Oscar's Cinema Journal 2005

[oscar jubis]

Friday March 25th

The Yes Men on dvd
Documentary about the witty group of political activists who developed websites that look very similar to the president's and the World Trade Organization's but don't deceive. Film centers on how their WTO site fooled others to such extent they managed to inpersonate WTO reps at trade conferences worldwide. The Yes Men took the opportunity to raise consciousness via inventive, outrageous pranks at such events. Michael Moore makes two brief appearances to illustrate the consequences of WTO policies. Not as informative as it could be but certainly entertaining and inspirational.

[oscar jubis]

Sat. March 26th

Western Union (1941) on TCM
Fritz Lang's second Western, starring Randolph Scott and Robert Young, centers on the perils faced by folks extending telegraphic service to the western states circa 1861. The technicolor Western Union dramatizes the importance of communications to the development of the West. The romantic subplot seemed superfluous to me, but overall well worth seeing.

Sex is Comedy (2004) on dvd.
Catherine Breillat's autobiographical film about a director played by Anne Parrillaud directing "Scenes Intimes", a film that resembles Breillat's own Fat Girl. The star of that film, Roxane Mesquida, is identified here as "the actress" and Gregoire Colin is "the actor". They are filming scenes at a resort town concluding with the shooting of a defloration scene in which Colin wears a prosthetic penis. Sex is Comedy is an extremely frank dramatization of the role of the director and the relationships forged between directors and performers, most specifically when nudity is required (like in Breillat's films). Those who find the topic interesting will have much to ponder here.

Untold Scandal (2004) at Cosford Cinema
This Korean adaptation of Chordelos de Lacros' "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" is set in the 18th century at the end of the Chosun dynasty. This beautifully mounted film was directed by Je-yong Lee (Asako in Ruby Shoes) and features excellent cinematography and performances. Several directors have adapted the original French novel to the screen including Roger Vadim, Stephen Frears (Dangerous Liasons), Milos Forman (Valmont) and Roger Kumble (Cruel Intentions). This Korean version is as luxurious and more affecting than any of its predecessors.

[Chris Knipp]

Those who find the topic interesting will have much to ponder here.
Do you--find it interesting, that is? Breillat can be very annoying. She seems a person who never got over the Seventies.

Untold Scandal---well, Les Liaisons Dangereuses has been done to death, especially considering that Choderlos de Laclos' epistolary novel is itself a masterpiece upon which it is impossible to improve. Cruel Intentions is fun, and has been milked for more, but otherwise for my money nothing can touch the Frears version. I'd be surprised if this one, being "more affecting", is actually true to the original, which, after all, is elegant and cold and cruel, in the style of the culture and the period and the milieu. The recent French TV version featuring Ruppert Everett and Catherine Deneuve, which I have had exchanges about with arsaib4, and is available on DVD, is a waste of time, just glossy schlock. Anything woudl be better than that, and the much earlier Jeanne Moreau one isn't very good either.

I am not sure I would agree if you think that the fate of Glenn Close isn't very "affecting." Her destruction is devastating; within the terms of 18th-century French aristocratic life, she is ruined, and nothing is more "affecting" than becoming a non-person, even if it's more shocking and alienating than weepy. I would of course like to see this Korean version, anyway.

Still in NYC. Saw the Oscar Shorts series at Cinema Village. Almost consistently high quality, with some real gems from Australia and Canada (the latter the Oscar winner) and the UK. I find real people "more affecting" than animations--well, mostly the Ryan Larkin piece is amazing; it made me think of Waking Life.

I also enjoyed Ong-bak Thai Warrior; Tony Jaa is amazing to watch and it's a relief to see somebody actually doing the stunts you see him perform on film, instead of having it all faked in one way or another. Not that this one has no doctoring of the film, but there are, they say, "no wires," and the best part is where he leaps over and dives under cars, and simply goes through the moves for his sensei at the beginning, with perfect grace and precision. A pleasure to watch. And, of course, in a sense completely mindless. Also ultra-violent, later on; if you don't like bone-crushing, stay away.

[oscar jubis]

Not only do I find films that depict "directing" activities and dissect director-actor relationships interesting in general, but I am particularly interested in Breillat's creative process and how she relates to actors. I recognize Sex is Comedy as a film for cinephiles and a companion piece to Fat Girl, not as a film that would appeal to a wider audience. I find it interesting to note that, since the erect penis in view is fake the film received an "R", but had it been Colin's own and most likely shorter pecker, the film would be rated "NC-17" (if submitted to the Board).
I don't find Breillat "annoying" at all and I think you mean to provoke debate (which I welcome) by your "never got over the 70s" comment. I know you wouldn't object to provocative, frank studies of (mostly) female sexuality so I'll defer until you amplify and expound on your comment. I don't remember if you liked Fat Girl, I certainly thought it was exceptional.

Untold Scandal is my favorite adaptation of the source novel. As a whole, it stirred and moved my emotions more than any version, including Frears'.

You've convinced me to rent Ong-bak when it comes out on dvd. Not "my thing" but if you enjoyed it...

[oscar jubis]

Sunday March 27th

Anne Fontaine's How I killed my Father was retitled My Father and I for home video release probably because many interpreted the original title literally and expected perhaps a different kind of film. The 40 year old protagonist played by Charles Berling reads a letter immediately after the opening titles in which he learns that his father, who's been living in Africa for over 20 years, died before he was able to return to France as he had planned. The rest of the film takes place inside Berling's head as he imagines how his father's (Michel Bouquet) visit would have turned out and how it'd have affected his life, that of his wife (Natacha Regnier from The Dreamlife of Angels) and brother. This extremely well observed psychological drama is easily Fontaine's best picture to date, although the single p.o.v. means several of the film's mysteries are left unresolved. Some will find the film's reserve and rigor admirable, others will find it frustrating. I'm in the first group, but I admit I would have opened up the film a little bit, perhaps by adding an epilogue or a coda of some sort (the film ends where it began, with Berling holding the letter in his hand, lost in thought).

I've posted before about The Barbarian Invasions after its theatrical run in late 2003. The film has won 2 awards at Cannes, 3 French Academy awards, 6 Canadian Academy awards, and the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film. It's one of my favorite films of 2003 and today I watch the Canadian version which is 14 minutes longer. I managed to purchase a copy of this dvd which apparently was only sold in the province of Quebec. It adds a scene between the cancer-stricken Remy and one of his lovers and extends several of the scenes in the shorter version. I found Les Invasions Barbares one of the funniest, most insightful films of the current decade. It celebrates and criticizes the baby boom generation and its legacy like no other film I can recall.

[oscar jubis]

Mon. March 28th

Okraina aka Outskirts (1933) on dvd

I watched this film for the first time last November and had to watch it again. It's only the second film from boxer-turned-filmmaker Boris Barnet that I have seen. It's his first sound film and it's set in a small Russian village, from days before the start of WWI until the abdication of the Tsar and the end of the war. A highly original work in which the first line of dialogue is uttered by a horse_which doesn't happen again. The use of sound is quite inspired and playful throughout. Although several scenes concern the revolutionary movement spreading throughout Russia, the main theme of the film is the tension between the nationalistic fervor of citizens under attack versus their humane impulses. Some of the most poignant scenes involve a local girl's infatuation for a German p.o.w. and an act of collective fraternization by troops at the warfront. The tone of the film varies effortlessly between comedy and tragedy, sometimes within the same scene. One never gets the sense of knowing what's coming next. Barnet remained active as a director into the 60s, before he committed suicide in 1965. A retrospective of his films has traveled the country in recent years. Outskirts is available on a dvd that includes Barnet's silent comedy The Girl with the Hatbox, which I plan to watch again soon. Hopefully other titles will become available in the future.

[Chris Knipp]

I am behind -- limited Internet access -- and I would have to review my limited knowledge of Breillat and have more leisure to debate her merits with you; if you like her, fine; and certainly, she's not to be condemned merely for being provocative, though I have yet to see that she makes good films. As for Gregoire Colin's real pecker, as you put it, he's pretty hot looking and I'd be glad to see that....movie, i mean.

[oscar jubis]

Tue/Wed March 29th and 30th

Back to back viewings of Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris (1972) on Criterion dvd, the second viewing while listening to commentary track by Johnson and Petrie, authors of "The Films of Andrei Tarkovsky: A Visual Fugue. Solaris is the third of Tarkovsky's seven features, all of which I've watched more than once and find new things in them every time I do.

Polish writer Stanislaw Lem, writer of the source novel, spent three weeks in Moscow discussing the project with the director. They couldn't find any common ground with Lem ultimately refusing to participate in writing a script. Lem on Tarkovsky: "He sees space as something terrible and that the whole issue of the Solaris ocean is an annoyance, one could say. My take is that it's an interesting challenge confronting man, though it can, naturally, cause tragic conflicts and suffering. I tried to soften him up, but he was stubborn, and so was I. So I ended up returning to Warsaw." Lem's novel for instance takes place entirely at the space station over the planet Solaris whereas the first 43 minutes of the film take place on Earth. The basic plot concerns a psychologist sent to a space station located off the planet Solaris to conduct an investigation prompted by reports from cosmonauts that scientists on Earth have difficulty reconciling. We learn that the planet's ocean is an intelligence capable of creating physical manifestations of humans by using materials inside the cosmonauts' minds (such as memories). These manifestations are labeled "guests". Tarkovsky seems to take the premise and skeletal structure of the novel to explore a variety of issues that can be described as philosophical or existential. He has little or no interest in science, technology, or space exploration. So the film may not satisfy sci-fi buffs. It's also important to point out that for Tarkovsky narrative continuity is not a priority, and that several plot details are elided altogether. The result is an enigmatic film, open to a multiple interpretations, meant to be seen more than once. Just what is it that makes us human? (My take is that A.T. believes that the ability to experience intense emotions, such as love and fear, is atop the criteria list. He'd probably consider the "guest" Hari, the manifestation of the psychologist's dead wife, more human than the cold, affectless Dr. Sartorious). Another major issue is man's search for truth, which the film proposes (in my opinion of course) is hindered by self-imposed limits. The nature of consciousness and the uses of memory also feature prominently. The film is highly intertextual with all forms of quotations and allusions to works from other arts such as the writings of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, the Spanish novel "Don Quijote de La Mancha", greco-roman sculpture, Bruegel's painting "Hunters in the Snow", etc.
There is undoubtedly quite a bit of political subtext, particularly veiled criticisms of the Soviet regime's restrictions of freedom and exploitation of the natural environment. The Soviet censors made production and distribution of Tarkovsky's films very problematic, particularly his previous film, Andrei Rublev, and this one. Tarkovsky was eventually forced to seek exile in Western Europe because of the difficulties getting his films made there.
Formally speaking, Solaris features the director's trademark studied widescreen compositions, long tracking shots, opening a scene with a confounding closeup rather than an establishing shot, the constant presence of natural motifs (horses, plants, water,etc) and emphasis on rhythm over editing.

[oscar jubis]

Thursday March 31st

Up and Down at SoBe Regal

Only the second film directed by 37 year old Jan Hrebejk to get US distribution, and the first to be set in the present. The stories of two families experiencing crises, one working class and the other middle class, eventually merge in Hrebejk's tasty mix of humanist drama and dark comedy. As a big fan of his Divided We Fall, my expectations were high but I was not disappointed. Up and Down manages to deal with "heavy" topics, such as the transformation of Prague into a capitalist, multicultural society in which issues of racism and exploitation have become increasingly relevant, within an engaging, palatable narrative. Altman fans will feel at home. The ensemble cast does wonders with the satirical, minutely observed script.

[oscar jubis]

First Quarter Report

Total Films=144 in 90 days, including 13 shorts and 9 silents.

By Decade:
00s=81 films, 90s=5, 80s=5, 70s=9, 60s=15, 50s=15, 40s=4, 30s=1, 20s=9.

By Language:
51 in English, 28 in French, 21 in Spanish, rest in numerous other languages. The French number rather high because 10 of the 13 shorts I watched were in French.

Viewing Environment:
86 films on video, 49 at theatres, 9 on broadcast channels.

[Chris Knipp]

Well, you beat me, but that's nothing new.

How many were repeats, vs. new viewings?

[oscar jubis]

Good question. Surprisingly low: only 19 features and 2 Brakhage shorts are repeats. By the way, films that I watched more than once during these 90 days (Solaris, Le Chant du Styrene) were only counted once. Why repeats? Because I may never get a chance to see it at a theatre again (Written on the Wind, Eternal Sunshine), cos I wanted kids to watch it (Siddhartha, A Hard Day's Night), cos Chelsea wanted me to watch it with her (Pretty in Pink), cos I didn't like it and I wanted to give it another chance (Wild at Heart), cos they're great and I watch them every so often (Au Hasard Balthazar, Potemkin, Strike, Solaris, Outskirts, Brakhage shorts, 2046, Ivan's Childhood), cos I wanted to watch an alternative version (Barbarian Invasions).

[oscar jubis]

Friday April 1st

A large poll of Mexican film historians and critics picked Rio Escondido (Hidden River, 1948) as number 23 on the list of best Mexican Movies of all time. Every single frame is certifiable proof that director Emilio Fernandez (who served as model for the Oscar statuette) and cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa are first-rate filmmakers. This is the 3rd film I watch this year starring Maria Felix, who oozes charisma but is not known for nuance and subtlety. She starts as a saintly teacher with a heart condition sent by the president Miguel Aleman as part of his campaign to bring health care and education to Indian peasants living in remote parts of Mexico. Didactic, propagandistic melodrama of the highest caliber. A documentary sequence_ in which the camera lingers lovingly on the Diego Rivera murals that adorn the Presidential Palace and provides voice-over narration, is supposedly filmed in Technicolor but not in the print used for this dvd. The disc is made in California, USA and clearly aimed at older Mexican-Americans (several younger ones I've met don't speak much Spanish) since it has no English subs.

[Chris Knipp]

Your number of repeats isn't that low -- isn't that about one seventh of your total, or am I as usual miscalculating? Anyway I wanted to know that because again this is where we differ and maybe you are the greater cinephile, because I do re-watch movies, but relatively few of them. I would say that I am rewatching 2046 already; I like to re-watch movies that are pure style, like Wong's. I have given films a second chance sometimes, but also sometimes like you rewatch one just to see it with somebody else, because they want to see it and I want to go to a movie with them. I also think that cinematic experiences are often epemeral and that, unlike a great book, an enjoyable and interesting movie may not yield new wonders on re-watching; a great movie of course will, or simply will move you all over again to wonder or tears.

But--"so many movies, so little time...." On that theory, I prefer to watch ones I've never seen.

Also, sometimes I think a movie is great, but the experience of watching it was so intense, that I hesitate to undertake it again. By the same token I don't want to listen to Bach's unaccompanied violin suites very often, or to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, despite the fact that I think those compositions are the ultimate in musical experience. You can't drink first growth bordeaux every night. You can't live at a fever pitch. I'm in this for the long haul. I don't want to burn my candle at both ends. Call me a wimp, but I believe in moderation.

Sometimes we forget that. Many would consider our movie watching schedules immoderate as it is.

I think Ikiru is the greatest movie ever made; that's my personal choice; but I don't want to watch it often. I want it to remain special, not make it my daily study like some prof who teaches Hamlet every semester.

I saw Nobody Knows twice, with two different people. The second person might not have gotten to see it if I hadn't gone with them. And it could stand up quite well to being seen twice.

I think it's an interesting to re-watch youth films of the Eighties -- Pretty in Pink, with Chelsea -- to go back over what seemed very fresh and trendy at one time, to see how it looks now that we're arguably into another era -- not to mention into another decade of our lives.

If you commented on an alternative version of Barbarian Invasions, I missed it. I watched the 'director's cut' of Donnie Darko and I'm quite convinced that I prefer the earlier version. The new one waw missing some of my favorite parts of a film which, on first viewing,k AI thought overrated, though I can see how it could be a cult movie for young American males of a certain demographicl, maybe various demographics. But not being a young American male, I thought it was highfalutin, pretentious, and unresolved. Now I see that it was pretty classic in its way. But the director shouldn't have spent so much time reediting it, and should have moved forward instead. I guess The Barbarian Invasions was interesting, I liked the way it showed how relatively European French Canadians culture is. But I'm not sure it's fine enough artistically to warrant making it a subject of study by seeing it in an alternative version. Was the alternate version exciting? Again, so many movies, so little time. But you obviously have twice as much time to watch movies as I do, despite all your responsibilities and good works!

I guess finally I can enjoy re-watching many movies, but prefer watching one's I haven't seen 95% of the time, because it's diverting to do so, and there are so many to see.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
Your number of repeats isn't that low -- isn't that about one seventh of your total, or am I as usual miscalculating?

You're not miscalculating. To be exact, 14.5% of the films I watched this quarter were repeats. I thought it'd be about 20%.

... an enjoyable and interesting movie may not yield new wonders on re-watching; a great movie of course will, or simply will move you all over again to wonder or tears.

I'd put about half of my repeats in this "great" category.

But--"so many movies, so little time...." On that theory, I prefer to watch ones I've never seen.

I wouldn't want to miss out on any good, new films either. I've never kept track of the films I watch as closely as I am this year, but I estimate that the percentage of repeats will increase to about one in five in the third quarter (July, August, September) because during that period fewer good films are released, there are no local film festivals, and my beloved Cosford Cinema closes for two months. We call it the "mean season" here.

Also, sometimes I think a movie is great, but the experience of watching it was so intense, that I hesitate to undertake it again.

My tendency when I fall in love with a film is to challenge the film to remain so lovable by watching it again ASAP. I've watched Eternal Sunshine thrice at the theatre, for instance. I will soon watch it at home and listen to the available commentary track. I often find that only when one is very familiar with a film's plot (content) can one fully concentrate on the production of images, the visual language, the mechanics of the film's structure, etc.

Sometimes we forget that. Many would consider our movie watching schedules immoderate as it is.

Cristi won't let me forget.

I think Ikiru is the greatest movie ever made; that's my personal choice; but I don't want to watch it often. I want it to remain special, not make it my daily study like some prof who teaches Hamlet every semester.

I watched it for the third time last year. Rashomon about four or five times. None of AK's other films seem to merit that many viewings in my opinion. I will watch Kagemusha and Red Beard again though. We'll see what happens.

If you commented on an alternative version of Barbarian Invasions, I missed it.

First post on this page, second paragraph. It's 14 minutes longer. I'm glad I own it. It's not "better" than the shorter cut.

I watched the 'director's cut' of Donnie Darko and I'm quite convinced that I prefer the earlier version.

I haven't seen the director's cut. I remember reading that the longer cut explains things too neatly and works against the film's enigmatic aura, or something to that effect.

[Chris Knipp]

Thanks for giving me a long reply on this topic of re-watching; really an important topic for us, I think. "The unexamined life is not worth living," and likewise not to go back and re-watch films, for a film-lover, would be mindless and careless. Kael supposedly rarely re-watched them, but that may be partly a myth; anyway, I don't have her extraordinarily precise visual and other memory of films. Yes, it's important to re-watch them, but it's also important to strike a balance, to have a life, as the saying goes. Your comments on Kurosawa make me realize that I have actually watched a lot of his movies two or three times, but that's over a long period.

Ultimately this is a personal decision each of us must make, based on personality, memory, and how we want to live our lives. To some extent it is true that Less Is More. But that, too, is personal. What's normal for you or me may be a bit on the side of excess for your wife.

[oscar jubis]

Saturday April 2nd

Beshkempir aka The Adopted Son (1998)

The first film from Kyrgyzstan to be distributed in the US and the feature debut of director Aktan Abdykalykov. A highly autobiographical movie about a boy entering puberty and learning that he was adopted. The movie is set in a rural village where it's the custom for large families to allow a childless couple to adopt one of their offspring. The customary adoption ritual is depicted in the opening scene in full color, then we flash forward 12 years to b&w quotidian scenes of boys playing in the muddy river, stealing eggs, spying on bathing women, wrestling, getting a haircut, flirting innocently with local girls, watching a Bollywood musical on a freestanding screen outdoors, practicing intercourse with a voluptuous sandwoman, retrieving a colorful bird trapped indoors...Every vignette carefully framed, with color returning briefly at key moments. The film builds up to a key moment in every boy's life when he asks a girl to ride on his bycicle, and to the funeral rituals for Beshkempir's grandmother. The central role is played by the director's son. They collaborated on another film, which was not distributed here. Beshkempir is a poetic coming-of-age film grounded in the natural environment. It provides access to a relatively unknown culture and people. The Fox Lorber dvd features a nice transfer and can be had new for about $6 including shipping at various sites including Amazon and half.ebay.

Samurai III: Duel at Ganryu Island

Third and final installment of the 5-hour Samurai trilogy starring Toshiro Mifune and an all-star cast of veterans from Ozu, Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, and Naruse films. The trilogy is based on the novel "Musashi" by Eihi Yashikawa about the transformation of the titular character from hothead show-off into a compassionate, thoughtful, highly skilled samurai.

[arsaib4]

I recently brought up The Adopted Son while talking about another film from the region, the recently released Schizo. The Adopted Son was the only film not only from Kyrgyzstan but the whole of Central Asia to get U.S. distribution. It's a beautiful piece of work. Also be on the lookout for another one, this one from Tajikistan called Angel on the Right being released direct-to-DVD I think from Global Film Initiative/First Run Features on June 21st.

[oscar jubis]

Yes, beautiful film ain't it? The village in which the film is set seems to exist in a vacuum, as I detected no evidence of external forces impinging on its residents. I am not identifying this as a flaw, but l'll say the film is rather simple content-wise. I am very curious about the institutional forces, governmental or religious, that have an influence on these people. I plan to seek out other Central Asian films and I have taken note of the ones you've discussed. Please comment on Angel on the Right after viewing.

[JustaFied]

I agree with your comments on The Barbarian Invaders, and it remains one of the more memorable films I've seen over the last few years. I particularly found interesting the relationships between the baby boomers and their children, i.e. my generation. Have you seen The Decline of the American Empire, which evidently is a "prequel" of sorts to BI? If so, is it worth checking out?

I also recently rented Jesus of Montreal, which is such a cerebral film I don't think I was able to absorb everything it was saying in one viewing. Worth another look. Intriguing premise, and heady subject matter.

[oscar jubis]

Yes, JustaFied, Decline is a prequel of sorts to Barbarian. Yes, it's worth checking out but it's not as memorable as Barbarian (although it won 9 Canadian Academy awards and a FIPRESCI award at Cannes).
Barbarian is more expansive both visually and thematically. As you've pointed out, the dichotomy between the boomers and the next generation is particularly interesting, and you won't find that in Decline. My recollection is that the prequel is just as funny and perhaps just as sad. It takes place on a single day and it's even more dialogue-driven than Barbarian. The basic thesis is that the boomers obsession with hedonistic pursuits at the expense of everything else is indicative of a society in decline. There are three set ups: the men at Remy's lakeside house, the women at the health club, and a gender clash over dinner. The main topic is sex and the game of choice is intellectual oneupmanship.
Please share your opinions if you decide to watch it.

[oscar jubis]

Sunday April 3rd

The Wind (1928) on TCM

Highly atmospheric feature directed by Victor Seastrom, who returned to his native Sweden in 1930 and pursued primarily an acting career (the lead role in Wild Strawberries was his last performance). The film stars Lillian Gish, who had collaborated with Seastrom on The Scarlet Letter, as a Virginian ingenue who travels west to live with his cousin in a ranch bordering the Mojave desert. She encounters misfortune and is driven mad by social isolation and terrible weather conditions. I had the luck to watch the original cut of this film at the theatre many years ago. TCM showed the version that had a happy ending tacked on against Seastrom and Gish's wishes. Guess what? It really ain't that bad. Not as ludicrous or preposterous as one would think. I would normally be prejudiced against such practice, but I have to be honest to my reaction that the happy ending is not illogical though I still prefer the tragic one intended by Gish and Seastrom.

[oscar jubis]

Monday April 4th

At Five in the Afternoon is the third feature directed by Samira Makhmalbaf (The Apple, Blackboards) and the first film shot in Afghanistan after the defeat of the Taliban regime. The film was co-written by Samira and her father Moshe Makhmalbaf, the veteran Iranian director (Kandahar, The Ciclist).

The plot concerns a young woman named Nogreh, who manages to attend a secular school without her fundamentalist father's knowledge. Like most residents of Kabul they experience extreme deprivation as there is a shortage of housing, food, and other basic necessities. Nogreh lives with her father and her sister-in-law, whose infant is dying of disease and malnutrition. Nogreh decides to run for president of the student body but lacks knowledge of how to write and deliver a speech. She meets a poet, recently returned from exile in Pakistan, who offers his help and seems interested in courting her. Nogreh's father is increasingly frustrated by town women showing their faces in public and by music emanating from transistor radios. He talks about moving the family to a "real Islamic town".

At Five in the Afternoon is quite arresting in visual terms and provides even more evidence of Ms. Makhmalbaf's eye for image composition and her ability to extract credible performances from non-actors. She won two awards at Cannes 2003 for this film. But many critics complained the film is bleak and depressing. The director's response: "The Taliban are in the minds of the people, in the culture of Afghanistan. It's not like an external wound you can dress. It's like a cancer. I try to portray the reality, not just make what I want. No more lies." In other words, in order for the film to be true to what Ms. Makhmalbaf observed and what has been amply reported regarding life conditions and prospects of Afghans following the defeat of the Taliban, At Five in the Afternoon, had to be sad and bleak. I feel optimistic about the future of the world and the future of cinema when I realize there are uncompromising, talented filmmakers like Ms. Makhmalbaf who won't compromise the truth (as they see it) to make palatable entertainment.
This film was not released commercially in the USA. I watched it on dvd from the Uk which includes an interview with the director and a "behind the scenes" shot by her teenagage sister Hana. The latter directed a documentary called Joy of Madness, about the process of casting the film, which is not included on this disc.

[oscar jubis]

Tuesday April 5th

Chimes at Midnight (1965) on PAL dvd

Orson Welles incorporated the pieces of Falstaff that Shakespeare had strewn over the two parts of "Henry IV", "The Merry Wives of Windsor", "Henry V" and "Richard II", and fastened them into place with Ralph Richardson's narration from Holinshed's "Chronicles", a historical source used by the Bard himself. A Spanish/Swiss co-production, filmed entirely in Spain with an international cast that includes John Guielgud, Jeanne Moreau, Margaret Rutheford, Fernando Rey, and Orson's daughter Beatrice (as Falstaff's page boy). Welles directs and stars as the obese, profane, merrymaking lover of sugar and sack, Prince Hal's favorite companion Falstaff. The scene in which the former Prince, now Henry V King of England, rebuffs and humilliates Falstaff publicly, is truly heartbreaking. Pauline Kael on the film's battle scene: "Welles has directed a sequence, the Battle of Shrewsbury, which is unlike any battle done on the screen before. The compositions suggest Uccello and the chilling ironic music is a death knell for all men in battle. The soldiers, plastered by the mud they fall in, are already monuments. It's the most brutally somber battle ever filmed. It does justice to Hotspur's great O, Harry, thou hast robbed me of my youth".
Chimes at Midnight is required viewing, possibly as great as Welles's Othello, my favorite Shakespeare film.

[oscar jubis]

Wednesday April 6th

El Bruto aka The Brute (1953)

Luis Bunuel directed more films in Mexico than anywhere else. Because of the poor distribution of Mexican films in general during the post-war years, Bunuel remains one of the major directors whose career has not been properly debated and analyzed.
His two English language films have suffered the same fate until recently, with the dvd release of The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. At least one major critic considers the other one in English, The Young One, a masterpiece. I hope to have the chance to watch it in the near future.
Bunuel's Mexican phase was his most prolific. El Bruto is the 8th film he directed after moving there in 1947. Pedro Armendariz is the slaughterhouse worker hired by a greedy landlord to intimidate the tenants of a building he plans to demolish. El Bruto is seduced by the landlord's younger wife (Katy Jurado) but falls in love with the daughter of a tenant he kills accidentally. The film combines elements of film noir, melodrama, and Italian Neo-realism. But as usual, Don Luis manages to impose his personal vision. While clearly pointing a finger at the bourgeoisie, the depiction of the poor is far from sympathetic (in the Italian tradition) or romanticized (in the Mexican tradition). And there is a perverse moment or two you won't find in The Postman Always Rings Twice. The political subtext involves a simpleton's acquisition of class consciousness (still a taboo topic in the good old...). I am avoiding giving too much away in the hope that you will avail yourself of the dvd made in USA by Cozumel Classic Films, which doesn't advertise the fact that it comes with nice yellow English subs.

[Chris Knipp]

How did you get these DVD's (rent or purchase? from where?).

What are the main ways that Bunuel's Mexican films differ from his European-made ones?

I feel your journal is increasingly better written as you go along, and, not so incidentally, more personal and warmer in style.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
How did you get these DVD's (rent or purchase? from where?).

At Five in the Afternoon and Chimes at Midnight are rentals from Nicheflix. I bought El Bruto from overstock.com for $10.09.

What are the main ways that Bunuel's Mexican films differ from his European-made ones?

Bunuel made three relatively short films in Europe free of any narrative constrictions: the surrealists L'Age d'Or and Un Chien Andalou, and the doc Las Hurdes. Then he was inactive for 15 years (1932-1946). The two films he made in the USA and the 20 or so he made in Mexico are characterized by the tension between commercial pressures and narrative logic vs. his need to express his anarchic and surreal impulses. He returned to Europe in the 60s when the French New Wave and the popularity of "art cinema" created a benign climate in which commercial pressures were minimal. It's my opinion based on repeat viewings of most films that it's wrong to conclude his European films are "better" than the ones he made in our continent. Rosenbaum considers the American The Young One (one of the few I haven't seen) to be one of his very best. Moreover, most critics would agree that Los Olvidados and El Angel Exterminador, made within the commercial Mexican film industry, are clearly superior to the French The Milky Way (1968), for instance.

I feel your journal is increasingly better written as you go along, and, not so incidentally, more personal and warmer in style.

Thank you very much. So far, I've found the time to write what I want to say. I'm afraid that won't always be the case.

[oscar jubis]

Thursday April 7th

Tropical Malady (Sud Pralad) on PAL region 3 dvd

Apichatpong Weerasethakul, the Thai director who studied filmmaking at the Art Institute of Chicago, gets my vote for most original film artist. I haven't seen his previous film, The Adventures of Iron Pussy, a musical comedy about a transvestite spy. I admired both Mysterious Object at Noon and Blissfully Yours, but neither prepared me for Tropical Malady, which won a Jury Prize at Cannes, was named Best Film of 2004 by Cahiers du Cinema, and will be distributed in the US by Strand Releasing.

The film opens with the following quote: "All of us are by nature wild beasts. Our duty as humans is to become like trainers who keep their animals in check". Keng belongs to a group of soldiers assigned to an area bordering a dense forest. They find a corpse. There's a long shot of a naked man walking nearby. The soldiers bring the corpse to the village. Keng meets a local labourer named Tong. They develop a close relationship with romantic overtones. They go to the movies, visit a cavern where they find a Buddhist temple, take Tong's dog to the vet, have a soda with two middle aged women but decline the marijuana one offers, ride a motorcycle, then a very curious night scene: Keng smells Tong's hand lustily; Tong responds by meticulously licking Keng's hand, then turns around and walks into the dark. The screen goes black for 15 seconds until the drawing of a tiger and the title "A Spirit's Path" appear, and then "Inspired by the stories of Noi Inthanon". It's a Thai legend about a shape-shifting shaman spirit. This second half of Tropical Malady is told mostly via drawings, intertitles, and at one point, the translated grunts of an orangutan. It consists of Keng's search and confrontation with this spirit deep into the forest. The spirit often takes the form of a Bengal tiger but at times looks like Tong, naked with skin painted to simulate a tiger's hide. It provides an evocative sensory experience particularly due to dramatic lighting and superb sound design. "A Spirit Path" may be construed as an alternative telling of the story in the first half. I simply feel that Weerasethakul decided that, at a certain point, the story was better served by a radically different style.

As is the case of any truly original work, Tropical Malady has its detractors. Count me among the awed admirers of Weerasethakul, but I'll admit I had to resist the urge to fast forward during a 15 minute sequence consisting of nothing but Keng tracking the yet unseen "beast". Also, the film is so enigmatic and mysterious that some viewers will be baffled by the experience, and find the film unsatisfying. It's certainly not one to recommend casually to the average moviegoer. For lovers of "art cinema", Tropical Malady is reason to rejoice.

[Chris Knipp]

This is one I've heard about here (Tropical Malady) and I look forward to it. I may not read too much about it because I think it may be showing somewhere soon? Or am I wrong? Thanks for all the other information. So you're still sticking with nicheflix--I thought at one point you were thinking it was too expensive? I have to confess I rented Los Olvidados once and I couldn't get into it. Maybe I should try again, and maybe it was a bad copy, on tape of course. You're getting to the point where you could teach film at a college.

Have you seen the work of that guy, I think he's Hungarian, Béla Tarr. who is supposed to have influenced Gus Van Sant in the making of Gerry? I happen to have liked Gerry quite a lot though it took a lot of patience to walk. I say this apropos of some of what you say about Tropical Malady. I am not that impressed by Chantal Ackerman, I fear (another influence Van Sant cited).

[oscar jubis]

*I don't think Strand Releasing has announced a date for Tropical Malady. I'd be very impressed if they decide to spend money on it.
*Nicheflix is not a smooth operation like Netflix, but I'll extend my membership another month to rent European dvds I cannot afford to purchase.
*Surprised re: your comment about Los Olvidados. Seems to me to be an accessible precursor to films like Pixote and Salaam Bombay.
*Chantal Akerman is a director whose films I've neglected. I watched the excellent Jeanne Dielman almost 30 years ago, but my friend was terribly bored because "nothing happens". I liked one called Night and Day from the 90s. Some of the best critics are huge fans. I cannot say I've formed an opinion yet. Your inquiry will probably result in my viewing some of her stuff this year.
*Extremely upset about having missed Tarr's retro at Toronto '95 (I didn't know of him at the time, Satantango was sold out) because the two films of his on dvd with English subs (PAL from UK) are wonderful. I've posted about him before. I agree with your earlier comment regarding the need to give precedence to films one hasn't seen but Werckmeister Harmonies and Damnation are there on my shelf demanding re-viewing.

Friday April 8th

Is Paris Burning? (1966) on dvd from my public library

Entertaining war epic about the collaboration between American troops and the French Resistance to thwart Hitler's plan to destroy Paris. Directed by Rene Clement (Forbidden Games, Purple Noon) with a cast that includes Welles, Belmondo, Delon, Boyer, Anthony Perkins, Glenn Ford, Robert Stack, J.L. Trintignant, Leslie Caron, Simone Signoret, etc. The biggest star is the city of Paris shot in widescreen black and white. The film incorporates real footage of the Liberation. Disc includes both English and French soundtracks.

[Chris Knipp]

I also would like to see the work of Tarr.

I should have watched Los Olvidados more carefully, but whether I'm really a Bunuel fan I don't know. Certainly an auteur from the get-go. I first learned about him from The Secret Life of Salvador DalÍ, the limp watch artist's fascinating autobiography which in unique in beginning with "intra-uterine memories." "A day in the history of the cinema...a date marked in blood," he says after describing how at the first showing of Un Chien Andalu people threw ink pots at the screen and rioted.

I probably avoided Is Paris Burning? as schlock. Obviously it would have historical interest today with all those people in it. You meant René Clément, not René Clair; I used to confuse them.

[oscar jubis]

*Thanks for pointing out my error. I've corrected the director's name.
*I think the "schlock" designation has a lot to do with the producer's decision to release Is Paris Burning? with the French and German actors' dialogue dubbed into English, the fact that big budget epics were considered old-fashioned, and the lack of psychological depth of the characterizations. I found it worth watching, with some well staged action sequences, nice photography, and a script that makes a complicated story accessible. Sophisticated viewers may want to head straight for Marcel Ophuls' The Sorrow and The Pity, the best doc I've seen about the French Resistance.

Saturday April 9th

Inside Deep Throat at the Gateway in Ft. Lauderdale

Documentary about the culture wars engendered by the porn film Deep Throat and the efforts to keep sex movies away from mainstream outlets of film exhibition and distribution. A chronologically-ordered doc combining historical footage, clips from the actual film, and interviews with those involved in the making and exhibition of the film, those who supported its distribution, and those who fought to supress it. How much you'll learn obviously depends on how familiar you are with these events of historical import, which probably depends largely on your age.

In the Realms of the Unreal at the Gateway Theatre

Director Jessica Yu wants to put you in Nathan Lerner's place. Landlord and photographer Lerner went into the room occupied for 41 years by Henry Darger and found a 15,000-page novel, a shorter one, his memoirs, and a multiplicity of paintings, clippings, and collectibles.

Henry Darger (1892-1973) was a Chicago native who lived in an orphanage and a "Home for Feeble-Minded Children" after his mother died giving birth to his sister when he was 3 years old. He was a reclusive eccentric who spent his life working menial jobs, attending Mass, and producing novels and paintings inside his Lincoln Park room. Darger avoided social contact. Yu interviews people who knew him but they have little to report. The bulk of the doc consists of Dakota Fanning reading from Darger's novel "The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What Is Known as the Realms of the Unknown of the Glandico-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion" which borrows liberally from a variety of texts including the Oz books, "Uncle Tom's Cabin", and other known novels. Darger illustrated the novel by creating panoramic scenes containing drawings he made by tracing clippings from ads, comics, newspaper photos, etc. He created huge collages which Yu cannot seem to fit into her doc's frame. She shows them in close-ups that fail to give a sense of their composition. Yu uses digital animation to give movement to the drawings but the novelty becomes tiresome. After about an hour, I began to lose interest in the excerpts from the novel, which are interspersed with readings from his memoir, and the interviews. Yu does an excellent job documenting Darger's obsessions with Catholic motifs, weather phenomena, children's vulnerability (including a fixation on a 1911 picture of a girl who was murdered), war themes,etc. Yu's presentation of the material seems to indicate she's more interested in Darger the weird eccentric than in Darger, the self-taught artist. Seems to me that his genius has a lot to do with the placing of borrowed elements within a large canvas, in the composition of his huge scenes, but they are only shown in close-up. Moreover, Yu's decision to completely ignore the literature on Danger's artistic process, methods,etc. left the art lover in me unsatisfied. On the other hand, as presented, the writings and art work provide very rich, raw material for psychological conjecture and interpretation.

[Chris Knipp]

*I was somewhat disapointed with this, which I saw at Film Forum during its opening showing in January, and I sense you were somewhat disapointed too. YOu omit mention of the fact that Darger apparently had one dear friend. To say that those who knew him had little to report perhaps also understates things. Obviously he was mysterious and remote but that is not to say that people had nothing to report about him. He had regular contact with some people, as the film shows. I like you was also disappointed in the novel or novels of Darger, which I compared in my mind with the homoerotic novels of world domination, corporate expoitation, and drugs that William S. Burroughs wrote. Of course Burroughs' work, or some of it, is a literary classic and verbally and technically rich beyond most of what one encounters in the world of fiction even today; he was also a very smart man with a penetrating vision whose thoughts about the nexus of political and economic power, military and law enforcement and capital, are increasingly relevant. Darger is a fascinating case, and I was struck by how articulate his writing is, but he does not have Burroughs' sweeping, analytical mind or one iota of the richness and daring of Burroughs' imagination. For all his drugs Burroughs had a very clear head at all times. And he was also very connected with the world, with an enthusiastic young audience in his later years and connections with some of the major literary and artistic figures of his generation, starting with the Beats and the Tangiers expatriots. I mention Burroughs because there are parallels between the wandering gangs of girls in Darger's book(s) and Burroughs bands of"Wild Boys." Darger's novel isn't why Darger is a known figure. His artwork is. As an outsider artist, he is a kind of American superstar, I gather (I'm not much into outsider art myself). This, as you say, the filmmaker does not sufficiently explore. It would have been simply valuable to show Darger's works on display in museums, and to talk to curators or critics to hear what they have to say about his visual work. I don't think we'd bring up these shortcomings if the movie had a richer content in and of itself, but after all, the main character is absent in more ways than one. (There are several documentaries on William Burroughs, in which he like Charles Bukowski in Born into This is the dominant figure because plenty of footage exists. Don't get the idea I'm saying Burroughs was a nutcase...but of course he was out there...that's why the young people liked him.)

*Your description of Is Paris Burning? doesn't exactly make me want to see it, though there is still the fact of all those amazing actors in one place. Have never seen The Sorrow and the Pity, despite Woody Allen's frequent references to it. There are also lots of very long Russian novels I haven't read.

*Have not seen Inside Deep Throat and don't want to. The reviews have not been at all favorable, and the subject matter isn't appealing to me. Those other Deep Throats -- the political ones -- on the other hand, I'd like to know more about.

[hengcs]

Originally posted by oscar jubis
In the Realms of the Unreal at the Gateway Theatre


I find it just an "okay" movie ... see my comments here ...
http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=1205

I was deciding whether to watch, and saw it being listed as a top 10 here ... so I asked my friend along ... he was totally bored ... I felt so bad ...
(I guess there were too few good documentaries last year ... hee hee)
http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1194&highlight=realms+of+the+unreal

;)

[hengcs]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
Untold Scandal...

Hmmm ... I watched it quite long ago and wrote a review on the old foreignfilms.com. It has been deleted after the revamp.

Anyway, in simple terms, I do not like the new Korean version. It does not capture one's emotion nor the wit in the dialogues very well.

