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19501
From:
Date: Sat Dec 25, 2004 1:55am
Subject: Re: Re: Merry Christmas all
I actually love "It's A Wonderful Life," Henrik, though my favorite viewing
for this time of year is probably Leo McCarey's "The Bells of St. Mary's."
Actually, though, I can and do watch both on tape during any time, since they are
great cinema.
Peter
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
19502
From: Fred Camper
Date: Sat Dec 25, 2004 6:57am
Subject: Re: Re: Why Italy? (Was: Dubbing)
Dave Kehr wrote:
>
> You folks all realize, of course, that there is no such thing as
> direct sound....
I assume you mean your statement to apply only to commercially made,
union crew or similar, theatrical features? Because many or most direct
cinema or cinema verite documentaries do not manipulate the sound.
That's why it can be hard to understand what the people in Ricky Leacock
films are saying.
Fred Camper
19503
From:
Date: Sat Dec 25, 2004 2:07am
Subject: Re: Re: Dubbing, Realism, Suspension of Disbelief
Dan Sallitt wrote:
"Well, hopefully it becomes possible to read subtitles and experience the
movie at the same time, or else we're all in trouble."
Was it Fred who posted some time ago about the rumor that the early Cahiers
auteurists saw American movies (and decided the great ones to be great) without
subtitles? It would be really useful if we could determine if this was in
fact true or not.
Peter
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
19504
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Dec 25, 2004 7:51am
Subject: Re: Delpy and Before Sunset (Was: top tens)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "cjsuttree" wrote:
>
> Rohmer doesn't seem to get much respect these days (none
> of his films are on Criterion unless I'm mistaken), but
> for the life of me I can't understand why Sofia Coppola and
> Richard Linklater are valued more highly.
I've already said how much I like Triple Agent. Damned if I know why -
it shouldn't work, but it does. I saw it on DVD, but I hope Rohmer
fans on the list (and they are numerous, C.J.) will be able to see it
in a theatre, where the spell it casts with the most minimal means
would work beat. I've already said I think it's his Topaz, so I
suppose it's an example of applying Hitchcock's secrets to material
that denies the director any easy efects - as is Topaz, for that
matter. BTW, the two-person bonus on the English DVD, which I thought
was directed by Rophmer, was directed by the film's producer,
according to the CdC DVD review.
>
> Now back to the woodwork (and cuddle up with with Dekalog 3, my
> annual X'mas ritual).
Visit more often, C.J.
I opted for music this year - The Messiah all the way through.
19505
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Dec 25, 2004 7:57am
Subject: Re: Merry Christmas all
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, ptonguette@a... wrote:
> I actually love "It's A Wonderful Life," Henrik, though my favorite
viewing
> for this time of year is probably Leo McCarey's "The Bells of St.
Mary's."
> Actually, though, I can and do watch both on tape during any time,
since they are
> great cinema.
>
> Peter
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
It's a Wonderful Life is a great film, and one of the few H'wd films
that directly deals with economic issues: It matters who you owe
money to. My maternal grandfather ran an S&L. Of course Neil Bush,
Don Dixon and other cowboy financiers have totally perverted their
original purpose by looting them once their bought-and-paid-for
political allies had thoughtfully deregulated them. Capra must be
turning over in his grave.
19506
From: Damien Bona
Date: Sat Dec 25, 2004 7:59am
Subject: Re: Merry Christmas all
Merry Christmas, everyone.
I hope all are spending it with loved ones, or, as a seconf best,
with a beloved film.
And for those who haven't seen them Remember The Night, Bells of St.
Mary's and Shop Around The Corner are especially recommended at this
time of year. And also the best version of Scrooge ever: Mr.
Magoo's Christmas Carol, with a really lovely Jule Styne/Bob Merrill
score.
19507
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Dec 25, 2004 8:15am
Subject: Ken Park and Notre Musique
Those were my day-before-Christmas movies this year. (Normally I'd be
at a house where the tv is never turned off, but this year I stayed
in LA.) I'm reviewing Ken Park for the Cinefile e-mail, so I'll just
say here that I think it's wonderful; I don't believe for a minute
that it's based on true stories; and I loved the way they used ad
imagery (referenced in Lachman's CdC interview), casting and lighting
Tony's grandparents to look just like the go-for-the-gusto seniors in
laxative ads on CNN.
Notre musique is a tough film. I certainly didn't understand all of
it:
1. The montage of "Jew" and "Musulman" is not just a visual
association, as J-M Frodon said it was in his review -- it's a quote
from Ici et ailleurs, where we're told that the SS called any camp
inmate who was too sick to work a "musulman." One thing I never knew
till reading J-M's interview w. J-LG: Anne-Marie Mieville was the
gerant of the Palestinian Library in Paris.
2. The critique of Hawks' champ-contrechamp between Hildy and Walter
in His Girl Friday - that Hawks used the same shot because he didn't
know how to show the difference between men and women - of course
contradicts Bellour's famous shot analysis of a driving scene in Big
Sleep, which implicitly criticizes the film for expressing that
difference visually. Much of the Sarajevo section is about champs-
contrechamp, which Godard accepts as a fait accompli imposed by the
industry, then tries to analyze and revise thru different examples of
confronting the Other. This is the section I found hardest to follow.
3. The tramway made me think of Greed rather than Sunrise, for some
reason.
4. At the end of the Purgatory section we see Godard tending his
garden, like Voltaire's older and wiser hero at the end of Candide.
5. The Paradise in the epilogue is definitely dependent, as JMF
notes, on the presence of the Marines. (Great use of "From the Halls
of Montezuma" on the soundtrack.)
6. Bouvet is totally wasted. Don't know what he's doing in the film.
Godard obviously likes Sarajevo and is happy it wasn't destroyed and
isn't occupied by a hostile army. Apart from that, I take his
political koans in the film with a bigger grain of salt than usual.
It's about something else.
19508
From: Tom Sutpen
Date: Sat Dec 25, 2004 8:48am
Subject: Re: Merry Christmas all
I wonder, would it be too presumptuous for a Freshman voice in this
august concord to extend Season's Greetings to the upperclassmen?
If not, then I wish you all that proverbial Merriest of Christmases.
And may all the good cheer you've gathered extend well into the New Year.
If so . . . well, there's not much can be done about it now, is there.
Have a tremendous Christmas, everyone.
Tom Sutpen
19509
From: Adrian Martin
Date: Sat Dec 25, 2004 11:15am
Subject: re: Direct sound/Tarr
Andy asked: "Am I alone in finding Bela Tarr's work difficult because of his
wonton use of dubbing, his alienated soundtrack?"
No, you are not alone on this, Andy! I once wrote a slightly dissenting note
on aspects of SATANTNAGO (the BT cult leaves me a little cold at the best of
times) saying that, sometimes for an hour's stretch, it lacks any evident
sound design!! I don't think Tarr pays very much attention to sound. He
should! And as the great film-sound theorist Philip Brophy rightly says: "A
film is 100% image and 100% sound". (Philip's BFI book 100 MODERN
SOUNDTRACKS is a must-read, and has the edge over Chion, in my opinion.)
However, reading a number of recent posts, I am once again a little
perturbed by the post-Bazinian equation of direct sound recording with some
essence of cinema. That is to say: I don't automatically equate - and I'm
sure you don't either, Andy - 'dubbing' with 'alienation'! I am with Dave K
about sound being (like all things in cinema) a matter of artifice, not
realism - not necessarily even an 'effect of realism' (which would finally
be, quite simply, a style like any other, not an ontological 'essence' or
aesthetic priority).
Jean-Pierre, I understand your annoyance/despair over some dubbed films, but
so much great cinema is sometimes completely post-synchronised: a lot of
Welles (François Thomas wrote a terrific essay on this in the book CINESONIC
vol 2), Tati of course, the first two Godard features, Bresson, Leone ...
entering this fray, Adrian
19510
From: Andy Rector
Date: Sat Dec 25, 2004 10:27am
Subject: Re: Ken Park and Notre Musique
>
> Godard obviously likes Sarajevo and is happy it wasn't destroyed
and
> isn't occupied by a hostile army. Apart from that, I take his
> political koans in the film with a bigger grain of salt than
usual.
> It's about something else.
Godard uses champ-contrechamp to see this Sarajevo he likes. It is
woven throughout the film, maybe in an effort to restore its power
as a tool. "Reality" champ, "uncertainty" contrechamp. Image plus
text, an image and a caption (the photo of ruins revealed as
Virginia, an uninflected image of Olga intercut with her hand
holding a printed caption on a piece of paper, "martyrdom"). Godard
has said, a true reaction shot has not yet been made. He hasn't made
one here either. Godard seems to want a third thing, which is
perhaps called the cinema, like Marx in On the Jewish Question: "It
was by no means sufficient to ask: who should emacipate? who should
be emancipated? THE CRITIC SHOULD ASK A THIRD QUESTION: what kind of
emancipation is involved?"
Its just another question. Between thought and action (past and
present, the material and the ghost), and the fusion of the two is
where the movie attempts to go (via Olga in her coming to focus), if
only as a precursor toward future
work (with "little digital cameras"). It's an anti-end-of-cinema
film.
I don't know what to make of the Paradise sequence. Its shockingly
unsatisfying as a Paradise. It's not like the swelling melancholy of
Eloge, its more disturbing. Everything is pasted up as in a diagram.
Like the music it keeps coming toward a resolution but never gets
there. It's curiously empty.
yours
andy
19511
From: Andy Rector
Date: Sat Dec 25, 2004 11:14am
Subject: Re: Direct sound/Tarr
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Adrian Martin
wrote:
> Andy asked: "Am I alone in finding Bela Tarr's work difficult
because of his
> wonton use of dubbing, his alienated soundtrack?"
>
> No, you are not alone on this, Andy! I once wrote a slightly
dissenting note
> on aspects of SATANTNAGO (the BT cult leaves me a little cold at
the best of
> times) saying that, sometimes for an hour's stretch, it lacks any
evident
> sound design!! I don't think Tarr pays very much attention to
sound. He
> should!
I kept thinking "this would be much better with direct sound". I
could be completely wrong. For they do seem to me designedly
undesigned, if you will.
Hungarian cinema seems to use a lot of dubbing too, but in a much
more interesting way than Italy. But enough generalizations.
> I am once again a little
> perturbed by the post-Bazinian equation of direct sound recording
with some
> essence of cinema. That is to say: I don't automatically equate -
and I'm
> sure you don't either, Andy - 'dubbing' with 'alienation'!
I WAS slyly implying just that because its a feeling that I have--
thwarted by Welles, Bresson, and especially Tati (and Godard, well,
as soon as direct sound was available to him he used that and
nothing else, cf the hollow working class apartment sound of Numero
Deux mentioned by Silverman/Farouki). Plus there's Vertov's "radio-
ear", which Welles tends towards, the possiblities of which still
excite me. But in all of them dubbing serves as a
counterpoint or as a nearly unfathomable precision which one does
not see on the whole, the whole being deceptive and often
alienating.
I agree with Renoir's saying that believing in dubbing is like
refusing to believe in the unity of the individual. Its a feeling I
think we need the most in our times!
Maybe it is a question of faith, in image and sound. Or humility:
how could I design something as multifarious as natural sound--
thats a Straub position. I'm sure you're familiar with the Rivette
interview where he lines up politics to morals and morals to direct
sound (Time Overflowing). I still think this is possible, desirable,
today.
HOWEVER there is something else I notice on television. A tendency
towards rash slippage between image and directly recorded sound in
reality shows. These shows are skillfully manipulated through
soundbridges and simple but profuse cuts. Lived experience is so
savagely digested that direct sound ceases to mean very much.
Directly yours,
andy
19513
From: Aaron Graham
Date: Sat Dec 25, 2004 11:46am
Subject: Re: Merry Christmas all
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, ptonguette@a... wrote:
> I actually love "It's A Wonderful Life," Henrik, though my favorite
viewing
> for this time of year is probably Leo McCarey's "The Bells of St.
Mary's."
> Actually, though, I can and do watch both on tape during any time,
since they are
> great cinema.
>
> Peter
I prefer "It's A Wonderful Life" myself, and watched it again tonight
for the umpteenth time. The entire last act (George witnessing what
Bedford Falls would be like without him) is amazing.
I also had a very Fleischer/Bronson Christmas and watched "Mr
Majestyk" for the third or fourth time.
-Aaron
PS: Merry Christmas everyone!
19514
From: Kristian Andersen
Date: Sat Dec 25, 2004 0:47pm
Subject: Belle and Sebastian (was Re: The new issue of The Believer)
I had no idea he wrote on film. He wrote one of my
favorite articles on Belle & Sebastian, perfectly exlaining their
appeal (at the height of their fame).
Jonathan Takagi
Where did this article appear and is it online?
19515
From: Elizabeth Nolan
Date: Sat Dec 25, 2004 3:35pm
Subject: Re: Merry Christmas all
> I wonder, would it be too presumptuous for a Freshman voice in this
> august concord to extend Season's Greetings to the upperclassmen?
>
> If not, then I wish you all that proverbial Merriest of Christmases.
> And may all the good cheer you've gathered extend well into the New
> Year.
>
> If so . . . well, there's not much can be done about it now, is there.
>
> Have a tremendous Christmas, everyone.
>
> Tom Sutpen
Received, and forwarded to all. Elizabeth
19516
From: K. A. Westphal
Date: Sat Dec 25, 2004 4:01pm
Subject: Book About Subtitles
Merry Christmas All...
This morning I came across a review of SUBTITLES: ON THE FOREIGNNESS
OF FILM in The New Stateman. I have not read this book, but the review
is amusing in its own right. It begins with a reference to Bazin and
cineastes, but follows with:
"[Serge Daney] could easily have been talking about the film director
Atom Egoyan and the Canadian academic Ian Balfour, who have together
edited a remarkable 500-page book, printed in 1.66:1 Cinemascope
ratio, that not only explores the history and contemporary usage of
subtitles, but uses them as a metaphor for discussing a very wide
range of topics, from Borges's opinions on Citizen Kane ("it suffers
from gigantism, pedantry and tedium") to White House tapes of Osama
Bin Laden admitting his part in the destruction of the World Trade
Center."
