Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 3:56am
Subject: Re: Cahiers -- June, and July?
Thanks to Paul and Ruy for putting up the scan of JLG's little visual
essay -- fascinating, funny, poignant stuff. Also, thanks for posting
the July-August contents, Ruy -- I will have to have my agents nab a
copy of this for me as soon as possible..!
cheers,
craig.
13202
From: jaketwilson
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 4:14am
Subject: Re: Allegory
hotlove666:
> Allegory is a favored mode in dictatorships, for obvious reasons --
> it's sometimes called the Aesop Language. The statement in
Viridiana that Don Jaime's estate has been languishing, unproductive
and slowly degenerating, for 20 years makes a covert allusion to
Franco's reign
> and equates the estate with Spain -- something Bunuel, who still
> wanted to go back and make Tristana, of course denied. In political
> allegory, the surface characterizations and actions may conceal
> historical figures and events.
Thanks for this. I'm still thinking it through, along with the
examples given by Mike and others. For argument's sake, couldn't one
distinguish fable from allegory? A fable points a general moral which
can be applied in a wide variety of situations -- hence the
continuing utility of a phrase like "sour grapes". But allegory as a
genre is surely defined by the absence of this flexibility – a
specific interpretation is imposed on the audience via overdetermined
details (e.g. character names) that "stick out" from its fictional
universe.
As far as indirect or deniable meaning goes, I think what
storytellers have often done is created works which were allegories
disguised as fables, or both at the same time. ANIMAL FARM, for
example, is an allegory about Stalinism, but it's also a fable (with
the moral, roughly, of "power corrupts") that can be read and
appreciated without any knowledge of this historical background,
which will presumably become less immediately relevant as time
passes. It's true in any case that artists are often resistant to
allegorical interpretations of their works, of course sometimes with
good reason -- it's interesting to think about allegory in Bunuel's
later films in light of JPC's recent comments (in 13197) on
symbolism, or its absence, in L'AGE D'OR.
Not wanting to get too philosophical, but it seems to me
that "interpreting" stories generally means making explicit the
archetypal patterns which we recognise in them, drawn both from our
memories of other stories and from our experience overall. But rather
than seeking to establish a fixed one-to-one correspondence between
literal and figurative meanings, I feel it's more useful to see the
interpretative process as dialectical – we "interpret" by placing
specific data in general categories, but our sense of these
categories themselves may be modified by the story's particulars.
Allegory, as noted, seeks to impose an interpretation of itself more
explicitly than other forms, but I think this dialectic still gets
played out, initially in the relation between the two levels on which
the story is narrated. In other words the "abstract" level of meaning
is transformed in some way by the analogies chosen to represent it:
otherwise, except for pragmatic political reasons, there would be no
need to tell a story at all rather than making a direct statement.
JTW
13203
From: jess_l_amortell
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 4:21am
Subject: Re: Cahiers -- June, and July?
> > no trips to Universal News in
> > the immediate future. (BTW, I questioned them as to whether they could
> > receive issues of Positif, but the proprietor said if they don't get it
> > they don't get it.)
I saw a Cahiers (juin) and a Positif yesterday in the magazine store on Broadway just below 72nd (don't know its name).
13204
From: Elizabeth Nolan
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 4:24am
Subject: Mise-en-scene
There are films with few characters, little dialogue, no story...
but never a film without a picture... mise-en-scene is always
there, even if of little merit.
As I've been reading these posts, I'm left with the the feeling
that there are often very few mise-en-scene moments
in a movie, few good dialogue lines, few acting moments...
if we get a few of each in a film, wonderful.
Some films need verbal statements, others, visual images,
still others, human gestures.
We come to films at different moments in our lives,
ready to respond to different things. If it's good, I'll take an
image, a line, a gesture... whatever works.
> Message: 14
> Date: Sat, 24 Jul 2004 12:51:14 -0000
> From: "cairnsdavid1967"
> Subject: Re: Storytelling (belated reply to michael)
>
> I'm sincerely interested and would like to know about how we can
> meaningfully discuss mise-en-scene in isolation from
> script/plot/theme. Obviously it's quite possible in discussing non-
> narrative or abstract avant garde work in cases where these things
> are never meant to play any role, but I find it very hard to appraise
> mise-en-scene in total isolation from narrative, in a narrative film.
> Even if a film is in a language I don't understand, one of the roles
> of mise-en-scene is very often to express plot and theme in a visual
> way. To escape this I'd have to be autistic to the point where all
> human interaction became meaningless to me. So how DO you look at
> mise-en-scene in isolation?
13205
From: Craig Keller
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 4:30am
Subject: Re: Re: Cahiers -- June, and July?
>
> I saw a Cahiers (juin) and a Positif yesterday in the magazine store
> on Broadway just below 72nd (don't know its name).
If you happen to be around there again, can you get the name? That
will be the only place in the city (to my knowledge) where Positif can
be found...! (The Universal News place I go to for Cahiers is on
Broadway at 58th I think.. it's one block down from whatever block the
Hudson Hotel is at, two down from Columbus Circle. They also get Les
Inrocks..)
craig.
13206
From: Elizabeth Nolan
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 4:30am
Subject: Before Sunset OT
When I've met up with a past love, I've found an amusement park quite
friendly... plenty of time for standing in line talking and then a
thrill ride.
13207
From: Paul Fileri
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 4:42am
Subject: Re: Positif in NYC
Craig:
> If you happen to be around there again, can you get the name? That
> will be the only place in the city (to my knowledge) where Positif can
> be found...!
It looks like Global Ink (on Broadway at 112th, near Columbia) is now carrying it. I'm a
regular customer, because they have Cahiers and Les Inrocks, and to my surprise, I
found the June issue of Positif on their rack when I was there earlier this week.
- Paul
13208
From:
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 5:01am
Subject: Re: Godard query
Brent Kite:
> Does anyone know the source of the following, which opens Helas
pour Moi? I'm 85% sure I read it somewhere before seeing the film,
but can't recall the author and a web search only brings up a
reference to the JLG.
>
> brent
>
> When my father's father's father had a difficult task to
accomplish, he went to a certain place in the forest, lit a fire,
and immersed himself in silent prayer.
>
> And what had to be done was done.
>
> When my father's father was confronted with the same task, he went
to the same place in the forest and said:
>
> '"We no longer know how to light the fire, but we still know the
prayer."
>
> And what had to be done was done.
>
> Later, he too went into the forest and said:
>
> "We no longer know how to light the fire, we no longer know the
mysteries of prayer, but we still know the exact place in the forest
where it occurred. And that should do."
>
[etc.]
This is a passage (or maybe a prayer?) associated with Hassidism, I
believe. But the father's father's father stuff is different in the
original. At first, it's Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hassidism.
And then it goes from him to other rabbis down the line, who go into
the woods, or who say the prayer, or who remember the story. Not
being Hassidic, or even Jewish, I can't speak with too mush
specificity, but I believe that's the original version. (I've also
heard that sometimes "the difficult task" is recounted as "something
threatening the Jews." But it's probably been translated down from
something else several times down the line. Maybe JLG was reading
the Jewish mystics?
-Bilge
13209
From: Adam Hart
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 5:12am
Subject: "Savage" Steve Holland
Hey,
As this is an auteurist discussion group, I was wondering what other
people thought about the films of "Savage" Steve Holland. The ones I
know are mid-80's comedies starring John Cusack - "Better Off Dead"
and "One Crazy Summer". He only made one other movie, "How I Got
Into College", before being relegated to the world of crappy tv
shows.
These aren't exactly masterpieces, but they're sweet, ingenious
comedies, and I wanted to know if he has any defenders out there (or
if anyone remembers him).
As I was not yet in kindergarten when his first film came out, I
can't really attest to this, but I was discussing his films with a
local film buff/intellectual and he told me that there are no other
films of the 80s that he remembers with more nostalgia.
13210
From: Damien Bona
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 6:07am
Subject: Daisy Kenyon - WAS Re: Bad Day at Black Rock (Sturges - '55)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Chris Fujiwara"
> The Steel Helmet is, to my knowledge, the first American film to
> mention the internment directly.
>
Robert Pirosh's Go For Broke! -- about Japanese-American soldiers in
World War 2 -- also references the internment camps. Like Steel
Helmet, it's from 1951 but I don't know which was made first.
-- Damien
13211
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 7:03am
Subject: Re: Allegory (segues to Pasolini)
A fable points a general moral which
> can be applied in a wide variety of situations -- hence the
> continuing utility of a phrase like "sour grapes". But allegory as
a
> genre is surely defined by the absence of this flexibility – a
> specific interpretation is imposed on the audience via
overdetermined
> details (e.g. character names) that "stick out" from its fictional
> universe.
Fables can have multiple meanings -- LaFontaine's sometimes refer to
contemporary figures - and so can allegories. I see them as different
versions of the same symbolic mode.
>
artists are often resistant to
> allegorical interpretations of their works, of course sometimes
with
> good reason -- it's interesting to think about allegory in Bunuel's
> later films in light of JPC's recent comments (in 13197) on
> symbolism, or its absence, in L'AGE D'OR.
Symbolism is scarce in L'Age d'Or, omnipresent in Andalusian Dog.
But re: artists - we are constantly slapping allegorical readings
onto films, and that's what bugs artists the most. In the case of
Viridiana, there were specific historical meanings that Bunuel
couldn't acknowledge because he wanted to make Tristana in Spain --
it being a film that could only be made in Toledo -- and the Sapnish
government made him wait 6 years as it was after Viridiana.
By the way, in a collection of letters published by his friend
Barcia, I actually found (in Spanish) this sentence by Bunuel, re:
Los olvidados -- "The irrational circulates freely in the film in the
form of a chicken." He was never that unguarded again, but he could
talk like that when he wanted to.
>
> Not wanting to get too philosophical, but it seems to me
> that "interpreting" stories generally means making explicit the
> archetypal patterns which we recognise in them, drawn both from our
> memories of other stories and from our experience overall. But
rather
> than seeking to establish a fixed one-to-one correspondence between
> literal and figurative meanings, I feel it's more useful to see the
> interpretative process as dialectical – we "interpret" by placing
> specific data in general categories, but our sense of these
> categories themselves may be modified by the story's particulars.
I'd have to hear an example. The archetypal level is certainly one
level of interpretation, but there are others.
>
> Allegory, as noted, seeks to impose an interpretation of itself
more
> explicitly than other forms, but I think this dialectic still gets
> played out, initially in the relation between the two levels on
which
> the story is narrated. In other words the "abstract" level of
meaning
> is transformed in some way by the analogies chosen to represent it:
> otherwise, except for pragmatic political reasons, there would be
no
> need to tell a story at all rather than making a direct statement.
Further, we don't read allegories for the abstract ideas they
contain -- we read them for the stories. To me, allegorical form is
an esthetic. I love Hawthorn's stories, which seem to point to an
abstract meaning, even though it's hard to resolve them into one. But
I do see them as allegories -- enigmatic allegories. Kafka's stories
are roughly the same kind of thing.
One of the filmmakers who wrestled with using allegory in film was
Pasolini. Hawks and Sparrows, for example, or Theorema. Part of his
medievalism, I suppose.
13212
From: Adrian Martin
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 8:33am
Subject: Re: 'Savage' Steve Holland
Among Australian teen-movie aficionados, Savage Steve Holland's first two
films indeed generated a minor cult in the mid 80s. (John Cusack apparently
today disowns them!!) I used ONE CRAZY SUMMER in the university course I
taught on this genre in 1989!!!
Alas, by the time of HOW I GOT INTO COLLEGE, Savage Steve was already
considered 'old news', because it was already a less zany, more normal film
(which went straight to video here). I don't mind it; it has some good
scenes. The biggest curiosity about it is the script credit for Terrel
Seltzer. Does any A FILM BY-er know her, or her current projects? She went
from feminist avant-garde (a short about a freudian case study written up in
CAMERA OBSCURA) in late 70s to Situationist video in 1982 to a collaboration
with Wayne Wang in his great, early days (CHAN IS MISSING, DIM SUM), through
to Savage Steve and later ONE FINE DAY (which has its fans) ... and most
recently I caught a very trippy-drippy New Age-type 'mystical' TV program of
short stories she was producer and key writer on, sort of TWILIGHT ZONE but
without tension and always with cosmic happy endings !!!!!
Speaking of Wayne Wang and 'TV we like': I liked his episode for a strange
short-lived series of the 80s, was it WINDOWS? Also Soderbergh had one of
his finest moments, Alfonso Cuaron too, in the neo-noir series FALLEN
ANGELS.
still living his one crazy summer, Adrian
13213
From:
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 4:34am
Subject: Re: "Savage" Steve Holland
I was charmed by "Better Off Dead". This was a comedy of promise.
"One Crazy Summer" is notable only for a brief but inventive "Godzilla"
parody - and by the way, really enjoyed the original uncut "Godzilla" when it
played here last week in Detroit.
Then "How I Got Into College" was the nadir. It contains offensive material.
Then I lost track.
Mike Grost
13214
From:
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 4:56am
Subject: Re: Bad Day at Black Rock (Sturges - '55)
"Hell to Eternity" (Phil Karlson, 1960) is also outstanding, on the subject
of the internment.
Can one mention a comic book story? It is a story about "The Whip", a
Zorro-like figure whose tales took place in the contemporary United States in the
early 1940's. They are astonishingly progressive, and deal with a wide variety of
liberal causes. They also show gung ho storytelling, and a lot of zany humor.
"Adventure of the Nisei Japanese Patriot" (1942).
Writer: John Wentworth. Art: Homer Fleming.
This story is clearly an educational effort, trying to inform the public
sympathetically about the Nisei (Japanese-Americans), and to prevent
discrimination against them. It didn't work: the real life Nisei on the West Coast of the
US were rounded up and sent to internment camps, an event that began on
February 19, 1942, with orders from the US President. Still, this story is definitely
a strong plea for racial justice. In fact, it is the only story I have seen
in any medium created during the United States' involvement in World War II
(late 1941 - 1945), that tried to present a true picture of the Nisei. This story
must have been written fairly soon after Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941), to
have appeared in the August 1942 issue of Flash Comics. The story does not
mention the internment of the Nisei in camps; it is unclear whether it was
written before or after this internment started.
Flash Comics also included the original adventures of such super-heroes as
"The Flash" and "Hawkman". "The Whip" has no super-powers - just his whip!
For more on "The Whip", please see my web site article:
http://members.aol.com/MG4273/whip.htm
MSU Library has a run of Flash Comics on color microfiche.
Mike Grost
13215
From:
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 5:00am
Subject: Re: Allegory (segues to Pasolini)
One can also give political allegorical readings to Hollywood films.
"Nighthawks" (Bruce Malmuth, 1981), a crime thriller starring Sly Stallone, is a good
example.
In "Mon Oncle d'Amerique" (Alain Resnais), the wealthy French man seems to
stand for capitalism, and the woman for Communism. The character played by
Depardieu stands for the poor, or the proletariat, or perhaps the Third World
masses.
Mike Grost
13216
From: joe_mcelhaney
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 11:22am
Subject: Japanese War Bride (was: Daisy Kenyon & Bad Day)
Another pre-Bad Day at Black Rock film which deals fairly extensively
with the internment camps and with the subject of racism against the
Japanese during post-war America is Vidor's Japanese War Bride from
1952, set in Salinas, California where attacks against the Japanese
took place in early 1945. Unlike Daisy Kenyon, JWB does contain
important Japanese characters, aside from the bride herself.
