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Posts From the Internet Film Discussion Group, a_film_by
This group is dedicated to discussing film as art
from an auteurist perspective. The index to these files of posts can be found at http://www.fredcamper.com/afilmby/ The purpose of these files is to make our posts more accessible, for downloading and reading and to search engines.
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16401
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Mon Oct 4, 2004 4:45pm
Subject: Re: You have to draw the line somewhere (Was: Blier, editing)
> I tend to think LAWRENCE OF ARABIA might have been kinda turgid if
> Lean hadn't just been inspired by the nouvelle vague's direct
> cutting. Most of my favourite moments in it are scene changes.
As this is an auteurist board, can't we at least agree that it's
obligatory to trash LAWRENCE OF ARABIA? No? Oh, okay. - Dan
16402
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Mon Oct 4, 2004 4:50pm
Subject: Triple Agent (Was: NYFF: Scheduled appearances by directors?)
> "Triple Agent" was projected 1.85 : 1. That also surprised me, since
> according to IMDb it was filmed on 35mm film, and Rohmer indicated he
> prefers his 35mm films to be shown full frame, 1:33 : 1.
And yet the framing looked just right to me. What did you think?
This film is quiet but rather amazing. Multiple viewings seem almost
necessary. A quibble, though: I was surprised at the lighting, which had
a kind of "period" quality that I would have expected Rohmer to reject. -
Dan
16403
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Oct 4, 2004 4:55pm
Subject: Re: Re: Lang's secret cinema
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
I grieve.
As do we all.
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16404
From: iangjohnston
Date: Mon Oct 4, 2004 4:57pm
Subject: Re: Judex (Feuillade) starts on TCM tonight
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Noel Vera"
wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> > Judex (Feuillade) will show its first two hours on TCM at
Midnight
> Eastern
> > tonight.
>
> Wonderful stuff. I need to see Les Vampires again--the first time
I
> found it unremarkable (on the big screen, yet!)--but Judex caught
me
> right off. Feuillade's visual style looks deceptively plain, but
he
> has a way with multiple characters and situations and storytelling
> pace that reminds me of Victor Hugo (and isn't that Licorice Kid
one
> of Hugo's gamins?). Very old-fashioned, utterly invigorating.
I'd rate LES VAMPIRES above JUDEX, and FANTOMAS even higher still.
But I've never seen these on the big screen (yet...?), all on DVD
for the first time over the last year.
16405
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Oct 4, 2004 4:58pm
Subject: Re: Re: Blier, editing
--- cairnsdavid1967 wrote:
>
> The greatest cut of all time, just about, is from
> O'Toole blowing out
> a match to the sun rising in the desert. And there's
> a nice one where
> he holds up his new arab robes to blow in the wind
> and we then cut to
> him wearing them as he gallops along on a camel. The
> epic sensibility
> gets a welcome shot in the arm from this briskness.
>
It's neck-and-neck for greatest cut honors with the
bone-to-spaceship cut in "2001"
>
>
>
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16406
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Oct 4, 2004 5:00pm
Subject: Re: You have to draw the line somewhere (Was: Blier, editing)
--- Dan Sallitt wrote:
>
> As this is an auteurist board, can't we at least
> agree that it's
> obligatory to trash LAWRENCE OF ARABIA? No? Oh,
> okay. - Dan
>
This trashing is what led tomy disenchantment with
auteurism. "Lawrence of Arabia" is a VERY great film
-- cue Jacques Rivette on Howard Hawks.
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16407
From: thebradstevens
Date: Mon Oct 4, 2004 5:05pm
Subject: Re: Rivette's Evidence
"Brad, I think there is a logical flaw in something else that you are
arguing here. To say that 'ordinary' filmgoers get involved in a
movie, and that it is the mise en scene (and so on) which creates
this involvement - I have no argument with you up to here. But then
to say that therefore the ordinary moviegoer can
recognise/appreciate/analyse mise en scene, or has some more natural
affinity to it than some other phantom hyper-sophisticate, is almost
as sophistic as Rivette in the 50s! The fact is that ordinary
filmgoers - and many more 'cultivated' ones as well - don't see
the 'work' of style at all. That's why they need us, the critics, to
point it out, break it down, and teach them about it!!"
Of course, one's appreciation of (to stay with the example I was
using) THE SEARCHERS can be deepened if one consciously becomes aware
of Ford's stylistic decisions. But any viewer who has been moved or
enthralled by that film has responded to the mise en scene. If we
identify with or are frustrated by the various characters, then we
are taking a position that relates to Ford's exploration of settling
and wandering. What else could we conceivably be responding to? What
else could our emotional responses to characters and events mean? And
this response is shaped and controlled by the mise en scene.
Of course, many intellectuals in the 50s simply rejected Hollywood
cinema outright, and regarded the emotional responses of audiences
with sneering contempt. This is why they had not the slightest hope
of understanding these films.
"The 'proof of Hawks' genius' (or anyone else's, for that matter) may
have been well and truly 'on the screen', but that doesn't mean they
could see it! Seeing - in many senses - is something you have to be
trained to do (another theme of Routt's essay), it is not natural or
innate in this sense."
The millions of people who regularly watched (and, we must assume,
enjoyed) films by Hitchcock, Hawks, Sirk, Minnelli, etc. seem to have
required remarkably little training.
"And what does it mean (as Jean-Pierre asked) to assert, after
Rivette, that people 'refuse to see the proof', as you defiantly
repeat, Brad? Sure - to recall Mike's point - they might refuse to
look properly, to take something seriously, which is a lamentable
business. But they don't SEE the marks of genius at a glance and then
see: 'I refuse that proof', surely? That doesn't make any logical,
real-world sense to me."
To stay with my SEARCHERS/rocking chair example. First of all, can I
assume that there could not conceivably be any argument that the
chair relates in some way to the film's exploration of settling and
wandering, home and wilderness? Perhaps it does other things as well,
but this certainly.
The chair is there, on the screen. Anyone who watches the film
without falling asleep sees it. Perhaps certain viewers might regard
it as just a 'realistic' detail (pioneer cabins undoubtedly contained
chairs, as well as tables, walls, etc.). But Ford places the chair at
the front of the frame during at least one crucial scene, even using
it to obscure our view of John Wayne (see the frame reproduction on
p. 331 of Tag Gallagher's book) - "this object", Ford tells us "is
important". The 'marks of genius', the 'proof', are there to be seen,
I think quite unarguably. You are either satisfied by proof, or you
are not.
16408
From: Craig Keller
Date: Mon Oct 4, 2004 5:08pm
Subject: Travestied 'Notre musique' (was: Triple Agent AR / NYFF)
> Just wondering, could it have anything to do with where the subtitles
> are positioned on the print they received? If shown at 1.37, the
> subtitles would be too high and would seem to obtrude upon the image.
How difficult is it to remove the "soft matte" from the projector?
Isn't there a way to adjust the lens to get the 1.37 image to fit on a
screen typically used for 1.85 features? I really have no idea, which
is why I ask -- if it's easy enough to slide a plate out of the
machine, or make some adjustment, I'm perplexed as to why even five
seconds into the film, no-one (apparently?) got up and went out to tell
the staff or implore them to alert the projectionist. Wellspring has
already announced that it will be shown at 1.37:1 everywhere during its
theatrical run, so the subtitles should be printed at a normal height
on the image. Many questions arise for me here: How was it that prints
of Suzuki's 'Pistol Opera' were projected properly at 1.37:1 one and
two years back in this country (thankfully), but the new Godard isn't
given the same accord? How is it that Kent Jones or other Film Society
staff were unaware of Godard's strict 1.37:1 framing, and didn't issue
special instructions to the projectionist beforehand, or make a request
that it be shown in a theater which could accommodate an Academy image
(like the Walter Reade, for sure)? NYFF's not like Toronto where there
are approximately 600 films being exhibited, and it could have slipped
between the cracks. Finally, and disturbing maybe only to me, why is
this the first time I'm hearing that it was projected incorrectly at
Toronto? To me, projecting a 1.37 Godard at 1.85 is tantamount to
showing the film in reverse, or mixing up reels.
I'm going to try and get someone on the phone to see if it's possible
to save tonight's screening.
craig.
16409
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Oct 4, 2004 5:13pm
Subject: Re: Rivette's evidence
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Adrian Martin wrote:
> The other things that has always struck me about this
quintessentially
> youthful statement by Rivette: if all we had to do was point at a
screen and
> say 'the proof of genius is the evidence on screen', then there
would
> absolutely nothing more for any of us critics to do! - except
point, of
> course, and I guess a lot writing on film is just an elaborate way
of
> pointing!! Rivette's evidential claim is one that tends to do away
with the
> need for any analytical demonstration or critical discussion
whatsoever.
>
> That said, there HAS been some very extremely interesting commentary
> spinning out from Rivette's crazy statement.
One line of interpretation has been to treat it as a description of
Hawks' invisible style. Daney said that Hawks refused l'ecriture by
privileging metonymy (the blood in the beer) over metaphor, then
asked (a propos of Rio Lobo) what would force the cineaste de
l'evidence to "write" l'evidence. I think other uses of the Rivette
remark have taken similar if less post-structuralist approaches to
making "l'evidence" the key descriptive term for Hawks' whole way of
filmmaking, as opposed to say Hitchcock's.
The other line of interpretation is explored in Emmanuel Budeau's
very good essay on Rohmer as critic in the Triple Agent issue of CdC
(588). He cites circular statements or tautologies in Rohmer -- "Le
cinema c'est le cinema" -- as a rhetorical way of opposing cinema to
literature, or to literary cinema, and defending (EB's words, a
propos of Rohmer the defender of Hawks, Rossellini, Renoir) "a beauty
that is less to be articulated than discovered before one."
He then notes that formulas like "Long live cinema, which [by] not
pretending to do more than show [things] allows us to dispense with
the fraud of saying [them]" are really pointing to the problematic
nature of all writing ON cinema, and concludes that that
problematizing opened a new phase for film criticism, one which leads
to Daney's statement that the cinema defended by the Cahiers has
always been one "haunted by writing," ie (EB's reformulation) "cinema
haunted by the alien within, language" -- a description that of
course applies to Rohmer's own cinema par excellence.
I agree that these various circular or tautological statements can
appear mystagogic -- particularly when carried to extremes by Mourlet
in his Seghers book on DeMille, where he doesn't say anything about
the films! -- but Emmanuel is right: they are absolutely central to
the tradition he as editor of CdC is still working in, and they are
not without resonance for many of the people who post here.
16410
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Oct 4, 2004 5:14pm
Subject: Re: Rivette's evidence
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> Rivette's statement certainly is wrong.
> Yet have always suspected there was perhaps this point lurking in
it.
> Many critics have strong aesthetic principles, that are perhaps
keeping them
> from appreciating lots of kinds of art that fall outside of their
ideas.
> Take the episodes Gerd Oswald directed of the TV show, "The Outer
Limits".
> Without even watching them, many critics would say: "They're
science fiction!
> They were made for television! Their targeted audience was composed
of children!
> They MUST Be bad. We can automatically dismiss thenm as worthless,
sight
> unseen."
> Faced with such certainty, one is tempted to reply: "Well, at least
watch the
> shows, with an open mind. Maybe you will see something interesting
in them,
> just as I do."
> Am not sure if this is what Rivette meant, or not.
>
> Mike Grost
It's certainly part of what he meant -- at that time, CdC was being
dismissed as crazy by people who hadn't bothered to SEE Hawks' films.
16411
From: Craig Keller
Date: Mon Oct 4, 2004 5:28pm
Subject: Re: Travestied 'Notre musique' (was: Triple Agent AR / NYFF)
> I'm going to try and get someone on the phone to see if it's possible
> to save tonight's screening.
I just spoke to Sarah ______, one of the coordinators at the Film
Society, and she claims Wellspring told them to show it at 1.66, which
I told her is itself incorrect, and explained Godard's position and the
illustrations put forth in the June Cahiers essay. She seemed
receptive to this information, and said she's going to alert the
projectionist to make sure that tonight's screening takes place at
1.37:1.
craig.
16412
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Oct 4, 2004 5:29pm
Subject: Re: Rivette's Evidence
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
wrote:
>
> The chair is there, on the screen. Anyone who watches the film
> without falling asleep sees it. Perhaps certain viewers might
regard
> it as just a 'realistic' detail (pioneer cabins undoubtedly
contained
> chairs, as well as tables, walls, etc.). But Ford places the chair
at
> the front of the frame during at least one crucial scene, even
using
> it to obscure our view of John Wayne (see the frame reproduction on
> p. 331 of Tag Gallagher's book) - "this object", Ford tells us "is
> important". The 'marks of genius', the 'proof', are there to be
seen,
> I think quite unarguably. You are either satisfied by proof, or you
> are not.
And again, to underline the obvious, the chair is VISIBLE. Remember
Truffaut's contrasting of Hitchcock's visual idea of having Wilding
put his coat behind the window to make it a mirror for Bergman in
Capricorn to the respected French scriptwriter who had someone
dictate a telegram and then remove the word "tenderness" to save
money (in Symphonie pastorelle, I think). This insistence on the
primacy of the visual is a big part of what Rivette meant by
l'evidence, hard as it is to remember now why these polemics were
necessary.
BTW, don't "civilians" appreciate music and painting without being
able to analyze the works? And aren't they appreciating the same
things experts do when they burrow into the same works? There's
nothing in the window/mirror image from Capricorn that an ordinary
spectator couldn't enjoy, understand and be moved by, even if it took
a Truffaut to articulate it. And of course, with help from Lacan and
other theorists, one could improve ad infinitum on Truffaut's reading
today, which is why I suspect Hawks would have avoided putting it in
one of HIS films.
Nonetheless, I believe that the window/mirror image is a good example
of what Rivette meant by l'evidence, not in the secondary sense of
defining Hawks' style, but in the primary sense of defining the
esthetic specificity of cinema.
16413
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Oct 4, 2004 5:35pm
Subject: Re: Triple Agent (Was: NYFF: Scheduled appearances by directors?)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > "Triple Agent" was projected 1.85 : 1. That also surprised me,
since
> > according to IMDb it was filmed on 35mm film, and Rohmer
indicated he
> > prefers his 35mm films to be shown full frame, 1:33 : 1.
>
> And yet the framing looked just right to me. What did you think?
>
> This film is quiet but rather amazing. Multiple viewings seem
almost
> necessary. A quibble, though: I was surprised at the lighting,
which had
> a kind of "period" quality that I would have expected Rohmer to
reject. -
> Dan
That's presumably because it's a political film. As Burdeau points
out, he considered them esthetic exceptions -- see his review of The
Quiet American.
16414
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Oct 4, 2004 5:36pm
Subject: Re: Travestied 'Notre musique' (was: Triple Agent AR / NYFF)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Craig Keller
wrote:
> > I'm going to try and get someone on the phone to see if it's
she's going to alert the
> projectionist to make sure that tonight's screening takes place at
> 1.37:1.
>
> craig.
Go, Craig!
