess Grace. Just as one of the students replied with usual ennui,
"I think everyone knows that," another piped in "I didn't know that."
It was a classic spontaneous moment.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
1115


From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Mon Aug 11, 2003 7:36pm
Subject: Re: Re: NYC: The Fierce One
 
> But I also suspect that while Dan may like most of the films
> I like, he likes a lot more than I do, which is a common feature of my
> tastes when compared to other reasonably compatible film viewers.

My guess is that this is true in many areas, but not as regards films by
old auteurs. I get the feeling you'd probably give higher ratings to
most Pantheon/Far Side/Esoterica films than I would.

> I agree that the lead wolf was excellent, but he was nowhere near as
> great as Bresson's lead donkey in "Au Hasard, Balthazar."

The comparison occurred to me too. Balthazar had an easier role,
though: he was essentially passive, if I recall correctly, and mostly
experienced things. Whereas Koksarek had a juicy part, with conflicts,
neuroses, betrayals, and attempted homicide. It's kind of like John
Wayne vs. Marlon Brando - which I don't find an easy choice, even though
Wayne's filmography is a zillion times better. - Dan
1116


From: Fred Camper
Date: Mon Aug 11, 2003 7:57pm
Subject: Re: Re: NYC: The Fierce One
 
Dan Sallitt wrote

> Balthazar had an easier role, though: he was essentially passive, if I recall correctly, and mostly experienced things. Whereas Koksarek had a juicy part, with conflicts, neuroses, betrayals, and attempted homicide.
>
True, true. And both are better than that stupid huamnized wolf family
in "Never Cry Wolf." They're both pretty good examples of films that
don't try to humanize animals.

- Fred
1117


From: Elizabeth Anne Nolan
Date: Tue Aug 12, 2003 0:04am
Subject: Re: Vidor STREET SCENE, THE CROWD
 
I caught a glimpse of STREET SCENE, late
> in the movie (I'd meant to tape it but did not), and I thought it
> looked pretty amazing, for reasons other than the fast cutting and
> expressive close-ups (although they certainly contributed to my awe),
> and I planned to ask about it on the board. Has anyone seen it?
>
> Jaime

I probably saw that same TCM showing a few months back. STREET SCENE
is remarkable for it's PRECODE content, a slice of real life that must have put
a mirror to the face of many of the city viewers.

I think this movie was shot with a duplicate of the main street setting because
it took so long to set up the lighting. Rather than let the actors and others rest
while the lighting crew worked, Vidor just moved everybody down the street to
an identical set that was ready for shooting.

THE CROWD presages all the celebrity shows of today...everybody wants to
be a star
1118


From: Elizabeth Anne Nolan
Date: Tue Aug 12, 2003 0:18am
Subject: Re: Auteurism
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
> Sorry, guys, I've been too busy arguing with the Philistines over at CM
> (joke, joke) to post the more interesting things here, but I intend to
> trot out my own favorite Vidor and other things soon.
>
> Meanwhile those of you interested in auteurism in general might want to
> read my recent exchange with Bilge, CM 28115 and 28119: his post
> allowed me to make some points about the kinds of abuse auteurists and
> auteurism have virtually always had to suffer.
>
> - Fred


What / where is this other board you seem to be referencing?
1119


From: Gabe Klinger
Date: Tue Aug 12, 2003 0:40am
Subject: another phase at Cahiers
 
In Brazil I read a newspaper article on Jean-Michel Frodon's promotion
(demotion?) to head honcho at Cahiers du cinema and some of the
promises being made from his new editorial ranks. Like for example that
he is returning the magazine to its old form. However, can you really
be specific about this kind of thing? And what are the details based
around this? I haven't picked up the "new" magazine yet but I am
skeptical. It seems this is always happening with the Cahiers. Even
Charles Tesson admitted when I interviewed him that they will always
suffer ups and downs and that it may very well return to a few guys
working in some basement somewhere, etc.

I always thought the mag to be an inspiring read (Pialat issue,
*ahem*), so why was Tesson fired?

Bill or anyone else, if there are any not-so-private or semi-private
bits of info you would like to disclose with us, I for one would be
very appreciative.

(Apologies to those still waiting for personal emails from me. I've
just returned from my trip over the weekend and intend to get back to
you. No dis intended.)
1120


From: Elizabeth Anne Nolan
Date: Tue Aug 12, 2003 0:45am
Subject: Re: Vidor CITADEL /GREAT MCGINTY
 
There's a great scene near the end of "The Citadel," a
> courtroom scene, the kind of thing that often makes for one of the
> duller parts of a great movie, that's tremendous; if my memory isn't
> off, a lawyer may be making an argument in a very long uninterrupted
> take, but in any case the shots of him have the powerful intensity of an
> individual existing in isolation from his surroundings, an example of
> the subjectivity I'm talking about.


I saw the CITADEL around the time I was reading THE GREAT MCGINTY
and thought a modern screen play about a world renown physician wooed by
a HMO that she goes on to expose might be interesting.
1121


From: Fred Camper
Date: Tue Aug 12, 2003 1:15am
Subject: Re: Re: Auteurism, & the "Other Board"
 
Sorry, you've found a post I shouldn't have made; the moderator of "The
Other Board" asked us not to name it, since it isn't public. The people
who started this group were on there, and still are, but needed an
alternative.

A suggestion to all in both groups: stop referring to "The Other Board"
as much as possible, since many of our new members have no idea what
we're talking about, and it's not publicly archived.

Part of my own motivation for co-founding this group is that I wanted
things I wrote to be publicly archived.

- Fred
1122


From: filipefurtado
Date: Tue Aug 12, 2003 3:09am
Subject: Re: DePalma
 
Bill, Cage/Sinise/Gugino relationship
in Snake Eyes comestraight from
Stack/Ryan/Yamaguchi in House of
Bamboo. There othere's similaraties
the most important being the use of
the globe in both films climaxes (in
DePalma's original ending from Snake
Eyes had more function than in the
released one), they function a little
different according to the context of
time/place in each film.

Peter, my favorite DePalma is
Obsession, but Body Double is right
there with Blow Out, Carlito's Way and
Femme Fatale among my favorites.
Actually I think Body Double, Femme
Fatale and the underrated Raising Cain
are DePal,a's most personal films or
at least the one's where his more
openly adressing questions about his
cinema.

Filipe


---
Acabe com aquelas janelinhas que pulam na sua tela.
AntiPop-up UOL - É grátis!
http://antipopup.uol.com.br
1123


From: Fernando Verissimo
Date: Tue Aug 12, 2003 3:22am
Subject: Re: another phase at Cahiers
 
Gabe,

mr. Ruy Gardnier (the newest member of this list, after me), a long-time
Cahiers fanatic, published some posts (11/07, 16/07) on that issue in our
Contra-blog that are much more well-informed and comprehensive than the
Estadão's article that you probably have read.

I guess you can read portuguese, so please try this link
(www.contracampo.he.com.br/51/planogeral.php).

Here's another article:
http://www.lemondemedias.com/article.php3?id_article=38

Pertes pour "Les Cahiers du cinéma" en 2002

Les Editions de l'Etoile, filiale du Monde, devraient annoncer un déficit de
700 000 euros pour l'année 2002. Les Editions de l'Etoile éditent les
Cahiers du cinéma ainsi que Aden, le supplément culturel du Monde.

François Maillot, son directeur général, estime "la qualité rédactionnelle
insuffisante" du fait de la "fracture entre deux rédacteurs en chef" mais
aussi à cause de "la carence en signatures" et de "la médiocrité de certains
textes". (He also pointed an absence of a clear manifestation of a real love
for cinema).

Selon M. Maillot, "la moyenne des ventes au numéro en 2002 évolue de manière
négative (-13% par rapport à 2001) avec environ 12000 exemplaires vendus".

Si le sort d'Aden est déjà scellé (le supplément culturel sera arrêté à
l'automne,)M. Maillot hésite entre plusieurs scénarii possibles : L'arrêt
définitif ; une « expansion de la revue » mais cette hypothèse n'est pas
très réaliste ; un retour à une revue « pure et dure », entraînant le
licenciement des deux tiers du personnel » ; ou un scénario plus probable :
un nouveau « projet éditorial » pour les Cahiers du cinéma, sous la
direction de Jean-Michel Frodon, critique de cinéma au Monde, le
licenciement d'un tiers du personnel et la continuation des activités
d'éditeur de livres. Mais pour réussir son pari, François Maillot devra
surmonter l'obstacle social et réussir la mutation éditoriale de la revue.

fv
1124


From: filipefurtado
Date: Tue Aug 12, 2003 3:33am
Subject: Re: another phase at Cahiers
 
> In Brazil I read a newspaper article on Jean-Michel Frodon's promotion
> (demotion?) to head honcho at Cahiers du cinema and some of the
> promises being made from his new editorial ranks. Like for example that
> he is returning the magazine to its old form. However, can you really
> be specific about this kind of thing? And what are the details based
> around this? I haven't picked up the "new" magazine yet but I am
> skeptical. It seems this is always happening with the Cahiers. Even
> Charles Tesson admitted when I interviewed him that they will always
> suffer ups and downs and that it may very well return to a few guys
> working in some basement somewhere, etc.

Ruy who is a bigger cahierist than me
(and is more fluent in french) may
have something more solid to say. But
from what i get things are a
littleconfuse, it's hard to understand
exactly what Frodon means when he
talks about bring the magazine to old
form (which form?), but I had the
impression Le Monde wasn't very happy
with the magazine's recent emphasis on
TV, videogame, pornography and other
forms of image. I actually get the
impression sometimes that they're
giving to much space to this stuff,
but i hope they didn't drop everything.

>
> I always thought the mag to be an inspiring read (Pialat issue,
> *ahem*), so why was Tesson fired?
>

I'm not Tesson's biggest fan as
critic, but he was doimg a good job as
editor. Cahiers may not be in it's
best moment but it's still one of the
best sources on comtemporary cinema I
know, and well the Pialat number is
the best thing I read all year (ok,
that has as much to do with the
subject as with the writing...).

Filipe





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1125


From: Gabe Klinger
Date: Tue Aug 12, 2003 3:59am
Subject: Re: another phase at Cahiers
 
Thanks for the info, Fernando and Filipe.

Filipe wrote:

> I'm not Tesson's biggest fan as
> critic, but he was doimg a good job as
> editor. Cahiers may not be in it's
> best moment

In Tesson's defense, he has the best critical study on Buñuel yet
published, and yes, I do think he is an important critic, right there
with Bill, Assayas, and the others of that generation. Furthermore, I
have never heard of a Cahiers critic being canned. Perhaps this is the
part that flusters me the most. I have heard of Cahers critics
quitting. I have heard of Cahiers critics who become busy as filmmakers
and don't come back. I have heard of Cahiers critics retiring. I have
never heard of someone from the magazine being fired. Maybe I haven't
paid close attention? Inless Tesson is truly despised, I expect some
level of public outcry from the French, maybe not on the level of
l'affair Langlois but how about a little f-you to Maillot?
1126


From: filipefurtado
Date: Tue Aug 12, 2003 4:27am
Subject: Re: another phase at Cahiers
 
Furthermore, I
> have never heard of a Cahiers critic being canned. Perhaps this is the
> part that flusters me the most. I have heard of Cahers critics
> quitting. I have heard of Cahiers critics who become busy as filmmakers
> and don't come back. I have heard of Cahiers critics retiring. I have
> never heard of someone from the magazine being fired. Maybe I haven't
> paid close attention? Inless Tesson is truly despised, I expect some
> level of public outcry from the French, maybe not on the level of
> l'affair Langlois but how about a little f-you to Maillot?