13217
From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 11:30am
Subject: Re: Godard query
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, ebiri@a... wrote:
>
> This is a passage (or maybe a prayer?) associated with Hassidism, I
> believe. But the father's father's father stuff is different in the
> original. At first, it's Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hassidism.
> And then it goes from him to other rabbis down the line, who go
into
> the woods, or who say the prayer, or who remember the story. Not
> being Hassidic, or even Jewish, I can't speak with too mush
> specificity, but I believe that's the original version. (I've also
> heard that sometimes "the difficult task" is recounted as
"something
> threatening the Jews." But it's probably been translated down from
> something else several times down the line. Maybe JLG was reading
> the Jewish mystics?
>
> -Bilge
Martin Buber retells the story in "Tales of the Hasidim."
When the founder of Hasidic Judaism, the great Rabbi Israel Shem Tov,
saw misfortune threatening the Jews, it was his custom to go into a
certain part of the forest to meditate. There he would light a fire,
say a special prayer, and the miracle would be accomplished and the
misfortune averted. Later, when his disciple, the celebrated Maggid of
Mezritch, had occasion for the same reason to intercede with heaven,
he would go to the same place in the forest and say, "Master of the
Universe, listen! I do not know how to light the fire, but I am still
able to say the prayer." Again the miracle would be accomplished.
Still later, Rabbi Moshe-leib of Sasov, in order to save his people
once more, would go into the forest and say, "I do not know how to
light the fire. I do not know the prayer, but I know the place and
this must be sufficient." It was sufficient, and the miracle was
accomplished.
Then it fell to Rabbi Israel of Rizhin to overcome misfortune. Sitting
in his armchair, his head in his hands, he spoke to God, "I am unable
to light the fire and I do not know the prayer and I cannot even find
the place in the forest. All I can do is to tell the story, and this
must be sufficient."
And it was sufficient.
For God made man because he loves stories.
13218
From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 11:47am
Subject: Re: Cahiers -- June, and July?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Craig Keller
>
> Thanks to Paul and Ruy for putting up the scan of JLG's little visual
> essay -- fascinating, funny, poignant stuff. Also, thanks for posting
> the July-August contents, Ruy -- I will have to have my agents nab a
> copy of this for me as soon as possible..!
>
I don't understand what "esclave satellite" means next the lower left
frame.
The other notes I can make out.
1.37 -- person
1.66 -- character
1.87 -- satellite slave
stained-glass window -- myth
window -- history
1.37 -- to be human
1.66 -- credit card
1.85 -- dollar
scope -- funeral
(Recall Fritz Lang's remark in "Contempt" about Cinemascope being
good for only funerals and snakes.)
1.37 -- proof of Serb shelling
1.66 -- proof reduced by Europe/USA
1.85 -- extermination of the proof (Milosevic acquitted)
13219
From: Craig Keller
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 11:59am
Subject: Re: Re: Cahiers -- June, and July?
>
> 1.37 -- person
>
> 1.66 -- character
>
> 1.87 -- satellite slave
I thought what he meant here was that the human/face was turned into
something of a "broadcast," trapped and cropped.
> stained-glass window -- myth
What's the word for stained-glass window? I couldn't make this out,
and finally gave up and assumed it said "rituel."
> window -- history
>
> 1.37 -- to be human
>
> 1.66 -- credit card
Ah! That's it! I thought it had said "conte inedit"!!
craig.
13220
From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 1:05pm
Subject: Re: Cahiers -- June, and July?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Craig Keller
>
> > stained-glass window -- myth
>
> What's the word for stained-glass window? I couldn't make this out,
> and finally gave up and assumed it said "rituel."
>
"Vitrail."
Here's another interesting article -- Rohmer discusses his preference
for 1.33 and comments on his 1954 article in which he argued for
Cinemascope.
http://66.108.51.239/rohmer-cinemascope.pdf
Paul
13221
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 1:43pm
Subject: Re: Cahiers -- June, and July?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Craig Keller
wrote:
> >
> > I saw a Cahiers (juin) and a Positif yesterday in the magazine
store
> > on Broadway just below 72nd (don't know its name).
>
> If you happen to be around there again, can you get the name? That
> will be the only place in the city (to my knowledge) where Positif
can
> be found...! (The Universal News place I go to for Cahiers is on
> Broadway at 58th I think.. it's one block down from whatever block
the
> Hudson Hotel is at, two down from Columbus Circle. They also get
Les
> Inrocks..)
>
> craig.
You know what, Craig (and others): buying a newstand copy of
POSITIF or CAHIERS in the States is going to cost you about half or
at least a third of the cost of a year's subscription. If you're
interested in getting more than one occasional issue, then you'll
save money (and trouble) by subscribing. (POSITIF reaches me here
withing one to two weeks of its publication in France).
When i lived in New York, then Boston, there were very few places
where you could find CAHIERS and almost none for POSITIF. I saw
POSITIF once at TOWER RECORDS in Boston about 6 or 7 years ago and
that's about it. They've done a terrible job marketing themselves
abroad in the past and it doesn't seem to improve. CAHIERS have been
better, but they have more money.
JPC
13222
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 1:50pm
Subject: Re: Cahiers -- June, and July?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Craig Keller
wrote:
> >
> > 1.37 -- person
> >
> > 1.66 -- character
> >
> > 1.87 -- satellite slave
>
> I thought what he meant here was that the human/face was turned
into
> something of a "broadcast," trapped and cropped.
>
> > stained-glass window -- myth
>
> What's the word for stained-glass window? I couldn't make this
out,
> and finally gave up and assumed it said "rituel."
>
>
The French for "stained-glass window" is "vitrail" (not "rituel"!)
(plural: "vitraux").
I have no idea what JLG is talking about. Guess he's being
cryptically cute, as usual.
JPC
13223
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 2:16pm
Subject: Why Fellini Matters
An excellent essay in the "Guardian" :
http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,4120,1267980,00.html
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
13224
From: Henrik Sylow
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 2:23pm
Subject: Re: Allegory (to fable)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
> A fable points a general moral which
> > can be applied in a wide variety of situations -- hence the
> > continuing utility of a phrase like "sour grapes". But allegory as
> a
> > genre is surely defined by the absence of this flexibility – a
> > specific interpretation is imposed on the audience via
> overdetermined
> > details (e.g. character names) that "stick out" from its fictional
> > universe.
>
> Fables can have multiple meanings -- LaFontaine's sometimes refer to
> contemporary figures - and so can allegories. I see them as different
> versions of the same symbolic mode.
The reference to comtemporary figures and elements were very common in
17th century French couth literature. Especially Perrault added "in"
elements to produce laughter and draw attention. In "La Belle au Bois
Dormant" the evil queen would eat the children with Sauce Francaise (a
at that time just invented pepper sauce).
The moral fable has is an allegoric structure, circlic in form. The
allegoric pretext initiates the moral dilemma, thru which the
protagonist travels, only to return to his point of origin and thereby
contemplate both his journey and the moral dilemma.
But the fable as such need no moral value, which is why it, when
having a moral center, is specified as moral fable.
> But re: artists - we are constantly slapping allegorical readings
> onto films, and that's what bugs artists the most.
That is true and I would like to add, that the allegory often is both
misunderstood and misinterpreted, even more often produced by imposing
ones own views onto the text. Often allusion, metaphore and other
trope is read as allegory, which is wrong. An allegory is consists of
pretext and the reflecting / explainatory text. Without a pretext, no
allegory.
However, the artist is often not free of guilt. When an artist allows
elements, who when read by conventional culture conventions forms an
index the artist never had in mind, we stand on a crossroad: Either
research what the artist meant by an element or follow the convention.
Henrik
13225
From:
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 3:53pm
Subject: Re: Godard query
Many thanks, Paul and Bilge! Yes, I'd read it in Tales of the Hasidim, great to know the source.
brent
13226
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 3:55pm
Subject: Re: Cahiers -- June, and July?
I thought that framed in 1:1,85 the person is turned into either a slave
(esclave) to the framing or as a satellite (in the sense it revolves around
something else).
13227
From:
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 0:15pm
Subject: Re: Re: Allegory (segues to Pasolini)
In a message dated 7/26/04 4:45:45 AM, MG4273@a... writes:
> One can also give political allegorical readings to Hollywood films.
> "Nighthawks" (Bruce Malmuth, 1981), a crime thriller starring Sly Stallone,
> is a good
> example.
>
Well, what's the reading?
Kevin John
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
13228
From: Craig Keller
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 4:20pm
Subject: Re: Re: Cahiers -- June, and July?
>> What's the word for stained-glass window? I couldn't make this
>out,
>> and finally gave up and assumed it said "rituel."
>>
>>
> The French for "stained-glass window" is "vitrail" (not "rituel"!)
>(plural: "vitraux").
I thought "ritual" because I couldn't read his handwriting, and didn't realize he was going for an all out motif with the windows.
Re: subscriptions to Cahiers / Positif -- that's just what I'm gonna go ahead and do, JPC. But Cahiers at least isn't that cheap -- one year is 71 euros for US delivery, so around $80. Still, you're right, when I'm paying $9 an issue at the newsstand anyway, it's worth it. Is Positif cheaper? I'll have to get a hold of a subscription card or something, so I can give them my debit-card number and send it off.
craig.
13229
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 5:00pm
Subject: Re: Cahiers -- June, and July?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Craig Keller
wrote:
>
.
>
> Re: subscriptions to Cahiers / Positif -- that's just what I'm
gonna go ahead and do, JPC. But Cahiers at least isn't that cheap --
one year is 71 euros for US delivery, so around $80. Still, you're
right, when I'm paying $9 an issue at the newsstand anyway, it's
worth it. Is Positif cheaper? I'll have to get a hold of a
subscription card or something, so I can give them my debit-card
number and send it off.
>
> craig.
One year (12 issues) foreign subscription to POSITIF is 61 Euros
plus 23.40 shipping. So it's about the same as CAHIERS. I can mail
you a subscription card. But I just found out that there IS a US
distributor, in Plattsburgh, N>Y> tel: 1 800 3631310. You might give
them a call...
JP
13230
From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 5:50pm
Subject: Re: Cahiers -- June, and July?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Gallagher"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Craig Keller
> >
> > > stained-glass window -- myth
> >
> > What's the word for stained-glass window? I couldn't make this out,
> > and finally gave up and assumed it said "rituel."
> >
>
> "Vitrail."
>
> Here's another interesting article -- Rohmer discusses his preference
> for 1.33 and comments on his 1954 article in which he argued for
> Cinemascope.
>
> http://66.108.51.239/rohmer-cinemascope.pdf
>
>
> Paul
13231
From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 5:58pm
Subject: Re: Cahiers -- June, and July?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Gallagher"
wrote:
>
> Here's another interesting article -- Rohmer discusses his preference
> for 1.33 and comments on his 1954 article in which he argued for
> Cinemascope.
>
> http://66.108.51.239/rohmer-cinemascope.pdf
>
Here's a rough translation. It's an interesting point of view.
However, I don't think CinemaScope can be blamed for the "expressive
poverty of the image" today. After all, television has been 4:3 all
this time.
The Wide and the High
by Eric Rohmer
In number 31 of the Cahiers, the famous article by Francois Truffaut,
"A Certain Tendency of the French Cinema," coincided with a collective
report on the presentation of the first film in Cinemascope. The
line of the review was defined thus not only by what it denounced
(a content nourished by well-worn libertarian topics), but what it
highly approved: a form regenerated by the newest techniques (color,
zoom, 3D), which were held in suspicion by the nomenklatura of the
time.
Among the six writers collaborating in this ensemble, only two,
Bazin and Doniol, ventured some timid reservations. The four others,
Dorsay, Astruc, Rivette and myself, made a show of almost delirious
enthusiasm. Enthusiasm justified by the long and happy life that
Cinemascope has known since and will still know in intimist films
as well as spectaculars.
The paradox, however, is that Rivette and I, its most ardent
supporters (in opposition to Truffaut, Astruc and Godard on that
occasion) never used the Chrtien process in our films. For my own
part, I will say that I more and more became an resolute adversary
of scope in particular and even, in general, of the wide screen.
My only films in format 1/1.66, besides my first, "The Sign of the
lion," are those that I shot in Super-16. All the others are in
1/1.33.
To read again this article, I am frightened to see that I praised
as "virtues" what I would now like to denounce as the most insidious
"vices" of the current cinema. In a word, I think that, far from
supporting the plastic invention of the metteur en scene, the
panoramic screen, on the contrary, bullies it. It is this, I am
more and more persuaded, that is, if not the single thing, at least
the main thing responsible for the expressive poverty of the image today.
Believing we were rediscovering the visual dynamism of the silent
masterpieces, we were only turning our backs on it, and I am
astonished that the wide screen continues to be popular with the
profession. Nobody, critic or technician, dares to acknowledge
bluntly that the low ceilings of the multiplexes are the true
reasons for a choice more commercial than aesthetic.
Scope, as I said in this article, permitted film to get rid of a
certain number of commonplaces inherited from academic painting.
It liberated the frame from the constraints of "composition", going
so far almost as to make empty even the concept of "framing". This
freedom proved to be only a lure: granted once and for all, automatically,
far from urging on the imagination of the director, it paralyzed
it, and, believing one is avoiding statism, one falls back
into it with renewed vigor. I do not think I am exaggerating by
saying that so wide a screen offers a thousand times fewer combinations
to the cineaste, in the dynamic agency of lines, surfaces and
volumes than the good old standard format. It also does not inspire
as easily, for example, these constructions of frames within frames
in which is revealed the "cineplastic" genius of Griffith, Murnau,
of Lang, of Hitchcock, Renoir and one hundred others. It weighs down
the process of the shot-reverse shot, major chapter of cinematographic
syntax, which, even for the love of Welles and of Bazin, I never was
close to renouncing.
There is more: "Cinemascope," I wrote, "finally introduced into
our art the only sensible element which escaped it: air, the divine
ether of poets." However, it is precisely against this lack of air,
imposed by the current frame, that I do not cease fighting. Because
where is the air, if we look closely? On the right-hand side,
on the left ? No, it is at the top that our eye seeks it, and it
is this top that has disappeared. It is at the top that one
breathes, it is at the top, often, where is poetry! I like that
the heads of my characters do not butt against the upper edge. I
like to show the sky, the trees, the mountains, even the roofs of
the houses, even as I feel at ease only in rooms with high ceilings.
A question of taste, one will say. So to say. But, if I miss
the top, the bottom often is missing too. Less important the sides:
the least panoramic movement will suffice to extend them. On the
other hand, knowing that my frame will be widened (in fact "narrowed"
for those who look in my way) by the projection in a majority of
the theaters, I have trouble showing with a sufficient "presence"
what appears me to be the most expressive part of the human body
(the head, shoulders, hands) by shots that one formerly called
"rapproches " [brought closer], which continue, in spite of everything,
to delight me, but which I seek in vain in the films of my young
colleagues. Once I had to employ regretfully such or such subterfuge
to prevent my actors from lowering their hands too low, those hands
often more eloquent than a word or a face! Long live Eisenstein,
I instead proclaim today, who dreamed of the square screen!
My last film, however, "The Lady and the Duke," was made in 16/9
only in order to prevent the butcheries of the theater owners and
the television chains. Unfortunately this format does not exist
in the cinema: it would be the equivalent of 1/1.77, without
projectors. That's why the 35 mm copy will be printed as 1/1.66,
to avoid allowing the projectionist any choice of 1/1.85. This
policy of the least evil hardly delights me. Would I say that this
is the fault of Cinemascope?
