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This group is dedicated to discussing film as art
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12601
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 0:50am
Subject: Re: ROPE and Gayness
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> I always had a different impression of the Production Code
and "Rope". It is
> NOT based on research - just an intuitive guess - and hence it
could be wrong!
> A hypothesis:
> The two killers in "Rope" were obviously gay to the censors and the
audience
> of the time
> AND
> the censors allowed it, because it depicted "gays as evil": a
dominant
> ideological belief on the era.
> There were several gay villains of the films of the era: the killer
played by
> Charles McGraw in "T-Men", the spy in "The House on 92 Street", the
Nazi spy
> in "Saboteur", and his childhood reminsensces of being dressed as a
girl, the
> villains in "Born to Kill", etc. And prose mystery novels of
the1945-1955
> period are just full of stereotyped Evil Homosexuals. It was a
national mania!
> Also, just about everybody seeems to have heard of Leopold and
Loeb. They
> were endlessly publicised, and the sad fact was that many people
thought of these
> two depraved killers as "typical homosexuals". "Rope" was based on
them... So
> I thought everybody but an occasional naive little old lady
recognized the
> leads in Rope as gay in 1949.
> I could be wrong!
>
> Mike Grost
Very true, and that applies to all of Hitchcock's gay villains.
12602
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 0:56am
Subject: Re: Tea and Sympathy
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Modiano"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, LiLiPUT1@a... wrote:
>
> "To us, the boy is gay. A certain KIND of homosexuality is made
> visible to us. Tom's "social behavior," his "body language,
> gestures, interests," IS that of SOME gay men. I wouldn't deny
that
> the film can be read as being about "the hysterical fantasies of
> heterosexuals." I wouldn't even deny that the film doesn't
> interrogate these fantasies at all. But I DO think that the film
> makes visible the social behavior of SOME gay men. That's why I
> asked about how the supposedly repressed homosexuality gets
> transferred onto the mise-en-scene. It doesn't seem to be all that
> repressed to me."
>
> Although I haven't seen TEA AND SYMPATHY for years there was one
> scene that I thought was about repressed homosexuality. While Tom
is
> with the faculty wives at the beach, the Deborah Kerr character's
> husband is on the other side of the rocks with all the young jocks
in
> swimming trunks. The jocks playing volley ball under the admiring
> gaze of the coach seemed to be pointing to the coach's repressed
> homosexuality. On the other hand, the fact that Tom is with the
> women and dosen't seem interested in the jocks at all indicated to
me
> that he wasn't "really" gay despite the body language and so on. So
> maybe the repressed homosexuality has to do with the character of
the
> coach and not with the charcater of Tom.
>
> Richard
Haven't seen it in a long time, and I'm sure it's shot thru with
compromises, but that scene does stick in my mind for its obvious
tenor, and also for its visuals. The caricatured portrayal of
manliness is something that runs through the film: manliness as a
cartoon image. Very different from stock imagery of manliness in
other 50s films -- this is Minnelli, remember. As I recall that scene
and others like it are on a par with portrayals of Man and Woman in
Tashlin's 2 Mansfields.
12603
From:
Date: Sat Jul 17, 2004 10:43pm
Subject: Re: Tea and Sympathy
Fred, your points are duly taken but it works both ways. I don't think Tom's
behavior DOESN'T guarantee his homosexuality either. Also, I'm perplexed as to
why you would bring up the fact that gay males act like loudmouthed football
players when I said "Tom's "social behavior," his "body language, gestures,
interests," IS that of SOME gay men." Isn't that implied in "SOME gay men?" And
really, in "To us, he is gay," the emphasis was on the "to us" and not the
"gay."
I'm fully aware that Tom is not a real person but a character, reflected
light. But I think he is meant to be understood as gay through his "body language,
gestures, interests." Those elements are specific enough to cinema (for me)
that a character's sexuality can be constructed through them. I understand that
"the end of the film tells us that what he really likes is, well, women." But
I also understand the Production Code and what was possible to express in
Hollywood films of the 1950s. I also know how the play went down. So I believe
those facts don't lend much authority to the ending. I believe they give me more
than enough ammunition with which to do so. For you, this rather tacked-on,
desperate ending constrains reading Tom as gay. For me, it doesn't. In fact, it
does the opposite. It makes me want to read him as gay.
And yes, yes, "one shouldn't judge sexual orientation by appearances or
stereotypes." In a perfect world. Until then, SOME gay men HAVE to rely on
appearances, on the surface for signs that they are not alone on the planet. It's an
imperfect strategy, absolutely. But it's an imperfect world too.
To M. Coursodon, I hope you weren't including me amongst those "very
sophisticated members of this group (who) have never realized that the two young
murderers in ROPE are a gay couple." I said "This is the first time I've
entertained the notion that it was about gay New York LIFE." By that, perhaps
misunderstanding Ehrenstein, I meant a gay subculture in New York, something larger than
the two main characters.
Kevin John
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
12604
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 3:34am
Subject: Re: ROPE and Gayness
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> > I always had a different impression of the Production Code
> and "Rope". It is
> > NOT based on research - just an intuitive guess - and hence it
> could be wrong!
> > A hypothesis:
> > The two killers in "Rope" were obviously gay to the censors and
the
> audience
> > of the time
> > AND
> > the censors allowed it, because it depicted "gays as evil": a
> dominant
> > ideological belief on the era.
This an interesting hypothesis, but I think you're crediting the
censors with excessive subtlety and more ideological baggage than is
likely. Remember that those people were very literal-minded. In their
minds sexual "perversion" shouldn't be portrayed at all, and they
were not going to let it pass just to promote negative portraying of
homosexuals. I don't think people thought that way at the time. But
of course my hypothesis is no better than yours.
> > I thought everybody but an occasional naive little old lady
> recognized the
> > leads in Rope as gay in 1949.
> > I could be wrong!
> >
> > Mike Grost
>
Unlike Bill, I think you are wrong. What makes you think that you
can tell what people -- "everybody" -- thought and how they felt 60
years ago? My experience and intuition both tell me that a lot of
people were naive little old ladies or the equivalent, at least as
far as homosexuality and other sexual "preferences" were concerned.
JPC
12605
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 3:48am
Subject: Re: Tea and Sympathy
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, LiLiPUT1@a... wrote:
>
> To M. Coursodon, I hope you weren't including me amongst
those "very
> sophisticated members of this group (who) have never realized that
the two young
> murderers in ROPE are a gay couple." I said "This is the first time
I've
> entertained the notion that it was about gay New York LIFE." By
that, perhaps
> misunderstanding Ehrenstein, I meant a gay subculture in New York,
something larger than
> the two main characters.
>
> Kevin John
>
> No I wasn't including you. I was referring to a post by I don't
remember who, who said something to the effect that it had never
occurred to him so he'd watch the film again. Sorry, I should look it
up.
I agree that it is a bit misleading, even silly, to describe the
film as being about "New York gay life" (as if New York gays where in
the habit of strangling their friends for fun), but with David, you
always must make allowance for poetic licence. By the way the play is
a 1929 play that took place in London, where Hitch had seen it at the
time apparently, and he had dreamed about filming it ever since.
JPC
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
12606
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 4:06am
Subject: and another thing (T&S)
I have seen TEA AND SYMPATHY half a dozen times over the decades and
like it a lot, but I must say I never asked myself if or cared about
whether the guy was gay or not. I just felt he was a victim of his
being a bit different from the male crowd, which to me represented
everything I hated when I was young (and still does) even though I
didn't have the slightest homosexual leaning. So I sort of identified
with him, or at least sympathized -- but whether he was gay or not
was definitely irrelevant. Of course I can understand how the gay
contingent in this group may respond differently.
JPC
12607
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 4:55am
Subject: Re: Son of Tea and Sympathy
--- joey lindsey wrote:
>
> speaking of presentations of supposedly gay
> characters in past years,
> David, what did you think of Lost Horizon (1937, i
> think), if anything?
>
Not much.
The musical remake, however, was written by (wait for
it!)
LARRY KRAMER
In fact while the film was a flop, Ross hunter paid
Larry so much money for the screenlyat that he was
able to buy his New York apartment AND found ACT-UP.
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12608
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 5:00am
Subject: Re: ROPE and Gayness
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
> Because I am currently immersed in a piece on ROPE I
> would like to
> ask David for an elaboration on his remark that
> "even the set
> decoration is gay" in the film. I'm serious, no
> wisecrack, please...
>
Well basically it WAS a wisecrack. Be sure to read
Arthur Laurents' "Original Story BY," J-P. Lots of
stuff about "Rope" and Hitch in it.
Originally Hitch wanted Cary Grant to play Rupert
Cadell. As you can see this would change the dynamic.
As the film stands Granger and Dall believe that
Stewart is gay -- and he's not. Had Cary Grant played
Rupert. . .
> It's curious that even among the very sophisticated
> members of this
> group some have never realized that the two young
> murderers in ROPE
> are a gay couple. But then, Hitchcock fooled even
> the Production Code
> police -- they never objected to the almost blatant
> homosexuality,
> because they didn't see it, and they didn't see it
> because the two
> men didn't correspond to the crude stereotypes
> homosexuals were
> circumbscribed in at the time. Critics at the time
> didn't mention the
> homosexual element -- perhaps because homosexuality
> was unmentionable
> in respectable neewspapers and magazines. So
> Hitchcock got away with
> something quite unique and unprecedented for 1948.
>
Correct! And it was the combination of "not seeing it"
with its "unmentionable" status that did the trick.
"Rope" is right next to "Psycho" in my book as one of
Hitchcock's most daring films.
>
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12609
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 5:03am
Subject: Re: Tea and Sympathy
> I understand that
> "the end of the film tells us that what he really likes is, well, women." But
> I also understand the Production Code and what was possible to express in
> Hollywood films of the 1950s. I also know how the play went down. So I believe
> those facts don't lend much authority to the ending. I believe they give me more
> than enough ammunition with which to do so. For you, this rather tacked-on,
> desperate ending constrains reading Tom as gay.
I shouldn't pitch in here, as I haven't seen the film in a while, but:
when you mention the "tacked-on, desperate ending," are you talking
about the "When you talk about this - and you will - be kind" scene?
Because my sense has always been that that's the only scene that most
people remember, and that the play might even have been written just to
get to that scene. I'd be open to an argument that the play/film
communicates contradictory information on this point, but I can't see
that that ending is tacked-on. - Dan
12610
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 5:04am
Subject: Re: Re: ROPE and Gayness
--- MG4273@a... wrote:
> I always had a different impression of the
> Production Code and "Rope". It is
> NOT based on research - just an intuitive guess -
> and hence it could be wrong!
> A hypothesis:
> The two killers in "Rope" were obviously gay to the
> censors and the audience
> of the time
> AND
> the censors allowed it, because it depicted "gays as
> evil": a dominant
> ideological belief on the era.
No that wasn't it. When an early script of "Rope" was
submitted to the Production Code objections were made
that lines like "My dear boy" constituted -- and I
quote -- "Homosexual dialogue!"
So Hitch had Laurents take them out and that was that.
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12611
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 5:11am
Subject: Re: Re: Tea and Sympathy
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
> I agree that it is a bit misleading, even silly,
> to describe the
> film as being about "New York gay life" (as if New
> York gays where in
> the habit of strangling their friends for fun),
> but with David, you
> always must make allowance for poetic licence. By
> the way the play is
> a 1929 play that took place in London, where Hitch
> had seen it at the
> time apparently, and he had dreamed about filming it
> ever since.
>
True, and I've read the play. Laurents script is a
"Page One Rewrite," completely reconfiguring the play
into the upper class New York of its time -- a world
Laurents and Granger knew very very well.
More "Rope" gayness: Francis Poulenc
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12612
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 5:14am
Subject: Re: and another thing (T&S)
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
> I have seen TEA AND SYMPATHY half a dozen times over
> the decades and
> like it a lot, but I must say I never asked myself
> if or cared about
> whether the guy was gay or not. I just felt he was a
> victim of his
> being a bit different from the male crowd, which to
> me represented
> everything I hated when I was young (and still does)
> even though I
> didn't have the slightest homosexual leaning. So I
> sort of identified
> with him, or at least sympathized -- but whether he
> was gay or not
> was definitely irrelevant. Of course I can
> understand how the gay
> contingent in this group may respond differently.
>
His "being a bit different from the male crowd" is
precisely the point. This is "read" as leaving one
open to an accusation of gayness. Therefore to "prove"
he's straight Kerr fucks him.
"When you talk about this -- and you will -- be kind"
has got to be one of the all-time great camp lines.
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12613
From: jess_l_amortell
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 5:35am
Subject: Re: Tea and Sympathy
I should read the play -- this discussion has thoroughly confused me: is the boy actually identified as gay in the play, or is he merely *accused* of it there? In the film, of course, he's accused of being a big sissy (gasp!)
> > And so what it cannot state explicitly through the scenario, it must
> > communicate through mise-en-scene.
It may be worth adding that the Broadway leads were repeating their celebrated performances for Minnelli, so that, especially in view of his (however implausible) reputation as a supposed non-actor's-director, one wonders how much their well-honed characterizations (for Kazan) would have been modified, if at all, to fit the changed circumstances. But Stephen Harvey's book (which I can't find at the moment -- where are those apartment makeover guys when you really need them?) probably goes into all this; can't remember whether he savors the film sufficiently, though.
It's also my impression that the whole story of the changes demanded by the film version was so well publicized as to become a given, not unlike the story of "Leopold & Loeb," in its admittedly more modest way -- so that, in a sense, the bowdlerization of the play became the film's subject, and only served to spotlight what had been removed.
Didn't Tony Perkins follow John Kerr on Broadway? That would have been interesting casting for the film.
12614
From:
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 2:44am
Subject: Re: Tea and Sympathy
Tea and Sympathy (1956) is Minnelli's look at men who do not fit into gender
norms. The hero is a male prep school student who is deeply female like. It
shows his ferocious persecution by adult authority figures in the school, his
male classmates, and by his own father. The film constitutes a detailed record
of the war on homosexuals that was fought from the 1930's through the 1970's in
the United States. This war was fought in media silence - the media of the
time were not supposed to notice it was going on, or record any of it. So the
fact that a film like this was made at the time is fairly amazing, and one
wonders how it ever got by the twin obstacles of the front office and film
censorship.
This film is more "realistic" than most other films, in recording a major
social event that was occurring, but which was taboo to mention. It echoes other
such notices in Minnelli. Minnelli is often (correctly) thought of as an
aesthete. Yet, Minnelli is one of the few film makers to record to ugly reality of
child labor, in Lust For Life. He was one of the first in Hollywood to offer
prominent roles to black people. His feminist films in Meet Me in St. Louis and
The Sandpiper were ahead of their time.
Tea and Sympathy started life as a 1953 Broadway play, a major hit. The play
was extensively reworked for the screen, in part to meet the strict film
censorship restrictions of the time. Ever since, it has been a cliché to suggest
that the movie is simply a watered down, bowdlerized version of the play. A
comparison of the play and film suggests a drastically different conclusion.
The hero of the play is a sensitive heterosexual, who through a series of
unfortunate coincidences, is tagged as a possible gay by his peers. The play
shows him then being unfairly attacked by the school for this. The hero of the
film is different. He is genuinely female like. There is something differently
gendered about him. His personality and gender identity are deeply female. The
hero of the play is simply an ordinary guy who gets a wrong label put on him,
something that can happen to anybody, the play suggests. The attitudes of
everyone else to him is simply a misunderstanding. By contrast, the hero of the
film is correctly understood by everyone around him. He is a different sort of
person, with a different gender than his peers. Everyone correctly understands
this. All the subplot in the play about the swim scene that led to the
"misunderstanding" has been removed in the film. Instead, the movie makes clear that
the hero is correctly understood by everyone around him to be differently
gendered. He is the real thing: a hero who is different inside sexually.
Other changes in the play and film reflect the treatment of homosexuality.
The word homosexual could not be used in the movies, nor could homosexuals be
shown, according to the Production Code. The film sticks to these restrictions.
I am not trying to defend these censorship rules, which were clearly designed
to belittle gay people. But the pro-gay film Tea and Sympathy has perhaps used
them to advantage, somewhat paradoxically. The play had two characters who
represented Evil Adult Homosexuals. This has been removed from the movie
version. Because of this, while the play depicted homosexuality as evil, the movie
does not. By any standards, this is a big step up, morally and politically. The
change is particularly striking in the treatment of the coach, an obnoxious
villain in both play and film. In the play, he is a repressed homosexual. The
revelation about these yearnings at the play’s end is treated as a big, guilty
secret, showing how Evil and Rotten he is. All of this has been toned down,
perhaps eliminated in the film. The coach in the film seems to be heterosexual.
He is still rotten to the core. But the film traces his viciousness to his
rigid adherence to macho norms. In the film, these norms are seen as a sick part
of mainstream heterosexual culture. The coach is seen as representing
heterosexuals at their worst. He is a person who spends much of his time enforcing
macho norms, and persecuting anyone who falls outside of them.
If one defines male homosexuality as "a man being sexually attracted to other
men", it is unclear whether the hero of the film is gay or not. Throughout
the first half of the film, he has two friends who support him: his male
roommate, and the female wife of his house master. It is unclear if he is sexually
attracted to either of these people. He has a close emotional tie to both. The
ambiguity here is clearly a concession to the censor. It allows a hero to get
by who is different, but still keeps open the possibility that he is straight.