Actually, I think everyone who reads
the magazine got a little shocked. I
don't know if someone else got fired
before (probably not), but certainly
no editor, and there's the whole issue
of intervention at the magazine,
something that never happened before.
Also, I did not want to put Tesson
down, I didn't dislike his articles, I
only never had him in very high regard
as I have, let's say, Saada or Jousse.


There's a nice article published in
Liberation at the time:
Frodon patron des «Cahiers du cinéma»
do Libération
por Antoine de Baecque
Jean-Michel Frodon, critique de cinéma
au Monde, a été nommé
directeur de la rédaction des Cahiers
du cinéma, propriété du groupe
le Monde, a annoncé hier le quotidien.
Une nomination dont la
rédaction de la revue a été informée
mardi à la suite d'une
convocation de l'ensemble des
journalistes. Certes, les rumeurs
l'annonçaient, depuis la publication
du déficit des Cahiers du cinéma
(700 000 euros en 2002) et d'une note
confidentielle rédigée par
François Maillot, directeur général,
faisant état d'un projet de
reprise en main des Cahiers
(Libération du 9 juin). Mais la surprise
a néanmoins été totale : le nouveau
directeur de la rédaction a pris
ses fonctions sur-le-champ, selon la
volonté du Monde. En présence
d'Anne Chaussebourg, directrice de la
coordination des publications
du groupe, et de Franck Nouchi,
directeur adjoint de la rédaction du
quotidien du soir, Jean-Michel Frodon
a présenté son «projet
éditorial». Qui commençait par le mot
«Restauration» suivi de la
philosophie générale : «Faire revenir
d'anciens rédacteurs», «se
concentrer sur le cinéma», «publier
des textes de référence». Le tout
indiquant le retour à une ligne
cinéphile traditionnelle. Mercredi
matin, le second volet du plan,
économique celui-là, a été dévoilé :
licenciement d'un des rédacteurs en
chef, Charles Tesson, proposition
faite à l'autre, Jean-Marc Lalanne,
«de rester ou de démissionner»,
et annonce aux pigistes de la «baisse
sensible du volume des piges».
Ce qui a fait dire à l'un des
rédacteurs que la nouvelle
ligne «voulait visiblement faire place
nette à une autre équipe
rédactionnelle». Depuis, l'«ancienne»
rédaction des Cahiers est en AG
permanente. Elle pourrait prendre ce
matin la décision de réagir à ce
qu'elle considère comme un «coup de
force» en bloquant le prochain
numéro des Cahiers du cinéma.

>
>
>
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> a_film_by-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>


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1127


From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Tue Aug 12, 2003 4:27am
Subject: Re: another phase at Cahiers
 
i'm looking for the libération piece written by antoine de baecque that
started the whole "new cahiers affair".
meanwhile, a note or two:
a) éric rohmer was in some way invited to leave the magazine in 63/64...
truffaut and rivette proposed an editor committee and rohmer wasn't strong
enough to keep alone the directions he was heading the cahiers to.
b) it's not that Le Monde doesn't like the TV-serials formula for the news
cahiers. Le Monde doesn't like the fact that there's a huge deficit,
absolute and in relation to 2001. not only for the cahiers, but for the
whole éditions de l'étoile, which prints the cahiers.
c) it's in fact Maillot who blames TV orientation and stuff for the
diminishing sales. and "poor writing".
d) it's the first time in the cahiers that the runner of the magazine is
chosen for economic rather than cinema/world reasons.
e) frodon wants to base his new cahiers in 3 stages: 1) back to cinema 2)
bring back older writers (i don't know if that means douchet or bouquet or
strauss or emmanuel burdeau, my preferred critic from the late 90's) 3)
publishing "textes de reference" (i wouldn't know how to translate it
without making it sound ambiguous)
f) tesson is not much the editor-editor of the cahiers. i think he acts more
like a gofather, the one that backs the younger ones up. i do not have any
inside infos on that, but from what i guess, it was for antoine de baecque
to pick up when toubiana would leave... but the two fought very harshly and
tesson (who was used to be at best a time-to-time collaborator) was called
to edit the magazine, but without a team of his own. so he calls jean-marc
lalanne back to the cahiers (he was making a living on libération) and it's
in fact lalanne and joyard who begin making significant changes on the
orientation of the cahiers. if we think of the recent auteurs tesson
supports, GITAI, LAURENT CANTET, we'll see that his tastes on cinema are
extremely different from the auteurs the magazine is supporting as a whole.
later i'll bring more stuff....

----- Original Message -----
From: "Gabe Klinger"
To:
Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2003 12:59 AM
Subject: Re: [a_film_by] another phase at Cahiers


> Thanks for the info, Fernando and Filipe.
>
> Filipe wrote:
>
> > I'm not Tesson's biggest fan as
> > critic, but he was doimg a good job as
> > editor. Cahiers may not be in it's
> > best moment
>
> In Tesson's defense, he has the best critical study on Buñuel yet
> published, and yes, I do think he is an important critic, right there
> with Bill, Assayas, and the others of that generation. Furthermore, I
> have never heard of a Cahiers critic being canned. Perhaps this is the
> part that flusters me the most. I have heard of Cahers critics
> quitting. I have heard of Cahiers critics who become busy as filmmakers
> and don't come back. I have heard of Cahiers critics retiring. I have
> never heard of someone from the magazine being fired. Maybe I haven't
> paid close attention? Inless Tesson is truly despised, I expect some
> level of public outcry from the French, maybe not on the level of
> l'affair Langlois but how about a little f-you to Maillot?
>
>
>
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> a_film_by-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>
1128


From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Tue Aug 12, 2003 4:42am
Subject: the antoine de baecque note on libération i was talking about
 
Frodon patron des «Cahiers du cinéma»

Par DE BAECQUE Antoine
vendredi 04 juillet 2003

Jean-Michel Frodon, critique de cinéma au Monde, a été nommé directeur de la
rédaction des Cahiers du cinéma, propriété du groupe le Monde, a annoncé
hier le quotidien. Une nomination dont la rédaction de la revue a été
informée mardi à la suite d'une convocation de l'ensemble des journalistes.

Certes, les rumeurs l'annonçaient, depuis la publication du déficit des
Cahiers du cinéma (700 000 euros en 2002) et d'une note confidentielle
rédigée par François Maillot, directeur général, faisant état d'un projet de
reprise en main des Cahiers (Libération du 9 juin). Mais la surprise a
néanmoins été totale : le nouveau directeur de la rédaction a pris ses
fonctions sur-le-champ, selon la volonté du Monde. En présence d'Anne
Chaussebourg, directrice de la coordination des publications du groupe, et
de Franck Nouchi, directeur adjoint de la rédaction du quotidien du soir,
Jean-Michel Frodon a présenté son «projet éditorial». Qui commençait par le
mot «Restauration» suivi de la philosophie générale : «Faire revenir
d'anciens rédacteurs», «se concentrer sur le cinéma», «publier des textes de
référence». Le tout indiquant le retour à une ligne cinéphile
traditionnelle.

Mercredi matin, le second volet du plan, économique celui-là, a été dévoilé
: licenciement d'un des rédacteurs en chef, Charles Tesson, proposition
faite à l'autre, Jean-Marc Lalanne, «de rester ou de démissionner», et
annonce aux pigistes de la «baisse sensible du volume des piges». Ce qui a
fait dire à l'un des rédacteurs que la nouvelle ligne «voulait visiblement
faire place nette à une autre équipe rédactionnelle». Depuis, l'«ancienne»
rédaction des Cahiers est en AG permanente. Elle pourrait prendre ce matin
la décision de réagir à ce qu'elle considère comme un «coup de force» en
bloquant le prochain numéro des Cahiers du cinéma.


© Libération
1129


From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Aug 12, 2003 6:00am
Subject: HMO Story
 
A satirical comedy about an HMO would be very timely.

Hollywood story: Skip Brittenham, am emtertainment industry lawyer
now worth literally billions, wanted to remake Trouble in Paradise
and The Great McGinty. Somehow he found me (after I was run out of
Akademia, and before I went to work for Boxofice) and screened
screenwriter the two films for me and an old screenwriter - a real-
life Pat Hobby. As we walked out of Trouble, the screenwriter
said, "I can fix it."

Actually, my then g.f. Barbara - she of the Kennedy film - had
already told me a good idea for remaking McGinty: After his father's
death, the heir apparent to the governership of Calif. has turned his
back on politics to make chairs at a religious commune. When the
machine plucks him from obscurity and puts him to work (he's starving
making chairs), he quickly rises within the ranks because he knows
the ropes. Sort of a spiritual autobiography of Jerry Brown.

But Joel Silver and the Coens ended up remaking McGinty, and I guess
no one ever will "fix" Trouble in Paradise...
1130


From: Elizabeth Anne Nolan
Date: Tue Aug 12, 2003 6:14am
Subject: Re: Genre auteurs
 
> Genre-based moviegoing seems to exist in kind of a mutated form these
> days. The "basic western" is no longer possible, thanks to the
> reasons you mentioned, but the rare western that we see these days is
> going to either transcend or attempt to transcend the stock western
> mold of the classical period. You wouldn't call UNFORGIVEN
> an "oater", and any recent western gets tagged "revisionist" if it
> deserves the label or not (see AMERICAN OUTLAW; SOUTH OF HEAVEN,
WEST
> OF HELL, which is pretty neat by the way; the two YOUNG GUNS
> movies). Which brings me to my (hopefully) wrap-up observation, that
> I feel that moviegoers tend to be attracted by genre over anything
> else, but only when genre is qualified by a minor premise of stars,
> heavy budget, "coolness" factor, the Academy Awards, and so on. Like
> people might say, Let's go see that romance (that happens to star
> Luke Wilson and Kate Hudson), or Let's go see that action movie (that
> happens to be part of a franchise that pretends to cult status), or
> Let's go see that musical that's based on a Broadway smash (that's
> being sold like the new crack; this was long before the Oscar
> triumph). People seem to stay away from Eddie Murphy movies like the
> plague, so put him in a children's movie: DADDY DAY CARE has made
> almost $100 million. Also stripped-down, starless horror movies seem
> to be on the rise in recent years - spurred by BLAIR WITCH?
>
> Jaime

I can think of at least two commercial reasons GENRE is less useful today:
1) no need to inform the public what the movie is about as the previews and
hype have all done it. In the previous decades, there was much less pre-
screening info available.
2) screening venues have so many screens to fill that the entire gamut of
genre films is covered in one evening. Distributors don't have to be narrowed
to a genre for their single or double screen showings.
1131


From: Tristan
Date: Tue Aug 12, 2003 7:11am
Subject: Re: Home Movies (Brian De Palma, 1979)
 
I forgot, I saw a real turkey from De Palma. Scarface I absolutely
hated. Are there any defenders here? I know it is Puff Daddy and Jay-
Z's favorite movies(whatever that means).
1132


From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Tue Aug 12, 2003 1:34pm
Subject: De Palma
 
> I forgot, I saw a real turkey from De Palma. Scarface I absolutely
> hated. Are there any defenders here?