(The author of the review, Sukhdev Sandhu, contributed to the last
Sight and Sound Top Ten survey; the credibility of the poll is
tarnished when its contributors identify Cinemascope as 1.66:1. Also:
the OBL tapes have been a subject of some debate; Mike Rubin submitted
a brief--and very funny--commentary to Village Voice/Take Three
comparing the tapes to Bresson and Makhmalbaf.)
Further down in the review, we find some juicy theory:
"Amresh Sinha even argues that subtitles themselves are illegal aliens
in the republic of cinema, existing "on the borderline between image
and voice. They remain pariahs, outsiders, in exile from the imperial
territoriality of the visual regime." Other writers describe them as
"symptomatic, foreign-body disturbances" and, pointing to the high
proportion of subtitlers who are Jewish, speculate about the
relationship between nomadism and multilingualism."
The URL for those so inclined:
http://www.newstatesman.com/Bookshop/300000092266
--Kyle Westphal
Opponent to "imperial territoriality of the visual regime"
19517
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat Dec 25, 2004 4:13pm
Subject: Re: Dubbing, Realism, Suspension of Disbelief
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, ptonguette@a... wrote:
> Dan Sallitt wrote:
>
> "Well, hopefully it becomes possible to read subtitles and
experience the
> movie at the same time, or else we're all in trouble."
>
> Was it Fred who posted some time ago about the rumor that the
early Cahiers
> auteurists saw American movies (and decided the great ones to be
great) without
> subtitles? It would be really useful if we could determine if
this was in
> fact true or not.
>
> Peter
>
> I was around at the time and I just don't know how they could
have seen American movies without subtitles, unless they had access
to screenings at the American embassy or on US military bases (as I
did later on). Or perhaps knew someone at the French distributor's
who let them watch yet-unsubtitled prints. it's not impossible but
it's unlikely, and could only have happened occasionally, not on a
regular basis. As far as I can tell they saw press screenings of
subtitled prints, and/or saw the films in theatres. Truffaut liked
to see dubbed versions (check out his remark that "Vera Cruz" was
better dubbed than in the original language).
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
19518
From: Zach Campbell
Date: Sat Dec 25, 2004 4:22pm
Subject: Re: Book About Subtitles
> "Amresh Sinha even argues that subtitles themselves are illegal
> aliens in the republic of cinema, existing "on the borderline
> between image and voice.
I'll be taking a class with Sinha next semester. Not a course on
subtitles, though mostly Euroopean films to be screened I take it.
And I've heard that the subtitle book is really interesting. Anyone
here read it yet?
Happy holidays, all.
--Zach
19519
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat Dec 25, 2004 4:30pm
Subject: 100%+100%
I can't remember who said that cinema is 100% image and 100% sound,
but the statement (quoted in someone's post today) seems to sweep
the entire silent era under the rug, or into the dustbin.
Can it be said that cinema becomes truly cinema only with sound?
(it's a bit like saying that painting became truly painting only
with the invention of perspective).
Related question: is musical accompaniment of a silent film part of
the film? I would say no, since the accompaniment was/is different
(often wildly different)with each screening venue.
It seems to me that the real handicap of silents is not the lack of
sound but the burden of music and the arbitrariness of the music's
nature.
19520
From: Dave Kehr
Date: Sat Dec 25, 2004 4:34pm
Subject: Re: Why Italy? (Was: Dubbing)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
> Dave Kehr wrote:
>
> >
> > You folks all realize, of course, that there is no such thing as
> > direct sound....
>
> I assume you mean your statement to apply only to commercially
made,
> union crew or similar, theatrical features? Because many or most
direct
> cinema or cinema verite documentaries do not manipulate the sound.
> That's why it can be hard to understand what the people in Ricky
Leacock
> films are saying.
>
> Fred Camper
You've caught me in a journalistic exaggeration. Obviously there
are exceptions, but they tend to be self-conscious ones -- Straub,
Leacock, etc. But plenty of this manipulation goes on in
documentary films. I've sat at Sound One in NY and done it myself.
It seems nostalgic and naive to be yearning for a lost purity that
was never really there.
Dave
19521
From:
Date: Sat Dec 25, 2004 4:49pm
Subject: Re: Book About Subtitles
K. A. Westphal wrote:
>
>
>
> (The author of the review, Sukhdev Sandhu, contributed to the last
> Sight and Sound Top Ten survey; the credibility of the poll is
> tarnished when its contributors identify Cinemascope as 1.66:1.
>
Well, Sukhdev's a good friend of mine, and I can assure you that
this is just a typo, if anything. Sukhdev knows what Cinemascope is,
trust me. He also has quite impeccable taste.
-Bilge
19522
From: K. A. Westphal
Date: Sat Dec 25, 2004 5:10pm
Subject: Re: Book About Subtitles
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, ebiri@a... wrote:
>
> K. A. Westphal wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > (The author of the review, Sukhdev Sandhu, contributed to the last
> > Sight and Sound Top Ten survey; the credibility of the poll is
> > tarnished when its contributors identify Cinemascope as 1.66:1.
> >
>
> Well, Sukhdev's a good friend of mine, and I can assure you that
> this is just a typo, if anything. Sukhdev knows what Cinemascope is,
> trust me. He also has quite impeccable taste.
>
> -Bilge
I apologize for the tone of my post. I just assumed people here would
be amused by the mistake.
--Kyle
19523
From: Robert Keser
Date: Sat Dec 25, 2004 5:32pm
Subject: Re: Xmas greetings
In the pagan spirit of David's Xmas Greetings (and apparently in the
pagan spirit of Lana Turner), we might all ponder the adjustments to
the lyrics of "White Christmas" made by the Weather Underground:
I'm dreaming of a white riot
Just like the one October 8
When the pigs take a beating
And things start leading
To armed war against the state…
True believers can find the complete lyrics on page 262 of J.
Hoberman's "The Dream Life".
Merry Xmas to everybody!
--Robert Keser
19524
From:
Date: Sat Dec 25, 2004 5:41pm
Subject: Re: Book About Subtitles
>
> I apologize for the tone of my post. I just assumed people here
would
> be amused by the mistake.
>
Oh certainly. (And I was amused, actually, especially since it
proves that whoever edits that mag clearly doesn't bother to, um,
edit.) I didn't take offense at your post, really. But I just wanted
to clear that up, lest it lead to an entire thread of "Why does the
S&S poll publish people who don't know what they're talking about?"
head-beating.
-Bilge
19525
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Dec 25, 2004 6:29pm
Subject: Re: Ken Park and Notre Musique
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Andy Rector"
wrote:
>
> >
> > Godard obviously likes Sarajevo and is happy it wasn't destroyed
> and
> > isn't occupied by a hostile army. Apart from that, I take his
> > political koans in the film with a bigger grain of salt than
> usual.
> > It's about something else.
>
> Godard uses champ-contrechamp to see this Sarajevo he likes. It is
> woven throughout the film, maybe in an effort to restore its power
> as a tool. "Reality" champ, "uncertainty" contrechamp. Image plus
> text, an image and a caption (the photo of ruins revealed as
> Virginia, an uninflected image of Olga intercut with her hand
> holding a printed caption on a piece of paper, "martyrdom"). Godard
> has said, a true reaction shot has not yet been made. He hasn't
made
> one here either. Godard seems to want a third thing, which is
> perhaps called the cinema, like Marx in On the Jewish Question: "It
> was by no means sufficient to ask: who should emacipate? who should
> be emancipated? THE CRITIC SHOULD ASK A THIRD QUESTION: what kind
of
> emancipation is involved?"
> Its just another question. Between thought and action (past and
> present, the material and the ghost), and the fusion of the two is
> where the movie attempts to go (via Olga in her coming to focus),
if
> only as a precursor toward future
> work (with "little digital cameras"). It's an anti-end-of-cinema
> film.
>
> I don't know what to make of the Paradise sequence. Its shockingly
> unsatisfying as a Paradise. It's not like the swelling melancholy
of
> Eloge, its more disturbing. Everything is pasted up as in a
diagram.
> Like the music it keeps coming toward a resolution but never gets
> there. It's curiously empty.
>
> yours
> andy
Great observations - I'll try to apply them when I see the film again.
Barthes compared himself to Dante at the beginning of Divine Comedy
when he started his lectures at College de France on "Preparing to
write a novel," which I'm reading now - when he finished the last
lecture, he was killed. The relevance is perhaps just this: Barthes
was talking about the crisis (not necessarily midlife - he was 68)
that happens when you start counting down to death and decide you
don't want to keep doing the same things you've been doing. (He also
cites Proust's decision to write A la recherche...) The non-credible
recycling of Godardian cliches (the text and the image: his lecture
topic) in Notre musique may be a symptom of the crisis, or even a
subtle description of it. One cliche that is significantly
rewritten: "Pas une conversation juste; juste une conversation."
Godard's crisis - I see a big difference between Eloge d'Amour, which
I didn't like, and Notre musique - seems to have to do w. the need
for dialogue: cf. Olga in the film. His first idea for Notre musique
was to film a remake of Silence de la mer at his house with an
Israeli and a Palestinian. Then he tried to film himself and Marcel
Ophuls discussing the question "What Is a Jew?" but Ophuls backed out
during preliminary discussions.
J-LG is scheduled to hold a series of discussions with other thinkers
at le Centre Pompidou from October 2005 to June 2006, accompanying
them with video montages called Collages de France. He recently
broadcast a radio discussion with the author of an attack on cinema,
La mort aux yeux. I just saw a published excerpt of the discussion,
which the desk clerk of my hotel Xeroxed for me. (Only in France...)
19526
From: George Robinson
Date: Sat Dec 25, 2004 8:39pm
Subject: Re: Re: Book About Subtitles
Allow me to assure you that not only don't editors know what they are
doing when it comes to catching errors but that it is a distinct
possibility that the error in question was put into the article by the
editor. I have had countless errors inserted into my copy by overzealous
copy-editors who thought they knew more about film or music than I do.
(Not that I'm such a genius, but I do more about my field than the
copy-editors at the places I write for.)
As for the book itself, I reviewed it in a very, very brief 'graph in my
column in INSIDE Magazine (Philadelphia); it's quite interesting but the
title is rather misleading, since subtitling is only a small part of the
subject matter. Egoyan and Balfour came with the thesis that the act of
watching a motion picture is, in itself, a strange and foreign
experience, and a lot of the material in the book riffs on that idea.
It's a really handsomely produced package -- kudos to MIT Press, who do
a lot of intersting film/media studies titles -- and most of the essays
are inventive and thoughtful. Way too much for me to digest in a single
reading, but it's a fun book to dip into over and over again.
Happy New Year people,
g
ebiri@a... wrote:
>Oh certainly. (And I was amused, actually, especially since it
>proves that whoever edits that mag clearly doesn't bother to, um,
>edit.) I didn't take offense at your post, really. But I just wanted
>to clear that up, lest it lead to an entire thread of "Why does the
>S&S poll publish people who don't know what they're talking about?"
>head-beating.
>
>-Bilge
>
>
>
19527
From: peckinpah20012000
Date: Sat Dec 25, 2004 8:49pm
Subject: Re: Merry Christmas all
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Elizabeth Nolan wrote:
> > I wonder, would it be too presumptuous for a Freshman voice in
this
> > august concord to extend Season's Greetings to the upperclassmen?
> >
> > If not, then I wish you all that proverbial Merriest of
Christmases.
> > And may all the good cheer you've gathered extend well into the
New
> > Year.
> >
> > A Merry Christmas to everyone from one affected by sub-zero
siege conditions in the mid-West. However, I will not be running THE
SHINING but several new DVDs such as I VITELLONI, THE LEOPARD, and
BATTLE OF ALGIERS.
My indulgent viewing last night was Jeff Lau's TREASURE HUNT
containing a very winning performance by Chow Yun-fat (now making
absymal films like BULLETPROOF MONK) and superb supporting roles by
Gordon Lau (as a Shaolin Temple Abbot) and Philip Kwok as an
obnoxious Mainland taxi driver.
To add something to David's list - BLACK CHRISTMAS by Bob Clark.
Its serial killer represents Keir Dullea's "return of the repressed"
alter ego denying his conscious wishes for marriage and family.
Tony Williams
19528
From: George Robinson
Date: Sat Dec 25, 2004 8:53pm
Subject: Rediscovered 'Race Movies' Playing to a New Audience (washingtonpost.com)
Apologies for the cross-posting, but this is an article that members of
both lists will undoubtedly find intersting.
g
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24795-2004Dec24.html?referrer=emailarticle
19529
From: Fred Camper
Date: Sat Dec 25, 2004 9:14pm
Subject: Re: Re: Why Italy? (Was: Dubbing)
Dave Kehr wrote:
> ....It seems nostalgic and naive to be yearning for a lost purity that
> was never really there.
This part I agree with completely! The almost unintelligible tinny sound
of a character speaking in the "direct sound" of a Ricky Leacock film
doesn't sound very much like the character speaking in "real life," if
you had been there during the shoot; it sounds like room tones and
windscreens and shotgun microphones and all the other "players" that
insert themselves into the process of voice going from human mouth to
projector speaker.
The real reason I replied is that I'm on a mad-dog campaign to critique
the use of the words "film," or "cinema," or "movie" to refer to
union-made sync-sound narrative feature films. Unlike Brakhage, I do NOT
want to use "film" for "Dog Star Man" and "movie" for "Seven Women" to
make some aesthetic distinction -- along with docs and ethnographic
films and home movies and instructional films and animated cartoons and
avant-garde films and "early" films, they are all cinema.
Fred Camper
19530
From: Fred Camper
Date: Sat Dec 25, 2004 9:24pm
Subject: Re: Re: Merry Christmas all
Well, my own favorite Christmas film by far, and the one that most
closely matches my outlook on this particular holiday and, well, life,
is Douglas Sirk's "All That Heaven Allows." Only a few scenes deal with
Christmas, but aside from the incredible and justly-praised scene in
which kids and salesman give a gift to mom (trying not to spoil this for
those who haven't seen it), there's the moment where Carrie comes across
Ron, standing at first in the background like a ghost, when buying a
Christmas tree. The even briefer Christmas stuff in "Imitation of Life"
is also great. Sirk is the only filmmaker I know to have deeply
understood the grotesque materialism of Christmas in America.