13232
From:
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 6:41pm
Subject: Re: Nighthawks (was Allegory)
Bruce Malmuth's Hollywood thriller, "Nighthawks" (1981) features a complex political allegory. In it the Stallone and Williams cops represent Democracy, Rutger Hauer's and Persis Khambatta's terrorists stand for Communism, and the government anti-terrorist specialists represent fascism. The government people would like to use the threat posed by the terrorists to institute a police state, something the filmmakers think would be as bad as the disease of terrorism and Communism. The government people are unable to stop terrorism; only Stallone and Williams can do that - just as in real life, the film is arguing, only Democracy can stop Communism.
On a second level, that of sexual politics, Stallone suffers from the disease of excess machismo. In the film plot it has virtually wrecked his marriage; in the allegory male chauvinism is something that could wreck Democracy. Only by accepting the female side of his nature can Democracy succeed; only by dressing in his wife's clothes at the end of the movie can Stallone destroy the terrorists.
The complex scene where Stallone can recognize Hauer in the disco just on intuition alone can be interpreted in many ways. In one way, the human side of Democracy - its ability to enable human feelings that police states of both left and right suppress - is being symbolized here. Stallone - Democracy - has human emotions and sensitivities that are closed to others, allowing him to understand the world emotionally in ways that other systems cannot. He is emotionally alive, while the dictatorships are dead.
Another way of looking at this scene is to suggest there is a sinister affinity between Democracy and Communism, a temptation that Communism holds out to Democracies; something that Stallone can feel, disapprove of, control with an effort of will and morality, but not altogether suppress. Communism is like the evil Double or Twin, a bad side of himself, a moral weakness that is always present and instantly recognizable however it is suppressed.
Mike Grost
13233
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 7:09pm
Subject: Re: Godard query
> For God made man because he loves stories.
Wo!
13234
From: Henrik Sylow
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 7:30pm
Subject: Re: Nighthawks (was Allegory)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> Bruce Malmuth's Hollywood thriller, "Nighthawks" (1981) features a
complex political allegory. In it the Stallone and Williams cops
represent Democracy, Rutger Hauer's and Persis Khambatta's terrorists
stand for Communism, and the government anti-terrorist specialists
represent fascism. The government people would like to use the threat
posed by the terrorists to institute a police state, something the
filmmakers think would be as bad as the disease of terrorism and
Communism. The government people are unable to stop terrorism; only
Stallone and Williams can do that - just as in real life, the film is
arguing, only Democracy can stop Communism.
>
> On a second level, that of sexual politics, Stallone suffers from
the disease of excess machismo. In the film plot it has virtually
wrecked his marriage; in the allegory male chauvinism is something
that could wreck Democracy. Only by accepting the female side of his
nature can Democracy succeed; only by dressing in his wife's clothes
at the end of the movie can Stallone destroy the terrorists.
>
> The complex scene where Stallone can recognize Hauer in the disco
just on intuition alone can be interpreted in many ways. In one way,
the human side of Democracy - its ability to enable human feelings
that police states of both left and right suppress - is being
symbolized here. Stallone - Democracy - has human emotions and
sensitivities that are closed to others, allowing him to understand
the world emotionally in ways that other systems cannot. He is
emotionally alive, while the dictatorships are dead.
>
> Another way of looking at this scene is to suggest there is a
sinister affinity between Democracy and Communism, a temptation that
Communism holds out to Democracies; something that Stallone can feel,
disapprove of, control with an effort of will and morality, but not
altogether suppress. Communism is like the evil Double or Twin, a bad
side of himself, a moral weakness that is always present and instantly
recognizable however it is suppressed.
>
> Mike Grost
This is a joke, right?
13235
From: Patrick Ciccone
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 7:40pm
Subject: Hitchcock/Truffaut online
France Culture is broadcasting the Hitchcock/Truffaut interview in 25
half-hour segments, starting today. The site (and broadcast) say there
were 52 half-hour reels, but there are 25 planned episodes of the
series, through the rest of the summer. It's a strange collision now
that we get to hear Truffaut, Hitchcock, and the translator all at once.
Enjoy,
PWC
http://www.radiofrance.fr/chaines/france-culture2/ete2004/hitchcock/
PS--Is it easy to convert Real player files to MP3 or CD audio? Would
be less than archival, but handy.
13236
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 7:46pm
Subject: Re: Nighthawks (was Allegory)
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> [a thoughtful analysis of the film, NIGHTHAWKS]
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Henrik Sylow"
wrote:
> This is a joke, right?
Why would you say that, Henrik?
-Jaime
13237
From: Henrik Sylow
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 8:12pm
Subject: Re: Nighthawks (was Allegory)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jaime N. Christley"
> > --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
>
> > [a thoughtful analysis of the film, NIGHTHAWKS]
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Henrik Sylow"
> wrote:
>
> > This is a joke, right?
>
> Why would you say that, Henrik?
>
> -Jaime
Because what Mike posted looks and reads like a "thats what I think it
means" analysis. Its certainly not a reading.
13238
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 8:07pm
Subject: Re: juvenile thrills (belated reply to Jaime)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jaketwilson"
> There are various arguable similarities, but the obvious one is
that
> Bill is the Bride's symbolic father as well as her lover. Which is
> why he has to die, IMO. I'd be interested in your take on what the
> key differences are.
Nothing that would make front-page news. Basically that Noah Cross
is a representation of the juggernaut of capitalism, rooted in
familial-sexual nastiness that symbolizes corruption/amorality of
the same. Bill's status as a set of symbols is much less concise
(for better or for worse), he has qualities that span "the east
[Asia]" and "the old [American] west" just as Ghost Dog in the
Jarmusch movie has qualities that span Samurai fiction/mythology and
Italian-American gangster fiction/mythology. But Noah is figure of
economic force, Bill is a figure of cultural mixing.
But Noah killed his daughter (the Faye Dunaway character) several
times over, at last literally. Difference between the two being,
the father/lover gets the upper hand in one scenario, and the
daughter/bride wins in the other - all for the "ownership" of the
child.
-Jaime
13239
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 8:25pm
Subject: Re: Hitchcock/Truffaut online
> France Culture is broadcasting the Hitchcock/Truffaut interview in 25
> half-hour segments, starting today. The site (and broadcast) say there
> were 52 half-hour reels, but there are 25 planned episodes of the
> series, through the rest of the summer. It's a strange collision now
> that we get to hear Truffaut, Hitchcock, and the translator all at once.
>
> http://www.radiofrance.fr/chaines/france-culture2/ete2004/hitchcock/
This is fun to listen to - Helen Scott is really fast. Thanks, Patrick!
- Dan
13240
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 8:27pm
Subject: Re: Nighthawks (was Allegory)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Henrik Sylow"
> Because what Mike posted looks and reads like a "thats what I
think it
> means" analysis. Its certainly not a reading.
Why is it certainly not a reading?
And the original question was, why would you think it to be a joke?
-Jaime
13241
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 8:50pm
Subject: Re: Re: Nighthawks (was Allegory)
--- "Jaime N. Christley"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Henrik Sylow"
>
>
> > Because what Mike posted looks and reads like a
> "thats what I
> think it
> > means" analysis. Its certainly not a reading.
>
> Why is it certainly not a reading?
>
> And the original question was, why would you think
> it to be a joke?
>
It's a joke because it's so flat and one-dimensional.
That's the trouble with allegory. It squeezes
everything into a single level of meaning. And films,
as we all well know, simply don't work that way.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages!
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
13242
From: Henrik Sylow
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 9:10pm
Subject: Re: Hitchcock/Truffaut online
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt
> > France Culture is broadcasting the Hitchcock/Truffaut interview in 25
> > half-hour segments, starting today. The site (and broadcast) say there
> > were 52 half-hour reels, but there are 25 planned episodes of the
> > series, through the rest of the summer. It's a strange collision now
> > that we get to hear Truffaut, Hitchcock, and the translator all at
once.
> >
> > http://www.radiofrance.fr/chaines/france-culture2/ete2004/hitchcock/
>
> This is fun to listen to - Helen Scott is really fast. Thanks,
Patrick!
> - Dan
This is indeed great listening. Thanks, Patrick :)
Dan, Patrick, anyone - Can anyone download the RAM file? How does one
DL it?
Henrik
13243
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 10:08pm
Subject: Re: Hitchcock/Truffaut online
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ciccone"
> France Culture is broadcasting the Hitchcock/Truffaut interview in
25
> half-hour segments, starting today. The site (and broadcast) say
there
> were 52 half-hour reels, but there are 25 planned episodes of the
> series, through the rest of the summer. It's a strange collision now
> that we get to hear Truffaut, Hitchcock, and the translator all at
once.
>
> Enjoy,
> PWC
>
> http://www.radiofrance.fr/chaines/france-culture2/ete2004/hitchcock/
>
> PS--Is it easy to convert Real player files to MP3 or CD audio?
Would
> be less than archival, but handy.
Thanks for the tip! This is great! I have always wondered what was
lost in translation... It's only about half the total but still very
exciting. I'll have friends tape as much as they can for me. Thanks
again.
JPC
13244
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 10:14pm
Subject: Re: Godard query
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> > For God made man because he loves stories.
>
and vice versa?
> Wo!
13245
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 10:24pm
Subject: Daisy Kenyon - WAS Re: Bad Day at Black Rock (Sturges - '55)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Chris Fujiwara"
"...The film's reference to the Japanese- American internment is, to
be sure, more veiled than you made out here. In describing the case,
the Andrews character says that his client was victimized by "some
smart operator on the Coast" who stole Noguchi's home (on the basis
of an obscure law "written by Cortez")while Noguchi was fighting in
Europe. He brings suit, not against the US, but (presumably) against
the 'operator.'... I read here an allusion, not to the Fred Korematsu
case (ruled on by the Supreme Court in 1944, and, I believe,
essentially concerning the constitutionality of the forced
relocation of a racial group) but to the more directly relevant and
(in 1947) contemporary issue of how the government should deal with
claims of property loss filed by the victims."
Well, you're reading makes more sense. It's been many years since I
saw DAISY KENYON so my memory of the dialogue was hazy, but the fact
that the subject of Japanese-American internment was broached at all
in a 1947 Hollywood film was very striking, especially in a
melodrama. JAPANESE WAR BRIDE was a kind of "social problem film"
and the reference there was not unexpected. But THE STEEL HELMET was
fairly radical for raising issues of race (even through the charcater
of a Chinese Communist.)
I very much look forward to reading your book on Preminger, Chris.
His work deserves in-depth treatment.
Richard
13246
From: Nick Wrigley
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 10:27pm
Subject: Peter Cowie chat on wfmu.org
It's on now live... but should be accessible from this page when the
archive gets updated:
http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/SE
Also, Kim Hendrickson of the Criterion Collection was interviewed on
the same programme a couple of weeks ago (accessible from the same
link).
-Nick Wrigley>-
13247
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 10:28pm
Subject: Re: Mise-en-scene
Subject: Re: Storytelling (belated reply to michael)
> >
> > I'm sincerely interested and would like to know about how we can
> > meaningfully discuss mise-en-scene in isolation from
> > script/plot/theme.
We can't. (not that we don't try!) Discussing "pure" mise en
scene is like speaking of poetry without words, or of "pure"
consciousness that's not consciousness of anything. There is no such
thing.
Obviously it's quite possible in discussing non-
> > narrative or abstract avant garde work in cases where these things
> > are never meant to play any role, but I find it very hard to
appraise
> > mise-en-scene in total isolation from narrative, in a narrative
film.
But even non-narrative, abstract film uses raw materials
(objects, bodies, forms...)which are "mis en scene" by the filmmaker.
You can't discuss his/her "mise en scene" independently of what
is "mis en scene".
> > Even if a film is in a language I don't understand, one of the
roles
> > of mise-en-scene is very often to express plot and theme in a
visual
> > way.
I would say, not "very often"; always.
To escape this I'd have to be autistic to the point where all
> > human interaction became meaningless to me. So how DO you look at
> > mise-en-scene in isolation?
autistic and auteurist sound very similar...
JPC
13248
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 10:42pm
Subject: Re: Allegory (segues to Pasolini)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
>
> Symbolism is scarce in L'Age d'Or, omnipresent in Andalusian Dog.
>
Which makes the former so much satisfying than the latter (which
was of course the earlier...) "CHIEN" is still mired to a certain
extent in late twenties avant-garde and seems dated today (seemed
dated even the first time I saw it!) the way Cocteau's LE SANG D'UN
POETE does, whereas L'AGE d'OR has discarded all the avant garde
preciosity and false poetry (including symbolism) and remains
as "new" as it was in 1930. Dali had little to do with AGE D'OR and
that helped too.
JPC
13249
From: Brandon
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 10:45pm
Subject: Re: Hitchcock/Truffaut archiving
>Dan, Patrick, anyone - Can anyone download the RAM file? How does one
>DL it?
Okay, I've figured this out.
First, to get the streaming .RA file onto your hard drive.
I used a program called Stream Down
http://stream-down.cocsoft.com/
It's for MS Windows only, and is free for 15 days, then it's $40 if you
want to keep using it. Got the RA for the first broadcast, and it is 4.6
megs in size.
Then, to decode the RA to WAV, so we can burn to CD or make mp3 files.
I used a suspicious-looking program called StreamBoxRipper
http://www.streamboxripper.tk/
It didn't decode properly on my computer at work, saying I needed the
RealPlayer G2 program, which is not available on Real's site anymore. But
at home, I've had that player installed for years, so Ripper effortlessly
decoded the RA file into a 155-meg 30-minute 44khz mono WAV file.
The RA download takes a while, but StreamDown allows queueing of multiple
streams, so you could set it up and leave the computer for a bit... and
Ripper goes very quickly. So I suggest waiting until more broadcasts have
accumulated at the Archive page, then downloading and converting 'em all at
once (instead of going through this every day).
If we then re-encoded the WAVs to 20-meg MP3 files (20-meg in order not to
lose any more sound quality), all 25 broadcasts could be burned to a data
CD-ROM disc.
Thanks for posting the link, Patrick.
13250
From:
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 7:32pm
Subject: Re: Nighthawks (was Allegory)
My post was not intended as a joke.
But it was intended to suggest strange perspectives.
When I saw "Nighthawks" in 1981, all these ideas started flooding through my
brain. Eventually, around 1990, I wrote them down. Then in 2004 (today) cut &
pasted them into the current discussion. Do not know whether I was "reading
them into" the film, or whether they are "actually there", or some cross between
the two. They ARE startling - I like ideas that are startling. I have a
surrealist take on life, and enjoy strange ideas.
Partly this relates back to my love of stories / plots. Plots can be VERY
rich in associations. A good plot can be suggestive of all sorts of things.
In "Breathless", Jean-Luc Godard mixes a shot of Belmondo following Jean
Seberg, with De Gaulle following Eisenhower. If Godard can see political linkinges
in his story, why can't Bruce Malmuth?
What does it mean when Rosemary rocks the cradle at the end of "Rosemary's
Baby"? Could this have a wealth of allegorical social, political and religious
meanings? Or is this just part of the plot, and hence unimportant?
One theory of music is that music affects us, because musical structures echo
those of life events (Suzanne K. Langer?) Can plots allegorically echo many
events in our lives, too? In ways that other kinds of art do not?