16415
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Mon Oct 4, 2004 5:45pm
Subject: Re: You have to draw the line somewhere (Was: Blier, editing)
> This trashing is what led tomy disenchantment with
> auteurism. "Lawrence of Arabia" is a VERY great film
I would think you would have been disenchanted very early on - the
LAWRENCE trashing started immediately upon its release, no? - Dan
16416
From: Patrick Ciccone
Date: Mon Oct 4, 2004 5:48pm
Subject: Re: Triple Agent (Spoilers!) + The Big Red One
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > "Triple Agent" was projected 1.85 : 1. That also surprised me, since
> > according to IMDb it was filmed on 35mm film, and Rohmer indicated he
> > prefers his 35mm films to be shown full frame, 1:33 : 1.
>
> And yet the framing looked just right to me. What did you think?
I thought the framing was right too--the headroom looked exactly where
you'd exactly want it in the 1.85 frame. Although didn't his aspect
ratio essay refer to the "sky above one's head" prominently?
> This film is quiet but rather amazing. Multiple viewings seem almost
> necessary. A quibble, though: I was surprised at the lighting,
which had
> a kind of "period" quality that I would have expected Rohmer to reject.
I would reformulate that as quietly amazing: the frontality of the
framing through much of the film belies the depth and mystery of the
motives. I liked the lighting and didn't quite think it gave the film
a period feel; for me, the film was almost like a depopulated version
of history with a handful of characters living amidst wallpaper
patterns, making the juxtaposition with the newsreel footage all the
more jarring.
I'm still trying to figure out the role of the wife's paintings in the
film. They're horrible, but throwing them against the modernist
artists upstairs is almost a ridiculously cruel on Rohmer's part.
There is, I suppose, some very basic metaphor about representation
(single, double or triple agent?), but there must be more. Perhaps
Historically the paintings are an early flag of her husband's final
sympathies, as they're not unlike Stalinist realist art.
About THE BIG RED RED ONE:
I, and at least a couple others here, were bothered by the image
quality of the restoration. The image was very clearly a video
transfer retransferred to film, and with the size of Alice Tully
Hall's screen, the full weight of film didn't come off with the
blocky, transpar. I'm sure it looks fine on DVD, but I was
dissappointed after having weighted to see this. I guess the Warner
Home Video logo at start was a warning sign.
PWC
16417
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Oct 4, 2004 6:37pm
Subject: Re: Triple Agent (Spoilers!) + The Big Red One
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ciccone" wrote:
>
> About THE BIG RED RED ONE:
> I, and at least a couple others here, were bothered by the image
> quality of the restoration. The image was very clearly a video
> transfer retransferred to film, and with the size of Alice Tully
> Hall's screen, the full weight of film didn't come off with the
> blocky, transpar. I'm sure it looks fine on DVD, but I was
> dissappointed after having weighted to see this. I guess the Warner
> Home Video logo at start was a warning sign.
>
> PWC
They went back to the camera neg, which had been stored, and
telecined from that to edit on an Avid. After that they should have
spit out a list that would permit finishing on film. That's what all
films do today, although not all telecine from the negative. (We did
on It's All True. I know that Sky Captain did, for example.) If they
skipped finishing on film and transferred from the Hi Def master,
Adam Greenberg's beautiful cinematography (natural lighting, an
amazingly subtle palette that enhanced Sam's bold, stripped-down
graphics) would indeed have been degraded in the process. I can't
think why they would do it that way, unless they were simply rushed.
Were all the scenes cruddy looking, or just the new ones?
16418
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Oct 4, 2004 6:40pm
Subject: Re: You have to draw the line somewhere (Was: Blier, editing)
--- Dan Sallitt wrote:
>
> I would think you would have been disenchanted very
> early on - the
> LAWRENCE trashing started immediately upon its
> release, no? - Dan
>
But it took many different forms. For example "Movie"
declined to review the film at all, deeming it so
inferior. Sarris wrote it off as overblown,
overpraised and suffering from a lack of actresses.
In other words he came to "Casablanca" for the water.
At the time (the mid-60's) I was quite taken up with
the politique especially where figures like Hawks were
concerned. That Hitchcock, Ford and Minnelli were of
value was obvious to me due to their strong visual
style. Hawks was a lot subtler. His use of the "plan
americaine" seems artless at first. Likewise his
avoidance of non-stop action in "Rio Bravo" and his
dramatic looseness in "Hatari!" I think this relates
to what Rivette -- tautological as he was -- had in
mind about "the evidence."
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16419
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Oct 4, 2004 6:48pm
Subject: Re: You have to draw the line somewhere (Was: Blier, editing)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
>
> At the time (the mid-60's) I was quite taken up with
> the politique especially where figures like Hawks were
> concerned. That Hitchcock, Ford and Minnelli were of
> value was obvious to me due to their strong visual
> style. Hawks was a lot subtler. His use of the "plan
> americaine" seems artless at first. Likewise his
> avoidance of non-stop action in "Rio Bravo" and his
> dramatic looseness in "Hatari!" I think this relates
> to what Rivette -- tautological as he was -- had in
> mind about "the evidence."
Absolutely. It's not just saying "I see it and if you can't you're a
clod"! It's actually a complex term that folds in a description of
Hawks' style, a theory of film and an injunction to critics to look
at these films that they had neglected.
Lawrence of Arabia -- the famous "match" cut [sic] at the beginning,
for example -- is the opposite of the cinema Rivette was defending.
16420
From: Patrick Ciccone
Date: Mon Oct 4, 2004 7:12pm
Subject: Re: Triple Agent (Spoilers!) + The Big Red One
> > About THE BIG RED RED ONE:
> Were all the scenes cruddy looking, or just the new ones?
It was across the board, although some scenes looked especially
video-y, but I think that had to do with the compression problems with
what was in the image, with things like smoke and snow.
The flesh tones really weren't there at all, among other things--and
seeing the Rohmer directly afterward made the juxtaposition of film
vs. pseudo-film more jarring. Sitting in Alice Tully's third row did
not help either.
PWC
16421
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Mon Oct 4, 2004 7:17pm
Subject: Re: You have to draw the line somewhere (Was: Blier, editing)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
"But it took many different forms. For example "Movie"
declined to review the film at all, deeming it so
inferior. Sarris wrote it off as overblown,
overpraised and suffering from a lack of actresses.
In other words he came to "Casablanca" for the water."
More recently Hoberman ridiculed LAWERENCE OF ARBABIA when it was re-
released in 1989 with smart remarks about burnt cork make-up and
Anthony Quinn's putty nose ("It's especially terrifying in 70mm.")
It's also been under attack from Third World intellectuals for its
egregious orientalism (even down to the lustful Turk.)
Perhaps hardcore auteurists will reevealuate LAWERENCE OF ARBABIA now
that Andre de Toth's extensive second unit direction has finally been
acknowledged (rumoured for years but not fully described until
Brownlow's Lean biography was published.)
Richard
16422
From: Fred Camper
Date: Mon Oct 4, 2004 7:26pm
Subject: Re: How the hell do we search for Judex posts?
Within two weeks I should be posting a downloadable file of all posts.
It will be huge but if you have a relatively recent computer it should
be easy to search The file I have is only through July 15 and I didn't
find that much substantive about "Judex" though post 11390 has some
comments. Most of the other posts are of the "Better than Les V," or
"Not as good as Les V," variety.
Fred Camper
>
>I remember mention of Judex upthread, but the search function on
>these here egroups seem pretty much worthless. Anyone found a way
>around that yet?
>
>
>
16423
From: Patrick Ciccone
Date: Mon Oct 4, 2004 7:54pm
Subject: MOMA Reopens
There's not a full schedule online yet, but it appears the first film
will be a complete, restored screening of Warhol's EMPIRE. Clever.
http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/film_media/2004/warhol_empire.html
16424
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Oct 4, 2004 8:11pm
Subject: Re: Re: You have to draw the line somewhere (Was: Blier, editing)
--- Richard Modiano wrote:
>
> More recently Hoberman ridiculed LAWERENCE OF
> ARBABIA when it was re-
> released in 1989 with smart remarks about burnt cork
> make-up and
> Anthony Quinn's putty nose ("It's especially
> terrifying in 70mm.")
Another Lean triumph -- scaring Jim Hoberman.
> It's also been under attack from Third World
> intellectuals for its
> egregious orientalism (even down to the lustful
> Turk.)
>
Have the read "The Seven Pillars of Wisdom" (aka. "The
Seven Wise Pillow-Biters")? "Orientalism" is the
film's very subject -- right next to imperialism.
And on that level it's more topical than ever!
> Perhaps hardcore auteurists will reevealuate
> LAWERENCE OF ARBABIA now
> that Andre de Toth's extensive second unit direction
> has finally been
> acknowledged (rumoured for years but not fully
> described until
> Brownlow's Lean biography was published.)
>
Look, I love "Play Dirty" as much as next "Cahiers"
reader, but De Toth is no more responsible for the
film's direction than its second unit DP Nicholas
Roeg!
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16425
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Mon Oct 4, 2004 8:25pm
Subject: Re: Re: Triple Agent (Was: NYFF: Scheduled appearances by directors?)
> That's presumably because it's a political film. As Burdeau points
> out, he considered them esthetic exceptions -- see his review of The
> Quiet American.
Interesting - I'll take a look. My impression of the film is that,
despite the political surface, it is as pure and abstract a "moral tale"
as they come, with no political upshot at all. But, of course, that
doesn't mean he wouldn't send out the visual cues that he deemed
appropriate to political films.
The color scheme of grays, beiges, and more grays feels familiar from
other French period films. I had the sense that the lighting and decor
was a little more film-industry standard than usual for Rohmer. - Dan
16426
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Oct 4, 2004 10:04pm
Subject: Re: MOMA Reopens
"Empire" was co-directed by Andy Warhol and John
Palmer.
--- Patrick Ciccone wrote:
>
> There's not a full schedule online yet, but it
> appears the first film
> will be a complete, restored screening of Warhol's
> EMPIRE. Clever.
>
>
http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/film_media/2004/warhol_empire.html
>
>
>
>
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16427
From: Craig Keller
Date: Mon Oct 4, 2004 10:19pm
Subject: Frodon
For any/all who can't make the Jean-Michel Frodon talk tonight in
Manhattan at the Alliance Française, he's going to be giving another
presentation tomorrow night at the Jacob Burns Film Center in
Pleasantville, NY, in Westchester County at 7:45pm. I'm going to drive
up to attend that one.
craig.
16428
From: thebradstevens
Date: Mon Oct 4, 2004 10:19pm
Subject: Re: MOMA Reopens
""Empire" was co-directed by Andy Warhol and John Palmer."
How exactly do you 'co-direct' a film like EMPIRE? Did Palmer shoot
all the musical numbers?
16429
From:
Date: Mon Oct 4, 2004 6:40pm
Subject: Re: Rivette's Evidence
In a message dated 04-10-04 13:33:23 EDT, Bill Krohn writes:
<< BTW, don't "civilians" appreciate music and painting without being
able to analyze the works? And aren't they appreciating the same
things experts do when they burrow into the same works? >>
This is true, in general. BUT:
My impression is that traditionally, many lovers of classical music and art
are AUTEURISTS. They do not use this term, generally - but they follow the same
practises as auteurist film lovers. They study a creator's output as a whole,
learning the artist's stylistic, formal and thematic traits.
A person will love Beethoven, or be a big fan of Verdi operas.
Or they will be devoted to Rembrandt or Monet.
(This has been true at least since the 1700's, with the popularity of Handel,
Rossini, etc)
In the popular arts, many mystery fans become fans of specific authors. They
might like Agatha Christie or Ross Macdonald, and they follow all the writer's
stories and books.
My own experience is that I start noticing more about a film, painting,
mystery or symphony when I start getting familar with the creator's work as a
whole. Lots of details and approaches begin to stand out.
The public recognized a few directors as auteurs - Hitchcock, De Mille,
Chaplin, Keaton, Welles. But an awful lot of films were watched by people who had
little awareness of the director's history. I am deeply grateful to these
audiences, who supported all the treasures of film. Film would not exist without
them. Certainly they had a wonderful appreciation of the greatness of film. And
probably saw far more in movies than they are usually given credit. But I at
least start seeing more in a film once I start following its director's work.
Mike Grost
16430
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Oct 4, 2004 11:11pm
Subject: Re: Re: MOMA Reopens
That's one of the great metaphysical questions of all
time.
John starred with his then-wife Ivy Nicolson in
Warhol's "John and Ivy" (1965)
He also co-directed "Ciao! Manhattan!" with David
Weissman (not the David Weissman who co-directed "The
Cockettes")
--- thebradstevens wrote:
>
> ""Empire" was co-directed by Andy Warhol and John
> Palmer."
>
> How exactly do you 'co-direct' a film like EMPIRE?
> Did Palmer shoot
> all the musical numbers?
>
>
>
>
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16431
From: Adrian Martin
Date: Mon Oct 4, 2004 11:32pm
Subject: Re: Rivette's evidence
Bill: "It's actually a complex term that folds in a description of
Hawks' style, a theory of film and an injunction to critics to look
at these films that they had neglected."
This is the most rigorous/vigorous thing said so far here in defense of
Rivette's statement and its subsequent implications for critical practice.
Yes, Hawks' particular style can indeed be seen and analysed as an
'evidential' one (this is another major theme of Routt's essay that I cited
on the topic). And the defense of popular film is important, then as now.
The idea that the kernel of a profound aesthetic or theory of film is
contained in the notion of 'evidence' - film as an 'art of the visible' - is
something that still has never been completely laid out by anyone that I
know of: Victor Perkins has spent the last few decades exploring it in his
essays and books (including an especially brilliant piece, as yet
unpublished, on gesture in Sirk's ALL I DESIRE). I have for a long time
taken notes about how certain everyday gestures - such as, for example,
walking - can be transformed into something expressive, meaningful,
emotional, even profound, in movies - 'unostentatiously', as it were - and
that certainly chimes in with the aesthetic creed of visible evidence
(rather than laboured/literary point-making). This leads straight in to what
J-L Nancy has written (deeply) about Kiarostami under the rubric of
'evidence'.
But: Brad - like a true Ferraran, you are compounding your logical flaw!!
Yes, I completely agree with your mise en scene analysis of the chair in THE
SEARCHERS, etc. And more importantly, that it is this which creates any
viewer's involvement/emotion. No argument from anyone on that! But it does
not follow from "any viewer who has been moved or enthralled by that film
has responded to the mise en scene" to "The millions of people who regularly
watched (and, we must assume, enjoyed) films by Hitchcock, Hawks, Sirk,
Minnelli, etc. seem to have required remarkably little training". Being
moved/enjoying the result or effect or gestalt of mise en scene does not for
one second necessarily imply a conscious RECOGNITION or APPRECIATION of mise
en scene. That, we have to be trained to see. There are many viewers
(starting with my Dad, a great Western aficionado) who watch THE SEARCHERS
and say 'hey, that mountain/desert scenery was great', not 'that was
terrific what Ford did with that chair, son'.
So, I still think the Rivettian statement 'You are either satisfied by
proof, or you are not' makes no sense - who would SEE or grasp that proof,
and THEN reject it? - which was Jean-Pierre's original point of contention.