The finale of both the play and film finds the hero sleeping with the house
master’s wife. In the play, this is a logical conclusion to the premise of the
drama. The hero of the play is a misunderstood heterosexual. It makes perfect
sense for him to sleep with a woman, thus confirming his true nature. The
finale of the play is one of the most famous scenes in American Theater. However,
the finale becomes far more problematic in the film. The protagonist in the
film is not a conventional heterosexual. He might be gay, he might be
transgendered, he might be some relatively unique kind of gender mosaic. Sleeping with a
woman may or may not make sense in terms of his sexual identity.
Consequently, this finale seems less like a logical conclusion, and more like yet another
strange event endured by the hero. Minnelli’s dream-like approach to filming
this scene adds to the sense of strangeness here.
I liked the first half of this film more than the second. In the first half,
the hero is proud of his nature, and accepting of what he is. He is defiant of
society. In the second half, he seems to become ashamed, and self-hating. He
is also understandably upset about all the persecution and ostracism he is
getting from society and his family, so his distress here is not all self-hate.
Still, I wish he had been defiant to the end.
The hero's roommate recalls the heroine's brother Lon in Meet Me in St.
Louis. Both are apparently conventional young men, who seem to fit in well with the
society around them. But both use to their position to quietly help the
oppressed protagonist of the film. Both are good people who are deeply admired by
the filmmaker. Both films also suggest that their is something quietly
"different" about both the roommate and Lon, that their social success and apparent
normality are hiding men who are different from social norms. They too are
genuinely different from the men around them, although in a less conspicuous way
from the hero here.
But the roommate in Tea and Sympathy has fewer options than brother Lon in
Meet Me in St. Louis. Lon could apparently do anything he wanted, and as an
upper middle class proper young man, would be automatically supported by society
around him. He was very privileged. By contrast, the roommate's attempts to
help the hero of Tea and Sympathy are immediately curtailed by authority figures
around him. He has far fewer options than Lon, although he does manage to
genuinely aid the hero, and in real defiance of people in the school.
Just as in The Cobweb, everyone here is living in one large institution, the
prep school. Even people who are not actually living there, the boys' fathers,
are deeply involved in the day to day affairs of the school. Both film
suggest the nightmarish aspects of such group living. It clearly aggravates every
potential conflict to the nth degree. There is even a discussion about the
hero's curtains again!
12615
From: jaketwilson
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 9:36am
Subject:
These comments "bounced" a couple of days ago -- thanks to Peter for
retrieving them out of cyberspace.
Peter wrote:
There's a Vincent Canby review from the
> time of the film's release where he says that some people
will "seek (and
> find) all sorts of keys to the true nature of the Edwards oeuvre,
including Darling Lili, his classic Pink Panther films, 10, S.O.B.
and Victor/ Victoria." And he then goes onto say how he's not one of
those people, and how horrible the film is. But Canby gets the first
> part right, at least. Perhaps Damien or Jake, both of whom are
also big "Sunset" fans, can talk a bit more about this.
My perspective is limited by only having seen a pan-and-scan version,
but thematically it's a fascinating film. The tone is quite uneasy
beyond the genial surface – one might wonder if Edwards is
celebrating a past era or denouncing it, but actually I don't think
he's doing either. I agree there's a resemblance to Hawks in the
emphasis on a code of ethics expressed through personal style and
transcending a specific historical or social setting
(the "anachronistic" performance by Willis reinforces this). As Jaime
notes, despite their different backgrounds Mix and Earp recognise
each other as kindred spirits from the moment they meet. Equally,
there's none of the fish-out-of-water comedy that might be
anticipated: Earp is quite at ease with the notion of showmanship,
never puts a foot wrong, and manages to "clean up" Hollywood, at
least temporarily, in exactly the same way as he would a lawless town
in a Western.
So the film's drama at this surface level is the contest between a
true father-figure (Earp, the "civilised" upholder of the law, aged
but still virile, who has hard-won real-world wisdom and unleashes
violence only as a last resort) and a false one (Mix's boss at the
studio, an ex-acrobat whose power is founded directly on sexual
violence and, more generally, flaunted physical mastery). But
something more complex enters the picture with Edwards' decision to
make his villain a (now retired) Chaplinesque comedian. In a film
that plays fast and loose with history there's no question that we're
meant to have the reference to Chaplin specifically in mind – though
McDowell's character is deliberately made unlike his model in many
ways, and Edwards seems to be amalgamating memories of a number of
Hollywood scandals.
In a film by the Coen brothers, trashing Chaplin's image might be
idle cynicism, but here it's impossible to see the conception of this
character as anything but a deliberate blow against a nostalgic view
of early (pre-classical?) Hollywood. The depiction of Hollywood's
past in Sunset may be purely mythical, but this material is still
quite close to home for Edwards – I think it "helps to know" that his
father and grandfather both worked in the film industry (the latter
as a director in the silent era). And from quite early on his career
it's clear that Edwards regards silent slapstick comedy, perhaps in
competition with other forms like the Western, as a sort of primal
paradigm for cinema in general and his own work in particular –
mythically identifying the infantile behaviour of slapstick comedians
with the pre-sound "infancy" of the medium. Hence, rather than
viewing Edwards simply as a classicist, I'd suggest that his relation
to Hollywood tradition is ambivalent and self-consciously Oedipal.
Indeed, given its context, the scene where McDowell presides over the
first ever Academy Awards easily be taken as an indictment of
the "Hollywood system" both then and now.
But it's striking that McDowell is also the only character who comes
off as any kind of artist – his virtuosity as a performer is not in
question, even if McDowell isn't particularly subtle in conveying it.
Mix, by contrast, is openly uncomfortable with his status as a movie
actor, and the one director we meet is the weakest figure of the lot.
So there's a sort of queasy equivocation, not untypical of Edwards,
in the attempt to affirm some kind of patriarchal order separate from
the amorality of McDowell's "bad" father-of-cinema (and not only
because Chaplin has endured in the popular memory while Mix hasn't).
The most imaginatively powerful part of the film, for me, is the
climax on the docks where the cornered McDowell reverts to his Happy
Hobo persona, as if this were the repressed core of his identity
(performing backflips with blood on his face, he could be a BATMAN
villain). It makes a sort of nightmare sense because the original
Tramp anyway seems pre-social and without repression – it's hard to
imagine a travesty of Keaton or Stan Laurel being creepy in the same
way.
JTW
12616
From: jaketwilson
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 9:40am
Subject: warning: SUNSET spoilers in previous post
I just gave away the whole climax -- though it's not much of a
mystery anyway.
JTW
12617
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 0:40pm
Subject: Re: Storytelling/Remakes/Intelligence
> I "cringe" I do not scream out in horror. --BTW:There are so many
> Syd's (musician, art director/designer, "screenwriter") I get their
> last names all mixed up.--
Think yourself lucky you're not called David...
> In a consumer based society, people are lead by what
> advertising/media tell them what to look for and this may not be
> willfull behavior on their part, but rather learned or reinforced
as
> a social norm.
I agree with pretty much everything Rosenbaum argues, but still think
the public is culpable to a degree. The information on who writes and
directs a film is readily available, so why are people still paying
to see films written by Akiva Goldsman?
>
> > Obviously, a strong theme does not make a strong film - what we
> are
> > looking for is a filmmaker who can explore his ideas in an
> > interesting way. But it should be obvious that if the theme
chosen is
> > uninteresting, the filmmaker has little chance to make a great
> film.
>
> I disagree. First of all, who deems the theme uninteresting? One
> viewer? The studio head? Variety?
Maybe the filmmaker? Ie, if you sentence Nick Ray to direct KNOCK ON
ANY DOOR, you're not going to get IN A LONELY PLACE. In that case,
the theme is worthwhile, but the development in story terms certainly
lacklustre.
> Second, but more importantly, a
> talented director can take a bad script/theme/idea and make a great
> film. Kathryn Bigelow's "Point Break" is, to me, a perfect
example.
Here we differ - I find the film very watchable in filmic terms, but
feel it falls short of greatness since all the style is at the
service of a fairly dumb script. In a case like KISS ME DEADLY, where
the filmmaker has been able to turn the material in some way against
itself, a great film results. But PB to me is a stylish but empty
entertainment which leaves me wanting more substance.
> I believe a talented director can make a film rise
> above a bad script, but even a good script can't help a bad
director
> get the film into the realm of the cinematic.
I'm kind of with you on this, but feel it depends on the nature of
the bad script and the techniques used to transcend it. Kubrick felt
he couldn't overcome the "fairly dumb" script of SPARTACUS, so while
the film contains masterful scenes it is not as great a film as
others in the Kubrick canon. Dressing up a stupid script with
technical flourishes can result in a watchable oddity like Joseph H
Lewis' INVISIBLE GHOST, but that's not a great movie like GUN CRAZY -
it lacks a solid justification for exisiting.
In DETOUR, a wildly implausible script (with some admmittedly great
dialogue) makes a terrific movie because the director's approach
makes virtues out of apparent vices. So I agree it can be done. But
it's MUCH harder!
> > > Yes, an auteur may have central themes in their films and so I
> have
> > > to ask: isn't an auteur always remaking his/her own films in
> some
> > > way?
> >
> > "In some way" is right, perhaps. But there ARE filmmakers with
> more
> > than one theme...
>
> I used the word THEMES not theme, plural not singular.
OK. I just wanted to make the point that since Sturges, for example,
has an interest in human folly but also in chance, romance and art,
he is not condemned to "always remake" the same film.
> I want to
> clarify that using the the word theme should also note directorial
> obsessions, ideologies, preoccupations, techniques, etc..
Disagree repsectfully. If "theme" includes "techniques" it starts to
get a bit too woolly for usefulness, imho.
> No, I think I used the wrong example. What I was trying to say,
and
> Brackage is a bad example becuase his writting on film is quite
> lucid, is that artists may be bad communicators, have a limited
> expressive vocabulary, bad spelling, bad table manners and such.
Actually can't think of many filmmakers, for instance, who are bad
communicators using language. Many of them fall short of the
standards of academics, which shouldn't be surprising since each
group is paid to do what they do best, but compared to the general
populace directors score fairly highly (exception: Spielberg, who
seemd pretty articulate at first but now waffles endless nonsense in
interviews.) Since the act of directing others is at least partly a
verbal one, this shouldn't be surprising.
> >The work of art is the message
>
> This last statement seems to me to be exactly the idea that I was
> arguing against in my first post.
Well, I maybe expressed it badly. I don't mean that the quality of
the film depends on the profundity or importance of it's theme - I
mean that what you get out of the film is inseparable from the
experience of seeing the film. To boil THE WIZARD OF OZ down
to "there's no place like home" is to exclude everything about that
film that makes it pleasurable, interesting, etc. The message of THE
WIZARD OF OZ is THE WIZARD OF OZ.
I also may be reacting to the way
> you write with some of the absolute; words you
> use: "we", "certainly", "obviously""wrong", etc..
Yeah, I write like an eighteenth century pamphleteer, I'm working on
it, I'm working on it...
12618
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 0:44pm
Subject: Re: Storytelling/Remakes/Intelligence
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Elizabeth Nolan wrote:
> This is easily remedied by reading a script before /
> after / or while watching a film... it is clear what the
> directors, cinematographers, editors (and actors)
> can do.
>
> I'm of the opinion that some of the 'best lines' in a
> screenplay are the ones that might never get spoken
> because every other means of conveying the
> spoken word are employed by actual film makers.
Just reading Mackendrick's published lecture notes, which argue much
the same thing. This book is probably the fairest, most balanced and
lucid account of dramatic storytelling in film I've read.
One of mackendrick's guiding principles is that any line of dialogue
which can be cut, should be cut.
Still have to get to the bit where he talks about SWEET SMELL OF
SUCCESS, which should be interesting.
Ford: "Don't let 'em talk unless they've got something to say."
12619
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 1:02pm
Subject: Re: Carlito's Way or: What the hell was I thinking?
I'm not a huge BDP fan, but I quite liked this one at the time. I
actually WAS surprised at the subway stabbing - I'd forgotten about
the opening of the film.
While I found some of the Scorsese-isms a bit too close to their
source for comfort, and the use of Delibes is a big fat cliche that
should carry a heavy fine, I was impressed by the long take as
Carlito flees at the end - one of the few instances where I though
BDP's long takes worked, were justified and not just showing off.
Real suspense - whether you know he's going to get killed but don't
know when, or don't know one way or the other.
12620
From: joe_mcelhaney
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 1:17pm
Subject: Tea & Sympathy Again (Yikes!)
DE: Homosexuality always ALWAYS involves the visible.
Homosexuality is like fantomas -- a dormant threat
thatmay creep across your rooftop atnight, steal in
your window, cook your dinner, redecorate the living
room -- and fuck you.
JM: This sounds like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and not Fantomas.
-----------------------------------------------------------
JM: I'm sufficiently impressed that the play even raises
the subject.
DE: WHICH subject?
JM: The subject of the gay teacher expelled for his homosexuality,
for his nude frolicking with another student, and for raising this
issue in a way which is not hysterical – although clearly you don't
think so. Mike, is this teacher one of the unsympathetic ones you
are referring to? Because I've never gotten this from reading the
play.
----------------------------------------------------------------
DE: You're forgetting the quite obvious option Tom has of
fucking those preppies on the side -- and keeping his
mouth shut about it. Read "Teh Professor of Desire" --
the biography of Truman Capote's college professor
Newton Arvin.
JM: How is this a serious option for Tom? The Capote/Newton Arvin
reference is helpful for telling us something about the historical
reality surrounding the time in which the film was made. It also
tells us what the film represses in relation to this history or (I
would prefer to say) is unable to explicitly address given the time
and place in which it was made. Tom is a fictional character whose
options extend no further than the world the film shows us. The only
physical contact the preppies can deal with in terms of Tom is
violence. That such a violence may also connote a type of repressed
sexual anxiety is suggested in the bonfire sequence (which is not in
the play) in which the boys tear each other's pajamas off as part of
a strange macho ritual.
--------------------------------------------------------------->
JM: Heterosexual paranoia? Yes, but an attempt at an analysis of it
rather than a symptom.
DE: What analysis? Just a display of paranoia, not an
interrogation of it at all. For that see "Performance"
JM: I don't think comparisons to an X-rated film made in a very
different period and in a different culture are helpful. At any rate,
I don't get this "paranoia." Tom is a very sympathetic protagonist
and, as a couple of posts have already alluded to, if the film shows
anxiety about anything I would say it's masculinity. The macho
posturing of Bill and of Tom's father, of all the roughhousing of the
boys – this is the subject of caricature in the film. While I agree
with much of what Mike says I don't agree with his reading of Bill.
Bill's extreme masculinity, in both play and film, is clearly meant
to serve as a mask for his own repressed homosexuality while
the "heterosexual paranoia" of Tom's father is so absurd that it gets
strong laughs every time I've seen the film with audiences – and I
think that laughter is something which the film encourages. There
is also the very funny scene (in the play as well) in which Tom's
roommate, Al, coaches Tom in the proper, masculine way to walk.
(Robert Anderson has said that Kazan emphasized the comic element of
the text much more than Minnelli, though.) The film comes down very
strongly on the side of the feminine, embodied in different ways by
both Laura and Tom.
Kevin asked for clarification in terms of my argument that Minnelli's
mise-en-scene sometimes has to give voice to something which the text
cannot due to censorship. I was thinking here in terms of Bill and
not Tom since Tom's character is more fully worked out within the
scenario. One of the things which had to be toned down for the film
was this repressed homosexuality of Bill. Minnelli and Leif Erickson
both suggest this repression even if the scenario cannot make this
utterly clear. Jess has already referred to the scene at the beach (I
have as well), with all that young male flesh surrounding the coach
and which the coach can't seem to keep his hands off of, all of this
filmed in a very fluid long take camera movement, the boys carefully
positioned and choreographed across the CinemaScope frame while they
read a magazine article, "Are You Masculine?" (For those of you who
plan on renting the video, don't. Wait for a TCM screening or you'll
miss a lot of the detail in the mise-en-scene.) The film does retain
a dialogue between Laura and Bill in which Bill tells her of his own
adolescence in which he just like Tom but "he got over it."
I do think, though, that Minnelli is also quite – what is the word? –
fascinated by all of this male spectacle and I don't find the film as
sexless as David does. The scene at the beach, the scene in the
locker room, all those bodies of the boys running around and falling
on top of one another, have a definite erotic charge even if the film
simultaneously views this from a slightly ironic and critical
distance. I also think, on a different note, that the scene in which
Laura tries to keep Tom from going on his "date" with Elly has a very
delicately played erotic quality to it, emerging especially through
Kerr's performance. The big moment of her seduction, on the other
hand, bizarrely transferred to a fairy tale-like forest, seems
utterly chaste and produces a response quite unlike the sometimes
stunned and shocked response that Kazan reportedly got with the
play's conclusion on this note. While Minnelli's weird staging of
this may have its origin in the censors breathing down his neck, I
also wonder if it may also be symptomatic of his lack of interest or
belief in this seduction. We shouldn't forget that Minnelli himself
was a kind of Tom-like figure in real life, interested in "feminine"
things and very feminine in his demeanor and way of speaking. Gossip
about his homo or bi-sexuality is abundant in spite of four marriages
and two children although much of this gossip about his sexuality is
carried on rather like the situation in T&S – he acts like a
homosexual, he thinks like one, he must be one.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
DE: According to the strictures of the Heterosexual
Dicatatorship (Christopher Isherwood's invaluable
term) EVERYONE is Heterosexual. No exceptions.Homosexuals are simply
heterosexuals who have "gone wrong" or been damanged by an "absent
father" and an "overprotective mother" or exposure to musical
production numbers featuring Dolores Gray viewed at"an
impressionable age."