Food for thought.
Mike Grost
13251
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 11:32pm
Subject: Fwd: Re: Barbara Harris
Note: forwarded message attached.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - 100MB free storage!
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
13252
From:
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 8:10pm
Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: Barbara Harris
In a message dated 7/26/04 6:33:58 PM, cellar47@y... writes:
> Note: forwarded message attached.
>
Message wasn't attached. I hope it wasn't news that she's passed away.
Kevin John
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
13253
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Jul 27, 2004 0:24am
Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: Barbara Harris
Barbara Harris Knew Bill Clinton Was White Trash
Scottsdale "has-been" gives her regards to Broadway
by Robert L. Pela
Phoenix New Times, October 24, 2002
Thespians, take note: Barbara Harris has moved to
town, and she's
hung up her teaching shingle. Local acting students
could do worse;
Harris' brief but notable Broadway career snagged her
a Tony Award
for The Apple Tree in 1967, and she was nominated for
her role in On
a Clear Day You Can See Forever. Her more memorable
films include
Robert Altman's Nashville (1975), Alfred Hitchcock's
Family Plot
(1976), and a turn as Jodie Foster's mom in Freaky
Friday (1977) --
all three performances nominated for a Golden Globe --
and her Oscar-
nominated spin in Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He
Saying Those
Terrible Things About Me? (1971).We met for drinks at
Mancuso's at
the Borgata, where our sniffy waiter served Miss
Harris a whisper of
white wine and a whole lot of attitude, and where I
tried and failed
to convince her that she is some kind of a legend.
New Times: So, what's a famous actress doing in
Scottsdale?
Barbara Harris: I knew you'd ask that. I'm teaching
acting classes. I
had been based in New York, and maybe I should have
stayed. I mean, I
like it here, but it's very conservative, isn't it? I
was talking to
this man the other night, and he was ranting about
people who come
here from the East and wreck the state by voting
Democrat. Hey, how
would you vote on Prop 202?
NT: That's the Indian gaming prop.
Harris: The commercials are hysterical! All that
carrying on about
how Indians are being greedy, but the commercials
never once tell you
anything about the proposition itself. So you end up
having to read
the Republic or some other piece of nonsense. But
since I'm one of
those nasty Easterners, I'll probably vote straight
Democrat. It's
just how it goes. I didn't want to vote for Clinton,
but I had to --
even though I figured he was white trash.
NT: You have a pretty distinctive voice and
personality. Do you get
recognized in the grocery?
Harris: No, thank goodness. I don't usually mention
that I have been
in movies, because I'm afraid people will say, "Well,
I don't watch
black-and-white films." Most people don't know who I
am.
NT: Come on. You've starred in some pretty
well-regarded movies.
Harris: I used to try to get through one film a year,
but I always
chose movies that I thought would fail, so that I
wouldn't have to
deal with the fame thing. I turned down Alfred
Hitchcock when he
first asked me to be in one of his movies.
NT: But you eventually appeared in Hitchcock's Family
Plot.
Harris: Yes. Mr. Hitchcock was a wonderful man. He
always wanted
emotionless people in his movies. There was a scene in
our film,
where Karen Black was acting, acting, acting -- all
that Lee
Strasberg human-struggle stuff. And it took her so
long to get those
tears going, and Mr. Hitchcock turned to the cameraman
and said, "We
will just photograph the actors' feet in this scene."
He wanted a
beautiful woman who wasn't showing her life's history
in a scene.
NT: In his review of A Thousand Clowns, theater critic
Walter Kerr
described you as "the square root of noisy sex."
Harris: He did? My goodness, mathematicians are going
to be furious!
By the way, I called a friend of mine in New York and
had him read me
some of your reviews. Why did you write that A
Thousand Clowns is
dated?
NT: Well, a story that condemns socialism was more
relevant in the
early '60s. And the notion of a single-parent
household isn't all
that shocking today.
Harris: I wish you'd written that.
NT: So, now you're teaching acting. But I thought all
actors wanted
to be directors.
Harris: I'm much more interested in what's behind
acting, which is
the inquiry into the human condition. Everyone gets
acting mixed up
with the desire to be famous, but some of us really
just stumbled
into the fame part, while we were really just
interested in the
process of acting.
NT: I can see the joy of appearing on Broadway or in a
big Hollywood
film, but where's the joy in teaching people how to
cry?
Harris: Who wants to be up on the stage all the time?
It isn't easy.
You have to be awfully invested in the fame aspect,
and I really
never was. What I cared about was the discipline of
acting, whether I
did well or not.
NT: Still, you did pretty well.
Harris: Well, sometimes. People always want to talk
about the ones
that won you awards, but I have a better memory of my
first part,
which was Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream. The
critic for the
Chicago Tribune wrote, "Will someone please get rid of
Peter Rabbit?"
I was crushed, and after that I had to be pushed out
on stage. Of
course, I had made my own costume. That may have been
a mistake. But
anyway, we weren't up there on that stage for any
reason other than
the process of acting. We certainly weren't making any
money back
then, my friends and I. Elaine May was eating
grapefruit rinds.
NT: Your friends were a rare group.
Harris: Yes. Mike Nichols was a toughie. He could be
very kind, but
if you weren't first-rate, watch out. He'd let you
know. Elaine May
read Molière night and day.
NT: You seem completely unimpressed with your own
celebrity.
Harris: I'm a has-been!
NT: Does that mean you've left acting?
Harris: Well, if someone handed me something fantastic
for 10 million
dollars, I'd work again. But I haven't worked in a
long time as an
actor. I don't miss it. I think the only thing that
drew me to acting
in the first place was the group of people I was
working with: Ed
Asner, Paul Sills, Mike Nichols, Elaine May. And all I
really wanted
to do back then was rehearsal. I was in it for the
process, and I
really resented having to go out and do a performance
for an
audience, because the process stopped; it had to
freeze and be the
same every night. It wasn't as interesting.
NT: You were also in the Compass Players, the first
improvisational
theater troupe in America. You're acknowledged as one
of the
pioneering women in the field of improv, and scenes
you created with
the Second City and Compass companies are still
studied as
masterpieces of the form.
Harris: Boy, you really did your homework. Uh, yes. We
were the first
to do improv, and it was hard, because improv was new
and no one had
come before us.
NT: You starred in Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama's Hung You
in the Closet
and I'm Feeling So Sad and Who Is Harry Kellerman and
Why Is He
Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?. Do you enjoy
selecting films
with long-winded titles?
Harris: That's a very silly question. Well, you
writers do like
words, don't you? And so those titles must have been
written by
writers. No, there wasn't a great deal of design to
the path of my
career. I was a small-town, middle-class girl who wore
a cashmere
sweater very nicely and ended up on Broadway because
that's the way
the wind was blowing. I didn't have my sights set
there. When I was
at Second City, there was a vote about whether we
should take our
show to Broadway or not. Andrew Duncan and I voted no.
I stayed in
New York, but only because Richard Rodgers and Alan
Jay Lerner came
and said, "We want to write a musical for you!" Well,
I wasn't big on
musical theater. I had seen part of South Pacific in
Chicago and I
walked out. But it was Richard Rodgers calling!
NT: You stayed, and you ended up with a Tony. Speaking
of theater
awards, I heard you're a Zonis judge. Say it isn't so!
Harris: I am now. They rejected me, at first. I filled
out the
application, and they just never called. (Arizona
Jewish Theatre
artistic director) Janet Arnold, who's a real
sweetheart, called and
told them, "Hey, it's Barbara Harris! Call her back!"
NT: You're a famous actress living in Scottsdale, so
you're probably
hanging out with Marshall Mason and Dale Wasserman,
our other
resident theater legends.
Harris: I wish I knew Marshall Mason. I didn't know
Dale Wasserman
lives here, too. So, you see? Famous theater people
are everywhere in
this town. You just don't see us because we're hiding
under things.
From phoenixnewtimes.com
Originally published by
©2004 New Times, Inc. All rights reserved.
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been
> removed]
>
>
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13254
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Tue Jul 27, 2004 1:12am
Subject: Re: Nighthawks (was Allegory)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> Partly this relates back to my love of stories / plots. Plots can
be VERY
> rich in associations. A good plot can be suggestive of all sorts of
things.
> In "Breathless", Jean-Luc Godard mixes a shot of Belmondo following
Jean
> Seberg, with De Gaulle following Eisenhower. If Godard can see
political linkinges
> in his story, why can't Bruce Malmuth?
"Breathless" is a "good plot" ???
> What does it mean when Rosemary rocks the cradle at the end
of "Rosemary's
> Baby"? Could this have a wealth of allegorical social, political
and religious
> meanings? Or is this just part of the plot, and hence unimportant?
It's part of the plot and it's not unimportant.It has a wealth of
meaning. But Bill will tell you it's not "what it means" but "how it
means".
Musically it's a coda (sometimes "in coda venenum").
> One theory of music is that music affects us, because musical
structures echo
> those of life events (Suzanne K. Langer?) Can plots allegorically
echo many
> events in our lives, too? In ways that other kinds of art do not?
> Food for thought.
>
Plots of course echo many events in our lives. Not allegorically.
If you can't relate any aspect of a plot to something in your life,
you can't relate to the plot/film at all. Same for lit. I don't know
about music. I'd have to read up on Suzy K.
JPC
> Mike Grost
13255
From: Craig Keller
Date: Tue Jul 27, 2004 1:19am
Subject: Re: Re: Cahiers -- June, and July?
> I can mail
> you a subscription card. But I just found out that there IS a US
> distributor, in Plattsburgh, N>Y> tel: 1 800 3631310. You might give
> them a call...
Many thanks; I'll give them a call this week, and report back to the
list on the results -- if it's a bust, that subscription card might
come in handy...
craig.
13256
From: j_biel
Date: Tue Jul 27, 2004 1:45am
Subject: A note on Satantango
I'm about 2/3 into Krasznahorkai's book "Satan's Tango" (the Polish
translation) and one thing jumps at me: Bela Tarr's film is an
_extremely_ faithful adaptation. So far only one minor event from
the book has not made it to the screen.
The dialogue OTOH has been changed quite a bit and it mostly
improved things. And of course Tarr's imagery and cinematography is
a quality unto itself quite independent of the text.
But the unusual closeness to the book would be an interesting
counterexample to Tarkovsky's axiom of making a screen
adaptation "on the ruins" of the literary source. Tarr's film made
me wonder: could it be that it is simply the typical 2-hour limit of
film that forces such "deconstruction" and major alterations of the
literary source?
13257
From: Craig Keller
Date: Tue Jul 27, 2004 2:31am
Subject: Re: A note on Satantango
> Tarr's film made
> me wonder: could it be that it is simply the typical 2-hour limit of
> film that forces such "deconstruction" and major alterations of the
> literary source?
This is a very interesting question. For the most part, I think that
even in the case of a mega-length film adaptation (I'll define
"mega-length" for the purpose of this inquiry at six or seven hours and
over) one could still argue that major alterations have necessarily
been made, because even if all of the Cliff's Notes plot-points have
been touched upon, there still exists an absence of what sensitive
readers will consider the "plot-points" that reside at the sentence
level -- say, Anna Karenin's wallpaper, or the pedestrian's overhand
catch of a self-flung coin in Dickens, to use two instances of what
Nabokov would refer to as "the specific detail." I know the Borges
story has been referred to at least twice in recent times on this list,
but the idea of cinematic adaptation as a barometer of faithfulness in
cartographing a novel's plot or sum of specific-details (somehow also a
barometer of faith or will on the part of the artist, in a way I can
only sense if not articulate) brings to mind "El Aleph" once again. In
cinema, how would the film-map cover the novel-territory? Is it one
minute per sentence -- and at what speed is the camera cranked when?
Personally, and perhaps it only depends with the film and I shouldn't
infer a generalization, I think it's at the two-hour forty-minute mark
when things really start to get interesting in the movies. Many of my
favorite films are "feature lengths," but that doesn't change how fully
absorbed and "woven-in" I felt while recently watching the full version
of 'L'Amour par terre.' (Many of my favorite films are also authored
by Jacques Rivette.)
craig.
13258
From: jaketwilson
Date: Tue Jul 27, 2004 3:23am
Subject: Kill Bill/Chinatown (also: allegory)
Jaime:
> Basically that Noah Cross is a representation of the juggernaut of
capitalism, rooted in
> familial-sexual nastiness that symbolizes corruption/amorality of
> the same. Bill's status as a set of symbols is much less concise
> (for better or for worse), he has qualities that span "the east
> [Asia]" and "the old [American] west" just as Ghost Dog in the
> Jarmusch movie has qualities that span Samurai fiction/mythology
and
> Italian-American gangster fiction/mythology. But Noah is figure of
> economic force, Bill is a figure of cultural mixing.
While CHINATOWN also has a self-conscious relation to genre,
obviously the films these characters appear in are very different.
Still, both are masters of all domains, social and familial. One of
the things I'm so far unsure of in KILL BILL is how far the East-West
opposition works on a deeper level than iconography. For example, are
the various generic "codes of honour" significantly different, or is
the point rather their similarity, the same way the totemic names map
onto to each other in GHOST DOG?
> But Noah killed his daughter (the Faye Dunaway character) several
> times over, at last literally. Difference between the two being,
> the father/lover gets the upper hand in one scenario, and the
> daughter/bride wins in the other - all for the "ownership" of the
> child.
Yeah – similar set-up, different result. Of course KILL BILL is also
a film without a hero, or indeed a single positive male character as
far as I recall (there are no positive male authority figures in
Polanski either, but at least Nicholson makes an effort).
My KILL BILL interpretation in a nutshell: I think it's about
Tarentino's desire to remain a viewer (= child) rather than grow up
and become a "master" in his own right (= take his place in the
patriarchal order, viewed as rotten to the core). But if this is an
allegory, it's not separate from the terms chosen to embody it: via
its range of borrowed imagery, the film enacts a particular kind
of "fetishistic" attachment to cinema rather than simply representing
this at one remove. Maybe that will do as an example of how two
levels of meaning can transform each other?
JTW
13259
From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Jul 27, 2004 6:37am
Subject: Re: Mise-en-scene
JPC: You can't discuss his/her "mise en scene" independently of what
> is "mis en scene".
That's what I take away from Biette's definition of m-e-s in the
Wichita article. Once you define the art we're interested in as
m-e-s, it has to be m-e-s of SOMETHING ELSE, which is not Nature (as
in representational painting), but something cultural: a story, a
dance, photographic images... It's not the only artform I know of
that is secondary to another artform -- setting a poem or a libretto
to music is the same thing -- but it does have the same paradoxical
structure that such artforms display, which has been much commented
on through history.
13260
From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Jul 27, 2004 6:48am
Subject: Re: Bunuel 1 and 2 (was: Allegory)
JPC: Which makes the former so much satisfying than the latter --
L'Age d'or was made against Un chien andalou. At the time, Bunuel
made no bones about being appalled that le tout Paris had embraced
his first film, and his second film was, among other things, a satire
on his Surrealist supporters (the bandits) and his aristocratic
backers, whom he was still throwing gently ribbing over 30 years
later in The Exterminating Angel (Nobile/Noaille).
I love both Un chien andalou, which holds up a lot better than its
predecessors in French avant-garde cinema, and L'Age d'or, but
obviously I love the second film more. I don't think I've ever
laughed as hard as I did the first time I saw L'Age d'or at Lincoln
Center. The only competition would be the first screening of Noises
Off -- I almost spit up my liver then, too.