Fred Camper
19531
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat Dec 25, 2004 9:40pm
Subject: Re: Why Italy? (Was: Dubbing)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
>
> The real reason I replied is that I'm on a mad-dog campaign to
critique
> the use of the words "film," or "cinema," or "movie" to refer to
> union-made sync-sound narrative feature films. Unlike Brakhage, I
do NOT
> want to use "film" for "Dog Star Man" and "movie" for "Seven
Women" to
> make some aesthetic distinction -- along with docs and
ethnographic
> films and home movies and instructional films and animated
cartoons and
> avant-garde films and "early" films, they are all cinema.
>
> Fred Camper
They are all cinema and they are all "films." The ridiculous
movie/film distinction does not exist in other languages -- such as
French and Italian -- because they don't have an equivalent
for "movie" -- just "film." Sometimes poverty of vocabulary can be a
plus. JPC
19532
From: Fred Camper
Date: Sat Dec 25, 2004 9:40pm
Subject: Re: Re: Dubbing, Realism, Suspension of Disbelief
jpcoursodon wrote:
>> I was around at the time and I just don't know how they could
>
> have seen American movies without subtitles....
The thing I read, and I read it a long time ago and it could have been
wrong, is that Langlois tried to show unsubtitled prints at the
Cinematheque when he could and so the writer referred to their seeing of
unsubtitled prints at the Cinematheuqe.
I almost hope that this writer was wrong, because it was some
anti-auteurist screed to the effect that "If they knew how stupid the
dialogue really was, they never would have been taken in by these
dreadful Hollywood movies...," although the same point can be made about
subtitled prints, I suppose, or about English-language prints seen by
someone whose English was good enough to get the plot straight but not
good enough to know whether "As Freud said, when we reach a certain age,
sex becomes incongruous" was decent literary English (still thinking of
"All That Heaven Allows" -- I've always assumed the Freud quote was
completely bogus, but if someone knows different, let me know).
In any case, if they were all seeing new films from the 50s on in mostly
subtitled prints, the writer's point is obviated, since they saw a huge
amount of stuff from Hollywood's (in my view) greatest decade with
subtitles.
On the other hand, if I'm seeing a great film by a great "foreign"
auteur for the first time, I often find it useful to not pay a lot of
attention to the subtitles. I remember discovering the value of this
very young, seeing Bresson's Joan of Arc film: the rhythm of the cutting
was its own language. Subtitles are really disruptive, imposing their
stop and start rhythm on a film that has, if it's good, its own rhythmic
integrity.
Fred Camper
19533
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat Dec 25, 2004 9:59pm
Subject: Re: Dubbing, Realism, Suspension of Disbelief
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
>
> The thing I read, and I read it a long time ago and it could have
been
> wrong, is that Langlois tried to show unsubtitled prints at the
> Cinematheque when he could and so the writer referred to their
seeing of
> unsubtitled prints at the Cinematheuqe.
Well, Langlois used to show absolutely anything (dubbed,
subtitled in Hungarian, no sound, reels missing etc...) including
non-subtitled films, but those were not recent Hollywood
productions, so the writer's anti-auteurist slant was just off-
target. Personally I never saw a fifties Hollywood film unsubtitled
at the Cinematheque in the 50s and early '60s, and don't know of
anybody who did.
>
> I almost hope that this writer was wrong, because it was some
> anti-auteurist screed to the effect that "If they knew how stupid
the
> dialogue really was, they never would have been taken in by these
> dreadful Hollywood movies...," although the same point can be made
about
> subtitled prints, I suppose, or about English-language prints seen
by
> someone whose English was good enough to get the plot straight but
not
> good enough to know whether "As Freud said, when we reach a
certain age,
> sex becomes incongruous" was decent literary English (still
thinking of
> "All That Heaven Allows" -- I've always assumed the Freud quote
was
> completely bogus, but if someone knows different, let me know).
>
> In any case, if they were all seeing new films from the 50s on in
mostly
> subtitled prints, the writer's point is obviated, since they saw a
huge
> amount of stuff from Hollywood's (in my view) greatest decade with
> subtitles.
>
> On the other hand, if I'm seeing a great film by a great "foreign"
> auteur for the first time, I often find it useful to not pay a lot
of
> attention to the subtitles. I remember discovering the value of
this
> very young, seeing Bresson's Joan of Arc film: the rhythm of the
cutting
> was its own language. Subtitles are really disruptive, imposing
their
> stop and start rhythm on a film that has, if it's good, its own
rhythmic
> integrity.
>
> Fred Camper
Well, if you don't know English and see, say, "Anatomy of a
Murder" or "His Girl Friday" for the first time and don't pay a lot
of attention to the subtitles, I guess you're in trouble.
In a perfect world we would all be polyglots and neither
subtitles nor dubbing would exist.
19534
From: Andy Rector
Date: Sat Dec 25, 2004 11:23pm
Subject: Re: Ken Park and Notre Musique
Bill wrote:
>The non-credible
> recycling of Godardian cliches
Non-credible? Cliches? Seems to me Godard is continuing with his
themes like any filmmaker. After all he's just a man. The rhetoric
and the themes are similar but the result, where he ends up is
always different, in my opinion.
I agree on the dialogue aspect as it permeates everything (like the
shot countershot form), compared to Eloge, which I love, which lacks
a shot-countershot sort of breakdown, or even closeups of the
characters, which Notre has a lot of.
>His first idea for Notre musique
> was to film a remake of Silence de la mer at his house with an
> Israeli and a Palestinian.
I'm glad he didn't do that.
The issue of land and devastation wouldn't be as dialectic in that
situation as it is in Sarajevo.
Maybe if it took place underneath the Hebrew University which is
like a cancer on Palestinian life in the area.
yours,
andy
19535
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 0:05am
Subject: The Polar Express and Le Pere Noel a les yeux bleus
That's my planned double bill for the day. I was reminded by Alan
Silvestri's blatant pilfering in the former of Danny Elfman's
Scissorhands theme that Tim Burton's best films are both about
Christmas - Edward Scissorhands and The Nightmare Before Christmas -
although they aren't treated as "Xmas evergreens": Fox still doesn't
seem to know what it has in Edward, and Disney revives Nightmare
every year at their El Capitan theatre in H'wd as a leadup to
Halloween...which is of course more appropriate than playing it at
Christmas!
More on TPO later (and maybe even LPALYB), but I can't resist saying,
it was great hearing Eddie Deezen again. Didn't the LA Crix give him
an award way back when?
19536
From: Nick Wrigley
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 0:24am
Subject: Re: Re: Why Italy? (Was: Dubbing)
> It seems nostalgic and naive to be yearning for a lost purity that was
> never really there.
Give me the beautiful direct sound recording of Renoir and ORDET any
day, than the shitty, exaggerated, overcooked sound design regarded as
"cutting edge" in most modern films today.
The most important aspect of "direct sound" is hearing the actors as
they act.
Regardless of direct sound embellishments, such as the added farmyard
noises in the Dreyer film or the carefully constructed clanks of armour
in Bresson's LANCELOT DU LAC, there did exist a time when the actors'
actual voices at the time of filming were captured. Not only were the
voices captured, but the ambience of the room or countryside in which
they stood was also captured -- be it windswept field or high-roofed
wooden hall -- adding to experience of watching a film greatly, in my
book.
Any director worth his salt should insist on such recording now. It's
lazy not to.
-Nick>-
19537
From: Fred Camper
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 1:19am
Subject: Re: Film Vocabulary (Was: Why Italy?)
jpcoursodon wrote:
>... Sometimes poverty of vocabulary can be a plus. JPC
So this inspires me to ask a question about the words for "feature" or
"feature film" in other languages. They seem to mean, literally, "gotta
lotta meters," as in "long metrage" in French or something that looks
extremely similar (I don't want to misspell it) in Portuguese. And the
words for "short" translate to "short meters" or something similar in
both languages, right?
So, I have a question to the French and Portuguese speakers here (and to
others whose languages use a similar formulation). In English, "feature"
and "short" are inherently biased terms in both usage and meaning.
"Feature" connotes a main event, or an important aspect of anything;
"short" is typically used for films that get shown before features. I
often have to fight to prevent some editor from inserting into a capsule
review of a program of, say, eight Brakhage films, that they are all
"shorts." I think it's a biased and inappropriate term. Brakhage didn't
make "shorts," nor do most other avant-garde filmmakers either. I saw a
short once, "Skaterdater," shown before a feature, a little mini-story
(the title gives it away), which I remember well because I really hated
it. It was directed by Noel Black, who went on to make the "feature"
"Pretty Poison." I've seen many other "shorts" of that ilk, though they
mostly don't get shown before features anymore, at least in the U.S.
What I'm curious about is whether the "long meters" and "short meters"
terms for "feature" and "short" in French and Portuguese have no such
bias, which is what I suspect. They seem nicely neutral terms, unless
one assumes that long is always better than short, and we *know* that
isn't true, right?
Fred Camper
19538
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 2:33am
Subject: Re: Film Vocabulary (Was: Why Italy?)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
> jpcoursodon wrote:
>
> >... Sometimes poverty of vocabulary can be a plus. JPC
>
> So this inspires me to ask a question about the words
for "feature" or
> "feature film" in other languages. They seem to mean,
literally, "gotta
> lotta meters," as in "long metrage" in French or something that
looks
> extremely similar (I don't want to misspell it) in Portuguese. And
the
> words for "short" translate to "short meters" or something similar
in
> both languages, right?
>
> So, I have a question to the French and Portuguese speakers here
(and to
> others whose languages use a similar formulation). In
English, "feature"
> and "short" are inherently biased terms in both usage and meaning.
> "Feature" connotes a main event, or an important aspect of
anything;
> "short" is typically used for films that get shown before
features. I
> often have to fight to prevent some editor from inserting into a
capsule
> review of a program of, say, eight Brakhage films, that they are
all
> "shorts." I think it's a biased and inappropriate term. Brakhage
didn't
> make "shorts," nor do most other avant-garde filmmakers either. I
saw a
> short once, "Skaterdater," shown before a feature, a little mini-
story
> (the title gives it away), which I remember well because I really
hated
> it. It was directed by Noel Black, who went on to make
the "feature"
> "Pretty Poison." I've seen many other "shorts" of that ilk, though
they
> mostly don't get shown before features anymore, at least in the
U.S.
>
> What I'm curious about is whether the "long meters" and "short
meters"
> terms for "feature" and "short" in French and Portuguese have no
such
> bias, which is what I suspect. They seem nicely neutral terms,
unless
> one assumes that long is always better than short, and we *know*
that
> isn't true, right?
>
> Fred Camper
Very good question, Fred. just as in the case of "movie/film"
there seems to be a judgement value built into the term "feature"
referring to film in English. It doesn't only refer to length,
because in the past, "the feature" was usually the "A" picture on a
double bill, the other movie being possibly just as long or not much
shorter, but a (largely dismissable) "B" movie. Now you are
absolutely right in feeling that "long metrage" and "court metrage"
in French are neutral terms, "long metrage" having none of the
connotations of "feature" as something somehow grander and better.
However, the term "long metrage" is little used in popular parlance.
In my days at least French moviegoers (aside from cinephiles)
referred to the "feature" as "le grand film" (as opposed to the
first part of the program, which consisted of shorts, newsreels and
trailers). So the term "grand film" (hard to translate! It's
not "grand" in the English sense of "grand" but still there is some
connotation of grandness or bigness)seems to come close to
your "feature". What can you do? Size is not everything, but there
you are.
JPC
19539
From: jess_l_amortell
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 3:09am
Subject: Re: Film Vocabulary (Was: Why Italy?)
> > I
often have to fight to prevent some editor from inserting into a
> capsule
> > review of a program of, say, eight Brakhage films, that they are
> all
> > "shorts." I think it's a biased and inappropriate term.
Well, at least it's better than "featurette." (Which Merriam-Webster, curiously, defines as "a short film; esp. a short documentary film [sic] about the making of a full-length movie [sic]".) But after all, there are plays and "playlets"...
"Short film" might not be so bad, although the concept would be relative in Brakhage. A solution you've probably used is "eight Brakhage films ranging from two to twenty-one minutes in length," but that's a lot of needless information (which might not be readily available anyway).
Curious, somewhat deadly term: "short subject" (defined by M-W as "a brief often documentary or educational film").
Does Variety have a word for it?
19540
From:
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 5:19am
Subject: Re: Film Vocabulary (Was: Why Italy?)
Fred Camper wrote:
> In English, "feature"
> and "short" are inherently biased terms in both usage and meaning.
> "Feature" connotes a main event, or an important aspect of
anything;
> "short" is typically used for films that get shown before
features. I
> often have to fight to prevent some editor from inserting into a
capsule
> review of a program of, say, eight Brakhage films, that they are
all
> "shorts." I think it's a biased and inappropriate term. Brakhage
didn't
> make "shorts," nor do most other avant-garde filmmakers either. I
saw a
> short once, "Skaterdater," shown before a feature, a little mini-
story
> (the title gives it away), which I remember well because I really
hated
> it.
One can go around in circles all day long playing this language
game, but I feel that you're overthinking this thing, Fred. We're
just seeing language evolve and develop. For better or worse, we
call the longer films "features", because of the way the double
bills were developed back in the day. If we were to call them "long"
movies, then people would be up in arms about the fact that "long"
is a negative term when talking about movies. ("How was it?" "It was
long." "Thanks for the warning.") But then for some people "short"
is a bad word, too. (Although when someone tells me a movie is
short, I'm usually happy to hear it.) There's no end to it if you
just want to go on and on fretting about this sort of terminology.
"Trailers" are called "trailers" because they originally came at the
end of a film, although they no longer do: Are we about to start
complaining about that as well? "Decimate" used to mean "to reduce
by one-tenth" -- now it means to, well, decimate, or "destroy". If
we start getting more and more purist with these things, we'll all
just end up speaking Latin. (Which will at least obviate the need
for subtitling or dubbing, or should I say, "sonic altering of
linguistically post-synchronized populist narrative moving image
photoplays with artifically enhanced synchronized soundtracks of an
indeterminate length that are nevertheless of a greater running time
than 45 minutes"?)
Just deal with it, is what I say. The problem isn't the language.
-Bilge
19541
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 7:18am
Subject: Re: Film Vocabulary (Was: Why Italy?)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
> jpcoursodon wrote:
>
In English, "feature"
> and "short" are inherently biased terms in both usage and meaning.