Me, but then I'm not a real De Palma fan. It's the film where I most
feel his great command of the image - possibly because it was not a very
personal project.

SCARFACE and PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE are the De Palma films I enjoy
most. - Dan
1133


From: jess_l_amortell
Date: Tue Aug 12, 2003 2:03pm
Subject: local trivia: NYT/Angelika
 
I couldn't help wondering if there was any precedent for the N.Y. Times running a hatchet job on a movie theater like its article on the Angelika Film Center, "The House Filmgoers Love to Hate," on the front page of Sunday's Arts and Leisure section. The Angelika has provided its share of horror stories through the years, and one avoids it when possible, but I never thought this was the kind of burning issue the Times would so prominently concern itself with (assuming the ad lineage continued coming in). Other art houses arguably do worse damage with their overmasking, for example, and have never been called to account, even in passing. Did the Angelika sell some Times editors some really stale popcorn or something, or is there more to this?

It's interesting to see any focus at all on New York's somewhat ghetto-like art house scene of the present day.


(Don't know if this link will continue to work)
www.nytimes.com/2003/08/10/movies/10MCKI.html?ex=1061092800&en=d98eb97a3b15fe05&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

or:
http://makeashorterlink.com/?V69542095
1134


From: vincent lobrutto
Date: Tue Aug 12, 2003 2:19pm
Subject: DePalma's Scarface
 
Tristan wrote:

I saw a real turkey from De Palma. Scarface I absolutely
hated. Are there any defenders here? I know it is Puff Daddy and Jay-
Z's favorite movies(whatever that means).

Tristan, DePalma's Scarface has always had a cult following and it continues to grow. In an interview after directing Dead President's the Hughes Brothers told me it was one of their favorite films. I first saw it in its original release at a local theater in Jackson Heights Queens, NY, then and maybe still known as the Cocaine capital of the US. The theater was packed. When Pacino does the line of coke down the entire lenght of the desk there was a standing ovation. See the Hawks Scarface if you haven't. DePalma was very clever in placing his film in the 80s using the Mariel boatlift as a narrative context for a new wave of criminals and crime. The film is very over the top. I agree with Dan about the visuals. DePalma did not have the Hitchcock connection with this film which probably freed him to be bold and inventive. I love the garish look - the great production design by Ferdinando Scarfiotti know for his many collaborations with Bertolucci. In many ways this film can be enjoyed
by not taking it too seriously and think of it as a Warner Crime movie from the Cagney, Bogart, and Edward G. Robinson where the intent is to enjoy the exploits of the bad guys. Pacino's accent changes from scene to scene, the chainsaw scene would make any goremaker proud - the film is Miami Vice without suave. My favorite DePalma films are Carlito's Way, Greetings, Hi Mom, The Untouchables, Dressed to Kill and Body Double - least fav - Mission Impossible, Femme Fatale, Snake Eyes, and the Turkey of all Turkey's - The Bonfire of the Vanities.

Vinny LoBrutto


---------------------------------
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Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
1135


From: Zach Campbell
Date: Tue Aug 12, 2003 2:35pm
Subject: Re: another phase at Cahiers
 
Gabe:
> In Tesson's defense, he has the best critical study on Buñuel yet
> published

This is unavailable in English, right? (One more reason to learn
French faster.) But it's even better than Durgnat's book?

--Zach
1136


From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Aug 12, 2003 2:48pm
Subject: Tesson
 
Charles' Bunuel is very good and very special - it devotes a lot of
attrention to puns. He also wrote an excellent book in the same
series on Satyajit Ray. Both untranslated. My younger stepson adores
Scarface.
1137


From: jess_l_amortell
Date: Tue Aug 12, 2003 2:56pm
Subject: De Palma: Femme Fatale question
 
Re De Palma:

In Armond White's review of FEMME FATALE, he wrote: "Instead of merely rep=
licating noir's dead end, _Femme Fatale_ eventually transcends existential d=
read. Darkness gets rent by a shaft of redemptive light (the cause of a danc=
ing/killing finale); its heavenly source only revealed during the end credit=
s–a crucial part of De Palma's audacious narrative reconstruction. _Be sure =
to sit still for the final, full tableau._"

http://www.nypress.com/15/46/film/film2.cfm

I saw FEMME FATALE (which I liked) twice in theatres but couldn't remember =
any revelation actually taking place during the end credits. (I thought I'd=
watched until the end, but perhaps not.) Is there such a revelation, and i=
s the DVD worth getting hold of to see it?
1138


From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Tue Aug 12, 2003 2:57pm
Subject: Re: Tesson
 
just to add a very slight dissonant note, I feel the Tesson book very much
based on "Nietzsche et la philosophie" by Gilles Deleuze. It's a marvelous
book (in fact, both of them are, the Deleuze and the Tesson ones), but I
don't feel completely every quote needs to be there, and I'm not sure they
would if they were not (I assume but that's an easy assumption I guess) some
kind of academic rendition, a doctor or a master thesis... anyway, it's ages
better than the Ado Kyrou book.
When Tesson dives into the Bunuel films themselves, it becomes really great.
What I don't particularly like about some of the Tesson articles is his need
to always making exhaustious depictions of the psychology of characters and
the relations between them. Maybe that's what Filipem feels also.
ruy
----- Original Message -----
From: "hotlove666"
To:
Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2003 11:48 AM
Subject: [a_film_by] Tesson


> Charles' Bunuel is very good and very special - it devotes a lot of
> attrention to puns. He also wrote an excellent book in the same
> series on Satyajit Ray. Both untranslated. My younger stepson adores
> Scarface.
>
>
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> a_film_by-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
1139


From: Damien Bona
Date: Tue Aug 12, 2003 5:25pm
Subject: Re: DePalma's Scarface
 
I haven't seen it since it was released 20 years ago, but to me
SCarface pretty much defines the term, "wretched excess."

All over Times Square, though, there are guys with tables set up
selling junk, and most of them have pictures of Pacino from the movie
(but no Pacino from Author, Author).
1140


From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Aug 12, 2003 6:06pm
Subject: Tesson, Deleuze, Cavell, Lombard
 
The Bunuel book is also heavily influenced by Pierre Legendre,
according to Claudine Paquot, who published both the Bunuel
and the Ray. Legendre is also very present (but not much
quoted) in Charles' little book on El (in a French series not unlike
the BFI Classics series).

Ironically, I just wrote a short article on Mr. and Mrs. Smith for the
new-new-new Cahiers where I used (and quoted) Deleuze's
bnlliant comment on that film in L'Image-Mouvement. Dan may
be glad to know that I used Deleuze (and the magic of Carole
Lombard) against his old sparring partner Stanley Cavell, who
doesn't even allude to the existence of Twentieth Century in
Pursuits of Happiness! I think she represents a counter-tradition
to the one Cavell identifies, which centers on Cary Grant.

Has anyone seen Lombard's Swing High, Swing Low? David
Chierichetti says it was Leisen's best film, but Maltin says it's
"corny."
1141


From: Tristan
Date: Tue Aug 12, 2003 6:22pm
Subject: Re: DePalma's Scarface
 
I have seen the Hawks version of Scarface. It is definitely much
better. I loved the opening tracking shot. It also does not drag like
the De Palma, at practically half the length.
1142


From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Tue Aug 12, 2003 6:28pm
Subject: Re: Tesson, Deleuze, Cavell, Lombard
 
> Has anyone seen Lombard's Swing High, Swing Low? David
> Chierichetti says it was Leisen's best film, but Maltin says it's
> "corny."

I saw it years ago - I'm somewhere in-between, I guess. It didn't seem
too inspired to me at the time. - Dan
1143


From: Zach Campbell
Date: Tue Aug 12, 2003 11:29pm
Subject: Re: De Palma: Femme Fatale question (spoilers)
 
Jess:
> I saw FEMME FATALE (which I liked) twice in theatres but couldn't
remember =
> any revelation actually taking place during the end credits. (I
thought I'd=
> watched until the end, but perhaps not.) Is there such a
revelation, and i=
> s the DVD worth getting hold of to see it?

I think White is simply referring to the light from the sky that
reflected on the locket and blinded the driver, leading to Laure's
lucky break. Nicolas' final photo collage, in addition to featuring
Laure in two different pictures, is significant for this shaft of
light: over the course of 7+ years, Nicolas has created an assortment
of random images that showcases this "heavenly shaft" of sorts, the
same momentary thing that lead to the surprising finale.

--Zach
1144


From: Elizabeth Nolan
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 0:39am
Subject:
 
Screenwriter's comment "I can fix it" sounds as good as the ending of
SOME LIKE IT HOT ...Nobody's perfect!


On Tuesday, August 12, 2003, at 12:25 AM, a_film_by@yahoogroups.com
wrote:

> Message: 20
> Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2003 06:00:16 -0000
> From: "hotlove666"
> Subject: HMO Story
>
> A satirical comedy about an HMO would be very timely.
>
> Hollywood story: Skip Brittenham, am emtertainment industry lawyer
> now worth literally billions, wanted to remake Trouble in Paradise
> and The Great McGinty. Somehow he found me (after I was run out of
> Akademia, and before I went to work for Boxofice) and screened
> screenwriter the two films for me and an old screenwriter - a real-
> life Pat Hobby. As we walked out of Trouble, the screenwriter
> said, "I can fix it."
>
> Actually, my then g.f. Barbara - she of the Kennedy film - had
> already told me a good idea for remaking McGinty: After his father's
> death, the heir apparent to the governership of Calif. has turned his
> back on politics to make chairs at a religious commune. When the
> machine plucks him from obscurity and puts him to work (he's starving
> making chairs), he quickly rises within the ranks because he knows
> the ropes. Sort of a spiritual autobiography of Jerry Brown.
>
> But Joel Silver and the Coens ended up remaking McGinty, and I guess
> no one ever will "fix" Trouble in Paradise...
1145


From: jaketwilson
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 1:06am
Subject: Re: DePalma's Scarface
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Damien Bona" wrote:
> I haven't seen it since it was released 20 years ago, but to me
> SCarface pretty much defines the term, "wretched excess."

I like it a lot, although 'excess' is certainly the word. But give me
Pacino over Paul Muni any day. It's an unusual De Palma movie in that
it's built around a performance -- mostly he uses actors like
mannequins locked into place for the diagrammatic set-pieces.

Femme Fatale -- memory may be at fault but isn't part of White's point
the way the end links the shaft of light with the church?

I'm curious to hear more about Filipe's preference for Obsession.