13261
From: jaketwilson
Date: Tue Jul 27, 2004 7:06am
Subject: Re: Kill Bill/Chinatown (correction)
There are a couple of arguably positive male characters in Part One. But the
Bride's husband doesn't count.
JTW
13262
From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Jul 27, 2004 7:07am
Subject: Re: Nighthawks (was Allegory)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> My post was not intended as a joke.
Do not know whether I was "reading
> them into" the film, or whether they are "actually there", or some
cross between
> the two. They ARE startling - I like ideas that are startling. I
have a
> surrealist take on life, and enjoy strange ideas.
Right on, Mike. People really hate the idea of allegorical readings
in film criticism, but we do it constantly without calling it that.
Your reading of Krazy Kat is a sterling example of your method, and
your take on Mon Oncle d'Amerqiue, one of my favorite films, got me
thinking.
I would like to propose an amendment: Arditi and Nelly Borgeaud are
the haute bourgeoisie (check out that house...) Nicole Garcia and
Depardieu are the petite bourgeoisie, the downtrodden but loyal class
who are the backbone of bourgeois ideology, when they aren't being so
mistreated by the big boys that they revolt, or commit suicide.
Depardieu comes from the peasantry, which is the fountainhead of
petite bourgoise ideology; Garcia is a starving actress, whose art
reproduces and transmits that ideology in an idealized form. She
makes the mistake of feeling sorry for her wealthy rival -- a shark,
with the instincts of her class. In fact, Borgeaud is playing a
scarier version of the character she played in Cela s'appelle
l'aurore.
A Marxist reading of the film is possible, as is a biologist reading,
via the white rats and other (rather Bunuelian..) animal imagery.
That imagery is used surrealistically here (Arditi turning into a
white rat in a raincoat), but its use in animal fables was always
pretty surrealistic: surrealism is an offshoot of allegorical art.
That makes two levels, and the film clips are a third, although they
could be interpreted as class-based art products in the Marxist
reading and or as stimuli in the biologist reading.
By the way, Tom Gunning's book on Lang is the first I've seen that
makes systematic use of Fletcher's theory of allegory -- he sees
allegorical form as fundamental to Lang.
And I LOVE strange ideas. It's almost my touchstone for criticism
that's worth paying attention to.
13263
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Tue Jul 27, 2004 10:02am
Subject: Re: Bunuel 1 and 2 (was: Allegory)
> I don't think I've ever
> laughed as hard as I did the first time I saw L'Age d'or at Lincoln
> Center.
Glad to hear Bunuel getting the credit I feel he deserves as a comic
filmmaker. In a very odd way I think he's like Lubitsch - the laughs
may be frequent or they may be few, but the QUALITY of the jokes is
always top-notch.
Now it'd make my day if somebody would say that PHANTOM OF LIBERTY is
a great Bunuel film, not a minor one.
13264
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Jul 27, 2004 1:06pm
Subject: Re: Re: Nighthawks (was Allegory)
--- hotlove666
People really hate the idea of
> allegorical readings
> in film criticism,
Because allegorical readings are static.
>
> I would like to propose an amendment: Arditi and
> Nelly Borgeaud are
> the haute bourgeoisie (check out that house...)
> Nicole Garcia and
> Depardieu are the petite bourgeoisie, the
> downtrodden but loyal class
> who are the backbone of bourgeois ideology, when
> they aren't being so
> mistreated by the big boys that they revolt, or
> commit suicide.
OK for the first couple but not the second. Garcia is
the ossue of a Communist couple. She becomes an
actress -- and therefore a bohemian. But the work she
does ("Julie") outs her in contactwitht eh haute
bourgeoisie who take her up romantically. When that
ends, hoewver, she becomes part of a new class of
corproate shark - consequently the villain of the
piece. What she does to depardieu is monstrous and
unforgivable -- save for the fact that according the
Laborit she's an animal,like everyone else.
> Depardieu comes from the peasantry, which is the
> fountainhead of
> petite bourgoise ideology;
Of which he shows no trace of influence.
Garcia is a starving
> actress, whose art
> reproduces and transmits that ideology in an
> idealized form. She
> makes the mistake of feeling sorry for her wealthy
> rival -- a shark,
> with the instincts of her class.
Sympathy has little to do with it -- see above.
In fact, Borgeaud
> is playing a
> scarier version of the character she played in Cela
> s'appelle
> l'aurore.
Possibly, but she's ALWAYS scary.
>
> A Marxist reading of the film is possible, as is a
> biologist reading,
> via the white rats and other (rather Bunuelian..)
> animal imagery.
> That imagery is used surrealistically here (Arditi
> turning into a
> white rat in a raincoat), but its use in animal
> fables was always
> pretty surrealistic: surrealism is an offshoot of
> allegorical art.
> That makes two levels, and the film clips are a
> third, although they
> could be interpreted as class-based art products in
> the Marxist
> reading and or as stimuli in the biologist reading.
>
Actually Dr.Laborit functions much in the ay bela
Lugosi does in "Glen or Glenda?" He provides a
succinctreading that while coherent is at the same
time completely surreal.
.
>
> And I LOVE strange ideas. It's almost my touchstone
> for criticism
> that's worth paying attention to.
>
>
Me too. See above.
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13265
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Jul 27, 2004 1:08pm
Subject: Re: Re: Bunuel 1 and 2 (was: Allegory)
--- cairnsdavid1967
.
>
> Now it'd make my day if somebody would say that
> PHANTOM OF LIBERTY is
> a great Bunuel film, not a minor one.
>
>
Consider your day made. For the title alone.
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13266
From:
Date: Tue Jul 27, 2004 3:17pm
Subject: Re: Bunuel 1 and 2 (was: Allegory)
> >
> > Now it'd make my day if somebody would say that
> > PHANTOM OF LIBERTY is
> > a great Bunuel film, not a minor one.
> >
> >
> Consider your day made. For the title alone.
>
Yeah, I wasn't aware that anyone considered PHANTOM OF LIBERTY a
minor Bunuel film. That and its companion piece THE MILKY WAY have
always struck me as being two of his most passionate and personal
works.
-Bilge
13267
From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Jul 27, 2004 5:25pm
Subject: Re: Bunuel 1 and 2 (was: Allegory)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, ebiri@a... wrote:
>
> > >
> > > Now it'd make my day if somebody would say that
> > > PHANTOM OF LIBERTY is
> > > a great Bunuel film, not a minor one.
> -Bilge
I'm rewatching it soon. On the last pass, when I was writing
about it, it seemed the least of the 60s-70s "neo-surrealist"
films. It was inspired by the poetry of Peret, a colleague all the
surrealists idolized, whereas I've always found him to be just a
decent nonsense poet. There are passages in Phantom that I
love, and others where the massive influence LB exercised on
Monty Python seems to be coming back to haunt him -- the
shitting/eating one and the gendarme school one. But it was one
of his personal favorites, and I want to revisit it.
I don't buy the extant attempts at reading it according to Lacanian
or other paradigms, simply because they aren't well done, like
most such readings in English. To me it's a film that attacks
language head-on -- the poet assassin episode, for example, is
a shaggy dog story about a performative that has the opposite of
the desired force: he's condemned to death and let go. To me
the film should be called Luis in Wonderland, and I was pleased
in reseeing Obscure Object of Desire (a very great film) to note
that the Duchess's baby (a pig in swaddling clothes) from the
Alice books makes an appearance.
I think Bunuel is a hysterically funny director throughout his
career, with the obvious exceptions of Terre sans pain and Los
olvidados. The funniest moment in Phantom is when the
unwilling spectators of Lonsdale's spanking start to leave and
he cries plaintively, "Let the monks stay at least!"
13268
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Tue Jul 27, 2004 6:00pm
Subject: Re: Bunuel 1 and 2 (was: Allegory)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> I love both Un chien andalou, which holds up a lot better than its
> predecessors in French avant-garde cinema, and L'Age d'or, but
> obviously I love the second film more. I don't think I've ever
> laughed as hard as I did the first time I saw L'Age d'or at Lincoln
> Center. The only competition would be the first screening of Noises
> Off -- I almost spit up my liver then, too.
I understand your response to L'AGE D'OR (although the hilarity
may have been enhanced by the smoking of some illegal substance). The
film is full of great gags -- LB loved silent comedy, especially
Keaton (he reviewed COLLEGE, writing that the film was "beautiful
like a bathroom"). The comic strain in surrealism, inherited from the
Dadaists, was somewhat stifled by Breton's pomposity and tendency to
theorize and preach (even though he wrote an "Anthologie de l'humour
noir")... I've always particularly enjoyed the way Lya Lys dismisses
the cow on her bed, and her remark that six musicians placed closed
to the microphone will make much more noise than sixty placed ten
kilometers away.
I have to see NOISES OFF.
13269
From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Jul 27, 2004 7:29pm
Subject: Re: Bunuel 1 and 2 (was: Allegory)
>
> I have to see NOISES OFF.
With an audience if at all possible. It's positively surreal.
13270
From:
Date: Tue Jul 27, 2004 3:39pm
Subject: Authorship and the avant-garde (was: Bunuel 1 and 2)
In a message dated 7/27/04 1:49:24 AM, hotlove666@y... writes:
> his second film was, among other things, a satire
> on his Surrealist supporters (the bandits) and his aristocratic
> backers, whom he was still throwing gently ribbing over 30 years
> later in The Exterminating Angel (Nobile/Noaille).
>
I never thought of L'Age d'Or in this manner, a very intriguing suggestion.
I've long been fascinated with the relationsip between authorship and the
avant-garde. I brought this up on Frameworks, the a-g film mailing list and,
perhaps understandably, it didn't go over too well there. Let's see how it works
here.
The general idea on avant-garde authorship is that it's never vexed. There
is no interference from studios or producers or the like and thus there is no
static in the resulting visions, no compromises to be made. Thus, a Brakhage
film, for example, can be read as a direct expression from Brakhage if not a
part of Brakhage himself.
But clearly, this formulation doesn't work with Bunuel. I first heard about
the Comte de Noailles (who also financed Le Sang d'un Poete) from Steve Neale's
"Art Cinema as Institution." Apparently, there was a great deal of private
financing and patronage of the "first French avant-garde." But was there
anything in such patronage that might confuse or weaken the notion of Buñuel or
Cocteau as the authors of their films? In general, can we study authorship in the
independent and avant-garde cinema and proceed as if the relationship between
biography and textual analysis was not simple? And will we always fall back on
financial histories, stories about how patronage distorted the message? Can we
use another interpretive framework, one that doesn't resort to Lacanian
psychoanalysis?
Kevin John
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
13271
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Tue Jul 27, 2004 9:09pm
Subject: Re: Authorship and the avant-garde (was: Bunuel 1 and 2)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, LiLiPUT1@a... wrote:
>
> But clearly, this formulation doesn't work with Bunuel. I first
heard about
> the Comte de Noailles (who also financed Le Sang d'un Poete) from
Steve Neale's
> "Art Cinema as Institution." Apparently, there was a great deal of
private
> financing and patronage of the "first French avant-garde." But was
there
> anything in such patronage that might confuse or weaken the notion
of Buñuel or
> Cocteau as the authors of their films?
>
>
> Kevin John
>
>
> It seems ludicrous to imagine that le Vicomte de Noailles had any
influence on the contents of L'AGE D'OR (or Cocteau's film for that
matter). Clearly, Bunuel was totally free to do whatever he wanted
(it's hard to think of Charles de Noailles as a "producer"!)including
mistreating the upper classes. The Noailles reportedly found the
film "exquisite, delightful" at a private screening, which suggests
an unusual broadmindedness. They organized a screening for society
members, who turned out to be not so broadminded. The whole thing
caused such a flap that Noailles had to resign from the Jockey Club!
The film ran for a couple of weeks then was banned by the police
(encouraged by an indignant press) and the prints were seized. The
ban lasted fifty years, although Langlois had a print which he showed
once in a while (I saw it first in the fifties at the Cinematheque --
the first venue Avenue de Messine). I think someone (probably Bill,
or myself) mentioned some time ago the end of "Journal d'une femme de
chambre" where right-wing rabble shouts "Vive Chiappe!" -- Chiappe
was the prefect of police who banned L"AGE D'OR.
JPC
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
13272
From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Jul 27, 2004 9:24pm
Subject: Re: Authorship and the avant-garde (was: Bunuel 1 and 2)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, LiLiPUT1@a... wrote:
In general, can we study authorship in the
> independent and avant-garde cinema and proceed as if the
relationship between
> biography and textual analysis was not simple? And will we always
fall back on
> financial histories, stories about how patronage distorted the
message? Can we
> use another interpretive framework, one that doesn't resort to
Lacanian
> psychoanalysis?
>
>
> Kevin John
A question that has long interested me. When Daney asked me how I
planned to link the Cinema Independent Americain (CIA) with H'wd I
said "via economics." And I did explore, with the help of Jacky
Raynal, the avant-garde wing of the CIA a bit; later, thanks to my
work with Barbara Frank on the Kennedy film, I got to explore the
(then) other wing of the CIA, which was the Godmillows and Koppeles
of this life. That was of course before the Sundance Revolution.
With respect to the avant-garde, I found that a) funds were tight, b)
most were institutional and c) the museum and the university had
become the framework within which many of the a-g evolved and
exhibited, although certainly not exclusively so. I found that the
a-g filmmakers were also thinking about these problems a lot. There
was one I only remember as The Projector Beam Guy whose oeuvre was
projector beams projected in various institutional settings, which
endowed them with the aura of art.
So, yes, there is a certain vexation factor even if one is left a
free hand on spending the grant or whatever. I'm sure Fred could
speak to this better than I -- my little exploration happened in 1975-
1978.
Re: the Noailles, they gave Bunuel a total free hand, never asked for
receipts, just said go ahead and do it -- it was beer money to them.
One can compare and contrast that situation to the much tighter-
budgeted Terre sans pain, which was financed by an anarchist
pedagogue's lottery win. In both cases, LB had a free hand with the
production.
A few years later, however, when the Spanish Republic gave him money
to put on the soundtrack of TSP, he was obliged to remove Raymond
Acin's name -- the (by then) dead anarchist who financed the film. He
was apparently faithful about making payments to Acin's realtives
whenever there was money in, which wasn't often. Nonetheless, I'd
call removing Acin's name a major ethical vexation. Worse than that,
from an esthetic standpoint, he was obliged to suppress the map of
Spain at the beginning, and a closeup of a cock's head being torn off
during the Prologue in La Alberca -- a shot which would have been the
equivalent of the slit eyeball in Andalusian Dog, now missing from
the film.
Re: L'Age d'or, after the fascist riot Noailles did ask for excisions
to be made, and there was eventually a 50-minute version that was
shaped, paradoxically, both by Noailles' concern over the backlash
caused by the anti-clerical stuff, and by the concerns of the PCF,
which Bunuel had joined in the meantime. Called "Dans les eaux
glacees du calcul egoiste" or some such Marxist tag-line, it has
disappeared from the earth -- but it seems that at one point it did
exist. Major vexation.
I have known two completely independent filmmakers -- both women,
both geniuses. But you can't see their films anywhere.