Rather, you see it - or learn to see it - or you don't, but that's a
completely different process. Jean-Pierre, what is your latest intervention
in this debate?
Adrian
16432
From: thebradstevens
Date: Mon Oct 4, 2004 11:51pm
Subject: Re: Rivette's evidence
"Being moved/enjoying the result or effect or gestalt of mise en
scene does not for one second necessarily imply a conscious
RECOGNITION or APPRECIATION of mise en scene. That, we have to be
trained to see."
Sure, but my point is that viewers responded unconsciously to mise en
scene. And that this is essentially how the great auteurs intended
for them to respond. Of course, our appreciation of THE SEARCHERS (or
WRITTEN ON THE WIND or PSYCHO or THE SICILIAN, etc.) can be deepened
once we start to become aware of exactly how Ford, Cimino, Hitchcock
and Sirk achieved their effects. But we should never lose sight of
the emotional response mise en scene was intended to provoke. Crying
at the end of LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN is a political act.
16433
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 1:39am
Subject: Re: Rivette's evidence
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Adrian Martin
wrote:
>
> So, I still think the Rivettian statement 'You are either
satisfied by
> proof, or you are not' makes no sense - who would SEE or grasp
that proof,
> and THEN reject it? - which was Jean-Pierre's original point of
contention.
> Rather, you see it - or learn to see it - or you don't, but that's
a
> completely different process. Jean-Pierre, what is your latest
intervention
> in this debate?
>
> Adrian
Well, let me see. I checked out the posts this morning, then had a
swim, then lunch, then sent some e-mails, then ran some errands,
then came back home and had another swim (good for releasing the
tension of not being in New York or Paris) then looked up the site
again and lo and behold, there are about three dozen posts there
that appeared during the few hours I was away and I ask
myself "Aren't those people ever doing anything else?" (and of
course I know they do, which makes it all even more amazing). And I
wonder what my latest intervention could be except to say that the
Rivette evidence argument is very much like the proof-of-God's-
existence argument that the very existence of the world
(the "creation") proves beyond a doubt that there is, there must be,
a God. And yes, you see it or you don't. You buy it or you don't.
Countless millions buy it and countless millions don't. I don't buy
it either as far as God or Hawks is/are concerned. Most people never
saw the evidence of Hawks's genius. The evidence was there for those
who saw it, it wasn't there for anybody else. Old story. Most people
cannot see the greatness of great painting, cannot hear the
greatness of great music etc... Why would movies be so special, so
different? because they're supposed to be a popular form of
entertainement? But Hawks and his generation have long ceased to be.
They have become a subject of scholarly study (like Dickens, who
used to be immensely popular).... What does it mean to say
that "It's all there on the screen"? Of course it's all there. Where
ELSE could it be? Another tautological, solipsistic statement...
Those who "don't see it" don't refuse to see it. They just don't.
I have always refused to be endoctrinated -- communism, auteurism --
"isms" are dangerous, they destroy your soul (or whatever stands
for it). I'll fight for auteurism against Philistines but reserve a
right to point out its wretched excesses.
Did that answer your question? probably not. Oh well...
JPC
16434
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 4:08am
Subject: Re: Re: Rivette's evidence
--- thebradstevens wrote:
Crying
> at the end of LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN is a
> political act.
>
What about making out during "The Chelsea Girls" ?
__________________________________
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16435
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 4:09am
Subject: A Special Request
Here's the situation. I don't have cable.
Yes, as hard as it may be to believe, I don't have
cable. Frankly I rarely watch TV. However tomorrow
night Showtime is presenting a special about
Brian Wilson and the making of Smile.
If anybody here has cable and gets Showtime
could you tape it for me? I believe it's going to be
on several times but if you could get it let me know
and you will be handsomely recompensated in some
fashion or other.
Merci
David E.
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16436
From: Andy Rector
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 5:42am
Subject: Re: Lang's secret cinema
Bill wrote:
>Don't forget, India Song was an all-
> out attack on the Retro Mode, which took itself very seriously.
> Oudart also cited a retro-styled commercial for Gold Tea as a point
> of reference, but I never saw it. Perhaps you did, JP?
This link you've just set up between CdC's critique of retro-style
and India Song has exploded in my face! How could I miss it? Does CdC
take up India Song as anti-retro explicitly? I believe there is one
article in the Nick Browne edited CdC Routledge volume (I stupidly
skipped it), is it the article by Oudart?
Farber and Patterson seemed to have taken it seriously, and their
comments (including Patricia's reservations, "all those silverspoon
Marxists are hard to take") are totally bereft of irony. I still find
M and P's (amongst others) attempts to reconcile the film's politics
and mise en scene really interesting.
I have beef with the word camp to describe India Song. I should
consult past posts on the definition of camp...
Like Tashlin (but softer), Duras is too indignant to be camp. Maybe
I'm wrong.
Yours,
andy
16437
From: Andy Rector
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 6:04am
Subject: Re: little secret
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Maxime Renaudin"
wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Andy Rector"
> > I still agree with Maxime in her orginal email when she echoed
> > Rivette statement:
>
> Actually, Maxime is a he. And (s)he tries to live with it.
!!
The upside is that it's a man's world, but it wouldn't be nothing,
not one little thing, without a woman or a girl.
Respectfully yours,
Andi
PS-
In my opinion, Rivette, in the '99 interview you've quoted, sounds
nothing like a man (or woman) who would recant the evidence of Hawks,
as JPC claims. Technically the above James Brown quote is tautology
too, so what.
16438
From: Andy Rector
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 7:47am
Subject: Re: Rivette's evidence
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Adrian Martin
> wrote:
> >
> > So, I still think the Rivettian statement 'You are either
> satisfied by
> > proof, or you are not' makes no sense - who would SEE or grasp
> that proof,
> > and THEN reject it? - which was Jean-Pierre's original point of
> contention.
> > Rather, you see it - or learn to see it - or you don't, but
that's
> a
> > completely different process. Jean-Pierre, what is your latest
> intervention
> > in this debate?
> >
> > Adrian
>The evidence was there for those
> who saw it, it wasn't there for anybody else. Old story. Most
people
> cannot see the greatness of great painting, cannot hear the
> greatness of great music etc... Why would movies be so special, so
> different? because they're supposed to be a popular form of
> entertainement? But Hawks and his generation have long ceased to
be.
> They have become a subject of scholarly study (like Dickens, who
> used to be immensely popular).... What does it mean to say
> that "It's all there on the screen"? Of course it's all there.
Where
> ELSE could it be? Another tautological, solipsistic statement...
> Those who "don't see it" don't refuse to see it. They just don't.
>
> I have always refused to be endoctrinated -- communism, auteurism --
> "isms" are dangerous, they destroy your soul (or whatever stands
> for it). I'll fight for auteurism against Philistines but reserve a
> right to point out its wretched excesses.
>
> Did that answer your question? probably not. Oh well...
>
> JPC
It has to be seen (projectors, vcrs) to be seen (eyes, minds, hearts)
to be seen (indoctrination or mise en scene etc). The Americans drop
food packages to the predestined needy with American flags, bibles,
coporate insignia, pbj...Its what they mean when they send help
(food) for help (eyes, minds, hearts) for help (indoctrination).
Rivette didn't mean to close the gate on those who got a lot out of
Hawks, the "derelict masses", but to close the gate on those
who "refused" to see the "proof" in spite of their training. They
should've known better. It's inarguable that his criticism is richer
for his position and his films even more so; better understanding in
seeing, better seeing in understanding.
Somebody might get an emotion or thought out of Ford's chair but be
too preoccupied in their search for "good scenery"-- that doesn't
lessen the proof of Ford's chair, which isn't a secret at all,
especially with Ford. As Bill says, the fact that Rivette makes his
statement around Hawks and not Melville (and Monkey Business not Red
River) is already something to consider.... it shouldn't be missed
(wish I could read that Daney piece... I've elsewhere proven myself
rather embarrassingly ignorant of French).
The complexity of Rivette's analysis is not the proof some refuse to
see, it is the film. Every spectator is a critic but not every
spectator is a Rivette. I've no qualms with accepting proofs
(including Rivette's own filmed proof) while restless and
uncomprehending as to exactly why/what this is I'm responding to,
perhaps rushing to Rivette or Adrian Martin or the like for their
hypothesis, perhaps making my own. It's all dangerous.
Maybe Rivette's "l'evidence" gave him the special affinity for Beyond
A Reasonable Doubt which in turn provided his brilliant review (which
is still in progress 20 years after Rosenbaum claimed it to be) which
is justification enough for Rivette's few lines (if one requires more
evidence than the paragraphs on Hawks that follow it).
I'd like to re-read Rivette on Eisenstein (on whom Rivette is equally
inspirational, even to Godard) to see if that yields any results.
Bazin may have had something in "politique", but he has since been
proven wrong.
Leaving the theater is a political act after seeing Scarlet Street.
Respectfully,
andy
16439
From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 8:00am
Subject: Re: Lang's secret cinema
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Andy Rector"
wrote:
>
I believe there is one
> article in the Nick Browne edited CdC Routledge volume (I stupidly
> skipped it), is it the article by Oudart?
No -- it's by Bonitzer, and it's in CdC 258-9, which is after the
period covered in that volume. Anyway, Browne wouldn't have wasted
space on something that couldn't be used to footnote his doctoral
dissertation.
The article that launched the Retro Mode discussion was an interview
w. Foucault which has probably been published in some Foucault volume
in English by now: CdC 251, mainly focusing on The Night Porter. Most
of the Retro Mode films the Cahiers attacked were about WWII.
Actually, Daney's article on Uranus, which Berri successfully sued
Libe for, was a continuation of those reflections. But times had
changed, and coats had turned.
> Farber and Patterson seemed to have taken it seriously, and their
> comments (including Patricia's reservations, "all those silverspoon
> Marxists are hard to take") are totally bereft of irony. I still
find
> M and P's (amongst others) attempts to reconcile the film's
politics
> and mise en scene really interesting.
I need to look back at that myself.
> I have beef with the word camp to describe India Song. I should
> consult past posts on the definition of camp...
> Like Tashlin (but softer), Duras is too indignant to be camp. Maybe
> I'm wrong.
You're not wrong, but I'm using camp -- perhaps wrongly -- in a way
that makes room for indignation and even rage, expressed through
laughter. These people are ridiculous! The two "outsides" of their
Marienbad existence, Bonitzer says, are the beggar and the Vice
Consul, whose cries are heard in the offspace. (But of course
the "outside" of Marienbad was the Algerian war.)
How was 3 Sad Tigers?
16440
From: Andy Rector
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 8:24am
Subject: Re: Lang's secret cinema
> The article that launched the Retro Mode discussion was an
interview
> w. Foucault which has probably been published in some Foucault
volume
> in English by now: CdC 251, mainly focusing on The Night Porter.
Most
> of the Retro Mode films the Cahiers attacked were about WWII.
Yes this interview and a sort of introduction to anti-retro by Daney,
Bonizter etc. are both in the Browne Routledge volume. I am familiar
with their position and find the enterance of India Song into it a
revelation.
> Actually, Daney's article on Uranus, which Berri successfully sued
> Libe for, was a continuation of those reflections. But times had
> changed, and coats had turned.
It must be good.
>I still
> find
> > M and P's (amongst others) attempts to reconcile the film's
> politics
> > and mise en scene really interesting.
> I need to look back at that myself.
ITs only a few lines really, but good ones.
> How was 3 Sad Tigers?
Difficult to find the words! Who would've thought that representing
the bourgeoisie like smalltime idlegangsters (without the mysticism
and entertainment of the Mean Streets non-bourgeois) could be so
avantageous! The film is everything including a success in Barthesian
terms of emptying, cumulatively achieved (that last shot in the cafe
out to the street!). Talk about danger!
-andy
16441
From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 9:52am
Subject: Re: Triple Agent (Spoilers!) + The Big Red One
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ciccone" wrote:
> I liked the lighting and didn't quite think it gave the film
> a period feel; for me, the film was almost like a depopulated
version
> of history with a handful of characters living amidst wallpaper
> patterns, making the juxtaposition with the newsreel footage all the
> more jarring.
Rohmer said, "I had the idea of 'incrusting' the characters into
newsreels after the principles used in 'L'Anglaise et le duc' where
the characters moved within painted scenes. That was found to be
impossible. These newsreels aren't long enough, for example, they've
been subjected to too much editing, they're too fragmented."
>
> I'm still trying to figure out the role of the wife's paintings in
the
> film. They're horrible, but throwing them against the modernist
> artists upstairs is almost a ridiculously cruel on Rohmer's part.
> There is, I suppose, some very basic metaphor about representation
> (single, double or triple agent?), but there must be more. Perhaps
> Historically the paintings are an early flag of her husband's final
> sympathies, as they're not unlike Stalinist realist art.
I liked her paintings... Also, Rohmer has at times expressed his
preference for figurative art and some ambivalence toward Modernism.
For my part, I have trouble understanding painting beginning with
post-impressionism. (Fortunately, the cinema was invented around that
time to assume painting's responsibilities.)
I thought of the paintings as an alternative to the world around her:
art vs. politics. But you're right: it's also a question of
different
levels of appearances, different kinds of truth and distortion.
"Triple Agent" was very entertaining, but I thought it was
something less the masterpiece that so many critics have called it. At
least that's my judgment on first viewing. I do find Fiodor and
Arsinoé much more amiable than Grace Elliott and le duc d'Orléans.
I did some searching online and was able to find a little information
about the actual General Skoblin. Serge Renko does look something like
him: http://www.hrono.ru/biograf/bio_s/skoblin.html
His wife was not Greek, but a well-known Russian popular singer,
Nadezhda Plevitskaya (1884-1940). She specialized in Russian peasant
songs and gypsy romances. She emigrated with the White Army in 1920.
She toured the United States with Sergei Rachmaninov. Some recordings
are available: http://www.mainlyopera.com/title.html?catno=RCD+26820
In Rohmer's view, "she liked to live in great style, and it's this
that witnesses have put forward as an explanation of the business:
Skoblin could have been a traitor for the money, to bankroll the
demanding lifestyle of his wife."
Nabokov knew Nadezhda Plevitskaya, liked her voice, but hated her
taste in songs. He wrote the story, "The Assistant Producer," about
Skoblin and his wife. A famous Russian popular singer marries a White
Russian General, who obsessed with becoming the head of the remnant of
the White Army becomes a triple agent working for the Whites, the
Germans, and Soviets in order to eliminate all the other Generals who
stand in his way: http://moshkow.rsl.ru/koi/NABOKOW/ap.txt
According to one source, the NKVD also assigned another spy among the
White Russians, Mireille Lvudvigovich Abbiate. I mention this because
she was married to an aviator, and as a result her codename was
AVIATORSHA, "The Aviator's Wife."