JM: I don't find the term Heterosexual Dictatorship very enlightening
or useful although there certainly must have been a moment when this
kind of impassioned rhetoric spoke to many gay men and lesbians.
Anyway, Tom is none of these things listed above. Both parents were
absent in different ways – his mother left him and his father when he
was very young but his father was absent much of the time as well and
was clearly a difficult parent even when present. So he doesn't quite
fit the stereotype but he doesn't transcend it either, typical of the
ambivalence and ambiguity which surrounds this character. As for an
interest in musical production numbers, in the play he's a Grace
Moore fan and drags the macho boys to a revival of One Night of Love
(Tom wasn't an auteurist, alas. Why couldn't it have been The King
Steps Out?), which they all hate and which earns him the nickname of
Grace. The film gives him the nickname of Sister Boy Lee instead.
In the film, though, Tom himself does seem to have a gay following.
During the tennis match, there is a small group of very young,
feminine boys cheering him on, Tom's only fans, as all the straight,
macho boys loudly root for his opponent. The father notices this and
is embarrassed. Quite interesting, though, that the film never shows
Tom directly interacting with these boys either. Again, Tom is a
figure who is neither clearly heterosexual nor clearly homosexual but
straddles these worlds.
---------------------------------------------------------------
JM: I think Tom is best seen as a typical sensitive fifties male
figure, a much younger and more bourgeois version of the school of
Dean, Brando, Clift, or of the Beats. (His father is horrified that
Tom wants to be a folk singer.) And it's important to remember that
an aura of gayness or sexual ambiguity often surrounds this new kind
of sensitive male.
>
DE: Not that new. See Marchbanks in Shaw's "Candida." And
for the nightmare version see Willa Cather's "Paul's
Case."
JM: I didn't say the sensitive male figure was a brand-spanking new
concept. But it did reach a moment of particular intensity in
America during the 1950s and T&S is part of this. By the way, Tom is
shown reading Candida, suggesting that the film is very aware of this
lineage of the sensitive male figure.
12621
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 1:33pm
Subject: Re: Re: Tea and Sympathy
--- MG4273@a... wrote:
The film
> constitutes a detailed record
> of the war on homosexuals that was fought from the
> 1930's through the 1970's in
> the United States. This war was fought in media
> silence - the media of the
> time were not supposed to notice it was going on, or
> record any of it. So the
> fact that a film like this was made at the time is
> fairly amazing, and one
> wonders how it ever got by the twin obstacles of the
> front office and film
> censorship.
No it does not. A detailed record would have included
police arrests, psychiatric propaganda, incarcerations
and court-ordered prefrontal lobotomies.
> This film is more "realistic" than most other films,
> in recording a major
> social event that was occurring, but which was taboo
> to mention.
It was taboo to mention homosexuality in a
straightforward, non-circumspect way. "Tes and
Sympathy" mentions homosexuality in the most apporved
way -- by inisting on heteroseuxlity.
It echoes other
> such notices in Minnelli. Minnelli is often
> (correctly) thought of as an
> aesthete. Yet, Minnelli is one of the few film
> makers to record to ugly reality of
> child labor, in Lust For Life. He was one of the
> first in Hollywood to offer
> prominent roles to black people. His feminist films
> in Meet Me in St. Louis and
> The Sandpiper were ahead of their time.
Good grief! Why wasn't he blacklisted like Abraham
Polonsky?
> Tea and Sympathy started life as a 1953 Broadway
> play, a major hit. The play
> was extensively reworked for the screen, in part to
> meet the strict film
> censorship restrictions of the time. Ever since, it
> has been a cliché to suggest
> that the movie is simply a watered down, bowdlerized
> version of the play.
Not a cliche at all. And not as "watered-down" as you
would portray.
A
> comparison of the play and film suggests a
> drastically different conclusion.
> The hero of the play is a sensitive heterosexual,
> who through a series of
> unfortunate coincidences, is tagged as a possible
> gay by his peers. The play
> shows him then being unfairly attacked by the school
> for this. The hero of the
> film is different. He is genuinely female like.
> There is something differently
> gendered about him. His personality and gender
> identity are deeply female.
Aha! Christine Jorgensen, eh? Well that that certainly
wasn't considered "undiuscussable" in the 50's. You
couldn't avoid it if you tried. But no, the hero of
this play is not transgendered. He's simply
"effeminate."
Like Vincente Minnelli.
Another Minnelli film to keep in mind in this
discussion is "designing Woman" One of the secondary
characters is a "flamboyant" choreographer friend of
Lauren Bacall's to whom Gregory Peck takes great
exception. At the climax of the film the choreographer
has a speech in which he speaks of the fact that --
he's married and has children.
An who plays this "effeminate" heterosexual?
JACK COLE!!!!!!
"Bad Faith" was never more blatant.
. The play
> had two characters who
> represented Evil Adult Homosexuals. This has been
> removed from the movie
> version. Because of this, while the play depicted
> homosexuality as evil, the movie
> does not.
Because it does not depict homosexuality AT ALL!!!!
By any standards, this is a big step up,
> morally and politically.
By no standards I know of.
> If one defines male homosexuality as "a man being
> sexually attracted to other
> men", it is unclear whether the hero of the film is
> gay or not.
It is crystal clear that it ISN'T!!!
Throughout
> the first half of the film, he has two friends who
> support him: his male
> roommate, and the female wife of his house master.
> It is unclear if he is sexually
> attracted to either of these people. He has a close
> emotional tie to both. The
> ambiguity here is clearly a concession to the
> censor. It allows a hero to get
> by who is different, but still keeps open the
> possibility that he is straight.
Because he IS straight.
> The finale of both the play and film finds the hero
> sleeping with the house
> master’s wife. In the play, this is a logical
> conclusion to the premise of the
> drama. The hero of the play is a misunderstood
> heterosexual. It makes perfect
> sense for him to sleep with a woman, thus confirming
> his true nature. The
> finale of the play is one of the most famous scenes
> in American Theater. However,
> the finale becomes far more problematic in the film.
> The protagonist in the
> film is not a conventional heterosexual. He might be
> gay, he might be
> transgendered, he might be some relatively unique
> kind of gender mosaic.
Yeah. He might be a Lectroid from Planet 10!
Sleeping with a
> woman may or may not make sense in terms of his
> sexual identity.
I suggest you ask Arianna Huffington, Carrie Fisher
and Diane von Furstenberg about that.
Be sure to get back to all of us with their replies.
__________________________________
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12622
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 1:55pm
Subject: Re: Tea & Sympathy Again (Yikes!)
--- joe_mcelhaney wrote:
>
> JM: This sounds like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy
> and not Fantomas.
>
They're really quite similar. Especially Kyan.
> JM: The subject of the gay teacher expelled for his
> homosexuality,
> for his nude frolicking with another student, and
> for raising this
> issue in a way which is not hysterical – although
> clearly you don't
> think so. Mike, is this teacher one of the
> unsympathetic ones you
> are referring to? Because I've never gotten this
> from reading the
> play.
>
The Heteroisexual Hysteria of "Tea and Sympathy" isn't
related only to one or two characters or incidents. It
permeates the entire piece. If Tom is seen as acting
"funny" he MUST be made Heterosexual. But he is
anyway, so none of this was really necessary. We! What
a relief! The "honor" of Heterosexuality is saved!
>
> JM: How is this a serious option for Tom?
Well, DUH! Never hung out after gym class did I'll
wager.
The
> Capote/Newton Arvin
> reference is helpful for telling us something about
> the historical
> reality surrounding the time in which the film was
> made. It also
> tells us what the film represses in relation to this
> history or (I
> would prefer to say) is unable to explicitly address
> given the time
> and place in which it was made.
And I hope someone gets around to a making a movie of
it. With Craig Chester as Newton and Alexis Arquette
as Truman.
Tom is a fictional
> character whose
> options extend no further than the world the film
> shows us. The only
> physical contact the preppies can deal with in terms
> of Tom is
> violence. That such a violence may also connote a
> type of repressed
> sexual anxiety is suggested in the bonfire sequence
> (which is not in
> the play) in which the boys tear each other's
> pajamas off as part of
> a strange macho ritual.
>
Nothing strange about it (he said supressing a wicked
chuckle)
At any rate,
> I don't get this "paranoia." Tom is a very
> sympathetic protagonist
> and, as a couple of posts have already alluded to,
> if the film shows
> anxiety about anything I would say it's masculinity.
The matric of the paranoia I'm talking about.
> Bill's extreme masculinity, in both play and film,
> is clearly meant
> to serve as a mask for his own repressed
> homosexuality while
> the "heterosexual paranoia" of Tom's father is so
> absurd that it gets
> strong laughs every time I've seen the film with
> audiences – and I
> think that laughter is something which the film
> encourages.
Today it would certainly get laughs. But as for what
the film is thingking seemy comments on Minnelli's
"Designing Woman" in another post.
We shouldn't forget that
> Minnelli himself
> was a kind of Tom-like figure in real life,
> interested in "feminine"
> things and very feminine in his demeanor and way of
> speaking. Gossip
> about his homo or bi-sexuality is abundant in spite
> of four marriages
> and two children although much of this gossip about
> his sexuality is
> carried on rather like the situation in T&S – he
> acts like a
> homosexual, he thinks like one, he must be one.
>
He was Bi. But so flamboyant (he wore make-up and a
turban!) as to incite the sort of derision never
levelled at a Charles Walters or even a George Cukor.
But none of this figures in "Tea and Sympathy"
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12623
From:
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 9:56am
Subject: Re: Tea & Sympathy Again (Yikes!)
Have really been enjoying the discussions of "Tea and Sympathy".
My post was cut & pasted from my web site article on Minnelli, written a year
ago to celebrate the Minnelli Centenial. It seemed apposite.
Yes, I thought Bill the Coach in the film was a straight man, not a repressed
gay man as in the play. The strong perception of many posters that Bill is
queer in the film, too, gives me pause. I will definitely re-watch the film and
see if the signs of Bill's gayness are there. Bill's absolute obsession with
manliness, manly activities, male organizations, etc, is IMHO, seen by Minnelli
as part of a sick "heterosexual dictatorship" culture. It is NOT a clue to
repressed gay desire of BIll's. Rather, it embodies what Minnelli saw as a
diseased political and social culture.
Yes, I thought the teacher with whom Tom goes skinny dipping in the play was
a steroetyped Evil Homosexual. I read the play a year ago, from the Public
Library. Plan to go back and check out whther this interpretation is correct.
I keep meaning to go back and re-watch Tea and Sympathy, anyway. This time to
concentrate on the visual style. One could write a whole essay on Minnelli's
use of the staircase in the film, or the windows.
Mike Grost
12624
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 1:57pm
Subject: Re: Tea and Sympathy
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jess_l_amortell"
wrote:
But Stephen Harvey's book (which I can't find at the moment --
where are those apartment makeover guys when you really need them?)
probably goes into all this; can't remember whether he savors the
film sufficiently, though.
He doesn't. "Of all of Minnelli's 1950s dramas, T&S is most purely
a time capsule relic of its era." ... Its "courage is as frail as its
own digestible little convictions." He is also very harsh on both
Kerrs (Deborah is "leaden", "stilted", John "fails utterly to command
the screen.") In other words he hates the film, and can at times
express his dislike in clever, funny terms: the "proscenium-archness"
of the film.
>
12625
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 2:03pm
Subject: Son of "Tea and Sympathy" Strikes Back
JM: I don't find the term Heterosexual Dictatorship
very enlightening
or useful although there certainly must have been a
moment when this
kind of impassioned rhetoric spoke to many gay men and
lesbians.
It's STILL useful.We got a spectacular demonstration
of it this week on the floor of Congress. Obviously
its lost its power, but a wounded animal can be
dangerous.
I know the term makes many people uncomfortable.
That's why I use it.
Anyway, Tom is none of these things listed above. Both
parents were
absent in different ways – his mother left him and his
father when he
was very young but his father was absent much of the
time as well and
was clearly a difficult parent even when present. So
he doesn't quite
fit the stereotype but he doesn't transcend it either,
typical of the
ambivalence and ambiguity which surrounds this
character.
The "stereotype" proceeds from psychiatric cant. NO
ONE WHO EVER LIVED fits it.
In the film, though, Tom himself does seem to have a
gay following.
During the tennis match, there is a small group of
very young,
feminine boys cheering him on, Tom's only fans, as all
the straight,
macho boys loudly root for his opponent.
Now THIS is interesting. I'll take a gander at this
group the next chance I get to see the film.
The father notices this and
is embarrassed. Quite interesting, though, that the
film never shows
Tom directly interacting with these boys either.
If they are indeed as you say such interaction would
have made for MUCH more interesting movie.
Again, Tom is a
figure who is neither clearly heterosexual nor clearly
homosexual but
straddles these worlds.
Again he's straight.
JM: I didn't say the sensitive male figure was a
brand-spanking new
concept. But it did reach a moment of particular
intensity in
America during the 1950s and T&S is part of this. By
the way, Tom is
shown reading Candida, suggesting that the film is
very aware of this
lineage of the sensitive male figure.
Thus proving my point. Marchbanks is not gay either.
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12626
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 2:13pm
Subject: Re: Carlito's Way or: What the hell was I thinking?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "cairnsdavid1967"
wrote:
> I'm not a huge BDP fan, but I quite liked this one at the time. I
> actually WAS surprised at the subway stabbing - I'd forgotten about
> the opening of the film.
>
It's not the subway. He's about to board an Amtrack train to
Florida in Grand central Station.
12627
From: George Robinson
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 2:21pm
Subject: The Restored "Big Red One"
Very exciting story on the restoration of Fuller's masterpiece in the Daily
Telegraph:
http://news.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&targetRule=10
&xml=/arts/2004/07/10/bfred10.xml
George Robinson
Our talk of justice is empty until the
largest battleship has foundered on the
forehead of a drowned man.
--Paul Celan
12628
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 2:24pm
Subject: Re: ROPE and Gayness
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
.
>
> No that wasn't it. When an early script of "Rope" was
> submitted to the Production Code objections were made
> that lines like "My dear boy" constituted -- and I
> quote -- "Homosexual dialogue!"
>
> So Hitch had Laurents take them out and that was that.
>
> Which proves the literal-mindedness (and superficiality and
hypocrisy) of the censors. Remove homosexual dialogue (and
homosexual 'behavior" of course) and homosexuality disappears.
But the removal of expressions like "Dear boy" made sense in an
American, New York context -- there were many other such words and
phrases in the play that were dropped as too British-sounding (at
least Hitch and/or Laurents said it -- I haven't read the play,
which, by the way, was called "Rope's End")
JPC
JPC
>
> __________________________________
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12629
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 2:40pm
Subject: Re: Re: ROPE and Gayness
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
> But the removal of expressions like "Dear boy" made
> sense in an
> American, New York context
Quite true. But to the Production Code such words
meant "Homosexual." Isn't that weird?
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12630
From: joe_mcelhaney
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 3:07pm
Subject: Re: Tea & Sympathy Again (Yikes!)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> --- joe_mcelhaney wrote:
>
> >
> > JM: This sounds like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy
> > and not Fantomas.
> >
> They're really quite similar. Especially Kyan.
Oh, you're right. I see it all clearly now: Phantom Homosexuals Over
New York.
>
>
>> > JM: How is this a serious option for Tom?
>
> Well, DUH! Never hung out after gym class did I'll
> wager.
Me? No. I ran home to watch Dolores Gray production numbers. In
fact, I still do. Minnelli supposedly directed her screen test. I
wonder if it still exists.
>
>> But as for what the film is thingking seemy comments on Minnelli's
> "Designing Woman" in another post.
I saw those comments. I'm not crazy about that moment in DW either.
There's also the once-homosexual Davie Drew in Two Weeks in Another
Town who discovers "first love" (heterosexuality) through Veronica.
>
> He was Bi. But so flamboyant (he wore make-up and a
> turban!) as to incite the sort of derision never
> levelled at a Charles Walters or even a George Cukor.
>
> But none of this figures in "Tea and Sympathy"
I've heard the make-up story but not the turban. I wonder if either
are really true. It may be that his femininity was so repulsive to
people that the stories have become transformed into bizarre, gothic
legends over the years. I can't imagine a top director at MGM,
walking past people like Victor Fleming and Sam Wood, wearing a
turban and make-up. At any rate, I do think all of this figures very
strongly in T&S. But You say eether/I say eyether/You say neether/I
say neyther...Well, you know the rest.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
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12631
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 3:20pm
Subject: Re: Re: Tea & Sympathy Again (Yikes!)