JTW
1146


From:
Date: Tue Aug 12, 2003 9:29pm
Subject: 1958
 
I re-watched Minnelli's amazing "Some Came Running" on television last night.
It's a great film, my favorite Minnelli. Fred's written before about how
the funeral scene is one of his favorite things in cinema and all I can say is
that I agree. I might also put in a mention for the amazing moment when
Sinatra and Martha Hyers are talking inside, in good light, and Minnelli suddenly
shifts the lighting so that they appear in silhouette.

But this film poses some interesting problems for an unreconstructed
list-maker like myself. The film was released in the United States in 1958 - also the
year of three of my other favorite films, "Touch of Evil," "Bonjour
tristesse," and "Vertigo." And that's to say nothing of numerous other films I
treasure from that year, from "A Time to Love and a Time to Die" to "Mon oncle" to
"The Last Hurrah." But the quadruple threat of the Minnelli, Welles, Preminger,
and Hitchcock, in particular, has me of the mind that this is one of the
greatest years in cinema history. I simply give up ranking these.

This is a concept that Rick and I (and others) discuss from time to time.
Are there any particular years for people here that stand out for you in terms
of the number of great films released?

Peter

http://hometown.aol.com/ptonguette/index.html
1147


From: jaketwilson
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 1:30am
Subject: Re: DePalma's Scarface (read first)R
 
Minor spoilers in previous post re Femme Fatale.

JTW
1148


From: Elizabeth Anne Nolan
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 1:35am
Subject: Re: Royal Tenenbaums
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Tristan" wrote:
> A few more references mentioned in the commentary:
> *The opening title card was inspired by The Red Shoes.
> *The opening sequence was influenced by The Magnificent Ambersons.
> *The idea of only showing Chas's wife through a picture is an idea
> from Paris, Texas.
>
> Anyway, Royal Tenenbaums was my favorite movie of 2002. I would like
> to discuss it more if anyone else could think of a topic regarding it.

Since you are interested in comments on RT, I'm sending my reactions after
seeing it on original release, followed by a comment from a fellow SDiegan,
and followed by my reply.

(I've been watching movies for the past few years and don't have the
cinematic erudition of many on this board but I'm making a serious effort to
understand cinema better...perhaps you will enjoy the comments of a novice)

I had watched in the last two weeks, Bottle Rocket (started as short feature,
got made) and Rushmore (more worthy).
RoyalT is good but takes an awful lot of work to enjoy it, at least for me.
WAnderson uses some of the same style as in Rushmore, indexing the
"episodes" ala a
NYC story book and heightening the events with a variety of music (most of
which I only vaguely recognized as I have no ear for music; I think the
implied lyrics were suppose to add info but I didn't hear/know them).
All the characters are interesting beyond their eccentricities because they
are "stars" working in unusual roles; with unknowns I think RT would have
looked bit weak. Owen Wilson certainly stretches his range...he looked to
me like he was mimicking that seen on TV lawyer JERRY SPENSE (although
Owen
plays a writer prone to stimulating drug use) and almost crossed the 'nice
guy with a bit of a problem' when looking like the heir apparent son of
Dennis Hopper, he crashes....

I like to see what these guys Anderson and the Wilsons are doing but I
sometimes think they are throwing whatever crosses their collective mind at
the audience and hoping something sticks. I think their modus operandi is
to twist a scene a bit for rapid effect (watch for how the 'cuts on the
"wrists"' come out), but to what end? Their work is different, but I wonder
how long different will be interesting enough. Nonetheless, I'll look for
their next project but hope it need not have the episodic introductions
(curtains in Rushmore, book chapters in RT), narrative voiceovers, and
'redundant?' music...just 'show and tell' me a story.


A fellow San Diegan film goer replied

> I like to see what these guys Anderson and the Wilsons are doing but I
> sometimes think they are throwing whatever crosses their
> collective mind at
> the audience and hoping something sticks. I think their modus operandi is
> to twist a scene a bit for rapid effect (watch for how the 'cuts on the
> "wrists"' come out), but to what end? Their work is different,
> but I wonder
> how long different will be interesting enough. Nonetheless, I'll look for
> their next project but hope it need not have the episodic introductions
> (curtains in Rushmore, boook chapters in RT), narrative voiceovers, and
> 'redundant?' music...just 'show and tell' me a story.

No offense meant but I think this is an inappropriate attitude to
take towards these films.

Why does the story have to "flow"? The curtains and chapters play
an important (some would even say "Brechtian") narrative role.
Sometimes titles are taken to extremes (Godard is the best example
of this). In other instances they are inserted as commonplace
(although sort of enigmatic) narrative breaks (best seen in Rivette's
films)

Music plays an extremely key role in these films. While personally
I would not choose to use so much pop music (or even music at all),
it is obviously a very important, personal choice for the director.
I recommend reading the articles on the film from this week's
Village Voice for a good take on the music. He uses key songs that
mean quite a bit to his generation...Nico, Nick Drake...

While you may not like his style (there are many that feel that
this film in particular is too mannered and boastfully clever),
wishing that he would revert to traditional narrative methods
restricts the entire point of his films. It seems like you
prefer a more natural, believable approach to storytelling (which is great).
Variety in movies makes it bearable to keep going. One of my
main gripes with Hollywood (and with many pseudo-"indies") is
that there is no playful experimentation. Things need to be
portrayed as realistically as possible, which becomes tiresome--
for me, at least.

I happen to like stories that are obviously constructed (Rivette's
films, including "Va savoir", are notorious for this). These movies
may not be believable, but the freedom from normal narrative expectations
invites a more playful, jubilant spirit that transcends simply "telling
a story". It could also produce a frustrating, oppressive
environment that can be just as rewarding.


I replied
ADVERTISEMENT
Again, the best I can say is that I do not have an ear for music and need to
make a concerted effort to hear the sound track, and then don't really catch
it other than the mode. I admit that. No offense intended, taken or
defended.

I think part of the reason I was concerned about the chapters this time is
because there was hardly enough time to read/comprehend, see a pattern,
etc,
while listening to the voice over...meaning, was there anything special to
it...after a few chapter introductions, I realized it was the same as the
voice over.

I don't think I want a more natural/believeable story telling as much as I
wish this recognized talent would focus more on story, then do all his
stylish extras rather than the other way around.

(Many special effect movies focus on special effects rather than story,
something really nice can happen when the special effects are woven into the
story ala Matrix, however often told the story).

Playful experimentation is possible, even in natural story telling...I am
reminded of I KNOW WHERE I AM GOING by Powell and Pressberger?. If you
are
aware of that movie, you can see that in the midst of a most natural telling
of a woman's engagement to a man, she is fantasizing about her marriage to
the company he owns. It is a great scene, as it puts in pictures the
thoughts of the character. Further surreal scenes appears in I KNOW WHERE
I AM GOING

I think it is possible to integrate different styles into fundamental story
telling...that's all I'm hoping for from Wes Anderson and company as I think
he is a very conscientious film maker, if not too so. As an exercise, some
day I would like to watch the dozen or so movies listed in IMDB under A TALE
OF TWO CITIES just to see the style differences in this great narrative
story.



Elizabeth
1149


From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 1:49am
Subject: Re: 1958
 
> Are there any particular years for people here that stand out for you in terms
> of the number of great films released?

For some reason, it's 1937 and 1949 for me, and always has been despite
many changes in taste. I don't consider this part of any trend or
especially fertile period - luck of the draw, I guess. - Dan
1150


From: vincent lobrutto
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 1:56am
Subject: Re: Great Film Years
 
Peter Tonguette wrote:

Are there any particular years for people here that stand out for you in terms
of the number of great films released?


1972: The Godfather, Cabaret, Deliverance, Harold and Maude, The King of Marvin Gardens, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoise.

Vinny LoBrutto



---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
1151


From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 3:40am
Subject: 1958
 
One of the "Cinemaniacs," Jack Angstreich, also makes a case for 1958
as the greatest Hollywood year of all, citing the aforementioned, but
also MAN OF THE WEST, THE NAKED AND THE DEAD, WIND ACROSS THE
EVERGLADES, PARTY GIRL, THE LAST HURRAH, and BUCHANAN RIDES ALONE.
(I may be misattributing some titles to his list and forgetting
others.)

Outside Hollywood you have IVAN THE TERRIBLE, PART II (kind of
tricky, assigning a year for that one), JALSAGHAR/THE MUSIC ROOM, THE
and HIDDEN FORTRESS. Also A MOVIE BY BRUCE CONNER, THE LEGEND OF
SLEEPY HOLLOW, assorted Looney Tunes shorts, BIG DEAL ON MADONNA
STREET, ROCK-A-BYE BABY (Tashlin), RALLY 'ROUND THE FLAG, BOYS
(McCarey), A NIGHT TO REMEMBER (Baker) and WESTBOUND (Boetticher).
And others. Dan also lists NAZARIN (Bunuel), FROM HELL TO TEXAS
(Hathaway), THE LINE-UP (Don Siegel), LA PREMIERE NUIT (Franju), UNE
VIE (Alexandre Astruc), (Ford), GUNMAN'S WALK (Karlson), THE GYPSY
AND THE GENTLEMAN (Losey), NIGHT OF THE DEMON (Tourneur), and NIGHT
DRUM (Tadashi).

And like others have said, it's more luck of the draw than
any "trend" or corresponding historical moment.

Looking over my lists, and leaving out the most recent years of
moviegoing, it seems like the entire decade of the 1950s is the most
dense with great, *great* films, particularly 1955 and 1953. 1960
and 1962 are also very heavy.
1152


From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 3:41am
Subject: error
 
> THE and HIDDEN FORTRESS

Here I meant, THE HIDDEN FORTRESS.

Jaime
1153


From: Fred Camper
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 4:28am
Subject: Re: 1958
 
I concur on 1958, and kudos to Jaime for including "A Movie" by Bruce
Conner and the wonderful Franju "Le Premiere Nuit," with great
photography by Eugen Shuftan, but everyone here is missing the elephant
in the room, Stan Brakhage's "Anticipation of the Night," his first
truly major film, and an overwhelmingly moving meditation on alienation
and suicide.

- Fred
1154


From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 4:39am
Subject: Re: 1958
 
> and NIGHT
> DRUM (Tadashi).

The director of this film is Imai, first name Tadashi. - Dan
1155


From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 5:02am
Subject: 1958: Magic Time
 
The sun was starting to set on classical Hollywood cinema, although
there were still many great films to come. Hawks and Hitchcock were
at the top of their form, but the films they had made in 1955-7 - Rio
Bravo, The Wrong Man, Vertigo - already signal a major shift in
progress. In 1958 Godard was getting ready to shoot Breathless.
Here's his ten best list for the year (some of which date from 1957,
actually), in order of preference:

The Quiet American
Brink of Life
Bonjour Tristesse
Montparnasse 19
Une vie
Man of the West
Touch of Evil
L'Eau vive
White Nights
Le temps des ouefs durs

His article on Montparnasse 19, one of his best, is imbued with the
air of the time as filtered by a very fine sensibility. People who
especially love 1958 - and I'm one of them - love twilight.
1156


From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 5:18am
Subject: Re: 1958
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > and NIGHT
> > DRUM (Tadashi).
>
> The director of this film is Imai, first name Tadashi. - Dan

That's right, my mistake. HK and Chinese filmmakers usually have to
have their names reversed in English texts, it's confusing that
Japanese names are already switched. While I'm on it, any reason why
that's the case? Is it because the US has been familiar with
Japanese cinema for a longer time than with Hong Kong, Taiwan, and
Chinese cinemas?