Skoblin, unlike Rohmer's Fiodor, had extensive contacts with the
Germans. On Dec. 16, 1936, he delivered to Heydrich, the head of
German security service, information that the Red Army, led by
Skoblin's old classmate, Marshal Tukhachevskii, planned a putsch
against Stalin, and that they had extensive contacts with the German
supreme command and the German military secret service, without the
knowledge of the governments of either country. Heydrich's assistant,
Jahnke, suspected Skoblin was a Soviet agent. Heydrich considered
Skoblin trustworthy, but did not consider a military coup in the
Soviet Union in Germany's interest. A former German intelligence
officer stated that Heydrich prepared, with Skoblin's assistant,
elaborate forged documents, detailing a vast military conspiracy
against Stalin, and sent them through the president of Czechoslovakia,
who thinking them genuine, delivered them to the Soviet Union. If
Skoblin's had reported everything to the Soviets, this would make
little difference, but if he were working both sides, this may have
affected history significantly.
http://sicherheitspolitik-dss.de/gaeste/gl020300.htm
The Russian Prince working as a taxi driver in "Triple Agent"
is not so uncommon. In the 1920's there were 3,000 Russian taxi
drivers in Paris. White Army veterans would often paint the Russian
bear on their cabs.
James E. Hassell's "Russian Refugees in France and the United States
between the World Wars" (Transactions of the American Philosophical
Society, New Ser., Vol. 81, No. 7, 1991) describes the Kutepov and
Miller kidnappings. Kutepov, the head of the White Army veterans'
organization and of espionage activities within the Soviet Union,
disappeared in January 1930. 400 police were put on the case. There
were calls for France to break relations with the Soviet Union. 3000
demonstrators marched on the Soviet embassy. It was concluded he was
abducted a block from his apartment. Because of his weak heart, he
likely died as a result of the ether used to subdue him.
In contrast the disappearance of Miller was less noted than the trial
of Skoblin's wife. Hassell writes, "By 1937 the French were becoming
somewhat inured to political violence, which was increasing with the
rise of fascism, so this affair was not the shock that the Kutepov
disappearance had been. What turned into a cause celebre was the trial
of Skoblin's wife, Nadezhda Plevitskaya. She was a popular concert
artist, having sung on numerous tours throughout Europe and the United
States. In December 1938 she was put on trial for conspiring with her
husband (still vanished) to kidnap General Miller. Plevitskaya with
great emotion refused to admit guilt or to implicate Skoblin. The
press followed these proceedings avidly. In the end the accused was
found guilty of 'arbitrary sequestration and violence' and given an
unusually severe sentence, twenty years at hard labor. Two years later
Plevitskaya died, in the Rennes prison for women. "One may speculate
that Miller fell to the NKVD, not only because he headed the White
Army veterans, but because he knew too much about the NKVD. The Whites
had their underground agents too who reported to Miller. There were
rumors that the general was spirited into the U.S.S.R. alive (he was
seventy years of age), but his fate is unknown..."
Paul
16442
From: thebradstevens
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 0:20pm
Subject: FACE OF A FUGITIVE by Paul Wendkos
I've been kind of intrigued by various favorable comments several
members of this group have made about Paul Wendkos. I'd always
associated his name with a seemingly endless string of TV movies I'd
never dream of watching (the list of 100 plus titles Wendkos is
credited with directing on the IMDB reads like the prospectus for a
season in hell), but the fact that his work has been praised by a
number of people whose opinions I respect has encouraged me to take
another look. I notice that Wendkos' 1959 western FACE OF A FUGITIVE
(starring Fred MacMurray and James Coburn) is playing on Channel 4
(UK) next week. How is this film rated by Wenkosians?
16443
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 1:18pm
Subject: Re: Lang's secret cinema
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Andy Rector"
wrote:
>
>
> I have beef with the word camp to describe India Song. I should
> consult past posts on the definition of camp...
> Like Tashlin (but softer), Duras is too indignant to be camp.
Maybe
> I'm wrong.
>
> Yours,
> andy
Bill described INDIA SONG as high camp and I objected that it was
a contradiction in terms (or words to that effect) because high camp
is supposed to be deliberate and highly self-conscious whereas Duras
very clearly didn't even have any idea of what camp or high camp
was and never had what might be even remotely described as a camp
attitude. However, camp, of course, is in the eye of the beholder.
JPC
16444
From: Adrian Martin
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 1:31pm
Subject: Ophuls & Tears (WAS: Rivette's evidence)
Brad: "Crying at the end of LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN is a political
act."
The supreme Robin Wood-y statement!! I guess you mean 'progressive' or
'left' political act? It is sometimes good to clarify that! Or else we get
down to the meaningless and unhelpful 'everything is a political act'
rhetoric.
I love LETTER FROM (as Stephen Heath used to charmingly truncate it!) as
much as the next tearful cinephile, but I can tell you from my teaching
days: fascist bastards have a good cry at this movie along with the rest of
us, and it makes no appreciable difference to their politics thereafter!!!
There are a hundred complex (and sometimes absolutely superficial or even
Pavlovian) reasons why people cry at even this ultra-great film by Ophuls:
safety valve, epiphany, self-congratulation, masochism, sadism ... etc!!!
On the other hand: if Brad or any of us wrote a great, persuasive text about
WHY "crying at the end of LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN is a [progressive]
political act", then it could BECOME a political act by virtue of its
effect/influence on people about to see the film, re-seeing the film, or
remembering the film. A lot of good criticism works like this - it's not
just a matter of 'seeing the evidence up there' but RE-SEEING it and
recreating it imaginatively, in 'discourse' as they say in the post-Foucault
classics. Criticism not just as argument but as storytelling.
Actually, here I think the same of Rivette's 'evidence of genius' as of
'politically progressive tears': these things are not just 'there', not just
inherently so anywhere, they have to be MADE, produced. That's a fine thing
by me, and it's part of the adventure of criticism.
PS: Great post on Rivette's Lang text and the rest, Andy.
Adrian
16445
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 1:39pm
Subject: Re: Ophuls & Tears (WAS: Rivette's evidence)
> The supreme Robin Wood-y statement!! I guess you mean 'progressive'
or
> 'left' political act?
I don't think it's necessarily progressive - the film works with the
censorship and mores of the day so that it can be viewed in at least
two ways. I like to think the progressive one is the one intended,
but one could happily view Fontaine's story as a parable of sin
punished, and still cry (love the sinner, hate the sin).
So I think the film has a political side, and one has to form a
political reading according to one's own views as one watches, and
crying at the end will be as a result of one's engagement with the
film according to one's political views.
The only kind of fascist who wouldn't cry would be the kind that
refuses ALL sympathy with those who "err" - but there are plenty of
right-wingers who don't fall into that camp.
16446
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 1:43pm
Subject: Re: Triple Agent (Spoilers!) + The Big Red One
I'm told that there IS a film print, but for reasons of demand
(presumably) most of the screenings are digital.
Bear in mind that some scenes were restored from decayed originals,
or blown up from footage seen in the 16mm Making Of documentary,
which excuses some of the quality loss.
I thought it looked good, but would like to compare it with a 35mm
screening.
Was more concerned about the retention of the VO and captions such
as "North Africa" which fly in tha face of Fuller's intentions and
contribute nothing important to narrative clarity. Twenty-five years
later, someone still thinks they can make THE BIG RED ONE better than
Sam Fuller.
16447
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 1:44pm
Subject: Re: You have to draw the line somewhere (Was: Blier, editing)
> Look, I love "Play Dirty" as much as next "Cahiers"
> reader, but De Toth is no more responsible for the
> film's direction than its second unit DP Nicholas
> Roeg!
Yeah, DeToth himself refused to take any credit for the film's
success (as with BEN HUR). Lean kept him on a pretty tight leash,
creatively. ADT offered some wild ideas but was shouted down.
Agree that
a) the film has some dated aspects in terms of tackling race
b) it's a masterpiece
16448
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 1:49pm
Subject: Re: Re: Triple Agent (Spoilers!) + The Big Red One
--- Paul Gallagher wrote:
>
> The Russian Prince working as a taxi driver in
> "Triple Agent"
> is not so uncommon. In the 1920's there were 3,000
> Russian taxi
> drivers in Paris.
Hence Don Ameche in "Midnight" !
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16449
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 2:03pm
Subject: Re: Rivette's evidence
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Andy Rector"
wrote:
>
> >
> >
>
> It has to be seen (projectors, vcrs) to be seen (eyes, minds,
hearts)
> Rivette didn't mean to close the gate on those who got a lot out
of
> Hawks, the "derelict masses", but to close the gate on those
> who "refused" to see the "proof" in spite of their training.
What training? Are you referring to film critics? Critics didn't
have "training". Actually it might be more accurate to say "because
of their training" --that is their intellectual mindframe of putting
put down popular entertainment (which MONKEY BUSINESS definitely
was). Still, the non-auteurist critics (at the time the vast
majority) did not "refuse" to see "the proof". To them there was no
proof. They could only "see" some outrageous low comedy veering on
slapstick.
They
> should've known better. It's inarguable that his criticism is
richer
> for his position and his films even more so; better understanding
in
> seeing, better seeing in understanding.
> Somebody might get an emotion or thought out of Ford's chair but
be
> too preoccupied in their search for "good scenery"-- that doesn't
> lessen the proof of Ford's chair, which isn't a secret at all,
> especially with Ford.
Then again sometimes a rocking chair is just a rocking chair...
As Bill says, the fact that Rivette makes his
> statement around Hawks and not Melville (and Monkey Business not
Red
> River) is already something to consider.
Well, when RED RIVER came out there was no Cahiers du Cinema.
Rivette was mentioning MONKEY BUSINESS because it was the latest
Hawks that had just come out in France. But he also discusses RED
RIVER (and many other Hawks film) in the course of his long article.
You could add that RED RIVER was not held in much higher esteem by
mainstream French critics of the time than MONKEY was. ...
it shouldn't be missed
> (wish I could read that Daney piece... I've elsewhere proven
myself
> rather embarrassingly ignorant of French).
Have looked for it in my CdC collection -- it's the only issue
missing in the years 1967-1969. And I know I had it...
> The complexity of Rivette's analysis is not the proof some refuse
to
> see, it is the film.
Exactly. The article is brilliant but makes no sense to someone who
doesn't "see' the genius of Hawks's film in the first place. Rivette
knew it. He closed his article with another tautology echoing the
opening paragraph: "Ce qui est, est."
>
> Leaving the theater is a political act after seeing Scarlet Street.
>
Could you elaborate? Or is it "evidence"?
> Respectfully,
> andy
16450
From: thebradstevens
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 2:21pm
Subject: Re: Ophuls & Tears (WAS: Rivette's evidence)
"if Brad or any of us wrote a great, persuasive text about
WHY "crying at the end of LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN is a
[progressive] political act", then it could BECOME a political act
by virtue of its effect/influence on people about to see the film, re-
seeing the film, or remembering the film."
I'll almost certainly never write about LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN.
There's simply too much high-quality critical material on the film
already available (see Wood, Perkins, etc.).
But my remark was made in the context of a discussion about whether
or not popular audiences responded to mise en scene, even though they
would not have been capable of articulating the reasons for their
response. My point is that
a) Many viewers would have been moved to tears by LETTER.
b) That this emotion would have been a response to Ophuls' mise en
scene.
c) That this emotion is also a (left/progressive) 'political' act.
I honestly believe that inside even the worst fascist bastard, there
is a left-wing progressive trying to get out (since we all know that
fascists oppress themselves as much as they oppress other people,
this seems not an unreasonable assumption). A film like LETTER speaks
to the progressive in all of us!
By the way, I don't think we cry only for Lisa at the end of LETTER.
What moves me to tears is the sense of wasted lives: Lisa and Stefan
have wasted their lives in ways that are superficially very different
(Lisa by sacrificing everything for her one true love, Stefan by
treating all women as interchangeable), but which Ophuls shows to be
two sides of the same coin.
16451
From: Patrick Ciccone
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 2:23pm
Subject: Re: Triple Agent (Spoilers!) + The Big Red One
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "cairnsdavid1967"
wrote:
>
> I'm told that there IS a film print, but for reasons of demand
> (presumably) most of the screenings are digital.
If we are talking about the NYFF screening, this was a film print,
with reel changes--unless I'm nuts.
PWC
16452
From: thebradstevens
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 2:27pm
Subject: Re: Ophuls & Tears (WAS: Rivette's evidence)
"I don't think it's necessarily progressive - the film works with the
censorship and mores of the day so that it can be viewed in at least
two ways. I like to think the progressive one is the one intended,
but one could happily view Fontaine's story as a parable of sin
punished, and still cry (love the sinner, hate the sin)."
It is possible to read the film as a parable of sin (especially if
you are a censor), but I very much doubt that anyone who read the
film in this way could be moved to tears by the ending. The
requirements of censorship are certainly met on the surface level,
but the appeal to our emotions is progressive (fortunately, censors
don't understand emotional responses, as Ophuls was obviously aware).
16453
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 2:40pm
Subject: Re: FACE OF A FUGITIVE by Paul Wendkos
> I've been kind of intrigued by various favorable comments several
> members of this group have made about Paul Wendkos. I'd always
> associated his name with a seemingly endless string of TV movies I'd
> never dream of watching (the list of 100 plus titles Wendkos is
> credited with directing on the IMDB reads like the prospectus for a
> season in hell), but the fact that his work has been praised by a
> number of people whose opinions I respect has encouraged me to take
> another look. I notice that Wendkos' 1959 western FACE OF A FUGITIVE
> (starring Fred MacMurray and James Coburn) is playing on Channel 4
> (UK) next week. How is this film rated by Wenkosians?
I'm not really a Wendkosian (?), but this is the one film of his that I
like unequivocally. The Western seems to restrain his noir-ish tendencies
a bit, but they're still present, and maybe I like Wendkos better when
he's forced to swim under the surface. And MacMurray is rather good in
it, as I recall. - Dan
16454
From: Travis Miles
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 4:05pm
Subject: Re: Re: Ophuls & Seif
All this talk of Letter From an Unknown Woman reminds me that I was
disappointed that in the Walter Reade's recent Salah Abou Seif series (and
when will we get that one again?), they were unable or chose not to show his
mind-blowing adaptation of Letter (with the same title!). Has anyone else
seen this? (SPOILER) It ends with the Stefan analogue risking his life in a
blood transfusion procedure to save the life of the child. Whoof! Crying at
the end of this one is an act far beyond political.
16455
From: Gabe Klinger
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 4:51pm
Subject: Re: Ophuls & Seif
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Travis Miles
wrote:
> All this talk of Letter From an Unknown Woman reminds me that I was
> disappointed that in the Walter Reade's recent Salah Abou Seif
series (and
> when will we get that one again?), they were unable or chose not
to show his
> mind-blowing adaptation of Letter (with the same title!).
There's a Chinese film circulating at festivals based on Letter
(also using the same title). It's in Vancouver (I think), and in
Vienna. Haven't heard if it's any good.