--- joe_mcelhaney wrote:
> There's also the once-homosexual Davie Drew in Two
> Weeks in Another
> Town who discovers "first love" (heterosexuality)
> through Veronica.
> >
>
Davie Drew is a thinly-disguised Monty Clift -- who
never did bat for the straight team.
>
> I've heard the make-up story but not the turban. I
> wonder if either
> are really true.
There are pictures of him in full make-up and turban
out on the town with his then-wife, Judy Garland.
It may be that his femininity was
> so repulsive to
> people that the stories have become transformed into
> bizarre, gothic
> legends over the years. I can't imagine a top
> director at MGM,
> walking past people like Victor Fleming and Sam
> Wood, wearing a
> turban and make-up.
Not on the set.
At any rate, I do think all of
> this figures very
> strongly in T&S. But You say eether/I say
> eyether/You say neether/I
> say neyther...Well, you know the rest.
> >
Tomato!
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12632
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 3:23pm
Subject: Re: ROPE and Gayness
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> --- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
> >
> > But the removal of expressions like "Dear boy" made
> > sense in an
> > American, New York context
>
> Quite true. But to the Production Code such words
> meant "Homosexual." Isn't that weird?
>
>
>
> Well, anything foreign-sounding was suspicious to those guys,
I guess. British English (the "king's English" at least)sounds
refined and intellectual to American ears, and in the Hollywood
context, refined and intellectual usually suggested perversion, evil
etc -- in other words: Homosexuality.
> __________________________________
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12633
From:
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 0:20pm
Subject: Re: Tea and Sympathy
In a message dated 7/18/04 12:26:15 AM, sallitt@p... writes:
> when you mention the "tacked-on, desperate ending," are you talking about
> the "When you talk about this - and you will - be kind" scene?
>
I was referring to the imperative of informing us at the very end that Tom
winds up married to a woman. "Tacked-on" was probably a poor choice of words. I
meant that it feels tacked-on, a final, desperate attempt to insure us of
Tom's heterosexuality.
Kevin John
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
12634
From:
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 0:37pm
Subject: Re: Son of "Tea and Sympathy" Strikes Back
In a message dated 7/18/04 9:05:18 AM, cellar47@y... writes:
>
> The "stereotype" proceeds from psychiatric cant. NO ONE WHO EVER LIVED fits
> it.
>
Well, I had a protective mother, maybe at times overprotective and an absent
father. And while I didn't develop a fascination with Dolores Gray until much
later in life (and there's not much to obsess on film-wise), I can certainly
sing "Thanks A Lot But No Thanks" for you right now. Besides, my Joan Crawford
obsession, which stretches back to the alarmingly young age of 11, is much
more damning, as Christian Slater points out in Heathers.
Kevin John
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
12635
From: joe_mcelhaney
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 5:15pm
Subject: Re: Tea & Sympathy Again (Yikes!)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> --- joe_mcelhaney wrote:
>
> There are pictures of him in full make-up and turban
> out on the town with his then-wife, Judy Garland.
Oh, where are these photos? Are they reproduced anywhere? The memory
of having seen one of these is slowly creeping back into my mind now.
Repressed memory syndrome. And what was the context? It could have
been some kind of costume party or special event where going out on
the town dressed in this manner with your wife, with photographers
present, would have been more or less accepted. Or he just hadn't a
clue as to how flaming he looked, out with poor Judy who had no sense
of the proper way to dress.
>
>
>
> __________________________________
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12636
From: jess_l_amortell
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 5:28pm
Subject: Re: RE Storytelling/Remakes/Intelligence
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Elizabeth Nolan wrote:
>
> {{Are most experimental or avant-garde or cutting
> edge movies written by the director? Are there
> screenwriters who specialize in these types of cinema
> for specific directors?}}
On the more narrative end of things, the example that comes to mind is the series of Warhol films written by Ronald Tavel or based on plays by him. A related category might be experimental filmmakers filming plays, like Mekas' "The Brig" (but probably not too many others).
12637
From: Elizabeth Nolan
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 6:38pm
Subject: Mackendrick's published lecture notes
I've looked for these lecture notes on the net without
success. Do you have some sites?
I found book on directors about
Mackendrick, Cronin, Scorcese (which I ordered).
Mackendrick said something like
'coincidence is exposition in the wrong place.'
http://www.thestickingplace.com/html/Mackendrick_intro.html
Film writing and directing cannot be taught, only learned,
and each man or woman has to learn it through his or her
own system of self-education.
- ALEXANDER MACKENDRICK
> From: "cairnsdavid1967"
> Re: Storytelling/Remakes/Intelligence
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Elizabeth Nolan wrote:
>> This is easily remedied by reading a script before /
>> after / or while watching a film... it is clear what the
>> directors, cinematographers, editors (and actors)
>> can do.
>>
>> I'm of the opinion that some of the 'best lines' in a
>> screenplay are the ones that might never get spoken
>> because every other means of conveying the
>> spoken word are employed by actual film makers.
>
> Just reading Mackendrick's published lecture notes, which argue much
> the same thing. This book is probably the fairest, most balanced and
> lucid account of dramatic storytelling in film I've read.
>
> One of mackendrick's guiding principles is that any line of dialogue
> which can be cut, should be cut.
>
> Still have to get to the bit where he talks about SWEET SMELL OF
> SUCCESS, which should be interesting.
>
> Ford: "Don't let 'em talk unless they've got something to say."
12638
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 6:55pm
Subject: Re: Re: Tea & Sympathy Again (Yikes!)
--- joe_mcelhaney wrote:
>
> Oh, where are these photos? Are they reproduced
> anywhere? The memory
> of having seen one of these is slowly creeping back
> into my mind now.
> Repressed memory syndrome. And what was the
> context? It could have
> been some kind of costume party or special event
> where going out on
> the town dressed in this manner with your wife, with
> photographers
> present, would have been more or less accepted. Or
> he just hadn't a
> clue as to how flaming he looked, out with poor Judy
> who had no sense
> of the proper way to dress.
> >
I've seen this picture reproduced in several different
books. It was just a regular Hollywood party. Judy
isn't in any kind of costume.
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12639
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 6:58pm
Subject: Re: Tea and Sympathy
>>when you mention the "tacked-on, desperate ending," are you talking about
>>the "When you talk about this - and you will - be kind" scene?
>
> I was referring to the imperative of informing us at the very end that Tom
> winds up married to a woman. "Tacked-on" was probably a poor choice of words. I
> meant that it feels tacked-on, a final, desperate attempt to insure us of
> Tom's heterosexuality.
Oops - don't even remember that scene. It does sound a little
tacked-on. - Dan
12640
From: Adam Hart
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 7:20pm
Subject: Scarface
With all the talk of remakes, I'm not sure if anyone's brought up
the two Scarfaces. I admire De Palma's films quite a bit (especially
his stuff from the 70s), but his Scarface left me cold. Perhaps it's
due to my own aversion for anything Oliver Stone, but, judging from
a general idea of its critical and popular reception, Scarface seems
to be the Brian De Palma movie for people who don't like Brian De
Palma. Which, to me, makes it the forerunner of films like The
Untouchables. Anyway, the Hawks version is still just as great as
it's ever been, but, despite all the hoopla surrounding the
anniversary dvd, Scarface is somewhat dated.
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "cairnsdavid1967"
wrote:
> I'm not a huge BDP fan, but I quite liked this one at the time. I
> actually WAS surprised at the subway stabbing - I'd forgotten
about
> the opening of the film.
>
> While I found some of the Scorsese-isms a bit too close to their
> source for comfort, and the use of Delibes is a big fat cliche
that
> should carry a heavy fine, I was impressed by the long take as
> Carlito flees at the end - one of the few instances where I though
> BDP's long takes worked, were justified and not just showing off.
> Real suspense - whether you know he's going to get killed but
don't
> know when, or don't know one way or the other.
12641
From: Elizabeth Nolan
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 7:29pm
Subject: Mackendrick's lost masterwork, Mary Queen of Scots
There were some recent post about un-made films:
Here's an article from THE GUARDIAN
http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,4120,1230806,00.html
The lost queen
The great British director Alexander Mackendrick never got to make his
final project - it was abruptly shut down by a Hollywood studio, and
Mackendrick retired from film-making. But his vision survives in his
preparatory designs. Hilary, his wife, introduces his lost masterwork,
Mary Queen of Scots.
Hilary Mackendrick
Friday June 4, 2004
PREPARATORY DESIGNS
http://film.guardian.co.uk/gallery/0,8454,1230790,00.html
12642
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 7:30pm
Subject: Re: Storytelling/Remakes/Intelligence
James Cameron had a large hand in Point Break - the shooting and
particularly the editing.
12643
From: Michael Worrall
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 7:47pm
Subject: Re: Storytelling/Remakes/Intelligence
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> James Cameron had a large hand in Point Break - the shooting and
> particularly the editing.
I find that very hard to believe, and if you could produce evidence
I would appreciate it. The filmmaking in PB was evident in Bigelow's
films before PB or her time with "the king of the world", who to me
hasn't made an interesting film since "Aliens", besides the fact
that Cameron can't seem to get out of bed now without spending a
million dollars and his films in term have become more bloated and
less dynamic. A white elephant action director. ( I guess the guys
always have to take the credit, but I've always imagined Bigelow
kicking Cameron's ass all over the place- sorry for the vulgar
metaphor ). Are you going to give him credit also for "Strange
Days"?
PB is more than empty entertainment to me, besides being an auteur
film I find it to be a great western.
Michael Worrall
12644
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 7:58pm
Subject: Re: Tea & Sympathy Again (Yikes!)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> --- joe_mcelhaney wrote:
>
>
> At any rate, I do think all of
> > this figures very
> > strongly in T&S. But You say eether/I say
> > eyether/You say neether/I
> > say neyther...Well, you know the rest.
> > >
>
> Tomato!
>
>
> But oh! If we call the whole thing off then we must part!
> __________________________________
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> Vote for the stars of Yahoo!'s next ad campaign!
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12645
From: Fred Camper
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 8:09pm
Subject: Re: Tea and Sympathy (& film and video, again)
I remain dissatisfied with the way this thread seems to be concluding.
Kevin, I agree that the question about a movie character is not "what"
he is, but how he was meant to be understood. There are people in
Brakhage movies that really *were* mostly meant to be understood as
light. Tom is meant to be understood as a sexual human being. On this
much we agree.
But at the risk of suddenly turning postmodern, of which there really is
no danger, I should point out that Hollywood movies are not perfectly
controlled and calculated systems of meaning. They aren't even always
logical. My favorite statement about this is John Ford's reply to a
query about why the Indians didn't just shoot the horses in the chase
scene of "Stagecoach," which was something close to, "Well, they could
have shot the horses, but that would have been the end of the picture."
On a different plane, the one time that I was able to observe a
Hollywood film being made in detail, four days that I spent on "Tex,"
the cinematographer at one point was troubled with how to light a scene
to maintain source consistency with another shot of the same interior.
Then he said, "In situations like this, I usually go with my instinct,
which is to screw the source," and he was right in at least one sense --
hardly anyone will notice.
"Tea and Sympathy" was made first of all to make money. For the
financiers, it was meant to be an entertainment. I'd like to think one
element driving the decisions made in its making was Minnelli's deeply
aesthetic sensibility, but surely another was, "whatever works." The
question of Tom's orientation and identity is at least arguably not
fully enough worked out for a clear decision to be made about it. He's
not simply light on the screen, but he's not a consistent character
either: he's a pastiche whose auteurs include the studio, the
playwright, the scriptwriter, the Production Code, and the actor, as
well as Minnelli. The cues we get as to his orientation are a mix of
under and over determining. I do think the film makes the most sense if
you believe that while for much of its length you may be meant to
understand him as gay, at the end you're supposed to understand him as
straight. Certainly if at the end he came out of the closet, not only
would the film not have gotten into theaters at the time, but few would
have gone to it if it did. But also, it seems not unreasonable to
believe, as others do, that no straight boy could possibly act with
*all* his behaviors together, and that therefore the ending is an
artificial tack on (for the reasons I just gave), or an admission
(forgive me if some plot detail have forgotten contradicts this) that
even though he's gay he's entered into a marriage of convenience,
something quite common at the time. And my guess is that audience
members at the time would have disagreed about Tom, albeit perhaps in
different terms, much as a few of us have disagreed here.
On a related note, I've noticed that most posters, or at least many,
seem to be talking about the film from having seen it only on video.
Excuse me for repeating my old theme, but there is no good way of seeing
a 'Scope film on standard video -- there isn't enough "data" in the
letterboxed image to give any sense of space at all, for example. So
*now* I understand why we're all talking about the characters! It's long
been a contention of mine that watching films on video tends to focus
one away from the mise en scene and toward things that translate better
-- plot, acting, blocking, characters. I worry about cinephiles,
especially young ones, whose "diet" is mainly video, actually. For me,
in my first decade or so of coming to my own understanding of cinema,
great films were "eye training" that helped me see others -- Brakhage
helped me see Minnelli (as he turns in his grave "seeing" me write
this); Sirk helped me appreciate not only Brakhage but Borzage and Stahl
and McCarey's "An Affair to Remember." I think your whole view of cinema
gets skewed if video is your main experience. What you *should* be
learning is how to see the subtle ways in which a small camera or
character movement can transform a space; the relationship between
foreground and background planes; the texture of the compositions.
That's where the "art" resides, at least a significant part, but much of
this is lost on video, and especially on letterboxed versions of 'Scope
and color films on video.
It's been way too long since I've seen "Tea and Sympathy" for me to
comment in detail, but the film I remember was an absolute classic among
Minnelli's 'Scope melodramas, and had his characteristic theme, the
clash between a social context that imprisons characters and a key
characters' struggle for personal freedom, beautifully developed in
intensely taut compositions that made the milieu into a kind of fabric
that ensnares Tom.
Fred Camper
12646
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 8:57pm
Subject: Re: Tea and Sympathy (& film and video, again)
--- Fred Camper wrote:
I do think the film
> makes the most sense if
> you believe that while for much of its length you
> may be meant to
> understand him as gay, at the end you're supposed to
> understand him as
> straight.
Why?
Apparently I will have to go to my grave screaming
that Tom's lack of "masculinity" has NOTHING
WHATSOEVER TO DO WITH BEING GAY!!!!!
and EVERYTHING to do with gender norms in whicb anyone
percieved as violating them is ACCUSED of being gay.
Tom is not gay before Deborah Kerr fucks him and he is
no more "masculine" after being fucked by her.
But also, it seems not
> unreasonable to
> believe, as others do, that no straight boy could
> possibly act with
> *all* his behaviors together, and that therefore the
> ending is an
> artificial tack on (for the reasons I just gave), or
> an admission
> (forgive me if some plot detail have forgotten
> contradicts this) that
> even though he's gay he's entered into a marriage of
> convenience,
> something quite common at the time.
Not this "other," Fred.
And my guess is
> that audience
> members at the time would have disagreed about Tom,
> albeit perhaps in
> different terms, much as a few of us have disagreed
> here.
>
Sure. They're locked into the matrix that percieves
"unmasculine" as "homosexual" -- no exceptions.
Consequently they would be gobsmacked by Raymond Burr.
>
> It's been way too long since I've seen "Tea and
> Sympathy" for me to
> comment in detail, but the film I remember was an
> absolute classic among
> Minnelli's 'Scope melodramas, and had his
> characteristic theme, the
> clash between a social context that imprisons
> characters and a key
> characters' struggle for personal freedom,
> beautifully developed in
> intensely taut compositions that made the milieu
> into a kind of fabric
> that ensnares Tom.
>
The real "ensnared fabric" Minnelli film is "The
Cobweb" -- also with John Kerr.
But in that case the real threat isn't effeminacy --
it's drapes!
>
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12647
From: Craig Keller
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 9:07pm
Subject: Film and Video, Again (was: Tea and Sympathy (& film and video, again))
> there isn't enough "data" in the
> letterboxed image
+
> What you *should* be
> learning is how to see the subtle ways in which a small camera or
> character movement can transform a space; the relationship between
> foreground and background planes; the texture of the compositions.
> That's where the "art" resides, at least a significant part, but much
> of
> this is lost on video, and especially on letterboxed versions of 'Scope
> and color films on video.
I would propose that it's a matter of subjectivity in the
viewer/appreciator as to whether the "art" of a film resides in its
space/movement/time, or in its "data" (in the larger sense,
plot-elements, "textual" aesthetics, decor, etc., not the
digital-compression-sense you used above) -- my own feeling on the
matter is that it's a combination of both. At the same time, Fred, as
much as my heart (or my head?) goes out to agreeing with your point of
view, I really don't think that someone's dismissal of a certain
Minnelli picture must be put down or held at arm's length due to the
fact that it hadn't been viewed on the big screen. This might seem
like some anathema... but then so be it. For my own tastes, I guess I
would feel good about saying the same about something like 'The
Shining,' but if seeing it on the big screen has only -accentuated the
intensity- of the experience in terms of the spaces' grandeur and
aquarium qualities (to paraphrase and skew Bergala), I can't recall
ever having had different insights after seeing it in a theater
compared to watching it on a pristine DVD in proper 4:3 (as opposed to
1.78/1.85:1 in the theater).