Jaime
1157


From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 5:22am
Subject: Bill (years)
 
I've got RIO BRAVO as a 1959 film, and VERTIGO as 1958 - I've never
seen any listing that's had them different. THE WRONG MAN I've seen
listed as either 1956 or 1957 ('56 in my database). I've gone back
and forth on BREATHLESS - I used to consider it 1959, but it seems
that most books and filmographies put it at 1960. It sure does get
tricky sometimes.

Jaime
1158


From: Fred Camper
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 5:45am
Subject: Re: Bill (years)
 
Jaime N. Christley wrote:

>It sure does get
>tricky sometimes.
>
>
Yes, and this is something that interests me, especially as I've been
working on a draft of a Brakhage filmography: what does that year mean,
exactly? The convention in filmographies of commercial features seems to
be to use the year of release, rather than of completion; hence we have
the absurdity of having it appear that "Jet Pilot" is von Sternberg's
last film and comes six years after "Anatahan," when actually it was
made the year before -- wrecking, for those who go only by
filmographies, von Sternberg's particularly great example of the "last
film that sums up the artist's career and pushes beyond it" myth. But
what even does "year of release" mean? Does a French filmography use the
release in France? Does an American filmography of a French filmmaker
use the release dates in the U.S.? And does a festival showing
constitute a release? If a film is shown in Cannes in 2002 but doesn't
"open" in theaters in 2003, is 2003 typically listed (which would be my
guess)? Is there any consistency here?

I guess my ideal filmography would have the year of completion and the
release year, but even "completion" is tricky -- is it when the director
(or whoever is responsible if the director is gone) signs off on the
final edit and sound mix, or when final prints are made? One argument
for using release years is that changes are always possible before
release But in literature, for example, no one would list the year of a
poem that was not published in the poet's lifetime as the date of its
first publication. The commercial aspects of the biz seem to be
influencing things here.

I pose these as questions that as far as I know have no simple formulaic
answers, but of course comments are welcome.

A look at this does make clear how absurd arguments over differences of
one year in dating a film can be.

- Fred
1159


From: Elizabeth Anne Nolan
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 5:51am
Subject: Re: TCM Recommendations? ****films site on web
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jaime N. Christley"
wrote:
> Every month I scan the TCM schedule for whatever directors and film
> titles catch my eye - generally with these filters installed: [1]
> director's name, since I may not necessarily know all of their
> movies, [2] film titles, given recommendations from friends and
> critics, titles I know I want to see, &c., and [3] sometimes, just
> sometimes, plots that sound interesting and/or juicy.





This is a listing for **** films. While some may disagree with star listings, it is
a place to look for films, and at least it gives the director's name.

http://www.tv-now.com/stars/4star.html
1160


From: Elizabeth Anne Nolan
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 6:06am
Subject: Re: The Thing Called Love SPIT/Saliva/Hankerchief
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:

Question: there's a point in THE THING CALLED
> LOVE where Samantha Mathis is removing some makeup from Sandra
Bullock
> (who is wonderful in this film, by the way) and repeatedly interrupts
> her speech by telling Bullock to "Spit!" so that she can get some saliva
> on her handkerchief to remove the makeup with. (There's a possibility
> that I've got it mixed up about which actress is doing what in this
> scene - my memory is vague.) This scene is a direct lift from some old
> Hollywood film - but I can't place the homage/theft, though I think it's
> from a film I know pretty well. Can anyone help me? - Dan

Do you think it is a mother to child exchange or an adult to adult exchange?
M to C might be somthing like A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN.
This type of scene is most likely found in a movie where a working class
mother is preparing a child's appearance for entrance to a somewhat
unfamiliar world.
A to A might be in THELMA and LOUISE after the rape scene when one is
trying to compose the other and remove the blood evidence.
1161


From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 6:09am
Subject: Re: Re: The Thing Called Love SPIT/Saliva/Hankerchief
 
> Question: there's a point in THE THING CALLED
>>LOVE where Samantha Mathis is removing some makeup from Sandra
> Bullock
>>(who is wonderful in this film, by the way) and repeatedly interrupts
>>her speech by telling Bullock to "Spit!" so that she can get some saliva
>>on her handkerchief to remove the makeup with. (There's a possibility
>>that I've got it mixed up about which actress is doing what in this
>>scene - my memory is vague.) This scene is a direct lift from some old
>>Hollywood film - but I can't place the homage/theft, though I think it's
>>from a film I know pretty well. Can anyone help me? - Dan
>
> Do you think it is a mother to child exchange or an adult to adult exchange?

I think it's an adult to adult change, and I'm pretty sure it's an old
Hollywood film by a Bogdanovitch favorite (i.e., nothing as new as
THELMA AND LOUISE). I feel as if I'll come up with it someday.... - Dan
1162


From: Damien Bona
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 6:16am
Subject: My Favorite Year
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, ptonguette@a... wrote:
> Are there any particular years for people here that stand out for
you in terms
> of the number of great films released?


I've always been partial to 1955, and not just because it was the
year I was born: Kiss Me Deadly, Lola Montes, Night of the Hunter,
Rebel Without A Cause, East of Eden, All That Heaven Allows,
Moonfleet, The Trouble With Harry, It's Always Fair Weather, Phenix
City Story, Artists and Models.

When I mentioned this to another child of '55 -- Dan -- he rightly
pointed out that almost any year in the 50s could be seen as the best
ever. (Lots of SIrk, Minnelli, Tashlin, Ford, Hitchcock, Aldrich, De
Toth, Ray, Edwards, Fuller, Siegel, Mann, etc.)

Another particularly rich year is 1976: Family Plot, A Matter Of
Time, The Tenant, Lipstick, Bound For Glory, Robin and Marian, Jonah
Who Will Be 25 In The Year 2000, Next Stop Greenwich Vilage, The
Missouri Breaks, The Shootist, The Pink Panther Strikes Again, The
Marquise of O, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Carrie and Obsession.
1163


From: Elizabeth Anne Nolan
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 6:26am
Subject: Re: So much to say, so little time cigarette short NOW VOYAGER
 
> If you take out the politics and cut together just the sequences
> built around close inspection of Ava Gardner, you'd have an
> avant-garde film worthy of early Philippe Garrel. (Inspired by a
> remark of Joe Dante's that raised the hackles of a French critic
> who will remain nameless to the effect that you could doa great
> short by cutting together all the cigarette gags in Beyond a
> Reasonable Doubt.)

I suspect you could do a complete romance of the cigarette scenes in NOW
VOYAGER starting with Bette's squashed cigarette butts hidden in the basket.
1164


From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 6:30am
Subject: Re: Bill (years)
 
I use date of first public appearance, whether it's a festival, a première
or the village square...
----- Original Message -----
From: "Fred Camper"
To:
Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2003 2:45 AM
Subject: Re: [a_film_by] Bill (years)


>
>
> Jaime N. Christley wrote:
>
> >It sure does get
> >tricky sometimes.
> >
> >
> Yes, and this is something that interests me, especially as I've been
> working on a draft of a Brakhage filmography: what does that year mean,
> exactly? The convention in filmographies of commercial features seems to
> be to use the year of release, rather than of completion; hence we have
> the absurdity of having it appear that "Jet Pilot" is von Sternberg's
> last film and comes six years after "Anatahan," when actually it was
> made the year before -- wrecking, for those who go only by
> filmographies, von Sternberg's particularly great example of the "last
> film that sums up the artist's career and pushes beyond it" myth. But
> what even does "year of release" mean? Does a French filmography use the
> release in France? Does an American filmography of a French filmmaker
> use the release dates in the U.S.? And does a festival showing
> constitute a release? If a film is shown in Cannes in 2002 but doesn't
> "open" in theaters in 2003, is 2003 typically listed (which would be my
> guess)? Is there any consistency here?
>
> I guess my ideal filmography would have the year of completion and the
> release year, but even "completion" is tricky -- is it when the director
> (or whoever is responsible if the director is gone) signs off on the
> final edit and sound mix, or when final prints are made? One argument
> for using release years is that changes are always possible before
> release But in literature, for example, no one would list the year of a
> poem that was not published in the poet's lifetime as the date of its
> first publication. The commercial aspects of the biz seem to be
> influencing things here.
>
> I pose these as questions that as far as I know have no simple formulaic
> answers, but of course comments are welcome.
>
> A look at this does make clear how absurd arguments over differences of
> one year in dating a film can be.
>
> - Fred
>
>
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> a_film_by-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
1165


From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 6:31am
Subject: Re: 1958: Magic Time
 
1959 was a very good year for films released in Paris.

Here's the Cahiers top 21 for the year. (Of course several of these
films were released earlier elsewhere.)

Ugetsu monogatari
Hiroshima, Mon Amour
Ivan the Terrible
Pickpocket
Les 400 Coups
Rio Bravo
Wild Strawberries
Vertigo
Yang Kwei Fei
The Tiger of Eschnapur
Moi, un noir
Anatomy of a Murder
Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe
La Tete contre les murs
Il Generale della Rovere
Run of the Arrow
Les Cousins
Big Deal on Madonna Street
Rally Round the Flag, Boys!
Deux hommes dan Manhattan
Wind Across the Everglades


Paul
1166


From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 6:33am
Subject: Oops!
 
I thought so, too, but since we're under orders to proof our posts, I
grabbed Halliwell and was misinformed. Actually, I always had Rio
Bravo in my mind as 57,* but it was 59, and still on Times Square
when I was a freshman in college. The Hitchcock dates, I knew - I'm
not a complete idiot. (I think Wrong Man was late '56, which would
mean it was out in '57, too.) Breathless was 1959 in France, 1960
here.

I don't know any single source that gets all the country-of-origin
release dates right. Even Michael Singer always used the American
release date - IF THERE WAS ONE - so as not to drive himself crazy,
but his Directors book includes a lot of foreign filomgraphies,
especially Japanese, often taken from Japanese sources. So again, no
consistency.

The problem isn't people using the release date - it's thinking that
one date will suffice. It's useful to know, at a minimum:

1. When a film was finished if it sat on the shelf
2. What its first public showing was, month and day
3. The month and day it was released commercially, if it was (I think
the AFI Catalogue does this for commercial American features)
4. The date the NEW version was first seen (after a festival: Pola X,
demonlover, Esther Kahn, Platform; in theatres: 2001, The Shining; on
tv: They All Laughed, Texasville)

The Internet, with all those invisible unpaid hands chipping away at
the databases, is the ideal venue for such a list to eventually take
shape, after opassing through every shape of error the World Spirit
can come up with.

I once watched a Chaplin documentary that will not be named with
Chaplinist Karl Thiede, who researches production and release dates
for silents - including 2-reelers - in forgotten trades, which he
collects. He said many of the dates Joe Adamson used in his
narrative - which was ABOUT the evolution of something - were wrong.
I don't doubt it. Karl also has the real profit and loss figures for
most Hollywood films, including 2-reelers and B westerns.