Gabe
16456
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 5:01pm
Subject: Re: Re: Rivette's Evidence
> Of course, one's appreciation of (to stay with the example I was
> using) THE SEARCHERS can be deepened if one consciously becomes aware
> of Ford's stylistic decisions. But any viewer who has been moved or
> enthralled by that film has responded to the mise en scene. If we
> identify with or are frustrated by the various characters, then we
> are taking a position that relates to Ford's exploration of settling
> and wandering. What else could we conceivably be responding to? What
> else could our emotional responses to characters and events mean? And
> this response is shaped and controlled by the mise en scene.
So, I get the feeling you're taking a holistic view of mise-en-scene here.
In other words, you're rejecting the idea that the viewer can respond
primarily to the story, or to the actors, without that response being
mediated by the mise-en-scene in a decisive way. True?
Whenever I see a narrative film with non-buffs, I'm always startled when a
number of people start filing out of the theater as soon as the story is
resolved, not sticking around for the wrap-up. Sometimes this means they
miss a famous or powerful last shot. If these people are really
responding to the mise-en-scene, they don't seem aware of it.
I think the mind always reduces the complexity of what it takes in. So
that none of us absorb everything in front of us in a movie theater. We
can reduce the infinite data barrage of a movie's audiovisual interface to
a story, a person we like or don't like, etc. The fact that everyone is
exposed to mise-en-scene (whatever definittion of the term we are using)
doesn't mean that everyone reacts to it. Surely no one reacts to it in
its totality. - Dan
16457
From:
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 2:01pm
Subject: Rivette's evidence/SLATTERY'S/Rosebud
Brad, this is where I see a contradiction in your argument. First, you say:
> I agree we need not 'notice' the chair, but this will be out fault, not
> Ford's, since he does
> everything he possibly can to bring it to our attention. Its presence is
> about as 'hidden' or 'disguised' as John Wayne's (though I guess that if we
> spent the entire screening staring at our shoes, we need not even notice Wayne).
>
But then you say:
> Surely this is the kind of thing Rivette had in mind. Because the proof of
> Ford's genius IS on the screen. And some people do refuse to admit this. They
> refuse to be satisfied by proof. There really can't be any other reason why
> they don't recognize this.
>
Are you sure that some people are refusing to admit Ford's genius or are they
simply not noticing it, as you intimate above?
Here's an example. Pat Mellencamp was teaching the "Make Em Laugh" number
from SINGIN' IN THE RAIN in a class I took as an 18 year old undergrad. At one
point towards the beginning of the number, Cosmo suddenly has a hat on his head.
Mellencamp stopped the film (and yes, yes, it was actually a film print) and
asked "Where did he get the hat?" Only two people out of about 70 knew. She
ran the film backwards and showed the scene again. A crew member glides by with
a HUGE rack of clothes and Cosmo picks the hat off of it. I was absolutely
stunned and actually felt kinda stupid. How could I not see this big freakin'
rack of clothes being carted through the very center of the frame? It's because
we're (or at least, I was) so focused on the narrative and the human character
as the primary force driving it that we do not notice such obvious imagery.
(And, btw, Mellencamp's subsequent reading of the scene was better than almost
any piece of film criticism I've ever read. Simply magical!)
But I was not refusing to admit Kelly's or Donen's or O'Connor's or whoever's
genius. I was simply not noticing it. Are there really people who see the
chair or the clothes rack and still refuse to admit genius or whatever? Is there
documentation that someone saw whatever needed to be seen in MONKEY BUSINESS
in order to understand Hawks' genius or the film's greatness and still refused
to acknowledge the film's greatness?
In any event, that incident taught me how to to be a film critic, how to do
close readings of films. And it's still something that has to be actively
worked on. For instance, I had to see SLATTERY'S HURRICANE a second time before I
noticed that shot with the two cars. Don't wanna go further for fear of
creating a spoiler. But does anyone know how De Toth did that shot? It's amazing and
again, I feel stupid for not even noticing the first time out.
Also, (and this probably deserves its own thread), Mellencamp was so into
these close readings that she suggested the shot in CITIZEN KANE where Rosebud is
burning is actually backwards. She ran the film backwards (again, yes, it was
a film print) and shockingly, she seemed to be correct. Backwards, the sled
seemed to be burning more correctly, obscuring the word "Rosebud" forever in
ashes. Seen again forward, the shot seems to put the sled back together, giving
us more to see. Anyone ever hear this before? Bullshit?
Kevin John
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
16458
From: thebradstevens
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 6:22pm
Subject: Re: Rivette's Evidence
"I get the feeling you're taking a holistic view of mise-en-scene
here. In other words, you're rejecting the idea that the viewer can
respond primarily to the story, or to the actors, without that
response being mediated by the mise-en-scene in a decisive way.
True?"
Absolutely. I don't deny that a lot of people would claim they
respond only to the story or the actors. But that's simply because
they haven't consciously grasped how the director has used mise en
scene to shape their viewing experience.
I wonder how many people would enjoy watching a group of actors
sitting around a table doing a read-through of a screenplay. Let's
face it, that would be the only way to appreciate the story and the
actors in their purest form, without any interference from mise en
scene.
"I think the mind always reduces the complexity of what it takes in.
So that none of us absorb everything in front of us in a movie
theater. We can reduce the infinite data barrage of a movie's
audiovisual interface to a story, a person we like or don't like,
etc. The fact that everyone is exposed to mise-en-scene (whatever
definittion of the term we are using) doesn't mean that everyone
reacts to it. Surely no one reacts to it in its totality."
Nobody, including the most perceptive critic, ever reacts to mise en
scene in its totality. That's one of the things that makes mise en
scene studies so endlessly fascinating.
16459
From: thebradstevens
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 6:34pm
Subject: Re: Rivette's evidence/SLATTERY'S/Rosebud
Well I don't think we're supposed to notice the rack of clothes in
the same way that we're supposed to notice the chair. My assumption
is that anyone who sees that shot in THE SEARCHERS 'notices' the
chair - it's at the forefront of the frame, obscuring our view of the
actors. Ford does everything he can to make us notice the chair.
Maybe you're right. Maybe it's not so much that people 'refuse' to
see this evidence of Ford's genius, and more that they simply don't
notice it. But that doesn't mean that the evidence, the
Rivettian 'proof', is not 'there' on the screen. If I walk across the
road and fail to notice a car driving towards me, it doesn't mean
that the car isn't there. The 'proof' will be in the injuries I
sustain.
Could you give me a rough idea where I can find the scene you're
referring to in SLATERY'S HURRICANE? I have the film on tape, but
don't remember it too clearly.
16460
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 6:58pm
Subject: The Big Red Digitized One
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ciccone" wrote:
> It was across the board, although some scenes looked especially
> video-y, but I think that had to do with the compression problems
with
> what was in the image, with things like smoke and snow.
>
>
> The flesh tones really weren't there at all, among other things--and
> seeing the Rohmer directly afterward made the juxtaposition of film
> vs. pseudo-film more jarring. Sitting in Alice Tully's third row did
> not help either.
>
> PWC
Yes, I noticed this from one of the very first scenes -- Marvin's
skin tone looked like was digitally composited a la FINAL FANTASY.
As Patrick says the smoke and snow looked like it was digitally
composed.
I haven't seen the original. Was the WWI sequence part of the
original release? The black and white looked really grainy, perhaps
intentionally so, and the red stripe looked like it was colorized in
the same way as the red-dress girl in SCHINDLER'S LIST. Is this
sequence to be taken literally -- or does anyone else find it hard to
believe that Marvin would be a sergeant in both WWI and WWII?
All the same, having never seen the original, seeing this on the
second day of the NYFF stunned me more than TRIPLE AGENT, TROPICAL
MALADY or NOTRE MUSIQUE (the latter two being masterpieces in my
book).
Kevin
16461
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 7:12pm
Subject: Re: Re: Rivette's Evidence
--- thebradstevens wrote:
>
> I wonder how many people would enjoy watching a
> group of actors
> sitting around a table doing a read-through of a
> screenplay. Let's
> face it, that would be the only way to appreciate
> the story and the
> actors in their purest form, without any
> interference from mise en
> scene.
>
Yes. It's called "Vanya on 42nd Street" by Louis Malle
(his very last film) and it's wonderful.
Also worth citing in this regard Warhol's "The Life of
Juanita Castro" and "Horse" -- both scripted by Ronald
Tavel.
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16462
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 7:16pm
Subject: Re: The Big Red Digitized One
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Kevin Lee"
wrote:
"...Was the WWI sequence part of the original release?"
Yes.
"Is this sequence to be taken literally -- or does anyone else find
it hard to believe that Marvin would be a sergeant in both WWI and
WWII?"
The character Marvin played was a "lifer," a life time member of the
military and a life time non-comissioned officer. Lifers existed in
the US military since the post Civil War reorganization of the
service, and unless they were admitted to officer's training school
they would remain ncos until retirement. The Gene Evans character in
THE STEEL HELMET is another Fuller lifer.
Incidently, Dashiell Hammett served as a sergeant in both WWI and
WWII (of course he re-enlisted for WWII.)
Richard
16463
From: Andy Rector
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 7:43pm
Subject: Re: Travestied 'Notre musique' (was: Triple Agent AR / NYFF)
>To me, projecting a 1.37 Godard at 1.85 is tantamount to
> showing the film in reverse, or mixing up reels.
>
> I'm going to try and get someone on the phone to see if it's
possible
> to save tonight's screening.
>
> craig.
So, in the end, how was Notre Musique shown??
16464
From:
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 3:53pm
Subject: Re: Re: Rivette's evidence/SLATTERY'S/Rosebud
In a message dated 10/5/04 1:39:00 PM, bradstevens22@h... writes:
> Could you give me a rough idea where I can find the scene you're
> referring to in SLATERY'S HURRICANE?
>
Here's Camper on it:
"When Will Slattery (Richard Widmark) resumes his affair with Aggie (Linda
Darnell), now his friend's wife, his girlfriend Dolores (Veronica Lake again)
collapses and is taken off in an ambulance. After a close shot of her through
the ambulance window, the camera pulls back while seeming to follow the
ambulance on a parallel path, moving rapidly, then turns about and changes direction
to follow Will and Aggie driving off together in a convertible."
It baffles me on a technical level.
Kevin John
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
16465
From: thebradstevens
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 8:14pm
Subject: Re: Rivette's evidence/SLATTERY'S/Rosebud
"It baffles me on a technical level."
I'll try to find it.
The most technically baffling shot I've ever seen can be found in
Walerian Borowczyk's DR JEKYLL AND THE WOMEN/THE BLOOD OF DR JEKYLL,
a film in which Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde are played by two different
actors. In this film, Jekyll changes into Hyde by immersing himself
in a bathtub filled with liquid. During the shot I have in mind, the
actor playing Jekyll sits in the bath and disappears under the water.
After a few seconds, the actor playing Hyde emerges.
I have absolutely no idea how this shot was achieved. The obvious way
to do it would have been to stop the camera and change the actors.
But if Borowczyk had done that, the cut would have been very
noticeable, since the water in the bathtub is in constant motion.
Needless to say, the kind of digital technology that would make this
shot easy to achieve these days was not available to Borowczyk in the
70s.
16466
From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 8:56pm
Subject: The cinephile and the Peopl (Was: Rivette's Evidence
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> Whenever I see a narrative film with non-buffs, I'm always startled
when a
> number of people start filing out of the theater as soon as the
story is
> resolved, not sticking around for the wrap-up.
This discussion started w. Dan talking about the film the public sees
and the secret film he sees, and it comes back to it -- the Rivettte
quote and JP's dislike of it are a side-issue. The real issue is the
relationship -- real and/or imaginary -- between the cinephile and
the mass audience. The reason it is so important is that it has
always been a point of pride with (certain) cinephiles that they
liked Hawks over the heads of elitist critics, and this bonded them
to "the people." Whether true or not -- and I think the truth of it
is well worth all the discussion it has had here and much more --
this belief is an important part of some cinephiles' belief system.
16467
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 9:19pm
Subject: Re: The cinephile and the Peopl (Was: Rivette's Evidence
--- hotlove666 wrote:
>
> This discussion started w. Dan talking about the
> film the public sees
> and the secret film he sees, and it comes back to it
> -- the Rivettte
> quote and JP's dislike of it are a side-issue. The
> real issue is the
> relationship -- real and/or imaginary -- between the
> cinephile and
> the mass audience. The reason it is so important is
> that it has
> always been a point of pride with (certain)
> cinephiles that they
> liked Hawks over the heads of elitist critics, and
> this bonded them
> to "the people." Whether true or not -- and I think
> the truth of it
> is well worth all the discussion it has had here and
> much more --
> this belief is an important part of some cinephiles'
> belief system.
>
Well then it's a weird belief system.
Ordinary moviegoers go to see films and are interested
in and/or moved by them in a number of ways. But they
don't feelany need to explain why -- nor should they.
Sometimes a particular moment or line stands out for
them but that's about it. Critics like ourselves, by
contrast, go over films with a fine tooth comb.
I doubt few ordinary moviegoers gave thought one o the
chair in the Ford film -- but loved it nonetheless.
Keep in mind that ordianry moviegoers are subject less
to critics than the commerically-driven doxa of pop
culture. In this context "Casablanca," "Gone with the
Wind," "The Wizard of Oz," "Psycho" and Spielberg are
discussed constantly. But not with any real care.
_______________________________
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16468
From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 9:23pm
Subject: Re: The cinephile and the Peopl (Was: Rivette's Evidence
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein it
has
> > always been a point of pride with (certain)
> > cinephiles that they
> > liked Hawks over the heads of elitist critics, and
> > this bonded them
> > to "the people." Whether true or not -- and I think
> > the truth of it
> > is well worth all the discussion it has had here and
> > much more --
> > this belief is an important part of some cinephiles'
> > belief system.
> >
> Well then it's a weird belief system.
>
> Ordinary moviegoers go to see films and are interested
> in and/or moved by them in a number of ways. But they
> don't feelany need to explain why -- nor should they.
Before we get of on the wrong track again: It's not about what they
discuss. It's about what they feel. The belief system is about how
they react to films by great filmmakers -- the ones that auteurists
share with them. Obviously this doesn't take in the Straubs.
16469
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 9:27pm
Subject: Re: Re: The cinephile and the Peopl (Was: Rivette's Evidence
--- hotlove666 wrote:
>
>
> Before we get of on the wrong track again: It's not
> about what they
> discuss. It's about what they feel. The belief
> system is about how
> they react to films by great filmmakers -- the ones
> that auteurists
> share with them. Obviously this doesn't take in the
> Straubs.
>
No it doesn't. But Minnelli, Hitchcock and Hawks are
quite a lot to chew on.
>
>
>
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16470
From: samfilms2003
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 9:38pm
Subject: Re: Rivette's evidence/SLATTERY'S/Rosebud
--- I>During the shot I have in mind, the
> actor playing Jekyll sits in the bath and disappears under the water.
> After a few seconds, the actor playing Hyde emerges.
Very deep tub ;-) ?
-Sam
16471
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 9:43pm
Subject: Re: The cinephile and the Peopl (Was: Rivette's Evidence
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
>
> The real issue is the
> relationship -- real and/or imaginary -- between the cinephile and
> the mass audience. The reason it is so important is that it has
> always been a point of pride with (certain) cinephiles that they
> liked Hawks over the heads of elitist critics, and this bonded
them
> to "the people." Whether true or not -- and I think the truth of
it
> is well worth all the discussion it has had here and much more --
> this belief is an important part of some cinephiles' belief system.