Additionally, one could argue (despite this phrase, let me assert that
this isn't just an argument I'm devil's-advocate'ly putting forth, it's
how I feel) that all of the peripheral movement in a theater detracts
from the experience of "zoning into the wavelength of the film" in the
most ideal manner. I am much more attuned to a film at home, on DVD
(haven't seen a video tape in a long time), than I am in the theater.
While I think both experiences are great, I prefer seeing it at home,
despite there being no celluloid print ever. No sticky floors, no
saddle-sores (I exaggerate), no washed-out print, no gaggle of
crunching baboons (a topic addressed here days ago as we all recall),
and no -- this is the worst for me -- NO people walking by in the aisle
as I sit to finish watching the credits muttering, "I wasted my money
on -that-?" or "Where's the ending?". I know you won't buy this, Fred,
but when I'm watching a film on an iBook with my headphones, in a dark
room, I feel just as if I'm watching something in the cinema, and can
see myself in silhouette before the bottom of the frame (à la MST3K,
fie, fie) and somehow "put" myself into an experiential state whereby I
"see" the film as though it's on a large screen in front of me. Why
this happens, I don't know -- it might have to do with the intimacy of
the laptop being right on my person, and this kind of "projecting it
large" that occurs is a result of the 1-1 eyeline relationship,
everything even more solitarized and 1-1 by all the dark around me --
the distance between myself and a television set, not to mention the
difference in gamma (less film-"like" with a CRT, as opposed to the
warmer, grainier, "filmier" laptop-display's LCD gamma), being
potential causes for the lack of mind's-eye-experientiality projecting
it large. I don't even know if that makes sense, but I'll wing it and
hope it does. We can call it cinematico-astral projection.
Additionally, here's a question of opinion for the group members: If an
alien presence monitored our list, what filmmaker (or handful of
filmmakers) would they come away with as the ones on the top of the
list-sensibility's totem pole? If the Cahiers turks were pegged by
Bazin as the hitchcocko-hawksiens, what would the general sense be of
the a_f_b party-line? It seems to me the answer is clear: Vincente
Minnelli is the most fascinating auteur who ever graced the silver
screen.
craig.
12648
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 9:35pm
Subject: Re: Tea and Sympathy (& film and video, again)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
"...It's long been a contention of mine that watching films on video
tends to focus one away from the mise en scene and toward things
that translate better -- plot, acting, blocking, characters. I worry
about cinephiles, especially young ones, whose "diet" is mainly
video, actually. For me, in my first decade or so of coming to my
own understanding of cinema, great films were "eye training" that
helped me see others -- Brakhage helped me see Minnelli (as he turns
in his grave "seeing" me write this); Sirk helped me appreciate not
only Brakhage but Borzage and Stahl and McCarey's "An Affair to
Remember." I think your whole view of cinema gets skewed if video is
your main experience. What you *should* be learning is how to see
the subtle ways in which a small camera or character movement can
transform a space; the relationship between foreground and
background planes; the texture of the compositions. That's where
the "art" resides, at least a significant part, but much of this is
lost on video, and especially on letterboxed versions of 'Scope and
color films on video."
By and large I agree with this. Based on my experiences as
serigrapher (serigraphy is a kind of fine art printmaking) many
pieces that I had to work on were translations of oil paintings into
this medium. In printmaking of this kind we used the
terms "information," "fidelity" and "ledgibility." Our problem was
to take, say, a 4'x5' oil painting and render it has a 22"x28"
print. Inevitably there would be some information lost because of
the reduction of size; we would lose some fidelity because oil paint
pigments are different from ink pigments, and in an effort to
compensate for these losses we would sacrifice some ledgibility
(meaning the over-all design of the art work.) Of course, most
people can live with these kind of changes, otherwise there would be
no market for fine art reproductions. Let me add that there are works
created for the print medium just as there are works created for
video.
I think the same process is at work when film is translated into
video. Changing an art work from one medium into another involves
the reduction of the complexity of the original work so that it can
fit into the other medium. Like you said, even letter-boxed videos
of 'scope films suffer. For example, THE INDIAN FIGHTER is a
great 'scope film that I've been able to see in both 35mm and 16mm
(both anamorphic prints,) but the DVD is missing information from the
left side, the color dosen't look as rich, sometimes thin white
outlines appear around objects, and since what amkes the movie great
is the visual pattern informed by the 'scope compositions it's
diminished.
Having said all that, video versions (whether DVD, laser disc or
tape) are good for reference, like a well made plate in an art book.
While the purely visual values suffer the literary, acting and music
elements survive more or less in tact as you noted above. Ideally,
if seeing a particular movie for the first time, one should see it on
film before watching it on video, and if video is all you can get you
should be aware that you're seeing a diminished version and try to
see the original if at possible.
Richard
12649
From: joe_mcelhaney
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 9:40pm
Subject: Re: Tea and Sympathy (& film and video, again)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
> "Tea and Sympathy" was made first of all to make money. For the
> financiers, it was meant to be an entertainment. I'd like to think
one
> element driving the decisions made in its making was Minnelli's
deeply
> aesthetic sensibility, but surely another was, "whatever works."
The > question of Tom's orientation and identity is at least arguably
not
> fully enough worked out for a clear decision to be made about it.
>He's not simply light on the screen, but he's not a consistent
>character either: he's a pastiche whose auteurs include the studio,
>the playwright, the scriptwriter, the Production Code, and the
>actor, as well as Minnelli. The cues we get as to his orientation
>are a mix of under and over determining. I do think the film makes
>the most sense if you believe that while for much of its length you
>may be meant to understand him as gay, at the end you're supposed
>to understand him as straight. Certainly if at the end he came out
>of the closet, not only would the film not have gotten into
>theaters at the time, but few would have gone to it if it did. But
>also, it seems not unreasonable to believe, as others do, that no
>straight boy could possibly act with *all* his behaviors together,
>and that therefore the ending is an artificial tack on (for the
>reasons I just gave), or an admission (forgive me if some plot
>detail have forgotten contradicts this) that even though he's gay
>he's entered into a marriage of convenience, something quite common
>at the time. And my guess is that audience members at the time
>would have disagreed about Tom, albeit perhaps in different terms,
>much as a few of us have disagreed here.
Fred, this is one of the things I've been saying all along about Tom
and about the film although I'm slightly uncomfortable with the idea
that the film "makes the most sense" if you read the coda of Tom
being married literally. The marriage of convenience reading never
occurred to me. I just read the entire ending as being self-evidently
imposed and false. Of course there were and are viewers who read the
coda literally, as confirmation of Tom's heterosexuality. Viewers
interpret all kinds of films in a literal (and, to my mind,
impoverished) fashion. But certainly filmmakers of Minnelli's
generation, working within the studio system and under the Production
Code, often spoke through their images in a way which attempted to
articulate certain things that could not be expressed overtly.
Minnelli repeatedly stated how unhappy he and everyone connected with
T&S was over the coda, a sequence which none of them believed in but
had to shoot in order to appease the PC and the Legion of Decency.
And so reading this sequence on more than one level -- or discounting
it entirely in terms of the intentions of the authors -- seems
advisable. As I indicated in an earlier post, though, even more
interesting than the coda is Minnelli's strange handling of Laura's
seduction, which has an unreal, asexual quality to it, as though
Minnelli somehow did not believe in it. It may be even more
symptomatic of Minnelli's concerns that a sequence he IS fully
invested in is Tom's failed seduction of the waitress, who finally
turns into a laughing monster like almost everyone else in the town,
making fun of Tom's hands "like a girl's," prompting Tom to
hysterically attempt suicide.
>
> On a related note, I've noticed that most posters, or at least
>many, seem to be talking about the film from having seen it only on
>video. Excuse me for repeating my old theme, but there is no good
>way of seeing a 'Scope film on standard video -- there isn't
>enough "data" in the letterboxed image to give any sense of space
>at all, for example. So *now* I understand why we're all talking
>about the characters! It's long been a contention of mine that
>watching films on video tends to focus one away from the mise en
>scene and toward things that translate better -- plot, acting,
>blocking, characters. I worry about cinephiles, especially young
>ones, whose "diet" is mainly video, actually. What you *should* be
> learning is how to see the subtle ways in which a small camera or
> character movement can transform a space; the relationship between
> foreground and background planes; the texture of the compositions.
> That's where the "art" resides, at least a significant part, but
>much of this is lost on video, and especially on letterboxed
>versions of 'Scope and color films on video. It's been way too long
>since I've seen "Tea and Sympathy" for me to comment in detail, but
>the film I remember was an absolute classic among Minnelli's 'Scope
>melodramas, and had his characteristic theme, the clash between a
>social context that imprisons characters and a key characters'
>struggle for personal freedom, beautifully developed in intensely
>taut compositions that made the milieu into a kind of fabric that
>ensnares Tom.
I did caution members of the group who hadn't seen the film not to
rent the VHS of it as the mise-en-scene would be destroyed. But
you're right about the 'scope compositions being essential to the
film's meaning, particularly some of the interiors and the use of
window and door frames at the far left and right of the screen to
contain not only Tom and Laura but also Bill and Tom's father, whose
macho interactions are almost always framed within something
constricting. There's also a great single-take sequence in the
restaurant where the waitress works, with Tom and his father seated
at the counter at the far right of the frame while the obnoxious boys
and the waitress enagage in all kinds of choreographed horseplay at
the center, far left and rear of the shot.
12650
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 9:40pm
Subject: Sunset and Carlito's Way
Great post on SUNSET, Jake. You really should check out the DVD,
which is really great-looking, and seeing it in 'Scope is of course
ideal, short of watching a print. Of course Fred is 100% correct that
a lot of detail is lost when you watch a DVD, and this is certainly
true of a Blake Edwards film like SUNSET, which is packed to the
breaking point with great mise-en-scene and camera movmement.
Nevertheless, beggars can't be choosers.
But Jake - I'm disappointed that you failed to mention Bruce Willis'
brilliant hats.
McDowell is great, and he hasn't had many chances to really shine
throughout his career. In the final scene, though, I'm not sure
whether McDowell (or, rather, his stunt man) doing backflips means
he's reverted back into the Happy Hobo persona. Did I miss a detail?
----------
JP, thanks for the compliment regarding my CARLITO'S WAY post. I only
scratched the surface and hardly that. Zach had a terrific review of
the film on his old website, but it's been taken down, alas.
Cairnsy, what are "Delibes"?
----------
Hey everybody. After seeing FAHRENHEIT 9/11 yesterday I added some
shameless political links to the top of my website. For frequent
visitors (both of you), I hope it's not too annoying.
http://filmwritten.org
-Jaime
12651
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 10:02pm
Subject: Re: Tea and Sympathy (& film and video, again)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
And my guess is that audience
> members at the time would have disagreed about Tom, albeit perhaps
in
> different terms, much as a few of us have disagreed here.
>
Audiences were expected to think that he was a confused kid going
through an identity crisis and now he has been through it and found
his sexual identity: heterosexual,happily married etc...And the moral
is: you can be sensitive and still be a "real" man. I suspect the
only members of the audience who at the time saw him as a homosexual
in denial and involved in a marriage of convenience would have been
gay men (and perhaps very homophobic macho males). It would be
interesting to know how homosexuals at the time viewed the character
and discussed the movie, but of course such discussions had to remain
private and underground.
JPC
there is no good way of seeing
> a 'Scope film on standard video -- there isn't enough "data" in the
> letterboxed image to give any sense of space at all, for example.
Fred Camper
In a perfect world all the multiplexes would be screening
CinemaScope films of the fifties on their huge screens in the perfect
aspect ratio. The reality is that those films are hardly ever shown
theatrically anywhere, so that your dictum -- with which one has of
course to sympathize -- condemns generations of viewers to being
unable to appreciate them. And not only younger people. I have seen
TEA & SYMPATHY three times, I think, in theaters, but the last time
was at least 20 years ago and the chances I'll ever see it again in a
theater are very very slim indeed. The same applies to all post-1953
wide screen movies. So saying that there is no good way to see a
Scope film on video is a bit like saying, "Baroque music cannot be
appreciated unless it's played on period instruments," and then
adding: "Unfortunately, no period instruments are available."
Craig's post makes good points in defense of video watching.
Given the choice of course I'd always opt for a thetre screening.
Unfortunately we don't have the choice.
JPC
12652
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 10:08pm
Subject: Sunset addendum
I figured it out, what it reminded me of: the way Mix and Earp become
immediate friends (or, better yet, "kindred spirits" as Jake put it),
and stay that way throught the film, it wasn't a Hawks film I was
thinking of, although the relationship has an interesting resemblance
to Chance and Colorado's in RIO BRAVO (down to the "anachronistic"
Ricky Nelson), but John Frankenheimer's RONIN. One of the best things
about RONIN, maybe the film's real axis, is the friendship between
Jean Reno and Robert De Niro. 90% of the film's best moments belong
to these two guys, and that kind of movie friendship is usually ruined
by the convention that two guys who are buddies must either have (a) a
long history together or (b) at first, they have Nothing in Common,
one's a rookie who has to prove himself, or his car is messy and the
other guy is neat, or one's black and one's white, zzzzzzzzzzzz...
Anyway, that's the film I was thinking of. RONIN. Maybe Takeshi
Kitano's BROTHER as well, since there's scant fish-out-of-water comedy
and the initial hostility is staged in a pretty original manner (and
when the scene is mentioned towards the end of the film, it's
surprising and moving).
-Jaime
12653
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 10:16pm
Subject: Re: Sunset and Carlito's Way
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jaime N. Christley" <>
Cairnsy, what are "Delibes"?
>
> ----------
> > -Jaime
It's Leo Delibes, a French composer mostly famous for beloved
and very corny ballets such as "Coppelia" and the opera "Lakme".
12654
From: jess_l_amortell
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 10:18pm
Subject: Re: Tea and Sympathy (& film and video, again)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
> Excuse me for repeating my old theme, but there is no good way of seeing
> a 'Scope film on standard video -- there isn't enough "data" in the
> letterboxed image to give any sense of space at all, for example.
> What you *should* be
> learning is how to see the subtle ways in which a small camera or
> character movement can transform a space; the relationship between
> foreground and background planes; the texture of the compositions.
> That's where the "art" resides, at least a significant part, but much of
> this is lost on video, and especially on letterboxed versions of 'Scope
> and color films on video.
No argument (and I'm assuming that Tea and Sympathy hasn't been available in letterboxed form, anyway), but as long as you've brought this up, I'm curious as to whether you'd make any distinctions at all between standard letterboxed DVDs (where the widescreen image merely occupies the center part of the full frame) and "anamorphic" (or "enhanced for wide screen") transfers, which at least in theory are supposed to provide superior resolution.
12655
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 10:25pm
Subject: Re: Re: Tea and Sympathy (& film and video, again)
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
> I suspect the
> only members of the audience who at the time saw him
> as a homosexual
> in denial and involved in a marriage of convenience
> would have been
> gay men (and perhaps very homophobic macho males).
> It would be
> interesting to know how homosexuals at the time
> viewed the character
> and discussed the movie, but of course such
> discussions had to remain
> private and underground.
Homophobic macho males wouldn't have gone to "Tea and
Sympathy" which -- over and above everything else --
is a "woman's picture."
Deborah Kerr originated the role of laura on-stage,
right on the heels of her iconic triumph in "From Here
to Eternity."
"Frok Here to Eternity" was my mother's all-time
favorite movie. The scene where Lancaster, dripping
with rain, comes into Kerr's kitchen with the
groceries was a hot as they come, in my mother's eyes.
She and my father went to see Kerr on stage in "Tea
and Sympathy" and found her thrilling. They never
discussed the play with me.
In light of his triumph with "Far From Heaven" it
would be interesting if Todd Haynes
http://www.bonusround.com/book3-10/images/outfest04-45.jpg
remade "Tea and Sympathy" with Julianne Moore.
But Todd has other plans.
__________________________________
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12656
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 10:30pm
Subject: No Tea or Sympathy From the Terminator
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2026&ncid=2026&e=8&u=/latimests/20040718/ts_latimes/govcriticizeslegislatorsasgirliemen
Who's going to be the first person to bring up the
manner in which the Governor of California financed
his bodybuilding career, hmm?
__________________________________
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Vote for the stars of Yahoo!'s next ad campaign!
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12657
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 10:32pm
Subject: Re: Delibes and film music
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon" wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jaime N. Christley" <>
>
> Cairnsy, what are "Delibes"?
> >
> > ----------
> > > -Jaime
>
> It's Leo Delibes, a French composer mostly famous for beloved
> and very corny ballets such as "Coppelia" and the opera "Lakme".
Oh, I thought it was a technical term in filmmaking. It sounded as if
it was shorthand for something. Please excuse my ignorance!
I didn't have a problem with any of the music, but I guess David C.
has seen a lot of movies that used Delibes in a way that annoyed him,
hence his criticism. Music tends to bug me more in commercials (like
the Stones' "You Cant Always Get What You Want" in that unwatchable
Coke commercial) and trailers, but a wisely deployed piece of music in
a feature film has to be *really, really* overused before it gets
under my skin. I'm trying to think of an example, can't right now.
Pasolini is a director that I've been having considerable trouble
with, but one can't deny his inventive use of music, especially when
his choices are unexpected and "incorrect."