*Because that's the date Biette gives in an article I was
plagiarizing - or rather, was reluctant to cite, because I'm sure all
this French quoting is wearing thin on some members. It's
called "Trois morts," and it's wonderful. I'll stick to my twilight
time characterization of 1958. Daney had nice way of putting it,
talking about his early critic days: "We mistook Hollywood's twilight
for its summit," or words to that effect. But he was a twilight guy.
1167


From:
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 3:54am
Subject: 1958
 
Other riches of 1958, in addition to those already named:

Ashes and Diamonds (Andrzej Wajda)
Buchanan Rides Alone (Budd Boetticher)
Equinox Flower (Yasujiro Ozu)
The Fearmakers (Jacques Tourneur)
The Geisha Boy (Frank Tashlin)
Gigi (Vincente Minnelli)
Gunman's Walk (Phil Karlson)
Indiscreet (Stanley Donen)
The Last Hurrah (John Ford)
The Naked and the Dead (Raoul Walsh)
The Reluctant Debutante (Vincente Minnelli)
The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw (Raoul Walsh)
Terror in a Texas Town (Joseph H. Lewis)
A Time to Love and a Time to Die (Douglas Sirk)
Two Men and a Wardrobe (Roman Polanski)
Witness For the Prosecution (Billy Wilder)

It was a wonderful year!
The whole 1950's is very rich!

Mike Grost
1168


From: Rick Curnutte
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 1:58pm
Subject: The Film Journal Issue 7
 
Everyone,

I hope this doesn't bother anyone. I got permission from Peter and
Fred in advance to post this. I've just sent out the latest call for
submissions for the online magazine I edit, THE FILM JOURNAL
(www.thefilmjournal.com). I thought it might be of particular
interest here, because the In-Focus Series that we do is focused on
contemporary auteurist criticism.

So if anyone is interested in reading it and, perchance, in
contributing, please visit the link below for more information.

Again, I hope no one here is bothered by this post. If so, I promise
not to do it again in the future.

Here's the link:

http://www.thefilmjournal.com/submissions.html

Rick Curnutte
1169


From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 2:10pm
Subject: Re: My Favorite Year
 
> Another particularly rich year is 1976: Family Plot, A Matter Of
> Time, The Tenant, Lipstick, Bound For Glory, Robin and Marian, Jonah
> Who Will Be 25 In The Year 2000, Next Stop Greenwich Vilage, The
> Missouri Breaks, The Shootist, The Pink Panther Strikes Again, The
> Marquise of O, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Carrie and Obsession.

The early 70s were a nice time, with European cinema at a peak, and the
US kicking in a lot of nice films as well. I've always liked '74 best,
even though at the time Sarris called it the worst year in cinema since
1914. Among other things, the New German Cinema peaked for me that
year: not just FEAR EATS THE SOUL and EFFI BRIEST, but my favorite
Wenders - ALICE IN THE CITIES - and my favorite Herzog - KASPAR HAUSER.
- Dan
1170


From:
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 0:28pm
Subject: Bigger Than Life question
 
All -

I have a question about Ray's Bigger Than Life that I guess would be
primarily for those who've managed to secure a copy of the film on video or who have
jaw-dropping powers of recall.

Near the end of the film, Lou Avery (Barbara Rush) and her son Richie are in
a hospital waiting room. Lou tries to flag down a nurse to get some
information on the status of her husband. The nurse passes her by, either failing to
hear her or ignoring her, and Lou says something. What does she say? It sounds
like "Nurses are always in such a hurry" but I'm not sure. Help?

Kevin John


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
1171


From: Elizabeth Anne Nolan
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 4:35pm
Subject: Re: The Hulk
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, ptonguette@a... wrote:
> I'm not as enthusiastic as Bill is, though I did like parts of "The Hulk"
> very much: the time Lee gives to Bruce's childhood, the performances of
Bana,
> Nolte, and Elliott, Elfman's score (and particularly that one melody he used
> repeatedly), and the often-arresting visual design (the paneling effects, the
dark
> lighting, and extreme close-ups). It definitely has more personality than
> "Spiderman" (and the action sequence are better).
>
> I still maintain, though, that Lester's "Superman II" represents a heretofore
> unequaled fusion of humanism and genre in comic book movies, as filtered
> through the personality of a great director.

I saw SPIDERMAN during its run and liked his self discovery scenes early on.
I attended COMIC CON here in SD last month and saw AMERICAN
SPLENDOR and heard Harvey P speak. I went to HULK knowing only about
TV story. I didn't do much in the way of comic books (or any books for that
matter) as a child and certainly not too many movies.

HULK clearly lets you know it is from a comic book in a way that Spiderman
does not. I can easily recommend HULK (except for the too much science for
the average viewer intro) and explain its comic book origins. The directorial
choices are apparent and fitting the content.

More on AMERICAN SPLENDOR when I find that thread which might be a
few days as I am going to LA for the American ScreenWriter's Association
meeting.
1172


From: Elizabeth Anne Nolan
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 6:17pm
Subject: A soldier's daughter never cries
 
> I agree with Peter that Ivory's best are Mr, and Mrs. Bridge and A
> Soldiers Daughter. In both of these, Ivory revealed himself to be a
> wry observer of social mores of very particular milieus, and a
> sympathetic portrayer of the romantic temperament. In both regards
> he is worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as George Cukor.

I watched ASDNC when visiting in VA with my sister who has basic cable and
there wasn't much on otherwise. It seemed like typical TV melodrama fare at
the beginning (and I was already familiar with Leelee S star rise) but develops
to a substantial piece.
1173


From: Joshua Rothkopf
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 6:35pm
Subject: Re: My Favorite Year
 
Mr. Dan Sallitt wrote:

> I've always liked '74 best,
> even though at the time Sarris called it the worst year in cinema since
> 1914. Among other things, the New German Cinema peaked for me that
> year: not just FEAR EATS THE SOUL and EFFI BRIEST, but my favorite
> Wenders - ALICE IN THE CITIES - and my favorite Herzog - KASPAR HAUSER.

I too have an inordinate fondness for 1974; odd that Sarris would single out that year
as the worst -- do you recall what his reasons were? (Were there reasons?) Besides
being the arguable apotheosis of new Hollywood personal expression (BRING ME THE
HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA, PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE, CALIFORNIA SPLIT), you had
uncommon intelligence in the mainstream (CHINATOWN, GODFATHER II), truly
alternative American indie productions (A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE, THE TEXAS
CHAINSAW MASSACRE, FEMALE TROUBLE), respectable extensions from notables
(LANCELOT DU LAC, DERSU UZALA, CELINE AND JULIE GO BOATING) -- and, to top it
all off, a nightly seminar in media self-excoriation with the Watergate hearings.
What's not to like?

-joshua
1174


From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 6:51pm
Subject: 1974
 
"I too have an inordinate fondness for 1974; odd that Sarris
would single out
that year
as the worst -- do you recall what his reasons were? (Were
there reasons?)
Besides
being the arguable apotheosis of new Hollywood personal
expression (BRING ME
THE
HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA, PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE,
CALIFORNIA SPLIT), you had
uncommon intelligence in the mainstream (CHINATOWN,
GODFATHER II), truly
alternative American indie productions (A WOMAN UNDER THE
INFLUENCE, THE TEXAS
CHAINSAW MASSACRE, FEMALE TROUBLE), respectable
extensions from notables
(LANCELOT DU LAC, DERSU UZALA, CELINE AND JULIE GO
BOATING) -- and, to top it
all off, a nightly seminar in media self-excoriation with the
Watergate
hearings."

I missed it!

My leaders misled me: Sarris was getting medieval on
Hollywood's ass, and the Cahiers until recently had been
focusing on Red Chinese vaccination movies (Chasing Out the
God of the Plague...) Actually, Oudart (Mr. Bresson) did get
around to reviewing Lancelot (paired with Aguirre - an unheard of
"amalgamation") and Daney reviewed Dersu - because he felt
guilty for having "missed" Do Des Ka Den (sp?). I remember
hearing that when Marty Rubin screened DDKD just for himself
at the Hartford he became so disoriented watching it that he had
to shut it off after 30 minutes.

I love Rhapsody in August and Madadayo.
1175


From: Peter Tonguette
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 6:56pm
Subject: Re: 1974
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666" <
hotlove666@y...> wrote:

> I missed it!
>
> My leaders misled me: Sarris was getting medieval on
> Hollywood's ass, and the Cahiers until recently had been
> focusing on Red Chinese vaccination movies (Chasing Out
the
> God of the Plague...) Actually, Oudart (Mr. Bresson) did get
> around to reviewing Lancelot (paired with Aguirre - an unheard
of
> "amalgamation") and Daney reviewed Dersu - because he felt
> guilty for having "missed" Do Des Ka Den (sp?). I remember
> hearing that when Marty Rubin screened DDKD just for himself
> at the Hartford he became so disoriented watching it that he
had
> to shut it off after 30 minutes.
>
> I love Rhapsody in August and Madadayo.

The latter is actually my favorite Kurosawa.

By the way, all this talk of favorite film years and release dates
gives me a chance to bug Bill about submitting me some Top
10s for my project (and anyone else who hasn't yet)...

hint hint
Peter
1176


From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 6:58pm
Subject: Awww!
 
Check out google's masthead today.
1177


From:
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 3:45pm
Subject: Bogdanovich, 1958
 
In a message dated 8/13/03 2:11:07 AM, sallitt@p... writes:

>I think it's an adult to adult change, and I'm pretty sure it's an old
>Hollywood film by a Bogdanovitch favorite (i.e., nothing as new as
>THELMA AND LOUISE). I feel as if I'll come up with it someday....

Definitely let us know if you do - needless to say, I'm an interested party.
Speaking of Bogdanovich, I just re-saw "Daisy Miller" on DVD last evening.
What an extraordinary film. I think it's my favorite of his before "They All
Laughed" and probably his most personal until then too.

I'm working on an essay which holds that the mystery and unknowability - and
essential goodness - of women is one of Bogdanovich's key themes. I think you
can trace it through most of his best films (Might Annie Potts' monologue in
"Texasville" about the inner life she has which Bridges will never fully know
be a precis of PB's outlook in this regard?) and it's at the core of Henry
James' story, it seems to me.

Bogdanovich's skill at cross-cutting between characters' faces to express
their emotions has rarely been more effective than in the sequence when Daisy
sings "When You and I Were Young, Maggie." He's a master at breaking down space
like this; every camera move or edit in a Bogdanovich film is there for a
reason. I think the final shot trumps even the final pan to the theatre in
"Picture Show" in terms of cumulative tragic effect; the choice to place the
dialogue between Brown and Natwick over it was a masterful stroke.

It's very heartening to hear Bogdanovich speak of the film so proudly on the
commentary track. And when was it released? 1974!

Some very interesting and worthwhile choices for favorite film years,
everyone. I'm intrigued by Bill's identification of those who love 1958 films as
those who love twilight. While I definitely agree with Dan that particularly
great film years are a completley random thing (why is 1980 another benchmark
year for me, but '79 merely very good, etc), I do think there's a loose tonal
affinity some of these '58 films share, something very melancholy, maybe even
doleful, sometimes a little tragic, and completely indefinable.