[oscar jubis]

Hengcs' sole stated reason for finding In the Realms of the Unreal "just an okay movie" is that "it lacks any emotional connection". I thought of posting my comments on his thread but how can I argue with his not being moved. If Darger's memoirs about a childhood of extreme deprivation, and suffering at the hands of institutional authority did not move him, then so be it.

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
I was somewhat disapointed with this, which I saw at Film Forum during its opening showing in January, and I sense you were somewhat disapointed too.

I'm surprised you were somewhat disappointed because you listed the film among the best docs of 2004. My major objections boil down to: 1) the narration from "The Story of the Vivian Girls..." and the digital animating of the scenes he created to illustrate it were used by Yu past the point of diminished returns, 2) the abuse of the close-up when presenting art works whose major merit is found in their overall composition. Admittedly the size of the paintings posed a challenge to a filmmaker working with a 1.85:1 aspect ratio, but still, Yu failed to overcome this problem. 3) Once she had accomplished her stated objective of putting the viewer in the place of Lerner, once we had experienced Darger's legacy without intermediaries, I wish she had opened up the film by providing the perspective of those who have studied it, analyzed it, bought it, exhibited it, etc.


You omit mention of the fact that Darger apparently had one dear friend.

I probably forgot to mention him because this obviously dear friend didn't register with me as also a close friend. If I remember correctly they had meaningful contact in Darger's youth and minimal contact during the subsequent decades.

To say that those who knew him had little to report perhaps also understates things.

What was the point of showing interviews with churchgoers about where he sat during Mass? Others basically report that he was a loner who talked to himself using various voices, and once claimed to have been "raped by a 17 year old Italian girl".

I like you was also disappointed in the novel or novels of Darger

I didn't form a firm opinion about the 15,000 page novel based on portions read by Ms. Fanning but I found listening to these excerpts valuable and interesting only up to a point. The film states the novel is a highly derivative work, one that borrows liberally from others. Moreover, its length almost guarantees it's quite redundant and repetitive. I don't rule out the possibility that a good editor could turn it into something rewarding. Not into Burroughs though.

Have not seen Inside Deep Throat and don't want to. The reviews have not been at all favorable, and the subject matter isn't appealing to me.

The reviews have been almost uniformly favorable. Dargis is the one who comes close to a truly unfavorable review. On the other hand, the only truly enthusiastic review I found was on Entertainment Weekly. You know that if I deemed it a must-see I'd be trying to persuade you to watch it. Anyway, I'd predict you're familiar with 3/4 of the material (from other sources).

[hengcs]

Originally posted by oscar jubis
Hengcs' sole stated reason for finding In the Realms of the Unreal "just an okay movie" is that "it lacks any emotional connection". I thought of posting my comments on his thread but how can I argue with his not being moved. If Darger's memoirs about a childhood of extreme deprivation, and suffering at the hands of institutional authority did not move him, then so be it.


Maybe I am not as well versed in my English (being a non native speaker) and getting my precise message across. Often, I just want to keep my review terse.

Anyway, what I was trying to convey is: I think there is a major difference between "emotional connection" by virtue of what happened to the protagonist versus how a director managed to stir the emotion in its audience. The latter is missing from this movie.

To narrate/depict sad events in any movies is easy. To make the audience feel so is the tough part! In other words, there are many movies that try to tell sad stories -- but not many succeed. Not because there are NO sad/tragic events that happened ... but simply because the director did not succeed in making the audience feel so. It may be too presumptuous to blame the audience for being hard hearted or unemotional ...

Or maybe because I have read too many novels by Charles Dickens ... who did a much much better job at telling sad stories about poor boys ...

Or maybe because my own childhood is just as sad, if not worse ...

[Chris Knipp]

Sorry I missed these comments from Oscar addressed to me earlier. Okay, I put the Darger film in my Best List because it's an important -- and unusual -- topic and I think Yu did a good job. I don't believe that I have to love all the movies I put in my Best Lists any more than I think I have to love all the artworks I acknowledge as great in other media. We're pretty much agreed on the shortcomings even if I quibbled with you on a couple of your statements. When I think of recent documentaries that moved or involved me, like Touching the Void, To Be and to Have, My Architect, not to mention the politically involving ones like The Corporation and Fahrenheit 9/11, In the Realms of the Unreal fades out. Documentaries can be moving and wonderful and this one isn't. But it's still worth watching, and a must for anybody interested in the wilder fringes of art. I think by the way that there's enough from the novel to make a judgement and the idea of some poor editor trying to pare it down into something readable makes me shake my head. Better to lock him up for fifteen years like the guy in Oldboy.

Agreed, the animations are overused. But they are welcome. And closeups are also an essential part of bringing art to life on film when it's narrative and figurative. With more abstract art closeups are just showing you the brushwork.


(Posted by hengcs:)
I think there is a major difference between "emotional connection" by virtue of what happened to the protagonist versus how a director managed to stir the emotion in its audience. The latter is missing from this movie.
.

To narrate/depict sad events in any movies is easy. To make the audience feel so is the tough part! In other words, there are many movies that try to tell sad stories -- but not many succeed. Not because there are NO sad/tragic events that happened ... but simply because the director did not succeed in making the audience feel so. It may be too presumptuous to blame the audience for being hard hearted or unemotional ...
This is a great point and I want to comment. Sometimes Oscar you like some others here seem to think that if the subject matter has a certain significance then we must be moved, but as hengcs is pointing out, it all depends on how the filmmaker molds the material into a film and how interesting a take he has on it. Needless to say, for example, Nathaniel Kahn had a relationship to his father Louis Kahn that he used with great effectivness in molding his portrait of the man and his art. One is moved by the work itself because the images Nathaniel filmed of Kahn's great buildings are lovely and fresh, but one is also moved by all the intensity and complexity of the personal reflections brought out in the voiceover commentary and the interviews with people in Kahn's life.

Come to think of it, Darger himself was a lot like the prisoner in Oldboy. But he never got out of his prison.

[oscar jubis]

*Realms is certainly worth watching. I just wouldn't put it on an alphabetically-ordered best list next to The Corporation because of its numerous shortcomings.
*Hengcs' point you quoted is obviously right. It's my fault he felt he needed to make it. It's my fault my statement was interpreted to mean that given certain content one must be moved. My point is that I cannot argue with a person not being moved by something that had an emotional impact on me.

Sunday April 10th

It's exciting to have a dvd and a film in theatres to recommend.

1984 (1985) on rental dvd
I cannot understand how I could have missed this film during its threatrical run exactly 20 years ago. I had just met Cristi and she would have loved the shit out of it, with memories of totalitarianism still fresh in her memory. Written and directed by Michael Radford (The Merchant of Venice, Il Postino) and starring the perfectly cast John Hurt and Richard Burton (his last perf?). I cannot imagine a more perfect adaptation. As bleak and wrenching as it had to be.

Millions at SoBe Regal.
A PG-rated family movie directed by Danny Boyle from an original script by Frank Cottrell Boyce. You read right. The director of Shallow Grave and Transpotting and the writer of those angst-ridden Michael Winterbottom films (Butterfly Kiss, 24 hour Party People) have teamed up to create an imaginative fantasy full of whimsy and uplift. "One of the best films of..." and comparisons to The 400 Blows and Au Revoir les Enfants are perhaps undeserved . But cool cats sneering at the movie poster with a 7 year old's cute face on it and deciding it's beneath them are truly missing out.

[Chris Knipp]

It's my fault he felt he needed to make it. It's my fault my statement was interpreted to mean that given certain content one must be moved. My point is that I cannot argue with a person not being moved by something that had an emotional impact on me.
We all have faults and your virtues far outweigh your faults on this site! My point was not so much addressed purely to this remark but more generally to assumptions you sometimes have evidenced over time in defending or attacking films you have seen. I think you like Howard sometimes assume more than I do that the subject matter makes or mars a film whereeas in my own judgements I try to focus more strictly on artistic merit, though my remarks on Sin City might be construed otherwise. Our differing on Ciudade de Deus and Kill Bill might evidence this difference. I see them as artistic triumphs. But I also admit I have actually said recently in the Sin City discussion that violence works well on film. I don't advocate violence. And I'm especially happy and moved when a film that I think has exceptional moral and philoosphical depth like Kurosawa's Ikiru is also an artistic triumph.

*I didnt' know that Michael Radford, whose Merchant of Venice I admire, made 1984 and also that Miramaxical triumph Il Postino! He's all over the map! I watched the film 1984 on video at the time, but don't remember being that charmed by it. However, I knew the book since adolescence, and am sick of it and of that aspect of Orwell's sensibility, so I'm not sure any version would have worked for me.

* "One of the best films of..." and comparisons to The 400 Blows and Au Revoir les Enfants are perhaps undeserved . You can say that again. But I didn't miss out on it. I simply found its organization chaotic, the whole film disappointing. Boyle too is all over the map. Shallow Grave and Trainspotting are good, I should say I think he has gone very slowly downhill for a long time (in each successive film his cinematic IQ seems to drop five points or so), while still engaging us by trying such a variety of projects and handling them each always very much in his own way.

[Johann]

I loved Is Paris Burning?.
It was written by no less than 9 people including Coppola and Gore Vidal, my current hero.

I saw a program on PBS called Masterworks that was an incredible glimpse into a brilliant mind on Fri.

He said something very true:

Interviewer: So if George W. Bush and John Ashcroft had been around in the early days of the Republic, they would have been indicted and then hanged by the Founders?

Gore Vidal: No. It would have been better and worse. [laughs]. Bush and Ashcroft would have been considered so disreputable as to not belong in this country at all. They might be invited to go down to Bolivia or Paraguay and take part in the military adminstration of some Spanish colony, where they would feel so much more at home. They would not be considered Americans- most Americans would not think of them as citizens.

Interviewer: Do you not think of Bush and Ashcroft as Americans?

Gore Vidal: I think of them as an alien army. They have managed to take over everything, and quite in the open.
We have a deranged President.
We have despotism.
We have no due process.




Sorry to distract from your landmark thread oscar.
I just felt like throwing some political claptrap in the mix...

[oscar jubis]

*I enjoyed your post thoroughly Johann. I'm glad folks are getting the message that this thread like all others is meant to be interactive and that posts like Johann's are encouraged. What we've created here, gentlemen, is a community of sorts. It's importance is amplified by the fact that a lot of movie-watching nowadays is done in isolation due to technological advances and the nature of film distribution.

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
I think you sometimes assume more than I do that the subject matter makes or mars a film whereas in my own judgements I try to focus more strictly on artistic merit, though my remarks on Sin City might be construed otherwise. Our differing on Ciudade de Deus and Kill Bill might evidence this difference. I see them as artistic triumphs.

Not the subject matter but the treatment of its subject, and/or the underlying values a film conveys (consciously or not) and/or the implications of a given film's resolution. This constitutes one aspect of film appreciation, along with other equally important considerations involving aesthetics or artistic merit.
Regarding Ciudade de Deus (City of God): You'll find this title in my best of 2003 list as a runner-up because of its artistic merits (which I've described in detail before). But I would deem any review that fails to address inherent moral/value-ladden issues to be incomplete. I'm certainly not the only one on this site to apply the adjective "exploitative" to qualify it. That doesn't make it a bad film, or necessarily disqualifies it from my year-end list.
There are numerous examples of films of great artistic merit which I have found morally dubious or which go against values I hold dear. These would include: Taxi Driver, A Clockwork Orange, Straw Dogs, Midnight Express, and many more. Some of these got into my Top 10 films in spite of my views regarding their underlying values. I've discussed most of these films here at filmwurld before.
I try to avoid reading comments/reviews before I watch a movie but I couldn't help reading to find out what all that posting regarding Sin City was all about. Of course I have no opinions yet, but your comments and review seem to me to approach the film in all its pertinent aspects.


I simply found its organization chaotic, the whole film disappointing. Boyle too is all over the map.

Don't forget Millions when compiling your Overrated List at year's end. I liked it very much and audiences seem to be agreeing with most critics. For instance, a third of IMdb voters gave it a "10", and 420 out of 490 rate it a "7" or higher. I'm glad you watched it. If you didn't enjoy it so be it, but I'm afraid a lot of people won't give a "family movie" a chance.

[Chris Knipp]

I have been writing stuff and posting stuff about movies for hours and I'm tired, but thanks for taking the trouble to reply to my comments. I think this issue of morality and values versus other aspects of a movie is too subtle and complex for me to deal with it now. I take your point that you rated City of God high even though you disapproved of it. For you, that disapproval was an important part of your viewing experience, even though you somehow came out in favor of it as one of the year's best. I simply did not see the grounds of disapproval. The movie is based on an autobiographhical novel, isn't it? and the novel tells what happened in the life of the author. Are you disapproving of the filmmakers, or of the kind of life the people in the favelas were living during those decades? I assume y ou would consider Straw Dogs, Clockwork Orange, Midnight Express, also superior? I don't know. Clockwork Orange was, as I recall, condemned by Pauline Kael as 'appealing to the worst impulses in the audience,' or words to that effect. But ultimately she took it pretty seriously, as one would anything by a master of the caliber of Stanley Kubrick. Clockwork Orange is based on a novel by Anthony Burgess, which is effectively written in code, but as far as I could tell is pretty much what Kubrick gives us. So should we condemn Burgess? Or merely Kubrick for faithfully adapting a novel in which there is willful violence? Is the presence of violence in a movie a sign that the filmmakers endorse violence, or are they indifferent, or opposed? Do they have to come in and make an overt comment for their disappoval or detachment to be clear, or acceptable? Are we required to make moral judgments of the movies we see? Midnight Express is not such a work or art, but it's a ripping good tale -- so is the book, a true account, which the movie alters toward the end. I guess you are going on record against trying to smuggle hashish out of Turkey. Fine. But how do you feel about Turkish prisons? I find Taxi Driver has not aged well. I am not as big a fan of Scorsese as many are. I'm not a fan of Pekinpah either, even less so. Only A Clockwork Orange I would defend to the death; the others, I would even question the artistic merit of.

But all this would really require a big discussion somewhere else and who has the time?

I was only trying to define your way of evaluating films as different from mine; mine is simply more amoral, I guess.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
Clockwork Orange was, as I recall, condemned by Pauline Kael as 'appealing to the worst impulses in the audience,' or words to that effect. Clockwork Orange is based on a novel by Anthony Burgess but as far as I could tell is pretty much what Kubrick gives us. So should we condemn Burgess?

Kael on A Clockwork Orange:

"The movie follows the Anthony Burguess novel closely yet the meanings are turned around. Burguess is clearly a humanist; his point is that of one horrified by the possibilities of a society turned clockwork orange, in which life is so mechanized that men lose their capacity for moral choice. Stanley Kubrick's Alex is not so much an expression of how this society has lost its soul as he is a force pitted against the society, and by making the victims of the thugs more repulsive and contemptible than the thugs Kubrick has learned to love the punk sadist. The end is no longer the ironic triumph of a mechanized punk but a real triumph. Far from being a little parable about the dangers of soullessness and the horrors of force the movie becomes a vindication of Alex, saying that the punk was a free human being and only the good Alex was a robot.
The trick of making the attacked less human than their attackers, so you feel no sympathy for them is, I think, symptomatic of a new attitude in movies. This attitude says there is no moral difference. Kubrick has assumed the deformed, self-righteous perspective of a vicious young punk who says: "Everything's rotten. Why shouldn't I do what I want? They're worse than I am." The movie's confusing_and, finally, corrupt_morality is not, however, what makes it such an abhorrent viewing experience. It's offensive before one perceives where it's heading because it has no shadings. In Los Olvidados, Bunuel showed teenagers committing horrible brutalities, and even though you had no illusions about their victims_one, in particular, was a foul old lecher_ you were appalled. Bunuel makes you understand the pornography of brutality: the pornography is in what human beings are capable of doing to other human beings"

But all this would really require a big discussion somewhere else and who has the time?

Pleas don't feel obligated to respond if you don't have the time. I am already quite appreciative of the time you've taken to engage me and exchange opinions. I won't go into detail about my objections to each film I mentioned. I could have listed many more films. The issues are complex and different for each movie. I'll just clarify that my issue with Midnight has nothing to do with drugs (when it comes to drugs I side with the Libertarians) but primarily with the implication that the only prisoner that matters is the American, not the thousands of unseen Turks subjected to the same barbaric treatment.

I was only trying to define your way of evaluating films as different from mine; mine is simply more amoral, I guess.

I wasn't trying to generalize about your way of evaluating films. I added a paragraph to my response to the first quote, regarding your take on Sin City, which maybe you missed because you were writing when I added it. I intended to post it earlier but a film on TCM was about to start.

[oscar jubis]

Monday April 11th

Sherlock Jr. (1924) on TCM

Buster Keaton as a movie projectionist fascinated with detective work, but he's clueless when his rival for a girl's affection steals her father's watch, plants the pawn ticket for it in Buster's pocket and so disgraces him. Exiled from her house, he returns to the theatre and falls asleep during the showing of a mystery thriller. A long dream sequence develops in which he walks down the theatre aisle, up on to the stage, and into the picture. What transpires next constitutes the most inventive physical comedy sequences in the history of motion pictures. I have yet to watch the equally respected The General, but otherwise Sherlock Jr. is my favorite Keaton and one of my all-time favorite comedies. Dave Kehr's capsule review: onfilm.chicagoreader.com/movies/capsules/10933_SHERLOCK_JUNIOR

[Chris Knipp]

Does"Kubrick has assumed the deformed, self-righteous perspective of a vicious young punk"? sound like Kubrick to you? This is one of the most dramatic instances of the many ones where Kael, whom I so much admired and still admire -- though she seems to be regarded as passé by younger viewers and readers now, seemed completely off base. Gosh, comparing a movie like A Clockwork Orange with something like Oldboy or Sin City, it seems both incredibly tame and a great deal more moral. Do you buy Kael's interpretation of the differences between Burgess's novel and the movie? It's just her interpretation. I don't buy that Bunuel shows us "the pornograpny of brutality" (a then-hip phrase?) but Kubrick makes brutality somehow neutral or cool; it's clear that the young psychopaths in Clockwork Orange are in a bad way. So much of this is in the eye of the beholder. Pauline disliked Kubrick's movie and went back to the novel by Burgess to use it as a weapon against him -- as was only natural for her to do. What would Pauline say today about some of the violence in cartoon-based films? Perhaps I am becoming Pauline!

About Midnight Express, this is like your siding with Howard on the "limitations" of Zana Briski's excellent documentary of the photography class she gave to children of prostitutes in Calcutta: you damn it for not being a treatise on conditions of prostitutes in India, and you damn Billy Hayes for depicting his experience of a Turkish prison and not the experience of all the Turks who went through it. A man's experience is not invalid because he has come from a relatively priviledged society. I can't see how the account given in the book and movie is immoral, simply because it doesn't focus on the Turks. To tell one's own story is not in itself to imply that all other stories are insignificant; it is simply all that one can do. This is an autobiographical narrative, not a treatise on social conditions, just as Zana Briski's documentary is a description of her experience with children of prostitutes -- though actualy she has accomplished some very positive things for them and continues to work for them, inspired by a religious guru of hers -- and not a treatise on prostitution. Is that the trouble with Taxi Driver, that it isn't a treatise on young prostitutes or homocidal psychopaths?

You may not have been trying to generalize about my way of evaluating films (why not? Is that taboo?), but I was trying to generalize about your way of evaluating films -- only sometimes, obviously; a great deal of the time your descriptions of films are very neutral; though I don't think they tend toward the aesthetic as much as mine do, you do occasionally take a detour from social consciousness to see Pretty in Pink. I saw Guess Who yesterday, by the way. Just a silly comedy, of course, but much nicer than Sin City or Oldboy, and I believe Ashton Kutcher did get involved in the project with the aim of doing some good for race relations, at least he said so in his conversation with Brad Pitt in Interview.

[oscar jubis]

I'm not endorsing Kael's choice of words, but I agree with her argument regarding ACO. She's certainly not the only notable critic who's argued against the film. A contemporary of hers who I consider a better film critic, Dave Kehr, hates it even more (onfilm.chicagoreader.com/movies/capsules/2005_CLOCKWORK_ORANGE). I enjoyed McDowell's performance and other aspects, but ACO is, in my opinion of course, Kubrick's sole misstep. The fact that he is one of my favorite directors doesn't mean I have to idolize him and love everything he did. The fact that the adaptation follows the novel closely illustrates the freedom filmmakers have to affect meaning via mise-en-scene, casting, performance,etc.

Midnight Express is a totally different case because Oliver Stone's script, for which he apologized last year during a trip to Turkey, is loosely based on the novel. He excised everything having to do with the homosexual romance in the novel and any positive reference regarding Turkey and Turks. He privileged lines like "For a nation of pigs, it sure seems funny that you don't eat them" over and over. Billy Hayes has stated: "The film depicts all Turks as monsters. I wish they'd shown some of the milk of human kindness I witnessed". He loved Brad Davis's performance though.

We've discussed Taxi Driver and Brothels at length before (you seem to have forgotten my arguments though). But I'll state briefly that the latter fails to address issues that come up within the footage shown and the do-gooder is a bit too self-congratulatory; and the latter makes a hero out of a vengeful vigilante, builds an altar to weaponry, and contains a number of bizarre implausibilities. It's also a lot of fun to watch.

I strongly disagree when you stated that you're way of evaluating films "is simply more amoral, I guess". Your reviews of Spartan and Sin City, to name just a couple, evidence otherwise. It's equally incorrect to try to stuff me into a box that doesn't fit.

[oscar jubis]

Tuesday April 12th

Angano...Angano...Tales from Madagascar (1989) on vhs
Award-winning documentary directed by Cesar Paes from Brasil, a co-production of France and Madagascar that celebrates the oral traditions and rituals of rural Malagasy culture. Angano...'s approach to ethnographic filmmaking is highly evocative and non-interpretative. There's no voice-over, only ancestral tales coming directly from Malagasy elders accompanied by quotidian scenes and lanscape shots, as well as recordings of elaborate rituals. I've had an interest in African music dating back to 1980 so the music produced on screen sounded quite familiar, but the Malagasy belief system and some of their rituals provided an unmediated learning experience. Watched it twice. This is one of many videos dealing with African culture released by a company called California Newsreel located in San Francisco. I hope my library has other similar titles.

[Chris Knipp]

I'm obliged to you for informing me about differences between the book and film of Midnight Express, at least as perceived by Stone and Hayes. I read the book and didn't see it as that different from the movie, though the gay sex was obviously airbrushed out of it, but if those differences are significant to others, I must honor that.

I'm not clear why Dave Kehr is deemed superior to Pauline Kael, but I mentioned that she is now out of fashion, and he still flourishes. Perhaps my admiration for Clockwork Orange does finally after all show that I have an amoral pure aesthetics streak as a film critic/fan. The idea that this is Kubrick's "sole misstep" seems to me absurd.

I guess I keep forgetting your arguments about Taxi Driver and Born into Brothels because they don't convince me. "The do-gooder is a bit too self-congratulatory" completely fails to gibe with my sense of the film. You're right on Taxi Driver, I was just stating what the logic of your position earlier seemed to imply you'd hold about the film, not what you had actually said. "Fun to watch"? It was once. As I've said repeatedly, as one who saw it then and has seen it now, I find it very dated, perhaps because there are so much greater terrors and terrorists afoot; the ending is absurd, ridiculously celebrates and excuses violence wihout ironic comment, and is a big success for Scorsese but nonetheless a serious misstep in a career that is almost nothing but blindly lionized missteps.

To go back to Kael and Clockwork Orange, it's rather careless argumentation on your part to say, "I'm not endorsing Kael's choice of words, but I agree with her argument regarding ACO. " Her choice of words is her argument and if you don't endorse it, don't quote it, and rely on your own argument. Since I began by saying this was a place where she particularly went haywire, it's odd that in a debate with me you should reply by quoting that argument of hers -- and then say that you "don't endorse [her] choice of words"! I don't either, nor do I endorse her argument. I recognize that others besides Kael (the admirable Kehr?) find Clockwork Orange to be a celebration of violence. If I admire it, perhaps you've misread my criticisms of Spartan and Sin City. I didn't say Sin City was wicked, I said it was brain dead, and though I commented on the racism of Spartan, my main criticisms were that it's cold, that it doesn't make sense, and that in general Mamet's simplistic techniques work on stage but not in films. I think my comments on Spartan are politically sensitive, but you may have read moral judgments into them that aren't actually there. Nonetheless, I'm not out to type you or to type myself; I'm just trying to make us both more aware of our ways of evaluating films, and how they differ.

[oscar jubis]

You're right, I agree with Kael. It's the sentence of hers about Kubrick assuming the position of a "vicious young punk" that bothers me because it comes close to an attack on the filmmaker. I quoted her because I agree with her argument and because I was prompted to do so by your comment that ACO "was, as I recall, condemned by Pauline Kael...". By the way, Kael saved her strongest words of abject condemnation for Midnight Express (I can't find a more negative review in her collected works). Kehr over Kael is simply a personal preference, and no slight on Kael who was more influential, more widely read, and a good writer. Talking about good writers, I'm currently becoming acquainted with Manny Farber via his "Negative Space: Manny Farber on the Movies", a contemporary of Kael who retired from criticism 25 years ago to do "what comes natural, paint".
Going over my writings (journal, reviews,etc) I realize I only bring up these issues of values endorsed by a given film, or the ethics of its message, on the few occassions when it's relevant. It may seem otherwise because these few films ellicit unforgettable debates/exchanges.

P.S. I'd be interested in having you expand on your Sin City review comment re: the confused morality of its revenge, when is revenge morally sound?, etc. but perhaps it's not the time or the place.

[Chris Knipp]

Of course Pauline was extreme but it came from passion, love, and a strong background keen intelligence and considerable gifts of memory. One can and should admire her for all that without sharing her specific views and many of her reviews have perhaps dated as have the movies of which they speak. Midnight Express is like a roaring great read of a book, a great watch if you will, not really a great movie but a compulsively watchable one -- a real "experience." I used to read Manny Farber sometimes when he was writing for -- what was it? Some intellectual weekly or other, and I knew about his paintings, mostly of objects strewn over tables as I recall.

I didn't mean to imply that your views were not "relevant" to the movies you were talking about; they were "relevant" to you, but I think political correctness means more to you in general, in and out of the movie house, than it does to me. Taste and political correctness don't often mix, not for me. This is true of the issue of revenge that you bring up. When is it morally sound? Is that a question for film criticism? I would say that revenge works well in drama--the Elizabethans and Jacobeans had a genre of revenge tragedies; revenge partakes of the inevitability of tragedy wherein humans are the playthings of the gods. And hence it is dramatically and artistically a font of creative invention for playwrights, novelists, and filmmakers. Things just happen to work well in movies and in plays, killing works well, smoking aand drinking work well, they look good. The smoke looked so great in black and white movies with dramatic lighting. It's not a question of morality, good politics, or good health, it's a question of artistic expediency. A source of great energy, and of style. It's also a matter of working within tradition. Tarantino -- we have to mention him; Kill Bill I and 2 are all about revenge -- he uses it because it is a great plot organizer and because he is working within various traditions of pulp fiction and martial arts and macho good and bad guy movies, into which he has injected a healthy dose of feminine machismo. The morality is icing on the cake. But art is part of culture which embodies a moral system.

[oscar jubis]

I think that's a nicely balanced, fair post, Chris. It's edifying to interact with you. The term "political correctness" has become overused in our society and it seems to mean different things to different people, but I think I understand your point, especially applied to the issue of taking revenge. It's a huge issue for me. I specifically disapprove of films that promote taking revenge by depicting characters that take that course of action and get satisfaction, either intrinsically or extrinsically. (This would not include explicitly violent films like Irreversible in which the opposite occurs). Part of the reason why it's a huge issue for me is that, I think revenge plays a part in people's support for certain policies and practices I abhor, such as the death penalty.

Wednesday April 13

Murderous Maids (2000, US release in 2002) on dvd

The murders committed by the Pepin sisters in Le Mans, France in 1933 have served as the basis of several books, plays, films, etc. This film was directed by Jean Pierre Dennis, whose previous theatrical feature was released in 1987 (Dennis had been working as a customs agent in the meantime). Many of the art works the incident inspired took a sociological approach to the material, some provided a Marxist analysis of the maids murdering their burgeoise employer and her daughter. Dennis based the film primarily on the book by Paulette Houdyer, which provides explications based on the psychology and upbringing of the sisters, particularly Christine's. She is played by Sylvie Testud, who won a Cesar for her performance here and has since earned a second Cesar for her performance in Fear and Trembling (see journal entry for Jan. 21st). The film is austere and extremely compact at 90 minutes, evidencing the director's narrative skills. The murder scene strikes a perfect balance, conveying the extreme brutality of the murders without being overly explicit. Ms. Testud's performance is a revelation.

The Corporation is my favorite film of 2004, along with Eternal Sunshine. This Canadian documentary was directed by Jennifer Abbott and Marck Achbar (Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and The Media) and provides an engaging, entertaining, edifying, multi-angle perspective on the world's dominant institution. Having presented the origins of the corporation and the ways in which the entity has achieved rights originally reserved for individuals, the filmmakers adopt the brilliant strategy of applying the diagnostic criteria used by mental health professionals and apply it to the behavior of corporations. After a variety of interesting case histories are presented, the conclusion is that were corporations actual persons, they would be diagnosed as being psychopathic. The film provides a forum to eloquent academics, economists, philosophers, political activists, and CEOs. In fact, the CEO of the world's largest rug manufacturer, a North Carolinian, emerges as The Corporation's hero. The breath of material covered here is astounding: the practice of corporation branding, marketing strategies, Big Business' control over the media and its growing influence on governmental institutions, the broadening definition of what can be considered private property; learn about how the residents of Cochabamba, Bolivia resisted corporate efforts to privatize their water resources, learn about the corporate plot to overthrow Franklin Delano Roosevelt...A great deal of care is evident in the thoroughness and accessibility of the content.

The film has been released with 7 1/2 hours of extras on two discs. Required viewing for all my dependents. Even if you're a well-informed, politically-aware person, this film has something to teach you. At the very least, you'll make a switch to organic milk. (Canadians and Europeans don't have to because their governments don't allow their citizens to poison themselves).

[Chris Knipp]

You're kind as usual, which keeps our discourse flowing nicely. I understand about revenge, but films have to be judged on a case by case basis, and even revenge has its positive side as a deterrant, as do extreme punishments, not that I favor them; I'm about as liberal as you are.

I've seen Sylvie Testud in these and also the disastrous Aime ton père (with Depardieu father and son) in all of which she's an effective, but one-note actress.

It seems to me telling that The Corporation is your favorite for 2004 (next to the non-didactic Eternal Sunshine), because it is purely didactic, and briliant, and probably right, if one-sided -- but very dry. Emotionally Fahrenheit 9/11 effected me much more, I don't care if it's messy and rubbed people the wrong way, it moved me.

I know "politically correct" is an misused and overused and pejorative term but it's the best I can do as a shorthand to describe an influence on your viewing that I don't have.

My point of view seems to be different (unless this is just miscommunication), depite my politics being pretty close to yours, in my primarily looking in film for something that moves me emotionally and delights me aesthetically -- largely irregardless of the ideas involved; things like Christopher Doyle's cinematography in some Wong Kar Wai's movies -- ravishing aesthetically but not pretty-pretty. There's nothing politically correct about Wong as far as I can see (despite allegorical interpretations of references to the HongKong changeover in Happy Days, etc.); of course not about Eternal Sunshine either, but in splitting your Best of 2004 top title, you give such ideas strong preference.

[oscar jubis]

*I wouldn't want readers to get the impression that The Corporation is my favorite film of 2004 simply because I agree with its conclusions. This is my favorite doc since Crumb. I've seen a ton of docs, particularly in recent years, a substantial percentage of them deal with political/social issues of importance to me. Abott and Achbar's film is in a class by itself. It's ingenious in conception and impeccably edited, with a script that manages to illustrate clearly a variety of seemingly complex concepts and ideas of universal import, through a mix of old and new footage with interviews of people who advance their p.o.v. eloquently, provides a forum to those who disagree with the directors' opinion, and incorporates segments that point toward possible solutions to the problems presented. It didn't feel "dry" to me at all; it's entertaining, edifying, level-headed, and avoids tendentiousness while maintaining its focus.
*I share your enthusiasm about Wong and Doyle. Counting the days 'til we can enjoy 2046 with a theatre audience.
*Not surprised you'd be familiar with Farber. I love his writing. Very personal, idiosyncratic prose style and approach to film criticism. The last essay I read creates a dichotomy between "White Elephant Art" and "Termite Art", which is the kind he favors. Extremely amusing, for instance, he refers to Truffaut as a "French Rube Goldberg" and his Jules et Jim as a "love-is-time's-fool film".

Thursday April 14th

The Goddess (China, 1934) on rental dvd

I have wished to watch a film starring Ruan Ling-yu since I first watched Stanley Kwan's Actress, one of my top 10 films of the 90s. It's a mix of documentary, biopic and making-of feature about the "Shanghai Garbo", the first Chinese movie star, who committed suicide at 24 one year after shooting The Goddess. Ruan plays a single mother forced by circumstance into prostitution to support her son. Her aim in life is to provide him with the education she never had, but her gangster pimp, her gossipy neighbors, her son's schoolmates' parents, hell, society in general seems to stand in the way. Ms. Ruan gives a wonderful performance. She is as talented as any of her contemporaries in the West. This dvd was made possible by the People's Republic's Film Archives, a Dutch film conservation fund, and folks from Ball State University in Indiana. It's the first film starring Ruan to be released on dvd anywhere in the world (according to the commentary). Incidentally, Maggie Cheung's performance as Ruan in Kwan's film introduced Cheung to the West ( best actress award at the Berlin Film Festival).

[oscar jubis]

Friday April 15th

Put together my own double bill at the Miami Latin Film Festival taking place today through the 24th in Coconut Grove (where Deep Throat was shot :) Both films tonight belong to what Spanish crits are calling New Andalusian Cinema, films from new directors which attempt to reflect the particular idiosyncracies of Andalucia (where flamenco, Picasso, Murillo, Velasquez, and Lorca were born), particularly their unique speech patterns and salty jargon. Both films deal with marginalized characters, most specifically, male protagonists who are heroin addicts.

Astronautas

Daniel is a long-haired, 40 year-old taking the first awkward steps towards recovery from heroin addiction. He is following a 10-step plan to return to a life of normalcy. He feels like an astronaut on a mission to an unknown planet, forced to develop a routine and a new social life. Laura is almost 16. She's come looking for her brother, who no longer lives next door to Daniel. She claims he's all she has. After Laura sleeps two nights in the hall outside the vacant apartment, Daniel offers her breakfast and something clicks between the two. Daniel allows her to stay for a few days, and despite his apprehension, they develop a bond of mutual support. But how long can it last?
Writer/director Santi Amodeo has crafted a recovery drama interspersed with comic, animated interludes that provide foreshadowing and commentary. Amodeo seems to love music as much as his protagonist, in that the film score features infectious, rock songs co-written by the director. Astronautas maintains an optimistic outlook while being realistic regarding recovery from addiction and the couple's age-disparity.

15 Dias Contigo (15 Days With You)

This film from writer/director Chus Ponce will premiere in Spain next Friday. Isabel (Isabel Ampudia) is a woman in her 30s being released from prison. She vows never to steal again and manages to do so by cleaning storefront windows for tips and having meals and baths at a homeless shelter. Isabel's sole true friend is Rufo, a junkie with AIDS who seems to genuinely care for her. She gradually develops a friendship with a woman her age and an attraction for an amiable bartender. On the other hand, Rufo's life seems destined for a tragic ending. This tale of survival in the streets of Seville is surprisingly funny given the grim milieu, although to be fair, half of its humor would be lost in translation. Some will find Sebastian Haro's performance excessively histrionic, although Rufo happens to be a gregarious, witty and desperate extrovert. On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised if Ampudia gets a Goya nom for her controlled, multi-faceted performance.

[Chris Knipp]

These sound great and the subject matter partly up my alley, though I'd miss linguistic details you can enjoy. What fun for you!

The SF Film Festival is coming the end of next week and I will go to some of them with the young man whose intense interest in movies has led his family to get me to help out taking him to things. So far I've agreed to five. Several of them are Latin American though he picked them for the story, not the culture.

Not much otherwise here, the last thing I saw was Agnès Jaoui's Look at Me (Comme une image).

[oscar jubis]

Look at Me got a 3 1/2-stars review in the Miami Herald when it played at the fest. I passed on it to watch something else that had no US distributor. I'd like to know the titles of those five films and anything you want to share about the logistics of attending the SFFF.

[Chris Knipp]

I don't know what you mean by logistics exactly, but it has showings at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, the Castro Theater in SF, the Kabuki Theater in SF (the main venue, a cineplex in Japan Town that works well and was where the New Italian Cinema Event is also held), and a theater in Palo Alto. We are just going to the Kabuki and one at the Castro. You can get to the Kabuki from the East Bay, El Cerrito, Berkeley, Oakland, via BART (the subway) by going to downtown SF and taking a bus, but we'll be driving over I think. Then you have to park but it isn't too bad near the Kabuki if you arrive early. It's harder to park at the Castro and the PFA in my experience.

The five films are:

Kings and Queen (Arnaud Desplechin, France)

Up Against Them All (Roberto Moreira, Brazil)

Saraband (Ingmar Bergman, Sweden)

Crónicas (Sebastián Cordero, Ecuador -- produced by Afonso Cuarón)

Into the Picture Scroll: The Tale of Yamanaka Tokiwa (Sumika Hameda, Japan)

http://www.sfiff.org/fest05/calendar/index.html

[oscar jubis]

Thanks, Chris. The youngster clearly likes heavy fare/big themes. Saraband is as good as chamber drama can get. I like it more than Bergman's Autumn Sonata and Scenes From A Marriage. The French film was named Best Film of 2004 by a French critics group. I passed on Cronicas when it played here because it's having a commercial run. Apparently what's best about it is the performance from Damian Alcazar, which received jury awards here and at San Sebastian. The Japanese and Brasilian films sound interesting.

Saturday April 16th

Practically spent the whole day at Regal Cinemas in Coconut Grove. I took Dylan to a free screening from the Next Generation Film Festival, international films of interest to youth that travel the world (Italy, Albania, Australia, Poland, California, and Florida). We watched a South Africa/France/UK co-production called The Wooden Camera. Madiba and Sipho are 14 year olds playing by the tracks when a dead man and his luggage are thrown from a passing train. Madiba keeps the camera and Sipho keeps the gun they find inside the suitcase. While shooting around the city, Madiba befriends Estelle, a rich white girl who plays a mean cello. Both Madiba and Estelle have serious parental issues whereas Sipho gravitates towards criminality. The Wooden Camera won a deserved cinematography award at the Paris Film Festival, but the serviceable script falters towards the conclusion when it tries to cover too much ground. A few scenes of violence are presented with great restraint but the film would probably get an R-rating in the US because of language and drug use. The teen jury awarded The Wooden Camera the Glass Bear for Best Film at the Berlin Film Festival.

I returned to the theatre to watch a film from the Miami Latin Film Festival. El Lobo is a political thriller based on the true story of Operation Lobo (Wolf), the code name for a mole who infiltrated ETA, a Basque separatist organization, from 1973 to 1975. French-Spanish director Miguel Courtois acknowledges influences from Costa-Gavras (Z, Missing) and Jim Sheridan (In The Name of the Father) and manages to sustain the necessary rhythm while remaining faithful to the historical record. The film exposes the divisions and corruption within ETA and within the Franco government, during its last days. Eduardo Noriega (Open Your Eyes) as Lobo and the rest of the French/Spanish cast are fine throughout. What I found most interesting is the film's thesis that Fascist elements within the government saw ETA's terrorist activities as a way to justify their political positions and attempt to retain power after Franco's death. Ultimately they failed, and Spain became a democracy.

Then I watched Sin City at the same theatre, this year's most written-about movie at filmwurld. I don't see the reason for so much love/hate. An adaptation from a graphic novel, a compendium of borrowings from the film noir and action genres, tough 'n sexy guys and gals no one cares about except to look at, structure a bit clever here and there, excellent production values (especially the lighting I thought), human element buried beneath nihilism, objectification, and cynicism. I don't mind all that much because the fact that it's so stylized and other-worldly creates a buffer. I get the impression many people go to the movies with absolutely no knowledge of what's in store, based on the number of early walk-outs at this screening. (I would have posted in the film's thread but I don't think I'm adding anything to the discussion. Both arsaib4 and Chris Knipp wrote a lot of things that make sense to me.)

[Chris Knipp]

human element buried beneath nihilism, objectification, and cynicism. I don't mind all that much because the fact that it's so stylized and other-worldly creates a buffer. Maybe you can say that but you get through things easier than I do I guess; I found it hard to sit through. Perhaps you either should "mind that much," or should realize that you like it? My friend Jessica, who prides herself on watching anything, sometimes says she didn't "mind" a movie, which I always find depressing, even coming from her. Coming from a film devotee like yourself, I find it somewhat baffling; but if one can't take a stand, one can't. It happens.

[oscar jubis]

Sunday April 17th

Hector beat the latest films from Almodovar, Amenabar and Saura at the Spanish Critics Circle awards in the following categories: best film, best director (Gracia Querejeta), best screenplay, best score, and best actress (Adriana Ozores). The film was produced by Elias Querejeta, Gracia's father and veteran producer of such masterpieces as Cria and The Spirit of the Beehive. Hector is not a masterpiece and I don't think it's better than Bad Education, The Sea Inside, or The Seventh Day. What I decry is the fact that a quality drama dealing with universal themes won't get stateside distribution because it doesn't have a "big name" attached to it. Hector is the rare family drama which draws you in immediately, introduces eight characters that feel and talk like real people, creates narratives around them that never feel forced and arrives at resolutions that are neither predictable nor illogical (although a voice-over summary at its conclusion was not needed). Hector doesn't break new ground but it's too good to be kept from American filmgoers.