Re: Lacan, I use him with great care. I don't like to see him mis-
used, which is often the case in France as well as here. But there's
nothing inappropriate about applying his thought or Freud's to
Bunuel's films. Bunuel read both of them, and was friends with Lacan
long before he was the guru of post-structuralism -- they even
planned a follow-up expedition together to a Las Hurdes in
Switzerland, which never came to pass, presumably because of LB's
involvement in the Civil War. Later, as everyone knows, Lacan
regularly screened El and Belle de jour for his training analysts to
illustrate the symptoms, structures and causes of paranoia and female
masochism.
Really, with Bunuel you are almost obligated to use Freud (and
Lacan), Marx and Catholic theology to get a rounded view of the work,
because he was a card-carrying communist for years, knew Lacan "when"
and was competent to lecture to seminarians on RC theology. Not your
average director!
13273
From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Jul 27, 2004 9:26pm
Subject: Re: Authorship and the avant-garde (was: Bunuel 1 and 2)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
Chiappe
> was the prefect of police who banned L"AGE D'OR.
>
> JPC
Hard to blame him, when Modot's first acftion after shaking the cops
is to mug a blind WWI veteran. It was well known that handicapped
veterans were Chiappe's favorite charity.
I believe Marie Laure did suggest the title.
13274
From: Travis Miles
Date: Tue Jul 27, 2004 9:39pm
Subject: Re: Re: Authorship and the avant-garde (was: Bunuel 1 and 2)
On 7/27/04 5:24 PM, "hotlove666"
> I have known two completely independent filmmakers -- both women,
> both geniuses. But you can't see their films anywhere.
I'd be very intrigued to know who you mean. Could you let us know?
13275
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Tue Jul 27, 2004 10:56pm
Subject: Re: Authorship and the avant-garde (was: Bunuel 1 and 2)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
> wrote:
> Chiappe
> > was the prefect of police who banned L"AGE D'OR.
> >
> > JPC
>
>
> Hard to blame him, when Modot's first acftion after shaking the
cops
> is to mug a blind WWI veteran. It was well known that handicapped
> veterans were Chiappe's favorite charity.
>
Sure, but it isn't even clear whether Chiappe had seen the film.
The press was pressuring him (FIGARO: "Allons M. Chiappe, un coup de
balai!") After the ban one journalist wrote that the right-wing press
could congratulate itself for having "had a hand in it". Chiappe, he
wrote, "has resigned himself" to give this necessary "coup de balai"
(they liked that phrase).
JPC
> I believe Marie Laure did suggest the title.
13276
From: jess_l_amortell
Date: Tue Jul 27, 2004 11:22pm
Subject: Re: Cahiers -- June, and July? (Rohmer ratios)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Gallagher"
> >
> > Here's another interesting article -- Rohmer discusses his preference
> > for 1.33 and comments on his 1954 article in which he argued for
> > Cinemascope.
> > >
> The Wide and the High
>
> by Eric Rohmer
> For my own
> part, I will say that I more and more became an resolute adversary
> of scope in particular and even, in general, of the wide screen.
> My only films in format 1/1.66, besides my first, "The Sign of the
> lion," are those that I shot in Super-16. All the others are in
> 1/1.33.
>
Thanks for this translation! I found the statement above a bit puzzling -- wasn't Autumn Tale, for one, at something like 1.66 (without apparent loss, and glorious to behold), at NYFF for example? Was I deluded? (IMDb also lists it as 1.66:1, for what it's worth.)
13277
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Jul 28, 2004 0:21am
Subject: Re: Authorship and the avant-garde (was: Bunuel 1 and 2)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Travis Miles
> On 7/27/04 5:24 PM, "hotlove666"
>
> > I have known two completely independent filmmakers -- both women,
> > both geniuses. But you can't see their films anywhere.
>
> I'd be very intrigued to know who you mean. Could you let us know?
They're probably on imdb -- everything else is:
Barbara Frank's The Last Campaign, Ying Wong Ho's Xenolith. Features
(one doc, one fiction) made with no institutional support. If a tree
falls in the forest...
13278
From: Elizabeth Nolan
Date: Wed Jul 28, 2004 0:31am
Subject: word slips
I'm not exactly sure what you are talking about reference
real errors versus Freudian slips but in
Alfred Hitchcock's THE WRONG MAN, Manny is asked
to write a note and makes the same error as the man who
held up the insurance company.
Message: 24
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 22:47:50 -0000
From: "joe_mcelhaney"
Subject: Re: Freudian slips in H'wd Fillms (Was: Tea and Sympathy (&
Lust for Life)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
>
>>>
>>> Thanks for that example! I'm collecting these because, after
>> noticing
>>> El Jaibo's slip in Los Olvidados, I started wondering how many
>>> Freudian slips occur in H'wd films. Ken Mogg reminded me of the
> one
>>> in Spellbound; this is the 2nd I have for my list.
Stop me when you've had enough but...
In The Woman in the Window, after Wanley murders Mazard, he makes
several slips to the District Attorney, such as referring to Mazard
as being dead even though the DA has yet to confirm this, and also
referring to traces of Mazard's blood being on a barbed wire fence
before the DA has even referred to the presence of this fence. Lang's
characters are frequently slipping up or unwittingly revealing
themselves through their faulty command of language, as in Spencer
Tracy's "anonymous" note in Fury in which his incorrect use of the
word momentum for memento unwittingly reveals his identity to Sylvia
Sidney, since she has corrected him on this incorrect usage earlier
in the film.
A dumber example: In Pal Joey, when one of the showgirls is standing
in the wings watching Frank Sinatra onstage, she tells a skeptical
Barbara Nichols how much she likes Sinatra. "You like anyone with
pants on," Nichols tells her. "That's not true," the girl says, "I
like a lot of people without pants on.....I mean...." Nichols: "Let
it lay, honey."
I've forgotten: What is the difference between an "ordinary" failure
in terms of using language and an actual Freudian slip? Throughout
Adam's Rib, whenever Spencer Tracy gets nervous or agitated, he
stumbles over language, saying things like "Don't get pinky, Cranky,"
to Hepburn when he means to say, "Don't get cranky, Pinky." We tend
to think of Freudian slips as revealing something about our
unconscious thoughts but in the case of Adam's Rib it seems to more
generally refer to Tracy's occasional out-of-control state.
13279
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Jul 28, 2004 1:07am
Subject: Re: Cahiers -- June, and July? (Rohmer ratios)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jess_l_amortell"
wrote:
> >
>
>
> Thanks for this translation! I found the statement above a bit
puzzling -- wasn't Autumn Tale, for one, at something like 1.66
(without apparent loss, and glorious to behold), at NYFF for
example? Was I deluded? (IMDb also lists it as 1.66:1, for what
it's worth.)
Not deluded, unless I am myself. Definitely 1.66
13280
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Jul 28, 2004 1:10am
Subject: Re: Authorship and the avant-garde (was: Bunuel 1 and 2)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> ---
> Barbara Frank's The Last Campaign, Ying Wong Ho's Xenolith.
Features
> (one doc, one fiction) made with no institutional support. If a
tree
> falls in the forest...
Well you heard it fall at least...
13281
From: Gabe Klinger
Date: Wed Jul 28, 2004 2:02am
Subject: on the misuse of 'Scope
Paul -- thank you for posting this. IMO, a *VERY* important criticism.
This has interested me for a long time, especially since my previous employer was
given a shitload of money to do a several-month-long tribute to the glories of
Cinema Scope on the eve of its 50th anniversary. Needless to say -- and even though
my opinion hardly mattered -- I thought this to be very dubious, for one, as Rohmer
states, to champion a commercial invention, and to not even go beyond the sponsor
imposed requisite of only having 20th Century Fox-branded "Cinema Scope" films
shown, and secondly, to further confuse the notion that 'Scope is better, reaching
mythological proportions (just ask any cine-festishist), just as when it was unveiled to
the world in 1953, and still being preached today to hundreds of idiots. Who hasn't
been in a theater when the curtains open and keep widening and widening until you
hear a gasp or two behind you -- yes ! our film today is in 'Scope, praise the lord,
we're in widescreen heaven !!!
I think Rohmer is right that 'Scope, when misemployed, is worse than any other
limitation cinema has to offer. It's a luxury (more expensive, etc.) so when it's abused,
the director looks like an idiot for it. 1.85:1 is even more pathetic, the least
interesting of all the aspect ratios. Gus Van Sant and Haris Savidis obviously
compromised when it was publicly stated (by the distributor or production company)
that projecting ELEPHANT in 1.85:1 is OK.
I started to come out of the whole "'Scope is rad" thing when I saw ELOGE DE
L'AMOUR and PISTOL OPERA in 2001. The "square" films looked better than anything I
saw that year -- the Suzuki especially, and what detail, and depth, and sheer *space*
allotted to each plan... absolutely breathtaking. Why, when this director shot one of
his best and most famous films in 'Scope? Obviously a statement was being made.
Similarly by Godard, who preserves the aspect ratios of films shown in HISTOIRE(S) DU
CINEMA and many of his other video works, but has only shot in 1.37 (or close to that
anyway) for most of his career and especially in more recent decades?
The year before, I saw EUREKA, the Japanese film which was praised for its gorgeous,
crisp sepia-toned 'Scope cinematography. I hardly noticed, and in fact found
something very troubling about the visual in this film, very indistinct, and yet with a
very interesting quality, but nothing like the qualities being described by critics....
This made me fear that any esoteric foreign film shot in 'Scope would immediately be
praised for its visuals as a default or for lack of anything else interesting to say on the
reviewer's part.
Snakes and funerals. Godard was critical a long time ago, but A WOMAN IS A WOMAN
is awesome. So is Nicholas Ray, who Rohmer leaves out of his article. I love the
"drunken" 'Scope frame, the 'Scope frame that so many Bollywood films use in
interesting and effective ways. A recent Indian film called SATHIYAA has a great
'Scope composition. A recent American film called WE DON'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE has
a 'Scope composition that grates the viewer. Gaspar Noe wouldn't have it any other
way.
But how would Rossellini have it in THE FLOWERS OF ST. FRANCIS? Would the sky
exist, and hence, would God's presence be there? 'Scope puts a roof over cinema, but
we know it's not impossible to film the sky. Ultimately it comes down to whether you
want to show the sky -- as Rohmer say, he likes to have the sky over his actors'
heads.
I still find 'Scope troubling, untamed, like something grotesque and kitsch and
coming from crude spectacle -- which is why it's mostly interesting in Hollywood
films and not in art films.
It's a crime that students "letterbox" their video films nowadays so that they're ready
for widescreen presentation. I once asked a friend why he did this in a short student
film when he could have easily shot without the black bars. He said: "My professor
said I should."
I told him to go out and see ELOGE DE L'AMOUR.
Gabe
13282
From: Craig Keller
Date: Wed Jul 28, 2004 2:17am
Subject: Re: Re: Cahiers -- June, and July? (Rohmer ratios)
>>
>>
>> Thanks for this translation! I found the statement above a bit
> puzzling -- wasn't Autumn Tale, for one, at something like 1.66
> (without apparent loss, and glorious to behold), at NYFF for
> example? Was I deluded? (IMDb also lists it as 1.66:1, for what
> it's worth.)
>
> Not deluded, unless I am myself. Definitely 1.66
Is it possible his Super-16 frame was blown up to 35mm 1.66, matted
from the 1.85? (Or, shot in 35mm at 1.33 then "matted" for 1.66?)
cmk.
13283
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Jul 28, 2004 2:24am
Subject: Re: on the misuse of 'Scope
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Gabe Klinger"
wrote:
> I still find 'Scope troubling, untamed, like something grotesque
and kitsch and
> coming from crude spectacle -- which is why it's mostly interesting
in Hollywood
> films and not in art films.
>
> It's a crime that students "letterbox" their video films nowadays
so that they're ready
> for widescreen presentation. I once asked a friend why he did this
in a short student
> film when he could have easily shot without the black bars. He
said: "My professor
> said I should."
>
> I told him to go out and see ELOGE DE L'AMOUR.
>
> Gabe
Bravo, bravo and re-bravo, Gabe. Boetticher loathed it, Lang loathed
it, Welles never even thought of using it. It can be great, it can be
awful, it can be a substitute for visual style (or for the
filmmaker's penis, or the critic's). Fuller mastered it because his
boss, Zanuck, needed to sell the process to the other studios and
asked him to make a film (a minor one: Hell and High Water) to show
that it was possible to actually move the camera in 'Scope. Fuller
went on to make the format sing in much better films than Hell and
High Water, and so did others. And even when an avant-garde or indie
or art film director uses it, wonderful effects can be achieved, but
the 'Scope presentation can also be misdirection, distracting us from
the nullity of the product, as it has so often been in big H'wd films
since it was invented.
13284
From: Michael Lieberman
Date: Wed Jul 28, 2004 2:41am
Subject: Re: on the misuse of 'Scope
Friends of mine (mostly working with DV) fall into the "cinemascope trap", i.e. the supposed professionalism about cropping the image for that specific, mammoth "look." With video of course,
the problem is that unless the project was shot anamorphically (and projected with a video projector with an anamorphic adapter), the projector "zooms in" to fill a 'scope screen, making the
image even more fuzzy. Pretty wretched.
I almost fell into the trap myself, working in 24p DV, but am shooting in 1.66:1 or less (the exact ratio is unclear), but regret not using 1.33 or 1.37, as my grasp on framing isn't always so
successful or interesting. But Gabe calling 2.35:1 a "roof over cinema's head" is a revelation, and for most films, so true.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gabe Klinger"
Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2004 02:02:59 -0000
To: a_film_by@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [a_film_by] on the misuse of 'Scope
Paul -- thank you for posting this. IMO, a *VERY* important criticism.
This has interested me for a long time, especially since my previous employer was
given a shitload of money to do a several-month-long tribute to the glories of
Cinema Scope on the eve of its 50th anniversary. Needless to say -- and even though
my opinion hardly mattered -- I thought this to be very dubious, for one, as Rohmer
states, to champion a commercial invention, and to not even go beyond the sponsor
imposed requisite of only having 20th Century Fox-branded "Cinema Scope" films
shown, and secondly, to further confuse the notion that 'Scope is better, reaching
mythological proportions (just ask any cine-festishist), just as when it was unveiled to
the world in 1953, and still being preached today to hundreds of idiots. Who hasn't
been in a theater when the curtains open and keep widening and widening until you
hear a gasp or two behind you -- yes ! our film today is in 'Scope, praise the lord,
we're in widescreen heaven !!!
I think Rohmer is right that 'Scope, when misemployed, is worse than any other
limitation cinema has to offer. It's a luxury (more expensive, etc.) so when it's abused,
the director looks like an idiot for it. 1.85:1 is even more pathetic, the least
interesting of all the aspect ratios. Gus Van Sant and Haris Savidis obviously
compromised when it was publicly stated (by the distributor or production company)
that projecting ELEPHANT in 1.85:1 is OK.
I started to come out of the whole "'Scope is rad" thing when I saw ELOGE DE
L'AMOUR and PISTOL OPERA in 2001. The "square" films looked better than anything I
saw that year -- the Suzuki especially, and what detail, and depth, and sheer *space*
allotted to each plan... absolutely breathtaking. Why, when this director shot one of
his best and most famous films in 'Scope? Obviously a statement was being made.
Similarly by Godard, who preserves the aspect ratios of films shown in HISTOIRE(S) DU
CINEMA and many of his other video works, but has only shot in 1.37 (or close to that
anyway) for most of his career and especially in more recent decades?
The year before, I saw EUREKA, the Japanese film which was praised for its gorgeous,
crisp sepia-toned 'Scope cinematography. I hardly noticed, and in fact found
something very troubling about the visual in this film, very indistinct, and yet with a
very interesting quality, but nothing like the qualities being described by critics....