-Jaime
12658
From: joe_mcelhaney
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 10:38pm
Subject: Re: Tea and Sympathy (& film and video, again)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> Deborah Kerr originated the role of laura on-stage,
> right on the heels of her iconic triumph in "From Here
> to Eternity." She and my father went to see Kerr on stage in "Tea
> and Sympathy" and found her thrilling. They never
> discussed the play with me.
One interesting bit of casting on Kazan's part for the play was for
the role of the most hostile and virile member of the young macho
anti-Tom crowd. For the film, that character was played by Tom
Laughlin, an obvious choice. But for the play, Kazan cast Alan Sues.
>
>
> In light of his triumph with "Far From Heaven" it
> would be interesting if Todd Haynes
>
> http://www.bonusround.com/book3-10/images/outfest04-45.jpg
>
> remade "Tea and Sympathy" with Julianne Moore.
>
> But Todd has other plans.
Well, it's a property that cries out for remaking. I wonder, though,
if one interesting way to remake it would be to simply go back to the
play and film it more or less faithfully, as Resnais did with Melo,
and allow the historical and ideological datedness of the material
and all that it represses to come forward through the mise-en-scene
and performances. I don't know if the play would be able to withstand
such a treatment. It's interesting, though, that both play and film
were dominated strongly by their directors, by two strong autuers
whose voice emerges perhaps even more strongly than the author. Eric
Bentley's review of the play in 1953, for example, talked more about
Kazan than it did Anderson. For Bentley, Kazan was the real star of
the show.
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Vote for the stars of Yahoo!'s next ad campaign!
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12659
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 10:40pm
Subject: Re: Re: Delibes and film music
--- "Jaime N. Christley"
wrote:
>
> Pasolini is a director that I've been having
> considerable trouble
> with, but one can't deny his inventive use of music,
> especially when
> his choices are unexpected and "incorrect."
>
This perks my curiosity as Ennio Morricone was
Pasolini's primary music director. What musical
choices in his films rubbed you the wrong way?
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12660
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 10:45pm
Subject: Re: Re: Tea and Sympathy (& film and video, again)
--- joe_mcelhaney wrote:
>
> One interesting bit of casting on Kazan's part for
> the play was for
> the role of the most hostile and virile member of
> the young macho
> anti-Tom crowd. For the film, that character was
> played by Tom
> Laughlin, an obvious choice. But for the play,
> Kazan cast Alan Sues.
>
YIKES!
Then it's a wonder he didn't cast Paul Lynde as
Stanley Kowalski.
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12661
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 10:47pm
Subject: Re: Delibes and film music
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
> This perks my curiosity as Ennio Morricone was
> Pasolini's primary music director. What musical
> choices in his films rubbed you the wrong way?
Er, no. Pasolini's music rubs me the right way, it's the three films
I've seen by him that I can't connect with. (Yet.)
See scare quotes around "incorrect."
-Jaime
12662
From:
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 6:50pm
Subject: Re: Tea and Sympathy (& film and video, again)
Fred, unless I'm totally missing the point you're making in the second
paragraph of your post, I think we're saying the same exact thing. I myself was
making a postmodern argument about how "Hollywood movies are not perfectly
controlled and calculated systems of meaning." At least I thought I was. I was taking
issue with Ehrenstein stating that the Production Code, the forces of
history, etc. firmly establish Tom as straight, end of discussion. I countered by
stating that I, for one, thought he was gay. But I was trying to underline my
reading as merely one viewpoint. I never intended it to be the final word on the
matter. I even agreed with Ehrenstein about the film's failure to interrogate
its own heterosexism. In short, Ehrenstein seemed to be treating this
Hollywood movie as a perfectly controlled and calculated system of meaning, not me.
As for your third paragraph, a clear decision WAS made about Tom's
orientation at the end. You say so yourself: "I do think the film makes the most sense
if you believe that while for much of its length you may be meant to understand
him as gay, at the end you're supposed to understand him as straight." The
most sense to you, perhaps. But, yet again, I read that ending as paranoia,
desperate, all those things I've already said. Therefore, I don't put much, if
any, stock in its authority (with all the connotations of that word retained). I
understand where you're coming from, Fred. The film sets Tom up to be
perceived as gay and with the end letting us know "firmly" that he is, in fact,
straight, we are forced to reexamine our prejudices. But I don't want that ending! I
want a gay character. And therefore, I view Tom as gay. Now before you blow
your top, I want to state FIRMLY that I think I am perfectly, cinematically
justified in wanting (and getting) Tom to be gay. Again, I take that end
historically, not dramatically or even aesthetically. For me, it juts out from the
text, from Minnelli's genius, etc. It compromises the film's art. So for me, I
ignore the ending as tacked-on historical paranoia and view Tom as a gay man.
Thus, I think the film is saying that we have to accept this kind of behavior in
men no matter where they are at sexually. I find the "whew! at least he's not
gay" ending a bit homophobic, to be honest. Because at the end of the day,
what happens when one of those viewers whose prejudices were transformed by the
film comes into contact with a man who displays Tom's characteristics and also
just so happens to be, the shock horror!, a bonafide homosexual male (or
someone not FIRMLY heterosexual)? There are too few gay characters in cinema
history for me to entertain the "Tom is FIRMLY straight" ending as the ending that
makes the most sense....again, to me.
This last slides neatly into your fourth paragraph. I think your problems
with this thread go well beyond ye olde film v. video warhorse. It stems from an
idea put forth in a quite beautiful post of yours from eons ago. I won't do
justice to your eloquence here but it was something about how most film viewers
try to find themselves in a film's characters or story instead of immersing
themselves in the unique lifeworld created by the director. So a focus on the
formal qualities that make up this lifeworld can chip away at our
self-absorption. As someone sick to the teeth with identity imperatives, I find this a
lovely idea. Unfortunately, far too many of us are in desperate need of ego ideals
and popular culture (film included) is where we go to find them. We turn our
dorky, misfit selves to cinema for encouragement not enlightenment. I'm well
aware of the pitfalls of this state of affairs. But it has its merits. And it
doesn't take much doing to fit T&S into this scenario. This, I think, is more
the reason why we're talking about the characters (even though I still think
I've couched my argument in cinematic terms).
Finally, speaking of fitting things into scenarios, "acting, blocking,
characters" are part of the mise-en-scene, are they not?
Kevin John
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
12663
From:
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 6:54pm
Subject: Re: Tea and Sympathy (& film and video, again)
In a message dated 7/18/04 4:08:04 PM, cellar47@y... writes:
> Tom's lack of "masculinity" has NOTHING
> WHATSOEVER TO DO WITH BEING GAY!!!!!
>
> and EVERYTHING to do with gender norms in whicb anyone
> percieved as violating them is ACCUSED of being gay.
>
As if the two could be separated. We're created through these norms,
especially gay (as opposed to homosexual) people. Where is that pure state of being
gay that is unifected by discourse? Los Angeles? Sheesh - even the
existentialists were on this long before the dawn of pomo. "Hell is other people" and all
that.
Kevin John
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
12664
From: Nick
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 11:28pm
Subject: Bresson's LA GRANDE VIE & LA GENÈSE
> No, I believe you're right. But it was a project Bresson envisioned
> for many years. Michael Ciment interviewed Bresson about the film
> after "L'Argent,"
According to Andi Engel, there was also another Bresson film in the
works after L'ARGENT. A Bresson script based on a novel by Jean-Marie
Gustave Le Clézio, which Bresson called LA GRANDE VIE:
http://mastersofcinema.org/bresson/meetingbresson.jpg
-Nick Wrigley>-
12665
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Jul 19, 2004 0:26am
Subject: Re: Re: Delibes and film music
--- "Jaime N. Christley"
wrote:
>
> Er, no. Pasolini's music rubs me the right way,
> it's the three films
> I've seen by him that I can't connect with. (Yet.)
>
> See scare quotes around "incorrect."
>
Which three have you seen? And what's wrong with them?
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12666
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Mon Jul 19, 2004 0:36am
Subject: Re: Delibes and film music
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein wrote:
> --- "Jaime N. Christley"
> wrote:
>
> >
> > Er, no. Pasolini's music rubs me the right way,
> > it's the three films
> > I've seen by him that I can't connect with. (Yet.)
> >
> > See scare quotes around "incorrect."
> >
> Which three have you seen? And what's wrong with them?
MEDEA, GOSPEL...ST. MATHEW, SALO.
I don't feel qualified to answer the second question.
-Jaime
12667
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Jul 19, 2004 0:38am
Subject: Re: Tea and Sympathy (& film and video, again)
--- LiLiPUT1@a... wrote:
In short, Ehrenstein seemed to
> be treating this
> Hollywood movie as a perfectly controlled and
> calculated system of meaning, not me.
>
No, not the film at all. it's the culture on whose
behest it was made that sees itself as a perfectly
calculated and controlled system of meaning. That's
why we're having this exchange.
The film
> sets Tom up to be
> perceived as gay and with the end letting us know
> "firmly" that he is, in fact,
> straight, we are forced to reexamine our prejudices.
> But I don't want that ending! I
> want a gay character.
For that you need Todd Haynes.
Note, there's nothing "effeminate" about Dennis Quaid
in "Far From Heaven."
I want to state FIRMLY that I think I am
> perfectly, cinematically
> justified in wanting (and getting) Tom to be gay.
And I want Colin Farrell so bad I can taste it.
Not gonna happen in either case.
> Again, I take that end
> historically, not dramatically or even
> aesthetically. For me, it juts out from the
> text, from Minnelli's genius, etc. It compromises
> the film's art. So for me, I
> ignore the ending as tacked-on historical paranoia
> and view Tom as a gay man.
> Thus, I think the film is saying that we have to
> accept this kind of behavior in
> men no matter where they are at sexually. I find the
> "whew! at least he's not
> gay" ending a bit homophobic, to be honest.
Which it most certainly is.
Compare and contrast with another "woman's picture" --
"Making Love." There hestays gay, despite his wife's
wishes that he weren't.
Because
> at the end of the day,
> what happens when one of those viewers whose
> prejudices were transformed by the
> film comes into contact with a man who displays
> Tom's characteristics and also
> just so happens to be, the shock horror!, a bonafide
> homosexual male (or
> someone not FIRMLY heterosexual)?
Youmena that they would stumble over Tony Perkins in
the lobby? Quel Horreur!
There are too few
> gay characters in cinema
> history for me to entertain the "Tom is FIRMLY
> straight" ending as the ending that
> makes the most sense....again, to me.
>
Is this a good time to bring up "Victim"?
How about "The Servant"?
"Darling" ?
"Modesty Blaise"?
"Sunday Bloody Sunday"?
"My Beautiful Laundrette"?
"L'Homme Blesse"?
"Mala Noche"?
"My Own Private Idaho" ?
"Love is the Devil"?
"Grief"?
"A Home at the End of the World" ?
"Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train"?
I could go on for days.
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12668
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Jul 19, 2004 0:40am
Subject: Re: Tea and Sympathy (& film and video, again)
--- LiLiPUT1@a... wrote:
> As if the two could be separated. We're created
> through these norms,
> especially gay (as opposed to homosexual) people.
> Where is that pure state of being
> gay that is unifected by discourse? Los Angeles?
> Sheesh - even the
> existentialists were on this long before the dawn of
> pomo. "Hell is other people" and all
> that.
>
Hell is other people -- with nicer apartments.
>
>
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12669
From: Craig Keller
Date: Mon Jul 19, 2004 0:43am
Subject: Re: Tea and Sympathy (& film and video, again)
> And I want Colin Farrell so bad I can taste it.
>
> Not gonna happen in either case.
So -that's- why you think he's "talented"!
craig.
12670
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Jul 19, 2004 0:44am
Subject: Re: Re: Delibes and film music
--- "Jaime N. Christley"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
> wrote:
> > --- "Jaime N. Christley"
>
> MEDEA, GOSPEL...ST. MATHEW, SALO.
>
> I don't feel qualified to answer the second
> question.
>
Oh take a stab at it anyway.
I find "Medea" proiblematic. And "Salo" is the
cinema's grandest "Impossible Object."
But "The Gospel" is quite lovely -- especially when
compared to Mel Gibson's snuff film (far more
excessive than "Salo" in many ways.)
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12671
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Jul 19, 2004 1:05am
Subject: Re: Tea and Sympathy (& film and video, again)
--- Craig Keller wrote:
> > And I want Colin Farrell so bad I can taste it.
> >
> > Not gonna happen in either case.
>
> So -that's- why you think he's "talented"!
>
No, craig. I may be a cheap slut but I have standards.
His performance in "A Home at the End of the World" is
really quite remarkable.
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12672
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Mon Jul 19, 2004 1:35am
Subject: Re: Tea and Sympathy (& film and video, again)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> --- LiLiPUT1@a... wrote:
>
> I want to state FIRMLY that I think I am
> > perfectly, cinematically
> > justified in wanting (and getting) Tom to be gay.
>
If you want it hard enough (FIRMLY enough -- sounds like an
erectile statement), you can get anybody (that is, any film
character) to be gay -- wishful thinking can do wonders. Even Victor
McLaglen can be enlisted. But why this frenzy of finding recruits?
When I see a gay character in a film, even an attractive one (Farley
Granger was real cute), I don't wish he were heterosexual. He is what
he is. Ah, but David is going to say that that's because I am one of
the oppressors -- the hated heterosexuals. You just can't win.
>
JPC
>
>
> > Again, I take that end
> > historically, not dramatically or even
> > aesthetically. For me, it juts out from the
> > text, from Minnelli's genius, etc. It compromises
> > the film's art. So for me, I
> > ignore the ending as tacked-on historical paranoia
> > and view Tom as a gay man.
> > Thus, I think the film is saying that we have to
> > accept this kind of behavior in
> > men no matter where they are at sexually. I find the
> > "whew! at least he's not
> > gay" ending a bit homophobic, to be honest.
>
Every ending is historical. Determined by the conventions of
its time.
> Everybody is free to ignore anything they don't like in any
work of art. The art we are talking about is deeply flawed by its
compromises. Auteurism tried to see beyond those compromises, but
some commonsense attitude seems to keep pulling us back to them and
their limitations.Maybe that's what we've been talking about here.
> JPC
>
12673
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Mon Jul 19, 2004 1:46am
Subject: Re: sexuality and the viewer (was: Tea and Sympathy)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon" wrote:
> If you want it hard enough (FIRMLY enough -- sounds like an
> erectile statement), you can get anybody (that is, any film
> character) to be gay -- wishful thinking can do wonders. Even Victor
> McLaglen can be enlisted. But why this frenzy of finding recruits?
> When I see a gay character in a film, even an attractive one (Farley
> Granger was real cute), I don't wish he were heterosexual. He is what
> he is. Ah, but David is going to say that that's because I am one of
> the oppressors -- the hated heterosexuals. You just can't win.
Well, in the past David has suggested that it's his political
prerogative to be just as aggressive a gay as the straight world is
often anti-gay. And I'm willing to give somebody the benefit of the
doubt in that case. Like when the Iraqi woman is screaming in grief
in FAHRENHEIT 9/11 for Allah to rain down fire on American homes: on
the one hand I'm saying, "Uh, hey Allah, please don't rain down fire
on my home, thanks," and on the other hand she is 100% in the right to
say, feel, and wish that to happen.
Or maybe it's simpler: like when filmmakers present two really
gorgeous women in a lesbian situation (or a suggested one) and male
viewers like me think, "Oh, if only I could be there, I'd show them a
thing or two." The male hetero viewer sees this and the fantasy
hinges on the idea that female homosexual sex was put on this planet
for his benefit alone. Hence "lesbian eye candy" has crept into
mainstream American cinema since Sharon Stone kissed Gina Gershon in
BASIC INSTINCT.
Not that I'd like to live in a world without "lesbian eye candy." We
all have our vices.
-Jaime
12674
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Mon Jul 19, 2004 1:55am
Subject: Re: Pasolini (was: Delibes and film music)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
> Oh take a stab at it anyway.
Well, I'd prefer to wait until I reach a point where I can "get into
the Pasolini groove" (as I've been able to begin to do with Rohmer),
or at least know that it probably won't happen in my lifetime. But:
All three films suffered from piss-poor DVD presentation. My viewing
of each is discounted, thanks to that.
Nevertheless, at this time I don't care for Pasolini's visual style.
He hires legendary opera singers, builds elaborate sets and uses
lovely costumes, but his I find his images ugly and I don't get
excited by the way his "pared down" approach is supposed to counteract
the implied grandiosity of the stories - shooting epics like
neorealist documentaries.
But I have enough faith in Pasolini to continue and I hope he opens up
for me. Or vice verse. Anyway I just wanted to say his use of music
is really great, sometimes.
-Jaime
12675
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Jul 19, 2004 1:59am
Subject: Re: Re: Tea and Sympathy (& film and video, again)
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
> If you want it hard enough (FIRMLY enough --
> sounds like an
> erectile statement), you can get anybody (that is,
> any film
> character) to be gay -- wishful thinking can do
> wonders. Even Victor
> McLaglen can be enlisted. But why this frenzy of
> finding recruits?
> When I see a gay character in a film, even an
> attractive one (Farley
> Granger was real cute), I don't wish he were
> heterosexual. He is what
> he is. Ah, but David is going to say that that's
> because I am one of
> the oppressors -- the hated heterosexuals. You just
> can't win.
> >
Oh sure you can, J-P. What you're playing here is a
variation on what Raymond Durgnat called "The Harem
Game."