The concept of "elitist critics" is ambiguous, because actually
the worshippers of Hawks's genius are overwhelmingly elitists (you
can't be more elitist than Rivette in his critical work). I have
known very few (if any) cinephiles who felt they had a bond
with "the people" (the general audience). On the contrary, there was
a feeling of being apart from them, enjoying the same movies maybe,
the same "popular" fare, but appreciating them in a fundamentally
different way.
16472
From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 9:49pm
Subject: Re: The cinephile and the Peopl (Was: Rivette's Evidence
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
> wrote:
> >
> > The real issue is the
> > relationship -- real and/or imaginary -- between the cinephile
and
> > the mass audience. The reason it is so important is that it has
> > always been a point of pride with (certain) cinephiles that they
> > liked Hawks over the heads of elitist critics, and this bonded
> them
> > to "the people." Whether true or not -- and I think the truth of
> it
> > is well worth all the discussion it has had here and much more --
> > this belief is an important part of some cinephiles' belief
system.
>
> The concept of "elitist critics" is ambiguous, because actually
> the worshippers of Hawks's genius are overwhelmingly elitists (you
> can't be more elitist than Rivette in his critical work). I have
> known very few (if any) cinephiles who felt they had a bond
> with "the people" (the general audience). On the contrary, there
was
> a feeling of being apart from them, enjoying the same movies maybe,
> the same "popular" fare, but appreciating them in a fundamentally
> different way.
I should have put "elitist" in quotes -- I meant people who favor
only arthouse fare and bad commercial films about big important
subjects. The enemy in France in the early 50s. Obviously the people
waging the battle were a much smaller elite.
I don't know, JP. Let's see if the idea of bonding with the People
(no quotation marks) through love of Chaplin or Hawks rings any bells
in the group.
16473
From: Adrian Martin
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 10:02pm
Subject: Panfilov
Glancing through our members' fascinating 'best film' lists, I noticed that
Gabe listed a movie by the Russian director Gleb Panfilov. One night on TV I
stumbled upon an extraordinary film of his (Panfilov's, not Gabe's) called
THEME or THE THEME - maybe late 70s or early 80s. A short but incredibly
dense feature, an acidic comedy based on lightning-fast repetitions and
variations of scenes and situations, almost like an ultra-modern Lubitsch. I
have spotted some references to Panfilov in old issues of POSITIF and also
JEUNE CINEMA, but know little about him or any of his other work. (Is he
even still alive and/or working?) Any Panfilov fans out there?
By the way, the new version of LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN that Gabe
mentioned is very highly regarded by Bérénice Reynaud, which is enough
recommendation for me.
Adrian
16474
From:
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 6:08pm
Subject: Re: The cinephile and the People (Was: Rivette's Evidence
Hope this is not egomaniacal:
But I often have the feeling that I'm speaking for PART of the public.
In prose mysteries, science fiction and comic books, I think I'm typical of
one group of readers: those who love plot. This has always been a major
constinuency in popular fiction and comics.
In film, I feel I share a taste for richly crafted films, imaginative films,
a taste that used to be reflected in pre-1970 Hollywood and art house fare
alike.
My tastes are the same as these public groups, but I have a critical
apparatus, used to put into words some of what most people in these groups probably
loved about film or mysteries.
I feel like a Member of Parliament, representing people in my riding. I'm a
spokesperson, and looking out for their interests. Other MP's speak for the
special effects fans, the violence fans, the arthouse minimalism fans, the
depressing downbeat psychodrama fans, etc. These are not my constituencies.
These attitudes also influence my dreams for the FUTURE of both cinema and
mystery.
I dream of a return to the sort of popular cinema that flourished in
1910-1970, works of art rich in formal complexity of plot and visual style, that will
also appeal to millions of people. Do not know if this dream will come to
fruition. When people can read writers like Ellery Queen, and see films by the
successors to Minnelli and Hitchcock.
Mike Grost
16475
From: thebradstevens
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 10:08pm
Subject: Re: The cinephile and the Peopl (Was: Rivette's Evidence
"Let's see if the idea of bonding with the People (no quotation
marks) through love of Chaplin or Hawks rings any bells in the group."
Yes, that's exactly the way I see things. I feel pretty detached from
most modern 'popular' audiences (except perhaps when it comes to
Clint Eastwood films), but like to think that my response to the work
of Hawks, Sirk, etc is pretty similar to the response of those
(mythical?) audiences who watched these films in the 40s and 50s. I'm
probably kidding myself, but it's my delusion, and I'm sticking with
it.
By the way, I don't really see any fundamental difference between
critics and 'ordinary' viwers. Okay, a lot of ordinary viewers don't
know anything about cinema, but that's also true of many critics! I
prefer to see myself as just another viewer attempting to come to
terms with my experience of a film.
16476
From: Damien Bona
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 10:20pm
Subject: Re: The cinephile and the Peopl (Was: Rivette's Evidence
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
> wrote:
> >
> > The real issue is the
> > relationship -- real and/or imaginary -- between the cinephile
and
> > the mass audience. The reason it is so important is that it has
> > always been a point of pride with (certain) cinephiles that they
> > liked Hawks over the heads of elitist critics, and this bonded
> them
> > to "the people." Whether true or not -- and I think the truth of
> it
> > is well worth all the discussion it has had here and much more --
> > this belief is an important part of some cinephiles' belief
system.
>
> The concept of "elitist critics" is ambiguous, because actually
> the worshippers of Hawks's genius are overwhelmingly elitists (you
> can't be more elitist than Rivette in his critical work). I have
> known very few (if any) cinephiles who felt they had a bond
> with "the people" (the general audience). On the contrary, there
was
> a feeling of being apart from them, enjoying the same movies maybe,
> the same "popularA" fare, but appreciating them in a fundamentally
> different way.
I think that the auteurists took pleasure not so much in trumping
the "elitist" critics (whom I take to mean people like Dwught
MacDonald, John Simon, Stanley Kauffmann), but rather in revealing
the vapidity of the middle-brows (epitomized by Bosley Crowther) for
over-praising movies by the likes of Fred Zinnemann, Wyler, George
Stevens, Delbert and Daniel Mann and, of course, Stanley Kramer,
based on their social issue content. The elitists pretty much saw
through these guys, but Arthur Knight and Judith Crist didn't.
My favorite description of an auteurist (which I heard decade ago and
don't know with whom it originates): "An auteurist is a highbrow who
likes low-brow movies."
16477
From: Damien Bona
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 10:24pm
Subject: Re: Rivette's evidence/SLATTERY'S/Rosebud
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, LiLiPUT1@a... wrote:
> In any event, that incident taught me how to to be a film critic,
how to do
> close readings of films. And it's still something that has to be
actively
> worked on. For instance, I had to see SLATTERY'S HURRICANE a second
time before I
> noticed that shot with the two cars. Don't wanna go further for
fear of
> creating a spoiler. But does anyone know how De Toth did that shot?
It's amazing and
> again, I feel stupid for not even noticing the first time out.
>
When I saw "Slattery's Hurricane" klast year, I wrote a note to
Zach: "The best film I've seen in the past week is de Toth's
Slattery's Hurricane. Although it's somewhat more staid than the
typical de Toth, the film is still very kinetic (there's one
remarkable dolly shot going from inside an ambulance outside to
another car on the road - and one that is fraught with meaning
because of who's in which vehicle). What's most intriguing about the
film is that de Toth is once more dealing with the theme of betrayal,
but here it's taking place on the romantic/relationship front, and
the emotional consequences are just as intense as the life-and-death
outcomes in the action films. There are looks on Veronica Lake's face
(terrific performance) that are just devastating. It's also
fascinating how the two women in the film, Lake and Linda Darnell,
both speak in a very understated, unemotional manner, as if they were
resigned to lives of detachment, which has an extremely powerful
effect. It's probably not major de Toth but still awfully good."
16478
From: Damien Bona
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 10:34pm
Subject: Re: The cinephile and the Peopl (Was: Rivette's Evidence
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
wrote:
I feel pretty detached from
> most modern 'popular' audiences (except perhaps when it comes to
> Clint Eastwood films) . . .
Except, Brad, when it's a "Blood Work,' "True Crime" or other
finacially unnsuccessful Eastwood "Old Man" work, we Clint admirers
are akin to the people who appreciated "Seven Women" or "The Human
Factor." More times than not, Eastwood has not found a wide audience
over the last decade-and-a-half.
16479
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 10:39pm
Subject: Re: Re: The cinephile and the Peopl (Was: Rivette's Evidence
--- Damien Bona wrote:
More times than not, Eastwood has not
> found a wide audience
> over the last decade-and-a-half.
>
>
>
>
True. But it can't be denied that he's working in a
popular moviemaking tradition that has more in common
with Minnelli and Ford than it does Quentin Tarantino.
Clint also has a far more psychologically and
artistically complex side to him that shows its hand
in "Bird" and the sorely underrated "Midnight in the
Garden of Good and Evil."
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16480
From: George Robinson
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 10:53pm
Subject: Re: The Big Red Digitized One
The color in the WWI sequence was always like that.
g
Take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor,
never the victim. Silence encourages the
tormentor, never the tormented.
--Elie Wiesel
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kevin Lee"
To:
Sent: Tuesday, October 05, 2004 2:58 PM
Subject: [a_film_by] The Big Red Digitized One
>
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ciccone" wrote:
> > It was across the board, although some scenes looked especially
> > video-y, but I think that had to do with the compression problems
> with
> > what was in the image, with things like smoke and snow.
> >
> >
> > The flesh tones really weren't there at all, among other things--and
> > seeing the Rohmer directly afterward made the juxtaposition of film
> > vs. pseudo-film more jarring. Sitting in Alice Tully's third row did
> > not help either.
> >
> > PWC
>
> Yes, I noticed this from one of the very first scenes -- Marvin's
> skin tone looked like was digitally composited a la FINAL FANTASY.
> As Patrick says the smoke and snow looked like it was digitally
> composed.
>
> I haven't seen the original. Was the WWI sequence part of the
> original release? The black and white looked really grainy, perhaps
> intentionally so, and the red stripe looked like it was colorized in
> the same way as the red-dress girl in SCHINDLER'S LIST. Is this
> sequence to be taken literally -- or does anyone else find it hard to
> believe that Marvin would be a sergeant in both WWI and WWII?
>
> All the same, having never seen the original, seeing this on the
> second day of the NYFF stunned me more than TRIPLE AGENT, TROPICAL
> MALADY or NOTRE MUSIQUE (the latter two being masterpieces in my
> book).
>
> Kevin
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
16481
From: George Robinson
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 11:02pm
Subject: FSLC Horror schedule
The Walter Reade Horror Series II is posted at
http://www.filmlinc.com/wrt/programs/11-2004/horror04.htm
and it's a doozy. Corman, Fisher, Mulligan's The Other, a Harrington
premiere, Suspiria and Black Christmas. All listmember faves.
g
Take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor,
never the victim. Silence encourages the
tormentor, never the tormented.
--Elie Wiesel
16482
From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 11:03pm
Subject: Re: Rivette's Evidence
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
wrote:
>
> "I get the feeling you're taking a holistic view of mise-en-scene
> here. In other words, you're rejecting the idea that the viewer can
> respond primarily to the story, or to the actors, without that
> response being mediated by the mise-en-scene in a decisive way.
> True?"
>
> Absolutely. I don't deny that a lot of people would claim they
> respond only to the story or the actors. But that's simply because
> they haven't consciously grasped how the director has used mise en
> scene to shape their viewing experience.
>
It seems obvious to me that our experience goes beyond, or below, what
we're able to verbalize. Our experience of the film and our written
critical response exist in separate spaces, in a sense. I don't engage
in conscious mental critical analysis while I'm watching a film.
(Also, it might be that art shows us things we can't talk about,
pointing to that "whereof one cannot speak." But that's another
topic.)
I'll mention a situation where I'm an outsider, and where there is a
well established basis for formal analysis. I knew several music
majors in college and for a time very much enjoyed listening to music.
However, a musician acquaintance was of the opinion that if you could
not read a score and did not understand harmonic theory, then you did
not understand or appreciate music. His intention was not to stop
people listening to music but to have them learn music theory and
sight reading. I found this sort of hermeticism discouraging, since I
had difficulty learning music and did not have a trained ear. However,
a counterargument, similar to Brad Steven's, might be that the
intensity of one's experience of musical works is on the face of it
evidence of understanding these works.
Paul
16483
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 11:09pm
Subject: Re: The cinephile and the Peopl (Was: Rivette's Evidence
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
I should have put "elitist" in quotes -- I meant people who favor
> only arthouse fare and bad commercial films about big important
> subjects. The enemy in France in the early 50s. Obviously the
people
> waging the battle were a much smaller elite.
>
> I don't know, JP. Let's see if the idea of bonding with the People
> (no quotation marks) through love of Chaplin or Hawks rings any
bells
> in the group.
Yes, but what "People" (audience) and when? Chaplin was immensely
popular from 1914 to the late twenties, but where is his audience
now, if any? Where is the audience for Hawks? In both cases:
auteurists, elitists, scholars. Not 'the People".
16484
From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 11:13pm
Subject: Re: The cinephile and the Peopl (Was: Rivette's Evidence
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
> wrote:
> I should have put "elitist" in quotes -- I meant people who favor
> > only arthouse fare and bad commercial films about big
important
> > subjects. The enemy in France in the early 50s. Obviously the
> people
> > waging the battle were a much smaller elite.
> >
> > I don't know, JP. Let's see if the idea of bonding with the
People
> > (no quotation marks) through love of Chaplin or Hawks rings
any
> bells
> > in the group.
>
> Yes, but what "People" (audience) and when? Chaplin was
immensely
> popular from 1914 to the late twenties, but where is his
audience
> now, if any? Where is the audience for Hawks? In both cases:
> auteurists, elitists, scholars. Not 'the People".
But the belief/fantasy concerns contemporary work, films in wide
distribution at the time. Chaplin is not, and can't be because he's
silent. When he was distributed, super-intellecvtuals and the
people were united in their love for him (except for the
Surrealists, who preferred Keaton).
16485
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 11:31pm
Subject: Re: The cinephile and the Peopl (Was: Rivette's Evidence
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
> wrote:
> >
> > --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
>
> > wrote:
> > I should have put "elitist" in quotes -- I meant people who
favor
> > > only arthouse fare and bad commercial films about big
> important
> > > subjects. The enemy in France in the early 50s. Obviously the
> > people
> > > waging the battle were a much smaller elite.
> > >
> > > I don't know, JP. Let's see if the idea of bonding with the
> People
> > > (no quotation marks) through love of Chaplin or Hawks rings
> any
> > bells
> > > in the group.
> >
> > Yes, but what "People" (audience) and when? Chaplin was
> immensely
> > popular from 1914 to the late twenties, but where is his
> audience
> > now, if any? Where is the audience for Hawks? In both cases:
> > auteurists, elitists, scholars. Not 'the People".