> "Feature" connotes a main event, or an important aspect of
anything;
> "short" is typically used for films that get shown before features.
I
> often have to fight to prevent some editor from inserting into a
capsule
> review of a program of, say, eight Brakhage films, that they are
all
> "shorts." I think it's a biased and inappropriate term.
They aren't shorts in the sense of "short subjects," which are the
films shown w. the feature. But language isn't a utopian construct -
it grows like Topsy, and words have all sorts of connotations,
social, economic, you name it, besides their "denotations."
To answer your question, just about English, one would have to look
at the whole system of contrasted and interlocking terms. For
example, we don't call a Bugs Bunny cartoon a "short," even though
it's a "short subject." Generally, those 7-minute masterpiecs are
referred to as cartoons, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarves is
referred to as a cartoon feature. Now we have Polar Express, which is
a cartoon feature entirely performed by live actors, like Waking
Life. What to call it? I have no idea -- it's a new, unnamed object.
We wouldn't call Scorio Rising an avant-garde short and Dog Star Man
an avant-garde feature, although the analogy to H'wd features and
short subjects (already a part of the past, in terms of exhibition
patterns) might suggest it, because Anger and Brakhage are working in
a domain where the word "feature" isn't applicable. But films shown
at the NY Film Festival are still called "features" and "shorts." And
there is a vast realm of non-avant-garde filmmaking called "shorts"
that can be much better than "Skater Dater" without being avant-
garde: I just watched a DVD from Cinefile called "Their First Shorts"
composed of short films by Pialat, Godard, Truffaut, Rivette, Doniol-
Valcroze... Documentary short and fiction short remain useful terms
at Academy Award time, and when one is on a festival jury, where
prizes are often given in those categories.
I'm just reeling on and on to show that the question you raise would
probably require a pretty dense article, half history, half
philosophy, to answer, but cutting to the chase: Is there no word
besides the very general "film" for avant-garde works, and is there
no pair of terms to distinguish these works by length without falling
back on a misleading importation from the realm of H'wd features
(feature/short subject)? If not, the first is needed, and perhaps the
second, and it's a bit surprising that one has not evolved. What has
the usage (common parlance) been all these years?
I have no problem with everything on celluloid or digital support
being "a film" (already a metaphor when it's a digital work), but
that isn't the same as saying that "a film" can't be used to convey
the restricted meaning "commercial feature" (from H'wd, Hong Kong or
the Ukraine). Words have multiple meanings, too. And of course these
multiple meanings, like the vaguer multiple connotations associated
with a word like "feature," bring a whole cohort of social etc.
implications with them. That's one of the things language does!
At the same time, since this list is devoted to a discussion of the
whole range of works and non-works covered by "film," I have no
problem saying "narrative film" or "H'wd film" when I'm making a
generalization about the subject which doesn't extend to video
installations. And if I fail to do so, I hope someone corrects me.
But I will continue to refer to both Scorpio Rising and Rio Bravo
as "films," because that's what this list is about, and it's a usage
sanctioned by a century of writing and discussion.
19542
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 7:28am
Subject: Re: Why Italy? (Was: Dubbing)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Nick Wrigley wrote:
> The most important aspect of "direct sound" is hearing the actors
as
> they act.
>
I had dinner w. a French exhibitor who confirmed Dan's observation
that H'wd dubbing - he cited the crystal-clear voices shipboard in
high seas in Master and Commander - is artificial and grating to a
trained French ear.
He also told me about an interesting new procedure he has installed
called Showmax, invented by a Frenchman to eliminate screen
perforations, which are becoming a problem in the age of HD
projection. It can be a problem for the sound, too - sometimes mixers
fail to allow for the "noise" caused by the perforations, and
conversations become hard to understand, etc.
By substituting a solid screen made of some special glass that
transmits sound and by increasing the number of (digital) speakers
behind the screen, Showmax improves not only picture quality but the
clarity and complexity of the sound environement, making "direct
sound" even more realistic than it has been in the past.
19543
From: Fred Camper
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 8:32am
Subject: Re: Re: Film Vocabulary (Was: Why Italy?)
ebiri@a... wrote:
> ...Just deal with it, is what I say. The problem isn't the language.
Bilge, I'm not sure what you're responding to. My post asked a question
of Portuguese and French speakers. I didn't say we need to get rid of
terms like "feature" and "short" in English; I only told one story about
trying to not use the word "short" as a noun in a specific instance. In
lots of my movie capsules I use "short" and "feature."
Words, however, have all kinds of implications, shadows and traces that
go back to their etymological roots and also evolve from the various
ways they have been used in the recent past and are used currently. I
don't like "flick" for movie, because or the ways in which it is usually
used, so I don't use it; I'm not telling others not to use it.
Bill, I have used "movie" for avant-garde films on occasion, Brakhage's
distinction notwithstanding. And one such film, by Bruce Conner, is
definitely a movie, since it's title is "A Movie." I wouldn't bridle at
someone calling "Dog Star Man" a "feature," depending on the context;
one meaning of "feature" is simply a film of an hour or more. And maybe
I've called a Brakhage or other avant-garde film "shorts" on occasion as
well. I was writing about the problems with doing so, not being
proscriptive. But one can also be more precise without using much more
ink by writing, "In this 6-minute Brakhage film..."
Similarly, if I write, "In this 92-minute Brazilian film," and an editor
wants to change it to "In this 92-minute Brazilian feature," as has
happened a number of times, I can usually get it changed back, on the
grounds of pure redundancy: the running time tells us it's a "feature."
What I wish we had a simple word for sync-sound narrative feature made
with a union crew or similar with actors walking around and talking and
some kind of story being developed. I'd want a word that places a
low-budget 35mm horror cheapie within its ambit, and perhaps place a
Mark Rappaport narrative feature outside it, though that last is a tough
call. I don't much like "industrial cinema," with its negative
connotations. Perhaps "commercial narrative film" comes closest, as long
as "commercial" is understood loosely. But aside from wanting people to
not use "film" as a synonym for the commercial narrative film, posing
the danger of such generalizations (not seen here as far as I know) such
as "a good film requires good acting" or "the purpose of making a film
is to make money," the rest of what I'm writing is personal musings; I'm
not trying to tell anyone what to do, just provoke a little reflection.
Fred Camper
19544
From: Henrik Sylow
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 0:08pm
Subject: Re: Film Vocabulary (shorts, film that is)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666" wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
> > jpcoursodon wrote:
> >
> In English, "feature"
> > and "short" are inherently biased terms in both usage and meaning.
> > "Feature" connotes a main event, or an important aspect of
> anything;
> > "short" is typically used for films that get shown before features.
> I
> > often have to fight to prevent some editor from inserting into a
> capsule
> > review of a program of, say, eight Brakhage films, that they are
> all
> > "shorts." I think it's a biased and inappropriate term.
>
> They aren't shorts in the sense of "short subjects," which are the
> films shown w. the feature. But language isn't a utopian construct -
> it grows like Topsy, and words have all sorts of connotations,
> social, economic, you name it, besides their "denotations."
Richard Raskin suggest a film of 5 to 15 minutes in lenght, while Pat
Cooper finds that 30 minutes is the max, as otherwise the narrative
will begin to shape the same way as a feature film, while Raskin calls
a film of 30 minutes lenght a novella film, and not short film.
The French have even more definitions. I forgot the author and the
French terms, but to the French, the shortest short is up to 30
seconds (equals a single word), then up to 5 minutes (or so, equals a
sentence), then up to 10 minutes (equals a poem)... and so on. In
total seven definitions.
And these are narrative films, and do not concern themselves with
abstract film like Brakhage. So what is Brakhage then? In Europe, non
narritive shorts, are general called experimental shorts, so is
Brakhage experimental? if not, in what way does experimental and
abstract differ?
To add to the confusion, thanks to TV, we now have shorts between 30
to 60 seconds in duration, where people from around the world say
something. The only term I've heard describing them are "digital
greetings". Again, a non narrative form, which doesn't fit any short
definition, except duration.
I can understand why Fred finds the term "shorts" inappropriate for
the films of Brakhage, because the only similarity with shorts they
have is the duration, but in lack of a better word, what else to
describe them as?
Also, as duration appears to be secondary to the nature of the
subject, as the subject is defined by the narrative structure and
expression alone, why is it then wrong to call a film by Brakhage a
short, as it is "short" in duration.
Henrik
19545
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 1:40pm
Subject: Re: Film Vocabulary (Was: Why Italy?)
In portuguese it's "longa-metragem" and "curta-metragem", and both film and
movie are "filme". And while there's no bias in the vocabulary, there is in
usage. It's very common to hear people say that X made a couple of shorts,
two documentaries, but this one is his first film (meaning feature film).
But yes, technically it's about length, not importance.
ruy
19546
From: Michael E. Grost
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 1:55pm
Subject: Re: Film Vocabulary (Was: Why Italy?)
Up to around 5 years ago, it was very hard for most people in the US
to see any non-feature commercial films, excpet silent comedies.
But cable TV has changed this. TCM has "One-Reel Wonders", which
shows shorts by Tourneur, Losey & Don Siegel, short musicals by Roy
Mack, travelogues by James FitzPatrick, among other old Hollywood
gems.
And the Independent Film Channel (IFC) and Sundance Channel
regularly show low budget shorts by beginning filmmakers. These vary
widely in quality, but sometimes are very interesting.
DVD's are also including short films as extras. This too brings out
much fascinating work that was completely buried until recently.
There are signs that the cinephile community as a whole is paying
more attention to short films. This seems like a Good Thing.
Mike Grost
19547
From: Michael E. Grost
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 2:16pm
Subject: Re: Independent? (was: Film Vocabulary)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
> What I wish we had a simple word for sync-sound narrative feature
made with a union crew or similar with actors walking around and
talking and some kind of story being developed. I'd want a word that
places a low-budget 35mm horror cheapie within its ambit, and
perhaps place a Mark Rappaport narrative feature outside it, though
that last is a tough call. I don't much like "industrial cinema,"
with its negative connotations. Perhaps "commercial narrative film"
comes closest, as long as "commercial" is understood loosely.
I really sympathise with this. The line between "Van Helsing"
and "Dog Star Man" is really clear. But there are problems in the
grey areas.
Today we have the much-used concept of "Independent" film. There is
no objective way, however, to tell if a film is independent.
Instead, through some mysterious cultural process, certain films
somehow get labeled as independent. Example: "Lost in Translation"
(Sophia Coppola)was certified as an independent film. Even though it
starred Bill Murray, a major Hollywood actor, and was utterly
conventional in its narrative technique, compared to, say, "Dog Star
Man".
Because of this, it was culturally permitted for critics to
admire "Lost in Translation". By contrast, a (gasp!) Hollywood film
comedy such as "Alex and Emma" (Rob Reiner) was critically written
off as another commercial expression of Hollywood's Filthy Lucre and
Evil Betrayal of Cinematic Art.
Actually, it hard for someone just viewing the two films in a
theater to see anything different about "Lost in Translation", that
makes it "independent". In fact, "Alex and Emma" is actually much
more "experimental" in its technique - it uses a film within a film
approach loosely modeled on "Providence" (Resnais). "Alex and Emma"
is a better film than "Lost in Translation", IMHO.
My own conclusion is that the concept of "independent" film is
something of a racket. It is a label stuck to films, that is
impossible for outside observers to verify.
Mike Grost
19548
From: K. A. Westphal
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 3:25pm
Subject: Re: Film Vocabulary (Was: Why Italy?)
> What I wish we had a simple word for sync-sound narrative feature made
> with a union crew or similar with actors walking around and talking and
> some kind of story being developed. I'd want a word that places a
> low-budget 35mm horror cheapie within its ambit, and perhaps place a
> Mark Rappaport narrative feature outside it, though that last is a
tough
> call. I don't much like "industrial cinema," with its negative
> connotations. Perhaps "commercial narrative film" comes closest, as
long
> as "commercial" is understood loosely. But aside from wanting people to
> not use "film" as a synonym for the commercial narrative film, posing
> the dangerry, of such generalizations (not seen here as far as I
know) such
> as "a good film requires good acting" or "the purpose of making a film
> is to make money," the rest of what I'm writing is personal musings;
I'm
> not trying to tell anyone what to do, just provoke a little reflection.
>
> Fred Camper
There was a coffee-table tome published in 1973 that can still be
found at most used book stores. The cover read:
In cinema history, only 60 films deserve to be called
THE
GREAT
MOVIES
19549
From: samfilms2003
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 3:46pm
Subject: Re: Why Italy? (Was: Dubbing)
> > It seems nostalgic and naive to be yearning for a lost purity that was
> > never really there.
>
> Give me the beautiful direct sound recording of Renoir and ORDET any
> day, than the shitty, exaggerated, overcooked sound design regarded as
> "cutting edge" in most modern films today.
>
> The most important aspect of "direct sound" is hearing the actors as
> they act.
>
> Regardless of direct sound embellishments, such as the added farmyard
> noises in the Dreyer film or the carefully constructed clanks of armour
> in Bresson's LANCELOT DU LAC, there did exist a time when the actors'
> actual voices at the time of filming were captured. Not only were the
> voices captured, but the ambience of the room or countryside in which
> they stood was also captured -- be it windswept field or high-roofed
> wooden hall -- adding to experience of watching a film greatly, in my
> book.
>
> Any director worth his salt should insist on such recording now. It's
> lazy not to.
Excuse me, but just maybe "Ordet" was not shot under the flight path of
passenger jets ? ;-)
Perhaps Bresson was lucky too.
Clean dialog and realistic ambience *in the real world of production*
are often *mutually exclusive*
In fact, you want different mics, different pattern.
And that really means you should get the ambience when and how it's
best to get the ambience. So the artifice is every bit as much built in to
the processs as any artificial lighting can be; I'd say more so - it's far
easier to work with essentially 'available light' than with 'available sound'
Although it's not "what I do" I have done some production mixing.
Try doing it sometime, it'll make a Stan Brakhage fan out of ya if
nothing else will ;-)
-Sam
19550
From: samfilms2003
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 3:56pm
Subject: Re: Independent? (was: Film Vocabulary)
The word feature is rapidly loosing meaning anyway, it seems to me.
How many of the (2,000 ? 5,000 ?) "indie" shot on DV, HD, S16 even
features made each in the US alone each year are "features" in the
sense of feature attraction ?