Mouchette (1967) on PAL dvd

I don't remember watching a film that made me more sad than Robert Bresson's Mouchette. Not the type of sadness that forces cathartic tears but the one that creates an ever-tightening knot in your throat. It comes natural for me to understand behavior from the point of view of psychology, and I've been trained to do so. Bresson instructed his non-actors or "models" as he'd rather call them to be as inexpressive as possible, to give "wooden" performances. These models' delivery is monotonic by design, that is, whenever they speak. There is a long dialogue-less sequence in Mouchette that illustrates Bresson's austere style. The titular 16 year old rural girl performs chores at a bar (closeup of her hands), approaches the cash register, receives a few coins (close up) and hands them to his stern father outside (close up), walks to the town fair nearby and stands by the bumper cars where a stranger places a token in her hand (you bet), she exchanges glances and smiles with a young man whose car keeps bumping into hers, afterwards they approach each other tentatively and, just before either says a word, her father suddenly appears and slaps her. The effect is striking in that, given the characters lack of specificity and color, one is freer to project onto them. For Bresson, human behavior results from forces far deeper and less fathomable than are explicable by mere cause and effect. Most, if not all, Bresson's films end with the protagonist's death or imprisonment. What happens to his characters seems a matter of unavoidable fate, which is anathema in our American culture, but it's too facile to say Bresson's world view is deterministic.
So, given my nature, my education and my culture, Mouchette is a difficult film to watch. And perhaps, beside the obvious formal virtues and aesthetic beauty of his films, the cause of my deepest admiration for him resides in how far away from my comfort zone his best films take me.
It's also quite a challenge for me to write about them, most particularly, without discussing scenes that would give away aspects of the plot (although I'd respond to any comments). It would be unfair to take away from your sense of discovery for I presume that a film like Mouchette is bound to come your away in the future, if it hasn't already.

[Chris Knipp]

it's too facile to say Bresson's world view is deterministic. Why? Can you enlarge on that point? If Bresson's "world view" isn't simply deterministic, what is it, then? Why can't one call it "deterministic"? What is the more subtle, complex, less "facile" way that you propose of describing his "world view"?

I have not seen Mouchette.

I have seen
Les Dames du Bois de Bologne
Journal d'un Curé de campagne
Un condamné de mort s'est échappé
Procès de Jeanne d'Arc
Lancelat du Lac
Le Diable, probablement
and
L'Argent

I have a copy of Au hazard, Balthazar which I have not yet watched.

For all these films that I've seen (admittedly some of them years and years ago), I don't feel that I know much about Bresson. He is rather opaque, no doubt intentionally so.

The required woodenness of actors applies to Italian neo-realist films at times and made me think of a movie I love, Rossellini's Louis XIV: La prise de pouvoir. Your description also makes me think of Bruno Dumont, though I feel that his depressing and monotonous works are more pulsating with life, sexuality, and menace than Bresson's.

I have trouble liking filmmakers whose work is relentlessly pessimistic. Why emphasize the negative? I have done enough of that in my own life. Why not be life-affirming, like Renoir? Even a very sad film like Kurosawa's Ikiru is deeply life-affirming in showing how a life can be made useful, even at the end of it. (Of course Kurosawa is up and down, and hit a low point around the time of Do-des-ka-den.) This is my problem with most of the Iranian movies I have seen. However I'm more "culturally" as you would put it sympathetic I guess to French cinema, and I recognize that Bresson is an artist with a distinctive style whose work can be very powerful.

I also, frankly, have trouble seeing how filmmakers whose work is relentlessly pessimistic are not able to be described as "deterministic." I don't think it's going to seem fair to me to say as you imply here that a sense of "unavoidable fate," such as you say is conveyed by Bresson, however beyond somehow the reaches of "mere cause and effect," is anathema in our American culture, and therefore any negative reaction to the tendencies in Bresson's films (which I nonetheless to a considerable extent admire) is merely an example of my helplessly acting out a pattern of cultural "determinism."

I would suggest that all these characteristics of Bresson are the reason why serious film lovers in this country adire him so much: because he goes against the grain culturally and because he is "difficult." And this is also the reason why Lars von Trier is so admired.

[hengcs]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
... When I think of recent documentaries that moved or involved me, like Touching the Void, To Be and to Have, My Architect, not to mention the politically involving ones like The Corporation and Fahrenheit 9/11, In the Realms of the Unreal fades out. ...

I also like these ...
;)
To Be and To Have, My Architect, The Corporation and Fahrenheit 9/11

[Chris Knipp]

I may not have made my distinction clear. I'm saying Fahrenheit 9/11 straddles the two types of documentary for me, because it's political but gets a gut reaction. To Be and To Have and My Architect are full of love and personality and intimacy and are docs with personal, emotional impact. Both of them are literally capable of making you walk out of the theater with tears streaming down your face. Moore gets some of that into Fahrenheit 9/11. The Corporation is brillliant, but cold and analytical and without any personal intimate feel. I was also very impressed by it because it's very well done and devastating in its way; but it didn't have the emotional impact of the other ones for me. It makes you think but it is incapable of making you feel, and hence it has a severe limitation where the heart should be, which is why I was surprised at Oscar's listing it as one of his two favorite films of the year 2004.

Still looking forward a response from Oscar on my Bresson post particularly re the issues of pessimism and determinism.

[oscar jubis]

My Bresson experience as follows: 10 out his 13 features, most seen several times but Lancelot, The Devil, probably, and Un Femme Douce seen once, years ago, and no longer accessible for purposes of analysis and discussion (unless I was to read reviews/essays to refresh my memory). Every single viewing (including repeats of course) a unique, rewarding experience thus I'd take advantage of any opportunity to watch any Bresson again. Passed on the silent on TCM last night to watch Mouchette again, before bedtime. Extremely moved and affected by it. Hard to conceive the images and sounds and the feelings they arouse would ever fade from memory even if never watched it again. It was hard to concentrate on the film I watched tonight (brief comment later). Perhaps Mouchette is Bresson's tragic film. (Possible spoilers ahead, although you can't quite spoil it).

During the course of 24-hours, Mouchette is subjected to a variety of events that cause her deep suffering and humiliation. Of all the protagonists of Bresson's films, this not-too-pretty-or-smart rural teen seems to have less control over what happens to her. She has all the odds stacked against her. She is burdened by adult responsibilities she's not equipped to handle. None of her pain and suffering is self-inflicted, and little is caused by personal foibles. Mouchette is an innocent, not yet grown. She seeks help from her family and community but no one provides it, for one reason or another. At one level, the film represents Bresson's protestation regarding the scarcity of charity and compassion. She is humiliated, beaten, raped, belittled, burdened and ostracized. For Bresson, God and the afterlife are simple matters of fact, but his faith eschews the piety and hypocrisy of organized religion. Mouchette is seen stomping her feet on mud prior to entering the church, and walking out defiantlly during Mass. But after having exhausted all hope, she commits suicide by drowning. Mouchette is typical of many Bressonian characters that are primarily observed through their struggles, but her burden is heavier than the condemned man's imprisonment or the county priest's illness. And death is simply only a passing for Bresson. And the gorgeous choral hymn that accompanies her drowning can only mean she's achieved grace.

I think it's possible to interpret the narrative arc of this film as a deterministic one, much more so than any of the other 9 Bressons I've seen_deterministic in the basic sense, a view that denies the importance and significance of free will. But I think it would be a mistake to make this generalization based one possible interpretation of one film.

I know this doesn't address every query you made, but it's a start (assuming you want to further discuss a filmmaker that may not be to your liking.)

[oscar jubis]

Monday April 18th

Sauvage Innocence (France, 2002) on PAL dvd

Phillipe Garrel, a 57 y.o. Parisian, has been making films for 40 years but none of them has had a commercial run stateside and none are available on video here. His films are rarely exhibited outside France, yet his critical rep is impeccable and there's nothing imposing about his autobiographical narratives. Sauvage Innocence is the first Garrel film I watch, so any comments beyond the scope of it are based on recent research. I took an active interest in Garrel after reading "Movie Mutations: The Changing Face of World Cinephilia", a wonderful example of cross-cultural, interactive film criticism. His name is mentioned many times by several of the book's contributors. Adrian Martin from Australia states: "The arte povera of Cassavetes and Garrel gives me a quiet, clear, minimalist intensity. Their films herald some kind of primal, fundamental return to the body, to the body as the only remaining site of authenticity, of lived and verifiable experience, of sensation and desire". Being a Cassavetes fan, I was definitely curious. Having watched the film, I find Martin's linking of these directors to be apt. Sauvage concerns Francois, a young director who wants to make a film based on his ex-girlfriend, who died of heroin overdose. He wants to cast Lucie, his new girlfriend, in the role of Marie-Therese but he can't find financing. Lucie decides she cannot afford to pass on an offer to go on a 4-month tour with a theatre company. To hold on to Lucie and get the film made, Francois enters into a Faustian pact with a rich drug dealer. Shooting of "Sauvage Innocence" commences. Gradually the past bleeds into the present, as the spectre of Marie-Therese takes hold of both Francois and Julie, and the drugs that destroyed her exert their poisonous, pervasive influence. A notable film about the creative process lensed by the great Raoul Coutard, a searing indictment of drugs as a destructive and seductive power, a meditation on the past's impingment on the present.

Shame this is the only Garrel title at Nicheflix. Will have to find out if any of his other French dvds have english subs.

[arsaib4]

One thing I did accomplish while I was at Nicheflix was to have them buy a 2 DVD-set featuring Garrel's Sauvage Innocence and La Naissance de L'Amour (The Birth of Love [1993]). Hopefully the other one is still available. I do have Liberté, la nuit (1983) and J'entends plus la guitare (I Don't Hear the Guitar Anymore [1991]) on vhs but no subs. Perhaps the most comprehensive review of Garrel in English was done by Kent Jones in his early days at Film Comment. Try to get your hands on that if possible. He is one of those auteurs who'd probably prefer if his films aren't widely seen.

[oscar jubis]

That's very kind of you. Birth of Love is now #3 on my queue, below two perennially rented-out Mizoguchis. I found Kent Jones' essay at sensesofcinema, along with a few others, last night. I respect your privacy, but I know Mouchette is an important film to you and would welcome any feedback regarding your experience with it.
P.S. Actually, your link takes me to an essay that's more comprehensive and detailed. Thanks.

[arsaib4]

This article is from Film Comment:

Sad and proud of it: the films of Philippe Garrel by Kent Jones (http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1069/is_n3_v33/ai_19455292)

...I guess you saw it earlier before I reposted.

[Chris Knipp]

I'll have to put off a complete response right now--no time right at the minute. But I wouldn't at all say that Bresson is 'not to my liking.' He is to my liking and I admire his work very much. Even though the deterministic, pessimistic aspects bother me, he's still a remarkable director and I like the good ones. Of course that 'arc' isn't found in everything Bresson did.

More later. I'm also interested to learn more about Garrel.

[Chris Knipp]

You sort of "buried" (though you're getting plenty of hits over here) your comments on Sin City and I replied to them in part over on the Sin City thread, quoting what I thought was the key passage summarzing your response and repeating a bit what I said to that here earlier http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=10155#post10155.

I have not seen Mouchette, and so maybe it's not surprising that I can't quite see what you mean by saying of her " her burden is heavier than the condemned man's imprisonment or the county priest's illness.." Why? Your remarks about this film are very general in nature using words like pain suffering innocent compassion piety hypocrisy grace….I don't get a feel for what's actually going on in the film as a film and a specific human document frame by frame, even though you do summarize her torments, also in general words -- humiliated beaten raped belittled burdened ostracized.. It seems to me that specific, dogged detail, rather than grand generalizations, are typical of Bresson's way of working in his later films, however symbolic the events may be meant to be. Apart from that, it is true as you yourself say that you haven't replied to every query I made, in fact you're just commented on Mouchette.
I think it's possible to interpret the narrative arc of this film as a deterministic one, much more so than any of the other 9 Bressons I've seen_deterministic in the basic sense, a view that denies the importance and significance of free will. But I think it would be a mistake to make this generalization based one possible interpretation of one film. Well we don't have to restrict ourselves to one possible interpretation of one film because we've both seen a goodly sample of Bresson's oeurve, you nine (or is it ten?) and I seven of his films (with one, Au hazard Balthazar, lined up ready to watch and probably Mouchette in the offing if I honor this discussion). Maybe we could go through the films and rate them on a scale of …. Something or other … which is obviously silly… as to their degree of determinism. But I also asked some broader questions by implication about the role of determinism and pessimism in film and I'd like us to discuss those, with Bresson perhaps as a starting point.

Repeating and summarizing my queries:

--"It's too facile to say Bresson's world view is deterministic." Why? Can you enlarge on that point? If Bresson's "world view" isn't simply deterministic, what is it, then? Why can't one call it "deterministic"? What is the more subtle, complex, less "facile" way that you propose of describing his "world view"?

--Do you acknowledge that there are some filmmakers whose work is relentlessly pessimistic? If so, why should such filmmakers not be described as "deterministic"?

--Why emphasize the negative? . . .Why not be life-affirming, like Renoir?

--What's the relevence of American culture to this discussion? Does American culture in its essence rule out a sense of "unavoidable fate" that is beyond the reaches of "mere cause and effect"? Is such a world view really anathema in our American culture, and is it true that therefore any negative reaction to the tendencies in Bresson's films means we are helplessly acting out a pattern of cultural "determinism"? If so, why is Bresson so admired by American film lovers? Are they merely knee-jerk rejectionists of their own culture?

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
I have not seen Mouchette, and so maybe it's not surprising that I can't quite see what you mean by saying of her " her burden is heavier than the condemned man's imprisonment or the county priest's illness.."

My point is that Mouchette is the most hard to watch Bresson film and the one likely to be called "pessimistic" because of the concentration on a single character (as opposed to several human characters in Balthazar that Bresson focuses on), because she's still not grown (almost all of Bresson's "suffering" characters are adults), and because of the amount and variety of pain and humiliation she endures. This may lead some to call this film "pessimistic" and to generalize impressions based on it to the master's entire filmography and to his person. The film is not bleak in my opinion, as there are moments of joy and charity.

I also asked some broader questions by implication about the role of determinism and pessimism in film and I'd like us to discuss those.

To some extent, any film that proposes primarily to depict social injustice or man's inhumanity to man, any film that decries abuses of power in which the weak/victims fail to mount a credible defense can potentially be called "deterministic" or "pessimistic". Take Samira Makhmalbaf's At Five in the Afternoon and the Iranian film The Circle (which I bring up because I know you saw it), for instance. Makhmalbaf's defense against charges of "pessimism" boil down to "it's the truth as I saw it". In other words, to create consciousness and awareness, you've got to show the suffering (allowing for possible moments of joy and respite however brief and fleeting).

It's too facile to say Bresson's world view is deterministic." Why?

(Determinism: "the doctrine that everything, especifically one's choice of action, is determined by causes independent of one's free will")
My comment anticipated a reaction and subsequent generalization that a viewer of Mouchette could make. I would disagree with the generalization to Bresson's ouvre because Bresson grants his characters a considerable degree of free will, although several are suffering from conditions and circumstances imposed on them. There's certainly free will even in Mouchette, in the sense that the protagonist kills herself (like the protagonist of Un Femme Douce, which opens with her suicide).

Why emphasize the negative? . . .Why not be life-affirming, like Renoir?

Here's where Bresson unshakable faith in God and belief in the afterlife come into play. For him, suffering and struggling are natural aspects of our passing through our life on earth. They are not negative, suffering and struggling with one's lot as conduits to Grace. For Bresson, death is not the end. As one who tends toward agnosticism, I am challenged by his certainties.

What's the relevence of American culture to this discussion?

I know I'm generalizing but Americans, more than other peoples, believe that the individual has the power to raise above any obstacle. Americans are probably more likely to find Mouchette "pessimistic". American culture is also, perhaps, more enamored of escapist entertainment that European culture, and more individualistic. I wouldn't want to take this too far because these are obviously crude generalizations.

why is Bresson so admired by American film lovers? Are they merely knee-jerk rejectionists of their own culture?

Is he so admired by Americans? Hard to say, but my guess is the American film goers that watch foreign films admire Kurosawa, Fellini, Truffaut, Leone, Renoir, Bergman and many others more than Bresson. If the "average American" asks me: "I want to get into foreign films, would you recommend some?" I'd go with Amelie, Life is Beautiful, 7 Samurai, Once Upon a Time in the West, La Dolce Vita, Ikiru, Renoir's The River... not A Man Condemned or Mouchette.

[oscar jubis]

Tuesday April 19th

Titicut Follies (1967) at the Cosford Cinema

Frederick Wiseman had to cancel his visit to Miami last fall because of a hurricane warning, but he kept his promise to return. He showed his first documentary, about conditions at the Hospital for the Criminally Insane at Bridgeport, Mass. Wiseman shot eight hours of film during 29 days in 1966 and spent 7 months editing the film by himself. The film shows the daily routine of the patients, how they are forced to conform to rules and regulations, the poor living conditions they face, the condescending and abusive treatment from some of the staff, admission and discharge procedures, etc. Titicut Follies, like all of Wiseman's documentaries, avoids any editorializing and commentary, except for the choice of material and the editing of it which constitutes a type of subtle editorializing. Anything that would lead to ready-made conclusions or force an emotional reaction is actively discouraged by Mr Wiseman. During Q&A, I asked him about the legal fight to get the film shown and he gave me "the short answer": a 15-minute account of how the film was banned by the Mass. Supreme Court for violating the patient's privacy, when in actuality it was all about the State of Mass. supressing information about the poor conditions at their Hospitals, and the use of the film as a political weapon during the race for Attorney Gral. of the State.

[Chris Knipp]

I feel there's some hedging on your part about whether Bresson is pessimistic or deterministic; sometimes you say he is, sometimes that he isn't. But what seems clear is that he isn't life-affirming, but afterlife-affirming. These generalizations about Americans are tricky. You may have a different take on this from being close to Spanish-speaking culture in family origins and Spanish-speaking yourself. I'd think most of the world likes what you call "escapist entertainment," it's just that the US is the chief manufacturer of it, film-wise. In saying Europeans are less that way, you may just be focusing on the products of a limited group for a limited audience, not on the general population, which likes things like The Chorus and Amélie just as we do. But Im admittedly no expert on that. You explained that Bresson is joyful in his view of lives that end in pathetic deaths, because he believes in the afterlife, but you yourself are an agnostic, so this troubles you. But if all you know for sure is this life, doesn't a cinema that celebrates life have a special appeal for you? And as a political liberal, are you not disturbed by the lack of free will in Bresson, as opposed, say, to the director of The Circle, who is surely seeking to make us feel rage at the wrong conditions to which women in Iran are subjected, and not celebrating the fact that they are being tested in this life to have a saintly existence in the Beyond, and sadly noting how difficult this life is, as is the case with Bresson? I still do think the serious American film buffs may revere Bresson more than you acknowledge, but I don't have any direct proof of that to offer you. I think it's very interesting to compare critical reactions to films and directors from country to country, partly with the aim of having a more detached perspective on our own admirations and criticisms and the value systems behind them.

[arsaib4]

Mouchette is certainly a tough to talk about impersonally which is perhaps the reason why not much has been written about it over the years especially compared to some of Bresson's other films. For me the film commemorates purity: Purity in thought, deed, appearance, sacrifice, along with in ruminations about other human beings, and, of course, cinema itself. How can one possibly "review" a film like Mouchette? Its various aspects can certainly be discussed though. I don’t find the ending pessimistic considering what else might’ve been in store. "Mouchette offers evidence of misery and cruelty. She is found everywhere: wars, concentration camps, tortures, assassinations." - Robert Bresson. This also reminds me of something Kiarostami said in reference to Taste of Cherry as he mentioned a philosopher who said to him that "Without the possibility of suicide, I would've killed myself long ago." As hard it is for some to accept, it is an option we have in life.

But we also have to acknowledge that we don’t actually see her death, we only see the process. Bresson always worked against our desire to witness or understand everything. The often discussed spirituality and the presense of a supreme being in his films I think is still rather opaque (?) and is based more on a feeling than an existance or a reflection.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by arsaib4
I don’t find the ending pessimistic considering what else might’ve been in store. "Mouchette offers evidence of misery and cruelty. She is found everywhere: wars, concentration camps, tortures, assassinations." - Robert Bresson.

If we define "pessimism" as the tendency to expect the worst outcome in any circumstance, we need to consider that Bresson came of age during WWI, experienced the growing threat of Nazism, lived through the Occupation, spent a year or so as a p.o.w. during WWII (with its holocaust, and nuclear bombing of Japan), then came the Cold War and the imminent threat of a nuclear war. It can be argued he was more of a "realist", given what he experienced, than a "pessimist". Bresson was rather tight-lipped, so any comments like the one you provide are rare and valuable. (There never was a "Bresson on Bresson" or the equivalent of Tarkovsky's "Sculpting in Time", to my knowledge). Let's also take into account that both A Man Escaped and Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne have endings I'd call "happy". Yet another reason to resist attach the label "pessimist" to Robert Bresson.

This also reminds me of something Kiarostami said in reference to Taste of Cherry as he mentioned a philosopher who said to him that "Without the possibility of suicide, I would've killed myself long ago." As hard it is for some to accept, it is an option we have in life.

It's clear to me based on my viewings of his films, my research, and the unusual (for Bresson) addition of religious choral music to Mouchette's body disappearing under water that, for Bresson, she is passing to another stage in a state of Grace. And I'm not against calling it "afterlife-affirming" (as used by Chris). Then again, I can see the director proposing that suffering and pain are integral conditions of our existence, that to embrace them is "life-affirming".
I like this quote from Olaf Moeller: "The idea of society as a prison is the underlying connection between all of Bresson's films. We are all captives, immates, convicts".

Bresson always worked against our desire to witness or understand everything.

Yes, he both advanced certain points of view while leaving quite a bit open to interpretation. There's a mysterious quality that demands complete concentration and scrutiny.

*Your statement regarding his "spirituality" was not clear to me. I'm convinced the man had a deep faith in the Christian God, a belief in an afterlife, a distrust of institutions, and perhaps an attraction towards a predestinarian strain of Catholicism called Jansenism (after the teachings of Cornelius Jansen). As an answer to CK's query I'll say that I think there's evidence of "determinism" or "predestination" in the positions that Bresson's films advance. I sense a tone of resignation at times.

[oscar jubis]

Wed. April 20th

I'll be brief due to time constraints. Today I attended a Master Class given by documentarian Fred Wiseman which included clips from his films Law and Order, Welfare, and others. He discussed his creative process and what he tries to communicate via images. It's remarkable that Wiseman does not do any research whatsoever before shooting, which is an expensive way to work.

Ca Twiste a Poponguine (Senegal, 1993) on vhs

Charming, coming-of-age film which uses a gregarious 12 y.o. boy to introduce the residents of Poponguine, a small seaside village in Senegal during 1964, just prior to independence from colonial rule. A melange of influences: American Pop culture, French culture, Christianity, Islam, and indigenous religions and practices are shown as alternatively complimentary and contrasting. A rather light, sometimes humorous, treatment of the subject.

[Chris Knipp]

As an answer to CK's query I'll say that I think there's evidence of "determinism" or "predestination" in the positions that Bresson's films advance. I sense a tone of resignation at times.You're slipping back over to that; fine. I can't help feeling that if you'd been willing to take a more definite position on this we could also have had more of a discussion. I guess it's fair to say Bresson doesn't make his "position" really clear on anything, which is part of his unique charm, but you could have taken one of your own. My stand is that the downbeat mindset is a limited worldview, though some notable minds have adopted it, at least in their work. Bresson seems to about take the cake. The last word on Life Sucks and Then You Die. But: Not to Worry: There May be an Afterlife. The music tells us so.

I love the tautology, or whatever it is, that wihout the option of suicide the guy would've killed himself many times. A real riot, that.

I should perhaps mention that in the past I have been a great fan of the writings of Samuel Beckett, but they're not something that i want to spend a lot of time with. He and Bresson, two of a kind, both My Glass Is Half Empty kinds of guys. But Beckett was a lot wittier.

Bresson must be the ideal filmmaker for anyone who wants to make Cinema with a capital C be a very Serious Thing. There are other ways of looking at life, equally valid. Lots of fun stuff was happening in that century of WWI, WWII, and the Cold War. And we were around for some of it. You know, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." like the French Revolution, according to Dickens.

[oscar jubis]

Thursday April 21st

Head On at SoBe Regal
www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=10198#post10198

Sweet Movie (1974) on import dvd

Dusan Makavejev, the Belgrade-born director of The Coca-Cola Kid and W.R.:Mysteries of the Organism, directed this satire of totalitarianism and consumerism. An old woman who presides over the Chastity Belt Organization emcees a Miss World Virgin Contest. The winner gets to marry Mr. Kapital and his $50 billion. Priests escort the contestants onto a stage, a doctor performs a vaginal exam on each girl and names Miss Canada the winner. On her wedding bed, she is horrified by Mr. Kapital's gold-dipped penis and traumatized when he urinates on her. The energetic film grows increasingly bizarre and taboo-breaking. A woman performs a strip-tease for a bunch of 10 year-old boys and seduces one of them. Scenes of a gorgeous woman bathing in melted chocolate are intercut with scenes of Russian troops unearthing concentration camp corpses from a mass grave. There's a bizarre rendition of a mariachi song, a refugee from Battleship Potemkin makes an appearance, and the actual members of a French commune enact a gross-out Bacchanalia. Fans of Alejandro Jodorowsky, and Marco Ferreri's La Grande Bouffe must seek it out.

[Chris Knipp]

It certainly sounds bizarre, if not indigestible, though some of the titillating elements sound intriguing.

[oscar jubis]

Sweet Movie would offend a lot of people. It was actually banned in English-speaking Canada, England and South Africa. It was best received in Italy where Pasolini was in charge of the dubbing process. Makavejev was named "persona-non-grata" in Yugoslavia because of it. (The film is as critical about communism as it is about anything else). But Sweet Movie, despite a high gross-out factor, is a pointed political satire I found easier to watch that Salo or Caligula, because it lacks the cruelty and mean-spiritedness of those films. Most of Makavejev's films are available on vhs from Facets Video. Those familiar with them seem to prefer W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism. I'll seek it out.

Friday April 22nd

Vodka Lemon at Cosford Cinema
Only the first film from Hiner Saleem to receive distribution in the US. That is, if a 2-screen opening can be called a commercial release in a large country. The distributor is New Yorker Films, which is either under financial strain or had no faith the film would develop a following. A miscalculation in my opinion. Vodka Lemon is set on a small village at the foot of the Armenian mountains during winter. Hamo, a widower of about 60, casually emerges as the protagonist. Like everybody else, he feels nostalgic about the era of Soviet subsidies because nothing has replaced it. Two of his sons live abroad but they send only letters and pictures, so Hamo is forced to sell his possessions. He visits his wife's grave daily and notices Nina, a widow living with her daughter. Through Hamo and Nina, we become acquainted with the rest of the residents, including a gruff-looking bus driver who fancies himself a balladeer. It won't surprise you that Hamo and Nina are drawn to each other, but the care taken by Saleem to depict the minutiae of their gradual relating, and the performances of the leads provide lasting pleasure. Saleem sustains a perfect tone throughout, comic yet melancholic, with surreal moments here and there. Vodka Lemon invites comparison with the films of Finland's Aki Kaurismaki and Georgia's Otar Iosseliani. Hope to get a chance some day to watch the earlier films directed by Mr. Saleem, an Iraqi Kurd who had to leave his beloved village in order to become a filmmaker. (His autobiography has been published in England under the title "My Father's Rifle").

[oscar jubis]

Sat. April 23rd

Two films with historical themes from the Miami Latin Film Festival at the AMC theatre in Coconut Grove.

1809-1810 While the Day Arrives (Ecuador, 2005)
The day in this costume epic's title is Ecuador's Independence Day. The film, directed by Camilo Luzuriaga (Between Marx and a Naked Woman), concerns the events leading up to the massacre of 300 revolutionary Quitenos at the hands of Spanish troops in 1810. Luzuriaga's aim is to depict historical events with great authenticity by shooting at the locations where the events took place, costuming and ambientation based on historical records, and use of Indian dialects and Latin whenever appropriate. A love triangle between a mestiza (mixed blood), a rebel criollo (native, of Spanish parentage) and a Spanish colonel, plays second fiddle to events of socio-political import. A laudable effort, if somewhat uneven in execution.

Maria Querida aka Dearest Maria (Spain, 2004)
Kudos to the festival's programmers for including highbrow films when it's clear audiences flock to thrillers and romantic comedies.
Lola, a 30-something director shooting a film in Cuba, learns from her mother that poet/philosopher Maria Zambrano has died. Maria Querida flashes back 2 years to 1989, when Lola met Zambrano while working for a TV network. The legendary Zambrano was one of the most distinguished members of the generation of artists, thinkers and academics that were killed, imprisoned or exiled by dictator Franco. The recently divorced Lola is presented with the opportunity to direct a documentary on Zambrano (played in the film by Javier Bardem's mother Pilar). A special bond develops between the two as the poet's wisdom and consciousness is passed on to the younger woman, via recollections of her struggles against fascism and her difficult and exciting 45 years of globe-trotting exile, prior to returning to Spain. The documentary is being produced by Lola's ex-husband, perhaps in an attempt to win her back. News that Lola and her bi-sexual boyfriend are expecting a baby could cause him to withdraw his financial support.
Maria Querida was written by the great Rafael Azcona, who scripted the classic films of Berlanga and Saura. Most recently, Azcona received awards for his screenplays of Belle Epoque and Butterfly. The film was directed by J.L. Garcia Sanchez (Golden Bear for Las Truchas). Maria Botto, who was wonderful as the peg-legged Cinta in Aranda's Jealousy, is perfect here as Lola. Maria Querida dexterously mixes fiction and documentary. A highly edifying experience for the viewer, who learns quite a bit about the creative process in documentary filmmaking, becomes acquainted with the insightful Zambrano and the tumultuous history of her generation, and engaged by a fictional narrative about how a director's personal life impacts on her work.

[oscar jubis]

Sunday April 24th

The Way to Murnau: Approaches to a Lonely Master (Germany, 2003)
Documentary short (35 Min.) about Friedrich Wilhem Murnau (1888-1931), perhaps the greatest director of the silent era. This exceedingly tall, quiet, melancholic German studied art history, served as a soldier and pilot in WWI, and directed plays in his teens. At about age 20, he changed his last name from Plumpe to Murnau most likely as a "break with a family that rejected his artistic ambitions and his homosexuality", and became a filmmaker. Most of his films prior to Nosferatu (1922) have been lost. He went on to direct some of the most enduring classics of the silent era, both in Germany and Hollywood: The Last Laugh, Sunrise, Tabu, Faust, Tartuff, City Girl. Most salient characteristics:
1) Compositions and lighting based on paintings (Vermeer, Rembrant, German Romantics, Modern, chiaroscuro art in general). The Way to Murnau matches scenes with the specific paintings that inspired them, leaving no doubt as to Murnau's influences.
2) Psychological approach to guiding performance. (The opposite of Bresson. Murnau stated: "I tell actors what to think not what to do")
3) He sought to liberate the camera from the tripod. Increasingly his films reveal more novel ways of moving the camera.
4) A couple's happiness threatened by an outsider was a recurring theme.

Tartuff (Germany, 1925) on dvd
Murnau's adaptation of Moliere's 17th century fable of religious hypocrisy, starring the great German actor Emil Jannings. Murnau uses a film-within-a-film device to make the content more relevant to his contemporaries. In one scene, a character directly address us (the viewers of Murnau's film). I remember some hailing Michael Haneke as an innovator for doing just that in Funny Games, more than 70 years later. Then again, Tartuff was not available for viewing until its restoration in late 2002.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (USA, 1920) on TCM
Robert Louis Stevenson's classic thriller has been adapted for the screen so many times it's no surprise there were two versions released in 1920. The best one was filmed at Paramount's Long Island studios, directed by John Robertson, and features an amazing, tour-de-force performance by John Barrymore. Not a faithful adaptation as it borrows a character from Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and appropriates a few lines penned by Wilde.

[Chris Knipp]

In one scene, a character directly address us (the viewers of Murnau's film). I remember some hailing Michael Haneke as an innovator for doing just that in Funny Games, more than 70 years later. Fielding does it in Tom Jones, and you can see that evoked amusingly in Tony Richardson's brilliant 1963 evolcation of the novel on film--I hope you've seen it? And Laurence Sterne did it a lot in Tristram Shandy; I think it was an 18th-century thing, but it's also something found in self-conscious, self-referential late 20th-century lit. like some of Nabokov's fiction. I am glad to learn that in movies it goes back at least to Murnau. I don't know that much about Murnau, but when I was at Berkeley I used to go to showings put on by "The F.W. Murnau Film Society," which were organized by Tom Luddy, who would give little introductions showing an amazing knowledge of film. He later became dirctor of the Pacific Film Archive.

[oscar jubis]

Nice post, Chris. No, I haven't seen Tom Jones, probably because I haven't been impressed with Richardson's direction in other movies. Your recommendation has been noted. More Murnau coming up, as time permits.

Monday April 25th

Rue Cases Negres aka Sugar Cane Alley (Martinique, France/1983) on dvd

Tortilla came to ask Ma' Tine to help deliver her ma's baby but the baby was stillborn, like her last. Ma' Tine said: "Another kid saved from the white man's cane fields"

Euzhan Palcy (A Dry White Season)'s film is one of the best African diaspora films. It's based on a novel by Joseph Zobel set in 1931 Martinique. Jose, a bright 11 year old, lives in a tumbledown collection of huts with Ma' Tine (Darling Legitmus), the old woman who's raised him since his mother died. It's Jose's last summer of freespirited fun, since he has one year of schooling left before he adopts the punishing routine of the sugar cane worker. Ma' Tine vows not to let that happen, and Jose may be bright and lucky enough to be given a chance to further his education on the island's capital city. Sugar Cane Alley won Ms. Palcy a Cesar for Best First Work and a Silver Lion at Venice. This rags-to-riches story overcomes cliches by its uncanny evocation of time and place, and the specificity of its observations of the daily lives of the impoverished field hands. Certain images are unforgettable, such as a lingering close-up of Jose's ritualistic washing of Ma' Tine's dusty feet, and a wide-shot of a procession of torches descending a hill.

[Chris Knipp]

I don't know what your prejudice against Richardson is based upon; which were the movies of his you didn't like? But anyway you ought not to miss Tom Jones. Tom Jones was heralded at the time even by scholars of 18th century English literature as a superb adaptation of Henry Fielding's great novel, the most important one (novel, that is, not movie) of the century. It's also one of Albert Finney's great roles. A delight. It doesn't hurt to know a bit about the book and the period and its literature before you see the movie, but it should work on its own. Apart from his early Angry Young Man work, Look Back in Anger and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, Richardson is notable for a considerable number of so-so but nonetheless very interesting literary adaptations. I should think it would be fun now to see Peter Firth cavorting with Ann-Margret in Joseph Andrews, which is another Fielding novel. I should have seen Laughter in the Dark because it's a Nabokov novel and I'm a big fan of VN, but it's true these didn't get good reviews and I didn't see them. The Entertainer was famous as a chance for Olivier to chew up the rug, and I have seen that. A Taste of Honey was a charming stage play that was made into a decent movie. Ned Kelly with Mick Jagger was a must see and may look dated today but still ought to be worth a look, perhaps to compare it with the more authentic-looking new one with Heath Ledger and Orlando Bloom, which seems to have been promptly forgotten in this country but not in Australia. The Loved One again is a so-so adaptation but of a priceless novel by Evelyn Waugh satirizing southern California. I should think that one as eager as you to have a comprehensive knowledge of cinema would need to see more Richardson to be up on what the Brits did in the second half of the 20th century...

[oscar jubis]

*I forgot to mention that Sugar Cane Alley was dedicated to the great Jean Rouch, whose African films, shown at a retrospective I attended in February, are my major cinema discovery of the year.
*Chris, notice I stated "I haven't been impressed with Richardson's direction". Probably most of his films have redeeming features although I wouldn't want to watch Ned Kelly, A Taste of Honey, Nijinsky, or Hotel New Hampshire again. In my opinion, what makes Loneliness, Look Back in Anger and The Border superior is the protagonist's performance (Courtenay, Burton, Nicholson) and perhaps the source material. I don't know that I'd give Richardson credit for the performances of these wonderful actors, who were at career peaks at the time. I agree that I ought to watch Tom Jones, because of Fielding and Finney not because of Richardson.

Tuesday April 26th

Dear Frankie (Scotland, 2005) at SoBe Regal
The less you know about the plot of Shona Auerbach's movie the better. The premise alone won't spoil it: A single mom creates a fictional dad for her 9 year-old deaf son and hires a stranger to play the role for a day. Tailor-made for a weepie full of melodrama with a pat ending, I thought. Then the thing unfolds with restraint and grace, and you can't take your eyes off Emily Mortimer (as Mum), and what appeared to be a contrived premise suddenly makes logical sense, and there's a long silent moment that says more than words could convey, and a couple of tees are left uncrossed, and you realize you'd seen a better film than you expected. It's only my opinion. It's fair to say the range of critical response is as wide as possible (16 to 100 at metacritic) and you may not like it. Out on dvd on July 5th.

Ken Park on Pal dvd
Undistributed movie "based on stories and characters by Larry Clark", co-directed by Clark and cinematographer Lachman, with a script by Harmony Korine. Production values, performances and script are fine so let's get into the content and mise-en-scene to help you decide if you want to seek it out. It's a roundelay of transgressive vignettes of sex and violence in the lives of suburban teens and their dysfunctional parents. The number of characters, the short running time, and apparently, the auteur's intentions, guarantee that no character, especially grown-ups, will be depicted with any depth whatsoever. Clark has the red-headed titular character skateboard to a public park and blow his brains out within the first two minutes. A brutish, sadistic, alcoholic belittles his son, slaps him around, then comes into his room in the middle of the night and tries to fellate him. A bright kid masturbates to ejaculation for the camera while trying to asphixiate himself, then grabs a kitchen knife, goes to his grandparents' bedroom and stabs them to death. His voice-over explains he had an erection while doing this and that he killed grandpa because he cheated at Scrabble and Grandma because she's a "passive-aggressive bitch." A fanatically religious widower catches her daughter fellating a boy she's tied to her bed. Dad beats the shit out of the defenseless boy. Later, Dad stages a re-enactment of his wedding ceremony with her crying daughter in the wife role. There's a lengthy montage of girl-and-two-boys threesome. Two scenes involve a boy having sex with his girlfriend's mom. You can see her nipples enlarging as the boy learns proper oral sex technique (the sex and a beating or two are actually happening on-screen).
Clark would say all of this actually happens in American suburbia and I won't disagree. It's obvious Clark is not interested in grown-ups, only in the bad things they do to their children. But the almost complete absence of anything except sex, violence and drugs, and the repetitive close-ups of breasts, butts and genitals, leads me to believe he's not interested in kids either. Clark is only interested in kids' transgressive, taboo-breaking behaviors and their firm, almost-grown bodies. Ken Park is one of the worst movies I've seen this year.

[Chris Knipp]

Ken Park

I don't think it's fair what you say, but it's understandable, since no father of teenage children in his right mind would like this movie. I would advise you to take it in the context of Clark's work as a whole -- all his other movies, plus his considerable body of photographic work including those compiled into books such as Teenage Lust and his famous first one about speed freaks, Tulsa. You never mention them and you never mention Kids, Bully, or Another Day in Paradise either. They're all consistent and true to Clark's personal concerns and origins, and Kids in particular has been influential and brought him to a much larger audience. Some from that larger audience have yielded to the temptation to call Clark's films just exploitation and you're falling into the same fallacy, even if you're saying he's producing the exploitation for his own private consumption.

I can understand your mind being clouded by shock or disapproval, but your description's inaccurate even where you're being most positive:
Production values, performances and script are fine so let's get into the content and mise-en-scene to help you decide if you want to seek it out. It's a roundelay of transgressive vignettes of sex and violence in the lives of suburban teens and their dysfunctional parents. The number of characters, the short running time, and apparently, the auteur's intentions, guarantee that no character, especially grown-ups, will be depicted with any depth whatsoever. Are they really "fine"? I don't think so. Clark's photographs notoriously were never technically well made, and neither is this movie. Your artificially detaching "production values, performances and script" from the rest is a mistake.

Otherwise your problem here is you're condemning the movie on the basis of its contents rather than its style and you say nothing about its authenticity as the work of an individual who, I'll keep pointing out, is both original and highly consistent in everything he's done in various media. You try to sound balanced, but you're really presenting the contents like one who puts a plate of food on the table and says, "This is poisoned, but you're all quite free to eat it if you like."