Everyone can play. Regardless of sexual orientation.
>
>
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12676
From: jaketwilson
Date: Mon Jul 19, 2004 2:10am
Subject: Re: Sunset and Carlito's Way
> McDowell is great, and he hasn't had many chances to really shine
> throughout his career. In the final scene, though, I'm not sure
> whether McDowell (or, rather, his stunt man) doing backflips means
> he's reverted back into the Happy Hobo persona. Did I miss a
detail?
As I remember, there's a definite shift at the last moment -- the
little wave he gives, the blood on his face resembling clown's make-
up, his death leaning against a pole. Plus we've seen him take very
similar tumbles in his routine at the awards a scene or two earlier.
The setting also recalls CITY LIGHTS, although I wouldn't count on
Edwards having that specifically in mind.
Somehow it reminded me of the great scene in BATMAN RETURNS when the
Penguin finally gives up on his bid for respectability -- "I'm a
freak, screw you all."
> Maybe Takeshi Kitano's BROTHER as well, since there's scant fish-
out-of-water comedy and the initial hostility is staged in a pretty
> original manner (and when the scene is mentioned towards the end of
the film, it's surprising and moving).
I really like this movie. It's a good comparison as both directors
seem to be doing genre exercises, but completely ignore whatever
conventions don't interest them (and of course, both are masters of
the sight gag).
JTW
12677
From: Fred Camper
Date: Mon Jul 19, 2004 2:34am
Subject: Re: Tea and Sympathy (& film and video, again)
David, I agree with you, and said as much earlier: To me, the "feminine"
behaviors of Tom do not imply he is gay. I miswrote my post a bit; I was
talking about how many others apparently understand the film. But I also
find myself in complete agreement with Kevin's recent post. He's not
being ridiculous to read the character as gay, and why has already been
explained.
About film and video, of course not everyone can see films on film, and
I'm not telling people how to spend their money or what to do of their
lives, but rather arguing for an awareness of consequences. I strongly
disagree with Craig about disliking a film seen only on video. If I
really like a film by a director whose work I love from the video
version, and if it "feels" like that director's work, I usually assume I
got some of its essence. But if I don't like the work, I know, from my
own experience, that it could be that the film simply doesn't survive
this form of reproduction.
Black and white films in 1.33:1 without complicated light or composition
or depth effects -- Howard Hawks or Raoul Walsh, say -- tend to survive
video better than Welles or von Sternberg. Wider than 1.33:1 is a
problem, because at least pre-HDTV there are no good solutions. Color is
a big problem because the colors of your CRT, or plasma, or LCD monitor
are going to be very different from film colors.
Jess: "I'm curious as to whether you'd make any distinctions at all
between standard letterboxed DVDs (where the widescreen image merely
occupies the center part of the full frame) and 'anamorphic' (or
'enhanced for wide screen') transfers, which at least in theory are
supposed to provide superior resolution."
Actually, I watch films on video so rarely I don't even know what you're
talking about. I think I've only seen the conventional letterboxed VHS
tapes. They were better than pan and scan of course but the image is
still really horrible. It does seem to me that letterboxing on HDTV
videos will potentially be better; the resolution is higher, and the
wider "native" format ought to mean that less is lost in letterboxing.
I'm willing to revisit all this when moves are available on the coming
higher res DVDs for HDTV format.
Videos made for video are another matter. I have no problem here, and
view them and write on them all the time as part of my capsule-reviewing
for the "Chicago Reader."
Kevin, I'm in agreement with your comments on postmodernism, and I'm
really touched by your comments about my "position." Most people, and
probably some in this group, will not see the merits of it at all, so
I'm always happy when someone considers my view of "form" and its power
to have value. I really have no quarrel (and complete understanding) of
"other" uses of cinema, including the ways people might use characters
in films to affirm their own identities. And David's list
notwithstanding, classical Hollywood cinema certainly doesn't have many
(any?) gay-positive characters. I love "The Big Combo," but I'd be
surprised if any male of whatever orientation in this group would
consider Fanty and Mingo as worthy role models.
And sure, "acting, blocking, characters" are part of the mise en scene.
But in a great film all these things are interdependent: the tactile
quality of Welles's surfaces, and the kinds of depth effect they create,
influence how you perceive the acting and blocking. Your feeling for the
whole film, even the presence of actors and thus for their performances,
is deeply altered.
I'm not going to defend bad audiences. I almost started screaming at
some moron behind me who thought that since the opening pan of "Day of
the Outlaw" was just the credits he could talk. Indeed, I'm not a
particular advocate, as some are, of the advantages of viewing films
with audiences. But to some extent I can learn to tune out. And when you
can, you also figure out when to go. Saturday night at 8 is not such a
good time.
(Off topic continuation of interest to travelers to Rome: Two years ago
I got to go to Rome for the first time. I'd been warned by someone who
knew Rome well over many visits and had been there that summer that the
Sistine Chapel was now of interest only to frotteurs (people who rub
against others for sexual pleasure); that is, that it had grown so
crowded that going there was pointless. I was there in November rather
than summer. On another friend's advice, I arrived at the Vatican
Museums 40 minutes before opening time, so was very early in line, and
on opening, walked very fast to the Sistine Chapel immediately. When I
arrived there were only 17 other people there, and it was an hour before
it got really crowded, and even then, it wasn't that bad. And the art
was nothing like any of the reproductions I'd ever seen in books.)
Fred Camper
12678
From: jaketwilson
Date: Mon Jul 19, 2004 3:10am
Subject: Re: sexuality and the viewer
Anyone see MEAN GIRLS? That has a somewhat comparable situation with
a supporting character -– a not especially "feminine" girl whose
sexuality is left ambiguous until she gets a boyfriend in the last
reel. But we're left to surmise why she's so distressed at being
called a lesbian -- to the point where she can't even bear to hear
the word –- and why she's so fixated on the girl who spread the
rumour (her former best friend, who maintains their falling-out was
motivated by sexual jealousy). Meanwhile her out gay sidekick, in the
time-honoured manner of such characters, is never allowed a romantic
interest of any kind. Equivocation lives on.
JTW
12679
From:
Date: Sun Jul 18, 2004 11:11pm
Subject: Re: Tea and Sympathy
I think my post is not so far off David Ehrenstein's, in regards to Tom's
orientation.
Its thesis is that Tom is a man whose personality is deeply female. To such a
degree that he is definitely part of a "sexual minority". Because of this, he
is swept up in the "war on homosexuals" that perhaps peaked in the 1950's,
depicted in the film in much of its hellish ferocity. The film is admirable
about condemning this war. Especially as it was ignored by nearly everyone else at
the time.
The post goes on to suggest that while the film is exceptionally explicit and
firm about Tom's different "gender", it is deliberately vague (but
suggestive) about to whom Tom is attracted. It could be men, such as his roommate, or
women, such as the house master's wife. It is also unclear whether Tom is
"transgendered" in the modern sense or not. My post in no way equates Tom's gender
with homosexuality.
I agree with posters who suggest that the ending seems like a concession to
both preserving a famous scene from the play (which depicts a very different,
straight Tom) and to the censors of the time. It is therefore not the Last Word
on Tom. It cannot be used to declare Tom as straight.
The film seems to take a deliberately agnostic position on whether Tom is
straight or gay - aside from the "insincere" ending. Works of art which refuse to
commit on key issues can be very very frustrating on all levels.
Still, I think "Tea and Sympathy" should be celebrated for what it
accomplishes, not dismissed for what it leaves out. It offers a portrait of a man with a
different gender; a look at an evil era in society; all wrapped up in an
extraordinary mise-en-scene. This is cause for deep admiration.
Mike Grost
12680
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Jul 19, 2004 3:14am
Subject: Re: Re: Pasolini (was: Delibes and film music)
--- "Jaime N. Christley"
wrote:
>
> Nevertheless, at this time I don't care for
> Pasolini's visual style.
> He hires legendary opera singers, builds elaborate
> sets and uses
> lovely costumes, but his I find his images ugly and
> I don't get
> excited by the way his "pared down" approach is
> supposed to counteract
> the implied grandiosity of the stories - shooting
> epics like
> neorealist documentaries.
His style takes getting used to. And many never get
used to it. While the scripts derive from stories,
novels and theater, he doesn't "stage" or "dramatize"
anything at all. Rather it's laid out like plates in
an enormous illustrated manuscript.
I find his short films superior to his features,
particlularly "Que Cos Sono Nuovole?" and "The Paper
Flower Sequence."
>
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12681
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Mon Jul 19, 2004 3:22am
Subject: Film and video, again (Was: Tea and Sympathy (& film and video, again))
> But if I don't like the work, I know, from my
> own experience, that it could be that the film simply doesn't survive
> this form of reproduction.
I see the film vs. video debate as an empirical issue, and surely we all
have enough data to make a test for ourselves. Have our reactions to
our favorite films been markedly different in film and video screenings?
I presume we will all have different answers, and that these answers
say something about what we look for in the medium. My experience
happens to be that film and TV viewings of the same film have been
pretty close in terms of the enthusiasm of my response.
In my mind, this isn't about a preference for character-based vs.
visual-based pleasures - I don't identify myself as being more
interested in one or another. It's possible that it has to do with a
preference on my part for the more abstract aspects of visual style: for
instance, I'm more likely to be impressed by the placement of people and
things in a composition than by the plastic particulars of color
saturation, clarity of detail, etc.
Since my early filmgoing days, my feeling has always been that a work of
art has a soul of sorts, an organizing, permeating principle that can
survive a lot of imperfection in the presentation, even up to
mutilation. This idea could be a justification of my early
anything-goes days of TV-viewing, where I saw Preminger 'Scope films in
1:33, late Sirk films in black and white - you name the atrocity, I've
managed to like or love films in spite of it.
Which is not to say that I don't get pleasure from seeing a good film in
a beautiful theatrical presentation. - Dan
12682
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Mon Jul 19, 2004 3:27am
Subject: Re: Tea and Sympathy (& film and video, again)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> > >
> Oh sure you can, J-P. What you're playing here is a
> variation on what Raymond Durgnat called "The Harem
> Game."
>
I'm not sure what that means, David. I must brush up my Durgnat (I'll
start brushing it now).
>
>
> >
>
> >
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
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> Vote for the stars of Yahoo!'s next ad campaign!
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12683
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Mon Jul 19, 2004 3:36am
Subject: Re: Tea and Sympathy (& film and video, again)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
.
> >
> Hell is other people -- with nicer apartments.
> >
> >
>
> A wisecrack worthy of Woody Allen, David. But don't forget that
in that play (and I don't mean "Tea and Sympathy") they were all
sharing the same hotel room.
>
>
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12684
From: Michael Worrall
Date: Mon Jul 19, 2004 3:51am
Subject: Re: sexuality and the viewer
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jaime N. Christley" > Or maybe
Hence "lesbian eye candy" has crept into
> mainstream American cinema since Sharon Stone kissed Gina Gershon
in
> BASIC INSTINCT.
I'd place it more with "The Hunger", but it was in porn way before
that.
BTW Jaime, they may not need you or be interested in showing them a
thing or two. "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle"
As for the Gay "thing" with David: I am a leftist, Socialist, very
out and open queer male and David still thinks I am a closet case. I
avoid discussing the topic in realtions to film on this board
because I fear I will be giving an "incorrect" reading. Yes JP, you
can't win.
Michael Worrall
12685
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Mon Jul 19, 2004 4:02am
Subject: Re: Tea and Sympathy
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
.
> The post goes on to suggest that while the film is exceptionally
explicit and
> firm about Tom's different "gender",
How is Tom's "gender" "different"? Different from what? How many
genders are there anyway? Two, three, four? Do your personal tastes
define your "gender"? Aren't you using the term a bit carelessly? And
there is not the slightest suggestion in the film that he might
be "transgendered" (a term and concept non-existent at the time, and
which would have been equated by most people with freak in a side
show like the bearded woman).
Of course, Tom, not being a real person but a fictional creation (and
a somewhat flawed one, for a variety of reasons)can be absolutely
anything you want him to be. JPC
12686
From: Craig Keller
Date: Mon Jul 19, 2004 4:14am
Subject: Carlo Di Palma is dead...
Carlo Di Palma
Italian master of cinematography
John Francis Lane
Wednesday July 14, 2004
The Guardian
Carlo Di Palma, who has died aged 79, was one of those Italian
cinematographers who, like the masters of light of the Renaissance,
gained the respectful title of maestro . He first won international
recognition in 1964 as director of photography on Michelangelo
Antonioni's first colour film, The Red Desert, and worked on the same
director's Blow Up (1966), filmed in London. Later, in New York, he was
cinematographer for 11 Woody Allen films, from Hannah And Her Sisters
(1986) to Deconstructing Harry (1997).
Di Palma was born into a poor Roman family; his mother was a flower
seller on the Spanish Steps. After showing an early interest in
photography, he was a non-credited assistant on the sets of two
pioneering neo-realist films, Luchino Visconti's Ossessione (1943) and
Rossellini's Paisà (1946).
He worked as an assistant cameraman to one of the first maestri of
postwar Italian cinematography, Gianni Di Venanzo, and, in 1956, was
his cameraman for the film that Francesco Rosi co-directed with
Vittorio Gassman of the actor's stage performance as Edmund Kean.
Hearing of his death, Rosi said that, with his use of colour, Di Palma
had "opened a new chapter in the history of the cinema".
His first credit as cameraman had been in 1954, on a routine costume
picture. His first critical attention, as director of photography, was
for Florestano Vancini's The Long Night Of '43, which won the best
directorial debut award at the 1960 Venice Festival. A tormented love
story about a married woman (Belinda Lee) and her former boyfriend
(Gabriele Ferzetti, the actor from L'avventura) during the first months
of Mussolini's puppet fascist republic of Salo, it featured the camera
work of Di Palma's nephew Dario, capturing the foggy greys and whites
of writer Giorgio Bassani's Ferrara.
Di Palma undertook the photography for two other directors making
significant debuts in the early 1960s, Elio Petri and Giuliano
Montaldo. Pier Paolo Pasolini, who had been one of the scriptwriters of
Vancini's film, asked Di Palma to be his cameraman for the trial tests
for his directing debut, Accattone, though another cinematographer shot
the film.
Di Palma had met Antonioni when Di Venanzo was shooting Il Grido and Le
Amiche, and, in 1963, they got together to study the possibility of
making The Red Desert in Technicolor. The film was shot at locations
around Ravenna, where, that winter, there was often unwanted sunshine,
and Di Palma had to explain to Antonioni that the artificial fog he had
chosen played havoc with the colours of the interiors. Visiting the
set, I found Di Palma engaged with technicians in painting the grass
yellow. "Michelangelo loathes the greens," he explained.
Less revolutionary, but equally stunning, was the use of colours in Di
Palma's next chore for Antonioni. For a segment of The Three Faces
(1965), his photography did something to convey the inner qualities
behind the inexpressive face of the rather pathetic ex-Empress Soraya
of Iran's screen test.
More important, of course, was Blow Up, where photography was at the
centre of the story. After using a deep-focus lens on The Red Desert to
obtain two-dimensional effects, in Blow Up Antonioni told Di Palma he
wanted "to lengthen the perspective and give the impression of space
between people and things". Di Palma loved this kind of challenge, and
was able to help the director get the effects he wanted.
On the set of The Red Desert, a relationship had developed between him
and its star, Monica Vitti, who felt the need for a change in her
private, as well as public, image. Under his guidance, she moved
towards comedy, and it was in The Girl With A Pistol (1968), by the
top-notch Italian comedy director Mario Monicelli (for whom Di Palma
had already been director of photography on the visually dazzling,
medieval comedy L'armata Brancaleone, 1965), that Vitti was turned into
a box-office comic star to rival the likes of Gassman and Ugo Tognazzi.
The relationship with Vitti led to Di Palma's debut as a director, with
another comedy for the actor, Teresa La Ladra (1972). He went on to
direct her in several other lighthearted films but, though
professionally competent, they did not turn him into an auteur. His
mastery of visuals - in another film for Vitti's comic talents - was
better served in 1970 under the more inspired direction of Ettore
Scola, Dramma Della Gelosia.
In 1981, Di Palma worked on Bernardo Bertolucci's Tragedy Of A
Ridiculous Man and, once again, with Antonioni on Identification Of A
Woman (1982). Later in the 1980s, he began his 10-year collaboration
with Woody Allen, which he described as "the most enjoyable period of
my professional life".
He was director of photography when Allen was exploring his
European-style auteur fetishes, to which Di Palma was able to add some
authentic visual thrills, as in such titles as Mighty Aphrodite (1995),
Everyone Says I Love You (1996) and the last one they did together,
Deconstructing Harry, in which one suspects that Di Palma might have
contributed to the wonderful gag of Robin Williams as the actor "out of
focus".
In the 1980s, Di Palma married Adriana Chiesa, admired in international
film industry circles as an exporter of Italian films. As a couple,
whether in New York or Rome, they had many friends. She nursed him
through his final illness.