-Sam
19551
From: Tom Sutpen
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 4:00pm
Subject: Useless Terminology (was: Film Vocabulary)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Michael E. Grost" wrote:
>
> Today we have the much-used concept of "Independent" film. There is
> no objective way, however, to tell if a film is independent.
> Instead, through some mysterious cultural process, certain films
> somehow get labeled as independent. Example: "Lost in Translation"
> (Sophia Coppola)was certified as an independent film. Even though it
> starred Bill Murray, a major Hollywood actor, and was utterly
> conventional in its narrative technique, compared to, say, "Dog Star
> Man".
> Because of this, it was culturally permitted for critics to
> admire "Lost in Translation". By contrast, a (gasp!) Hollywood film
> comedy such as "Alex and Emma" (Rob Reiner) was critically written
> off as another commercial expression of Hollywood's Filthy Lucre and
> Evil Betrayal of Cinematic Art.
> Actually, it hard for someone just viewing the two films in a
> theater to see anything different about "Lost in Translation", that
> makes it "independent". In fact, "Alex and Emma" is actually much
> more "experimental" in its technique - it uses a film within a film
> approach loosely modeled on "Providence" (Resnais). "Alex and Emma"
> is a better film than "Lost in Translation", IMHO.
> My own conclusion is that the concept of "independent" film is
> something of a racket. It is a label stuck to films, that is
> impossible for outside observers to verify.
*****
But that's true of any label pasted onto a film; even when attached by
critics, or by the filmmakers themselves. All these categories that
have been set before generations of moviegoers like a field full of
cultural land-mines ('Art film', 'Commercial film', 'Independent
film', etc), are nothing more than words; empty marketing terms that
possess no material value to the appreciation of Cinema. Certainly we
can agree that this debased terminology communicates nothing of
substance about the art (except perhaps what its usage reveals about
those who invest some degree of value in it); nothing at all
meaningful about any single work. So why maintain the delusion that
we're dealing with separate entities here? Is it really that convenient?
At some point, everyone is just going to have to get used to the
reality that this is ALL one medium, and that the only vocabulary
relevant to Cinema concerns what ends up on the screen.
Everything else is chit-chat.
Tom Sutpen
19552
From: samfilms2003
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 4:00pm
Subject: Re: Film Vocabulary (Was: Why Italy?)
> "Decimate" used to mean "to reduce
> by one-tenth" -- now it means to, well, decimate, or "destroy".
Or now, reduce oversampled digital conversions to the appropriate output
sample rate !
-Sam (a fan of "Pretty Poison" from before I was ever "into film")
19553
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 4:11pm
Subject: Vocabulary
Actually, calling Dog Star Man a feature sounds a little odd to my
ears, and I agree with Fred's original statement that there's
something dismissive about calling Mothlight a short. That language
evolved from the historical distinction in commercial exhibition
between the feature and the short subjects. But in the non-narrative
world, a film 5 seconds long has the same esthetic importance as one
8 hours long.
Maybe "feature-length avant-garde film" vs. "avant-garde short" could
work as purely descriptive terms, with "non-narrative" and "abstract"
as possible substitutes for "avant-garde." And when we pass out of
the realm of feature length, start numbering the hours: "eight-hour
avant-garde film." Nonetheless, "film" remains the default shorthand
for "narrative film" or "avant-garde film." "Syberberg has made a
seven-hour film about Hitler."
For what it's worth, "movie" to me connotes commerce, although I can
appreciate its metaphorical or polemical application to a 10-second
avant-garde film. Whoever renamed Farber's ever-changing only
book "Movies" was doing that, knowingly or unknowingly (probably the
latter), because the volume has always included his article on
Wavelength. (Here I felt it slightly more appropriate to say "article
on" than "review of," for the reasons I've been explaining.) And
Farber's own use of "underground film" for Sam Fuller's work is a
metaphorical/polemical expansion of a term invented for the avant-
garde...and no longer used, because I guess it's no longer
appropriate.
The whole naming problem comes back to the centrality of the
commercial narrative production-distribution system and is not unlike
the use of "he" as the default pronoun for a person. My mash-artist
mentor Harold Bloom now uses "she" as the default term; I have gone
back to "they" in my non-film journalism to avoid always saying "he
or she." And sometimes I find myself lapsing into "he," which I was
taught, when "they" would sound odd for some reason, or (on my better
days) using "he or she" in those cases. But "they" as singular is
sanctioned by wide usage, and seems less misogynistic than the old
rule. So many things have changed since I became a professional
writer that I'm sure this will too. (Note my omission of the comma
before "too" - now Associated Press usage.)
19554
From:
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 4:12pm
Subject: Re: Film Vocabulary (Was: Why Italy?)
Fred Camper:
>
> I didn't say we need to get rid of
> terms like "feature" and "short" in English; I only told one story
about
> trying to not use the word "short" as a noun in a specific
instance. In
> lots of my movie capsules I use "short" and "feature."
Well, you described the terms as being "inherently biased." And I
took your story to be indicative of greater concerns, not just an
isolated incident. What I'm trying to say is that "feature"
and "short" apply to duration in most people's minds: Why then are
the terms inappropriate? "WINDOW WATER BABY MOVING is a short film
by Brakhage." Just what exactly is wrong with that statement? You
could say that it doesn't give enough information, but I'm not sure
gives *wrong* information. I understand that it's not necessarily
the kind of short film that, say, goes at the beginning of a Pixar
movie. And I also understand that just giving the actual running
time would be more specific and informative. I've never taken the
classification of films into "features" and "shorts" to be value-
based. It's a temporal medium, after all: You sit there and you
watch it. Whether it's two hours long or 5 minutes long has a very
practical, real-world application. As far as I'm concerned, the
feature/short dichotomy becomes a more amusing problem when you have
40 minute "shorts" sitting alongside 46 minute "features".
-Bilge
>I wouldn't bridle at
> someone calling "Dog Star Man" a "feature," depending on the
context;
> one meaning of "feature" is simply a film of an hour or more.
That's pretty much the only meaning of feature in this case, I'd say.
>
> What I wish we had a simple word for sync-sound narrative feature
made
> with a union crew or similar with actors walking around and
talking and
> some kind of story being developed. I'd want a word that places a
> low-budget 35mm horror cheapie within its ambit, and perhaps place
a
> Mark Rappaport narrative feature outside it, though that last is a
tough
> call. I don't much like "industrial cinema," with its negative
> connotations. Perhaps "commercial narrative film" comes closest,
as long
> as "commercial" is understood loosely.
Fred, they're called "narrative features" in most of the film
festivals I've been to. They're placed alongside "narrative shorts"
and "documentary features" and "documentary shorts". And you know
what the beauty of it is? "Experimental" is usually in its own
category, without any distinction between "shorts" and "features".
As for union crews...well, you're asking for a bit too much there,
since a good many of the above are non-union.
-Bilge
19555
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 4:14pm
Subject: Re: Independent? (was: Film Vocabulary)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Michael E. Grost"
wrote:
>
>
> Today we have the much-used concept of "Independent" film. There
is
> no objective way, however, to tell if a film is independent.
> Instead, through some mysterious cultural process, certain films
> somehow get labeled as independent. Example: "Lost in Translation"
> (Sophia Coppola)was certified as an independent film. Even though
it
> starred Bill Murray, a major Hollywood actor, and was utterly
> conventional in its narrative technique, compared to, say, "Dog
Star
> Man".
I think you are artificially creating a problem that doesn't
really exist. You posit that "Independent" means "original in
narrative technique" then claim that "Lost in Translation",
being "utterly conventional" , shouldn't be called an independent
film. But "independent" isn't and has never been a value judgement
or aesthetic qualification. It just refers to a film produced
outside of the major studios and without their financial help.
There is hope, but certainly no assurance, that an independent film,
being free of the constraints of mainstream big studio products,
will show more originality. In fact most independent films are
fairly conventional in their narrative technique.
> Because of this, it was culturally permitted for critics to
> admire "Lost in Translation". By contrast, a (gasp!) Hollywood
film
> comedy such as "Alex and Emma" (Rob Reiner) was critically written
> off as another commercial expression of Hollywood's Filthy Lucre
and
> Evil Betrayal of Cinematic Art.
Why would any one need "cultural permission" to admire a film they
like? I haven't seen "Alex and Emma" and can't compare it to "Lost
in Translation" -- but I liked "Lost" and reviewed it for POSITIF
and I never thought of it as an "independent" movie (or film)-- by
which I mean that the notion of praising it as an independent movie,
or because it was an independent movie, never occurred to me. I
doubt very much that the critics' support of the film was due to the
fact that it somehow fitted their concept of "independent". Most
critics, by the way, do praise lots of so-called "Hollywood movies."
> Actually, it hard for someone just viewing the two films in a
> theater to see anything different about "Lost in Translation",
that
> makes it "independent". In fact, "Alex and Emma" is actually much
> more "experimental" in its technique - it uses a film within a
film
> approach loosely modeled on "Providence" (Resnais). "Alex and
Emma"
> is a better film than "Lost in Translation", IMHO.
I'll have to check it out. It may be an underrated film, and a
more "experimental" one than "Lost" -- but the degree of
experimentation in a film is not necessarily a yardstick to judge
its value by.
> My own conclusion is that the concept of "independent" film is
> something of a racket. It is a label stuck to films, that is
> impossible for outside observers to verify.
Again, I think YOU are writing the label. It is true however that
the concept of "independent film" is pretty loose and can cover very
different products.
JPC
19556
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 4:29pm
Subject: Word inflation, Noel Black (Was: Film Vocabulary)
>> "Decimate" used to mean "to reduce
>> by one-tenth" -- now it means to, well, decimate, or "destroy".
>
> Or now, reduce oversampled digital conversions to the appropriate output
> sample rate !
Bilge, I'm temperamentally pretty much aligned with you in tolerating the
evolution of language, even when slights can be read into it. But I am
not willing to let "decimate" go. Here we have a word with a precise and
unique meaning - why should we sacrifice it so we can have yet another
word that means destroy? It's like the frequent use of "literally" to
mean "a lot," like so many other intensifiers. I think the dictionary
makers need to dig their heels in in such cases. Are they really giving
up?
> -Sam (a fan of "Pretty Poison" from before I was ever "into film")
I never saw SKATERDATER, but I often like Noel Black's films, and PRETTY
POISON is a very nice bit of work. He did a little movie called A MAN, A
WOMAN AND A BANK that is quite appealing; and I always wondered if his
uncredited direction on A CHANGE OF SEASONS had anything to do with that
film's quality. - Dan
19557
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 4:30pm
Subject: Re: Film Vocabulary (Was: Why Italy?)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, ebiri@a... wrote:
the
> feature/short dichotomy becomes a more amusing problem when you
have
> 40 minute "shorts" sitting alongside 46 minute "features".
>
> -Bilge
Eustache was someone who loved upsetting that applecart. His first
two films, which I watched recently, are shorts that were treated as
features - particularly Pere Noel. They were grouped for distribution
here. And of course the length issue has been a thorn in Rivette's
side always - or vice versa. For that matter, one reason The Immortal
Story is hard to see is that it's a "short feature," for want of a
better term...
19558
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 4:33pm
Subject: Re: Word inflation, Noel Black (Was: Film Vocabulary)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
I think the dictionary
> makers need to dig their heels in in such cases. Are they really
giving
> up?
Since the notion of non-prescriptive grammar became current in
linguistics, they have given away the whole store, and I see no plans
to change that.
19559
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 4:41pm
Subject: Vocabulary - continued response to Dan
I have said here before how horrified I am by "media" as a singular
noun and "cineaste" as a synonym for "cinephile," both of which are
the result of ignorant people outnumber informed people, like the
majority Bush is supposed to have won on Nov. 2. (IF he won it - I
don't believe he did.) Nonetheless, non-prescriptive (or descriptive)
grammar has become the ideology of dictionary makers, so we're stuck
with these appaling misnomers.
I'm waiting for the day an interlocutor or editor corrects me for
using the words correctly, as my non-film publisher did when I
pedantically insisted that you don't say "the flu." Nowadays, you do.
And you know what? That's prescriptive too - it's just the tyranny of
the majority.
On a totally personal note, I regret that my last conversation w.
John Hollander was interrupted just as we were bearing down on these
issues by a Yale alumnus who was dying to hear him say that Yale
students aren't as smart today as they were when he went there -
which John, bless him, refused to say, because it isn't true.
19560
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 4:48pm
Subject: Vocabulary - continued response to Fred
When I first heard him speak, Brakhage was trying to float calling
commercial narrative features "talkies" and his own work "movies." I
can understand the impulse, which leaves room for including the great
silent films in the "movie" rubric, the others being, I suppose,
wannabe talkies. Hitchcock was responding to the same impulse when he
coined the phrase "photographs of people talking," which certainly
could apply to bad silents as well.
BTW, I heard last night that Patrice Leconte's last film is a feature-
length HD version of a contemporary non-narrative opera written in a
language invented by the composer for its euphnious qualities, with
no subtitles because none are needed. After that he'll do Bronzes 3.
Ah, France. That's why I salute any H'wd filmmaker who claims that
right for himself, as Soderbergh did when he made Schizopolis.
19561
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 4:49pm
Subject: Re: Re: Why Italy? (Was: Dubbing)
> It seems nostalgic and naive to be yearning for a lost purity that
> was never really there.
Your point is well taken, Dave, but I don't see why the knowledge that
sound is so easily manipulable should make us ignore distinctions among
different aesthetic sound strategies. The sound in a Rohmer film may not
actually be direct, but, to paraphrase Archy (or was it Mehitabel?), it
was once. In other words, the sound strategy is almost certainly built
around a piece of natural sound; and, even if it isn't, it's built around
a concept of natural sound derived from other works, and perhaps also from
the general principle that reality gives you more information than can
fit into any conceptual construct.
Last year I went to London and found Meryam Park, where Antonioni shot the
park scenes in BLOWUP. Having been there, I now think that the sound of
wind blowing through the trees, so prominent and important in the movie,
was really recorded there. But, of course, it didn't have to be. I also
now know that Meryam Park is under an airport's flight pattern, and that
Antonioni may have had to doctor the sound to eliminate planes. Still,
the wind in the trees in BLOWUP is part of a sound aesthetic that I think
of as a natural-sound aesthetic. The wind doesn't mean anything or serve
any narrative function - it happens to be the sound that characterizes a
real place. - Dan
19562
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 4:57pm
Subject: Re: Ken Park and Notre Musique
> I'm reviewing Ken Park for the Cinefile e-mail, so I'll just
> say here that I think it's wonderful; I don't believe for a minute
> that it's based on true stories; and I loved the way they used ad
> imagery (referenced in Lachman's CdC interview), casting and lighting
> Tony's grandparents to look just like the go-for-the-gusto seniors in
> laxative ads on CNN.