I think you're misreading the work, misinterpreting its origins. In my review (posted on my website) (http://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?t=371), speaking as one who has followed Larry Clark's work from the early Seventies, I wrote:
Clark is neither making exploitation nor being a moralist. He has obsessions, not agendas. He's simply doing what he does. But there is something moral about the fearlessness of his dedication to what he has seen and what he has dreamed. Roger Ebert has written: "I find Larry Clark one of the bravest of filmmakers, cutting close to the edge." If people think he cuts too close, that's because they aren't used to anyone this unique. A frequently heard criticism of the movie is that it reads as a series of unrelated segments saved and issued together arbitrarily. Not true: this is Clark's best film yet. Hopefully you'd have framed your remarks differently and made them more convincing if you'd seen Ken Park with me in a theater with an audience and we'd discussed it right afterward . Maybe you'd still conclude that it's all crap anyway, but you'd at least see the need to be more convincing, and perhaps even acknowledge that it isn't so much the "worst" film of the year as the one that you most disliked.

Just a few weeks ago I was walking through the major retrospective of Larry Clark's work at the International Center of Photography in New York curated by Brian Wallis (it runs from March 11 till JUne 5 -- the same day that the Brooklyn Museum Basquiat show ends), so I have a pretty clear mental picture of Clark's total oeuvre and the retrospective confirms what I'm saying: that he's one of the most original and consistent artist/filmmakers of our time.

P.s. In speaking of the religious fanatic widower you twice refer to him as "her."

__________________________

*I think you must have been having a bad day because you admit you're pre-judging Tom Jones and disregarding everything I said in my recommendation by saying you'll see it only for Finney's performance and not the direction. Could you be a little more open minded on this, please? It's really unfair to refuse to give Richardson any credit for making movies with great actors in them. Great actors don't exactly flock around lousy directors. Some directors are uneven, and the studio system can pull them down and get them involved in the wrong projects. I can assure you that Tom Jones is a great movie and not just because Finney's in it; he's just a part of it, though admittedly the titular character. Personally I'd like to see Ned Kelly and A Taste of Honey again, but not Hotel New Hampshire and NijinskyGive it a chance, don't pre-judge it on "principle."

*I imagine we do substantially agree on Los Muertos and I just reviewed it on the SFIFF thread here after seeing it on my own Tuesday, prompted by your comments and by Fan of Kubrick's infectious enthusiasm after seeing its first SFIFF showing. I loved it and found it the best of the three I've seen in the festival so far, though they've all (this, plus Desplechin's Kings and Queen and the Danish King's Game) been well worth watching.

[Chris Knipp]

P.s. Apropos of your calling Ken Park the "worst" you've seen this year: from your "Personal Disclosure" credo:

*Subjectivity
I don't usually talk about "best" [worst] movies, only favorite ones.[/b]

[oscar jubis]

*Your attempt to explain away my judgement of Richardson as a film director by stating "you must be having a bad day" is undeserved. You should know by now I don't have a tendency towards rash, impulsive judgements. I never said he was a "lousy" director. I clarify for the second and last time that I stated: "I haven't been impressed with Richardson's direction in other movies" (meaning, other than Tom Jones, which I haven't seen but "I agree I ought to watch" it). My point is that, after watching about eight of his films, I don't see evidence of anything special that Richardson brings to the table as a visual artist. I don't see any evidence that I should seek out a film because he directed it.

*Indeed, I don't usually refer to films as "best" or, much less, "worst". I reserve them for instances when I feel so strongly about a movie that no other term would do. I repeat: "Ken Park is one of the worst movies I've seen this year". You (should) know I don't fake the passion. You've often characterized my comments as being "neutral", but I am very disappointed with Ken Park. Disappointed because I liked Clark's previous films, especially Kids and Bully, harrowing, cautionary tales about teens who behave badly, who make mistakes. There's a dimensionality to the characterizations. On the contrary, Ken Park is about the bad things that kids (and their parents) do, and the kids are repeatedly objectified via close-ups. For purposes of illustration, contrast the deflowering scene in Kids (at a party), which conveys all the information we need to know, with the sex scene in Ken Park involving Peaches and two boys. We repeatedly get close ups of breasts, butts and genitals and, what's worse, it's scored to the type of music one would find in a porn flick aimed at baby boomers, not the music teens would play. As shock cinema goes, and the masturbation-and-asphixiation scene is nothing but, Ken Park is not redeemed by an ulterior purpose such as the political satire in Sweet Movie and La Grande Bouffe. I'm glad Ken Park won't be seen in theatres here. I wouldn't want to deny access to it to Americans who enjoy this type of material so I'm not against a US video release.

Wed. April 27

Downfall at Sunset Place Theatres.
www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=10372#post10372

[Chris Knipp]

Tony Richardson
Sorry about my unduly flip comment about your "having a bad day." Probably I was the one having a bad day. I don't want to give you one! I always particularly enjoy discussing films with you. Do watch Tom Jones. It may make you wonder why you saw eight other Tony Richardson films and missed that, the most important one. You still say, "I don't see any evidence that I should seek out a film because he directed it." That certainly seems to be true based solely on your own experience. But isn't my advice new "evidence"? I hope so. What we may have here is an example of a director -- if your observations and mine are correct -- who has made a dozen or two competent films, and one great and delightful one.

Ken Park
I'm glad you described Clark's Ken Park in the context of his other movies this time, two of them out of the three others, anyway. That makes your position clearer, and more convincing. It's good that you also clarify your use of "worst," which is perhaps adivisable whenever you use it, since it's rather against your general principles to do so. I could debate your comparisons of Kids and Ken Park and the issues of dimensionality of characterizations, objectification via closeup vs. cautionary tales, redeeming ulterior purposes, etc., but you probably don't really want to go into more detail in discussing a movie you have found so objectionable. I don't want to drag you back over something you hated watching. There must be some people more appropriate for me to discuss it with, who find something to like in it, as I did and see it more favorably in the framework of Clark's entire career, as I do.

Apropos of all this, how "passion" vs. "neutrality" affect our discussions of film is a complicated matter. Certainly views expressed out of a lack of interest are themselves hardly of much interest; on the other hand in framing them, in expressing them, one needs a cool head, or nothing very convincing is likely to come out of the effort. Was I questioning your "passion"? No, I think I was hinting that you sometimes affect a façade of neutrality, when in fact your view is quite passionate; that you think it preferable not to reveal your opinion of a movie, when in fact that's just what we all want to hear. If I just want information, I can go to a website like IMDb. What delighted or amazed you, and what horrified or annoyed you -- those are what I want to know. And then we have material for discussion, provided that our emotion is "recollected in tranquility."

[oscar jubis]

Armond White would be a current critic you may enjoy reading, Chris. I don't avoid controversy and I try to strike a balance between information and opinion. But my views tend towards the center, as I find very few truly bad movies and even fewer masterpieces. Giving my honest opinion is more important than being provocative. And information culled from a variety of sources is valuable. It's what I attempt to do: to combine opinion and information and present it clearly and concisely.

Thursday April 28th

The Philadelphia Story on 2-disc Special Edition dvd
www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=10409#post10409

[Chris Knipp]

Armond White would be a current critic you may enjoy reading, Chris. . . Giving my honest opinion is more important than being provocative. Well maybe so; but why's it necessary to say so? Are you suggesting I do otherwise? The implication that I'd like to identify myself with a nut like White is itself provocative. His views can be stimulating, but they're unreliable.

I don't think you should worry so much about being provocative, since you yourself have said you want there to be more debate on this site. Be more direct, and don't hide your feelings behind a mask of friendly advice ("you may like. . .") -- which has the unfortunate side effect of seeming a bit condescending. I'm not suggesting you "might like" something. I'm asking you: Please be more forthright.

The fact that I'm supporting a challenging and provocative film may mean I'm willing to be provocative but it doesn't mean I want to be. Your supporting censorship of films (the repression of Ken Park) also is provocative -- and discouraging to young and risk-taking filmmakers.

Bolder statements can, as White as an extreme case does show, be stimulating to discussion, and "honest opinions" need to be stated with enthusiasm. Your first writup of Los Muertos is rather dry. One would hardly have known that it was one of your favorites of the past several years or that we should do everything we can not to miss it.

[oscar jubis]

Indeed, Los Muertos is my favorite Latin American film since 2003. In the festival thread review, I used the term "powerfully effective" and my closing statement was Alonso is "the most original of the Argentinean filmmakers who've emerged in recent years". Given what's been posted about Martel, Trapero and Lerman, I thought I was being generous in heaping praise on Alonso. But if you didn't get the idea his film was a must-see then I have to take responsibility for a failure to communicate.

Friday April 29th

La Noire de... aka Black Girl (Senegal, 1965) at Florida International University

The first great film directed by an African (Ousmane Sembene) and the first film from Africa distributed in the United States. Sembene's first foray into the arts was his 1956 novel "Le Docker Noire", based on his decade working on the docks in Marseilles. He continued to write but this avid filmgoer decided that cinema was a more effective vehicle to reach a mass audience. In 1961, he traveled to Moscow to study filmmaking and worked at Gorky Studios. Upon his return to Senegal, he wrote and directed La Noire de..., based on a newspaper article about the tragic death of a young woman working as a domestic in the French Riviera.
The film opens with her arrival in France with a white family shortly after Senegal's independence from France. Then the film flashes back to her being selected by her white mistress from a labor pool to take care of children, we meet her family, observe a friendship with a young man blossom into romance, watch her interacting with the family that hired her, and her enthusiastic reaction to the offer to move to France with her employers. Back in France, Sembene depicts how the working conditions worsen, and her status and that of her employers changes in the new environment. In France, she is simply "la noire", a "nobody" to some, an "exotic object" to others.
Sembene gets a lot of powerful symbolism out of an African mask Diouna gives to her employers as a gift but insists on retrieving when she decides to quit. For her mistress, the mask comes to represent the life of privilege she could afford in the colonies. For Diouna, it's the African culture she was once willing to share which now the French insist on appropriating whenever convenient.
Following the screening, there was some very stimulating discussion involving academics, students and film buffs in attendance.

[oscar jubis]

Saturday April 30th

The Charcoal People Os Carvoeiros (Brasil, 1999) on dvd
This documentary directed by Nigel Noble (Voices of Sarafina) depicts the process of turning rain forest trees into charcoal used in Brasil's steel industry by 60,000 migrant workers. There's no voice-over narration, only interviews with a wide range of workers regarding what they do and their living conditions. The Charcoal People is critical of the environmental damage caused by this industry and the exploitation of the workers, which range in age from 8 to 76 years old. They are often forced to lead nomadic lives by having to travel great distances to wherever they're needed. The film presents exclusively the workers' point of view without confronting industry reps the way a Michael Moore would. The dvd features a good transfer but squeezes a 1.66:1 film into a TV ratio (1.33:1) resulting in obvious loss of visual information.

Mr. Arkadin aka Confidential Report (1955) on PAL dvd
A Spanish/French co-production of a film written, edited, directed and starring Orson Welles. The film's plot mixes elements from Citizen Kane and Reed's The Third Man. It's a globetrotting mystery thriller filmed in exotic locations in Europe and Mexico featuring Welles's characteristic deep focus photography, baroque art direction, unusual camera angles, enigmatic characters, and elliptical narrative. Jonathan Rosenbaum has painstakingly documented the various versions of the film in his essay "The Seven Mr. Arkadins" (available in the book "Movies as Politics"). I've seen two versions and even the longer one has one scene that's obviously missing footage. Any version of Mr. Arkadin you may find is an absolute must-watch but I'm sad to say the dvd of the film available in the US is a definite must-avoid, not because its shorter cut but because of the terrible transfer and the putrid sound (one can barely make out what's being said). The PAL disc available in the UK under the title Confidential Report is a vast improvement. Eventually, the film will have a proper home video release here.

[Chris Knipp]

Yeah, I didn't get a sense of enthusiasm out of your writeup of Los Muertos, despite your high evaluation. I got more a sense of fun and excitement out of Fan of Kubrick's briefer writup. Sometimes it sounds to me like you're cataloguing rather than evaluating or emotionally responding, and how the film rates personally with you or how you persoonally respond to it doesn't come through as well as your description of the contents. I have somewhat the same problem as I've been told it's sometimes hard to tell what I really think or feel about a movie I review, and I'm working on that.

In the case of Mr Arkadin, you are simply warning people to stay away from this DVD because it's of lousy technical quality. With the Charcoal People documentary, it's hard to tell whether you think it's a good one or not. Is presenting just the workers' viewpoints sufficient to make it involving and good, or is the lack of Moore-ish confrontation with managers a real shortcoming, a sign that it's pretty limited? Also with Sembene's Black Girl you say the director "gets a lot of powerful symbolism out of an African mask," but I don't get any other idea of what's good about the movie; otherwise you just give some biography of Sembene and the plot of the movie.

Don't get the idea I'm just trying to tear you down. Your descriptions are informative and your tireless filmgoing and -viewing are inspiring. I'm just trying to suggest ways you can make what you say more engaging and useful.

[oscar jubis]

This issue of the clarity of how much one likes or doesn't like a movie has forced writers to agree to using rating systems. I'm sure that if I wrote for a publication I'd have to devise one. I'm by no means implying that I write like J. Hoberman, but he's been a major influence. I react to his writing the way you're reacting to mine. Ideally I want to provide a mix of opinion and information that would help you make up your own mind whether a film is for you. What makes the approach more valid is the fact that I answer every follow-up question. These exchanges are the main reason why I'm posting my journal. Writing obviously is a reflection of one's personality and mine is not characterized by displays of emotion.

Another variable is the sheer volume of films (about 12 per week) and the percentage of my leisure time I'm willing to devote to writing vs. watching film and reading. Your questions about Arkadin, Charcoal People and Black Girl are reasonable and valid. You probably wouldn't have to ask them if I wrote longer reviews or had more time to write them. I appreciate you asking them and hope you continue to do so.

Charcoal People is a good doc that folks particularly interested in labor and environmental issues must watch, but it's not compelling enough for the general viewer. Even though one can likely predict the response from the employers of the "carvoeiros", I think their reaction to potential inquiries from the filmmakers would add to the doc's emotional impact. You must watch Mr. Arkadin and La Noire de.... Actually, a film lover must watch everything directed by Welles and Sembene, in my opinion. The former is available on dvd but it's such a bad presentation of the film that I think one needs to either seek out the PAL disc from the UK or wait until a decent region 1 disc is released.

What makes La Noire de... such a singular achievement is Sembene's ability to create a fictional narrative that illustrates with great nuance and economy a) the status and conditions of the colonist and the colonized and their relationship, b) how environment (Senegal and France) alters and impacts on race and class issues, and c) the appropriation and commodification of aspects of black culture by Europeans/whites.

[oscar jubis]

Sunday May 1st

Lost Boys of Sudan (USA, 2004) on dvd
This doc directed by Megan Mylan and Jon Shenk documents the immigrant experience of two teenagers orphaned by the civil war in Sudan. Titles provide basic information about the conflict between the Muslin government in the North and the Christian and animist South, which has resulted in over 2 million deaths. We meet Peter and Santino in the UN refugee camp in Kenya where they've lived for over ten years. Both in their late teens, they discuss the attack on their village and their lives in the camp. The filmmakers allow enough time for the viewer to become acquainted with the lives they lead in Africa, their culture and customs. The doc covers their journey to Houston, Texas, their acculturation, and their experience as immigrants in America. Lost Boys of Sudan sidesteps conventional voice-over narration in favor of real-time, close-quarters coverage of significant events in the lives of Peter and Santino. The picture of America that emerges is relatively bening and hopeful, but the immigrant experience is almost by definition bittersweet and characterized by obvious cultural dislocation.

Jour de Fete (France, 1949/1995) on PAL dvd (UK)
The great Jacques Tati couldn't realize in full his personal vision for his debut feature. The laboratory was unable to cope with the experimental Thomascolor process. Tati knew there could be problems so he shot the film with two cameras, one with b & w film. Jour de Fete was released in 1949, in black and white, to great acclaim. Finally, in 1995, under the direction of Tati's daughter, the film was released in France, as intended, and what a revelation it is. The colors in this film look unlike those of any film I've ever seen. It's been said the film "looks like the 1940s, not like the color films made then". Tati directed, co-wrote and starred as Francois, the cycling postman of the village of St. Severe-sur-Indre. Tati's observations of village life are based on the year he lived there during the occupation. His intimate familiarity with the terrain and the residents of the village shows in every frame. The brilliant comedic gags recall the best of Keaton, although Tati's are more subdued and require more attention on the part of the viewer. The interplay between background and foreground action provides the film with riches that cannot be fully grasped in one viewing. The film takes place the day villagers prepare and set up a fair/carnival; "fair day", in which an itinerant cinema shows a short about the technologically advanced and efficient mail-delivery system in America; and the next day, as Francois attempts to speed-up and modernize his delivery methods while the town returns to normal. There's plenty of subtext about the complex and ambivalent feelings the French had about the USA and its influence during the late 1940s. There's no doubt the film's impact is somewhat diminished when viewed at home. Either way, a wonderful experience.

[Chris Knipp]

The issue of the rating system does come up. I don't think it's necessary. All you have to do is express some emotion in what you say and use a phrase like "worth watching" or "terrific" or "don't waste your time." If you see too many movies to be able to do that then maybe you see too many movies. I can imagine your being in too much of a hurry to decide; or, not having much time to spend, don't want to make a negative judgement, so just give a kind of neutral catalog description. I don't know what you mean about Hoberman when you say "I react to his writing the way you react to mine." How do you khow, and what do you mean? If you mean what you seem to mean, I wasn't aware there was any trouble telling whether he likes a movie or not. I don't think you're much like Hoberman and, of course, neither am I, though we both like his writing.


What makes La Noire de... such a singular achievement is Sembene's ability to create a fictional narrative that illustrates with great nuance and economy a) the status and conditions of the colonist and the colonized and their relationship, b) how environment (Senegal and France) alters and impacts on race and class issues, and c) the appropriation and commodification of aspects of black culture by Europeans/whites.I don't get any sense of an emotional reaction or is this what you'd call pure intellectual pleasure? How would this be different from just reading a book? How is this different from Charcoal People of which you say it "is a good doc that folks particularly interested in labor and environmental issues must watch, but it's not compelling enough for the general viewer"? Again, I'm not trying to get on your case, just to help you put more emotional punch into your movie journal-writing so it's really a journal and not just a descriptive list.

[oscar jubis]

Hoberman always makes interesting obsevations but I often have difficulty figuring out whether he recommends a film or not, and also figuring out how he "feels" about certain films. What's important is that I always learn from him .
La Noire was clearly intellectually stimulating (in a non-didactic way) but also had great emotional impact (without being melodramatic). To reveal more would spoil the experience of would-be viewers.

Monday May 2nd

Arizona Dream (USA/France, 1993) on PAL dvd
Bosnian director Emir Kusturica made two great movies prior to Arizona Dream (When Father Was Away On Business and Time of the Gipsies) and two after (Underground and White Cat, Black Cat), but I was disappointed with this English-language film. Kusturica has assembled a very attractive cast lead by the always-charming Johnny Depp as a fish-counter conned by his movie-obsessed friend (Vincent Gallo) to travel to Arizona to attend uncle Sweetie (Jerry Lewis)'s wedding to a young East European girl with a crying habit. They meet some very strange people, most notably, a widow fascinated with home-made flying machines played by Faye Dunaway and her suicidal step-daughter played Lili Taylor. These characters are defined by their unique quirks and obsessions, which drive the action. Other than Depp's, the other characters are eccentric caricatures. There are inspired moments, including a very funny scene in which Taylor attempts suicide by trying to hang herself with a pair of pantyhose, and some striking images, but overall this uneven film lacks a sense of purpose. It's interesting to note that most of the main characters either consider, attempt, or commit suicide because Kusturica's own deep depression caused shooting to be interrupted for three months.
Arizona Dream is only available in the US on a vhs version that's 23 minutes shorter than the original version (European Version I guess). This version I watched is the complete 142-minute version available on dvd in the UK.
It's only fair to share that mine is a minority opinion. For instance, 66% of IMdb voters rate this film "8" of higher. It's not without merits but, in my opinion, it's not worth watching unless you are a big fan of Depp.

[oscar jubis]

Tuesday May 3rd

Walk on Water at SoBe Regal
www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=10471#post10471

[oscar jubis]

Wed. May 4th

Elephant (USA, 2003) on dvd
Not much to add to the comments made after 1st viewing on the film's thread www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=684 except to highlight the important contribution of cinematographer Harry Savides (Gerry, Birth), specifically the gliding, cruise-controlled camera movements and the expressive use of (out of) focus.

[oscar jubis]

Thursday May 5th

Demonlover (France, 2003) on dvd
A multi-lingual thriller of corporate espionage written and directed by a true film artist, Oliver Assayas (Irma Vep) and starring Connie Nielsen, Chloe Sevigny and Charles Berling. A modern thriller with the requisite chases, break-ins, shootings, car bombs, and hand-to-hand combat, this time mostly executed by female executives who are technologically savvy and ruthless. But not for a moment do any of the characters seem to acknowledge the moral implications of their actions. Every character lost his or, especially, her soul by the time we meet them so it's hard to care. The performances, particularly Connie Nielsen in the central role, are rather flat. No surprise both Ms. Nielsen and Chloe Sevigny state in interviews included on the dvd that "there was no input from him, like maybe the acting wasn't important at all" (Sevigny). What I enjoyed very much were the images crafted by Mr. Assayas and his crew, which are often disorienting and always interesting, and the disonant score by the American band Sonic Youth which matches and accentuates the visuals perfectly.

Nazarin (Mexico, 1959) on TCM
Turner Classic Movies is showing an excellent selection of Golden Era Mexican films every thursday during the month of May. Nazarin is one of the last films Luis Bunuel directed in Mexico prior to his return to Europe. It won the International Prize at Cannes and the Ecumenical Prize from the International Catholic Cinema Office. The latter would be surprising for a filmmaker with a reputation of being an anti-clerical. This is the film that can serve as strong evidence that Bunuel's anti-establishment and anti-institutional stance never meant a repudiation of Christian values. Nazarin stars Francisco Rabal as Father Nazario, a priest who truly attempts to lead a life modeled after Christ's but the greed, envy and hypocrisy of people and institutions (particularly Church and State) result in his being humiliated, beaten and jailed. Nazario's efforts to improve the lives of the thiefs, beggars and prostitutes he encounters are continuously sabotaged. Several surreal moments and grotesque presentations peppered throughout the linear narrative are pure Bunuel. Not to be missed.

[Chris Knipp]

You will find strong opposition to your dismissal of demonlover from Assayas devotees, but not from me. I much like you found it incoherent and uninvolving, and your note on the actors reporting no input from the director is telling. As usual your evaulation is balanced, perhaps more than mine would be, since I find the overall effect unsatisfying, but you are no doubt right to offer favorable comment on the images and sound track.

[JustaFied]

Originally posted by oscar jubis
Yes, JustaFied, Decline is a prequel of sorts to Barbarian. Yes, it's worth checking out but it's not as memorable as Barbarian (although it won 9 Canadian Academy awards and a FIPRESCI award at Cannes).
Barbarian is more expansive both visually and thematically. As you've pointed out, the dichotomy between the boomers and the next generation is particularly interesting, and you won't find that in Decline. My recollection is that the prequel is just as funny and perhaps just as sad. It takes place on a single day and it's even more dialogue-driven than Barbarian. The basic thesis is that the boomers obsession with hedonistic pursuits at the expense of everything else is indicative of a society in decline. There are three set ups: the men at Remy's lakeside house, the women at the health club, and a gender clash over dinner. The main topic is sex and the game of choice is intellectual oneupmanship.
Please share your opinions if you decide to watch it.

I've since seen "Decline of the American Empire", so I'll briefly respond to your comments from some time ago. I liked "Decline" but found it less reflective and more narrow in scope than "Barbarian". This is probably a reflection of the mindset of the characters in each film. The subject matter in "Barbarian", being broader in scope, made the film more interesting to me, and its story had a greater emotional impact. The story in "Barbarian" is multifaceted, touching on issues as wide ranging as the relationships between generations, the aging of the Boomer generation, the State-sponsored "war on drugs", and the inefficiencies of the Canadian health care system. How can one be bored watching this film! The story in "Decline" primarily revolves around the rather selfish, insular world of the characters involved. Minor correction, however: I believe the name of the film (Decline of the American Empire) as described refers to a society's proven decline once its populace attains sufficient time and freedom to seek self-happiness. Such happiness is not necessarily limited to hedonistic pursuits, though that seems to be the primary focus in the film. I don't think the original intent of the expression was necessarily a moral one.

[oscar jubis]

*"Uninvolving" would certainly describe my reaction to demonlover, the first film from Assayas I don't want to watch again and the first one I can't recommend.
*JustaFied, obviously we agree on both Decline and the wonderful Barbarian Invasions. Your comments are insightful.

Saturday May 7th

Off the Map at Regal Avenues in Jacksonville, FL.

Campbell Scott returns to the director's chair to adapt Joan Ackermann's play about a family living in a remote area of New Mexico in 1974. As the film opens, a woman, Bo, played by Amy Brenneman examines mementos from her childhood. A dissolve flashes back thirty years to Jo as a verbose, energetic girl of about 11 years old. "That was the summer of my father's depression" she says in voice-over, and indeed, Charley (Sam Elliott) appears almost catatonic during the early scenes. Bo, Charley and his wife Arlene live miles from the nearest road, in an adobe house devoid of modern conveniences. They live off the land and Charley's veteran's pension check. Reasonably happy, self-contained lives until Charley is stricken by a deep depression of unknown etiology. Going into town to see a psychiatrist is out of the question, but eventually Charley's close friend (and sole visitor) George gives in to Arlene's request to fake being depressed to get anti-depressants for Charley. In the meantime, William, a young, insecure IRS man finally locates their home. We learn the Grodens haven't filed for seven years. William's visit becomes longer, much longer than anyone could anticipate, a catalyst for change for the whole family.
Off The Map is one of those earnest American independent films with a strong regional flavor and an unhurried pace that's box-office poison. More character-based than action-driven thus an actor's showcase. Though the performances are uniformly good, it's Joan Allen who shines as the complex, force-of-nature Arlene. Campbell Scott is very careful here not to overuse voice-over and the film as a whole is extremely "quiet", as befits its desert-and-mountains landscape, with sporadic use of a vaguely percussive music score. A modest film perhaps, entirely observed from a child's p.o.v., with occasional, probably ill-advised detours into whimsy near the end. Still, this well-observed, beautiful, graceful, well-acted, coming-of-age Amerindie is full of heart.

[Chris Knipp]

Off the Map--I wanted to see this but now it's gone.

Assayas--admittedly I have only seen six of his 20-some films, but I still don't see what all the fuss is about.

[oscar jubis]

Assayas has directed 10 fiction features. The first five were not distributed in the USA. They are: Disorder, Winter's Child, Paris Awakens, A New Life, and Cold Water, a wonderful film about a teenage couple set in the 70s which had a special screening here in '95, sponsored by the French Consulate. I'd love to watch it again. Then came Irma Vep, a film I consider a masterpiece and my favorite film about movie-making (yes, I like it more than Godard's Contempt and Truffaut's Day For Night), followed by Late August, Early September, Les Destinees, demonlover, and Clean, which you've seen but won't open comercially in the US until September.

Sunday May 8th

The Kid (1921) on TCM
Thr Tramp raises a child abandoned by an unwed mother in this very personal project for Charlie Chaplin and his first feature film. Chaplin himself had suffered a traumatic separation from a mother he idolized, and he started working on The Kid ten days after the death of his son Norman Spencer Chaplin, who lived for only three days. Besides Chaplin's established genius as a creator of visual gags, what makes The Kid such a delight is the chemistry between Chaplin and 4 year-old vaudeville performer Jackie Coogan.

[Chris Knipp]

I didn't get Irma Vep at all. It all seemed hype to me. Cold Water has sounded good to me.

[oscar jubis]

Irma Vep is too rich to discuss in brief and has too many facets to absorb in one viewing. The premise is a crew's quixotic attempt to remake my favorite French silent, Louis Feuillade's Les Vampires, starring a Hong Kong actress, the future Mrs. Assayas Maggie Cheung (playing herself). It's great fun to watch the rivalry that develops between a has-been director played by Truffaut's alter-ego Jean Pierre Leaud and a female costume designer, both attempting to seduce the iconic Cheung. But actually, like in choice Altman, every single character is complex and nuanced. One learns a lot about filmmaking as a creative enterprise and about the issues that arise in international shoots. It's very interesting how each character creates an image of Cheung based on his/her needs and prejudices. The integration of image and soundtrack is masterful, most especially the use of music.

Monday May 9th

Wanda (USA, 1970) on PAL dvd (French)

Winner of the Critics Prize at the 1970 Venice Film Festival, received great reviews during its commercial run at the Cinema II in Manhattan, and then erased from memory. At least in the USA. Europeans, particularly the French, wouldn't let it disappear. This independent feature, the only one directed by Barbara Loden before she died at age 48, was re-released in France in 2003, and then on dvd last year. What a revelation it is! An honest, cliche-free character study of a drifter lost in the coal towns of western Pennsylvania. A feminist film perhaps, yet free of dogma and didacticism. An improvisational film to a great extent yet not a moment seems superfluous. Shot in 16 mm, mostly with handheld cameras, yet never amateurish or crude. Wanda is a woman whose aimlessness and good figure make her particularly vulnerable, but she is not a "victim". Wanda can perhaps be described as a person who is not a good fit for the roles available within her milieu. She ellicits our sympathy even though she seems to have little interest in her two children, whom she admits are "better off" with her ex-husband. Tony-award winner Barbara Loden wrote, directed and played the main role in a film that deserves a place of honor amongst the great American Independent films. Wanda is every bit as good as Cassavetes' Shadows, Kastle's The Honeymoon Killers, or Biberman's Salt of the Earth. It's simply too good to remain in obscurity.

[Chris Knipp]

Why did all that completely elude me? I think there's just something about Assayas' style that turns me off, sometimes anyway; but there are a lot of his films I haven't seen.

[oscar jubis]

Assayas' style is difficult to pinpoint because each of his films I've seen is quite different from the others. Perhaps you'd respond more positively to Late August, Early September (if you haven't seen it I'd like to recommend it to you). I'd be hard to guess that its director made demonlover.

Tuesday May 10th

Palindromes at SoBe Regal

Ten years after Welcome to the Dollhouse, writer/director Todd Solondz recalls Dawn Wiener, its wronged and angry almost-teen protagonist. It's her funeral and brother Mark delivers the eulogy. We learn she got fat and pregnant_from a date-rape_and killed herself. The reviewer from the Miami Herald calls it Solondz's "cruelest joke" and can't seem to forgive him for the rest of the film (a reaction that's probably not uncommon). I suppose Dollhouse is his most popular film and the one that poses little challenge to the viewer's conceptions and sensibilities. The films that followed were increasingly controversial, even offensive to some. Dollhouse is an excellent dysfunctional family comedy but its scope was rather narrow and apolitical. Palindromes cannot posibly be as popular. It's a biting satire pointed at society-at-large, with something to offend sensitive types of every political persuasion. The central character is Aviva (Hebrew for Spring), a girl of about 13 and Dawn's cousin. The character, a love-starved innocent, is played by 8 different actors including a boy, and obese African-American woman, and Jennifer Jason Leigh. A device meant to illustrate the fact that certain basic aspects of one's personality remain unchanged as we age. They're resistant to change, resistant to our will perhaps. Aviva's saga involves teen sex, pedophilia, abortion, selfish parents, and fanatics from left and right. I found it consistently funny and provocative, with a wonderful, over-the-top performance from Ellen Barkin as Aviva's mom. Palindromes has plenty to shake you out of your comfort zone, including a couple of Christian musical numbers performed by a group of disabled kids. Solondz is an original and Palindromes is one of his best films.

Dear reader, please post to tell me why you've avoided Palindromes. It's been playing for two weeks and none of my fellow movie-lovers here seems to have seen it. I know it's not because of the reviews: Two thums up, A- from Entertainment Weekly, 4 stars from Sterrit at Christian S. Monitor and Jones at the Chicago Reader, "a great film" says Armond White. I imagine there's an equal number of negative reviews, a film like this is bound to divide critics and audience. But, don't you want to have an opinion? Wouldn't you rather be angry with a movie than bored by it? I've resisted any mention of plot as to not to spoil your experience.

[Johann]

I'm looking very forward to Palindromes, and all the reviews I've read are positive: "Solondz' best!", "Provacatively Perfect!", etc.

I'll try to catch it soon- I'm back on the west coast again.
simply cannot pass up the Pasolini retrospective at the PC, which is pretty comprehensive. A few interview films, a few docs, and all the features. On the big screen. That's what I love...

[oscar jubis]

Thanks for your response J. Please let me know what you think about it. Storytelling had its moments but overall it was a letdown after the brilliant Happiness (1998). I think Palindromes is a return to form, and a film that should be generating some spirited debates here if folks weren't ignoring it. A Pasolini retro is too much to resist though. I was watching Paso's films in chronological order last year but I got sidetracked. I hope to restar the project with Gospel and move forward later this year. I'll try to look for your Pasolini thread and post there. I also hope to rewatch a few Bergman soon to prepare for Saraband's commercial run.

Wednesday May 11th

Circle of Deceit (Germany, 1981) on dvd

Director Volker Schlondorff's follow-up to Oscar-winner The Tin Drum starring Bruno Ganz (Wings of Desire, Downfall) as a journalist who leaves his marital battlefield in Berlin to cover the Lebanese civil war. In Beirut, he gets involved with a German widow (Hanna Schygulla) and clashes with several western colleagues regarding the role of the media in such conflicts. A high-budget production, shot in Beirut while the war was taking place, with good performances from a first-rate cast, and a nice score by Maurice Jarre that incorporates Arabic themes. It's the immediacy of its war scenes, the authenticity of its locale, and its provocative take on the role of the media that make Circle of Deceit stand out in a subgenre that's produced quite a few worthy features.

[oscar jubis]

Thursday May 12th

La Perla (Mexico/US, 1947) on TCM
John Steinback was on vacation in Mexico in 1941 when a local told him a tale about an impoverished diver who finds a big pearl and how the event affects his life. Steinback befriended actor/director Emilio "El Indio" Fernandez and out of friendship agreed to write the screenplay prior to publishing the short novel he based on the simple fable. They cast Pedro Armendariz in the lead role of this Mexican-American co-production that went on to win 5 Ariels (Mexican Academy awards) and a Golden Globe for Gabriel Figueroa's cinematography. La Perla is a stunning-looking film shot on location in La Paz, Mexico with an excellent performance by Armendariz. La Perla was inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2002. There's an English-dubbed version that was released by RKO in the US but Turner Classic Movies showed the Spanish-language version with excellent new subtitles. The network's Classic Mexican Cinema series continues during the next two thursdays. It's a rare opportunity to sample the vital cinema of Mexico's Golden Age.

La Vie de Chateau (France, 1965) on dvd
A nazi officer and a French spy are more interested in Phillipe Noiret's bored wife, played by Catherine Deneuve, than in WWII strategy in Jean-Paul Rappeneau's romantic comedy. Music by Michel Legrand. Entertaining, breezy and diverting.

[HorseradishTree]

Originally posted by oscar jubis
Dear reader, please post to tell me why you've avoided Palindromes. It's been playing for two weeks and none of my fellow movie-lovers here seems to have seen it. I know it's not because of the reviews: Two thums up, A- from Entertainment Weekly, 4 stars from Sterrit at Christian S. Monitor and Jones at the Chicago Reader, "a great film" says Armond White. I imagine there's an equal number of negative reviews, a film like this is bound to divide critics and audience. But, don't you want to have an opinion? Wouldn't you rather be angry with a movie than bored by it? I've resisted any mention of plot as to not to spoil your experience. [/B]

I've been interested in seeing this since my friend told me how much he loved Storytelling. Unfortunately, Albuquerque isn't exactly the ultimate film venue; I'm surprised I even got to see Crash.

[oscar jubis]

Thanks for your response Tree. Palindromes has played at only 42 screens, two locally. It played on South Beach, where I watched it, for a single week. That's it! On its second week in Ft. Lauderdale, it's down to a single show daily. I'm sorry to say moviegoers have failed to show the support needed for the film to expand to smaller markets. The lack of a bankable star (JJ Leigh is a great actress but no b.o. magnet) has hurt the film's prospects. The name Solondz (director Todd) is apparently not enough to get the average moviegoer interested. If you haven't seen it, run to rent Happiness and support the one interesting film playing at your multiplex: Millions, a family film from the makers of Trainspotting.

Friday May 13th

Look at Me at SoBe Regal
Former-marrieds Agnes Jaoui and Jean-Pierre Bacri are excellent writers. They collaborated on the scripts for Resnais' Same Old Song, Kaplisch's Un Air de Famille, and The Taste of Others, starring Bacri and directed by Jaoui. They repeat the feat here and Look at Me deservedly won the best screenplay award at Cannes 2004. Bacri plays an admired, middle-aged writer going through a creative crisis, married to a younger wife who's getting fed up with his antics, and father to Lolita, a 20 year-old aspiring singer who desperately needs his attention and approval. Jaoui plays Lolita's voice coach and the wife of a writer dealing with professional insecurity. Bacri's famous writer is pedantic and standoffish but his status and fame attract those around him, including Lolita's "boyfriend". She's heartbroken by the realization and builds a protective wall. As a result, Lolita might miss out on a relationship with Sebastien, a chance acquaintance who truly cares for her.
I couldn't find a single false moment in the entire picture. It's impossible to single out any actor here because the whole ensemble excels. I greatly admire Jaoui and Bacri for creating characters that felt to me "true-to-life", warts and all. There's absolutely no condescension to an audience need to sympathize with characters, their humanity is entirely conveyed through struggle with their weaknesses. There's so much unforced humor and great music (and singing) to balance the social frictions that I was sad to see the film end. A hit at the Miami Film Festival and the best reviewed festival film other than Bergman's Saraband.

[oscar jubis]

Sat May 14th

3-Iron at SoBe Regal
South Korean director Kim Ki-duk's film about a young man who breaks into households with absent owners to live in them, not to steal anything. He meets an abused wife after a break-in of a house he thought was empty. They develop a relationship gradually without ever speaking a word to each other. A visually splendid romance with a premise that provides a conduit to a cross-section of Koreans. Some may like the magical twist at the end but it felt like a cope-out to me, an easy-way-out with a banal quote that made it even more facile. Recommended viewing nonetheless.

[trevor826]

"Some may like the magical twist at the end but it felt like a cope-out to me, an easy-way-out with a banal quote that made it even more facile."

I must admit I did like the "magical twist at the end" but I found the film as a whole to be quite ethereal . A few of Ki-Duk Kims films have strange or inexplicable endings, The Isle for one, Birdcage Inn threw me as well but he certainly gives you something to think about.

Thanks for going on to recommend it despite your niggles because this film is an unique experience.

Cheers Trev.

[oscar jubis]

Trev, good point about the endings of Ki-duk's films. Another case in point would be Samaria, with its symbolic, long-shot ending. I agree that 3-Iron provides a unique and rewarding experience. Another contemporary Asian filmmaker with a unique, personal vision is Apitchapong Weerasethakul. I like his films even more than Ki-duk's. I'm curious regarding your take on his Tropical Malady or any of his previous films.

Sunday May 15th

Funeral Parade of Roses (Japan, 1969) on NTSC R2 dvd.
At the same time as the Nouvelle Vague, an equally vital and exciting New Wave in cinema was taking place in Japan. These films were not distributed as widely in the West for obvious cultural reasons. They have gradually become available in home video formats. I'm still in the early stages of discovery and appreciation of these films.
Brief list of key directors and representative films: Yasuzo Masumura (Red Angel, Giants and Toys), Shoei Imamura (The Pornographers, The Insect Woman), Hiroshi Teshigahara (Woman in the Dunes, The Face of Another), Seijun Suzuki (Branded to Kill, Fighting Elegy, Youth of the Beast), Nagisa Oshima (Cruel Story of Youth, The Sun's Burial), Kaneto Shindo (Onibaba). Today I discovered the cinema of Toshio Matsumoto, a man unknown to me until his Funeral Parade of Roses was released on dvd in Japan last year with English subtitles. This movie is truly something especial.

Funeral Parade of Roses is a masterful blend of many genres and styles into a seamless, awesome display of artistry. There is a narrative plot at its center with young transvestite Eddie as protagonist. She (her preference) works as a hostess at a gay club named Genet whose 40ish owner is a lover of both Eddie and the aging club "madame" Leda. Eddie's life includes shopping sprees with other "queens", working at the club, attending wild after-hours parties, and shooting experimental, underground films with her arty friends (including another lover who dons a fake beard and goes by the name Guevara). Her wonderful life is disturbed by debilitating, intrusive childhood memories, seen in flashback. We witness his struggles forging an identity, as a pre-adolescent, and a tragic episode involving his mother and one of her paramours. Eddie doesn't remember his father. His only memento is a family picture; one with his father's face burned out with a cigarrette by his mother. Eventually the mystery is revealed as the film comes to an ending of tragic proportions.
A confident and assured blend. A sample: erotic but never explicit sex scenes in which overlit close-ups predominate; documentary scenes in which the actors are interviewed regarding being gay and/or transvestite in Japanese society; montage sequence of paintings of masks and distorted faces when Eddie wanders into an art gallery with a voice-over discussing social role-playing; quick cut to a line-up of young naked men facing a white wall, one has a rose between his buttocks; a beautiful shot taken from an elevator as it ascends Tokyo's Observation tower; a variety of intertitles of literary quotes; sped-up, slapstick montage of the "queens" fighting a trio of gang girls to a carnival music score; dialogue that references JP Sartre and Jonas Mekas ("All definitions of cinema have been erased"), among others; sensitive dramatic scenes of impeccable taste; a screaming showdown between Eddie and another hostess with word-balloons as used in comics, etc. An amazing display of artist virtuosity that never feels indulgent and not for a second detracts from the central story and its huge emotional impact. A great film.