This made me fear that any esoteric foreign film shot in 'Scope would immediately be
praised for its visuals as a default or for lack of anything else interesting to say on the
reviewer's part.
Snakes and funerals. Godard was critical a long time ago, but A WOMAN IS A WOMAN
is awesome. So is Nicholas Ray, who Rohmer leaves out of his article. I love the
"drunken" 'Scope frame, the 'Scope frame that so many Bollywood films use in
interesting and effective ways. A recent Indian film called SATHIYAA has a great
'Scope composition. A recent American film called WE DON'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE has
a 'Scope composition that grates the viewer. Gaspar Noe wouldn't have it any other
way.
But how would Rossellini have it in THE FLOWERS OF ST. FRANCIS? Would the sky
exist, and hence, would God's presence be there? 'Scope puts a roof over cinema, but
we know it's not impossible to film the sky. Ultimately it comes down to whether you
want to show the sky -- as Rohmer say, he likes to have the sky over his actors'
heads.
I still find 'Scope troubling, untamed, like something grotesque and kitsch and
coming from crude spectacle -- which is why it's mostly interesting in Hollywood
films and not in art films.
It's a crime that students "letterbox" their video films nowadays so that they're ready
for widescreen presentation. I once asked a friend why he did this in a short student
film when he could have easily shot without the black bars. He said: "My professor
said I should."
I told him to go out and see ELOGE DE L'AMOUR.
Gabe
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13285
From: Nick Wrigley
Date: Wed Jul 28, 2004 2:48am
Subject: Re: Re: on the misuse of 'Scope
> Bravo, bravo and re-bravo, Gabe. Boetticher loathed it, Lang loathed
> it, Welles never even thought of using it. It can be great, it can be
> awful, it can be a substitute for visual style (or for the
> filmmaker's penis, or the critic's).
Was it Lang who said that 'Scope was "only good for shooting funerals
and snakes"?
I know Ozu said it looked like a piece of toilet paper.
[Ozu also said, "I like big things - like whales. I also like to
collect brass. And I collect all sorts of patent medicines." -
according to Donald Richie.]
-
I'm reading Bogdanovich's WHO THE DEVIL MADE IT, and I'm reminded of
how important it is to hear filmmaker's actual words like in this book
of interviews. It's such important work.
-
Personally, I love Academy Ratio 1.37:1 to bits.
-Nick Wrigley>-
13286
From: Aaron Graham
Date: Wed Jul 28, 2004 3:01am
Subject: Re: on the misuse of 'Scope
> It's a crime that students "letterbox" their video films nowadays
so that they're ready
> for widescreen presentation. I once asked a friend why he did this
in a short student
> film when he could have easily shot without the black bars. He
said: "My professor
> said I should."
>
> I told him to go out and see ELOGE DE L'AMOUR.
>
> Gabe
What a remarkable post.
I found this problem with a lot of my fellow students. They were
simply trying to copy the look of their favorite widescreen films in
their dv shorts, and of course, failing miserably. I believe it's a
luxury, as you say, and that only accomplished filmmakers should try
their hand at the ratio. I can count on one hand the amount of
filmmakers who can/could use 'Scope well -- Tashlin, Ray, Carpenter --
and all of those filmmakers didn't start out in the format.
I've not seen ELOGE DE L'AMOUR yet, but now you've piqued my
curiosity.
-Aaron
13287
From: Patrick Ciccone
Date: Wed Jul 28, 2004 3:33am
Subject: ELOGE DE L'AMOUR
I don't think this was shown in 1.33 in NY--I think Alice Tully showed
it at least at 1.66, maybe 1.85, at the NYFF. I saw it elsewhere
afterward; same thing.
Godard still manages to get the sky in CONTEMPT, and the sea below.
PWC
13288
From:
Date: Tue Jul 27, 2004 11:47pm
Subject: Re: Re: on the misuse of 'Scope
Nick Wrigley wrote:
>Personally, I love Academy Ratio 1.37:1 to bits.
So do I, but, gee, I feel the need to stick up for 'Scope a little bit here.
Bill's certainly right that many of the classic Hollywood auteurs disliked
it, and often with very good reason. Welles was another filmmaker of this
period who was totally opposed to it (and he eloquently discussed his opposition to
it with Bill, as a matter of fact. Bill can recall this, or I can dig up the
interview myself.) I didn't discuss this matter with Peter Bogdanovich, but
I'd wager that his never having made a film in 'Scope is not accidental (nor
is his mastery of the square television image in his recent tele-features.)
But, gee, I can think of a persuasive counter argument being made by using
Minnelli as an example. Or Preminger, especially in "Bunny Lake Is Missing" and
"In Harm's Way." Or Ray. Or Fleischer. Or, perhaps above all, BLAKE
EDWARDS. These guys were able to seize what was special about the dimensions of
this format, and spin beautiful poetry out of it. I don't think Ford cared for
the format, though I thought his use of it in "The Long Gray Line" (my favorite
Ford) is positively masterful.
And I would maintain that Woody Allen's cinema was totally revitalized by his
recent use of 'Scope (the first he worked in the format in over twenty years)
in "Anything Else."
I'm fascinated by the posts being made, and glancing at my Top 10 on the
group's site, only one film on it is 'Scope ("Bonjour tristesse"), but it's not a
clear-cut matter... for me.
Peter
13289
From: Craig Keller
Date: Wed Jul 28, 2004 3:51am
Subject: Re: ELOGE DE L'AMOUR
> I don't think this was shown in 1.33 in NY--I think Alice Tully showed
> it at least at 1.66, maybe 1.85, at the NYFF. I saw it elsewhere
> afterward; same thing.
I saw it once at the Seattle Film Festival, and then twice at the
Varsity Theater while I was living out there, and it was definitely
matted.
Its images are so lovely though that even though I've only seen it in
1.33 on DVD, I carry a false memory that in 2002 I saw it like that in
the theater, along with another 2001 film (not a false memory of seeing
it in the theater), 'Pistol Opera' -- and yes Gabe, these two films
alone vindicated the use of Academy ratio for the new millennium.
'Pistol Opera' on the large-screen (the first way I saw it) was a
shocking experience.
Further vindication: watch the trailer for 'Notre musique' (I think you
can still get to it from http://www.festival-cannes.fr ). Godard
creates one of the most beautiful tracking shots of all time (most
beautiful scenes of all time?) in the Kingdom of Heaven section, where
the camera travels right while the girls are playing with the
whippoorwill-rope-thingies (I have no idea what these are called) --
the body its movement, the sound, the camera-movement add up to a kind
of hushed transcendence in 4:3.
craig.
13290
From: Michael Worrall
Date: Wed Jul 28, 2004 4:21am
Subject: Re: on the misuse of 'Scope
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Nick Wrigley
>
>
> I know Ozu said it looked like a piece of toilet paper.
Yes, but what about the other Japanese directors that shoot in
'Scope? I can name Ichikawa (w/ "Fires on the Plain" for one),
Oshima & Kurosawa.
In Hong Kong: some of Tsui Hark's finest films are in "Scope"
"Once Upon a Time in China I,II & III" "Green Snake"
There are Truffaut's "400 Blows", "Shoot the Piano Player", "Jules
and Jim" and "Mississippi Mermaid", Godard's "Two or Three
Things I Know About Her", & "Contempt" (which I consider one of
the greatest 'Scope films.) Then there's Ophul's "Lola Montes"
Plus Cukor's "A Star is Born", 85% percent of the work of John
Boorman, almost all of John Carpenter, a great deal of Blake
Edwards, Sergio Leone's Techniscope westerns….
Terence Davis last two films, Ken Russell's "The Music Lovers",
"The Devils", "Lisztomania" and "The Boyfriend" --a film which to
me is unimaginable in any other ratio.
This was probably discussed before, but a lot of poor use of
Scope came in the 80's with the boom of home video, creating
the dreaded "TV safe" area and Super 35, a type of "bogus'
anamorphic preferred by James Cameron. (Though I was
surprised to hear that Scorcese doesn't mind shooting in it, and
yes Bill, I know "Point Break" was shot in Super 35.)
As for misuse of Scope, check out any film by Tony Scott. Actors
and action are either centered or to extreme left to right --no need
to pan and scan-- along with shallow focus as to not to distract
from the high-gloss television image.
Michael Worrall
13291
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Wed Jul 28, 2004 4:36am
Subject: Re: on the misuse of 'Scope
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, ptonguette@a... wrote:
"...I can think of a persuasive counter argument being made by using
Minnelli as an example. Or Preminger, especially in 'Bunny Lake Is
Missing' and 'In Harm's Way.' Or Ray. Or Fleischer. Or, perhaps
above all, BLAKE EDWARDS. These guys were able to seize what was
special about the dimensions of this format, and spin beautiful
poetry out of it. I don't think Ford cared for the format, though I
thought his use of it in 'The Long Gray Line' (my favorite Ford) is
positively masterful."
Ford's use of 'scope in 7 WOMEN was even better than in THE LONG GRAY
LINE in my view. I would certainly agree that Edwards consistently
made the best use of 'scope though. By and large,it seems that 'scope
has been used with little regard to the story being told other than a
big story requires a big picture. Of course, there are the
exceptions you noted above.
It's of interest that Mizoguchi's only trip to Hollywood was to
study 'scope. He visited the Fox lot where he saw THE ROBE which he
didn't like. He was of the opinion that only certain stories lent
themselves to 'scope treatment, specifically picaresque travel tales
like "Shank's Mare" (an 18th century comic novel)because one could
show several little dramas playing out simultaneously in the same
contiguous space. The filmmaker would have to think like a painter of
e-kakimono, picture scrolls that are gradually unrolled to show an
illustrated narrative.
Richard
13292
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Wed Jul 28, 2004 4:44am
Subject: Re: on the misuse of 'Scope
I guess I agree with some things Gabe said and rolled my eyes at some
others. Then I clicked on the replies and found a couple of people
saying that his post is great, even a revelation. Okay. Mostly I was
left with a strong urge to make a film that all of you will hate. Not
because I hate any of you - I love you all more than I love kitty
cats, and that's quite a lot! But whenever Gabe or anybody else makes
a declaration that something is limited, uninteresting, ugly, etc.,
etc., it makes that thing more and more attractive and intriguing to me.
For each type of frame I can think of a director who has done great
things with it. It is not for me to say whether he or she would have
done "just as well" or better with another frame. Welles and Rohmer's
use of 1.33:1 is magical. Carpenter's use of 2.35:1 is also very
great. Spielberg has done wonders with 1.85:1 and 2.35:1 (even when
using Super 35, which I think is slightly blasphemous).
It's true that most critics miss the point, with alarming regularity.
But this is not news, is it?
My first "proper" short film was done in the manner Gabe damned, but
my prof had nothing to do with it. On the other hand, I wouldn't go
so far as to defend its mise-en-scene as anything approaching
"interesting." Especially since 70% of the mise-en-scene is my apartment.
-Jaime
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Gabe Klinger"
> Paul -- thank you for posting this. IMO, a *VERY* important criticism.
>
> This has interested me for a long time, especially since my previous
employer was
> given a shitload of money to do a several-month-long tribute to the
glories of
> Cinema Scope on the eve of its 50th anniversary. Needless to say --
and even though
> my opinion hardly mattered -- I thought this to be very dubious, for
one, as Rohmer
> states, to champion a commercial invention, and to not even go
beyond the sponsor
> imposed requisite of only having 20th Century Fox-branded "Cinema
Scope" films
> shown, and secondly, to further confuse the notion that 'Scope is
better, reaching
> mythological proportions (just ask any cine-festishist), just as
when it was unveiled to
> the world in 1953, and still being preached today to hundreds of
idiots. Who hasn't
> been in a theater when the curtains open and keep widening and
widening until you
> hear a gasp or two behind you -- yes ! our film today is in 'Scope,
praise the lord,
> we're in widescreen heaven !!!
>
> I think Rohmer is right that 'Scope, when misemployed, is worse
than any other
> limitation cinema has to offer. It's a luxury (more expensive, etc.)
so when it's abused,
> the director looks like an idiot for it. 1.85:1 is even more
pathetic, the least
> interesting of all the aspect ratios. Gus Van Sant and Haris
Savidis obviously
> compromised when it was publicly stated (by the distributor or
production company)
> that projecting ELEPHANT in 1.85:1 is OK.
>
> I started to come out of the whole "'Scope is rad" thing when I saw
ELOGE DE
> L'AMOUR and PISTOL OPERA in 2001. The "square" films looked better
than anything I
> saw that year -- the Suzuki especially, and what detail, and depth,
and sheer *space*
> allotted to each plan... absolutely breathtaking. Why, when this
director shot one of
> his best and most famous films in 'Scope? Obviously a statement was
being made.
> Similarly by Godard, who preserves the aspect ratios of films shown
in HISTOIRE(S) DU
> CINEMA and many of his other video works, but has only shot in 1.37
(or close to that
> anyway) for most of his career and especially in more recent decades?
>
> The year before, I saw EUREKA, the Japanese film which was praised
for its gorgeous,
> crisp sepia-toned 'Scope cinematography. I hardly noticed, and in
fact found
> something very troubling about the visual in this film, very
indistinct, and yet with a
> very interesting quality, but nothing like the qualities being
described by critics....
> This made me fear that any esoteric foreign film shot in 'Scope
would immediately be
> praised for its visuals as a default or for lack of anything else
interesting to say on the
> reviewer's part.
>
> Snakes and funerals. Godard was critical a long time ago, but A
WOMAN IS A WOMAN
> is awesome. So is Nicholas Ray, who Rohmer leaves out of his
article. I love the
> "drunken" 'Scope frame, the 'Scope frame that so many Bollywood
films use in
> interesting and effective ways. A recent Indian film called SATHIYAA
has a great
> 'Scope composition. A recent American film called WE DON'T LIVE HERE
ANYMORE has
> a 'Scope composition that grates the viewer. Gaspar Noe wouldn't
have it any other
> way.
>
> But how would Rossellini have it in THE FLOWERS OF ST. FRANCIS?
Would the sky
> exist, and hence, would God's presence be there? 'Scope puts a roof
over cinema, but
> we know it's not impossible to film the sky. Ultimately it comes
down to whether you
> want to show the sky -- as Rohmer say, he likes to have the sky over
his actors'
> heads.
>
> I still find 'Scope troubling, untamed, like something grotesque and
kitsch and
> coming from crude spectacle -- which is why it's mostly interesting
in Hollywood
> films and not in art films.
>
> It's a crime that students "letterbox" their video films nowadays so
that they're ready
> for widescreen presentation. I once asked a friend why he did this
in a short student
> film when he could have easily shot without the black bars. He said:
"My professor
> said I should."
>
> I told him to go out and see ELOGE DE L'AMOUR.
>
> Gabe
13293
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Jul 28, 2004 5:04am
Subject: Re: Re: on the misuse of 'Scope
--- Michael Worrall
>
> There are Truffaut's "400 Blows", "Shoot the Piano
> Player", "Jules
> and Jim" and "Mississippi Mermaid", Godard's "Two or
> Three
> Things I Know About Her", & "Contempt" (which I
> consider one of
> the greatest 'Scope films.) Then there's Ophul's
> "Lola Montes"
>
> Plus Cukor's "A Star is Born", 85% percent of the
> work of John
> Boorman, almost all of John Carpenter, a great deal
> of Blake
> Edwards, Sergio Leone's Techniscope westerns….