I think Larry Clark is a very good, natural filmmaker who has taken a
critical hit for the erotic elements that he foregrounds (and sometimes
indulges, it must be admitted). The characters in his more "Hollywood"
films feel just as rounded and complicated as in his more "indie" projects
- there's something about him that is repelled by the idea of making a
human being simple enough to serve a storytelling idea. - Dan
19563
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 4:58pm
Subject: Re: Re: Merry Christmas all
> And for those who haven't seen them Remember The Night, Bells of St.
> Mary's and Shop Around The Corner are especially recommended at this
> time of year. And also the best version of Scrooge ever: Mr.
> Magoo's Christmas Carol, with a really lovely Jule Styne/Bob Merrill
> score.
Yes, the Mr. Magoo score is really quite good!
Among the Xmas TV perennials, don't forget MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS. - Dan
19564
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 5:05pm
Subject: Re: Re: Why Italy? (Was: Dubbing)
--- Dan Sallitt wrote:
The wind doesn't
> mean anything or serve
> any narrative function - it happens to be the sound
> that characterizes a
> real place. -
Actually it serves an important narrative function in
terms of atmosphere and suspense. When Thomas returns
to te park and sees the body he looks aout to see if
anyone's watching and greatly fears someone may be
following him. The wind thus serves a Val lweton
function in the film.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
19565
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 5:09pm
Subject: Re: Re: Lasse Hallstrom
>> Does anyone here have any particularly strong feelings - positive
> or
>> negative - about Lasse Hallstrom? I noticed that CHOCOLAT is being
>> screened by the BBC tonight, and it occurred to me that I had
> never
>> seen a Hallstrom film, so maybe I'll give it a try.
>
> I think he gets a bad rap today because of his status as Miramax's
> house melodramatist, but he was a terrific director back in the day.
> MY LIFE AS A DOG is wondrous, as are the films he made before it.
> Haven't seen CHOCOLAT, so can't vouch for it, though.
I even think that Hallstrom was making good films in Hollywood for a
while: ONCE AROUND was rather nicely done, and WHAT'S EATING GILBERT GRAPE
strikes me as a bad script redeemed and humanized by the direction. Then
his career took a turn that wasn't to my taste: these days, I find his
films watchable at best (CIDER HOUSE RULES, THE SHIPPING NEWS) and
sometimes really really bad (CHOCOLAT, SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT). - Dan
19566
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 5:12pm
Subject: Nils Malmros (Was: Bille August)
> Denmark has some great directors: Lars von Trier, Nils Malmros,
> Nikolaj Refn and Erik Clausen, to name my heroes, but Bille is in my
> opinion not really worth anything.
I'm a big fan of Malmros, especially his masterpiece TREE OF KNOWLEDGE.
What's your opinion of the shape of his career? Have you seen his early
films LARS-OLE 5C and BOYS? - Dan
19567
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 5:16pm
Subject: Breillat (Was: Dubbing, Realism, Suspension of Disbelief)
> She's believably neuresthenic (sp?), hence a bit nauseating to watch.
> But when I said "awful" I was thinking in particular of Breillat's
> dialogue, which is generally so bad that, when I saw "extra dialogue by
> Catherine Breillat" at the end of a Xavier Beauvois film that was being
> shown in competition at Venice (the one about the worker and the factory
> owner's wife), I immediately knew which scene it was, because the
> ghastliness of her writing stood out even in the mediocre context of the
> film as a whole.
Though I'm a big Breillat film, I've been a little bothered by a tendency
in her recent writing to speak ex cathedra, or at least not to make it
clear where characterization ends and self-expression begins. I'd say
that ROMANCE, ANATOMY OF HELL and SEX IS COMEDY definitely feature the
kind of writing I'm talking about. But do you not even like her writing
in PARFAIT AMOUR! and FAT GIRL? Or, to get away from her direction, in
the first half of Pialat's POLICE? - Dan
19568
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 5:18pm
Subject: Re: Re: Dubbing, Realism, Suspension of Disbelief
>> Well, hopefully it becomes possible to read subtitles and
> experience the
>> movie at the same time, or else we're all in trouble. - Dan
>
> Seriously, when it's wall-to-wall dialogue like that one, how can you
> experience the film as anything but strenuously achieved glimpses?
> You might as well be projecting it with a strobe light!
I guess there's some variation in viewer responses. At this point in my
life, subtitles feel transparent to me: I can switch contexts quickly
enough that I have time to integrate the meaning of the words back into
the experience of the film. But I take your word that it's not that way
for everyone. - Dan
19569
From: Jason Guthartz
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 5:30pm
Subject: Re: Independent? (was: Film Vocabulary)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Michael E. Grost" wrote:
> Today we have the much-used concept of "Independent" film. There is
> no objective way, however, to tell if a film is independent.
***
> My own conclusion is that the concept of "independent" film is
> something of a racket. It is a label stuck to films, that is
> impossible for outside observers to verify.
"When I hear the word 'independent' I reach for my revolver. At this
point, what the hell does that mean? The English Patient is an
independent film. Hootie and the Blowfish are alternative music. I'm
the Queen of Denmark. I don't know what it means anymore."
--Jim Jarmusch
:)
Jason
19570
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 5:31pm
Subject: Re: Vocabulary - continued response to Dan
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
>
> I have said here before how horrified I am by "media" as a
singular
> noun and "cineaste" as a synonym for "cinephile," both of which
are
> the result of ignorant people outnumber informed people, like the
> majority Bush is supposed to have won on Nov. 2. (IF he won it - I
> don't believe he did.) Nonetheless, non-prescriptive (or
descriptive)
> grammar has become the ideology of dictionary makers, so we're
stuck
> with these appaling misnomers.
>
The problem is that the people who make those horrible mistakes
are the less likely to look up words in a dictionary. Only "purists"
like you and me (or is it you and I ?) ever bother.
As far as the widespread use of "literally" as a mere intensive
(meaning the complete opposite of what the word actually means) the
American Heritage Dict. flags this as a "usage problem", noting that
it has been going on "for more than a hundred years." But the dic.
makers stop short of condemning the usage.
JPC
> I'm waiting for the day an interlocutor or editor corrects me for
> using the words correctly, as my non-film publisher did when I
> pedantically insisted that you don't say "the flu." Nowadays, you
do.
> And you know what? That's prescriptive too - it's just the tyranny
of
> the majority.
>
> On a totally personal note, I regret that my last conversation w.
> John Hollander was interrupted just as we were bearing down on
these
> issues by a Yale alumnus who was dying to hear him say that Yale
> students aren't as smart today as they were when he went there -
> which John, bless him, refused to say, because it isn't true.
19571
From: samfilms2003
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 5:34pm
Subject: Re: Why Italy? (Was: Dubbing)
BTW Please don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing at all against the
value of natural and environmental ambiences !
I'm just pointing out doing so increasingly demands some wily strategies !
-Sam Wells
> Last year I went to London and found Meryam Park, where Antonioni shot the
> park scenes in BLOWUP. Having been there, I now think that the sound of
> wind blowing through the trees, so prominent and important in the movie,
> was really recorded there. But, of course, it didn't have to be. I also
> now know that Meryam Park is under an airport's flight pattern, and that
> Antonioni may have had to doctor the sound to eliminate planes. Still,
> the wind in the trees in BLOWUP is part of a sound aesthetic that I think
> of as a natural-sound aesthetic. The wind doesn't mean anything or serve
> any narrative function - it happens to be the sound that characterizes a
> real place. - Dan
19572
From: Jason Guthartz
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 5:38pm
Subject: Re: Vocabulary - continued response to Dan
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon" wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
> wrote:
> >
> > I have said here before how horrified I am by "media" as a
> singular
> > noun and "cineaste" as a synonym for "cinephile," both of which
> are
> > the result of ignorant people outnumber informed people....
>
> The problem is that the people who make those horrible mistakes
> are the less likely to look up words in a dictionary. Only "purists"
> like you and me (or is it you and I ?) ever bother.
>
> As far as the widespread use of "literally" as a mere intensive
> (meaning the complete opposite of what the word actually means) the
> American Heritage Dict. flags this as a "usage problem", noting that
> it has been going on "for more than a hundred years." But the dic.
> makers stop short of condemning the usage.
According to the American Heritage Dictionary online:
http://www.bartleby.com/61/
cinephile: "a film or movie enthusiast"
cineaste: "(1) a film or movie enthusiast; (2) a person involved in
filmmaking"
Are you saying the first definition of "cineaste" is wrong?
-Jason, trying to be less ignorant
19573
From: Michael E. Grost
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 5:43pm
Subject: Re: Independent? (was: Film Vocabulary)
An impression: today the first question most US critics ask about a
film is, "Is is independent?"
The answer colors and often even defines their entire response to a
film.
I agree that "independent" more or less originally meant "financed
outside of the Hollywood studios". But never entirely. Fred's
original post was looking for a word that would group low budget
horror movies with Hollywood films, for example. And similar
concerns have often affected the use of "independent" (not by Fred,
of course!)
Genre films, however low budget and oddly financed, often are not
labeled as independent films. That $10, 000 vampire movie shot in
St. Louis and financed by the director's butcher-shop-owning uncle
rarely gets called an "independent film". Similarly, low budget
comedies such as "Happy, Texas" tend to be treated as Hollywood
films, even though their financing is anything but.
Mike Grost
19574
From: Michael E. Grost
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 6:05pm
Subject: Re: Vocabulary - continued response to Dan
If a word changes from one clear meaning to another in popular
usage, then linguists tend to agree that the new meaning is now
standard.
If a word goes from a clear meaning to some sort of hazy confusion
in the popular mind, then linguists are perhaps not ready to endorse
this. The term Jason mentioned, "usage problem", is perhaps better
here. Furthermore, writers are advised to stick to the original
clear meanings.
"Pulp" used to have a clear meaning. Pulp magazines were printed on
wood pulp paper. This was cheap, and allowed all-text magazines to
be published at a low cost. It was dreadful for photographs or
anything but line drawing illustrations.
During their heydey (1900- 1955), pulp magazines were instantly
recognizable by every man, woman & child in the US. Once seen, pulp
paper is never forgotten - it has a distinctive smell, and crumbles
at a touch. Writers such as Dashiell Hammett, Cornell Woolrich,
Raymond Chadler, Norbert Davis and others were correctly labeled
as "pulp fiction", because their works appeared in pulp magazines.
This clear meaning is going hazy, however. Even educated people seem
to be using "pulp" to mean any sort of darn thing they want it too!
It drives me crazy...
Mike Grost
19575
From:
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 6:20pm
Subject: Re: Word inflation, Noel Black (Was: Film Vocabulary)
Dan Sallitt wrote:
> >> "Decimate" used to mean "to reduce
> >> by one-tenth" -- now it means to, well, decimate, or "destroy".
> >
> > Or now, reduce oversampled digital conversions to the
appropriate output
> > sample rate !
>
> Bilge, I'm temperamentally pretty much aligned with you in
tolerating the
> evolution of language, even when slights can be read into it. But
I am
> not willing to let "decimate" go. Here we have a word with a
precise and
> unique meaning - why should we sacrifice it so we can have yet
another
> word that means destroy? It's like the frequent use
of "literally" to
> mean "a lot," like so many other intensifiers. I think the
dictionary
> makers need to dig their heels in in such cases. Are they really
giving
> up?
>
Dan, it seems to me they gave up a long time ago, since "decimate"
was used to mean "destroy" as far back as the 17th century. The fact
is that "decimate" referred to the Roman practice of arbitrarily
killing one out of every ten soldiers as a means of punishment and
teaching the others a lesson. (Later, Oliver Cromwell used it as a
term for a 1/10th tax he levied, but that was actually a pretty
specific and inconsequential term.) Generally, though, in English
usage, "decimate" has meant "to destroy". I don't think this is the
case of a bunch of slacker dictionary makers giving up. Even
language critics of the past couple of centuries have been okay with
this usage. It's not some new thing. Frankly, I think those clinging
on to the "old" definition of "decimate" have invented a past common
usage for the word that doesn't exactly conform to reality.
-Bilge
19576
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 6:34pm
Subject: Re: Breillat (Was: Dubbing, Realism, Suspension of Disbelief)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
>
> Though I'm a big Breillat film, I've been a little bothered by a
tendency
> in her recent writing to speak ex cathedra, or at least not to
make it
> clear where characterization ends and self-expression begins. I'd
say
> that ROMANCE, ANATOMY OF HELL and SEX IS COMEDY definitely feature
the
> kind of writing I'm talking about. But do you not even like her
writing
> in PARFAIT AMOUR! and FAT GIRL? Or, to get away from her
direction, in
> the first half of Pialat's POLICE? - Dan
I haven't seen ANATOMY or SEX but it's very obvious in ROMANCE.
The girl has lines that sometimes veer from something the character
might say to something highly implausible from that kind of person --
a Breillat statement. I agree that FAT GIRL is much better, and I
love POLICE (both the dialogue and direction). My original post
concerned the American-dubbed version of ROMANCE, of which I watched
a brief portion on DVD, and my point was that the dubbing destroyed
the psychology of the character (or words to that effect)but
thinking about it, Breillat's injection of "self-expression"
contributes to making the girl's character problematic in the French
version. JPC
19577
From: Damien Bona
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 6:45pm
Subject: Re: Vocabulary - continued response to Dan
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
>
> I have said here before how horrified I am by "media" as a singular
> noun and "cineaste" as a synonym for "cinephile," both of which are
> the result of ignorant people outnumber informed people, like the
> majority Bush is supposed to have won on Nov. 2. (IF he won it - I
> don't believe he did.)
Bill, what is the distinction between "cineaste" and "cinephile"?
I've always thought they were synonyms.