The Family Jewels (USA, 1965) on vhs
My 11 year old and I love Jerry Lewis and I needed a breezy comedy. Produced, directed, co-written and starring the great comedian who plays seven different roles here. About a rich, orphaned girl who must choose a guardian among her five wacky uncles but ends up insisting on her lovable chauffer and bodyguard.

[oscar jubis]

Monday May 16th

Children Underground (USA, 2001) on dvd
Edet Beltzberg's doc about five Romanian kids living at a subway station in Bucharest won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 2001. Beltzerg's approach is non-intrusive and non-didactic, recording the kids' daily lives without narration or intervention. Title cards inform that 20,000 homeless kids live in Bucharest, a legacy of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu's policies banning abortion and all forms of birth control to increase the labor force. We get a clear picture of harrowing routines that involve begging, stealing, fighting, scrounging for food, and inhaling paint fumes. Kids ranging in age from 8 to 16 tell their own stories of institutional and familial abuse, neglect, poverty and abandonment. Then Children Underground depicts the efforts of local and foreigners to provide assistance with limited resources and the prospects as these children grow into adulthood. A lucid, honest and revealing approach to documenting the lives of homeless children.

[oscar jubis]

Tuesday May 16th

The films directed by Jean Pierre Melville (1917-1973), born in Paris to a family of Alsatian Jews, constitute a perfect introduction to foreign films for anglophones. Melville, who adopted the surname of his favorite novelist in 1940, when he fled into England to join the Resistance, professed a deep love for American culture. In particular, he was enamored of movies from Hollywood's golden era. Melville was a natural, self-trained filmmaker who's often referred as a "Godfather of the New Wave" (Rosenbaum). His first masterpiece was Les Enfants Terribles, a collaboration with Jean Cocteau. In the 50s, Melville began to make more personal films that appropriated American iconography and placed it in a decidedly French context. Of particular interest, he made gangster and film noir movies that equal the best from Hollywood, where those genres originated.

Le Doulos (France, 1962) on PAL dvd
This film noir has gradually grown in esteem in the 40+ years since its release. It was included on a list of 100 Best Films chosen by the staff of the influential Cahiers du Cinema in the 90s. It's absolutely brilliant in every aspect of production_montage, editing and lighting in particular_but it's the remarkably intricate and airtight narrative that compelled me to watch it twice in one night. I wish anyone making a mystery thriller nowadays was required to watch it, as well as crits who overrate modern thrillers full of implausibilities and plot holes. Without going into specifics of its plot, themes of betrayal, deceit, revenge and guilt predominate. Jean Paul Belmondo excels as the police informer alluded in the title, but so does everyone else. I've seen several of Melville's crime films, which include Bob le Flambeur, Le Samourai, Un Flic, and Le Cercle Rouge (being remade in Hollywood by John Woo), but Le Doulos is my personal favorite. It's available on vhs in the US but try to get a hold of this disc released by the British Film Institute which includes an interview with assistant director Volker Schlondorff, and commentary on selected scenes.

[oscar jubis]

Wed. May 18th

"Kenji Mizoguchi is cinema's Shakespeare, its Bach or Beethoven"
James Quandt, Ontario Cinematheque

"The greatest of Japanese directors elluded general recognition as such only through unpropitious circumstances"
Alex Jacoby, Senses of Cinema

The Lady From Musashino (1951) on PAL dvd
Late-period Mizo starring the amazing Kinuyo Tanaka (Ugetsu, Sansho the Bailiff). Ms. Kinuyo is Michiko, a woman trapped in a loveless marriage to the opportunistic Tadao. Tokyo is being bombed by the Allies as they return to her father's estate in Musashino, a nearby town. Michiko's father, who has instilled in her a strong sense of morality, warns her about Tadao. Michiko's parents die during the war years and she inherits their house and land. Michiko's cousin and childhood buddy Tsutomu returns from a p.o.w. camp in Singapore 3 years after the war's end. Japanese society has experienced tremendous upheaval with rapid change in ways and mores. Tamiko and Tsutomu grow close again while enjoying the pristine countryside, increasingly threatened by urban encroachment. Tadao's heavy drinking and philandering and Tsumoto's declaration of love test Michiko's sense of propriety but she sticks to her long-held values. Tsutomu drifts away. "Sleeping with you and your friends is making me sad", he tells a co-ed. Meanwhile, Tadao has an affair with his neighbor's duplicitous wife and plots to take possesion of Michiko's estate.
Like every film I've seen directed by Mizoguchi, Lady from Musashino is a humanist film of great complexity and formal beauty. The film documents with characteristic economy the changes experienced by the Japanese as a result of their defeat in WW II, the influence of western culture, and rapid urbanization. Extremely moving and thought-provoking.

Who's Minding the Store? (USA, 1963) on vhs
A Jerry Lewis vehicle written and directed by Frank Tashlin with an excellent supporting cast that includes Agnes Moorehead, Ray Walston, and Jill St. John. An entertaining mix of slapstick and satire of consumerism. A perfect palate-cleanser, a cool and fruity sorbet of a movie.

[Johann]

Huge thanks for this Mizoguchi review. I haven't seen this one.
PAL DVD?
That's it.
I'm biting the bullet and going shopping for a fucking multi-region player. Enough is enough.

[oscar jubis]

Thanks for reading my journal, J. I've been renting foreign discs from an outfit called nicheflix that specializes in PAL format and NTSC non-region 1 discs. I cannot afford to buy them all, of course. A multi-region player is more affordable than ever. This dvd of Musashino is a barebones disc released in the UK last year. The film is not available in N. America in any format.

[oscar jubis]

Thursday May 19th

El Compadre Mendoza (Mexico, 1934) on TCM
Hispanics are now the USA's number one minority group and L.A. has a new Mexican-American mayor but it's still remarkable that Turner Classic Movies broadcasted this film on prime time. Rated #3 best Mexican film ever in a critics' poll, Godfather Mendoza is not melodrama and features none of the stars popular with older Mexican-Americans. A story of the Mexican Revolution that de-emphasizes folkloric elements and goes against the grain by refraining from romanticizing the conflict. Fernando de Fuentes, the first great Mexican auteur, directs with great skill, particularly in the restrain of the performances, graceful transitions between sequences, and image composition. Chilean Alfredo del Diestro stars as Rosalio Mendoza who manages to survive at his large estate by skillfully manipulating and befriending both governmental and rebel leaders. The perennial fence-sitter's life is saved by rebel general Nieto after another rebel invades his house during Mendoza's posh wedding to the much-younger Lolita. Over the years, Nieto forges a close friendship with the Mendozas. He secretly loves Lolita, whose baby boy is named after Nieto, but never considers betraying his compadre. On the other hand, Mendoza is increasingly pressured by gov. leaders to set a trap for Nieto.
El Compadre Mendoza is a remarkably even-handed political drama that was not popular with Mexican audiences during the 1930s, probably because folkloric and romantic elements are minimally present. The support of critics and lovers of quality cinema has resulted in periodic revivals and TV screenings. Kudos to TCM for showing it (with excellent English subs).

[oscar jubis]

Friday May 20th

Secret Defense (France, 1998) on dvd
Jacques Rivette has been making wonderful films for about half a century but patience is required to enjoy them because of their duration. The 13-hour Out 1 is an anomaly but most of the others are close to three hours long. Their slack pace is certainly the reason most of his films have received limited distribution. I have only seen one, Va Savoir, at the theatre. Thankfully most of Rivette's films are available on video, including my beloved Celine and Julie Go Boating and Jeanne la Pucelle. The film I watched today concerns a researcher played by Sandrine Bonnaire who decides she's better equipped than her brother to take revenge on the man who allegedly killed her father five years earlier. There are obvious mystery and thriller elements within the premise but Rivette is mostly interested in characters not in keeping the rhythm a thriller demands. For instance, a sequence in which Bonnaire travels by bus and train from her apartment to the target's estate lasts exactly 18 minutes and could be ellided altogether without affecting narrative continuity. Bonnaire's performance is a marvel of sustained intensity and I enjoyed the time the sequence afforded me to reminisce about my European train trips, but my wife and, I suspect, many others expecting a thriller will be "bored" because "nothing happens" for long stretches of time. Rivette's command of film language and Sandrine Bonnaire's acting are the film's selling points. I buy but avoid if you're looking for a taut thriller.

Rio das Mortes (Germany, 1971) on dvd
Rainer Werner Fassbinder made 41 features in 13 years. Is it a surprise some of them are bad? Rio das Mortes is not a good film. Hanna Schygulla is Hanna, a young woman whose fiance Mike and his biracial pal Gunther somehow become obsessed with looking for buried Mayan(?!) temples in Peru. Most of the episodes concern different attempts to raise money for the trip. But the two interesting scenes have nothing to do with the plot. There's a scene in which Schygulla and Fassbinder, playing a bar patron, dance to Presley's "Jailhouse Rock". A second scene, most likely borrowed from one of Fassbinder's 60s theatre productions, features Hana and friends walking in a circle reciting revolutionary slogans in front of a chalkboard. On it a drawing of a giant penis with "USA" atop, except the "S" has been replaced with the symbol of Hitler's special forces. Besides these provocations, Rio das Mortes is crude, dull and uninteresting. The dvd's picture is very grainy and slightly cropped.

[oscar jubis]

Sat May 21st

Svjedoci aka Witnesses (Croatia, 2004) at Cosford Cinema
Vinko Bresan's film won the Peace Award at Berlin 2004. Three Croatian soldiers, on a short visit to their village, plan to blow up the home of a Serb they believe to be away. They are startled to find him home, machine-gun him and kidnap his young daughter. As police and press investigate, they ponder what to do about the girl.
The Croatian director has stated he wanted to bring to light the fact that it wasn't only the Serbians who committed atrocities and broke the rules of war by attacking civilians. He also wanted to denounce the Croatian government's lack of interest in investigating such incidents. Witnesses is told via fractured narrative with numerous flashbacks and repetition of scenes with a bit of detail added each time. It has the effect of forcing the viewer to constantly re-orient himself as to time and place, thus robbing the story of some of its considerable emotional impact. The film is set smack in the middle of the war, during the early 90s. Bresan makes it clear the authorities had no interest in finding the culprits of such incidents or bringing them to justice. But if he wanted to implicate the current politicos, he should have brought the story into the present, rather than making what amounts to a period piece. The story is powerful enough though and the filmmaking sufficiently accomplished to recommend Witnesses to anyone looking for an anti-war drama.

[Chris Knipp]

Back only on a temporary and limited basis.....I see you have not let up one bit, and am pleased to see some of your reviews are getting less neutral-sounding. Have not been able to see anything, hence no Palindromes. I can atttest that it has had quite negative reviews locally, and it may be no longer showing here. I also love Jean-Pierre Melville, but prefer Le Samourai to Le Doulos. Le Samourai is marvellously sustained and Delon's graceful, almost pure mime, performance is one of his very best. This is a film I never tire of watching. While you call the plot of Le Doulos airtight, I think it's a bit too hard to follow in some of the details, and some of the visuals are murky and unattractive. However, for noir atmosphere Melville is supreme and Le Doulos is no exception in that regard. I wonder why, if you consider it worth watching, your comment on 3-Iron is so very brief? I have not seen it; would like to of course.

[oscar jubis]

What a pleasure to have you back!
I wonder if you're comment about Le Doulos visuals being "murky and unattractive" has to do with the print you watched. It's one of the most attractive-looking high contrast b&w film noirs I've ever seen.
I also posted on 3-Iron's thread and will do so again. It's not nearly as good or as important a film as some of the older films I've been watching, some of which few Americans have seen (Wanda, Funeral Parade of Roses, Lady from Musashino,etc.) so I alloted more time and space to them.
I'm a bit behind with this thread's posts.

Sunday May 22nd

Life of Oharu (Japan, 1952) on PAL dvd
Kenji Mizoguchi won the Silver Lion at Venice for this follow-up to Lady of Musashino. Life of Oharu is a period film that's often been characterized as a feminist protest film (the "most powerful" states Rosenbaum). I think that definition fails to recognize that both characters who suffer tragic deaths are men of low social economic status, the two men who feel true love for the protagonist. What's under attack is not only patriarchy but also feudalism, a whole system of government and social stratification. Moreover, to characterize the film solely as a "protest" film gives the impression of a sullen, angry, somber film. Life of Oharu has intense moments of lyrical beauty and scenes inspired by the picaresque novel_a hilarious scene involves Oharu (Kinuyo Tanaka) training a cat to remove the wig worn by her abusive employer, who's concealing her bald spots from her husband.

When the film opens, Oharu is a 50 year-old street prostitute who wanders into a temple and gazes upon the idols, remembering her past 30 years. The film flashes back to Kyoto, 1686. Without going into specifics, Life of Oharu relates several incidents in which Oharu is treated as an object, a commodity to be valued solely as one able to provide decoration and sexual pleasure, and produce children. It's a materialist analysis, one that reveals the hypocrisy and decadence behind a facade of order and tradition. The cinematography features the depth-of-field used by Toland in films such as Citizen Kane, augmented by the most delicate and precise framing and composition of scenes. Unlike most films by Ozu, Mizoguchi is quite varied in his shot selection and camera angles, to striking effect.

[Chris Knipp]

You are probably quite right about the print of Le Doulos. It's a copy of a videotape and probably wasn't a good videotape to begin with. I need to get good DVD's of my favorite French films of that period; I know some of them look much better than my video copies

I still have some discomfort using the computer screen, but it apparently does no actual harm. I look forward to your contributing further to the 3-Iron thread. No doubt it isn't a major film, but I'm glad that it has led to some discussion; unfortunately the thread starter, Howard, has apparently decided we are ganging up on him... He needs an ally, or a moderator -- a role you are better than I at playing.

[oscar jubis]

I just followed your suggestion and posted again regarding 3-Iron. Which are your fave French films "of that period"? Perhaps I can comment re the best disc available of them.

Monday May 23rd

Promises (USA, 2001)
Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning doc directed by Justine Shapiro, B.Z. Goldberg and Carlos Bolado, shot between 1997 and 2000. The doc introduces seven Jewish and Palestinian kids living in and around Jerusalem and concerns primarily their views of the conflict and how it affects their daily lives. Quite compelling how kids who live only a 15-minute drive away from each other can lead such disparate lives. The doc attempts to breach this distance by having two Jewish boys visit a group of Palestinian kids living in the occupied territories. The visit provides some hope of a peaceful future despite all the inherent obstacles. The dvd provides footage of several of the subjects shot during the summer of 2004, which has value as a longuitudinal study similar to Michael Apted's "Up" series of documentaries. As far as taking a political stance, the filmmakers' wide choice of subjects almost guarantees a balanced viewpoint, which they don't betray.

[Chris Knipp]

Thank you for introducing your ever-moderate voice into the 3-Iron discussion. You're probably right that there's no point in getting too "het up" about this movie, if it's really not that significant an effort. It's diplomatic of you to say that everybody brings their "ideology" to the movie house. But how much, and how often, and how noticeably? The fact remains that how stringently and how appropriately people apply an ideology can have either a positive or a negative effect, on comments; conversely it's important how much respect is accorded to the apparent aims of the movie and the moviemakers themselves. Even given the importance of humanistic values and not encouraging stuff that's out and out wicked and nasty, there's still also a difference between an "ideology" and a set of aesthetic, stylistic, and technical criteria for what makes a good film, given that in this discussion what was being applied was legality and morality and generalizations about the decline of social values, rather than points about the movie's particular cinematic value. And by the way, I would also like somebody to explain to me what my ideology is. Or on second thought, no, maybe I wouldn't.....

I guess by French films of that period I meant anything from the Fifties or Sixties by François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, Jacques Rivette, Eric Rohmer, Louis Malle, Jean-Pierre Melville, Jacques Demy or Alain Resnais, partucularly not the obvious conventional choices such as the Criterion Collection lists; also possibly less known films in which such actors of the period as Jean-Paul Belmondo, Brigitte Bardot, Anna Karina, Jean-Claude Brialy, Bernadette Lafont, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Marie Laforêt and Jeanne Moreau appeared. Otherwise I do not at this point have any specific titles in mind -- except: I would like a copy of Roger Vadim's Sait-on jamais (No Sun in Venice, with its wonderful music by the Modern Jazz Quartet). And I'd like anything by Jean-Gabriel Albicocco, particularly the apparently lost La fille aux yeux d'or, with Marie Laforêt (I've got Le grand Meaulnes). Of course, though, some of my tape copies of these, such as I happen to have, are actually quite good, nothing like the somewhat murky Le Doulos, and as long as VCR's still exist, I have no need to replace them.

[oscar jubis]

Just lost a long post. I'll have to be brief.
Both Albicocco films you mention are available together on dvd for EUR 11 at amazon.fr. The Vadim film was released on video in France but now it's a hard-to-find collector's item.
I like your comments. I think a writer needs to be self-aware to know when his ideology is bearing stringently on his opinion/interpretation of a film and needs to be honest enough to disclose it openly.

Tuesday May 24th

Johnny Got his Gun (USA, 1971) on PAL dvd
Dalton Trumbo directed only one film, based on his 1939 novel, a National Book Award winner. This film adaptation won the Grand Jury Prize and FIPRESCI Prize at Cannes in 1971 but received only limited distribution in the US. Trumbo was an accomplished scriptwriter who was one of the blacklisted "Hollywood Ten". He based the novel on a newspaper account of a British soldier who lost all limbs and part of his brain during combat in WWI but was kept alive for scientific purposes. The novel is Trumbo's response to the question: what if it had happened to me? Joe, the protagonist is, like Trumbo, a youth raised in small town Colorado who was close to his father and moves to California with his mom and sisters when father dies. There are many other autobiographical details. The film alternates between b&w scenes of Joe being attended by army medics and nurses, and color scenes depicting his memories of life events, dreams, etc. It's quite poignant to hear doctors refer to him as "decerebrated" while we hear his thoughts in voice-over. Two of the most compelling scenes involve Joe becoming aware of the extent of his injuries and, years later, managing to communicate his wishes to another person. Trumbo's focus on Joe's plight keeps the film from sliding into didacticism although Trumbo's pacifist and anti-authoritarian stance is unquestionable. Johnny Got His Gun stars Timothy Bottoms as Joe, Jason Robards as his father, and in a supporting role, Donald Sutherland as Jesus Christ. This film is a must-see. It's available on vhs in the USA.

[Chris Knipp]

This film is perhaps indeed a must-see, but in my memory deeply depressing.

Thanks for the favorable comment. All this bears on your own earlier statement of principles. I don't know if becoming predictable is the worst thing that can happen to a film critic, but surely unpredictablility makes his or her latest pronouncements more exciting to come accross. This doesn't mean not being true to oneself in reading a movie, but approaching each one with as open a mind as possible.

I assume the amazon.fr Albicocco combo would not be NTSC, of course, but I could order it and have it sent to me here? I just may do that, though I have Le Grand Meaulnes. No Sun in Venice/Sait-on Jamais was never a great film, but it has certain unique qualities and a special charm for me because I saw it and was thrilled by it on one of my first trips to Europe (this is also true of Et Dieu Créa la Femme with the then daring nude shot of Bardot in the opening sequence). The MJQ soundtrack of NSIV is available on CD and is choice. It's a great part of the beauty of the film. I don't think the MJQ did many film scores and it adds great elegance and atmosphere. I have a great desire to see La Fille aux yeux d'or again and find out if it's as visually lush and stylish and baroque as it seemed back then.

[oscar jubis]

I haven't seen either Albicocco movie but I've seen the Modern Jazz Quartet live in NYC. I can see how a viewer would feel depressed after watching Johnny Got His Gun. It's a very effective film.

Leon Morin, Priest (France, 1961) on PAL dvd
The second of Melville's trio of films set during the occupation of France was a critical and commercial hit. The protagonist is not J.P. Belmondo's Morin but Emmanuelle Riva's Barny, a bisexual widow and atheist with communist leanings. As the film opens, Barny has her half-Jewish daughter baptized and entrusted to two old ladies living in the country. We are introduced to Barny's mostly female co-workers, some of which are collaborating to some extent with the occupying Italian and German forces. Her Jewish supervisor changes his identity and emigrates and Barny feels attracted to the beautiful woman who takes his place. Fifteen minutes into the film, she meets Morin. The balance of the film concerns the relationship that develops between these disparate characters. Will Barny's curiosity about Christianity result in a conversion? Will their acquaintance turn into friendship or perhaps, erotic passion? Will Barny actively pursue her new boss? Melville's first cut of the film, based on Beatrix Beck's autobiographical novel, was over one hour longer than the film that premiered at the Venice FF. While the film evokes quite successfully this tragic period in French history, aspects of Leon Morin, Priest that concern political collaboration/resistance are sketchy in the final cut. For instance, there's a brief scene in which Barny helps to hide a Jewish boy. It seems to come out of nowhere, and then the incident is never broached again. Mellvile was very proud of Leon Morin, Priest, going as far as calling it "perfect". It's undoubtedly a major film from a major director, but I wish we could see the 3-hour cut of the film. There are some dramatic setups at the onset that are not fully developed, in order to focus almost exclusively on the very interesting relationship between Barny and Morin. A relationship explored in all its complexities and ambiguities.

[Chris Knipp]

Albicocco is a very interesting director I think, and his career was all too short. Le Grand Meaulnes (AKA in English The Wanderer) as a book is a chilidhood classic in France, a very straightforward version in the film, but I think he does it full justice. As I have said, the style, which was very dark visually, of The Girl with the Golden Eyes made a huge impression on me, which I only realized much later, and I am dying to see it again and analyze it with what I know now. I saw it first at Cinema 16 which was a sort of film subscription series in New York in the early Sixties. Then I saw it during a minin film series at the American University in Cairo a couple of years later and it still lived up to my expectations, but that was a very long time ago.

I have not seen Léon Morin, but obviously should. It is funny that Belmondo had the dashing roles like in Breathless, and seemed best in that, and That Man from Rio, and Godard's things, but also had some very straight roles like this and Two Women, where he plays the very serious young socialist/communist, with glasses. You make clear a lot about the film and I wonder if it will some day be possible to restore the film to its original length, as, you imply, it should be. Was this from Nicheflix?

[oscar jubis]

Yes, Chris, I rented this dvd from Nicheflix. It's a British Film Institute release.

According to Ginette Vicendeau, author of the ironically titled "Jean Paul Melville: An American in Paris", the 190-minute cut of the film, was only seen by Melville himself. He decided it was not "commercially viable" to release the film at that length and edited it down to 115 minutes. According to IMdb, a version lasting 130 minutes was shown on Swedish TV in 1971. The film is available on a vhs version released by Kino in the US in 2000.

For the film to work, the role of Morin had to be played by an attractive and youthful actor. Belmondo is quite believable in the role even though it's not a typical "Belmondo character".

I wanted to discuss the Catholic church's reaction to the film, but doing so entails revealing aspects of its resolution I am glad I didn't know about prior to watching it.

[Chris Knipp]

Thanks for the further information. Maybe we can get the information about the Catholic Church elsewhere if we want to. I always wondered whether Belmondo was really a good actor or just a cool guy with a certain amount of dash and physical energy, but he has certainly done a lot of acting in his life, including stage work. To me he will always be primarily the guy in Godard's classic Breathless, but of course, he could play serious, straighter roles.

I gather Nichefix is working out well for you. You seemed to have doubts earlier, partly because of its costing more than Netflix.

[oscar jubis]

Belmondo won one Cesar award for best actor in a 1988 Claude Lelouch film that was not released in English-speaking countries. I'd be curious to see it although I'm not a fan of Lelouch.
Nicheflix has a single shipping location in Indiana which means the discs take longer to get here than Netflix's, but I manage to rent 9-10 discs per month. They carry some great films that have been neglected in this country, including a few by American directors like Wanda and Chimes at Midnight.

Thursday May 26th

Ahi Esta El Detalle (Mexico, 1940) on TCM
The most highly regarded film starring the beloved comedian Cantinflas is this hilarious comedy of errors. The title translates to "There's the rub" or "There's the crux of the matter". Translation is a major issue as about half of the jokes are untranslatable. This is comedy based on language_ double-entendres and puns_and the delivery is vertiginous like in His Girl Friday or The Front Page. The character of Cantiflas here is a bum reminiscent of Boudu, not the reformed, socially-conscious Cantinflas of the films that followed. Even if the subs can only translate half the jokes, there are so many that non-Spanish-speakers will have fun too. But the universal appeal of Cantinflas, the Marx brothers and other text-based comedians cannot match Keaton's or Chaplin's.

[oscar jubis]

Friday May 27th

Whity (Germany, 1971) on dvd
Filmed in Cinemascope in Sergio Leone's set in Almeria, Spain, Whity is Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 10th film. It is sumptuous, a stark contrast to the films that preceded it, mostly 16 mm films with minimal camera movement. Whity marks the first collaboration between the director and DP Michael Ballhaus, shortly after they were introduced by actor/producer Ulli Lommel. Lommel, who has affectionately referred to Fassbinder as a "terrorist", states in the commentary that he was very antagonistic toward Ballhaus and kept providing artistic challenges. One scene lasting four minutes involves complicated dolly and panning shots with the camera zooming in and out in constant motion. Upon seeing the rushes, Fassbinder stormed out in tears and told Lommel: "He's a fucking genius!". Then got so drunk that the next day's shooting had to be cancelled. Incidents during the shooting of Whity formed the basis of the film Beware of the Holy Whore, which regretably I have yet to watch. I pass the pen to Chuck Stephens.

"Dessicated scion Ben Nicholson presides over a family of drooling nitwits, mincing transvestites, and nymphomaniac schemers, each caked in thick whiteface, the shade of which seems to vary, scene-by-scene. The family's hunky, long-suffering man-servant Whity (played by Gunther Kaufmann, a longtime fixture in Fassbinder's ensemble and intermittent feature in the director's bed), is a delicate Mandingo in a too-tight monkey suit, his mouth a lacquered slash of stark-white lipstick. Though lovingly devoted to a family who consider him nothing but "the cross we must bear", Whity soon finds himself smitten with saloon-chanteuse Hanna Schygulla and in her arms learns that in love begins liberation, and in liberation, death.
Whity groans with political provocations of every design_from the grotesquely char-darkened Mammy who bugs her eyes and tunelessly warbles "glory, glory, Hallelujah" to a moment of tender sexuality between two men and a horse. Thirty years in obscurity has dimmed Whity's exuberant excesses not one footcandle, and those who fear the worst may find that time, in this rare case, has been but a tender whip."

[oscar jubis]

Saturday May 28th

Crash (USA, 2005) at AMC Americas
www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=10930#post10930

Sunday May 29th

Life Stories:A Conversation with F.W. Fassbinder (Germany, 1978)

The longest interview given by Fassbinder was conducted by Peter Jansen, who edited the first book on the maverick director. Fassbinder discusses how he lived his first years of life in a home with many adults so that he failed to differentiate his parents from other adults present, how his need to tell stories manifested itself very early on, his theatrical education, the formation of his anti-teater group, the autobiographical bent of his films' content, recurrent themes in his work, etc.

I Don't Just Want You To Love Me (Germany, 1993)

This 96-minute documentary directed by Hans Gunther Pflaum is the best introduction to F. W. Fassbinder and his career. Nice combination of interviews of a dozen key collaborators interspersed with the most telling scenes from several of his 43 features. For Fassbinder, his crew was like a family, like a nomadic artistic commune. He was extremely demanding and manipulative, "terrorizing" and inspiring, cruel and tender. The theme of freedom vs. confinement (internal and external) perhaps the salient theme, but also a chronicler of post-war Germany, an expert at depicting relationships as power struggles, a Mondrian-like painter on celluloid, self-destructive and emotionally vulnerable yet extremely efficient and economical as a filmmaker. His tendency toward single takes kept his crew and cast tense and focused, and made his prolificacy possible. The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant singled out as perhaps his most autobiographical movie.

[oscar jubis]

Monday May 30th

Kingdom of Heaven at AMC Americas
Even though Ridley Scott has stated that the "correct" or "definite" cut is 220 minutes long and coming out on dvd, I headed to the theatre for the 145-minute cut. Epic spectacles demand big screens. Eva Green has complained that most of her performance, including a steamy sex scene, were excised from the theatrical cut. I was sorry to hear this and agree that her Sybilla was short-shifted.
What remains is an entertaining, coherently told episode from the Crusades involving a somewhat fictionalized Balian, who saved the lives of thousands of Jerusalem inhabitants during a siege led by the Muslim leader Saladin. Kingdom of Heaven is no Spartacus but it is a good movie. Orlando Bloom is adequate (much better than Farrell in Alexander) and the supporting cast is superb: Brendan Neeson, David Thewlis, Jeremy Irons, Syrian actor Ghassan Massoud, etc.
The storytelling is surprisingly lucid given the abbreviated cut. The scene of the Siege of Jerusalem is absolutely stunning, an expert staging of a remarkable event involving ingenious strategic defenses. Production values are excellent overall, most notably the art direction and design. The film avoids showing favoritism for any religion, portraying extremists on both sides as the villains. The latter are one-dimensional characters, at least on this cut, which limits the film's scope. Recommended.

[Chris Knipp]

I wish I could see it, along with Brothers, Mysterious Skin, and several others, but it's not in the program right now.

[HorseradishTree]

I pretty much agree with you on Kingdom. The thing that most pleased me was Saladin's portrayal. As an amateur historian, I've always been fascinated by this ruler and his masterful diplomatic handlings. I'm relieved they didn't turn him into a caricature. I can still trust Ridley Scott as a filmmaker.

[hengcs]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
I wish I could see it, along with Brothers, Mysterious Skin, and several others, but it's not in the program right now.


I have watched BOTH these movies.
;)

I really want to write the reviews (esp. for some "recent" movies that I have watched ... and those that I informed that I will post my comments ... *guilty*)
sigh ...

Kind of hectic these few weeks ...
Moreover, I will be out of town soon, for about 3 weeks ...
sigh ...

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by HorseradishTree
The thing that most pleased me was Saladin's portrayal.

I hope Kingdom of Heaven stays in theatres long enough for Chris to watch it and regale us with his insightful commentary.
I was also impressed by Ghassan Massoud's portrayal of Saladin. Massoud is an actor, theatre director and drama teacher in Damascus. I wish we had access to his performances in Syrian films such as The Chant of Rain.

Tuesday May 31st

Lola (Germany, 1981) on dvd

When The Marriage of Maria Braun was released in 1980, we had no idea we were watching the first installment of Fassbinder's Bundesrepublik Deutschland trilogy. When Lola came out the following year, "BRD 3" appeared above the title. The director explained that Lola was the third and his next film would be the second installment of a trilogy dealing with three women against the background of post-war Germany and its so-called "economic miracle".

Lola appropriates the name of the protagonist of Sternberg's classic The Blue Angel (1930), an adaptation of Heinrich Mann's novel "Professor Unrat" about the demise of a morally upright middle-ager in love with an indecent woman. Fassbinder has created a bon-bon of a movie, a candy-colored confection. This Lola is an expensive whore and chanteuse who dreams of owning the bordello. Her regular client is a sleazy developer, a coarse man getting rich at the public's expense. His nemesis is new building commissioner Herr von Bohn, who aims to fight the self-serving ruling elite by forcing them to abide by established codes and laws. Barbara Sukova and Armin Mueller-Stahl both won German Academy awards for their acting as Lola and von Bohn. Ultimately, this brightly colored, frothy concoction is more about the pervasive allure of capitalist immorality than about sex. The blunt ending pulls the rug right under you.

[Chris Knipp]

I hope I can see it while it's still onscreen too, and thanks for the compliment. I also heard good things about Ghassan Massoud from an old friend here who saw the film and knows my interest in Arabic culture. A point you bring out is that I guess we don't have much access at all here to Arabic films of the past. They could probably be obtained in the Arab world but aren't available on the market here.

[oscar jubis]

We have poor access to Arabic culture in general at the moment. Looking forward to both Brothers and Mysterious Skin opening here this month at SoBe Regal. At home, my Fassbinder exploration continues...

Wednesday June 1st

Veronika Voss (Germany, 1982)
The last film completed by Fassbinder won the Golden Bear at Berlin. It's actually the second of the BDR trilogy, in which the director denounces the corruption, collective amnesia, chicanery and pretense hiding under the facade of the economic miracle during the post-war era.
Veronika Voss stars Rosel Zech as the titular character, based on the life of actress Sybille Schmitz, with a special focus on the tumultuous last year of her life. It's 1955, Voss is a has-been who has a chance encounter with Robert, a sports reporter who serves as audience surrogate. The basic premise is not unlike that of Sunset Blvd. Voss is a lonely, needy woman who feels ambivalent about being recognized but she flirts with Robert, who doesn't know of her. Robert lives with his girlfriend Henriette, who's initially upset about Robert's growing obsession with Voss. Eventually, Henriette joins Robert in unraveling the mysteries of her existence. They learn Voss is being blackmailed by a woman psychiatrist who mentally tortures and supplies narcotics to the fragile former movie star. Voss is portrayed as an unstable and talented actress who attempts in vain to regain her glory.
The b&w cinematography is used to evoke the films Schmitz made during the 30s and 40s while under contract with UFA studios. Several flashbacks, some in the form of dreams, fill out the portrayal of Voss and result in very rich observations of changes in German society from the 30s to 1955. It's also interesting to ponder the parallels between the deaths of Fassbinder and that of Veronika Voss.

Dance With Death: Sybille Schmitz, UFA Star (Germany, 2000)
Documentary directed by Achim Podak features interviews with people who knew Schmitz well and a variety of film clips from her major film performances. It becomes clear that Fassbinder adhered faithfully to events in the tragic life of Schmitz for the script of Veronika Voss. The documentary also serves as a primer on the changes experienced by the German film industry from the end of the silent era until the mid 1950s. Most of the clips shown are from films that are otherwise unavailable (except for Pabst's Diary of a Lost Girl and Dreyer's Vampyr)

[Chris Knipp]

"Poor access" is a big understatement. I wonder if you're familiar with the book, Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People by Jack G. Shaheen, which after a general introduction analyzes film by film how Arabs have been treated in Hollywood movies. They've been the last free onscreen punching bag since long before 9/11, it would appear. "Meticulous...passionate... Highly recommended." --Library Journal. Shaheen shows that American movie reviewers are also to blame; for instance he quotes a line from Bosley Crowther's review of the 1938 Adventure in Sahara: "We know the desert is no picnic and you can't trust an Arab very far." Maybe who you can't trust very far is a Times critic.

[oscar jubis]

~What'd we do without you, CK. Found out my library has it, but I might just buy this book since the price is right.
*If you visit this thread with regularity, you've may have noticed my interest in the work of certain directors this year: Fassbinder, Welles, Murnau, Melville... and most definitely Jacques Rivette.

Thursday June 2nd

Histoire De Marie et Julien (France, 2003) on PAL dvd
The latest film from septuagenarian Rivette is the third of his movies I've watched this year. Before the year is over I plan a first viewing of his Gang of Four and a second of Va Savoir, both available on region 1 dvd. Even though I've only seen less than half of the movies Rivette has directed, I'm beginning to consider him a personal favorite. What's frustrating is that my free time and writing skills may be insufficient to explain the unique intellectual and cinematic pleasures I get from watching certain Rivette movies. At their most challenging and demanding, watching Rivette films is like listening to Ornette Coleman's and Cecil Taylor's jazz recordings. The degree of complexity and innovation is such that the initial reaction is partly confounding and disorienting. If attentive and focused though, one becomes attuned to the prevalent aesthetic. Novel perspectives are developed and the surface pleasures deepen with each subsequent viewing/listening.
Whereas the less experimental Secret Defense (the Rivette film I watched last month) is his version of the mystery thriller, Histoire de Marie et Julien is basically a supernatural romance. Julien (Jerzy Radziwilowicz) is a 40-something clock repairman who re-encounters Marie (Emmanuelle Beart) one year after meeting, when they were both in other relationships. Freed from past entanglements, they develop a caring and passionate relationship but Julien is increasingly frustrated by her secrecy and reticence. A secondary story of a woman who sells fake antique fabrics (known only as Madame X) and her suicidal sister gains importance as the film progresses.
Three keys to the film are: a) Rivette's creation of self-contained worlds in which anything that might exist beyond the film's fictional universe is disregarded. b) Paying attention to the title cards that precede each section of the film which inform the viewer as to which character will be driving the narrative. Rivette guides you by telling you beforehand the p.o.v. of each sequence. The titles are not completely necessary because the images speak for themselves but Rivette is trying to increase the film's legibility, in my opinion. c) Be aware that Rivette likes to blur the lines separating dream from reality, life from death.

[arsaib4]

"What's frustrating is that my free time and writing skills may be insufficient to explain the unique intellectual and cinematic pleasures I get from watching certain Rivette movies. "

Same here, although, you've made some very valid points. I was fortunate to catch this film last year at the French Rendezvous and I haven't been able to forget it since (not that I've tried). Thought about discussing it when the Artificial-Eye's disc came out, but was still hoping for a U.S. release. Well, it looks like it's going straight-to-DVD here on July 12th. That's a shame (especially since Resnais' latest was dealt the same fate), but at least it'll be available for people to see, and I'll try to make a post on it around that date. I'll see it again, but for me it ranks among his very best.

[oscar jubis]

~I was also extremely disappointed when I learned Not On The Lips wasn't getting a theatrical release, arsaib. Resnais is my favorite French director but getting access to his films has been a struggle because I don't speak French to avail myself of certain titles not available with subs.
*I watched most of Histoire de Marie et Julien a second time before mailing the disc back and look forward to comments from others who will have access to this movie beginning July 12th. I learned that this film was on its third day of shooting in 1975 when apparently Rivette suffered some kind of a "breakdown" and the project was abandoned. Leslie Caron was cast as Marie and Albert Finney as Julien. Regarding the ending, it was interesting to learn (from Rivette's interview on the Art. Eye disc) that in 1975 he obtained financing without a finished script, actually without Rivette knowing how to end it. Rivette explains that nowadays he wouldn't get a penny without a definite, pre-conceived conclusion to the "histoire". And what an uplift one gets from that gorgeously lyrical, magical ending. Then again, I'm always elated after watching an excellent movie for the first time.
(POSSIBLE SPOILERS)
I wonder how other members will react to Marie reciting phrases in Gaelic for no apparent reason, or a "mystery female" calling Julien to tell him Marie is at a specific hotel, or the fact that no explanation is given as to how Julien obtains what he needs to blackmail Mme. X. It had the be the other "revivant" (X's sis) I say to myself, but I think this is conjecture not fact. I'm very curious about viewer's reactions to this very enigmatic film. Three of the seven people who posted comments at IMdb hated it, two of them state they walked out after an hour or so.
By the way, I'm tired of waiting to watch Celine et Julie vont en bateau again. Is it ever coming out on dvd with English subs?

Friday June 3rd

Falling Angels (Canada) at Cosford Theatre

This Canadian feature directed by Scott Smith premiered at Toronto '03 and is finally getting a limited release thanks to the admirable FilmMovement. It's a dysfunctional family drama set in 1969 Saskatchewan, based on a novel by Barbara Gowdy. We learn in the opening scene that mother Mary (Miranda Richardson) has died and that dad, who is very drunk at the funeral, is a likely alcoholic. I ask myself, why would Smith choose to reveal at the start that Mary dies? I guess that it generates interest in the drama about to unfold, but I found that Mary, her husband Jim and their three adolescent daughters are characters with sufficient dimensionality to stir one's interest anyway. If initially the viewer fears he's met these characters before (depressed mom, alcoholic dad, fixer eldest, rebel middle, and princess youngest child), the script and performances provide enough individuation and shading to make this sick-family-dark secret-tale feel fresh. Flashback scenes set during the Cuban Missile Crisis provide added perspective on how the 60s changed the political climate and the Field family.

[arsaib4]

Originally posted by oscar jubis
I was also extremely disappointed when I learned Not On The Lips wasn't getting a theatrical release, arsaib.

Have you seen it yet?

Resnais is my favorite French director but getting access to his films has been a struggle because I don't speak French to avail myself of certain titles not available with subs.

Actually many of his latter films released on DVD are provided with English subs, but perhaps those are not the ones you're looking for. A 5 film/DVD set was released recently in France and subs are included. It contains: La Vie est un roman (http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B00007KLA9.08.LZZZZZZZ.jpg) (1983), L'Amour à mort (http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B00007KLA5.08.LZZZZZZZ.jpg) (1984), Mélo (http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B00007KLA7.08.LZZZZZZZ.jpg) (1986), I Want to go Home (http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B00007KLA6.08.LZZZZZZZ) (1989) [to the best of my knowledge, none of them are available in the U.S. on DVD or vhs], and Mon oncle d'Amérique (1980) [available here on both formats]. Mélo is my favorite from them, and the last time I checked, it was the only one available at Nicheflix. The set is expensive (http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00007KLAA/qid=1117951774/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i2_xgl74/171-8684311-6312266), but the alternative is much more so as individual films are priced at around EUR 25. Same Old Song (On connaît la chanson/1997) is also available (http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00004WZI9/qid=1117952664/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_11_2/171-8684311-6312266) with subs, although, it was issued here on vhs. Unfortunately, one of his very best, Smoking/No Smoking (1993), only has a French audio track.