>
> But the belief/fantasy concerns contemporary work, films in wide
> distribution at the time. Chaplin is not, and can't be because
he's
> silent. When he was distributed, super-intellecvtuals and the
> people were united in their love for him (except for the
> Surrealists, who preferred Keaton).
Y
Yes but we're living now, not 80 years ago. I thought you wanted to
discuss your belief/fantasy theory in relation to what we feel now.
Auteurists of course have a tendency to live in the past. Most of
the films we discuss here were made 40, 50 years ago or more.
Is it possible today to have a phenomenon similar to the love for
Chaplin that was shared by intellectuals and the man in the street?
I doubt it. But then, Chaplin himself was a unique phenomenon
Jerry Lewis, of course, was admired by French intellectuals AND very
popular audiences, but the intellectuals in question were fairly
limited to cinephile/auteurist critics. And again, we're talking
about 30-40 years ago...
Cinema has changed, audiences have changed, is it possible to think
of the cinephile/general audience relationship the way we could
back in the fifties?
JPC
16486
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 11:35pm
Subject: ALTMAN on SUNDANCE tonight
This may be a bit late, but the Sundance Channel is starting
Altman's new series "Tanner on Tanner" tonight at 9PM eastern -- the
sequel to his tremendous "Tanner '88" HBO series. Again Gary Trudeau
co-wrote and Michael Murphy and Cynthia Nixon star. Not to be missed
if you have cable.
16487
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Oct 6, 2004 1:44am
Subject: Re: ALTMAN on SUNDANCE tonight
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
>
> This may be a bit late, but the Sundance Channel is starting
> Altman's new series "Tanner on Tanner" tonight at 9PM eastern --
the
> sequel to his tremendous "Tanner '88" HBO series. Again Gary
Trudeau
> co-wrote and Michael Murphy and Cynthia Nixon star. Not to be
missed
> if you have cable.
Correction: in spite of all the advertising for the series they
fucked up and showed something else. Or maybe it was only showing in
New York??? But that's not the way cable works. I'm really pissed.
16488
From:
Date: Tue Oct 5, 2004 10:31pm
Subject: Re: The cinephile and the Peopl (Was: Rivette's Evidence
Much of the cinema I've enjoyed the most over the last 25 years IS audience
pleasing cinema. And I think I enjoyed it the same way as others in the
audience.
Examples:
British historical dramas (Eg, Persuasion, Shakespeare in Love)
British TV detective shows (Poirot, Partners in Crime)
Music Videos
US TV Comedy-Mysteries (Riptide, Remington Steele, Moonlighting, Wildside)
I saw much of the theatrical films in the theater. The audience seemed to be
having the same great enjoyment of the films in the same way I did. And I
often talked about these films with people I knew from work or around town. They
liked the films in the same way I did. I remember all the enthusiasm that
"Billy Elliot" provoked.
Admittedly, these are all subsets of the audience who like such fare. Not all
moviegoers like British films; not all TV watchers like music videos or
Riptide. I'm not trying to say that quality = popularity. But all of this cinema is
clearly designed to relate to an audience. And I related to it too, in many
of the same ways.
I am not trying to make this personal. But:
I share the exact same auteurist tastse as everyone else on a_film_by up
through 1975 or so. But afterwards, I seem to have enjoyed "entertainment" a lot
more than others on the list. I was having a blast watching "Pacific Blue" or
"Riptide" on TV, or "Shakespeare in Love" at the theater, while everyone else
was out at that Tsai Ming-liang festival.
A film I enjoyed enormously recently was "Relative Values" (Eric Styles,
2000). This is a Noel Coward drawing room comedy. I have recommended it to my
circle of friends, and everyone seems to love it. Would members of a_film_by like
it? It is hard to say. It tries to please an audience, not punish them.
In general, I tend to like films built on lines of trying to give pleasure to
audiences, and communicate with them. The audience does not have to be the
biggest audience - "Billy Elliot" will never be as popular as "Star Wars". But
it is still a real audience.
Much of the recent world cinema I like is also audience pleasing - "The
Gleaners and I", "Nowhere in Africa", "The Man on the Train", "Bitter Sugar",
"Suzhou River", "Dark Blue World", etc
Mike Grost
16489
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Oct 6, 2004 5:15am
Subject: Re: The cinephile and the Peopl (Was: Rivette's Evidence
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
>
> > >
> > > Yes, but what "People" (audience) and when? Chaplin was
> > immensely
> > > popular from 1914 to the late twenties, but where is his
> > audience
> > > now, if any? Where is the audience for Hawks? In both cases:
> > > auteurists, elitists, scholars. Not 'the People".
> >
> > But the belief/fantasy concerns contemporary work, films in wide
> > distribution at the time. Chaplin is not, and can't be because
> he's
> > silent. When he was distributed, super-intellecvtuals and the
> > people were united in their love for him (except for the
> > Surrealists, who preferred Keaton).
>
>
> Y
> Yes but we're living now, not 80 years ago. I thought you wanted to
> discuss your belief/fantasy theory in relation to what we feel now.
> Auteurists of course have a tendency to live in the past. Most of
> the films we discuss here were made 40, 50 years ago or more.
>
> Is it possible today to have a phenomenon similar to the love for
> Chaplin that was shared by intellectuals and the man in the street?
> I doubt it. But then, Chaplin himself was a unique phenomenon
>
> Jerry Lewis, of course, was admired by French intellectuals AND
very
> popular audiences, but the intellectuals in question were fairly
> limited to cinephile/auteurist critics. And again, we're talking
> about 30-40 years ago...
>
> Cinema has changed, audiences have changed, is it possible to think
> of the cinephile/general audience relationship the way we could
> back in the fifties?
>
> JPC
The phenomenon exists now, but not with Chaplin -- that ship has
sailed. It did exist at the time he was popular, and it did exist
with Lewis, here and in France. Now you can see it in the adoption of
Japanese, Korean and Hong Kong popular filmmaking by many cinephiles -
- and the insistence of some members of this group on paying
attention to big grossers from H'wd like The Hulk or Collateral.
There just aren't as many good films -- or films, period -- being
made by H'wd as in the Golden Age. Huckabees may be a new case of
that -- it broke some kind of opening weekend record for LA and NY,
according to Variety. We'll see how that plays out, but I don't think
the audience is limited to David, me and our friends.
I maintain that it's not just eclecticism. There's an imaginary or
idealized or perhaps real relationship to the People being traced by
each new generation of cinephiles, starting probably before the
Cahiers, Keaton and Chaplin being prime examples from the silent era.
SOME cinephiles. Sirk (then, not now) seems to be a prime example for
many a_film_by'ers.
16490
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Oct 6, 2004 5:19am
Subject: Re: The cinephile and the Peopl (Was: Rivette's Evidence
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> Much of the recent world cinema I like is also audience pleasing -
"The
> Gleaners and I", "Nowhere in Africa", "The Man on the
Train", "Bitter Sugar",
> "Suzhou River", "Dark Blue World", etc
>
> Mike Grost
Mike, this is not a general response, but specifically: I just
acquired a cassette of Bitter Sugar, and am looking forward to seeing
it as soon as I have time. I loved The Super. I think Ichaso is the
real McCoy. Glad to hear you liked his latest.
16491
From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Wed Oct 6, 2004 6:35am
Subject: Re: The cinephile and the Peopl (Was: Rivette's Evidence
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666" wrote:
>
> I maintain that it's not just eclecticism. There's an imaginary or
> idealized or perhaps real relationship to the People being traced by
> each new generation of cinephiles, starting probably before the
> Cahiers, Keaton and Chaplin being prime examples from the silent era.
> SOME cinephiles. Sirk (then, not now) seems to be a prime example for
> many a_film_by'ers.
A book I found very interesting is Andrew Ross' "No Respect:
Intellectuals and Popular Culture." If you look at Sarris against the
background of the New York intellectuals associated with, for example,
the Partisan Review, he appears strikingly open to popular culture.
(My guess is that Kael does not so much challenge these beliefs as
grant New Yorkers permission to go slumming.)
For example, Clement Greenberg linked the "virulence" of popular
culture its inherent formal qualities in that it contains its own
response in contrast to avant-garde works, which purportedly contain
only the work's response to itself. Greenberg linked the spread of
kitsch to the spread of "barbarism." He described fascism as "mass
culture," the result of an excess of democracy, in which "every man,
from the Tammany alderman to the Austrian house-painter, finds that he
is entitled to his opinion." MacDonald in turn took up these ideas,
stating that popular culture contains a "built-in reaction," it does
need to be explained or appreciated, and this accounts for its spread.
The only problem for the intellectual is "how to avoid contamination"
(Louis Kronenberger), how to maintain "hygiene [in the presence of]
these parasites on the body of art" (Irving Howe). Ross links
this fear of popular culture's virulence, "the spreading ooze of Mass
Culture" (MacDonald), to the fear of Communism, egalitarianism, and
feminism, expressed in similar organic metaphors.
A few pages from Ross' book are available on amazon.com. It's the
beginning of a chapter describing the famous critic Leslie Fiedler's
odd attack on the Rosenbergs, in which he seems to want them to die
not for their spying but for their taste.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0415900379/ref=sib_rdr_ex/102-4023484-9147304?%5Fencoding=UTF8&p=S00Q
16492
From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Wed Oct 6, 2004 7:06am
Subject: Re: The cinephile and the Peopl (Was: Rivette's Evidence
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Gallagher"
wrote:
>
> A book I found very interesting is Andrew Ross' "No Respect:
> Intellectuals and Popular Culture." If you look at Sarris against
the
> background of the New York intellectuals associated with, for
example,
> the Partisan Review, he appears strikingly open to popular culture.
Raymond Durgnat provides a description of Sight and Sound and Sequence
in his essay, "Auteurs and Dream Factories," and how the English
auteurists in Movie magazine had a different relationship to the
popular cinema.
"The Sight and Sound critics were heirs to an upper-middle-class
climate of cultural habit and opinion exemplified, at its best, by the
novels of E. M. Forster, at its most mediocre, by the complacent
pessimism of the remarks on the popular cinema by Palinurus in The
Unquiet Grave, and, at its least pleasant, by disdainful assumptions
of superiority over, and censorious defensiveness towards, the
'popular'. They brought to the task of film criticism a philosophical
infrastructure which, felt rather than stated, and certainly never
examined, included such axioms as that the civilized few must protect
the humanism of a minority art-culture against an unthinking and
vaguely unpleasant world, which was exemplified by, variously, "the
moguls', the `mass media', the `undiscriminating public' or an
undefined, sensed `ruck' of inferiority. Further, since art is a
`sensitive individualism', then if a film isn't by an artist with an
obviously sensitive feel for the moods and nuances of human
relationships, i.e., it is probably an insensitive, impersonal film;
i.e. it is a product of the `ruck', unthinking, a specious substitute,
and therefore unpleasant. Now, these nuances are sensed only when
expressed by literary and dramatic elements (because in Britain
literature and the theatre are facets of general culture, whereas the
appreciation of the visual arts' is more specialized), and furthermore
the critic can recognize quality and sensitivity 'intuitively'. He
brings no ideological nor intellectual dogma to a film, he 'senses'
whether it is true or not to his own experience of life. If there
isn't this immediate 'recognition' effect the film is probably untrue,
therefore unthinking, therefore cheap and contemptible, like Kazan's,
Bergman's, or Visconti's; it has nothing to offer."
Paul
16493
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Oct 6, 2004 7:42am
Subject: In praise of middle-brow culture (was: The cinephile and the Peopl)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Gallagher"
wrote:
>
> A book I found very interesting is Andrew Ross' "No Respect:
> Intellectuals and Popular Culture."
It does look very interesting -- I'll check it out.
A few pages from Ross' book are available on amazon.com. It's the
> beginning of a chapter describing the famous critic Leslie Fiedler's
> odd attack on the Rosenbergs, in which he seems to want them to die
> not for their spying but for their taste.
It's too small a segment to judge. Let me just say that Leslie
Fiedler is one of the best critics of pop culture I know -- and very
pro-pop. His The Unintentional Epic proposes a counter-canon of works
viewed as lowbrow (Gone with the Wind, Roots, Uncle Tom's Cabin) that
embody a feminist and anti-racist utopia in sharp distinction to the
racist, paternalistic official classics taught in American Studies
departments. That's just one example: His book of archetypes drawn
from early pop culture -- Pocahontas, Rip Van Winkle, Hannah Dustin
(sp?), Leatherstocking -- is an important contribution to American
Studies; Freaks is about pop culture, and contains the first bio of
Tod Browning, since expanded by Robert Sklar, and Fiedler also wrote
a book about Olaf Stapeldon.
On the other hand, I haven't had time to read What Was Literature
yet, but the elegaic title suggests that Fiedler may be nostalgic for
high culture - now pretty much gone, or ghettoized. He's right to be
nostalgic, if he is, and not just for the upper end of the culture
scale. The last time I saw John Hollander he said that the tragedy of
recent years was the destruction of middle-brow culture. I never
found out in detail what he meant by that remark, but it stuck with
me because I grew up in a house filled with relics of middle-brow
culture, from the novels of John Steinbeck and Thornton Wilder, to
the essays of Christopher Morley, to magazines like Horizon and Show,
to Gershwin and Broadway albums, to books illustrated by commercial
artists of the 20s and 30s and 40s whose names I forget, and it's
true that there was that lovely layer of culture between pop and
high, now gone as far as I can see.
Perhaps that's also what has happened to movies, which were fed by
the middlebrow arts of those eras: music, illustration, design,
literature, theatre. Now they are fed by other pop art (Hollywood),
or by modernist and postmodern high art (the more esoteric art house
fare), with nothing in between that could nourish or perhaps even
spawn a Sirk, a Minnelli, a Hitchcock, a Cukor. I can think of
scattered counter-examples -- The Right Stuff is a great film adapted
from a book by one of our last good middle-brow writers -- but the
trend is in the other direction, and it may not be all Hollywood's
fault.
Of course, there is still an arthouse cinema, practiced preeminently
by Miramax, that specializes in middle-brow adaptations, but as far
as I can see, the material they're drawing on is thin and perishable,
which is something even Steinbeck's worst enemy couldn't say about
The Grapes of Wrath, book or film, or for that matter about Lifeboat.
Hitchcock always preferred working with men and women of middle-brow
letters as opposed to professional screenwriters, from Dorothy Parker
to Thornton Wilder to Steinbeck...it's a long and mostly honorable
list. As for Welles, the fusions and mutations of pop, high and
middle that he managed so successfully during his early years
depended on his immersion in the middle-brow Petri dish that was New
York in the 30s, now only a memory.