Peter

http://hometown.aol.com/ptonguette/index.html
1178


From:
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 3:48pm
Subject: Re: Bill (years)
 
Fred writes:

> A look at this does make clear how absurd arguments over differences of
> one year in dating a film can be.

That's why I am not being insistent that contributors to my Top 10 project
use a single criteria in terms of determining a film's release date. It seems
to me that there are many valid ways of doing it. I personally prefer to use
the date of a film's first public screening, but recognize the validity in
using the date when a film first appeared in your country (which puts "Madadayo,"
released internationally in 1993, as a 2000 film in the U.S.) or the date of
completion when release is delayed, as in the von Sternberg.

A more vexing question is how to deal with incomplete or officially
unreleased works. For instance, I intend on placing the garden fragment from Orson
Welles' unfinished "The Dreamers" on my Top 10 of All-Time when I next update it.
Welles shot and edited the fragment in 1982. Its first public screening
was, I believe, at the DGA memorial for Welles in '85. (Is this true, Bill?)
And an assembly of all of the material Welles shot, including the garden
fragment, was presented publicly for the first time in 2002. So is it an '82, '85,
or '02 film? I personally would vote '82, but you can see that it's hardly
clear-cut.

Peter

http://hometown.aol.com/ptonguette/index.html
1179


From:
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 3:52pm
Subject: Re: A soldier's daughter never cries
 
In a message dated 8/13/03 2:17:45 PM, ean@s... writes:

>I watched ASDNC when visiting in VA with my sister who has basic cable
>and
>there wasn't much on otherwise. It seemed like typical TV melodrama fare
>at
>the beginning (and I was already familiar with Leelee S star rise) but
>develops
>to a substantial piece.

You know, I actually thought there was a slight drop-off in quality in the
film's third act and that it started out at its best. I'm looking forward to
Ivory's unofficial follow-up in his Americans Living in France series, "Le
Divorce" - and not just because I love Kate Hudson (yes, I am the world's first and
foremost Kate Hudson auteurist.)

Peter

http://hometown.aol.com/ptonguette/index.html
1180


From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 8:07pm
Subject: Re: Bogdanovich, 1958
 
>>I think it's an adult to adult change, and I'm pretty sure it's an old
>>Hollywood film by a Bogdanovitch favorite (i.e., nothing as new as
>>THELMA AND LOUISE). I feel as if I'll come up with it someday....
>
> Definitely let us know if you do - needless to say, I'm an interested party.

By the way, for those who want to help with the search, the scene I'm
looking for isn't just reminiscent of the Bogdanovitch scene, but
practically a carbon copy of it: a didactic, no-nonsense monologue from
one character to the other, interrupted by the command "Spit!" to
moisten the cloth that the one character is using to clean the other's
face. - Dan
1181


From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 8:10pm
Subject: Bogdanovich, Welles
 
Love Daisy. Peter T., re: your topic, if you haven't already, read
The Killing of the Unicorn. It's a slice of Peter B's brain between
soft covers. I have no recolllection of whether the garden
fragment was screened at the DGA tribute. I guess I was too
overwhelmed by the waves of anger and jealousy and loathing
and subtext crashing on all sides of me as one speaker
(faction) after another took the floor. Peter B. was extremely good
and extremely funny - that I do recall.

So where ARE those lists?
1182


From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 8:32pm
Subject: 1974
 
> I too have an inordinate fondness for 1974; odd that Sarris would single out that year
> as the worst -- do you recall what his reasons were? (Were there reasons?)

Critics often get frazzled by the times they have to live through. Here
is what Sarris wrote on Jan. 20, 1975 in the Village Voice:

" 1. Wedding in Blood
2. Juggernaut
3. Scenes From a Marriage
4. The Little Theatre of Jean Renoir
5. Chinatown
6. Fear Eats the Soul
7. Man is Not a Bird
8. Young Frankenstein
9. The Front Page
10. The Last Detail"

Runners-up ("virtually interchangeable with my top ten"): The Mother and
the Whore, The Tamarind Seed, The Night Porter, The Seduction of Mimi
(and possibly also Love and Anarchy), Walking Tall, Days of 36
(Angelopoulos), Black Holiday (Marco Leto), Harry and Tonto ("probably
the strongest of my runner-up films"), Early Spring (Ozu), Le Trio
Infernal, The Ceremony.

"As I look back on the list, I see only one film (Young Frankenstein)
which represents its director's best work. Everything else is either
low-key or gravely flawed. 1974, cinematically speaking, is a year not
of peaks, but of pauses. I think it's time we stopped kidding
ourselves. Movies aren't going anywhere in particular artistically.
Indeed, the motion picture may have more of a past than a future...1974
was probably the worst year for film since 1914..."

Elsewhere in the article, Sarris uses the Bergman film as a club to beat
"cameroids (like Coppola) who sniff suspiciously at any traces of verbal
communication."

"Pictures I wanted to like more than I did" include The Phantom of
Liberty, Stavisky, Daisy Miller, and The Longest Yard. "Messy movies
with a few click effects" include Badlands, California Split, The
Sugarland Express, The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3, Thunderbolt and
Lightfoot, and A Woman Under the Influence. "More of a wind-up than a
delivery" includes Amarcord, The Conversation, and Godfather II.

Obviously, many of the films we have named weren't yet released in NYC
in 1974. Still, I don't find this kind of reaction unusual or
surprising. It's really easy to underrate the times you live in, and
correspondingly easy to overrate times that have become history. - Dan
1183


From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 8:42pm
Subject: Re: Bogdanovich, Ivory, Kurosawa
 
> It's a slice of Peter B's brain between
> soft covers.

Euuugh. That's up there with Owen Gleiberman's pull-quote for THIRTEEN
about Hardwicke filming "with a camera jutting out of her heart."

> I'm looking forward to
> Ivory's unofficial follow-up in his Americans Living in France series, "Le
> Divorce"

Ivory fan that I am, I was disappointed. There was something too cutesy
about it for me, and Ivory seemed willfully to be staying on the
surface, no matter how deep the material invited him to go.

> I love Rhapsody in August and Madadayo.

The divisive Mr. K. Wonder how his rep is doing among auteurists? It's
time for me to revisit him - the only one of his movies I've ever
enjoyed was THE SEVEN SAMURAI, and I saw that too long ago to trust my
reaction. I wonder if his fans find some subtlety in him to
counterpoint his grandiosity, or whether they just like the grandiosity
more than I do? - Dan
1184


From: Rick Curnutte
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 9:00pm
Subject: Re: Bogdanovich, Ivory, Kurosawa
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:

> The divisive Mr. K. Wonder how his rep is doing among
auteurists? It's
> time for me to revisit him - the only one of his movies I've ever
> enjoyed was THE SEVEN SAMURAI, and I saw that too long ago to
trust my
> reaction. I wonder if his fans find some subtlety in him to
> counterpoint his grandiosity, or whether they just like the
grandiosity
> more than I do? - Dan


I wonder about his last point, too. I've only ever REALLY liked HIGH
AND LOW from Kurosawa. THE SEVEN SAMURAI would be second, but I'd be
hard-pressed to find a third that I find a great deal of value in.

Rick
1185


From:
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 9:19pm
Subject: Bogdanovich, Ivory, Kurosawa
 
Kurosawa fans strike back!
Many of my favorite Kurosawa films deal with modern life in Japan:
Stray Dog (his film noir showing Tokyo the way The Naked City displayed New York)
Scandal (amusing look at Japanese tabloid sheets, and their celebrity targets)
The Idiot (fascinating if grim version of the novel, with wonderful location filming in Hokkaido)
High and Low (terrific mystery thriller – one of K's most riveting works)
Rhapsody in August (his look back at Nagasaki).
And some of his best historical films are very modest in scope:
Sanshiro Sugata (early look at judo – well photographed)
The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail (rich mix of everything!)
Among the late films, I much prefer Kagemusha to Ran.
Ikuru is brilliant, but painful and heart wrenching to watch.
The Bad Sleep Well (great first 20 minutes, runs out of steam afterwards)

The two films I’d most recommend to Kurosawa skeptics and newcomers are:
The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail
High and Low

I love James Ivory, too, so all is not lost on the Sallitt front, despite his brief heresy over Kurosawa :)
My favorites:
Heat and Dust
A Room With a View
Maurice
Jefferson in Paris
The Golden Bowl

Have not yet seen A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries.

Love everybody's recent posts on years.

Funniest recent scene:
John Cassavetes banging his fist on the restaurant table (just saw A Constant Forge on TV).
Mike Grost
1186


From:
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 5:19pm
Subject: Re: Bogdanovich, Welles
 
In a message dated 8/13/03 4:11:31 PM, hotlove666@y... writes:

>Love Daisy. Peter T., re: your topic, if you haven't already, read
>The Killing of the Unicorn. It's a slice of Peter B's brain between
>soft covers.

I have this, but I haven't read it yet. I definitely will before my work on
the essay is finished. As I think more and more about it, this theme seems to
be a real key to his work. Very glad to hear there's some love for "Daisy"
here. I know it's Dan's favorite Bogdanovich and that Mike Grost has it on his
'74 list.

>I have no recolllection of whether the garden
>fragment was screened at the DGA tribute.

At the end of Gary Graver's Welles docu, I think a bit of PB's speech from
the DGA tribute is excerpted and I have the memory that Bogdanovich says, "We're
going to see a little bit of 'The Dreamers' in a few minutes," or something
to that effect. So my guess is that the fragment was screened. Frank Brady's
bio also indicates there was a screening at NYU a few years later, with Oja in
attendence.

>So where ARE those lists?

I'm assembling a huge document of members' lists right now; the end of the
month is a rough deadline for Version 1.0 (Obviously, I'll update the document
as I receive new and/or updated lists.) Fred's going to put it on his web
site so non-members can read it and get a glimpse of our amazingly erudite
cinematic tastes.

If you ever compiled year-by-year lists for Cahiers, those would be perfect.
Or you could spend a few weeks (searching the IMDB for release date info is
time-consuming!) making brand new ones just for us.

Peter

http://hometown.aol.com/ptonguette/index.html
1187


From:
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 5:25pm
Subject: Madadayo
 
In a message dated 8/13/03 5:02:25 PM, racurnutte1@y... writes:

>I wonder about his last point, too. I've only ever REALLY liked HIGH
>AND LOW from Kurosawa. THE SEVEN SAMURAI would be second, but I'd be
>hard-pressed to find a third that I find a great deal of value in.

Weirdly, I was thinking just last night about how much I preferred Ozu and
Mizoguchi to Kurosawa. There probably isn't an AK film I value as much as I do
"An Autumn Afternoon" or "Ugetsu," but, on the other hand, I really do like
"Madadayo" very much. It's certainly an Old Man's Film if there ever was one
and contains some of the most nakedly emotional passages in Kurosawa; I believe
Jonathan Rosenbaum's review even invoked "E.T." - that that film has nothing
on the emotional directness of "Madadayo." I also loved its structure, hanging
episodic vignettes on the yearly tributes the old professor's students throw
him.