I watched most of Histoire de Marie et Julien a second time before mailing the disc back and look forward to comments from others who will have access to this movie beginning July 12th. I learned that this film was on its third day of shooting in 1975 when apparently Rivette suffered some kind of a "breakdown" and the project was abandoned. Leslie Caron was cast as Marie and Albert Finney as Julien. Regarding the ending, it was interesting to learn (from Rivette's interview on the Art. Eye disc) that in 1975 he obtained financing without a finished script, actually without Rivette knowing how to end it. Rivette explains that nowadays he wouldn't get a penny without a definite, pre-conceived conclusion to the "histoire". And what an uplift one gets from that gorgeously lyrical, magical ending. Then again, I'm always elated after watching an excellent movie for the first time.

Interesting, I don't have the AE disc so I wasn't aware of that. Koch Int. (the company which is releasing the disc here) lists interviews from both Rivette and Beart, so hopefully, along with "porting" the AE disc, they'll also copy the extras.

(POSSIBLE SPOILERS)
I wonder how other members will react to Marie reciting phrases in Gaelic for no apparent reason, or a "mystery female" calling Julien to tell him Marie is at a specific hotel, or the fact that no explanation is given as to how Julien obtains what he needs to blackmail Mme. X. It had the be the other "revivant" (X's sis) I say to myself, but I think this is conjecture not fact. I'm very curious about viewer's reactions to this very enigmatic film. Three of the seven people who posted comments at IMdb hated it, two of them state they walked out after an hour or so.

I just read some of those comments over at imdb, and they seem to have been written by casual fans--people who didn't necessarily sought out the film, but ended up watching it at a festival etc. (I'd prefer if true film buffs get to attend those festivals but often it's the people who simply have the means.) Rivette's films usually do require a second viewing for one to grasp all the concepts. They can be deceptive at times. I believe it was Gavin Smith who was surprised about how much was at stake after all in Marie et Julien, and I think I agree. (I'd like to refrain from making specific comments until I've seen it again.)

By the way, I'm tired of waiting to watch Celine et Julie vont en bateau again. Is it ever coming out on dvd with English subs?

British Film Institute (BFI) are releasing the film theatrically in the U.K. on a new print so we can perhaps expect something later in the year from them. And I'm sure after they'll release it, New Yorker will follow suit. Why didn't this thing (http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B00006BSP2.08.LZZZZZZZ.jpg) came with subs is beyond me, but it seems like the French have their own ways of taking revenge!

[oscar jubis]

Yeah, I was pissed the "coffret" lacks subs. Here's my experience with Resnais films:
*Love these, seen 2x or more: Le Chant du Styrene, Night and Fog, Hiroshima Mon Amour, Mon Oncle d'Amerique, Last Year at Marienbad (own Marienbad dvd).
*Like these, seen once: La Guerre est Finie, Providence, Stavisky, L'Amour a Mort (Own last two on dvd)
*Never Watched: Muriel, La Vie est un roman, Melo (on my queue at Nicheflix), I Want to go home, Smoking/No Smoking, Same Old Song, Not On the Lips (will rent this summer).

Looks like the Koch Int. disc will copy the two interviews included on the AE disc of Marie et Julien.

Great News that BFI is releasing Celine et Julie in theatres. Bodes well for a dvd version.

Saturday June 4th

Not Reconciled or Only Violence Helps Where Violence Rules (Germany, 1965) on dvd-r
Marrieds Jean-Marie Straub and Daniele Huillet collaborated on this adaptation of Heinrich Boll's novel "Billiards at Half-Past Nine". It revolves around three generations of men from the Fahmel family and how each relates to a church, the Abbey of St. Joseph in Cologne. Heinrich Fahmel designs it in 1910, his son Robert blows it up as an act of sabotage, and Robert's son Joseph is entrusted with its reconstruction. The narrative incorporates several contemporaries of Robert both during the war years and in the present.
The underlying theme is (re)building vs. destruction. The theme's presence in the narrative is matched by a formalist strategy of exploding the plot into discrete, de-dramatized fragments from different time periods. The viewer is implicated in the job of restoring the timeline, to some extent, reconstructing the narrative. It helps that Not Reconciled is only 53 minutes long since the film requires one's full attention for maximum impact and legibility.
Not Reconciled is an indictment of Germany's collective psyche, which in the opinion of Straub and Huillet made the rise of Nazism possible. The film denounces how many who embraced Nazism wholeheartedly were able to assume positions of power during reconstruction. The thesis is that German society has failed to become reconciled with dangerous aspects of its psiche and legacy despite appearances to the contrary. Fassbinder advanced similar ideas on his BRD trilogy.

[Chris Knipp]

Maybe I should have this "coffret." Good practice for my French, and if Rivette is as good as you guys are saying he is, this should convince me. I wonder if they have subtitles in French for the hearing impaired as an option on the DVD's. That has worked very well for a number of Italian films I have watched both at home and on the UC campus in the past year or two, that they had subtitles in Italian for the "non udenti," and so I've had help following the dialogue without having the distraction of an English translation. Can you find it at a bargain price?

[oscar jubis]

You can buy it at Amazon's french site but I don't know if the dvds have subtitles in French for the hearing impaired. I haven't seen Gang of Four (1988), but it's available here and Rosenbaum states it's an "ideal introduction" to Rivette. I will rent it sometime this year.

Sunday June 5th

Passions (Russia, 1994) on region 1 dvd
Directed by the highly regarded Kira Muratova who's the subject of a traveling retrospective called "Take No Prisoners: The Bold Vision of Kira Muratova". The first film of hers I've ever seen and the only one to win a Russian Academy Award (Nika) for Best Picture. Paradoxically, not one preferred by her enthusiastic followers. Passions (or "Avocations" as the title is translated on the dvd) begins at a waterfront hospital where a jockey(Sasha) and a circus performer (Violetta) are nursing on-the-job injuries. Violetta and nurse Lilya are drawn to Sasha and his visitors_ jockeys, groomers, promoters and trainers of race horses. After Violetta recovers, she and Lilya pay a visit to the hippodrome and stud farm where loopy conversations and wacky interactions take place. These characters are very sharply drawn and quite differentiated, except they all share Muratova's fascination with animals. They might remind you of characters from movies by Fellini or Kusturica. The whole film takes place outdoors, except for a scene under a circus tent when Violetta returns home.
I was consistently amused by these personalities and their antics and fascinated by the racing and circus subcultures depicted by Muratova. On the other hand, there is really nothing earth-shattering going on here at any level. Violetta's search for a partner for her circus act and the rivalry between two jockeys don't lead up to dramatic payoffs. The luscious colors, expressive use of lights, unexpected jump cuts and attractive image composition make Passions a pleasure to watch from first to last frame. Regrettably, as it is apparently their custom, the folks at RUSCICO (Russian Cinema Council) have released the film on a pan-and-scan version that robs you of about 30 % of the visual information originally served up by Ms. Muratova.

[Chris Knipp]

Wouldn't it cost a lot for shipping from amazon.fr?

[oscar jubis]

Yes, it's expensive. EUR 10.90 to the USA.

Monday June 6th

Eunjangdo (South Korea, 2003) on region 3 dvd
The title refer to a type of pocket knife, usually made of silver, that women used in the past "to protect their reputation from unscrupulous men". The movie's protagonist is a girl whose stern father gives her a "eunjangdo" when she lives her small town to attend college in Seoul. Billed as a sex comedy, Eunjangdo is neither sexy nor funny.

Cinderella Man (USA, 2005) at AMC CocoWalk.

I'm a sucker for a working-class hero and that's exactly what pugilist James J. Braddock (Russell Crowe) was to millions of Americans (and Irish) during the Great Depression. Then again, it's Ron Howard directing so I knew not to expect any deviation from mainstream moviemaking formulas. More problematically, it's a script by Akiva Goldsman, who excised everything remotely controversial from John F. Nash's life and misrepresented schizophrenia's symptomatology in the reductive and dishonest A Beautiful Mind.

Cinderella Man's protagonist was, by all accounts, a remarkably decent family man, thus a more appropriate subject for Howard and Goldsman. Braddock's riches-to-rags-to-riches tale, particularly his unlikely victory over Max Baer for the title, is quite inspirational. It was very moving to witness his struggle to provide for his wife (Renee Zellweger) and kids during some very lean years. As Rosenbaum states, "despite the effective fight sequences, it's more about what it means to have your electricity shut off". Cinderella Man is both a boxing flick and a Depression drama and it succeeds on both counts. It's an old-fashioned, "A" production that breaks no new ground, but it will move you and entertain you for a short 144 minutes.

I am sure the word "manipulative" will make an appearance on a review or two. It's not out of place. For starters, I have a personal distaste for the wall-to-wall musical scoring that accompanies this type of Hollywood film. To me, it feels like watching a comedy with a laugh track. It feels dictatorial and overly emphatic to me, at least this time. There are other problems. Chief among them is how Max Baer (Craig Bierko) is depicted as an outright villain; a hulking, murderous monster half-a-foot taller than Crowe's Braddock . The real Baer was a more complex individual, and no taller than Braddock (this is relevant because the size discrepancy between the actors is utilized to make Braddock's victory practically miraculous). Cinderella Man's flaws and limitations did not detract from my overall enjoyment of the film. I recommend it.

[Chris Knipp]

I enjoyed the movie (I don't know if that comes through in my review at all, though I do compliment various elements in what I wrote) but I found some of the ideas at least mildly offensive. "Working class hero" is somewhat a misnomer for Crowe. Is a champion boxer really working class? Wasn't Crowe's aim to become a property owner? His giving back of his public assistance money to the state is symbolic of a pro-capitalist, free enterprise stance. That was my reaction anyway. I found that gesture and the emphasis on it offensive. Similar with the taking of the son back to the meat and poultry store with the sausage he stole. Sure, you can't teach your son to steal. But the message being telegraphed is that private property is more important than human misery, poverty and hunger. Hence in a socialist sense, and is this any surprise? Ron Howard's movie is not celebrating a working class hero but coopting the concept of one. On the other hand, the scene of Joe Gold's empty apartment sheds a tear for the bourgeoisie. But the boxing commissioner, with his burtal veniality and greed for money -- very much a Forties style black and white villain, much like Max Baer, whom you point out the weaknesses of that I only hinted at -- is definitely the working class point of view.

First of all I would question whether Braddock in fact is a working class hero in the classic sense or rather a hero of American capitalism. Second whatever you answer to that I would question whether Ron Howard's ultra conventional mainstream American middle class white views can properly be considered germane to the concept of a real working class hero. We live in a country where the working class hero, the union organizer or union leader, has gone steadily down the tubes along with the major unions. How about a sentimentnal melodrama about that? But what has sentimental melodrama got to do with the elucidation of class issues? The phrase, "working class," does contain the word "class."

I know that your views are not that different from mine. My aim isn't to try to start an argument or contrast our positions. I am only trying to bring up these issues for further discussion.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
. "Working class hero" is somewhat a misnomer for Crowe. Is a champion boxer really working class? Wasn't Crowe's aim to become a property owner? His giving back of his public assistance money to the state is symbolic of a pro-capitalist, free enterprise stance. That was my reaction anyway. I found that gesture and the emphasis on it offensive. Similar with the taking of the son back to the meat and poultry store with the sausage he stole. Sure, you can't teach your son to steal. But the message being telegraphed is that private property is more important than human misery, poverty and hunger. Hence in a socialist sense, and is this any surprise? Ron Howard's movie is not celebrating a working class hero but coopting the concept of one.

We can debate about whether Crowe's Braddock is a "working class hero" (but I'd say Braddock was inarguably a hero to the working classes). Braddock as portrayed was no activist and had little or no class consciousness. He was law-abiding and self-reliant (when he had the means). Does any of this disqualifies him as a "working class hero"? Isn't it sufficient to have no means to support your family, experience abject poverty, have the courage to take advantage of a small window of opportunity, and provide inspiration and solace to millions?

Tuesday June 7th

Las Aventuras de Robinson Crusoe (Mexico, 1952)
English-language feature by Luis Bunuel, shot in Manzanillo on the Mexican west coast, based of course on Daniel Dafoe's 18th century novel. A lamentably forgotten quantity until it was digitalized and restored on the occassion of its 50th anniversary. Now available on dvd for your pleasure and edification. Robinson Crusoe is a remarkable adventure film in gorgeously quaint PatheColor, faithful to Dafoe's prose_no attempt is made to obscure the fact that Crusoe was a slave trader who, not unlike the average 17th century European, regarded his racial and cultural superiority as a given. Irish actor Dan O'Herlihy got a deserved Oscar nomination from the Academy and Jaime Fernandez is very good as Friday. A couple of events provide Bunuel opprtunities to indulge his skills as a purveyor of surreal imagery, and of course, it's Friday who stumps Crusoe during a theological debate.
This is my third viewing of it since its release last fall. This time, at my son's insistence.

[Chris Knipp]

A very good point about Braddock: he may very well have been a "hero of the working classes." The more fool they. In a way you are also right that Braddock's story as presented by Howard's movie is of a "working class hero." But that is to take the phrase out of its usual context of having relation to socialist ideas, which neither your reading of the film nor Braddock's life bears out, I believe. Even the most common use of the phrase in current popular discourse, John Lennon's song, is a clear allusion to socialist ideas, which he was always aware of and influenced by, despite drifting away from the British context of his original socialst influences and becoming a millionaire. "They hate you if you're clever and despise a fool. Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules. A working class hero is something to be." The phrase even in Lennon's song suggests social revolution and awareness of the exploitation of the underclass by the establishment. Braddock shows no such awareness or impulses.

[oscar jubis]

I agree that within the context of the term "working class hero" as having "relation to socialist ideas", Braddock does not qualify as one. Whether this is the "usual" context is debatable. Certainly that is the context provided by John Lennon in that fierce song.

Wednesday June 8th

The Magnificent Amberson (1942) on Japanese dvd

Orson Welles' follow-up to Citizen Kane is the best American film not available on dvd in the USA. Ambersons is the most detestable example of a studio butchering a sound film as delivered complete by its director. Then again, how is it possible that a 131-minute film is cut by about 45-50 minutes, then have a new ending added and still be a masterpiece?

"About 45 minutes were cut out_the heart of the picture ,really_for which the first part had been a preparation. It looks as if somebody had run a lawn-mower through the celluloid" (Welles) "It is known, for example, that Welles shot a lot of footage of the growing, ever-industrializing town, clearly it was to have been used as a counterpoint to the Amberson's decline. Ambersons is a mutilated work. It is the most amazing that so much of Welles' conception survived the release print" (Bogdanovich)
RKO directed editor Robert Wise to cut the film after a sneak preview. "He also wrote and directed two short scenes to bridge some major eliminations and a closing sequence" that drasticaly changes the tone. (Doug McClelland, "The Unkindest Cuts", 1972)
"We had a picture with major problems, and I feel all of us tried sincerely to keep the best of Welles" concept and still lick the problems. Since Ambersons has become a classic, I think it's now apparent we didn't mutilate Orson's film". (Robert Wise)

My interpretation of what Wise meant by "major problems", based on my multiple viewings and the research I've done, is that these problems are in terms of the perceived commercial viability of a "gloomy" film longer than two hours, who documents the gradual fall of an aristocratic family and the multi-faceted changes caused by industrialization and new technologies. A lot of what it was cut out by RKO was this type of material. Moreover, scenes that do not necessarily propel the narrative, such as one in which "the camera roamed the sheeted , empty rooms of the once lively Ambersons household" (McClelland), were destroyed to prevent the original cut from being reassembled. What seems to have been left fairly intact are scenes that pertain to the double, thwarted romances between Morgans and Ambersons, which were thought to have more audience appeal. Every scene shot by Welles is absolutely masterful, and the love stories have an awesome emotional impact, but the larger context and the counterpoint intended by Welles are minimally present on the final cut. Despite Wise's assertions to the contrary, there are at least two scenes that were crudely shortened in a way that clashes with the fluidity of the scenes that were left intact. Paramount among the latter, the scene of the Winter's Ball, during the first half of the film, with its long uninterrupted takes and intricate choreography.

[Chris Knipp]

I'm sorry; I used the wrong word. Concerning "working class hero, its "usual" context is not the issue. What I ought to have said is that no matter how it gets watered down in current usage, its proper context is socialist. The phrase by its very nature is socialist, conscious of class and of a working class, which is the core Marxist concept. I was describing this Ron Howard process as co-opting. That is the nature of his game. There is no doubt about his skill at it. And above all his sincere manner. And one can enjoy the movie while still noting what's going on.

The Magnificent Ambersons--an impressive film, but (of course?) not as much so as Citizen Kane. Welles's carreer is a long catalogue of disasters, I gather, and that's not unrelated to his obviously destructive lifestyle, so everyone is to blame, not just the studio -- which he chose to buck in Quixotic fashion? But nonetheless he did produce masterpieces.

[oscar jubis]

My views on Welles will probably appear one-sided to you. I think he had the "Midas touch" so to speak. Because of Hollywood and its henchmen, and lazy writers who regurgitate a distorted view of Welles as an artist and as a man, I get angry when it gets propagated. I'm trying to give the most benign interpretation possible to your description of his career as "a catalogue of disasters". Otherwise, it sounds to me like you're not quite well informed regarding Welles and his films, or you have not had enough experience with them. I'm game, but it could get quite pointed.
I've always wanted to quote the great Andre Bazin. This is from his "Orson Welles: A Critical View":

" The Magnificent Ambersons is probably no less important than Citizen Kane; it's even possible to prefer it. This in fact is the opinion of Orson Welles, whom I have heard contrast the unity and simplicity of Ambersons' style to the bric-a-brac of Citizen Kane. Basically, what is essential in the stylistic inventions of the first recurs with greater mastery and is more intelligently pared down in the second, even pushed even further. The social impact of the subject, turns up again, with perhaps more subtlety and depth in this evocation, at once realistic and critical, of America at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century."

Basically, I think every film directed by Welles is a masterpiece of one kind or another (or they all come quite close to it). That is if one's concept of a masterpiece can accomodate mutilated films and fragments of films.

[JustaFied]

I've really enjoyed reading your comments on Welles, Oscar. I've watched a couple of his films recently, and I'm struck at how ahead of his time he was. Touch of Evil and The Lady from Shanghai are remarkably different types of films than was typical of that era. The freedom he gave his actors (including himself) and the unique camera work were groundbreaking. The Hollywood studios at the time didn't know what to do with him. What if he were alive making movies today? I watched Touch of Evil twice back to back just to be sure I wasn't missing anything. It's a fascinating film, beyond just the story. Watching Welles reinforces my appreciation of film.

I also appreciate your comments on Othello in another thread. I've got the DVD now, but I want to read the play first. I'll post my thoughts (surely to be positive) after viewing the film.

And surprisingly I've never seen The Magnificent Ambersons, primarily for the reason that it's not available on DVD here (as you stated.)

[Chris Knipp]

Well, I have seen The Magnificent Andersons, several times, in a theater and at home. Believe me, I love Orson Welles and his directing. You should give the most benign interpretation possible of my phrase "catalogue of disasters." I didn't mean Welles's work was that. I meant his career was, particularly as time went on. Obviously he was a genius and a filmmaking and theatrical prodigy. He was also a remarkable actor, who could be hammy but was always compulsively watchable. As a director he obviously did produce masterpieces, but to say that everything Welles ever did was one, or nearly one, is overzealous -- under-selective -- thoough given the force of his personality it's easy to see how someone could go that way. I personally don't know that I'd say that of anybody. Vermeer is arguably a perfect painter, but not all of his paintings are equally fine. I don't know of any artist who produced nothing of clearly lesser quality to his best work. "Even Homer nods," as the saying goes. You may also have a reply to wpqx's recent entry apropos of F Is for Fake (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=11179#post11179):
Welles spent the majority of his life running out of patience. He seemed to have the attention span of a perpetually 8 year old boy. Welles at the source was also seldom if ever original. Come to think of it, I don't think there is an Orson Welles film not based on the work of someone else, closest being Citizen Kane, which in turn was more the brainchild of Mankiewicz, at least the sotry of it. . . .I will always feel a slight melancholy watching the work of Welles, because it is so damn tragic, and Welles wasn't the victim. He welcomed his own destruction, and had the ambition to make the greatest films of all time, but lacked the determination to finish anything.Myth? Or reality? Am I ignorant? Do I make you mad -- or does wpqx? I'm sorry. As usual, you've probably seen or read everything you could get your hands on by or about Orson Welles, while I've seen only a few and read little. This is the IMDb's list of his directing work, with the TV ones excluded, and I've marked those few I have seen. Some of them are masterpieces, not all. Some of the fine ones show visible and audible signs of production problems, due to funding shortfalls -- a fact that makes your use of the phrase "Midas touch" rather ironic. The ones JustaFied lists are safe bets. I also liked and remember The Chimes at Midnight, Othello (though its patchwork production aspect makes it feel a bit chaotic), The Trial. Bazin says it is possible to prefer The Magnificent Andersons to Citizen Kane. He doesn't say you have to. As one of his great early films it's certainly as important though. I think I saw Don Quijote; but I don't remember it very well; maybe I'm wrong. Some of Welles's cameos are masterpieces; certainly the one in The Third Man is one and I believe the key lines of it he wrote. I'm not sure if a masterpiece concept can accomodate mutilated film, but it might. The trouble though is that the presence of mutilated film may be a sign of problems of other kinds.

One wouldn't want to so heavily idolize Wellse as to neglect the collective aspect of his filmmaking. He's a "great personality," but his collaborations with the Mercury Theater, Eric Ambler, Joseph Cotton and others are important to emphasize, I'd think. I understand that his images in Citizen Kane and Ambersons owe a lot to the visual and lighting style of the period (which his work transcends but very much grows out of) and the cinematography of Greg Toland. wpqx also notes that he was, in effect, not a creative storyteller but an adapter. But then, of course, so was Shakespeare -- let me anticipate that argument. The point is thouth, that as a filmmaker he dependon on others and worked from the ideas of others to an even greater than average degree. He is a stylist, and a stager.


Moby Dick (1999)
*It's All True (1993)
*Don Quijote de Orson Welles (1992)...
The Spirit of Charles Lindbergh (1984)
Filming 'Othello' (1978)
*F for Fake (1974)
The Other Side of the Wind (1972)
London (1971)
The Deep (1970)
The Southern Star (1969) (opening scenes; uncredited)
The Immortal Story (1968)
*The Chimes at Midnight (1965)
*The Trial (1962)
No Exit (1962) (uncredited)
David and Goliath (1960) (his own scenes; uncredited)
*Touch of Evil (1958)
*Mr. Arkadin/Confidential Report (1955)
*The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice (1952)
Black Magic (1949) (uncredited)
Macbeth (1948)
*The Lady from Shanghai (1947)
The Stranger (1946)
Journey Into Fear (1943) (uncredited)
*The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
*Citizen Kane (1941)
Too Much Johnson (1938)
The Hearts of Age (1934)

[oscar jubis]

I think it's exceedingly apparent from watching his fiction films that Welles was most creative and innovative. To say otherwise, based on the fact that Mr. Arkadin is his only fiction feature not stemming from existing text, constitutes a negation of the creativity inherent in the long process of turning words into images. I know this is not your opinion Chris, and I'm not sure the other member's comments argue so precisely.

I have a lot to say about F For Fake and it's dialectic cousin It's All True. Look for my comments on this thread, as I plan to watch both again. I hope to also discuss Welles' tendency to juxtapose and combine fiction and documentary within the same film. I think any film buff who neglects to experience his essay films and his European, made-for-tv stuff is missing out.

There are more than 3 hours of Don Quijote footage in the hands of different people, most of them European former collaborators. Portions of this footage have been assembled twice, with most Welles scholars preferring the 40 minutes Costa-Gavras edited for exhibition at '86 Cannes to the longer one edited by Jess Franco from footage belonging to the Cinemateca de Madrid. The major problem with the latter appears to be the total absence of the framing devise: Welles as himself relating the story to a 12 year-old actress who plays a small role in the fiction scenes. There are efforts underway to release a more complete version.

Thursday June 9th

Persona (Sweden, 1966) on dvd
A Poem in Images (2004) documentary short.

Ingmar Bergman states that, during a hospital stay, he was anesthetized and for 6 hours he lost his sense of time-passage and his self-consciousness. During the following fourteen days, her wrote the screenplay for Persona, practically a soliloquy. Nurse Alma is assigned to care for actress Elizabeth, who has apparently developed a psychosomatic illness and become mute and withdrawn. This story has a prologue and epilogue consisting of a variety of briefly seen images that impact on the main story and may affect your interpretation of it. Interpretations vary, and I'd argue that not any single one explains it all satisfactory. Among them: a story of psychic vampirism, a lesbian romance, the depersonalization of a nurse when isolated with a patient with a dominant personality, the projection of a bespectacled pre-teen boy's imagination, a treatise of portrait photography, a unique case of personality transference, etc.
The documentary directed by Greg Carson and featuring interviews with actresses Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullman, Bergman, Bergam historian Marc Gervais and others yields no clues. It helps deepen its many mysteries.
An absolute must-watch. On Ebert's Top 10 All Time. He's not the only one.

[Chris Knipp]

I didn't leave the TV Welles things out because I thought they were insignificant; I was just not very sure what most of them were and I was trying to simplify the list to post here. You are obviuosly a great devotee of Welles; I too have always considered him one of the great American directors. No one will challenge you there, I don't think. I don't know what David Thompson would say. He seems to be a kook.

[oscar jubis]

Cool. I enjoy good stuff like the BBC series Around the World with Orson Welles but Filming "Othello" (made in Germany in '78) is reportedly brilliant but yet unseen by me.

Originally posted by JustaFied
I've really enjoyed reading your comments on Welles, Oscar. I've watched a couple of his films recently, and I'm struck at how ahead of his time he was. I also appreciate your comments on Othello in another thread. I've got the DVD now, but I want to read the play first. I'll post my thoughts (surely to be positive) after viewing the film.

Thanks. I'm glad you enjoyed them. I also posted regarding Welles on the "Last Film" thread. I plan to watch other Welles films again this year and post here. I am very much looking forward to your comments regarding Othello. I plan to buy it on dvd from Korea because it includes English subs along with the same extras as the Region 1 disc. Given the abridgment, one wouldn't want to miss a single word.

Friday June 10th

The Lost Patrol (USA, 1934) on PAL dvd (France)
John Ford's tale of a British patrol lost in a Mesopotamian desert in 1917 that comes under attack by an unseen enemy. Well-written dialogue throughout. Anti-Arab sentiments respectably subdued. Ford regular Victor McLaglen wonderful, as usual, as the Sergeant. Boris Karloff should have been embarrased by his over-the-top, hysterical perf as the "born-again" Sanders. This one told me all I need to know about Karloff's acting range.

[JustaFied]

Originally posted by oscar jubis
Thanks. I'm glad you enjoyed them. I also posted regarding Welles on the "Last Film" thread. I plan to watch other Welles films again this year and post here. I am very much looking forward to your comments regarding Othello. I plan to buy it on dvd from Korea because it includes English subs along with the same extras as the Region 1 disc. Given the abridgment, one wouldn't want to miss a single word.

Yeah, I started watching Othello before reading the play and then realized the Welles' version doesn't have the subtitle option on DVD. I want to be more familiar with the text and subject matter before watching it in that format to be sure not to miss anything. Good idea to buy the DVD from Korea...I will get around to watching the film and reading the play before long, and I'll post my thoughts.

[Chris Knipp]

Can you remind me what the subtitle situation is with Welles' Othello? I remember seeing it in a theater but I can't remember what language it was in or what this is about.

[JustaFied]

The situation is that on the DVD version available here in the States, there is no subtitle option. Yes, the film is in English (Shakespeare era, of course), but, as in all Shakespeare, the dialogue comes fast and furious, and I'd like a little help. After all, with Shakespeare, it's not just the story itself, but also the poetry of the language which makes it so brilliant.

Oscar said he found a DVD version from Korea that I'm assuming has English subtitles.

[oscar jubis]

I think even English language films like Othello should have Eng. subs as an option on dvd. I particularly appreciate them on Shakespeare and Scottish films, and movies with loud soundtracks (Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan for instance). They are also useful when there are noisy people in the room doing something other than watching the movie.
I think this is an appropriate time to give a big thumbs-up to Gary Tooze and associates and provide a link to that wonderful resource: dvdbeaver
www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReview2/othello.htm

Saturday June 11

Inch'Allah Dimanche aka Sunday,God Willing (France/Algeria, 2002) at Cosford Cinema
Yamina Benguigui's film was screened at Rendez-Vous with French Cinema in 2002 and subsequently released by the FilmMovement organization. It's the story of Zouina, a woman who emigrates with her kids and "monster-in-law" from Algeria to France, where her husband has been working for many years. It's set in 1974, after the French government's policy of family reunification was enacted. Dimanche excells at depicting the difficult acculturation and the repression experienced by Zouina at the hands of her abusive, tradition-bound husband. Scenes that center on domestic detail and Zouina's ambivalence are well-observed and engaging. Benguigui's film is less successful bestowing the other characters with dimensionality, particularly Zouina's husband and his mother, and developing a narrative arc. The final scene, for instance, is unconvincing. It forces Zouina to experience highly contrasting emotional states within the duration of a bus ride. She miraculously goes from hysterical despair to coquettish flirtation to joyful acquiescence in 2 minutes time. It's only fair to mention that Inch'Allah Dimanche won a FIPRESCI award at Toronto and an audience award at a lesser festival.

Schwarzfahrer aka Black Rider (Germany, 1993) at Cosford Cinema
This short directed by Pepe Danquart won the Oscar for Best Short in 1994. An African emigrant sits next to an old woman on a streetcar and is subjected to relentless verbal abuse of a racial nature. The manner in which she gets her comeuppance is inventive, fitting and extremely funny.

[Chris Knipp]

Subtitles for the hearing impaired are a desirable option on DVDs, always bearing in mind that they are not word by word exact repetitions of the spoken dialogue. As I"ve mentioned I've found those on Italian DVDs without English subs, in Italian for the "non udenti," the hearing impaired. Those are great for me to learn the language, and for sure sometimes I can't understand English dialogue say in Scottish films, though if I'm in a theater and I can't understand dialogue in standard English I consider that a real failing of the filmmakers, in some cases; of course it can be a bad sound system too. Isn't it true that in completing Welles's Othello there was a lot of trouble with the sound? I seem to recall that.

Inch'Allah Dimanche

Sounds worth watching. I guess you're saying all the changes of expression on the bus are ridiculous? But that could be cool, and is a traditional device. The German short sounds good too, if a bit obvious.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
Isn't it true that in completing Welles's Othello there was a lot of trouble with the sound?

The restored Othello looks great and the voices are clear too. Where the restoration failed is in terms of its fidelity to Welles' overall sound conception. I quote from Rosenbaum's essay "Othello Goes Hollywood":
"The underlying assumption appears to be that contemporary sound technology can only improve Welles's original work because he had inferior equipment. Welles's aesthetic decisions are impossible to isolate from what he had to work with_and that includes a single microphone when the score was first recorded. Certainly the dynamic relationship between dialogue, music and sound effects is profoundly altered; the percussive assault of the music in the opening sequence, for instance, is substantially reduced by virtue of being spread out like butter rather than brought to a sharp monoaural point that pierces one's consciousness. The film is no longer as spooky and creepy as it was."
Rosenbaum goes on to discuss how conductor Michael Pendowski's score on the restoration is a crude approximation of the highly lauded score by the late Francesco Lavignino. No effort was made to obtain the manuscript of the original score, preserved by Lavignino's family in Italy.

Inch'Allah Dimanche
Sounds worth watching. I guess you're saying all the changes of expression on the bus are ridiculous? But that could be cool, and is a traditional device.

Not cool, overwrought I'd say. This is Ms. Benguigui's first fictional feature. Either her interest rests solely on the protagonist (the only fully realized character) or her dramaturgy skills are not "there" yet. Worth watching film that could have been better if made by a more experienced writer/director.

Sunday June 12th

The Emigrant (Egypt/France, 1994) on dvd.
Youssef Chahine, winner of a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 50th Cannes, directed this historical epic based on the Old Testament story of Joseph, son of Jacob. The Emigrant is set during the age of the Pharaohs, when Egypt was the center of civilization. Ram, the Joseph character, is the youngest son from a poor family living in arid lands. He is a dreamer with a thirst for knowledge who is routinely bullied by his brothers. On the verge of leaving his family's nomadic existence, he is beaten and sold into slavery by his brothers. He ends up in Alexandria, where the virtuous lad overcomes tough odds and realizes his dreams. Chahine's film transports the viewer to the natural sets provided by Egyptian ruins and reenacts the past with great care and attention to detail, made possible in large part by French financing. Michel Piccoli is featured in the small role of Ram's father.

Cinema Verite: Defining the Moment (Canada, 2000) on Sundance Channel
Feature doc directed by Peter Witonick traces the history of the documentary form beginning with Flaherty's Nanook of the North and Man With a Movie Camera by Dziga Vertov, who coined the term "Kino-Pravda", later translated by Jean Rouch into "cinema verite". The film ties changes in the documentary to technological advances that made it possible for the filmmaker to be as unobtrusive as possible and to become more mobile. Cinema Verite combines interviews with the genre's most important practitioners from the US, Canada, England and France with well-chosen scenes from key works. I personally wished Witonick had included Welles's groundbreaking insertion of documentary sequences in his fiction features, Jean Rouch's experiments in ethnographic filmmaking in Africa, and at least a sample of Frederick Wiseman's ouvre, rather than the emphasis on news docs and the "Blair Witch" phenomenon. Overall though, a must for fans of documentary films.

[Chris Knipp]

Chahine is the most famous Egyptian director, a central figure in modern Egyptian culture who has made many fascinating and excellent films. His career spans over a half century and many genres and styles. Bab al Hadid (Cairo Station, 1958) adopts a neorealist style for a du Maupassant-like series of vignettes and stars Chahine himself. It was considered revolutionary at the time and not well received by the Egyptian public, more familiar with the adept comedies and musicals made in Egypt in preceding decades. Made in the Sixties, Fagr yom gedid (The Dawn of a New Day, 1964) finds Chahine in mid-career evoking the longeurs of Antonioni to suggest the disenchantment of the wealthy middle class of the time. Like other Egyptian directors, Chahine made historical pictures to evoke Egypt's ancient cultural identity. Also notable is Saladin (1963), written by future Nobel winner Naguib Mahfouz, which relates to the same material as Kingdom of Heaven, again displaying Saladin's willingness to maintain peaceful relations with Christians. Other notable Chahine films: The Earth (al-ard, 1969 ), The Choice (al-Ikhtiyar, 1970) and The Sparrow (al-'asfour, 1972). More of these films undoubtedly need to be made available to the English-speaking audience besides his "Alexandria Triology," which is available.

See Arab Cinema: Youssef Chahine http://www.al-bab.com/media/cinema/film2.htm or IMDb's Chahine site for more details.

[oscar jubis]

Thanks for your comments and link. My experience with Youssef Chahine is limited to The Emigrant and Egypt, his entry into the omnibus film about the Sep. 11th WTC attacks. Chahine obviously deserves better so I've recently purchased the dvds of his Alexandria trilogy.

Monday June 13th

The Man of the Year (Brazil, 2003) on dvd
Of course, those involved with the release of this film want you to associate it with Ciudade de Deus but all they have in common is the genre and country of origin. The Man of the Year is a run-of-the-mill crime movie with good production values. We are supposed to identify/sympathize with Maiquel, but the film opens with his shooting a guy he doesn't know for making fun of his artificially blond hair. Turns out the victim was a community pariah and Maiquel is treated as a hero and turned into a killer-for-hire by a group of burgeoise vigilantes. All the social expose and character development the film has to offer is exhausted by halftime. The Man of the Year becomes one of those violent movies in which you stop caring who gets offed and why. It's one predictable descent into hell. I found echoes of my reaction on several reviews but the film has its defenders. Most notably, the jury from Miami's Brazilian Film Festival, who named it Best Film in 2003. Man of the Year was released by FilmMovement in theatres and dvd in June of 2004.

Confection (USA, 2003)
Short written and directed by Eva Saks about a rich girl who receives a lesson in generosity from a homeless man. Shot in the vicinity of Central Park NYC, Confection includes a gorgeous, color-coordinated daydream sequence with a classical music score.

[oscar jubis]

Tuesday June 14th

The Killers (USA, 1946) on dvd
Terrific film-noir based on Ernest Hemingway's novel, directed by Robert Siodmark (Criss Cross)), one of many German directors who made a splash in Hollywood. This 60 year-old picture hasn't dated one bit.

Pieces of April (USA, 2003)
A Jubis family favorite. Thought I had watched it enough times but Chelsea wanted her bfriend Joe to see it and I couldn't resist. Michael Hedges wrote and directed this very funny family-reconciliation-on-Thanksgiving tale. Patricia Clarkson's multi-awarded performance is legendary, but Clarkson lost the Oscar to Zellweger in Cold Mountain.

[trevor826]

Re: The Man of the Year

This brought back some memories, can't remember if I saw it in 2003 or early 04 but it's the film that turned my eldest son vegetarian.

Why? because the only character you could sympathise with ended up on a platter with an apple in his mouth, yes poor old Bill the pig, named after Bill Clinton and the only performance worth noting in an otherwise dull film.

Cheers Trev.

[oscar jubis]

Yes, Bill the piglet is certainly endearing. For the film to work we'd also have to sympathize, at least initially, with Maiquel. He's supposed to be a good guy who gets corrupted by the pervasively violent environment. Then, five minutes into the film, he runs into the guy who made fun of his bleached hair, pulls out a big gun and puts a hole in his chest. The first of an interminable number of murders. What surprises me is how much people seem to like this film, which doesn't even have the stylistic flourishes of crowd-fave City of God. 78% of IMdb voters rate The Man of the Year a "7" or higher.

I'm glad to report that both films I watched at the 9th Brazilian Film Festival were better than The Man. The festival is for the third year traveling to Tribeca Cinemas so New Yorkers can check out the new crop of movies from Brazil. The Jackie Gleason Theatre seemed more like a Samba Club tonight. Loud music, beautiful people speaking Portuguese, Brahma beer and capirihnas everywhere. The feature didn't start until well after 11 p.m.

Wednesday June 15th

Asfixia (Brazil, 2005)
This short directed by Roberval Duarte is a chiller about a couple experiencing a late-night break-in. The noir cinematography and expressive sound effects are expertly deployed to create suspense and sustained apprehension.

Almost Brothers (Brazil, 2004)
1970. The Big Island prison near Rio houses both criminals and activists imprisoned by the Military dictatorship due to their politics. Miguel is an idealistic young leftist who manages to organize the prisoners and persuade them to adhere to a code of conduct. As a child, he befriended Jorge, when their musician fathers were friends. Jorge, a black, slum-dweller, is imprisoned for criminal charges. They renew their friendship, but their different backgrounds and beliefs are obvious strains on their relationship.
Director and co-writer Lucia Murat is no stranger to the film's milieu. She and her husband were arrested and tortured for their political activity during the 70s. Almost Brothers flashes back and forth between 1957, 1970 and the present, when Maiquel is a socialist congressman and Jorge runs a lucrative criminal enterprise from prison. The cinematography and art direction very skillfully separate these temporal shifts so that the viewer is never disoriented. The changes in the bond between Miguel and Jorge are quite interesting to contemplate. The characters, who are representative of different but inter-dependent social classes, are well realized by the script written by Murat and Paulo Lins (City of God). Both central characters are provided with enough nuance to stand as individuals, not simply class reps. The major drawback is the inclusion of a subplot involving Miguel's teenage daughter and the leader of a favela gang. A lot of time is wasted in this predictable, recycled tale that dilutes the film's impact. We never get any sense as to how these two really feel about each other, and it provides no useful counterpoint to the main narrative thread. The score is by Nana Vasconcelos so you know it's special.

[oscar jubis]

Thursday June 16th

Brothers (Denmark, 2004) at SoBe Regal
www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=11313#post11313

The May Lady (Iran, 1998) on dvd
Writer/director Rakhshan Bani-Etemat is the most prominent Middle-Eastern female director. She worked as a TV documentarian for a decade prior to turning to fiction, under her philosophy of "cinema as social commitment". The May Lady is clearly her most personal work, practically a character study of a TV documentarian who is Bani-Etemad's contemporary. I suspect that there are other parallels between director and character, named Forough in an homage to the great Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad. Forough, the character, is a 41 year-old living with a 19 y.o. son whose father abandoned them at the start of the Islamic revolution in Iran. Forough is seen shooting and editing a documentary on exemplary mothers while attempting to sustain a romantic relationship with a doctor via post and phone. She knows her son would sever ties if she was to remarry. Farough is aware that having to sacrifice her affective needs because of societal repression and her son's whims is unfair but seems unwilling to bear the pain of separating from her son.
Bani-Etemad is a skillful director and The May Lady satisfies as both social expose and character study. But here we have a topic hampered by Iran's strict censorship of the arts, which bans romantic scenes betweens unmarrieds . Although his voice is heard as Forough reads his heart-felt letters and poems, the doctor is never seen. His absence is the major cause The May Lady is tepid and underdeveloped as drama.