16494
From: Adrian Martin
Date: Wed Oct 6, 2004 8:37am
Subject: re: cinephilia & populism
Bill, I think you have defined an area for discussion with great lucidity. I
have a lot to say about 'cinephilia and populism', as I wrote 20 thousand
(!) words on this topic back in 1987 (it's in a hard-to-find book of
cultural essays called ISLAND IN THE STREAM, ed. Paul Foss, Pluto Press,
Sydney, 1987). I completely agree with you - some cinephiles are deeply
invested in an imaginary/real populism. (Imaginary or real? - that is the
question!) I would go further: some cinephiles, both in their individual
development; and also some communities of cinephiles, in particular places
at particular different times - it tends to be a different history or
time-line in each country. (That 1987 piece by me was an attempt to write a
'history of Australian cinephilia'.)
Firstly, I am very struck, as several have already remarked in the thread,
about the acute note of nostalgia that attaches itself to this
cinephile-populist identification. We look back to the glory days of the 50s
that Rivette and Jean-Pierre were living through directly, and others of us
can experience only indirectly, in our imaginations. There is a whole
nostalgia here not only for this time of imaginary fusion of cinephiles and
the People, but of course a particular period of cinema: the 50s as a height
and also paroxysm of classicism, the kind of expressionist 'classicism at
its breaking point' we love in Minnelli, Sirk, Ray, Fuller, etc. I don't
think it took long after the breakup of a certain 'classical Hollywood' at
the end of the '50s for even cinephiles of that era to feel displaced and
eccentric: loving DONOVAN'S REEF or NAKED KISS in 1964 must have already
seemed a bizarre and maybe anachronistic taste!
Secondly, and following on from this, many of us here find ourselves
expressing our sense of distance or alienation from contemporary populist
cinema: not many of us couch our cinephilia in terms of a love for
American-financed blockbusters like STAR WARS, THE MATRIX, Pixar animations,
or LORD OF THE RINGS. (Of course there are exceptions: Charles Leary and I
have both written wildly positive things about at least two MATRIX movies!
And one can certainly be auteurist about Peter Jackson.) But there are, all
the same, many contemporary phenomena of cinephile-populism: Asian
action/horror cinema, Bollywood musicals, 'trash comedies' and their ilk
with Jim Carrey, or by The Farrelly Brothers, or by and with Ben Stiller
(ZOOLANDER: flagship of the new-new cinephilia?).
And here I risk a hypothesis: cinephile identification with the People and
The Popular has a heck of a lot more to do with GENRE than auteurism. Or
rather, cinephiles absorbed in a genre 'smuggle in' their auteurist
fixations under cover of a genre umbrella. Look at how Mike or I invoke teen
movies, for example, as a beloved object. A scholarly case: in my 1987
piece, I studied the path of Thomas Elsaesser, who wrote one of the most
important and brilliant reflections on the connections - and disconnections
- of cinephilia and populism in his 1976 piece "Two Weeks in Another Town".
He reflects on his pet late '60s theory: an "audience-oriented aesthetics"
that resembles very closely the sort of thing Brad has been saying here
lately: we are at one with the People in the way we 'take in' the whole
artful affects and effects of great American cinema, the way we laugh, cry,
jump at shocks, etc - and that this emotive model contains enormous
complexities of response, incredibly dense 'content'. Elsaesser says it
clearly: he and his UK comrades of the '60s and '70s had to "move from
auteurism to genre" in order to sustain this sort of engagement and
identification with a model of 'populist aesthetics'. Side note: I find it
interesting there is so little work/reflection on genre these days,
including on this list: a certain kind of 'neo-auteurism' is even disdainful
of popular genres, in order to extol (more Romantically than ever) the Path
of the Artist: Carney is the worst example of this, Brad the best!
Thirdly: where cinephilia and populism do not - or no longer - go together
hand in hand is precisely in the act of discourse, of speaking and writing.
Mike is right: we can laugh with our non-specialist friends about a teen
comedy or share our reactions to an expertly crafted thriller. But
'organised populism' in almost every one of its social forms is PROFOUNDLY
ANTI-INTELLECTUAL: and the moment that any of us start using IDEAS (and not
just exclamations of emotion) to explore our appreciation of the films we
love, we are inevitably putting a distance between us and The People. Such
is the melancholy fate - and sometimes the full-blown crisis - experienced
by many a cinephile; I know many who give it away precisely at this
juncture, to become non-theorising 'fans' and disappear into the Internetted
masses ...
Fourthly (well, I warned you I have a lot to say on this!): in terms of
intellectual history, cinephilia's link with 'the popular' has been
overtaken by the rise of Cultural Studies in universities in many countries.
There, many practitioners have no problem restricting themselves to the
Hollywood Blockbusters (and to their plots and characters, hang the mise en
scene!). And another, even more crucial displacement: the populism of
Cultural Studies is contained above all in Telephilia, not cinephilia. The
Big Fantasy of 'We, the People' is clinched these days in the work of
tele-intellectuals who talk about BUFFY or reality TV, not CAHIERS or FILM
COMMENT writers who celebrate John Woo or Albert Brooks. But the wallop of
populism's anti-intellectualism is waiting just around the corner for the
BUFFY eggheads, too, just as it does for all of us who have ever taken MAN'S
FAVOURITE SPORT seriously in public ...
Adrian
16495
From:
Date: Wed Oct 6, 2004 5:06am
Subject: The Two "Bitter Sugar" films
Have not seen Leon Ichaso's film "Bitter Sugar".
Was refering to a French language film, Sucre Amer / Bitter Sugar, directed
by Christian Lara in 1997. This uses Resnais-like avant-garde effects to tell
the story of slavery on the French-speaking island of Guadaloupe. It's a
classic.
The only Ichaso seen here are some of his "MIami Vice" episodes, which I
enjoyed.
Sorry for the mixup!
Mike Grost
16496
From:
Date: Wed Oct 6, 2004 5:31am
Subject: Re: The cinephile and the Peopl (Was: Rivette's Evidence
High brows who hated everything about popular art were everywhere when I was
growing up in the 60's. The quotes cited in posts here are typical.
Taking the opposite stand were the members of the Popular Culture movement.
This tiny group of academics supported the study of all forms of popular
culture - films, TV, prose genre fiction such as mysteries, science fiction,
Westerns, romance novels, and comic books and strips.
I studied under Russell Nye, the Michigan State University (MSU) professor
who was one of the leaders of the movement. Nye founded the Comic Art Collection
at MSU. It now has 150, 000 comic books, and is the largest publicly held
collection in the world.
An interest in Popular Culture is not just an attitude. Eventually it leads
one to a huge body of actual works.
Take the "Poirot" British TV series for example. It contains dozens of
episodes, many of which are very good. Nearly the whole series is available on video
and DVD, and it is widely shown on TV in Canada and the US. I've seen almost
all of them. So have lots of people - it is hugely popular among mystery fans.
"Poirot" seems invisible in the cinephile community. To be blunt, I sometimes
think I am the only a_film_by-er who actually watches this. This is ACTUAL
CINEMA. It is not some sort of attitude - we are talking about over 50 hours of
film here!
There is a LOT of cinema like this. Thousands of hours made for both film and
TV.
I am not sure that it is all "emotion" and no "ideas", either. "Poirot"
appeals to the intellect far more that the emotions, for example.
The "Poirot" stories all have actual plots. They are not minimalist dreck.
They are an example of "popular cinema designed to appeal to intellectuals and
thinking people". Yes, this happy fusion exists!
Mike Grost
16497
From:
Date: Wed Oct 6, 2004 5:39am
Subject: Re: In praise of middle-brow culture (was: The cinephile and the ...
Strongly echo Bill Krohn's praise of middle-brow culture.
I loved Thorton Wilder while growing up! He was taught at school, and his
plays such as "The Skin of Our Teeth" were performed by student groups at
Michigan State while I was there. You could also see Wilder works on Public
Television (PBS) in this era - enjoyed the broadcast of "Infancy" and "Childhood", with
Fred Gwynne (a much loved actor from "Car 54, Where Are You" to "My Cousin
Vinnie"). PBS did lots of theater in this era. It was great to see this while
growing up.
Middle brow culture is a huge, fertile area. It forms a meeting ground
between the popular and the intellectual, allowing a fusion of the best elements of
each. We need a lot more of it.
Mike Grost
16498
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Wed Oct 6, 2004 11:06am
Subject: Re: Ophuls & Tears (WAS: Rivette's evidence)
> "I don't think it's necessarily progressive - the film works with
the
> censorship and mores of the day so that it can be viewed in at
least
> two ways. I like to think the progressive one is the one intended,
> but one could happily view Fontaine's story as a parable of sin
> punished, and still cry (love the sinner, hate the sin)."
>
> It is possible to read the film as a parable of sin (especially if
> you are a censor), but I very much doubt that anyone who read the
> film in this way could be moved to tears by the ending.
I'm pretty sure they could - moralistic types are often sentimental!
But on the other hand it could be that internally this hypothetical
audience is responding to Ophuls' message, while imposing their own
conscious interpretation on top.
> requirements of censorship are certainly met on the surface level,
> but the appeal to our emotions is progressive (fortunately, censors
> don't understand emotional responses, as Ophuls was obviously
aware).
- or if they do understand them, they can't censor them - if what's
happening opn the surface of the film fits the censors' criteria,
they can't censor the audience's tears!
"They can't censor the gleam in my eye." - Charles Laughton
16499
From: jess_l_amortell
Date: Wed Oct 6, 2004 2:42pm
Subject: Re: Travestied 'Notre musique' (was: Triple Agent AR / NYFF)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Andy Rector" wrote:
>
> >To me, projecting a 1.37 Godard at 1.85 is tantamount to
> > showing the film in reverse, or mixing up reels.
> >
> > I'm going to try and get someone on the phone to see if it's
> possible
> > to save tonight's screening.
> >
> > craig.
>
> So, in the end, how was Notre Musique shown??
I was waiting for Craig Keller or others more Godardian than I to comment on the screening, but I think it should be reported that his intervention was successful: the film was shown at Academy ratio, or what passes for it -- I say that because, trying to pay attention to the edges of the image in this case, I kept noticing that, even on the Alice Tully screen, the tops of figures -- architectural forms for example -- were often just above the frame line. One could only value every square centimeter of Sarajevo that was spared and left standing by the framing.
One curiosity: the Wellspring logo at the beginning was letterboxed, as if cueing the projectionist to mask the frame accordingly. And while their subtitles were also slightly raised -- into the "safe area" presumably -- I would think a 1.66:1 screening would have just about grazed them, while 1.85 would surely have trimmed them out altogether...?
The clips from films made in Academy ratio throughout the first part are one reason the classic framing seemed correct. Another curiosity, however, under the circumstances and in view of those illustrations in G.'s article: when he displays a pair of stills (or frame blowups) of Grant and Russell in His Girl Friday to illustrate (supposedly) the odd thesis that "Hawks didn't know the difference between a man and a woman" (by the way, is he quoting anyone there?), why are the stills cropped -- or so it seemed -- to 1.66:1?
16500
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Oct 6, 2004 6:19pm
Subject: Re: cinephilia & populism
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Adrian Martin wrote:
> Bill, I think you have defined an area for discussion with great
lucidity.
Actually, I was refocusing on Brad's original point, which got lost
in debates about rivette. I agree that it's a huge area for
discussion.
I
> have a lot to say about 'cinephilia and populism', as I wrote 20
thousand
> (!) words on this topic back in 1987 (it's in a hard-to-find book of
> cultural essays called ISLAND IN THE STREAM, ed. Paul Foss, Pluto
Press,
> Sydney, 1987).
Another book to track down!
> Firstly, I am very struck, as several have already remarked in the
thread,
> about the acute note of nostalgia that attaches itself to this
> cinephile-populist identification.
Not to be confused with nostalghia for the Golden Age of H'wd,
although that is what made it possible. The fact that people are now
turning to substitutes like yakuza-zombie films (I just saw Versus)
indicates to me that while the embracing of H'wd's classical and
baroque periods had many reasons -- notably esthetic -- one of them
was this mediated relationship to the Peopple, whom cinephiles as a
rule have little contact with by other means. As Daney pointed out
when i interviewed him in 1977, the CdC embracing of militant cinema
in the 70s was a logical consequence of this.
> And here I risk a hypothesis: cinephile identification with the
People and
> The Popular has a heck of a lot more to do with GENRE than
auteurism. Or
> rather, cinephiles absorbed in a genre 'smuggle in' their auteurist
> fixations under cover of a genre umbrella. Look at how Mike or I
invoke teen
> movies, for example, as a beloved object. A scholarly case: in my
1987
> piece, I studied the path of Thomas Elsaesser, who wrote one of the
most
> important and brilliant reflections on the connections - and
disconnections
> - of cinephilia and populism in his 1976 piece "Two Weeks in
Another Town".
Another piece I need to read.
Elsaesser says it
> clearly: he and his UK comrades of the '60s and '70s had to "move
from
> auteurism to genre" in order to sustain this sort of engagement and
> identification with a model of 'populist aesthetics'.
This is also true of the move to militant cinema in CdC, which was
explicitly anti-auteurist. Godard's anonymous May films (where his
handwriting is still recognizable!) were an attempt to move in the
same direction.
Thirdly: where cinephilia and populism do not - or no longer - go
together
> hand in hand is precisely in the act of discourse, of speaking and
writing. Such
> is the melancholy fate - and sometimes the full-blown crisis -
experienced
> by many a cinephile; I know many who give it away precisely at this
> juncture, to become non-theorising 'fans' and disappear into the
Internetted
> masses ...
Interesting. I haven't seen that happen to anyone, but it makes
sense. The contradiction is of course real and eternally present, and
how we "live" it is the crux of the question. Just a note: the whole
idea of "second degree appreciation" and "being superior to these
films while writing about them" has always been a no-no, although
Manny Farber opened the door to a lot of Film Comment-type writers --
let's say it straight out: Film Comment writers -- to do just that. I
have cited before a wittily condescending piece on Cornel Wilde as
director that appeared in that august rag as a particularly unfair
example of this infraction. There was wit in the capsule reviews in
CdC back when they used to review Italian vampire movies in the back
and Bresson or Hawks in the front, but it was a very different kind
of wit. The rhetoric of it would be interesting to examine someday.
Fourthly (well, I warned you I have a lot to say on this!): in terms
of
> intellectual history, cinephilia's link with 'the popular' has been
> overtaken by the rise of Cultural Studies in universities in many
countries.
> There, many practitioners have no problem restricting themselves to
the
> Hollywood Blockbusters (and to their plots and characters, hang the
mise en
> scene!). The
> Big Fantasy of 'We, the People' is clinched these days in the work
of
> tele-intellectuals who talk about BUFFY or reality TV, not CAHIERS
or FILM
> COMMENT writers who celebrate John Woo or Albert Brooks.
That strain of populism appeared in CdC during its previous
incarnation, too. A couple of the people doing it were friends of
mine, so I never felt, as Toubiana remarked to one of them, that they
had "betrayed the traditions of the Cahiers" -- obviously from this
discussion, quite the contrary -- but I will admit that I found
little nourishment in what they wrote, and stopped contributing
myself, in large part because I don't have television. Ironically,
I've started watching tv on tape since the purge and am finding
things I like -- 24, CSI, which they espoused; K-Street and Mr. Show
which I heard about here -- but there just isn't time. I don't know
how Mike does it!
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