19578
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 6:45pm
Subject: Re: Vocabulary - continued response to Dan
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jason Guthartz"
wrote:
>> >
>
> According to the American Heritage Dictionary online:
> http://www.bartleby.com/61/
>
> cinephile: "a film or movie enthusiast"
> cineaste: "(1) a film or movie enthusiast; (2) a person involved
in
> filmmaking"
>
> Are you saying the first definition of "cineaste" is wrong?
>
> -Jason, trying to be less ignorant
We've had the "cineaste" discussion in this group before -- a year
ago maybe? "Cineaste" is a French word meaning "filmmaker". In
French it does not mean and has never meant "a film enthusiast".
American Heritage just acknowledges the incorrect use of the term in
The United States. They should at least list the "film or movie
enthusiast" definition as #2 rather than #1, but since the word
seems to be used more often in the sense of "cinephile" than in the
sense of "filmmaker" there is logic in their order.
By the way isn't it amusing that their definitions refer to "a film
or movie"? Is a film enthusiast different from a movie enthusiast
according to the dictionary? JPC
19579
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 6:52pm
Subject: Re: Ken Park and Notre Musique
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> I think Larry Clark is a very good, natural filmmaker who has taken
a
> critical hit for the erotic elements that he foregrounds (and
sometimes
> indulges, it must be admitted).
A friend who visited the set of Teenage Caveman saw Clark oblige his
g.f. to run toward the camera with her breasts hanging out several
times to get the bobble right - on a 12-day shooting schedule! She is
asked to do a bit more than that in Ken Park.
But I liked the film: within the confines of California Gothic
fantasy, the characters do behave very naturally and unexpectedly at
times - seamlessly good performances from pros and non-pros alike. By
the way, it's co-directed by Ed Lachman.
Knowing that at least some of the actors are underaged, and that all
are much younger than Clark, people tend to see the films as somehow
being about his attitude toward them. I sense that this, like the
self-indulgence, is part of how the films are made, whereas the films
themselves are pretty clearly a spear aimed at the eye of the middle
class.
19580
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 6:55pm
Subject: Re: Breillat (Was: Dubbing, Realism, Suspension of Disbelief)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > film as a whole.
>
> Though I'm a big Breillat film, I've been a little bothered by a
tendency
> in her recent writing to speak ex cathedra, or at least not to make
it
> clear where characterization ends and self-expression begins. I'd
say
> that ROMANCE, ANATOMY OF HELL and SEX IS COMEDY definitely feature
the
> kind of writing I'm talking about. But do you not even like her
writing
> in PARFAIT AMOUR! and FAT GIRL? Or, to get away from her
direction, in
> the first half of Pialat's POLICE? - Dan
Haven't seen those - I'll check them out. And it's been too long
since I saw POLICE. I do remember that Moullet was an early defender,
and that her first novel was generally well-liked, including by him.
19581
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 7:01pm
Subject: Re: Vocabulary - continued response to Dan
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
>
> The problem is that the people who make those horrible mistakes
> are the less likely to look up words in a dictionary.
Only "purists"
> like you and me (or is it you and I ?) ever bother.
"Like you and me" - it's a preposition in that sentence, according to
American Heritage, even though it sure sounds to me as if the phrase
is cut-down of "like you and I do" -- the informal use of like as a
conjunction that I avoided earlier in this sentence, but wouldn't if
I weren't being deliberately pedantic.
19582
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 7:05pm
Subject: Re: Why Italy? (Was: Dubbing)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "samfilms2003" wrote:
>
> BTW Please don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing at all against the
> value of natural and environmental ambiences !
>
> I'm just pointing out doing so increasingly demands some wily
strategies !
>
I'll be curious to see what reactions my friend who has Showmax in
his screening room gets if he screens a film there for a director who
espouses the direct sound esthetic, like Tavernier. If it enhances
the natural sound environemnt, it should please someone who is using
those strategies.
19583
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 7:06pm
Subject: Re: Vocabulary - continued response to Dan
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jason Guthartz" wrote:
>
>
> According to the American Heritage Dictionary online:
> http://www.bartleby.com/61/
>
> cinephile: "a film or movie enthusiast"
> cineaste: "(1) a film or movie enthusiast; (2) a person involved in
> filmmaking"
>
> Are you saying the first definition of "cineaste" is wrong?
>
> -Jason, trying to be less ignorant
Yes - you'd never hear it in French.
19584
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 7:16pm
Subject: Re: Independent? (was: Film Vocabulary)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Michael E. Grost"
wrote:
>
> Genre films, however low budget and oddly financed, often are not
> labeled as independent films. That $10, 000 vampire movie shot in
> St. Louis and financed by the director's butcher-shop-owning uncle
> rarely gets called an "independent film". Similarly, low budget
> comedies such as "Happy, Texas" tend to be treated as Hollywood
> films, even though their financing is anything but.
>
> Mike Grost
I have often applied "independent" to low-budget horror films in CdC
in the same way Farber applied "undergound" to Fuller, as a polemical
move. It happens to be the genre in which some of the most
interesting and truly independent work of the last 30 years has been
done.
Sideways (still haven't seen it) is Fox Searchlight, and I can say,
having visited them, that the poor people who constitute Fox
Searchlight are far less well-housed than most butcher shop owners.
Half of them are in a trailer, and most of them work long days in
cubicles that would shock Ebenezer Scrooge - even Peter Rice, the
head of the division, has an office you couldn't film in with
anything but a camcorder. This mistreatment, which is typical of
Rupert Murdoch, has to inspire a bit of an indie mentality in the
people producing and marketing the films. I hope the success of
Sideways at least gets them all better desks! But it probably won't.
That said, there wouldn't be a Sideways or a Huckabees if there
weren't a Fox Searchlight. Those aren't films that Big Fox would
make. Once made, though, they have Big Fox's booking clout, and that
is a matter of life or death for a commercial narrative film.
19585
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 7:20pm
Subject: Re: Vocabulary - continued response to Dan
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Damien Bona"
wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
> wrote:
> >
> > I have said here before how horrified I am by "media" as a
singular
> > noun and "cineaste" as a synonym for "cinephile," both of which
are
> > the result of ignorant people outnumber informed people, like the
> > majority Bush is supposed to have won on Nov. 2. (IF he won it -
I
> > don't believe he did.)
>
>
> Bill, what is the distinction between "cineaste" and "cinephile"?
> I've always thought they were synonyms.
Cineaste (as in the title of Richard P's magazine) means "filmmaker"
in French, not "film buff." The meaning shifted when American
journalists started using "cineaste" in a way that grates on the ear
of anyone who knows French, and it became generally accepted here.
19586
From: Henrik Sylow
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 8:40pm
Subject: Re: Nils Malmros (Was: Bille August)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > Denmark has some great directors: Lars von Trier, Nils Malmros,
> > Nikolaj Refn and Erik Clausen, to name my heroes, but Bille is in my
> > opinion not really worth anything.
>
> I'm a big fan of Malmros, especially his masterpiece TREE OF KNOWLEDGE.
> What's your opinion of the shape of his career? Have you seen his
early
> films LARS-OLE 5C and BOYS? - Dan
Malmros is a real character. Even today, 50-ish and a professionel
brain surgeon, he is still very much a teenager, very shy. He
generally never speaks about how his films are in relation to others
and never praises his own film further than, "Im proud of it", but
films really are his passion and one time he did let his guard down
and told me how he felt about the film situation in Denmark.
His great love is French cinema, especially Truffaut, which is why all
his early films, even "Kundskabens Træ" (Tree of Knowledge) is
Truffaut-ian in text. His very first film "A strange sort of love" was
basically a naive misfire, Malmros believing that he could grab a
camera, write some dialogue and then make a good film. It was
butchered by everyone, except a theatre owner outside of Copenhagen,
who thought, that now that this kid had made a film, he owned it to
him to at least show it. So it ran and was taken down.
Malmros was extremely hurt by it all and promised never to do film
again. A few years later he discovered, that he had these memories,
that he remembered everything, even from his early childhood. So
rather than making up a story, he began telling his own. This is how
his first period (my suggestion) begins, with "Lars Ole 5c".
"Lars Ole 5C" is about Lars Ole who is in the 5th grade, and about his
friends, his school, his "girlfriend", how he steals for the first
time and so on. It is made without any real script, using as many real
people as possible, in fact there are no actors in it. Malmros asked
the kids to improvise, telling them only briefly what to do or say,
and then edited it all down afterwards. It is a very refreshing film
to watch, very Nouvelle Vague.
Because of the way Danish filmindustry works, Malmros would work
nightshifts at the university, making a living, saving up a bit for
the production and then after 3 years, prepare his next film, "Boys",
the first real Malmros film, as all his real films deal with coming of
age and sexual trauma. Here it is about boys, from age 5 and up, and
their secret games, their fecal stage, thier obsession with feces and
farting and so on. Its also about discovering one self, ones gender.
Malmros next made, what I consider to be his best film and his
masterpiece, "Tree of Knowledge", where he retells the story of his
middleschool class.
Until now Malmros' skills as a director had developed with giant
steps. But in my opinion, he now hit the wall of having no
international competition, as there were none in Denmark. Thus his
next film, "Beauty and the Beast", which really is a great film, marks
some desperation in its direction. It is also not Truffaut-ian, but
very Rohmer in texture, and Im not sure if Denmark ever understood the
film completely. Having just reviewed it, as it has been restored, I
looked back on several early reviews, and everyone seemed to have
missed the point.
And this is the sad part of Danish filmindustry. It really is very
contend with local succes. With "Tree of Knowledge", we had a film,
which I am positive about, would have blown festival viewers away and
could have begun the attention about Danish film years before "Festen"
did. Even today, the film has not aged and is as perfect as it was
then. Yet it was not promoted and while everyone said that Malmros was
a great director, he never recieved the competition from an
international scene which is required in order to develop. And sadly,
it is still the way things are today, which I will come back to later.
Thus, the desperation is more frustration in his next film, a metafilm
, "Århus by Night", where Malmros tells the story about himself and
making "Boys". By now he has developed his own style, his own way of
directing and given up the last of his amateur technics: Parroting.
Malmros usually would tell his actors exactly what to say, and the
professional actors opposed to this. So in "Århus by Night", he
accepts not being able to control a film 100% and relaxes for the
first time ever. The film is frustrated and lacks something.
This ends his first period, for several reasons. He now decides to
finish medical school, he has been a student for over 15 years. His
father was Richard Malmros, one of the worlds leading brain surgeons,
and Nils wanted to be a brain surgeon aswell. He also felt that he had
no more stories to tell and watching his later films, it is as if he
has been exorcised. Personally, and I never asked him about it, but I
feel that he ran out of energy, that he became dissillusioned by cinema.
During his final year, he wrote a paper on birth depressions, which
became the idea for his next film, "Pain of Love", which marks his
second period and his "come back". A painfully film to watch, about
how a teenager, who is full of life, turns sick by bipolar disorder
and finally takes her own life. It the first film which Denmark send
to a film festival, where it was amongst the runner ups for the Bear
in Berlin. If this had been 8 years earlier, it would have won. But
now, his language was clumsy next to great international directors.
Now comes his swansong, "Barbara", one of the most expensive Danish
productions and one of the biggest failures. Malmros wanted to film
the book for so many years, but it was too much for him to handle. He
wont tell you its a bad film, he will just pull his shoulder and say,
that it could be better :)
In 2001 his father, Richard Malmros dies, and thus Nils could finally
tell the story about his father, the real story, hence the title,
"Facing the Truth". Richard was one of the worlds greatest pioneers in
brain surgery and during WW2 was forced to use a contrast fluid called
Thoratrast, which already back then was speculated to be a cancergen.
30 years later, a significantly percentage of those who was submitted
to Thoratrast developed cancer and it was turned into the greatest
medical scandal in Denmark that century. While the entire medical
profession knew that all the articles were bad journalism, based on
assumptions and lack of insight into the working conditions, it was
powerless against the press. Richard Malmros was the great evil and
Knoblau was the hero.
Ever since then, Malmros had wanted to tell the truth about his
father, about Thoratrast, but his father would never had allowed it,
so once he died, he couldn't object.
"Facing the Truth" is Malmros' second best film, after "Tree of
Knowledge", and his second masterpiece. It is the story of his father,
how he came from poverty to become a doctor and how everything was
taken from him, by people who didn't know what they talked about. The
problem was that Richard did know about the possible dangers of
Thoratrast and refused to use it, actually ordered the staff not to
use it, but having no other contrast fluids available, having a
patient who was about to die from a hemorage, what does a surgeon do?
He weights the riscs of possible cancer in 20 years vs. the risc of
dying a painful death within minutes. The fact was the Malmros was
haunted by his decisions all his life.
If you havn't seen it Dan, I really would suggest you pick it up. the
Danish DVD has English subs.
And thus Malmros had no more stories to tell. Since then Malmros has
been working as a brain surgeon. But he has begun writing the script
for his next film so slowly, which is a sequal to "Tree of Knowledge"
and deals with his high school period.
Returning to the poor state of Danish film, I spoke with him after
they had chosen the Dogme film "Open Hearts" to represent Denmark at
the Oscars, and asked him if he was dissapointed, as "Facing the
Truth" was a superior film, to which he answered yes. He was not only
dissapointed, but almost angry, but stated the fact, that unless a
film is made by Zentropa, it gets no publicity.
And I've felt it first hand, as I spend the last six month asking the
producers of the DVD to put the English subtitles on "Tree of
Knowledge", but they didn't. Im currently trying to make someone else
release it internationally.
Henrik
19587
From: rpporton55
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 8:47pm
Subject: Re: Vocabulary - continued response to Dan
---.
>
> Cineaste (as in the title of Richard P's magazine) means "filmmaker"
> in French, not "film buff." The meaning shifted when American
> journalists started using "cineaste" in a way that grates on the ear
> of anyone who knows French, and it became generally accepted here.
As far as I know, the founding editors of "Cineaste" never specified whether they had the
French or American connotation of the term in mind. (It was merely one of those catchy
film terms that magazines tend to gravatiate to—e.g. "Jump Cut," Wide Angle" etc.)
So readers are free to impose any meaning they see fit—unless, of course, that would
make "Filmmaker" and "Cineaste" the same magazine (which is clearly untrue).
Richard P.
19588
From:
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 4:22pm
Subject: Ok but really, why Italy? (Was: Why Italy?)