[oscar jubis]

Friday June 17th

Clean (France/Canada/UK, 2004) on import dvd
The third new film I watch so far this year in which the main character quits using heroin. Olivier Assayas's return-to-form (after the arid, affectless, though not without merit demonlover) will open in the US in September. Interviews given by his "ex" Maggie Cheung and Nick Nolte confirm what's been discussed by actors from previous films: Assayas trusts the actors to know what to do; it can be said he doesn't provide any direction to them. Some performers find this frustrating (at least two actresses from demonlover) while others find it liberating_Nolte and Cheung's experience and the latter's familiarity with Assayas's aims and methods are cited by Cheung as factors contributing to the high quality of the performances here. I wasn't able to access Chris Knipp's review of Clean through a link to his website he provided on a previous post, but I like arsaib4's review on the "Rendez-Vous with French Cinema" thread: www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=10234#post10234
Just ignore the silly reference to Sansho the Bailiff attributed to the normally level-headed Kent Jones.

The Chess of Colors (Brazil, 2005) at Jackie Gleason Theatre
Short written and directed by Marco Schiavon about an old racist widow whose nephew hires a black maid to take care of her. The maid decides to put up with the abuse and attempt to change the old lady's outlook with the aid of a chess set. Uneven and trite but also funny and sincere.

A Dona da Historia aka The Owner of the Story (Brazil, 2005) at Jackie Gleason
The screening was preceded by a ceremony in honor of the 53 year career of actor/writer/producer/director Daniel Filho, which included clips of his performances and the presentation of a Life Achievement award by Filho's second ex-wife, the actress Betty Faria (The Story of Fausta, Bye Bye Brazil). A very festive atmosphere at this Brazilian Film Festival event in front of a sellout crowd of ardent admirers of Filho and Faria. There were a lot of Brazilian celebs in attendance and a lot of press. I sat up front, next to two gorgeous, sweet-smelling belazas; I later found out they act in telenovelas. Maybe I should start checking them out :))

Daniel Filho produced, directed and co-wrote the film adaptation of A Dona da Historia, based on a hit play by Joao Falcao. Carolina has been married for 30 years to her first love Luis Claudio, their four kids have moved out and they have put up their spacious apartment for sale. At 50, she is questioning the choice she made as a young woman to marry the leftist architecture student and close the door on other paths. She even entertains the possibility of divorcing the affable and still loving Luis Claudio. Then, through the magic of cinema, Carolina comes face-to-face with her 18 year old self, at the stage when she meets and falls in love with Luis Claudio. In turn, the young Carolina encounters three would-be older Carolinas in succession, each representing entirely different life choices.

To a large extent, Filho's metaphysical romantic-comedy works so well because of the delicious chemistry between Rodrigo Santoro and Deborah Falabella as the youn'uns and Marieta Severo and Antonio Fagundes as the middle-aged marrieds. Severo is excellent in a role she played on stage for two consecutive years. Another major aspect to hail is the cinematography by Jose Roberto Eliezer, most specifically the graceful, artful transitions between scenes involving Carolina at two temporal states and four existential modes. There's an element of predictability to A Dona da Historia, as you would expect, and the film fails to be consistently insightful, but the film is always engaging and entertaining. A few scenes are actually breathtaking: one is set during a student protest in '68, when the chaos surrounding Carolina and Luis suddenly slows down and hushes up to privilege the romantic moment. In another, Carolina attends an experimental theatre performance in which actors sit in the audience unbeknown to the spectators until their time to speak. In a self-reflexive fashion, an inspired young Carol stands up and loudly proclaims:"I'm gonna change my character!". Nice movie although, unlike the New Times critic, I'm not ready to call it "a masterpiece" that "belongs with the best of Jacques Demy".
I don't think A Dona da Historia has a US distribution deal, but the film will play for free at SummerStage in NYC's Central Park next month. I hope a major distributor picks it up.

[Chris Knipp]

My site's forums are down right now. I'm trying to get help in restoring them. I thought my review of Clean was here too, but I can't find it.

[arsaib4]

"Just ignore the silly reference to Sansho the Bailiff attributed to the normally level-headed Kent Jones.

No, there no need to ignore the "silly referenece" to Sansho the Bailiff attributed to the level-headed Kent Jones. It applies!

[oscar jubis]

Well, if arsaib4 thinks the comparison is apt then it must be, uh? Unconvinced by such logic, and being quite familiar with Clean and that masterful achievement in film art that is Sansho the Bailiff, I taxed my brain trying to come up with a rationale for equating these films. There isn't anything remotely similar in the style of Assayas and Mizoguchi, so it has to be the theme of family separation. Except that in Clean, Cheung's junkie has no objection to her kid being raised by her in-laws and that's the family status from the start, whereas in Sansho a family is violently splintered by treachery, patriarchy, feudalism and slavery. Equating these films is unfair to Mizoguchi's legacy and unfair to Assayas because it creates viewer's expectations that Clean cannot begin to meet.

Saturday June 18th

The Middle of the World (Brazil, 2004) at Cosford Cinema
Unemployed truckdriver Romao uproots his wife and four kids from their home in Northeast Brazil to embark on a 2000-mile bike trip to Rio. Only a job paying enough to support his family (1000 reales monthly, he figures) would be sufficient to settle down. Morim's road movie provides a rare closeup look at the country's backroads, and at Brazilians who live outside the big urban centers_ perhaps the film's highest accomplishment and reason enough to recommend it. The challenge posed by the length of the trip and the less than ideal circumstances create familial tensions.
Dramatically, The Middle of the World is most interesting when dealing with 14 year-old Antonio's ambivalent bid for independence and separation from his parents. The acting is uniformly good and the film makes excellent use of its wide canvas. The last scene offers awesome aerial views of Rio from the hilltop Cristo Redentor statue.

Cafe Lumiere (Japan/Taiwan, 2004) on region#3 dvd
I hope the recent 10-day commercial run of Hou's film at the Anthology Film Archives was a hit so the film expands to other markets. A most unusual Hou film, one commissioned by Shochiku Studios as a tribute to Yasuyiro Ozu, shot entirely in Japan with a mixed Japanese/Taiwanese crew. More a sensitive outsider's take on Japan and a portrait of an independent woman than a narrative. More new millenium update of Ozu's state-of-the-Japanese-family theme than compelling drama. And both evocative of late-period Ozu and characteristically a Hou film.

Yoko (pop star Hitoto Yo's acting debut) has just returned to her Tokyo flat from Taiwan. Initially we learn via phone conversation that the 20-something writer was there to conduct research on Jiang Wen-ye, a famous composer and Ozu contemporary. But the following day, after train travel to her hometown, Yoko tells her mother that she's pregnant, that her Taiwanese boyfriend is the father, and that she has no intention to marry him. Back in Tokyo, Yoko conducts research on cafes frequented by Wen-Ye during his visits to Japan in the 30s and spends time with Hajime. He owns a small bookstore but spends his leisure time recording the sounds of trains and their riders. Their behavior towards each other is friendly and obsequious, but their feelings are never made apparent. Yoko's mother never judges her firm decision to raise the child alone and there's no ambivalence on Yoko's part. A scene in which Yoko, her curious mom, and distant father discuss her decision is conflict-free.

The detailed observations and renderings of Japanese public and domestic life, the portraiture of a modern Asian woman, and the aesthetic pleasures of Hou's images may not be compelling viewing for everyone. As a Hou and Ozu fan, I was delighted.

Note: Cafe Lumiere is scored judiciously with Jiang Wenye compositions for piano, but it closes with a pop song by Hitoto Yo. The lyrics to this song were not subtitled and I get the impression they are relevant to the film's content. But I have no way of knowing.

[arsaib4]

Well, I guess the comparison isn't proper because Oscar Jubis doesn't believe so, at least that's what he's trying to convey -- unsuccessfully, of course. If one actually pays attention to the reference that was made by Kent Jones, and agreed upon by me, they'll realize that it referred to the framing of the final shot. Certainly other facets such as the concluding humanity and redemption also come into play. Just like Kent Jones, I also believe that in time Clean will have a place in history similar to Sansho the Bailiff but I guess since Jubis disagrees, it won't happen.

[oscar jubis]

Stop the presses!!
Fellow members and guests:
The mystery of the Kenji Mizoguchi reference has been revealed!! On the third try, we've been able to extricate something other than "It applies!" from Mr. arsaib4 and it turns out to be...(drum roll)..."THE FRAMING OF THE FINAL SHOT". Yes, you heard right. Maggie Cheung has a cathartic cry at the conclusion of her recording session, walks out of the studio onto a porch as the camera pans left, away from her, to reveal a wideshot of San Francisco Bay. Mizo in a nutshell!!

[arsaib4]

Obviously, this matter is out of Jubis's comprehension so we had to deal with his idiocy above.

Just to remind everyone, this was what he said initially:

Just ignore the silly reference to Sansho the Bailiff attributed to the normally level-headed Kent Jones.

While he's blaming others, he's the one who tried to sound like an expert.

[pmw]

ok, ok its going in one of those directions...

[oscar jubis]

Not even great film scholars like Jones and Rosenbaum, or even Barthes and Bazin, are beyond scrutiny and criticism. There are no sacred cows, so to speak. It's apparent by his hurling insults ("his idiocy") that our colleague from Buffalo has exhausted his ability to debate the comparison between Clean and Sansho. I refuse to demean myself and degrade the forum by reciprocating. I'd rather tell you about the movies I watched yesterday :)

Sunday June 19th

Metro Lumiere (France, 2004) on region#3 dvd
One hour documentary directed by Harold Manning about Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien and Cafe Lumiere, a film tribute to Yasujiro Ozu commissioned by Shichiku Studios. The doc starts in Taipei with a brief discussion of Hou's filmography and its rootedness in Taiwanese history. Then, we are transported to Tokyo; shots from the city's train system are interspersed with interviews of Hou and his DP Lee Pingbin. They discuss their preparation for the project, the process of creating a fiction that pays homage to Ozu, and the experience of working with a crew of mixed nationality. Lee contrasts the diverging work ethics by referring to Hou as "Maoist" and the Japanese methods as "Neo-Confucian". I like how scenes from Cafe Lumiere were compared with scenes from Ozu's films, particularly Late Spring and Equinox Flower. Hou jokes that there are so many scenes at train stations and shots from metro trains that the film should have been called "Metro Lumiere", hence the doc's title.

The Killers (USA, 1964) on dvd
Ostensibly a remake of Robert Siodmark's The Killers (1946), which I watched last week, but director Don Siegel changed everything except the premise of a man not resisting or fleeing when two hired killers come to gun him down. Whereas Siodmark's film is a noir that's fairly faithful to Ernest Hemingway's source novel, Siegel's color film pumps up the action and crafts a narrative from the point of view of the hired guns. Not a single line of dialogue comes from Hemingway's book, according to Siegel. The Killers features Ronald Reagan's last perf and his first as an outright villain. Lee Marvin managed to stay sober long enough to complete the shoot, but barely, according to Siegel's journal. Angie Dickinson is the femme fatale. Don Siegel's The Killers was originally intended as the first feature made to be broadcasted on television, but it was deemed too violent and released in theatres instead. Both versions are fine, but I prefer Siodmark's for its noir styling, its sense of doom, and its literate script.

[arsaib4]

Apparently, our colleague from Miami has forgotten the words "Just ignore the silly reference" and his attempt to "stop the presses." It's quite sad really.

[oscar jubis]

Monday June 20th

I'll split today's entry into two separate posts, one per film.
The Ladies Man (USA, 1961) on dvd
The second movie produced, directed, co-written and starring Jerry Lewis is an essay on the state of masculinity; a comedic, pre-feminism one, of course.

Lewis plays Herbert (pervert?), who witnesses his sweetheart making out with another on college graduation day. Lewis frames the kissing couple so that their heads are cut off. The betrayed Herbert vows to avoid women and remain a bachelor, regressing to a pre-teen stage of female aversion. He accepts a job as a jack-of-all-trades at a large manor run by two older matrons. Unbeknown to him, the manor is a residence for single women. And what a place it is! It took nine months to build the 4-story, plush dollhouse set, with fourth walls removed to allow for amazingly fluid dolly shots. The set design and the miking-for-sound used were considered quite innovative at the time. When he first sees the women, Hebert's panic attack is such that Lewis "splits" into four look-alike doubles as he runs frantically. Somehow Herbert is coaxed to stick it out after he finds out he will come into daily contact with 30 female archetypes and one "baby", a roaring, unidentified creature used to explore our token male's fear of fatherhood.
Lewis' films are characteristically fresh in their willingness to digress, to stop narrative thrust temporarily. There's a scene in which Herbert dances a tango with tough guy George Raft, and a loving, musical homage to Paris, for instance. Lamentably, there's also a completely superfluous flashback to the betrayal scene that adds nothing to the film. Towards the end, Herbert dares to enter the "forbidden room", which turns out to be a large all-white bedroom set where a black-clad woman in whiteface hangs from the ceiling. Herbert experiences obvious anxiety when the silent woman dances provocatively, whip in hand, before laying in bed invitingly.

I know folks who would never agree to watch a Jerry Lewis movie and I can provide quotes calling The Ladies Man a masterpiece. One thing I know for sure: the discussion cannot be limited to whether he makes you laugh or not. Even at his most slapstick or clownish, Lewis was experimenting with form and providing commentary on social issues.
Paramount has done an excellent job digitalizing Lewis's films. This dvd release is exemplary, and priced to buy.

[Chris Knipp]

So now you will be able to understand that eternal question, what do the French see in Jerry Lewis movies? And this already is the beginning of an answer for me.

[oscar jubis]

Well, I've been hearing for decades about how the French love Lewis, but I've never read or heard any first-person accounts or figures comparing box office tallies in America and France. I am simply assuming there's some truth to it. It's also hard to find reviews written during the 60s, considered the classic Lewis decade, when The Nutty Professor and The Ladies Man. Dave Kehr wrote about the former "one of the most intense investigations of self ever put on film, a technically impeccable work of inspired megalomania". My take on Lewis is far from definite. I know he makes me laugh and I'm increasingly aware that his films are very personal and that, at least the ones released in the 60s were quite innovative. I have a lot to learn about his work. I look forward to the upcoming book on Lewis by Boston-based critic Chris Fujiwara. You can find his essay on Lewis here: www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/03/Lewis.html
I also know that Americans my age and younger prefer Woody Allen even though few have actually seen Lewis's films. That was my own position back in the 70s and 80s, but in the past 15 years or so my take on Allen has depreciated quite a bit while Lewis's filmography keeps growing in stature. I'm not ready to call Lewis a genius like Chaplin, Keaton or Tati, but I don't rule it out either.

Melo (France, 1986) on PAL dvd (French)
An abbreviation of melodrama, derived from the Greek "melos" for music and the French "drame" for drama. Not the common usage: a sensational piece that appeals violently to one's emotions. Melo was directed by Alain Resnais (Last Year at Marienbad, Hiroshima Mon Amour), my favorite living French director. Melo is set in 1926 Paris, a faithful but condensed adaptation of a play written by Henry Bernstein (1876-1953), a highly successful author who called Melo "the most complete expression of my thought and sensibility". A romantic triangle involving neurotic classical musicians: Pierre (Pierre Arditi), his wife Romaine (Sabine Azema), and their mutual friend Marcel (Andre Dussollier). Lurking around to pick up the pieces, Romaine's cousin Christiane (Fanny Ardant). I have never encountered fictional characters more complex and fascinating. Every aspects of Melo, from the dialogue and its delivery, the gestures and body language of the performers, the music they play to and with each other, to the camera angles and movements, the lighting, and the art direction, express character traits and comment on the nature of the relationships between the principals. These are flawed, ambivalent beings that inspire extreme empathy and curiosity. During the first of back-to-back home viewings, I resisted using the pause button to use the bathroom. I didn't want to interrupt my visit to Melo's world. A thoroughly engaging, easily accesible, rarefied environment. Melo is perfect.

[Chris Knipp]

I don't think it's a question of box office tallies for Jerry Lewis in France but old critical admiration, probably in Cahiers du Cinéma in the Fifties. I think it's an additional factor in any assessment
of Jerry Lewis that he taught filmmaking for many years. So he may have had an influence that way. How can you compare Woody Allen? That's apples and oranges for sure. I think Allen has spread himself too thin by a wide margin, and except for his brilliant early films, his style has always seemed rather derivative
and it never had much of a link with classic early comedy like Lewis' does. But he too has his admirers in France I suppose.

It's partly just that the French care more passionately about film than Americans do, hence they appreciate Jerry Lewis as an artist.If I'm not mistaken the best and most complete or at least the most lavish book on Buster Keaton is by a Frenchman. I read it in the early Eighties but unfortunately I don't have a copy and forget the name.

Resnais' Mélo: In my review of Clean I noted that the French paper Le Monde called the film "un grand mélo, version rock." I'm sorry to say I have not seen this film of Resnais'. Congratulations on not hitting the pause button to go to the bathroom. Don't break the mood.

[Chris Knipp]

Now I remember: the book about Keaton is Le regard de Buster Keaton, the Look of Buster Keaton, by Robert Benayoun, 1982, and the original French edition I read is selling in this country for $150 now http://www.tomfolio.com/bookdetailsfg.asp?b=10502&m=521

I tried to get a small San Francisco publisher which seemed to be rather generously funded at the time to translate and issue it but no dice.

St. Martins press published a translation in 1984; it's cited in a Senses of Cinema article on Keaton. And that will cost you $85 today.

[oscar jubis]

It's perhaps indicative of the neglect of Jerry Lewis, auteur, by the American critical establishment that none of Kael's three books about 60s films mentions him. A book I have that compiles essays from 1950s Cahiers issues also doesn't mention him but I am convinced that, when Lewis turned to directing in the 60s, the venerable mag played plenty of attention.
The Keaton book you mention looks fantastic. I learned a lot about Keaton from a doc shown every so often on TCM. I have his The General on my home viewing "schedule" for summer or fall.

Tuesday June 21st

I have seen The Battle orf Algiers at the theatre several times, including last year's re-release. So today I watched two documentaries about the film and its director found on disc 2 of the Criterion edition of the film.
Gillo Pontecorvo: The Dictatorship of Truth (1992)
Gilberto Pontecorvo was an apolitical middle class Italian Jew who developed a political conciousness during travel to Paris to participate in tennis tournaments in the 30s. Upon his return to his native Italy, he joined the anti-fascist resistance. After the war, he cultivated an interest in photography and realized later cinema was a perfect conduit for his political activism. Pontecorvo refers to his approach as "the dictatorship of truth". This doc is narrated by Arab-American literary critic Ed Said and includes interviews with many of his collaborators. It concentrates on his four major features: Kapo (one of the first fiction films about the holocaust), Battle of Algiers, Queimada (about a slave rebellion in the Caribbean), and Ogro (1979), his little seen last feature, about a terrorist attack perpetrated by ETA during the Franco dictatorship in Spain.
Dictatorship of Truth examines the multiple reasons why Pontecorvo directed only shorts and commercials after '79. Pontecorvo states that the public is less interested in political themes, that producers are less inclined to finance the films he wants to make, that producers insists on casting actors that often don't "look the part", and that he is highly indecisive and too much of a perfectionist (he seems to regret having rejected certain projects offered to him). Two projects that came closest to being realized: one on the 1980 murder of Archbishop Romero in El Salvador, and a film on the Palestinian resistance to Israel's occupation.

Marxist Poetry (2004)
This doc packs a great deal of information in 38 minutes duration. All about the pre-production, making of, and reception to Battle of Algiers. The title is a reference to Pauline Kael's comment that "GP is the most dangerous type of Marxist, a Marxist poet". Extremely informative short includes an interview with Algerian activist Saadi Yacef whose journal was the genesis of the film.

[Chris Knipp]

I thought that by the early Sixties the high regard in which Jerry Lewis was held in France was already a subject of jokes here. I wonder, then, where that came from, if he isn't even mentioned in Cahiers du Cinéma in the Fifties. I suppose maybe my chronology is just a bit off. The mysteries of Jerry Lewis's reputation are a topic worth an article by somebody in Sense of Cinema or somewhere like that, hopefully somebody with not too pompous a style.

Sounds like great material on Pontecorvo. Never heard the late Edward Said referred to as "Ed" before, but then, I didn't know him. In speeches and writing he seemed a rather formal man. Whether you liked him or not, he was the great articulate voice of the Palestinians in this country, and now that he's gone, there's nobody to replace him. His sweeping book about western cultural co-opting of the East, Orientalism, has had a wide influence, or at least I'd assume so.

As you can probably see from catalogue descriptions, what makes Robert Benayoun's book Le regard de Buster Keaton/The Look of Buster Keaton remarkable is that it's not only a lavishly illustrated coffee-table book but a thorough, interesting, even profound text.

[oscar jubis]

No disrespect to Edward Said intended; never had the pleasure myself...

Wed. June 22nd

A Talking Picture (Portugal, 2003) on dvd
It's likely that, if this film directed by 96 year old Manoel de Oliveira played at a theatre near you during its very limited Dec. 2004 release, it had a short run. The dvd has been available for two months. Heed my advice: rent it now! Stop reading this entry and watch it ASAP. Not that I'd reveal what Rosenbaum called "the Bunuelian stinger in its tail".
A girl of about 8 named Maria Joana travels, accompanied by her historian mother, from Lisbon to Bombay to meet her father. The trip will afford Rosa the opportunity to witness the sites she always talks about in her lectures, as the ship will make stops in France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, etc. Think of it as a Homeric reversal; instead of Odysseus traveling west to return to his wife and child, a wife and child travel east to meet the father. Three prominent women board the ship in its first three stops: entrepeneur Delphine (Catherine Deneuve), model Francesca (stefania Sandrelli) and singer/actress Helen (Irene Papas). Making the introductions is the man-in-charge, an American of course, played by John Malkovich. You're probably getting the idea that, even though the characters behave realistically, they are also representative, perhaps even symbolic. If you are familiar to the events that led to the Trojan War, you'll see that the "little game of denouncing ourselves" played by the Cap. and the three women echoes Paris' fateful choice among Hera, Aphrodite and Athena.
A Talking Picture is little Maria Joana's film, and like many of us, she knows little about history. We have a great teacher along, Rosa, who through conversations with locals and Maria Joana brings forth the long legacy of violent conflict between East and West, and more specifically, between Islam and Christianity. That's the central conflict within the narrative. A most compelling, ancient and contemporary struggle.
But even those who care little about history can enjoy this magnificent picture, if only as an expertly shot travelogue through some of the wonderful sites in the world: St. Sophia Cathedral in Istanbul, the Acropolis in Greece, the ruins of Pompeii, the Great Pyramids of Gyza, among others. After two viewings, I'm ready to make some changes on my list of favorites of 2004.

[Chris Knipp]

It doesn't sound very appealing to me -- static shots, stilted relationships, lectures on history and culture, people babbling in unmatched tongues, travelogues of places one's already been -- and I don't know about Malkovitch (sometimes I love him and sometimes I hate him) but it would probably be fun to see Irene Pappas, Catherine Deneuve, and Stefania Sandrinelli in the same picture. Your description would be helpful for any viewer -- symbolism, literary allusions -- but I still don't quite get why you like it so much. In your enthusiasm, you may have overlooked explaining what you think makes it so good.

[oscar jubis]

I haven't come across words like "lectures" and "static" in a few reviews of Un Filme Falado that I've read. The coments you paraphrase probably come from a reviewer from my "must avoid" list. The film brings forth very timely and provocative commentary on contemporary issues, although I'd agree that one learns quite a bit about certain historical events, and how history and legend are intertwined. This is presented colloquially via conversations involving Rosa and a variety of characters, including her daughter, not in the form of dry lectures.
You seem unusually predisposed against the film. Given our three year "track record", I'd bet that you're likely to find that a film I love is worth 92 minutes of your time. Watch it, mon ami!

Thursday June 23rd

Buongiorno, Notte (Italy, 2003) on PAL dvd (UK)
www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=11431#post11431

Same Rage, Same Spring (Italy, 2003)
This documentary directed by Stefano Incerti tries to cover too much material for its 66 minutes. It's a biography of Marco Bellocchio, a survey of his major themes (Family, Catholicism, Leftist politics) with too-brief clips of many films he's directed, a history of politics of the left in Italy since WWII, and a bit about the making of Buongiorno, Notte. None of these topics gets its due treatment. For instance, there's absolutely no discussion about how Notte mixes fact and fiction, or the process of adaptation from novel to film.

[Chris Knipp]

I was just trying to prod you into presenting a more complete review of the film that would explain its value more than just describe its contents. My phrases were not from reviewers, though I admit I consulted the Voice review by Dennis Lim which was quite admiring and didn't use these phrases; they were just my extrapolations from his and your descriptions. As you know I enormously respect and admire your dedication to the movies and find much in common with you as a person, but we can't always like the same film. However of course if I come across this one, I'll rent it.

Sometimes one's very enthusiasm gets in the way of recommending a movie to others, since to convince people one needs a cool head. Since you said right away "Just rent it!" it was clear that you were in that importunate mode, which sad to say can have a negative effect. I had a friend who did that all the time. She would practically order her friends to read a certain book. Sometimes she might even send out copies. After a while I stopped taking her seriously. Her importunate approach was annoying. She did nothing to recommend a book by insisting that one had to read it. Why? ONe must describe the book or the film in a way that is so appealing that other people want to read or see it and feel they are discovering its merits for themselves not as a result of badgering.

Sorry the Bellocchio doc isn't up to snuff. I liked Buongiorno, notte quite a lot and might enjoy a good discussion of it.

[oscar jubis]

*Most critics showed admiration towards Un Filme Falado and most films directed by Manoel de Oliveira. He has a new one out called The Fifth Empire. I hope we get a chance to watch it soon. I liked Falado at least as much as any of the ten or so of Oliveira I've had the pleasure of watching. I think I've demonstrated I have a "cool head" and a discriminating eye, to the point of seeming dry and neutral. I can't help but feel very enthusiastic in my support of Falado, although I recognize it's not for everyone.
*I posted on some films I watched at the 9th Brazilian Film Festival in previous entries, including the short The Chess of Colors which was picked as Best Short by the audience, and the feature The Owner of the Story, which was picked as Best Film by both the audience and critics. The jury selected that film's star Marieta Severo as Best Actress but gave the Best Film award to Time Doesn't Stop, a biopic of Cazuza, a pop star who died of AIDS at the age of 32. If you read my comments regarding The Owner of the Story, you know I liked it very much and still do but, ironically, I've come to realize since my post that the film is more than a bit predictable because the protagonist's husband is too close to ideal for her to seriously consider divorcing him. The film needs a bit more of an "edge" to truly shine.

Friday June 24th

The Tunnel (Germany, 2001) at the Cosford Cinema
Widescreen but made-for-TV feature directed with great skill by Roland Richter is finally being released theatrically in the US after winning a number of audience awards at film festivals. A proven crowd-pleaser, also evidenced by the fact that 80% of IMdb voters rate it "8" or higher. It's a story about the most remarkable of all the attemped escapes via tunnel from communist East Germany. The most prominent characters include swimming champion Harry Melchior, who spent four years in jail prior to his escape to the west and dreams of liberating his sister; engineer Mathis who managed to escape but left behind his pregnant wife, and a plucky girl named Lotte who wants to help her boyfriend escape. The Tunnel is a triumph of old-fashioned storytelling, a movie-movie full of suspense and intrigue which finds a perfect balance between the logistics of secretely building a long tunnel into East Germany and the human angle involving a large number of personalities. The Tunnel could have been made two decades ago, there's nothing ground-breaking about its technique or its approach to the subject. But it's very exciting and moving and feels shorter than its 157 minutes. I know of at least two similarly themed movies, the made-for-TV Berlin Tunnel 21 and Robert Siodmark's Escape from East Berlin, but I haven't seen them.

It's All True (USA, 1993) on dvd
Two-part documentary. The first 33 minutes relate the story of the making of a documentary on Latin America directed by Orson Welles and commissioned by the US government as part of the anti-Nazi "Good Neighbor Policy", and the unmaking of it by the new cast of execs at RKO studios, who pulled the plug on the project, and the dictatorial government of President Vargas. Welles was supposed to make an amiable, touristy doc on the Carnival and he shot plenty of Carnival footage but found that the roots of the samba where in the favelas, amongst its poor, mostly black, voodoo-practicing inhabitants. He also turned his attention towards political activism on the part of fishermen from the Northeast and more specifically, four fishermen's 1000-mile journey by raft from their village to Rio to dramatize their plight. The second part of It's All True is called Four Men On a Raft, a recreation of that journey. The footage of this segment was found complete in a warehouse, missing only Welles's planned narration. Directors Richard Wilson, Myron Meisel and Bill Krohn wisely opted to eschew narration and add a musical score heavy on Brazilian drumming to the silent footage. The images filmed by Welles are characteristically gorgeous in terms of composition and camera angles; the footage has been restored to pristine form. He has documented the daily life of the jangadeiros, their extreme courage and dignity, and the perilous nature of the navigation feat that won them the admiration of all Brazilians.

[Chris Knipp]

*Most critics showed admiration towards Un Filme Falado and most films directed by Manoel de Oliveira. I can see that the film did do well critically. I can't argue with you about Um filme falado when I haven't even seen it. I only said that it doesn't sound as if I'd like it. It sounds dry, and Rosenbaum, whom you quote, says that though it has a Bunuelean stinger in its tale, it seems naive and archaic at first. And that's all he says about it. Your suggestion that I may have to see ten of his films to get to the point of appreciating this one is also off-putting, don't you think? Rosenbaum -- I listen to him -- says of the 20 films Oliviera has made since he turned 70 "some of them [are] masterpieces and some just mannerist curiosities." Am I expected to watch those too?

I don't want to be a party-pooper, only to show that even films that you are wildly enthusiastic about are not guaranteed to appeal to me, no matter how much I admire your taste. I notice that recently when Rosenbaum said a film was "worthless," he explained that he meant for him. He found Mr. and Mrs. Smith was "worthless." But it wasn't "worthless" for me. It was "worth seeing," or "had a redeeming facet." Anyway most of the way through it was fun. Isn't it terrible that given a choice, I might opt for Mr. and Mrs. Smith rather than "Um filme falado"? But such is undoubtedly the case. Unless I were with you, in which case I might get talked into seeing the Portuguese geezer's film. I notice the IMDb viewers' comments are distinctly mixed, and many very negative. I think it looks like you may have gone a bit overboard on this one, and a lot of people even in the film buff communitity might not go with you, despite the "generally favorable" reviws (MetaCritic: 75% critics; 7.5 viewers). I will definitely reserve judgment. If I can find it, I'll watch it, but I have to admit to being very sceptical.

My website reviews still down; hopefully to be restored next week.

[oscar jubis]

Good luck restoring your website, CK. Don't get how you figure I'm suggesting you "may have to see ten of his films to get to the point of appreciating" Um Filme Falado. To clarify, I've seen a bunch and liked them and none is better than Falado. I'll add to that: I am a huge fan of his Abraham's Valley, also starring Leonor Silveira, and found Falado easier to "access" and perhaps more relevant (though not necessaily "better" than the newer picture). I'd be the first to recognize these are subjective opinions and that it'd be entirely possible for you to hate the shit out of it. I wouldn't bet on that though.
My quote of Rosenbaum is limited strictly to the wonderful way he describes the ending, which says nothing about whether he liked it or not. I couldn't find a better way to characterize the ending without "spoiling" it.
My decision not to watch Smith is entirely based on my hating every second of its trailer. Slick, sarcastic and bombastic.

Saturday June 25th

My Summer of Love (UK, 2004) at Regal SoBe

Pawel Pawlikowski tossed out the subplots from the novel by Helen Cross to focus on the intense friendship between two girls in West Yorkshire, Scotland. We first witness Mona (Natalie Press) wandering around the countryside on an engine-less Honda bike and having a joyless fling with a married man. She's restless, bored and lonely. Mona lives with her ex-con brother Phil above their late mother's pub. He's come out of jail "born-again", with plans to turn the pub into a meeting hall for evangelicals and make a believer out of Mona. She's a lot more interested in Tamsin (Emily Blunt), a brunette home from boarding school for the summer. Both girls are isolated and grieving the death of a close relative, but that's where the simmilarities end. Unlike Mona, Tamsin is rich, sophisticated, cultured, and deceitful.

My Summer of Love has a naturalistic look, with its shallow focus and somewhat grainy film stock. The camera moves hesitantly, at one point peering reticently behind rocks when the girls share a kiss. It reminded me of the films of Lynn Ramsey. Content-wise, the film is strongly reminiscent of Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures in its ability to allow the viewer entry into the self-contained, hermetic universe created by Mona and Tamsin. It's a fascinating place to visit. Pawlikowski, Press and Blunt have created depictions of female adolescence full of whimsy, mystery and menace.

[Chris Knipp]

That's a good response. I won't bug you any more about Um Filme Falado. If I find it I'll watch it.

Especially when we love a movie we want to dec lare it absolutely great, for everyone, no exceptions. I think if we know something about film as you certainlyl do and write astute descriptions and evaluations of them as you certainly do, we aren't just giving an opinion that's no better than the guy who goes to a movie because it's showing when he gets to the cineplex and two days later can't remember what it was called. But nonetheless we can never determine another person's reaction.

[oscar jubis]

I agree, we can never predict how anyone will react to any movie. BTW, I'm wondering if you've written anything about Buongiorno, Notte. You seem to have liked it more than I did. I'd enjoy reading your take on it.

Sunday June 26th

To Have and Have Not (USA, 1944) on dvd
This movie is an obvious response to the success of Casablanca and at least one critic, Dave Kehr, thinks it's a better movie. Both star Bogie as an smart-alecky, self-serving American keeping his nobility and generosity hidden while ecking a living in an exotic, Vichy-controlled location. The plots of both films have him taking risks to help Free-France activists escape. Both spend a great deal of screen time in a musical bars where a well-known pianist commands attention. Both films show Bogie involved romantically, the 19 year-old Lauren Bacall in her screen debut is Ingrid Bergman's match. Both films include lines of dialogue that heve become legendary ("You know how to whistle, don't you? Just put your lips together and blow" wrote Faulkner for Bacall). To Have and Have Not was directed by Howard Hawks, a great director who excelled in several movie genres and inarguably a better director than Casablanca's Michael Curtiz. But I'll take Casablanca over To Have and Have Not. Two reasons having to do mostly with plot: To Have doesn't have a Victor Laszlo, an admirable, handsome rival for Bogie. There's never any doubt he and Bacall will end up happy together. I prefer Casablanca's bittersweet resolution. Oh, and Bogie and Bacall "never had Paris" (though in real life they reportedly had many years of marital bliss).

The Patsy (USA, 1928) on TCM
Marion Davies's notorious lover William Randolph Hearst forced her into signing and acting in stuffy costume dramas, but King Vidor recognized her talents were exclusively comedic. Vidor cast her in romantic comedies like Show People and The Patsy in which Davies displays her considerable charm and talent for mimicry and pantomime. She is delightful here as a vivacious girl in love with her spoiled sister's boyfriend who has to contend with a domineering, nagging mom who disapproves of her.

[Chris Knipp]

Good comparison of To Have and Have Not and Casablanca.

No, I haven't gotten around to writing anything at all so far on Buongiorno, notte. It's complicated to write about, given the Italian political history of the Red Brigades and Aldo Moro, which people here wouldn't remember much about. I found a good summary of the events online here:
http://www.uwgb.edu/galta/333/moro.htm
I saw it without subtitles, and it isn't showing here, so I passed on it. But I did enjoy it for its special feel, its intimacy, etc. Sorry you didn't like it. I haven't written anything about Wong Kar Wai's 2046 either, another film I saw only on DVD, but I will do that one I expect when it comes out in this country, which I saw is not too far off now.

My website movie reviews are supposed to get restored some time today.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
No, I haven't gotten around to writing anything at all so far on Buongiorno, notte. Sorry you didn't like it.
I liked it. What I wrote is: "you seem to have liked it more than I did" because I remember you wrote elsewhere that you liked it "a lot". I posted my specific comments on the film's thread and provided a link to it. See above.

Monday June 27

Howl's Moving Castle (Japan, 2004) at Sunset Place Regal
Watched the dubbed version, can't wait to watch it again in original Japanese. www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=11483#post11483

Five Easy Pieces (USA, 1970) on dvd
Bob Rafelson's film starring Jack Nicholson was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress and Best Original Screenplay at the Oscars but it lost them all to Patton. The New York Film Critics Circle weren't so foolish. Basically a remarkable character study intimately attuned to its time and place. Nicholson's Robert Eroica Duprea is a man who has turned his back on his upper crust relatives and his past as a classical pianist and transformed himself into an oil rig worker with a decidedly working class lifestyle. Almost by accident, he learns his father's had two stokes and decides to visit for the first time in three years. No matter where he is or who he chooses to be, Duprea's sense of isolation and alienation is ever present. Amazing performances by Nicholson and Karen Black as his sweet and clingy girlfriend. Ace cinematography by Laszlo Kovacs. See it often.

[Chris Knipp]

I have pretty much decided not to see Howl's Living Castle. The person I go to movies with most often doesn't want to see it. Another friend invited me tonight, but I passed. Japanese friends have said it's not Miyazaki at his best, that it may be done by his workshop more than by him, and that the story's silly. I didn't even like the previous one that was supposed to be so great. So, not for me.

Okay, let me go over what you wrote about Buongiorno, notte.
The film barely makes this clear, as a matter of fact, there is scant exposition of the political context and little analysis beyond laying bare the naivette of the Brigadistas, their almost psychotic break from political/social reality. This seems to me the wrong approach. First of all, the film is not judgmental; it just dramatizes the kidnapping of Aldo Moro from the inside. You seem to be expecting a lot of analysis or exposition, which simply isn't there. It doesn't seek to "lay bare" anything but to take us into an extraordinary experience all Italy witnessed from the outside, but this time from the inside. It's a bit like if we were to see September 11th presented entirely from the point of view of the 13 or so men who hijacked the planes. My feeling when I saw this movie was that it was very sensitive and original in its approach, but that it wouldn't work well in this country. Surely many Italians might hate it, but they would know the background and not require exposition of events that at least anyone over forty would have an incestuous familiarity with.

Otherwise, since you say this is "An extremely good drama, well devised, constructed and edited," there's not much to disagree with except that you find it comes up short, despite this glowing set of adjectives. You and trevor seem both to have used the rather dry phrase "good drama" but trevoer calls it "the best modern Italian film I've seen for quite a while." You are displeased at the various extraneous, perhaps confusing, background clips; are unmoved by the loud rock music with many especially Italians have praised and which I would consider essential to the dreamlike intensity of the experience the movie takes us into; and you didn't like the Pope's "hissy fit." I'm not sure whether this is because you don't think popes have hissy fits or because this particular hissy fit didn't seem believable to you here. I would grant you that this is not a perfect movie and not every moment is equally convincing or even integral; but: see below.

I can only say that the experience that the movie provides seems to me an extremely original and absorbing one, and I gave myself up to it, not expecting necessarily to understand anything but rather just to feel things, to be absorbed into an experience. In that way Buongiorno, notte is quite remarkable. As an exposition of either the whole Aldo Moro incident, of the Red Brigades, or of what you call the "psychotic break", i.e., the usual hysteria of entremists confined in an insane situation of their own devising, I don't think it works, except maybe later, in retrospect, not on first viewing. What it does and does in an unusual degree and in a quite original style is take us into another world outside our own imagination or understanding.

I guess this means you liked it but I liked it more; I don't know. I only like it more by not applying the rational methods you have applied. I simply suspended them. It's an arbitrary gesture on my part, but seemed quite appropriate for this movie.

[Chris Knipp]

Five Easy Pieces is one of the early Seventies movies that holds up really, really well as a classic, and it shows you what Jack Nicholson had as an actor before he became wild Jack, the comedy king. It was also produced by the only guy I knew from college who went on to do something significant in Hollywood, Richard Wechsler. We were in the same fraternity and he knew he was destined to go into films and he was someone special, from the first moment I met him.

[oscar jubis]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Chris Knipp
I have pretty much decided not to see Howl's Living Castle. I didn't even like the previous one that was supposed to be so great. So, not for me.

Makes sense. Actually, I'll venture to say that if you didn't like Spirited Away, perhaps you should steer clear of anime in general.

Buongiorno, notte. you say this is "An extremely good drama, well devised, constructed and edited,"

Trevor826 wrote that. Basically I recommend the film because of the depiction of the female brigadista's moral dilemma and Aldo Moro's coming to terms with the realization that he is going to be killed. Other than that, the idea the film reinforces repeatedly in several conversations between brigadistas is their naive expectation that most working-class Italians and practically all PCI (Italian Comm. Party) members would support the kidnapping of Moro which would force the government to release the political prisoners. One scene in particular dramatizes this, when the kidnappers are horrified by a TV broadcast of a huge PCI rally denouncing the kidnapping. Several scenes not taking place inside the apartment, and not included in the source novel "Il Prigioniero[/i], are the weakest, in my opinion of course, as is the sketchy characterization of Chiara's comrades.

Tuesday June 28th

Batman Begins at Sunset Place Regal
www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=11492#post11492

Europa '51 (Italy, 1952) on TCM
I became extremely interested in this film written and directed by Roberto Rossellini after watching several clips from it on Martin Scorsese's brilliant My Voyage to Italy. This doc is the best introduction to Italian Neo-realism one can imagine. A dubbed version of Europa '51 was shown last night on TCM. I know it's not the ideal version but it's the only one available and Ingrid Bergman dubs herself. Bergman, who was married at the time to Rossellini, plays an Italian American married to a corporate executive and mother to a spoiled, dependent 12 year old boy. Her frivolous bourgeoise existence is interrupted by her son's death, which causes her extreme guilt. After a period of depression, she draws closer to a communist cousin and becomes conscious of the suffering of others. She begins to devote all her energy, time and resources to help the poor, including drunks, prostitutes and petty thieves. After a while, her family including her husband, her priest and her doctor begin to think of her behavior as a sign of mental illness. This film is a must-see. I hope the original, Italian-language version becomes available on dvd someday.