Peter

http://hometown.aol.com/ptonguette/index.html
1188


From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 9:26pm
Subject: Kurosawa
 
Rick,

I walked out of High and Low when Scorsese revived it because
of the cops' childish worship of the tycoon played by Mifune. (I
later found those attitudes in Madadayo charming, but they were
being "looked at" differently.) Seven Samurai didn't hold up for
me, either, to my amazement, when I popped in a cassette
recently. Way too much grandstanding, facile heroics and, yes,
machismo to wade through getting to the last, obviously great
battle sequence.

Rick and Dan, I really recommend the late films to all K-doubters
contemplating a second look: Do Des ka Den (sp?), Rhapsody,
Madadayo. I plan to revisit the two H'wd-brokered epics some
day, but I sure didn't like them back then. That goes in spades for
Akira Kurosawa's Dreams, except for the storm sequence, as I
recall.

Blake Lucas tells me there's gold in some of them thar middle
period films, but I haven't had time to check that one out myself.
1189


From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 9:35pm
Subject: Re: Kurosawa
 
> Rick and Dan, I really recommend the late films to all K-doubters
> contemplating a second look: Do Des ka Den (sp?), Rhapsody,
> Madadayo.

I did see MADADAYO in recent years: I can see some qualities in it, but
I was once more checked by what seems to me a lack of restraint or
judgment or perspective in conveying fervent emotions. But my problems
with Cimino aren't so different....

I've actually seen all but a few Kurosawa films, but not too many
lately. - Dan
1190


From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 9:41pm
Subject: Dan re: Kurosawa, Cimino
 
Cimino's three cinema gods are Ford, Visconti and Kurosawa.
1191


From:
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 5:47pm
Subject: Re: Dan re: Kurosawa, Cimino
 
In a message dated 8/13/03 5:44:39 PM, hotlove666@y... writes:

>Cimino's three cinema gods are Ford, Visconti and Kurosawa.

And (as though we needed proof of this) I just stumbled across this page:

http://www.geocities.com/the7thart/directorlist.html

John Carpenter's list is also too perfect.

Peter

http://hometown.aol.com/ptonguette/index.html
1192


From: filipefurtado
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 10:46pm
Subject: Re: My Favorite Year
 
1959 - Rio Bravo, Shadows, Lang's
indian films, Breathless, The Crimson
Kimono, Anatomy of a Moyrder, Les
Cousins, Hiroshima, Mon Amour, among
others...

1967 - The Young Girls from Rochefort,
Playtime, Land in Anguish, Accident,
The Shooting, Mouchette, Gunn, El
Justicero, Point Blank, El Dorado,
Frankenstein Created Woman...

1955 - Ordet, Kiss me Deadly, The Big
Combo, Man Without Star, House of
Bamboo, Guys and Dolls, The Man with
the Golden Arm, All that Heaven
Allows, The Man from Laramie, The
Naked Dawn, The Big Knife...

1982 - The Eyes the Mouth, The State
of Things, Passion, Honkytonk Man,
Pauline at the Beach, The Thing, White
Dog, Tenebrae, Moonlighting, Conan,
the Barbarian, Ms. 45, Identification
of a Woman, The New York Ripper,
Firefox...

the two worst: 1975 and 1986...

Filipe


> The sun was starting to set on classical Hollywood cinema, although
> there were still many great films to come. Hawks and Hitchcock were
> at the top of their form, but the films they had made in 1955-7 - Rio
> Bravo, The Wrong Man, Vertigo - already signal a major shift in
> progress. In 1958 Godard was getting ready to shoot Breathless.
> Here's his ten best list for the year (some of which date from 1957,
> actually), in order of preference:
>
> The Quiet American
> Brink of Life
> Bonjour Tristesse
> Montparnasse 19
> Une vie
> Man of the West
> Touch of Evil
> L'Eau vive
> White Nights
> Le temps des ouefs durs
>
> His article on Montparnasse 19, one of his best, is imbued with the
> air of the time as filtered by a very fine sensibility. People who
> especially love 1958 - and I'm one of them - love twilight.
>
>
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> a_film_by-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>


---
Acabe com aquelas janelinhas que pulam na sua tela.
AntiPop-up UOL - É grátis!
http://antipopup.uol.com.br
1193


From: filipefurtado
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 11:06pm
Subject: Re: Kurosawa
 
I like Kurosawa, the problem isn't the
films but that he has been overrated
to the point where many of his films
looks disapointing. I like Rashomon,
for example, but I do think many of
the so-called ripp-offs like Cukor's
Rashomon are far better. I prefer the
period films (Throne of Blood,
Kagemusha and Yojimbo being my
favorites). The only Kurosawa film
that I dislike is Sanjuro.But when
someone asks me about my favorite
japonese filmmakers I certainly has a
long list to mention before Kurosawa.

Filipe

> > Rick and Dan, I really recommend the late films to all K-doubters
> > contemplating a second look: Do Des ka Den (sp?), Rhapsody,
> > Madadayo.
>
> I did see MADADAYO in recent years: I can see some qualities in it, but
> I was once more checked by what seems to me a lack of restraint or
> judgment or perspective in conveying fervent emotions. But my problems
> with Cimino aren't so different....
>
> I've actually seen all but a few Kurosawa films, but not too many
> lately. - Dan
>
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1194


From: Damien Bona
Date: Thu Aug 14, 2003 0:18am
Subject: Re: Kurosawa
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "filipefurtado"
wrote:
> I like Kurosawa, the problem isn't the
> films but that he has been overrated
> to the point where many of his films
> looks disapointing. > >

I couldn't agree with you more, Filipe. Kurosawa is overrated the
same way (and for many of the same reasons) as David Lean. I tend to
think of him a a Japanese Robert Parrish, which I consider a modest
compliment, but a compliment just the same.

Like Peter, I think Madadayo is the director's best film. Having
never been an admirer of Kurosawa's (back in college my friends and I
used to sneer at Kurosawa fans as people who were too thick to grasp
Ozu and Mizigouchi), I was fairly amazed at how affected I was by
Madadayo when it received its belated New York release a few years
back.

The only other two Kurosawa films I've found to be particularly
memorable are No Regrets For Our Youth and Stray Dog.
1195


From: Fred Camper
Date: Thu Aug 14, 2003 1:31am
Subject: Re: Kurosawa, & Marker
 
I guess I'm more negative on Kurosawa than anyone else who has spoken up
so far, but I don't think I have anything interesting to say about why.
I've also seen far fewer than most of you.

I'd like to think that it was his leaden seriousness that defeated even
the great Chris Marker; his film about Kurosawa, "A. K.," is the only
Marker film I've seen that I didn't like at all. Is there anyone who
defends it? There was something about those shots of Kurosawa's white
Mercedes that seemed to stand for both all his pompousness and for what
about him proved so inimical to Marker's style.

- Fred
1196


From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Aug 14, 2003 2:20am
Subject: Kurosawa and Marker
 
I just don't like the Japanese swordplay genre, which produced
many auteurs besides Kurosawa - all that superego-laden
macho hoo-hah. No Regrets is the film Blake Lucas told me to
see after Kurosawa's death.

(deep breath) Marker is one of my blind spots. It may have to do
with speaking French. Apologies to Fred, and to all other
members of this group, but only the truth will set us free, and
that's one of mine. I think that the essay film as a genre - if that
word rweally applies - is very, very hard to pull off, and for me the
French solution, which is to paste a lot of poetizing on the
soundtrack, doesn't get it done. There are good essay films, and
Marker, who does them a lot, may very well have made good
ones that I haven't seen. I will persist, but I'll skip AK.
1197


From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu Aug 14, 2003 2:51am
Subject: Re: Kurosawa and Marker
 
Bill:

> I just don't like the Japanese swordplay genre, which produced
> many auteurs besides Kurosawa - all that superego-laden
> macho hoo-hah.

I haven't even got that excuse, because I do like some Japanese sword
films - Tomu Uchida's films (I have a feeling this guy is a really good
director, if only we could get a look at more of his stuff), Kobayashi's
SEPPUKU, some of Mizoguchi's ventures into the genre (that single-stroke
fight at the end of MIYAMOTO MUSASHI is pretty cool).

> (deep breath) Marker is one of my blind spots.

One of mine too.

Felipe:

> the two worst: 1975 and 1986...

For me it's clearly 1989, for some freakish reason. Foreign
distribution wasn't too good in the US at that point - maybe I just
haven't gotten to all the good films from that period. In general,
though, the 80s are the least exciting film decade to me. - Dan
1198


From: Patrick Ciccone
Date: Thu Aug 14, 2003 2:52am
Subject: Re: Kurosawa and Marker
 
Bill, curious, what do you think of LA JETEE?

Also, to all, I think the book form of LA JETEE is almost as great as
the film--is there any other film of which this can be said?

PWC

>
> (deep breath) Marker is one of my blind spots. It may have to do
> with speaking French. Apologies to Fred, and to all other
> members of this group, but only the truth will set us free, and
> that's one of mine. I think that the essay film as a genre - if that
> word rweally applies - is very, very hard to pull off, and for me the
> French solution, which is to paste a lot of poetizing on the
> soundtrack, doesn't get it done. There are good essay films, and
> Marker, who does them a lot, may very well have made good
> ones that I haven't seen. I will persist, but I'll skip AK.
1199


From: Fred Camper
Date: Thu Aug 14, 2003 3:12am
Subject: Re: Re: Kurosawa and Marker
 
Patrick Ciccone:

"Also, to all, I think the book form of LA JETEE is almost as great as
the film--is there any other film of which this can be said?"

There is a picture book of Frampton's "Poetic Justice," a film which
consists entirely of hand-printed pages of a "fabulous" script with
extravagant images ("you and your lover and the moon" -- I don't
remember exactly). But it's not frame enlargements -- in the film, the
stack of papers that represents the script gets larger. Insofar as
watching the film consists of reading and imagining the unseen movie,
the book is a pretty good equivalent.

- Fred
1200


From: filipefurtado
Date: Thu Aug 14, 2003 3:18am
Subject: Re: 1989
 
> Felipe:
>
> > the two worst: 1975 and 1986...
>
> For me it's clearly 1989, for some freakish reason. Foreign
> distribution wasn't too good in the US at that point - maybe I just
> haven't gotten to all the good films from that period. In general,
> though, the 80s are the least exciting film decade to me. - Dan
>

1989 was a pretty good year for me.
Even when it come to american films,
there's at least four that I think are
great or near great: Do the Right
Thing, Skin Deep, Drugstore Cowboy and
A Farwell to the King and many others
that are very good (Batman, Breaking
In, Silent Night, Deadly Night 3,
Casualites of War, Pink Cadillac, The
Abyss). Not to mention Fuller's Street
of no Return. French cinema had a very
good year (Assayas' L'Enfant D'Hiver,
Brisseau's White Wedding, to mention
my favorites) and there was Hou's City
of Sadness and very inspired in HK
with Woo's The Killer and Chan's Capra
hommage Miracles which is far better
than most of it's models.

Actually, with the exception of 1986,
the 80's were better than it's reputation.

Filipe

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