I thank J-P for answering my "Why Italy?" question directly. But all he could
offer was "it's an Italian thing." Is it, though? Is that really the reason
so many Italian films have been dubbed in Italian?
Kevin John
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
19589
From:
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 4:44pm
Subject: TCM's shorts (Was: Film Vocabulary)
In a message dated 12/26/04 7:56:52 AM, MG4273@a... writes:
> TCM has "One-Reel Wonders", which shows shorts by Tourneur, Losey & Don
> Siegel, short musicals by Roy Mack, travelogues by James FitzPatrick, among
> other old Hollywood gems....And the Independent Film Channel (IFC) and Sundance
> Channel regularly show low budget shorts by beginning filmmakers. These vary
> widely in quality, but sometimes are very interesting.
> DVD's are also including short films as extras.
>
The problem here is that TCM never puts these shorts on their schedule,
lending them the quality of little more than filler. Thus, it was purely by
accident that I happened upon this amaaaaazing short about a gal who bought a copy of
a dress Adrian designed for Joan Crawford in SUSAN AND GOD.
Similarly, the very word "extras" suggests something, well, extraneous, not
as important as the main dish. And the fact that they're relegated to a
separate part of the DVD menu underlines this suggestion.
Kevin John
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
19590
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 10:57pm
Subject: Re: Ok but really, why Italy? (Was: Why Italy?)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, LiLiPUT1@a... wrote:
> I thank J-P for answering my "Why Italy?" question directly. But
all he could
> offer was "it's an Italian thing." Is it, though? Is that really
the reason
> so many Italian films have been dubbed in Italian?
>
> Kevin John
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Actually Kevin I suspect that "It's an Italian thing" is,
although flippant, the most appropriate answer, because you can come
up with "reasons" -- such as the obvious ones I suggested: it makes
shooting easier and economical -- but it doesn't explain why the
same thing didn't happen in other countries, or at least not to such
a generalized extent. One reason why the practice has continued for
so long is that hardly anyone ever complained about it... At any
rate, none of the highly knowledgeable people in this group have
cared to offer a more detailed explanation than mine.
19591
From: Fred Camper
Date: Mon Dec 27, 2004 0:04am
Subject: Re: Re: Film Vocabulary (Was: Why Italy?)
ebiri@a... wrote:
>> "short" and "feature."
>
>
> Well, you described the terms as being "inherently biased." And I
> took your story to be indicative of greater concerns, not just an
> isolated incident.
Greater concerns, yes, and inherently biased, yes. But *most* of the
English language is inherently biased. I don't like it but I use it
anyway; it's the only language I've got. I've said "fuck" and "got
fucked" to mean having something bad happen to you since I was a kid;
only as an adult did I understand that the person playing the insertee
in sex is being severely dissed here. I don't like this but I still use
it; it's hard to change longtime habits. I didn't grow up saying "sucks"
as an insult, which has the same problem, so I don't use it, but I sure
as hell don't go around correcting other people who do use it.
>.... Why then are the terms inappropriate? "WINDOW WATER BABY MOVING is a
> short film by Brakhage." ....
Here I think you've just misread my original post. My objection was to
using "short" as a noun to refer to a short Brakhage film, as in "eight
Brakhage shorts." This comes closer to invoking the dreaded "short
subject." I have no objection to calling *any* short film a "short
film," or calling a long film a "long film." This was kind of my point,
an admiring glance at the French and Portuguese terms for "short" and
"feature." (I wonder what other languages do? I believe the Spanish
terms are similar to French and Portuguese, but what about Italian and
German?) Similarly, I don't have a strong objection to writing, "'Dog
Star Man' is a feature-length film," depending on the context.
But words brim with multiple meanings, and thus the language police are
well advised to be careful before correcting anyone. I hate the use of
"disinterested" to mean "uninterested," for example, when its more
precise and less replaceable meaning is to not have a vested interest in
and thus be relatively unbiased, but after correcting several people I
discovered via the OED that it has been used off and on to mean not
interested in for hundreds of years. Ruy pointed out the the Portuguese
words for "feature" and "short" may contain no inherent linguistic bias
but have acquired a certain bias through usage, a great example of how
layered this issue is. I was surprised that the American Heritage
Dictionary, which I greatly respect, has got "film enthusiast" as the
first definition of "cineaste," but this is thus a good indication that
the usage is common enough that we don't get to correct people who use
it that way anymore, at least not casually. It's a good little topic for
a group such as this, and I myself hope I've used it only to mean
filmmaker, but words and uses also keep changing, and while we can fight
our lonely battles against changes we don't like we can't stop people
from speaking or writing according to normal usage.
About "independent film," I remember the days when in the mid-1960s
there were seven "major" studios (Fox, Warners, Universal, Paramount,
MGM, Columbia and UA -- a list that I believe had been constant for four
decades) and Disney was, believe it or not, an "independent." So from
the point I first became interested in film, the word didn't mean a
whole lot. On the other hand, it isn't totally meaningless either. If
someone invites me to see an "indie feature," there is a range of things
that I might expect, from something starring Julia Roberts and
indistinguishable from a Hollywood studio production to a hand-held 16mm
or DV ultra-low-budget affair that still has actors walking around and
talking in lip-sync, and that will tell some kind of narrative. It's not
likely to be a documentary, it's not likely to be an avant-garde film.
Fred Camper
19592
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Mon Dec 27, 2004 0:22am
Subject: Re: Film Vocabulary (Was: Why Italy?)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
> This was kind of my point,
> an admiring glance at the French and Portuguese terms for "short"
and
> "feature." (I wonder what other languages do? I believe the
Spanish
> terms are similar to French and Portuguese, but what about Italian
and
> German?)
I don't know about German, but the Italian terms are similar to
French and Portuguese: Cortometraggio and lungometraggio.
19593
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Mon Dec 27, 2004 0:42am
Subject: The Long and the Short of it
The "short subject" may be a debased and even derided cinematic
form, but it wasn't always so. Few would deny that the Buster Keaton
shorts of 1920-1922 (to take an obvious example)were as important as
any features of the same period, and probably greater achievements
than most.
The major problem of non-feature-length films these days is their
nearly total lack of exposure, since movie theatres no longer show
any "short subjects." This affects all non-feature films, not just
avant garde ones.
By the way, the "short story" is a respected literary form, not
considered inferior to the novel. The short film, as a form deserves
the same respect. Again, it did in earlier days.
19594
From:
Date: Mon Dec 27, 2004 0:58am
Subject: Re: Ken Park
>
> Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 18:52:22 -0000
> From: "hotlove666"
>Subject: Re: Ken Park and Notre Musique
>
>But I liked the film: within the confines of California Gothic
>fantasy, the characters do behave very naturally and unexpectedly at
>times - seamlessly good performances from pros and non-pros alike. By
>the way, it's co-directed by Ed Lachman.
>
>Knowing that at least some of the actors are underaged, and that all
>are much younger than Clark, people tend to see the films as somehow
>being about his attitude toward them. I sense that this, like the
>self-indulgence, is part of how the films are made, whereas the films
>themselves are pretty clearly a spear aimed at the eye of the middle
>class.
Oddly, when I asked Clark exactly what "co-directed" meant in
practice, he got very cryptic and agitated, which was the last
response I expected to a what seemed like a fairly obvious question.
I wonder if there's a story there.
Ken Park was actually a turning point for me -- it seems like the
most thoughtful, least sensationalistic of Clark's movies (although
that's admittedly a backhanded compliment). I was amazed both in
talking to him and seeing him present the movie to an audience how
sincere and vulnerable he came off. He spent the few minutes before
the KP screening ended pacing in the lobby, visibly nervous -- this
was after all the controversy surrounding both the film and Clark's
dust-up with its British ex-distributor -- then ended the Q&A quickly
after a few, uniformly positive, questions, as if he didn't want to
wait for the detractors to come out of their shells. Frankly, after
KIDS, I expected him to be something of a prick, but I think Ken Park
(and Bully to a lesser extent) show that he's not just a creep in
cineaste's clothing. I don't think the movies are about "his attitude
towards" his young characters so much as his identification with them
-- he seems to be one of those people, like Gus van Sant, who can
effortlessly recall what it was like to be that age, and so relates
more easily to teenagers than most adults do.
Sam
19595
From: thebradstevens
Date: Mon Dec 27, 2004 1:03am
Subject: Re: The Long and the Short of it
Television anthology shows have sometimes been great sources for
short filmmaking. Of course, many people would deny that
these 'shorts' can be classified as 'cinema' at all. But while I was
researching a study of Hitchcock's television work, I was
consistently astonished by the quality of the work Hitchcock had been
doing for ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRSESNTS - at least half-a-dozen of the 20
TV segments (not all for AHP) Hitch directed for the small screen are
masterpieces. It strikes me as ridiculous that Truffaut ignored all
of these segments in his interview book (they aren't even listed in
his filmography), but made sure he asked Hitchcock about such
ephemera as ELSTREE CALLING.
Cassavetes, McBride and Welles have also made some remarkable
television 'shorts', while Ferrara's never-screened pilot for THE
LONER is indispensable to any auteurist reading of the director (as
is Ferrara's easily available CRIME STORY pilot).
19596
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Dec 27, 2004 1:07am
Subject: Re: Re: Ken Park
--- samadams@e... wrote:
>
> Oddly, when I asked Clark exactly what "co-directed"
> meant in
> practice, he got very cryptic and agitated, which
> was the last
> response I expected to a what seemed like a fairly
> obvious question.
> I wonder if there's a story there.
>
Obviously. I suspect he had a breakdown and Lachman
took over.
> Ken Park was actually a turning point for me -- it
> seems like the
> most thoughtful, least sensationalistic of Clark's
> movies (although
> that's admittedly a backhanded compliment).
It's kind of like saying "The Gore Gore Girls" less
sensationalistic than "Blood Feast."
I was
> amazed both in
> talking to him and seeing him present the movie to
> an audience how
> sincere and vulnerable he came off. He spent the few
> minutes before
> the KP screening ended pacing in the lobby, visibly
> nervous -- this
> was after all the controversy surrounding both the
> film and Clark's
> dust-up with its British ex-distributor -- then
> ended the Q&A quickly
> after a few, uniformly positive, questions, as if he
> didn't want to
> wait for the detractors to come out of their shells.
"Sincere and vulnerable"? I'd say running scared.
> Frankly, after
> KIDS, I expected him to be something of a prick, but
> I think Ken Park
> (and Bully to a lesser extent) show that he's not
> just a creep in
> cineaste's clothing. I don't think the movies are
> about "his attitude
> towards" his young characters so much as his
> identification with them
> -- he seems to be one of those people, like Gus van
> Sant, who can
> effortlessly recall what it was like to be that age,
> and so relates
> more easily to teenagers than most adults do.
>
I think Gus is lot more honest about being the Big
Ol'Perv that he is. He loved "Kids" (which I despise.)
"Elephant" is far more adept expression of
ephebophilia.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The all-new My Yahoo! - What will yours do?
http://my.yahoo.com
19597
From: Jason Guthartz
Date: Mon Dec 27, 2004 1:45am
Subject: Re: The Long and the Short of it
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon" wrote:
> The major problem of non-feature-length films these days is their
> nearly total lack of exposure, since movie theatres no longer show
> any "short subjects." This affects all non-feature films, not just
> avant garde ones.
I'm curious as to whether there have been any attempts by a regular
screening venue to implement an alternative pricing strategy for
screenings of "shorter" films, e.g., $2 for a 10 minute program with
multiple screenings ("tickets are available for the 1:20, 1:40, 2:00,
2:20, 2:40, and 3:00 screenings of MOTHLIGHT"). Or five 10-minute
films repeated in one 100-minute program? Anything along these lines?
Even venues which are otherwise friendly towards short(er) films and
experimental work follow the standard programming procedure to fill up
90 minutes -- which often doesn't serve the films very well. I mean,
one should never complain about an opportunity to see a group of films
by a great filmmaker like Breer or Kubelka, but it can be really
overwhelming, especially on first viewing (which for unprivileged
cinephiles is likely to be the only viewing for quite a while). You
have little time to digest one masterpiece before the next one comes
along. It's almost better to see a program of 9 mediocre films and
one great film, instead of a program of 10 great films!
I understand the practical aspects of the "feature-length" framework
(audience expectations, rental pricing), but I figure someone
somewhere must have tried something a little different.
(NOTE: Certain people reading this should not take these comments as a
complaint which might disuade them from, say, repeating a Saturday
afternoon marathon of films by a certain avant-garde film legend.)
On a related note: I thought Jarmusch did an interesting thing with
COFFEE AND CIGARETTES by packaging a collection of short films like
songs in a music album. Perhaps his interest in music led him to this
idea, but it's particularly appropriate for the DVD era: either play
the whole thing or watch your favorite "song".
-Jason G.
19598
From:
Date: Mon Dec 27, 2004 2:18am
Subject: Re: The Long and the Short of it
Have only had a chance to see a few of the Hitchcock directed TV shows. Best: "Breakdown". This is an unusual piece on every level - very different from Hitchcock's theatrical work. Much of it consists of a narrative told in still photographs.
In his book on Cornell Woolrich, Francis M. Nevins praises "Three O'Clock", which Hitch made not for "AH Presents", but for another show (Suspense?) Have never had a chance to see it.
Mike Grost
19599
From:
Date: Mon Dec 27, 2004 2:23am
Subject: Re: COFFEE AND CIGARETTES (was: The Long and the Short of it)
Jason G writes:
I thought Jarmusch did an interesting thing with
COFFEE AND CIGARETTES by packaging a collection of short films likesongs in a music album. Perhaps his interest in music led him to thisidea, but it's particularly appropriate for the DVD era: either playthe whole thing or watch your favorite "song".
My favorite episode: the one about the Tesla coil. This was remarkably poetic.
Mike Grost
19600
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Mon Dec 27, 2004 3:33am
Subject: Re: Re: Breillat (Was: Dubbing, Realism, Suspension of Disbelief)
> and I
> love POLICE (both the dialogue and direction).
I love this film too, though Pialat fans tend to rate it one of his least
efforts. I mentioned the first half because my understanding is that
Breillat's job was to research and write the earlier sections on police
procedure. I think she's good at capturing ambience: note the short but
effective operating-room scenes in PARFAIT AMOUR!, which catch so nicely
the OR staff's cocky, cowboy tone. - Dan
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