>
> Terence Davis last two films, Ken Russell's "The
> Music Lovers",
> "The Devils", "Lisztomania" and "The Boyfriend" --a
> film which to
> me is unimaginable in any other ratio.
>
Indeed. To this honor roll I'd add "Made in U.S.A.,"
"Lola," "The Tarnished Angels," "Forty Guns,"
"Le Lit de la Vierge," "Pierrot le Fou," "Last Year at
Marienbad" and "Gerry."
13294
From:
Date: Wed Jul 28, 2004 5:23am
Subject: Re: on the misuse of 'Scope
Gabe, in a classic bit of Gabe-like provocation:
>
> This has interested me for a long time, especially since my
previous employer was
> given a shitload of money to do a several-month-long tribute to
the glories of
> Cinema Scope on the eve of its 50th anniversary. Needless to say --
and even though
> my opinion hardly mattered -- I thought this to be very dubious,
for one, as Rohmer
> states, to champion a commercial invention...
So, I suppose we shouldn't have any tributes to the cinema itself,
huh? Or are people here somehow under the impression that the
cinematic apparatus was invented by a bunch of renegade French film
critics in the 1950s?
>
> I think Rohmer is right that 'Scope, when misemployed, is worse
than any other
> limitation cinema has to offer. It's a luxury (more expensive,
etc.) so when it's abused,
> the director looks like an idiot for it.
I'm confused. You say that misuse of scope makes the director look
like an idiot. Someone else agreed with you and said that scope is
used to *hide* bad filmmaking. Well, which is it, guys? Maybe bad
filmmaking is just bad filmmaking, no matter what the aspect ratio??
> 1.85:1 is even more pathetic, the least
> interesting of all the aspect ratios. Gus Van Sant and Haris
Savidis obviously
> compromised when it was publicly stated (by the distributor or
production company)
> that projecting ELEPHANT in 1.85:1 is OK.
I guess the fact that ELEPHANT was made for the great and
artistically uncompromised medium of TELEVISION had nothing to do
with its being shot Academy. Nope. Bold artistic statements all
around, especially if it's a director we like.
>
> I started to come out of the whole "'Scope is rad" thing when I
saw ELOGE DE
> L'AMOUR and PISTOL OPERA in 2001. The "square" films looked better
than anything I
> saw that year -- the Suzuki especially, and what detail, and
depth, and sheer *space*
> allotted to each plan...
Could it be that in a world where widescreen has become the
standard, that Academy ratio just seems like a breath of fresh air?
I don't think it has anything to do with the absolute qualities of
any of these formats. Plenty of lousy Academy ratio films get made
every year, too.
> absolutely breathtaking. Why, when this director shot one of
> his best and most famous films in 'Scope? Obviously a statement
was being made.
Could it be that it was because PISTOL OPERA was partly produced by
TV Tokyo??
> This made me fear that any esoteric foreign film shot in 'Scope
would immediately be
> praised for its visuals as a default or for lack of anything else
interesting to say on the
> reviewer's part.
You keep wanting to diss Scope, but all you wind up doing is dissing
critics and audiences. If an esoteric foreign film shot in scope
gets praised for its visuals by a dumb critic, then why is
widescreen somehow at fault? The same argument could be made for
modern use of black & white. Surely black & white isn't some kind of
insidious cinematic terror waiting to be unleashed?
>
> Snakes and funerals.
BTW, I know how much people like to quote this one, but apparently,
George Stevens originated the criticism. Who can confirm/deny?
>
> But how would Rossellini have it in THE FLOWERS OF ST. FRANCIS?
Would the sky
> exist, and hence, would God's presence be there? 'Scope puts a
roof over cinema, but
> we know it's not impossible to film the sky. Ultimately it comes
down to whether you
> want to show the sky -- as Rohmer say, he likes to have the sky
over his actors'
> heads.
So does Terrence Malick, and he did okay with THE THIN RED LINE, in
my opinion. And just out of curiosity, where was the roof in 2001: A
SPACE ODYSSEY?
> I still find 'Scope troubling, untamed, like something grotesque
and kitsch and
> coming from crude spectacle.
So is cinema. Sorry.
> It's a crime that students "letterbox" their video films nowadays
so that they're ready
> for widescreen presentation. I once asked a friend why he did this
in a short student
> film when he could have easily shot without the black bars. He
said: "My professor
> said I should."
>
Well, that's obviously stupid, and there you and I agree. But why
should Anthony Mann and John Boorman have to pay for that idiot's
sins?
-Bilge
13295
From:
Date: Wed Jul 28, 2004 5:36am
Subject: Re: on the misuse of 'Scope
One more thing...
Gabe:
>
> But how would Rossellini have it in THE FLOWERS OF ST. FRANCIS?
> Would the sky
> exist, and hence, would God's presence be there?
I understand the point you're trying to make, but this is a bizarre
reference. FLOWERS OF ST. FRANCIS was made in 1950, before the
advent of popular widescreen formats. It's not like Rossellini had
any kind of choice. (Although I'm sure he preferred Academy, since
most of his films were in that ratio.)
Also, to the point that many of the great directors who used Scope
well didn't start in Scope -- this is another weird argument. Most
first time filmmakers, unless they were making their debuts for a
studio, rarely got to use Scope, or any widescreen format. Many of
them still don't, because widescreen (on film, anyway) costs money.
And many directors from the 50s and 60s who excelled at Scope
probably didn't get their starts in widescreen because it didn't
exist in the 40s and early 50s. (That's probably the reason a lot of
them still distrusted it later on.)
A good director will know what format to use, and how to use it
well. A bad director likely won't.
Cinemascope doesn't kill people, people kill people.
-Bilge
13296
From: Gabe Klinger
Date: Wed Jul 28, 2004 6:03am
Subject: Re: on the misuse of 'Scope
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, ebiri@a... wrote:
> Gabe, in a classic bit of Gabe-like provocation:
I feel like we're back in a galaxy far, far away...
> I thought this to be very dubious,
> for one, as Rohmer
> > states, to champion a commercial invention...
>
> So, I suppose we shouldn't have any tributes to the cinema itself,
> huh?
I'm aware of the faultiness of my own logic here, Mr. Bilge. But nevertheless it
shouldn't go without comment that Cinema Scope, though developed, ironically, by a
Frenchman and later bought by Zanuck, is an invention originally used to make
money. 'Scope becomes interesting precisely when it is manipulated -- that's why all
of its bastard sister formats used in films by Ichikawa, Demy, and others are so
interesting. But Scope, simply as a novelty, is not so interesting.
There's also the invention of the Arriflex -- according to Godard invented by Hitler to
use lighter cameras in battle. I would feel dubious about commemorating the
anniversary of the Arriflex.
Two films made shortly after the invention of Cinema Scope already showed
interesting conflicts/manipulations: Richard Fleischer's 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE
SEA,which was shot entirely with one lens, giving it a very strange feeling that is
completely uncharacteristic of Hollywood films from the period, and as Bill
mentioned, HELL ON HIGH WATER, where you can begin to see Fuller's own
articulation of the format.
> I guess the fact that ELEPHANT was made for the great and
> artistically uncompromised medium of TELEVISION had nothing to do
> with its being shot Academy. Nope. Bold artistic statements all
> around, especially if it's a director we like.
I am not ignorant about this or any of the other facts that you cite. I've seen the film
in both aspect ratios and the difference was substantial -- which leads me to believe
that Savidis had 1.37:1 in mind when he shot ELEPHANT, and that should
ABSOLUTELY be carried into theatres.
> Could it be that in a world where widescreen has become the
> standard, that Academy ratio just seems like a breath of fresh air?
For starters, the 'Scope image is infinitely more difficult to focus than the 1.37 ratio.
Also, the 'Scope lens stretches the image, making it grainier than any other aspect
ratio. The 'Scope image can be very hard on the eyes if you ask me. Also don't forget
Rohmer's comment about ceilings being lowered, and so, screens smaller.
When I saw PISTOL OPERA it was in Rotterdam at one of the Pathe cinemas, which
have the tallest screens of any multiplex cinema I have ever been to. The image was
perfect. (Mind you that week I also saw Garrel's SAUAVAGE INNOCENCE, in the same
theatre, and that looked awesome too.)
> > I still find 'Scope troubling, untamed, like something grotesque
> and kitsch and
> > coming from crude spectacle.
>
> So is cinema. Sorry.
No I don't think so. I had the pleasant experience of discovering Raymond Depardon's
films recently. He has extraordinary taste in cinema, in the language of cinema etc.,
and his films are not a crude spectacle.
That doesn't mean I'm not interested in the crude spectacle. But there are two sides to
cinema.
>But why
> should Anthony Mann and John Boorman have to pay for that idiot's
> sins?
On my list of favorite filsm you will find eight in 'Scope:
The Debut
House of Bamboo
Play Dirty
Red Line 7000
Ride Lonesome
Shoot the Piano Player
Two or Three Things I Know About Her
The Young Girls of Rochefort
Gabe
13297
From: Paul Fileri
Date: Wed Jul 28, 2004 6:40am
Subject: Re: on the misuse of 'Scope
Bilge:
>
> A good director will know what format to use, and how to use it
> well. A bad director likely won't.
>
> Cinemascope doesn't kill people, people kill people.
Good points.
Both Rohmer's essay and Godard's short piece strike me as better seen
within the province of each of their own bodies of work which walk arm
and arm with their own bodies of critical thought: poetic manifestos of
a sort. In the same way, I'm sure Brakhage's writing on the import of
certain film techniques doesn't need to transfer over to one's view of
a commercial filmmaking process. Both can be embraced. Because taken
further neither present especially convincing stances; they don't seem
to be very tenable when applied to a broader context. Why take
different aspect ratios, give them essential qualities that determine
their potential and suitability to different circumstances, and even
anthropomorphize them?
And this should be turned around too: What about misuses of the academy
ratio? What does that say about 'Scope?
The standardizing, commercial, and technological aspects of the matter
don't need to be mixed up either. CinemaScope, as a technological
invention concerning lenses which has a pre-history of its own, clearly
arose not only out of commercial but also out of scientific interests,
among others, along the way (viz. cinema itself). The history of
standardization that explains how the academy ratio was set in place,
of course, involves its effective triumph over other ratios. For
example, what's there to be made of 28mm gauge film which has a
slightly different aspect ration of 1:36? What is the metaphysical
and/or aesthetic significance of this format underdog in relation to
the tyranny of the academy ratio during that period?
Gabe:
> I started to come out of the whole "'Scope is rad" thing when I saw
ELOGE DE
> L'AMOUR and PISTOL OPERA in 2001.
Do you mean you've proceeded from "'Scope is rad" to "Academy is rad?"
Both are great films, and I especially love ELOGE, but their beautiful
use of the 4:3 ratio didn't edge me away from 'Scope in the general
scheme of things. Nor does a great 'Scope ratio make me say, "ah! now
that's truly cinema," surpassing the possibilities 4:3 could provide. I
mean, yes, a recognition that one now prefers one ratio to another
coheres, but to say there is evidence of anything broader is a
conclusion that's neither going to hold nor gain much intersubjective
agreement. 'Scope - just one more tool in the artist's toolbox and I
don't see why it might tend to corrupt filmmakers.
- Paul
13298
From:
Date: Wed Jul 28, 2004 7:37am
Subject: Re: on the misuse of 'Scope
Gabe:
>
> There's also the invention of the Arriflex -- according to Godard
invented by Hitler to
> use lighter cameras in battle. I would feel dubious about
commemorating the
> anniversary of the Arriflex.
Hitler wasn't an inventor, for starters. The Germans did develop the
Arriflex camera for dubious purposes, but what's so wrong about
using it for good (like, oh, say, verite documentary filmmaking in
the 60s, or to teach film students to work in celluloid)?
But more importantly, what does this have to do with CinemaScope,
which, as far as I know, was *not* created by Nazis?
>
>>
> > I guess the fact that ELEPHANT was made for the great and
> > artistically uncompromised medium of TELEVISION had nothing to
do
> > with its being shot Academy. Nope. Bold artistic statements all
> > around, especially if it's a director we like.
>
> I am not ignorant about this or any of the other facts that you
cite. I've seen the film
> in both aspect ratios and the difference was substantial -- which
leads me to believe
> that Savidis had 1.37:1 in mind when he shot ELEPHANT, and that
should
> ABSOLUTELY be carried into theatres.
Of course. But now you're just talking about improper projection.
>
> > Could it be that in a world where widescreen has become the
> > standard, that Academy ratio just seems like a breath of fresh
air?
>
> For starters, the 'Scope image is infinitely more difficult to
focus than the 1.37 ratio.
Sure. So are long lenses. What's your point?
> Also, the 'Scope lens stretches the image, making it grainier than
any other aspect
> ratio. The 'Scope image can be very hard on the eyes if you ask me.
What's funny is that everyone has gotten done excoriating Super 35mm
round these parts, which was meant to solve a lot of these problems
that you cite (the stretching, the grain, the smaller range of
lenses, etc). But there have been lots of developments to the
widescreen format over the years. When properly projected, it can
look great. Again, it's not the format's fault if there aren't
projectionists able to deal with it.
>
> > > I still find 'Scope troubling, untamed, like something
grotesque
> > and kitsch and
> > > coming from crude spectacle.
> >
> > So is cinema. Sorry.
>
> No I don't think so. I had the pleasant experience of discovering
Raymond Depardon's
> films recently. He has extraordinary taste in cinema, in the
language of cinema etc.,
> and his films are not a crude spectacle.
I'm talking about the origins of cinema, Gabe. You said "coming from
crude spectacle" so I assumed you were talking about the origins of
widescreen, not its current use. When cinema was developed as a
technology, it was something quite different from what it was to
become, obviously. Widescreen might have been developed to get butts
in seats in the 50s and to counteract the popularity of television --
I submit to you that, when used by great filmmakers, it became
something else.
>
> On my list of favorite filsm you will find eight in 'Scope:
>
> The Debut
> House of Bamboo
> Play Dirty
> Red Line 7000
> Ride Lonesome
> Shoot the Piano Player
> Two or Three Things I Know About Her
> The Young Girls of Rochefort
>
I knew you'd agree...
-Bilge
13299
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Wed Jul 28, 2004 10:32am
Subject: Re: Bunuel 1 and 2 (was: Allegory)
> The funniest moment in Phantom is when the
> unwilling spectators of Lonsdale's spanking start to leave and
> he cries plaintively, "Let the monks stay at least!"
Yeah, that's grand. And I love the whole sequence with the "missing"
girl, and the "explanation" of how she was found. Genius.
Every general reference book I read that covers Bunuel seems to
regard his last two films as representing a slight dip in quality.
I've never agreed.
And what impresses me most in PHANATOM, which never gets any credit,
is the complex interweaving of stories, the way part of one story
will crash through another, as when the Spanish guitar music blasts
in to accompany a shot of a stuffed fox (if I'm remembering
correctly).
And the ostrich!
13300
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Wed Jul 28, 2004 10:28am
Subject: Re: Authorship and the avant-garde (was: Bunuel 1 and 2)
Noailles, having seen UN CHIEN ANDALOU, could hardly have been
shocked by what Bunuel handed him with L'AGE D'OR! UCA features far
more blatantly shocking imagery - nudity, violence - than L'AD'O,
which is more insidious and open to interpretation.
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