·Carlo Di Palma, cinematographer, born April 17 1925; died July 9 2004
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
12687
From: Craig Keller
Date: Mon Jul 19, 2004 4:26am
Subject: Bergman, Tashlin, Quine
L'actualité de la cinéphilie
Bergman brille à Bologne
Deuxième projection à l'étranger de «Saraband», tourné en numérique...
http://www.liberation.fr/page.php?Article=224090
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
12688
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Jul 19, 2004 7:28am
Subject: Re: Storytelling/Remakes/Intelligence
>
> PB is more than empty entertainment to me, besides being an auteur
> film I find it to be a great western.
>
> Michael Worrall
I love Point Break, which Fox and the press hated -- I know, because
I worked there when it was being released, and I heard for an honest
friend who's a post- mavin that JC helped. I don't like Strange Days
at all, but I heard he helped with that too -- same source. The
editing took way too long, despite her having Howard Smith, one of
the best in the business, and the result proved the maxim garbage in-
garbage out, IMO. None of that can tarnish Point Break for me -- it's
a gem.
I don't agree that Cameron has declined since Aliens - The Abyss is
awesome, even without an ending. Again, I was around, and I heard
that the audience who saw it with an ending in Fort Worth was in
tears. Tom Sherak still insisted on cutting it to get more screenings
per day for his buddies at General Cinema.
After that, I like True Lies just because it was silly and fun; found
T3 boring and respected Titanic more than I loved it. Ghosts of the
Abyss was zero. Haven't seen T3D or Dark Angel.
As for Cameron being an asshole, he was always an asshole -- a huge,
horrible asshole. It is quite possible that Gale Anne Hurd was much
more than just window-dressing for the Hurd-Cameron coalition that
made T1 and A2 and Abyss. He's never been as good without her. But
the help flowed the other way w. Bigelow.
12689
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Jul 19, 2004 7:36am
Subject: Re: Tea and Sympathy (& film and video, again)
>
> Consequently they would be gobsmacked by Raymond Burr.
Gobsmacked?
12690
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Jul 19, 2004 7:54am
Subject: Re: Film and video, again (Was: Tea and Sympathy (& film and video, again))
>
> Which is not to say that I don't get pleasure from seeing a good
film in
> a beautiful theatrical presentation. - Dan
My experience has been the same, and included years of seeing films
on tv that even Rogerandhoward didn't show. If I hadn't seen them
there, I wouldn't haveseen them. And that has made me less
persnickety about presentation than many in this group. There are
some films I consider not to be visible on video, though -- any
Bresson post Femme Douce, The Front Page (for reasons of semiotic
cropping that I explained).
12691
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Jul 19, 2004 8:17am
Subject: Re: sexuality and the viewer (was: Teen Sympathy)
I've always heard that Don Juan was extremely effeminate -- something
you can see in Depp's uber-sexual Keith Richards-y pirate in Pirates
of the Carribean. I am, and it's never slowed me down, although
growing up in 50s Texas wasn't too much fun. There are many types of
man and many types of woman, and sometimes opposites fuse, as in the
(now) stereotyped notion that militant manliness and guy-love can go
hand in hand.
Teen Sympathy was definitely a major influence on both Larry McMurtry
(my damn-near next-door neighbor in N. Texas) and Bogdanovich for the
Bottoms-Leachman romance in Picture Show.
In his film, I just think Minnelli was using a caricaturist's line to
call into question the reality of binary gender roles. The fact that
his line could be as fine and wonderfully controlled as Daumier's,
Rohmer observed, tends to turn even his caricatures -- which Teen
Sympathy abounds in -- into objets d'art.
On the vexed question of the ending, if the actor playing the lead
weren't such a nerd it would be possible to imagine him cutting a
bloody swath through ALL the faculty wives when he gets to college.
Given the unfortunate casting, I'd be more inclined to see him being
very happy in a long-term relationship with a parakeet. And the
parakeet would be miserable.
On another question: Isn't the perennial hot girl-on-girl action in
porn supposed to give us antedeluvian types the covert thrill of
watching same-sex sex without feeling bad about it? Little wonder
that it has become a mainstream cinematic cliche, if that's the case.
All of our 21st Century media empires thrive (for the moment) on
bottom-feeding.
12692
From: Adam Hart
Date: Mon Jul 19, 2004 8:42am
Subject: Re: Storytelling/Remakes/Intelligence
hmmm... as beautiful a film as point break is, it's still pretty
ridiculous - and the ridiculousness of the plot (and the presence of
patrick swayze) compared with the incredible technique makes it, for
me, even more ridiculous.
strange days is the real gem, i'd say. deserves a second look.
i've yet to track down the rest of the bigelow oeuvre, but, whatever
contributions james cameron has made to her films, i prefer both pb
and strange days to anything cameron's directed, including aliens.
although i do like the first terminator.
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> >
> > PB is more than empty entertainment to me, besides being an
auteur
> > film I find it to be a great western.
> >
> > Michael Worrall
>
> I love Point Break, which Fox and the press hated -- I know,
because
> I worked there when it was being released, and I heard for an
honest
> friend who's a post- mavin that JC helped. I don't like Strange
Days
> at all, but I heard he helped with that too -- same source. The
> editing took way too long, despite her having Howard Smith, one of
> the best in the business, and the result proved the maxim garbage
in-
> garbage out, IMO. None of that can tarnish Point Break for me --
it's
> a gem.
>
> I don't agree that Cameron has declined since Aliens - The Abyss
is
> awesome, even without an ending. Again, I was around, and I heard
> that the audience who saw it with an ending in Fort Worth was in
> tears. Tom Sherak still insisted on cutting it to get more
screenings
> per day for his buddies at General Cinema.
>
> After that, I like True Lies just because it was silly and fun;
found
> T3 boring and respected Titanic more than I loved it. Ghosts of
the
> Abyss was zero. Haven't seen T3D or Dark Angel.
>
> As for Cameron being an asshole, he was always an asshole -- a
huge,
> horrible asshole. It is quite possible that Gale Anne Hurd was
much
> more than just window-dressing for the Hurd-Cameron coalition that
> made T1 and A2 and Abyss. He's never been as good without her. But
> the help flowed the other way w. Bigelow.
12693
From: Henrik Sylow
Date: Mon Jul 19, 2004 8:50am
Subject: Re: Point Break (S/R/I)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666" wrote:
> >
> > PB is more than empty entertainment to me, besides being an auteur
> > film I find it to be a great western.
> >
> > Michael Worrall
>
> I love Point Break, which Fox and the press hated -- I know, because
> I worked there when it was being released, and I heard for an honest
> friend who's a post- mavin that JC helped. I don't like Strange Days
> at all, but I heard he helped with that too -- same source. The
> editing took way too long, despite her having Howard Smith, one of
> the best in the business, and the result proved the maxim garbage in-
> garbage out, IMO. None of that can tarnish Point Break for me -- it's
> a gem.
"Point Break" should have been a huge hit. It has the hot sexy hunk
just fresh from "Ghost" and the sleeper "Road House" teamed up with
some promising young actor. Alone the wet panties segment would on
paper ensure solid BO.
So I never have understood why it only became a lurk warm summer hit,
and I also never found out if it was "Point Break" or the huge dog
"Blue Steel", which grounded Bigelow.
Perhaps it had to do with the fact that it had to do with surfers,
that the lingo was "far out dude", that Swayze has no sexual love
interest, that the geek who played Ted in "Bill and Ted" suddenly was
serious. Buddy action flicks are summer favorites and while "Point
Break" sure is one of the better written, it is one of the flops.
Perhaps, and most likely in my opinion, was it because of the unhappy,
yet intelligent and faithful to characters, end. Then again, basically
everyone I know hate it, because of Keanu Reeves and his lack of
acting skills.
As Bill and Michael, I also consider "Point Break" a gem. Up until the
end of the film, it is merely a well written caper, but then the
script uses the pay off of having Keanu jumping out of the plane after
Patrick without a chute. Not only did this death defying stunt lift
the film up from standard Hollywood production level, the following
downhill ride adds a quality to the story, which is rare.
Bigelow is an auteur caught up in a studio based man-world. Looking at
"Near Dark" and "Point Break" next to her big productions, she has a
signature of the good guy forced into an underworld; she is also a
very gifted character director. But I don't hear anyone talk about her
as one. Is it because she is a woman? Is it because people dismiss her
early, and best, work and only look at "K-19"?
Henrik
12694
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Mon Jul 19, 2004 11:20am
Subject: Re: Carlito's Way or: What the hell was I thinking?
> It's not the subway. He's about to board an Amtrack train to
> Florida in Grand central Station.
Oh yeah. I vaguely thought it was Grand Central, but then remembered
him getting stabbed on the subway a little later and confused the two
sequences.
12695
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Mon Jul 19, 2004 11:25am
Subject: Re: Scarface
>...Scarface seems
> to be the Brian De Palma movie for people who don't like Brian De
> Palma. Which, to me, makes it the forerunner of films like The
> Untouchables.
Well, I was just thinking that I usually prefer BDP films he didn't
write, but a big exception is SCARFACE which is just horrible. Martin
Amis suggested it might as well have been called SHITFACE for all the
insight it managed in something like three hours running time.
I know BDP fans prefer stuff he's written like BLOW UP or BODY DOUBLE
as it shows more of the director's personality. I prefer those he
hasn't written for precisely the same reason. I don't want too much
of that personality in my face.
I remember Scorsese saying UNTOUCHABLES was "Brian's best film in
years" but maybe he was just being nice. I kind of enjoyed it at the
time but can't watch it on the small screen.
>Anyway, the Hawks version is still just as great as
> it's ever been, but, despite all the hoopla surrounding the
> anniversary dvd, Scarface is somewhat dated.
Naw, it was always horrible.
12696
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Mon Jul 19, 2004 11:30am
Subject: yes...but...
...Schickel has retained the voice-over. Which was not written by
Fuller.
NOW...it's not a BAD voice-over. Not as awful as the one in BLADE
RUNNER, for instance.
BUT...it wasn't intended to be there. Schickel has said that becasue
the film jumps from country to country in the European campaign in a
disconnected way, audiences would find it confusing. *I* say that if
that's the case we should assume it's Fuller's intention and let it
bloody well BE confusing!
Plus: I remember analysing the VO in the studio cut. It doesn't
actually add any solid info we need to know (as with BLADE RUNNER, it
generally adds an authorial attitude to what we're seeing and
occasionally spells out points already made visually or though
dialogue). So if it doesn't actually make the studio cut clearer I
don't see how it's likely to do anything for a version that's an hour
longer.
Starting to feel that Schickel is an idiot. This was a great
opportunity. I stil lwelcome the chance to see the rest of Fuller's
footage, but was it really too big a leap to show it the way he
intended?
12697
From: joe_mcelhaney
Date: Mon Jul 19, 2004 11:31am
Subject: Re: Tea and Sympathy in Paris
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
>>
> In a perfect world all the multiplexes would be screening
> CinemaScope films of the fifties on their huge screens in the
perfect
> aspect ratio. The reality is that those films are hardly ever shown
> theatrically anywhere, so that your dictum -- with which one has of
> course to sympathize -- condemns generations of viewers to being
> unable to appreciate them. And not only younger people. I have seen
> TEA & SYMPATHY three times, I think, in theaters, but the last time
> was at least 20 years ago and the chances I'll ever see it again in
a theater are very very slim indeed.
Jean-Pierre, the Centre Pompidou is planning an ambitious Minnelli
show for next year (reportedly they'll not only show all the features
but also fragments, sequences from other films he directed, etc.) so
you'll have another chance to see T&S and other 'Scope films of his
projected, if you wish.
12698
From: Filipe Furtado
Date: Mon Jul 19, 2004 11:19am
Subject: Re: Carlito's Way or: What the hell was I thinking?
Carlito ressambles a Lang film in many ways. The architeture of most spaces
is framed as to way suggest that Pacino is walking through the only possible
way and that it's closing around him. Someone (a think it was Zach) told me
once that Carlito's Way was the tragedy of a guy who is trying to escape a
series of movie cliches without noticing that he himself is a movie cliche
which struck me as a fine description of the film. I know many friends who
complain that De Palma ruined an amazing set piece by giving away the ending
in the opening, but how he could choose no to told us? From the moment he is
out of jail he is set to lose,the film proceeds showing how this set of
events will happen (that's why thew films architectural work is so
important). And I love how Benny Blanco disappear from the scene of the
crime the moment he does his function in the plot.
Filipe
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jaime N. Christley"
To:
Sent: Saturday, July 17, 2004 2:15 PM
Subject: [a_film_by] Carlito's Way or: What the hell was I thinking?
> Just watched CARLITO'S WAY, for the first time in about a decade.
>
> I take back all that I said about the ending. My mind had totally
> obliterated the opening scene, in which Benny Blanco kills
> Carlito...so my memory of the ending went like this: "De Palma thinks
> he's slick, that the audience will be shocked by the ending, but you'd
> have to be incredibly stupid not to see it coming from a mile off."
> But in fact the movie never lets the audience forget that he'll
> eventually be killed, and by whom. This shifts the emphasis to De
> Palma's real concern, the chain of events and personal choices that
> leads up to the scene. Rohmer's MY NIGHT AT MAUD'S and THE MARQUISE
> OF O... both have this quality - that the ending is not supposed to be
> a surprise at all, that the emphasis is on the process. (I wouldn't
> stress too much any kind of De Palma/Rohmer connection, though.)
>
> Also, when I saw it the first time I scarcely any appreciation for De
> Palma - I probably thought the film was excessive and riddled with
> improbabilities - Like the kid who says, "Hey man, there's no beer
> down here." Come on, kid.
>
> While De Palma's personal style is all over this one, there are a
> couple of "tableau" compositions that are very Preminger: I'm
> thinking of some of the interiors in CARMEN JONES and BUNNY LAKE IS
> MISSING.
>
> And there's a strong sense of Lang's mise-en-scene: shots heavy with
> bric-a-brac and clutter (how can anybody not love Kleinfeld's office,
> or Carlito's club) on one hand, and on the other hand a sense of sharp
> angles and depth in the exteriors, such as the alley in which
> Carlito's thugs beat up Benny.
>
> But in the end it's all De Palma. CARLITO'S WAY is brimming with
> intricate compositions: multiple planes and levels and frames and all
> kinds of activity going on, all tied up with masterful tracking and
> steadicam shots (the party at Kleinfeld's; the moment before Carlito
> goes into talk to Lalin; the strip club where Gail dances; the crane
> shot that scales the different floors of the dancing school - this is
> right before the lovely shot of Carlito holding the garbage pail lid
> over his head as he watches Gail). I can't think of another De Palma
> film that so bursts with movement and pizzazz - and the competition is
> pretty stiff.
>
> -Jaime
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
12699
From: Filipe Furtado
Date: Mon Jul 19, 2004 11:28am
Subject: Re: Scarface
De Palma`s Scarface stinks. Oliver Stone's personality is all over it, which
certainly doesn't help. AfterTony becomes the big boss there's barely a
single good moment in it (the exception being Steve Bauer death scene which
is a classic DePalma moment, that the film ruins later when the sister shows
up naked shooting at Tony). But the film can be seeing as rough draft to
Carlito's Way, then it becomes less worthless. On the other hand I think
both The Untouchables and Mission Impossible are far better than some De
Palma fans give than credit.
Filipe
----- Original Message -----
From: "Adam Hart"
To:
Sent: Sunday, July 18, 2004 4:20 PM
Subject: [a_film_by] Scarface
> With all the talk of remakes, I'm not sure if anyone's brought up
> the two Scarfaces. I admire De Palma's films quite a bit (especially
> his stuff from the 70s), but his Scarface left me cold. Perhaps it's
> due to my own aversion for anything Oliver Stone, but, judging from
> a general idea of its critical and popular reception, Scarface seems
> to be the Brian De Palma movie for people who don't like Brian De
> Palma. Which, to me, makes it the forerunner of films like The
> Untouchables. Anyway, the Hawks version is still just as great as
> it's ever been, but, despite all the hoopla surrounding the
> anniversary dvd, Scarface is somewhat dated.
>
>
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "cairnsdavid1967"
> wrote:
> > I'm not a huge BDP fan, but I quite liked this one at the time. I
> > actually WAS surprised at the subway stabbing - I'd forgotten
> about
> > the opening of the film.
> >
> > While I found some of the Scorsese-isms a bit too close to their
> > source for comfort, and the use of Delibes is a big fat cliche
> that
> > should carry a heavy fine, I was impressed by the long take as
> > Carlito flees at the end - one of the few instances where I though
> > BDP's long takes worked, were justified and not just showing off.
> > Real suspense - whether you know he's going to get killed but
> don't
> > know when, or don't know one way or the other.
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
12700
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Mon Jul 19, 2004 11:35am
Subject: Re: Mackendrick's lost masterwork, Mary Queen of Scots
Yeah, Mackendrick also twice prepared a version of Ionesco's
RHINOCEROS, once with Peter Sellers and Brit TV comedy king Tony
Hancock, once with Sellers and Peter Ustinov. The first version was
cancelled due to Hancock's alcohol problems, the second due to
Sellers' agent.
But MARY was the one that broke him as a filmmaker.
Also interesting to me, as an Edinburgh lad, is Nick Ray's plan to
film Dylan Thomas' bodysnatching screenplay, THE DOCTOR AND THE
DEVILS (in Prague, with James Mason).
And Michael Powell's THE TEMPEST, also with James Mason (and camp
comedian Frankie Howerd).
Sigh.
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