The Diary of an Unknown Soldier (UK, 1959) on PAL dvd
The Forgotten Faces (UK, 1961)

Is there a filmmaker in the world that deserves to be called a "political director" more than 69 year old Peter Watkins? There's Pontecorvo of course, but he hasn't managed to make a film of any consequence since 1979, and that American institution called Frederick Wiseman. Watkins got his skills refined working as an assistant director on BBC documentaries and these early shorts show him to have reached artistic maturity quite rapidly. Watkins' specialty seems to be to make movies that look like cinema verite, they look like footage of actual events when they are in fact recreations of events using non-actors and unknown actors.
Unknown Soldier shows the experience of a British soldier in World War I, with particular attention to the myriad sensations experienced by the soldier, while providing a voice-over to give us access to his thoughts as he prepares for battle.
The Forgotten Faces are those of Hungarians of different types united by their desire to free themselves of Soviet oppression during the fall of 1956. 20,000 Hungarians died in the aftermath of a democratic revolution that succeeded for four days. The Forgotten Faces is particularly influenced by Eisenstein, in its use of quick-cut editing techniques and montages of facial close-ups.

[Chris Knipp]

*I do steer clear of anime in general. I got my fill of it in the late Eighties.

*I know I was getting your and trevor's comments on Buongiorno, notte confused a bit. In some ways they seemed to overlap, but you might disagree.

*I'm sorry you didn't respond to the movie as a whole. You seem to be isolating parts of it. Certainly in a full and detailed discussion one would have to do that. There are many issues to discuss. Ultimately one must be analytical. But in a brief discussion aimed at describing how one rates the movie, for me it should be primarily treated as a unified cinematic experience, not a rational one, but an emotional one, though also one which has Chiara as our intermediary, because she has doubts, so she is neither quite with us nor quite with the kidnappers. It is just the feeling of being there in that apartment, the feeling of Moro being just inside the room where he's held, the world being outside... That's where the film works for me, and for the film's ideal audience. And Maya Sansa is great. I'm sure you grant that.

I can't speak for you but I think the real reason the American critics are lukewarm about Buongiorno, notte is not any of the specific reasons they give but simply the fact that they don't bring enough emotional focus to a viewing of the work, because it's not about an event that they can relate to as the Italian audience can. That doesn't rule out individuals responding powerfully to it as I seem to do, but it does suggest as I have thought all along that this is not a movie that translates well for an American audience in particular.

It seems to me that despite the various specific points you have mentioned, such as the communist rally condemning the kidnapping and the moral doubt of Chiara, the overall approach of Bellocchio is to treat the kidnapping as an irrational event, not one that can be analyzed by the kidnapper. And since we are seeing it from their point of view, it cannot be analyzed by us either. This certainly gibes with the way the majority of Italians view the events, but it treats the brigadisti as if they are irrational, whereas from their point of view they had arguments for everything that they were doing. So paradoxically despite taking the brigadisti so seriously and getting deeply into their point of view, in a real sense Bellocchio regards them as crazy animals. He wants to have it both ways; hence his focus on Chiara as the central character. But this doesn't bother me; on the contrary it's why the movie works so well.

Anyway you seem to question the movie on many points whereas I tend to take it as it is, as a powerful experience. But if you break it down and analyze it, you aren't taking it that way, so it doesn't really work as well for you as it does for me.

[oscar jubis]

That's quite fair. Looks like we both understand where our opinions converge and where our individual approaches differ. I'll assume you are right about American crits being "lukewarm" about it, as I have not read any reviews of Buongiorno. I like the picture enough to wish Wellspring Media, which owns the rights, releases it in US theatres.

Wed. June 29th

Punishment Park (USA, 1971) on PAL dvd (French)
Peter Watkins's most controversial faux-documentary is an American production, shot in California, and withdrawn from distribution after a four-day run at a small theatre in Manhattan. The Village Voice gave it a glowing review and Rolling Stone named it one of the Top 10 films of 1971. Mainstream press reviews called it "paranoid, leftist propaganda" or words to that effect, although often they recognized its technical brilliance. Punishment Park is closer to fiction than anything Watkins has done, but the style of it is pure documentary. My attempt to describe the plot:
There's massive protest following Nixon's bombing campaign on Cambodia. Nixon activates the McCorran Act authorizing the Feds to detain persons judged to be "a risk to national security". In a Californian desert, not far from tents where a civilian tribunal are passing sentence on Group 638, the members of Group 637 find themselves in a "punishment park". They've chosen to participate in a "game" as an alternative to confinement in a penitentiary. They've been promised liberty if they evade pursuing officers and reach an American flag posted 52 miles away across the mountains, within three days. Not long into the "game", the group splits into three factions depending on their different reactions to the ordeal.
Meanwhile, in the tribunal tent, Group 638 members endeavor in vain to argue their case for resisting the war in Vietnam.
The film that we watch is supposed to be shot by British and German TV crews who are being allowed by the government to cover these events. Every single second of Punishment Park feels like news footage, the acting is absolutely superb. Punishment Park may have felt like a relic if viewed last decade, but in 2005, it's as timely as it ever was. A vital, political horror film.

Purple Butterfly (China, 2003) on dvd.
Suzhou River, writer/director Lou Ye's last film, is a monumental achievement. I was conscious not to impose such high expectations on Purple Butterfly but I cannot help but feel disappointed by it. Butterfly is definitely worth watching for its cinematic daring and its depiction of Japan's occupation of China during the late 20s and 30s, but it disappoints as a narrative film. I admire Lou Ye's long athmospheric scenes and minimal use of dialogue. The problem is that the visuals often fail to carry the narrative, or take the place of dialogue. For the first, silent nine minutes, we know nothing about the young man and woman seen strolling together. At minute ten, we see Ziyi Zhang crying as a train leaves the station with the young man. She visits her brother and we learn her name is Cynthia and that the young man (Itami) is returning to Japan. How Itami feels about Cynthia, which figures prominently upon their reunification 9 years later, never registers. Then Cynthia's brother is killed by a pro-Japanese suicide bomber, and we are introduced to an entirely new mixed couple. But we still know nothing about Itami and little about Cynthia. The film eventually settles into a confrontation between Itami as head of Japanese intelligence and Cynthia as member of the resistance group Purple Butterfly in 1937 Shanghai, but the character of Itami remains too shrouded in mystery to care deeply about the resolution. By then though, we are sufficiently engaged by the plot (which eventually involves a number of characters on both sides) to make it watchable. Particularly so if you enjoy images for their own sake; most notably for me, scenes of couples observed up close by a camera that goes in and out of focus.

[Chris Knipp]

"Lukewarm" is only my impression without having read every review. A.O. Scott's review in the NYTimes seems typical. He praises Maya Sansa but is neutal otherwise:
you may feel that the director is handling his volatile material with a bit too much delicacy. But the movie's atmosphere is a curious mixture of obliqueness and intensity. See also the quotes given from reviews http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/buongiorno_notte/?critic=all

I saw Purple Butterfly in New York last December and wrote a brief comment later. As you probably recall, when I posted this on the House of Flying Daggers thread on FilmWurld there was some discussion http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=8486#post8486

[oscar jubis]

*I agree with your comment that PB is "just as pretty to look at" as Suzhou River, but for me that's the sole favorable comparison between the "watchable" PB and the excellent Suzhou.
*I have now read Scott's review of Buongiorno. He describes the music as "lush, sometimes jarring" which definitely matches my reaction. Even more so, a comment from a Times reader who states he "found the magic realism of the ending inappropriate...". I am still baffled by the decision to show Moro walking free a second time. It's clear that the first time this scene is shown it turns out to be Chiara's dream. The second time felt like a cruel joke to me.

Thursday June 30th

Elena et les Hommes (France, 1956) on dvd
The third in Renoir's trilogy of period films in which a heroine is pursued by three suitors, a trilogy renamed "Stage and Spectacle" for release on dvd by Criterion. Elena and Her Men was released in the USA in 1957 in an edited version titled Paris Does Strange Things. The film is now considered one of Renoir's most daring because of its light treatment of a serious subject. The opening titles qualify Elena as a "musical fantasy", a comedia dell'arte in which Gral. Boulanger (thinly disguised as Rollan) attempts to conquer the heart of Polish princess Elena and take over the French government from the republicans. Basically, with the help of Royalists and Bonapartists, he wanted to establish a dictatorship. Many critics though this aspect of the plot was inappropriate for a musical comedy and dismissed the film. Not included among them was Jean Luc Godard, who went overboard by writing "Elena et les Hommes is the most intelligent film in the world". The main reason for the film, according to Renoir, was to create a comedy for Ingrid Bergman, whose career badly needed one at that stage. Her three suitors are Jean Richard, Mel Ferrer, and a mature Jean Gabin as Gral. Rollan. Renoir had by 1956 revealed himself to be a moralist in the broadest sense, illustrating a certain attitude towards life's problems. It had also become clear that he loved to experiment by juxtaposing genre, tone and subject in novel combinations. These impulses resulted in the creation of this fresh and delightful conclusion to the master's trilogy.

[Chris Knipp]

I hold no special brief for Purple Butterfly, as I'm sure you can see from my brief coverage of it. I wasn't even sure it merited a review at all. But things I see in New York often look just a little bit more interesting simply because I see them there surrounded by the New York energy. As I recall, it was a rainy night when I went over to the Quad Cinema for it, which nicely fit the film's mood.

I'll have to watch Buongiorno, notte again some time to consider your various criticisms, including the one about seeing Moro walking free a second time. I don't feel up to watching it right now. I thought that final scene fit in with the whole dreamlike feel of the film, but you may be right. Not every decision in the film is a wise one. I simply, as I keep saying, was carried up into the whole experience of it. As for the music, it is not jarring if you give yourself up to it. It is hypnotic and creates a strong mood. But that description of Scott's of the music -- "lush, sometimes jarring" -- reflects his general ambivalence about the whole thing. Good/no good: that's what he's telling us. He's willing to acknowledge that there is quality here. He doesn't say something rude and tasteless as Rex Reed's comment that it's as stale as week-old pasta, but he like you wasn't compltely caught up in it, so for every favorable thing he says, he adds a reservation.

[oscar jubis]

*I try to apply my belief that film criticism is to some extent a matter of finding the right words to clearly convey entirely subjective, personal opinions, and that every opinion is valid. But comments like Reed's about a film like Buongiorno are a challenge to my tolerance. One wonders at times like these whether the writer actually likes movies enough to have his opinions published.

Second Quarter Report

Total Films: 134, including 6 silents and 11 shorts.

By Decade: 00s=66, 90s=11, 80s=6, 70s=8, 60s=16, 50s=10, 40s=8, 30s=3, 20s=6

By Language: English=55, French=19, Spanish=12, Others=48

Viewing Environment: Theatre=40, Video=83, Broadcast TV=11

*I decided against listing Faves of 2005 So Far. I am likely to watch several films of 2005 for a second time and I want to remain fully open to changing my mind about any given movie in either direction.

[Chris Knipp]

I'm afraid I was encouraging you to lose your sense of tolerence. It's true, Rex Reed's remark adds nothing to our discussion, but to call it "rude and tasteless" is a waste of breath on my part and overlooks the fact that it has a very real purpose in its own admittedly not very serious or polite context. Some critics may sound like they've lost patience with their work, but they may just be in search of quotable quotes and not averse to digging low to find them. A newspaper critic has got to grab the reader and he isn't going to keep him if he can't entertain. The Baltimore Sun critic Michael Sragow, who used to have the premier critic's spot out here and who does carefully crafted revival thumbnails for The New Yorker, is brutal sometimes in his writing for the Baltimore paper:
Cinderella Man wants to be Seabiscuit on two legs, but lacks the guts and smarts and heart. and he delivers this on "War of the Worlds":
Forget what Tom Cruise does outside his movies: What he does inside his movies is more than enough to wreck them. He hides booby traps of self-absorption within a bundle of energy. These are opening grabbers. He's not a subtle writer and sometimes he loses track of his point, but these pungent lines lead on to some valid observations. As for Rex Reed, I couldn't access the rest of his Bellocchio piece but he has always traded on bitch-slap cattyness. People read Reed for zinger put-downs like these openers of a review of "Bewitched":
Ron Howard’s rich, rewarding, critically embraced and artistically sound Cinderella Man, the best film of 2005 up to now, has turned into a box-office bummer, while Mr. and Mrs. Smith, a stupid, brain-dead movie for morons, has raked in the loot like a carnival barker promising free porno slides. . . .Garbage is everywhere, especially in the summer, and each week dumps more. Last week, we got the bloated, pretentious and incomprehensible Batman Begins. This week, we get another labored rehash of another lousy TV sitcom. Frankly, in my opinion, the public is getting what it deserves.

In a saner time, I wouldn’t be caught dead trapped in a theater seat staring at a piece of junk like Bewitched. But hey, this one’s got the names of people I respect and admire plastered all over it like pit stops on vaudeville trunks. When pros like Nicole Kidman, Shirley MacLaine and Michael Caine show up in a movie written and directed by somebody as savvy and lucid as Nora Ephron, attention must be paid. And then Bewitched crawls its way across the screen like road kill on its last gasp, and you begin to wonder why Hollywood has such a low suicide rate . . .

Bewitched was popular boob-tube escapism back in the days of Sputnik and Francis the Talking Mule. The only thing about that old ossified sitcom that doesn’t endanger the I.Q. is the enchanting way Elizabeth Montgomery caused havoc in the neighborhood just by twitching her nose. Nicole Kidman does the same thing, but after the first three twitches, the effect wears thin. Three thousand times more, and you’re checking the battery on your Timex.

After the suave earnestness of Denby or the British wit of Lane in The New Yorker, the spicy rhythms of Rex Reed in the New York Observer feel like very much a guilty pleasure; one could enjoy slumming a bit in its pink pages. No need to assume Mr. Reed has lost enthusism for his work or for the movies. And this is not a sign of battle fatigue: he's always talked like this. If anything, he's just better at it. Reed's put-down of Buongiorno, notte may add nothing to our discussion of it, but it has its place on the pages New Yorkers wrap their dead fish in. Frankly, I couldn't stop quoting that. The man's a real entertainer. Let's not be too judgmental.

[oscar jubis]

Of course there's a place for this type of writing about movies but I'm not interested in it.

Friday July 1st

Tabu (USA, 1931)

The last film directed by F.W. Murnau is technically an American release because Paramount bought the distribution rights, but the film was independently financed, filmed on location in the South Pacific, and features non-actors. The film was initially a collaboration between the German master, who died in a car accident days before its premiere, and Robert Flaherty, who decided to withdraw. Tabu, which started as a simple depiction of the life of the Polynesians, somewhat on the order of Flaherty's Moana, was transformed into something grander when Murnau took over the reins. There was documentary coverage of South Seas life and customs (rituals, fishing, weaving, music and dance), there were vistas of lush palm forests and rolling surf, but merely as backgrounds to a mystical love story. The story of of Neri, a girl consecrated to the gods by the elders, and thus forbidden to love, or marry. But she already loves a sea diver so the holy man tells her he'll kill him unless she agrees to leave the island to prevent consummation of their love. The distraught diver swims after the holy man's schooner carrying Neri only, eventually and inevitably, to sink beneath the waves when exhausted. This time, religion triumphs over nature.
You'd think Tabu is the last silent masterpiece but Yasujiro Ozu had yet to release I Was Born but... and Chaplin's City Lights was still playing at theatres worldwide. Speaking of theatres, I wonder how many actually showed Tabu in completed form, without excising scenes of topless girls at work and play.

Princess Mononoke (Japan, 1997)

Having seen the original version twice during the 90s, I decided to watch the dubbed-into-English version with Dylan (12) today. Hayao Miyazaki's adventure epic constitutes the best animation of flora and fauna motifs in the history of the medium and the first opportunity most of his Americans fans had to watch a Miyazaki film at theatres. The story is set in 14th century Japan and involves gods, humans and animals in a monumental struggle for peaceful co-existence. Dylan loved it as much as Spirited Away. One thing I'd like to say in favor of dubbed animation, it most definitely grants one more time to look at the animation and the damage done to the artist's original conception seems minimal to me. Voices by Billy Crudup, B.B. Thornton, Minnie Driver, Claire Danes and, thankfully, no Billy Crystal shtick.

[oscar jubis]

Sat. July 2nd

The Last Laugh (Germany, 1924)
The rotund, middle-aged porter at the Atlantic Hotel in Berlin loves his job. He gets to meet important people and wears a plush overcoat with shiny gold buttons. His neighbors show him respect and admiration. The porter lives with a niece who's busy preparing for her nuptials. On her wedding day, the porter is shocked and bewildered to find himself demoted to washroom attendant. He begs the manager to reconsider but to no avail. He can't bear to show up at his niece's wedding without his overcoat so he lingers after his shift is over and steals it. At the reception, he drinks to excess to drown his sorrow. Director Murnau depicts his gradual inebriation by means of camera movements, oblique shooting angles, and out-of-focus photography. The porter passes out on a chair and dreams a fantasy in which he's back at his job, effortlessly carrying luggage as if he had superhuman strength while guests applaud. They wake him up, he readies for work, and doesn't realize until he sees his replacement that he is no longer the porter at the Atlantic Hotel. At his new post, the miserable man looks much older. A series of scenes reveal how his secret is discovered and how the news spread through the neighborhood. The once-proud porter become a subject of derision and ridicule to his neighbors. Murnau and screenwriter Mayer, pressed by UFA executives to end the film on a happy note, insert the film's sole title card: "in real life this is where the story would end but..." and conjure up a way for the porter to get "the last laugh". A deeply-felt masterpiece with a performance for the ages by Emil Jannings.

Class Trip aka "La Classe de Neige" (France, 1998)
An effective psychological thriller directed by Claude Miller. Nicolas is an introverted, bed-wetting 12 year old. His father agrees to allow him to go to a ski camp as long as he drives him there. He won't allow him to go on the bus with the other kids, not after a recent school bus accident. In flashbacks, the father is seen telling Nicolas about all sorts of child abductions in which kids ended up raped, mutilated and/or killed. No surprise that Nic's dreams and imaginings are full of morbid imagery, including visions of his father getting killed in a bloody auto accident and a child being dismembered after falling in a machine to make sausage. The undersocialized Nicolas manages to befriend another boy named Hadkann who is fascinated with Nic's grisly tales. Then we learn that a boy has actually disappeared in the vicinity and the police are furiously investigating. When the boy is found dead, Nicolas and Hadkann believe they have information that can lead to the perpetrator. The entire film is told from the point of view of Nicolas, played with understatement and restraint by Clement Van Den Bergh. The narrative, which could easily have taken a detour towards the supernatural, remains grounded in psychology. The resolution is utterly predictable, which may disappoint, but the characterizations of both kids and adults are rich in detail. Class Trip won a Jury Prize (3rd place) at Cannes '98, tied with Vintenberg's The Celebration, which is a better movie. Given the high quality of other films in competition that didn't receive awards, Class Trip doesn't deserve the Jury Prize but it certainly merits a rental.

[Chris Knipp]

La Classe de neige--based on a book by Emmnuel Carrère which, for obvious reasons, has been extremely popular: it's simple, short, but extremely well done. Imagine a lighter and more subtle Stephen King. I read it in French -- no boast, since it's easy French (at least on the surface). Perhaps the award you want to take back in favor of the let-it-all-hang-out family dogme fest (The Celebration) is a nod to popular preferences. But as tabuno has been at such pains to argue, such preferences are not always invalid. You seem a bit dismissive here, and phrases you use, "No surprise," "undersocialized, "then we learn. . ." suggest a failure to identify. If you detacned -- is that a therapist's technique? -- that would neutralize or at least significantly dampen the psychological power of the piece for you, and hence lessen your sense of its value. I don't think one should let the conflicting politics of Cannes prize-giving color one's sense of a film -- or rob one of an emotionally strong experience even if it's not "art" with a capital "A." A French "Comment" writer on IMDb (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0156408/usercomments?start=0) suggests in an interesting and enthusiastic description -- which includes a knowledgeable discussion of Miller's previous œuvre -- how strongly identifying might leave one almost shattered by this one (I haven't seen it). Maybe arsaib4 (or you?) can comment on Claude Miller's other work, which I can't remember seeing, though the name is so familiar I must know some of it.

Is this a new DVD? How did you happen to see it? As always I like to know the reasoning or conditions behind your many choices.

The Last Laugh: I have so often read about this, but never seen it, although I know it so well I feel as if I have. I can only imagine that you are going eventually to teach a course in film.

[oscar jubis]

We learn from one another, don't we? Speaking of courses in film, I took one at UM and I remember my fellow students, even the ones not high on silents, really enjoying Murnau's Nosferatu and The Last Laugh. I'll be revisiting the former soon.

Claude Miller
63 year old Parisian has a reputation as a good "molder" of performances, and an economical storyteller with a particular interest in crime stories involving children and youth. Eleven theatrical features in order of release (video refers to region 1):
-The Best Way (1976) on dvd
-This Sweet Sickness on vhs, based on novel by Patricia Highsmith
-Garde a Vue not on video, based on John Wainwright's "Brainwash" about an investigation into the rape/murder of two girls. Cesar winner for Best Adapted Screenplay, Miller's single win out of 13 noms for various films. Remade in the US as Under Suspicion, starring Hackman and Freeman.
-Mortelle Randonne, on dvd, based on Marc Behm's "The Eye of the Beholder"
-L'effrontee, on dvd, winner of the Prix Louis Delluc
-The Little Thief, on vhs, winner of French Critics award.
-The Accompanist, on dvd, based on Nina Berberova's "L'Accompagnatrice"
-The Smile
-Class Trip, on dvd. A good film but not as good (IMO) as other films in competition at Cannes '98 that didn't win, such as Hou's Flowers of Shanghai, Zonka's The Dreamlife of Angels, Chereau's Those Who Love Me Can Take The Train, Boorman's The General, German's Khrustalyov, my Car!, Tsai's The Hole, etc.
-Alias Betty on dvd, based on Ruth Rendell's "The Tree of Hands"
-La Petite Lili on dvd, based on Chekhov's "The Seagull".

I've seen L'Effrontee, The Little Thief, The Accompanist, Class Trip and Alias Betty. My conclusion is that you can count on Miller, he is remarkably consistent. I personally recommend any of these five but would not call any one a "must-see".

[Chris Knipp]

Now that you mention them, I realize that I have seen The Accompanist and The LIttle Thief. I'd agree they aren't must-sees. Did you read the IMDb comment (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0156408/usercomments?start=0) I referred to by dbdumonteil, and if so what did you think? In frequency this writer almost rivals you, though if you go on this way for another three years I guess you'll have more than his/her 1,500 entries.

I'd certainly agree The Flowers of Shanghai and The Dreamlife of Angels are stiff competition. I hadn't seen the former till recently, but Dreamlife of Angels was a terrific, touching movie that I saw when it was shown here and it would be hard to beat for that year. I guess you could say it's my kind of movie, whatever that means.

[oscar jubis]

dbdumontiel's comment is interesting. He writes at length about his favorite Miller film, the debut The Best Way, which I haven't seen. He likes Class Trip more than any of Miller's since the debut. I don't think it's better than the others I've seen but it's certainly not worse, so it boils down to a matter of personal preference. Where I (and Cristi, who saw Class Trip with me) disagree is when he writes "Miller doesn't do what the audience expects". We found its resolution highly predictable, which doesn't diminish Class Trip's value as a psychologically sound, damaged kid's p.o.v. coming-of-age film.

Sunday July 3rd

Manito (USA, 2003) at Cosford Cinema
Low-budget indie, shot on DV, about a Latino family living in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan. Painting-contractor Junior is throwing a big bash for his younger brother Manito, who's graduating from H.S. with a scholarship to attend Syracuse U. This Spanglish feature from writer/director Eric Eason is particularly well-observed: Junior and partner debating the differences between Mexicans and Caribbean Latinos, his Grandpa selling garments out of a suitcase to some "putas", Manito and pals boasting about imaginary conquests, Junior using White-Out to update his insurance certificate, etc.
Coverage of the raucous bash with a handheld camera evidence Eason and crew's filmmaking skills_every frame contains something of interest to the viewer. On the other hand, Eason's tendency to occasionally tilt the camera 30 degrees off horizontal is mannered and serves no purpose.
American filmmakers don't seem interested in middle-class Latino characters but that's not a valid criticism of Eason or Manito. What's lamentable is the high percentage of movies about Latinos that revolve around drugs and guns. Eason can't resist the temptation and Manito becomes all too typical during its last act.

Va Savoir aka "Who Knows" (France, 2001) on dvd
Actress Camille returns to her native Paris with her Italian lover Ugo to stage Pirandello's "As You Desire Me", described here as a play about "rekindling relationships". Camille visits Pierre, an ex she hasn't seen for 3 years, and finds him working on an essay on Heidegger and married to ballet teacher Sonia. Ugo meets grad student Do while searching for a lost text by 18th century playwright Goldini. Do has a half-brother, Arthur, a grifter who's still interested in former lover and accomplice Sonia.
Voila! Six characters in search of...romantic stability? emotional grounding? Thay all are much more settled and satisfied occupationally, while ambiguity and ambivalence rule their hearts. Jacques Rivette's script is highly intertextual_the more familiar you are with Pirandello (and Heidegger), the richer the experience. But there's enough pointed repartee, droll comedy and accomplished acting to amuse and entertain most for 154 langurous minutes.

[Chris Knipp]

I also obviously found dbdumonteil's (http://www.imdb.com/user/ur1219578/comments-index?start=0&count=1473&summary=on&order=date) Class Trip Comment interesting. I liked its enthusiasm. He's clearly steeped in French films and has reviewed or commented briefly on a lot of them among his 1,500 postings. I wonder what his problem with capitalization, punctuation, and spacing is, or if this is just a French thing. I can't remember the ending of the book and haven't seen the film so can't comment on that aspect -- yet. Would like to see this, obviously.

I thought you had seen Manito and Va Savoir.

I saw Manito in NYC and reviewed it then (http://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?t=129) (with spoilers galore). Lots of good material in Manito despite its grungy look, which I didn't like. It could have used some polish, and I didn't like the ending. But the people and the milieu are powerfully evoked and there's an authenticity that you just don't get in mainstream movies. You may find my comparison with Raising Victor Vargas annoying. But it was too much in my mind to avoid.

I'm surprised such a well informed and enthusiastic fan of Rivette as you are just now seeing Va Savoir, which was well publicized here when it came. I thought Va Savoir one of the year's best foreign films, as did arsaib4. Or did you see it back then and are just reviewing it as a DVD? I saw it first in a theater and then on video and I have a copy of it. I liked watching it and have watched it three or four times. I enjoy the Italian and the glossy French interiors, the posh library, etc. and the intelligent, if not extremely involving, subject matter. I have not reviewed it; I wasn't writing reviews as much back then, and I might find it hard to make sense of on the page. Another bar to reviewing him is that I have seen little of Rivette other than Paris nous appartient, Celine and Julie go boating, and La belle noiseuse -- though when you think of it, that's still a lot of hours since they're so long! His movies are a curious combination of lightness and excess. I think they, like the work of current French cinematic darling Arnaud Desplechin (whose fun but unruly Kings and Queen has been extravagantly admired in NYC lately), could have done with some ruthless editing. No doubt you strongly disagree. But we would agree that they're worth watching.

[oscar jubis]

Yes, I saw Va Savoir back then at the theatre. It's a second viewing and the first time I post about it. I like every Rivette film I have seen but Va Savoir is no Celine et Julie.
First viewing of Manito. I agree with your review and I like how your more recent reviews contain less spoilers.

[Chris Knipp]

I was excessive with the spoilers on Manito, and have since been forced by readers to learn the meaning of the term. There are still some cases, of which Crash was a notable example, where it appears to be impossible to discuss a movie intelligently or intelligibly without talking about some of the "surprises" it offers. Quite often they aren't such "surprises" after all. An example of this is Mysterious Skin. The shared background of the two principals is telegraphed from the start to anyone who's paying attention. But in the case of Manito, you just don't have to know all I told, prior to viewing.

It might have been a good idea to have mentioned that this was your second viewing of Va Savoir, in keeping with this being your cinema journal, i.e., a date book in which you spell out chronologically your personal filmgoing/viewing activities. What makes Celine and Julie so much superior to Va Savoir, in your view? I'd just like to hear your explanation of how the two compare.

[oscar jubis]

Celine and Julie Go Boating has been referred as the last Nouvelle Vague masterpiece. Not to slight Va Savoir, it's just that the older picture is such a daring, inspired, one-of-a-kind experience. It's been a few years seen I saw it. I miss it very much and I'm getting tired of waiting for a dvd release. Nightclub magician Celine and librarian Julie meet, exchange tall tales, move in together and, at times, swap identities. Then there a plot-within-the-plot titled "Phantom Ladies Over Paris". Celine and Julie access this narrative via visits to a dark, old house where they take turns taking care of a little girl. It's hard to convey from old memories how the film becomes increasingly resonant and significant. Other Rivette films seen in 2005:
-Marie et Julien (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=11035#post11035)
-Secret Defense (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=10794#post10794)
-Le Coup du Berger (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=9435#post9435)

Monday July 4th

To Be or Not To Be (USA, 1942) on dvd
A masterpiece from director Ernst Lubitsch set in Warsaw just before and during the Nazi occupation of Poland. Jack Benny and the incomparable Carole Lombard (her favorite role) as the Turas, a married couple who are lead actors in a theatrical company. A handsome pilot on the second row sends word that she wants to meet her. Mrs. Tura thinks it's harmless but doesn't want to make her husband jealous so she sends instructions to the pilot to come to her dressing room as Mr. Tura starts the famous Hamlet soliloquy, hence the movie's title. Hilarious complications ensue but, thirty minutes into the picture, Lubitsch spends a quarter hour developing an espionage subplot. The second half of To Be or Not to Be is the most exhilarating, clever and witty blend of sophisticated satire and espionage thriller. Neither the first nor the last time I'll be making its acquaintance. The cliche fits_they simply don't make 'em like this anymore.

Van God los aka Godforsaken (Netherlands, 2003)
Bought the dvd cheap on Ebay based on a couple of good e-media reviews, high IMdb ratings, and awards at third-tier Euro festivals. Box says "In the tradition of Natural Born Killers" but the plot derives mostly from Goodfellas and the van Venlo gang of thieves-turned-killers that terrified Holland during the mid-90s. Van God los is competently shot but adds nothing new to the tired genre. And the lead actor, who provides constant voice-over, is definitely no Ray Liotta. Box says "Running Time:95 minutes". I was not disappointed it ended at 82.

[Chris Knipp]

[Celine and Julie....] is a daring, inspired, one-of-a-kind experience. It's been a few years seen I saw it. I miss it very much and I'm getting tired of waiting for a dvd release. Can't you watch it on tape? Do you have a good video rental shop in Miami like Scarecrow Video in Seattle or Le Vidéo in San Francisco or Movie Image or Real Video in Berkeley or Video Américain in Baltimore, etc. etc., that has a supply of unusual or not normally available tapes, Oscar?

[oscar jubis]

Yes, Lion Video has a vhs copy. The possibility that the British Film Institute will release it on dvd has increased now that they are re-releasing a new print theatrically. If they don't, I'll buy a new vhs (about $21) because I'll want to revisit Celine and Julie Go Boating periodically.

Tue. July 5th

Dinner at Eight (USA, 1933) on dvd
This dvd is included in Warners Comedy Classics box and rates #85 in the American Film Institute's list of "funniest movies". As far as I'm concerned, Cukor's Dinner at Eight is a drama with a sense of humor, not a comedy. It's definitely not as funny as Cukor's The Philadelphia Story or Adam's Rib and not as brilliant as his Sylvia Scarlett, all featuring Katherine Hepburn. Dinner at Eight is an adaptation of a stage hit (Cukor's specialty) by George Kaufman and Edna Ferber, which deals more frankly with alcoholism, suicide, and adultery than movies made after Hollywood adopted the Code. Long stretches of the film are exclusively dramatic, particularly those involving John Barrymore's alcoholic, washed-up, has-been, delusional Renaud and his brother Lionel's sick and bankrupt Oliver Jordan. Lifestyles of the formerly rich and famous sums up the content. Providing the laughs, and plenty of charisma, Marie Dressler as a worldly and witty grand dame and the sexy and fierce Jean Harlow as a trophy wife from "Jeisey". Dinner at Eight towers above the movie it was supposed to emulate, the badly dated Oscar-winner Grand Hotel, but it's neither a comedy nor a classic.

Harlow: The Blonde Bombshell (USA, 2004)
Documentary narrated by Sharon Stone, a biography of Jean Harlow (1911-1937), who was consistently successful before an early death from kidney disease. Against the odds, Harlow was able to adapt smoothly after the Code of Conduct adopted by Hollywood closed the door on the open sexuality of her roles in pictures like Red-Headed Woman and Dinner at Eight. What's invaluable about this doc are the clips from many shorts in which Harlow first displayed her talents.

Faust (Germany, 1926) on dvd
The only one of F. W. Murnau's films available on video that I had never seen was restored in the 90s. It developed an instant following (for instance, it's rated #3 best Horror film ever by IMdb voters). Murnau and his collaborators utilize every theatrical and photographic device to conjure up a stage where the divine and the evil collide and battle for Faust's soul. The compositions and framing are inspired by the European paintings Murnau studied as an art history major. The text and narrative focus solely on the first of Goethe's Faust books but this is decidedly Murnau's Faust, after all this German folk legend predates the novel. Emil Jannings is unrecognizable here in the role of Mephisto; the silent legend calls forth a whole new set of expressions and gestures not found in his performances in The Last Laugh and The Blue Angel. Faust gathers strength and power as it moves towards its tragic and devastating conclusion.

[Chris Knipp]

John Barrymore's alcoholic, washed-up, has-been, delusional Renaud

Perhaps he knew whereof he spoke?

Surprised you trash Grand Hotel with its classic Garbo lines, but then, I'm no expert on film history like you. I always like to quote the refrain of Grand Hotel. "People come, people go. Nothing ever happens." I think this is really a classic and a time capsule. But then, what do I know?

Have you ever read Christopher Marlowe's Faust? Do. It conjures up with words more than any film images ever could.

[oscar jubis]

*The many similarities between John Barrymore and Renaud, the actor character he plays in Dinner at Eight, are not coincidental. Even the character's nickname is the same as Barrymore's: The Great Profile.
*Grand Hotel may be a time capsule. Dave Kehr refers to it as the prototypical MGM film because everything is bland so that the stars shine brighter. For me, Dinner at Eight is clearly superior.
*I saved the address of the website where I can read the entire "The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus", but I'm such a film whore I don't know when I'll make the time to do so.

Wed. July 6th

Filmakers of Our Time: Jean Vigo (France, 1965) PAL dvd
Feature documentary directed by Jacques Rozier, a biography of director Jean Vigo (1905-1934), featuring interviews with childhood friends and practically all his major collaborators. Vigo's early death from TB represents the biggest loss in the history of the medium. He made three shorts and the feature L'Atalante, all highly regarded. The son of political activists was indelibly marked by his anarchist father's death in prison (when Jean was twelve) and the discrepancy between the total freedom his parents gave him and the strict, provincial boarding school where he was educated. He is described by friends and associates as: spontaneous, extremely sensitive to the suffering of others yet sometimes cruel, humorous, workaholic, wildly creative and, above all, a freedom-lover.

The Voyages of L'Atalante: Versions, Rushes and Cuts (France, 2001)
Short documentary, narrated and directed by Bernard Eisenschitz, a case study in the ways studios, distributors and exhibitors alter the work of filmmakers. Prior to release, Gaumont Studio execs changed the film's title to that of a popular song, changed Maurice Jaubert's score, and made arbitrary cuts. L'Atalante was released again in 1940 with its original score and crude attempts to restore scenes that had been cut. This is when L'Atalante was recognized as a classic. A restoration released in 1990 incorporated unused takes of scenes that had been lost but, since no print of the original cut had been found, there was no blueprint (so to speak). An original print was finally found, restored using modern technology and finally released to the public in 2001.

Bunny Lake is Missing (UK, 1965) on dvd
Cristi and I watched it at a small screening room somewhere in Europe circa 1990. Probably Belgium, but we're not sure. We loved Otto Preminger's mystery thriller. Back home we learned it had never been released on video. Better unavailable than having its 2.35 to 1 frame formatted for TV, I thought. The wait was long but worth it, as the dvd looks stunning albeit sans extras. Bunny Lake is a 4 year old girl, at least according to her American mom (Carol Lynley) who has just moved to London with her protective brother (Keir Dullea). As far as we know, she may exist only in Mom's imagination because we never see Bunny when mom allegedly leaves her in the "first day" room of a Hampstead school. A myriad of explanations for Bunny's missing remain possible in the brilliant adaptation of Evelyn Piper's novel. Except for Laurence Olivier's superintendent, every character remains suspect for the first 80 minutes. And there's some very odd characters here, including a salacious landlord/poet who flaunts his S&M predilections during his interrogation (played by playwright Noel Coward) and a self-exiled schoolmistress doing research on child's nightmares. The last 25 minutes are almost unbearably suspenseful.
Bunny Lake is Missing is closely related thematically to the Fox noirs that cemented Preminger's reputation. Films like Laura, Whirpool and Angel Face (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=9569#post9569). Visually, too, it is an extension of the early films, with the stress on night scenes, interiors, and an amazingly mobile camera that relentlessly follows the actors in long, uninterrupted takes. A tour de force and Otto Preminger's last great film.

[Chris Knipp]

In all honesty I have never seen Dinner at Eight. Since Grand Hotel has left a strong impression on me I think there must be something to it. That it's a brilliant script I would not argue. I love those lines though.

You're missing something in not reading Marlowe's Doctor Faustus. And it's really, really short. You can read it in an hour. It has some of the most powerful lines in any play in English. Shakespeare was not the only literary genius of his time.

Bunny Lake sounds good. It seems like the concept of how a mystery should work has currently (since then) grown rather weak.

[oscar jubis]

My guess is you'd also like Dinner but, if I could recommend only one "oldie" I've seen recently, it'd be a toss-up between Murnau's Faust and To Be or Not To Be.

Thu. July 7th

Holiday (USA, 1938) on TCM
Holiday and The Philadelphia Story are both Grant/Hepburn comedies directed by George Cukor and written by Phillip Barry. Dave Kehr is right to call Holiday "more tender and less cluttered" than the more widely-seen Philadelphia. Less conventional plot-wise, I'd add, as Holiday qualifies for inclusion into the sub-genre "non-conformist" comedy. Watching it for the first time today was a revelation.

The Big Red One-The Reconstruction (USA, 2004) on dvd
The 1980 version was a "mutilated-by-studio" version running almost an hour shorter than this approximation of writer/director Samuel Fuller's cut. Overseen by Richard Schickel, the reconstruction of The Big Red One makes primary use of Fuller's 1980 novelization of the movie as a blueprint, along with consultation with filmmakers who collaborated with Fuller (RIP). It incorporates a great deal of footage that has been archived for two decades. The result is one of the best movies of 2004, one that lamentably did not have a commercial run here. South Florida's population surpasses 5 million (half of which live in Miami) so I imagine many buffs nationwide never heard of it because it never came near them. It was apparently handled as a relic not as a new and remarkable war epic. It's a bit hard to comprehend given that I think BRO is a more "commercial" war pic than the equally excellent but widely released The Thin Red Line.

THIS IS FICTIONAL LIFE BASED ON FACTUAL DEATH

Samuel Fuller based his script for The Big Red One on his own experience in the 1st Infantry during WWI, over three years long at several key "theatres of war". Like Fuller's title card implies, it's a fictionalized account and includes some characters who are composites. The focus of the film is on an old sergeant, played with mastery and restraint by Lee Marvin, and the four young soldiers who manage, barely, to live to tell about it. One of them, who provides some narration, is undoubtedly Fuller's stand-in. These five provide the glue holding together a variety of compelling episodes set in North Africa, Sicily, France, Germany, Belgium and Czechoslovakia. The tone and content is comprised of combinations of the multiplicity of emotions and sensations, often contradictory and paradoxical, experienced by participants in war. The viewer gets a rather comprehensive idea of how WWII was fought in Europe and how it likely affected those who fought (and, to a degree, those that didn't). Fuller had more in mind than a mere compilation of entertaining, dramatized sequences that form a vivid history lesson. Fuller had over 3 decades to ponder what he experienced and the result is a meditation on the difference between "murder" and "kill", or an essay on when, if ever, it is appropriate to cause someone's death. Another theme is the notion that war invariably causes insanity, at least temporarily. These and other threads that run through the film are never pushed up front, but neither can they be denied. The remarkable skill Samuel Fuller has to create striking images has been evident since the early 50s, and The Big Red One provides ample evidence. Overall, this one's quite special.

[oscar jubis]

Friday July 8th

The House is Black (Iran, 1962) dvd
"There's no shortage of ugliness in the world.
If man closes his eyes to it, there'd be even more.
But man is a problem solver.
On this screen will appear an image of ugliness, a vision of pain no caring human being should ignore.
To wipe out this ugliness and to relieve the victims is the motive of this film and the hope of its makers."

A 22-min b&w film written, edited and directed by poetess Farough Farrokhzad with a poet's sense of rhythm and great sensitivity towards its subjects. The House is Black was shot entirely at a leper colony in Northern Iran. Persons with leprosy receive medical treatment and phisiotherapy, prepare meals, play, make music and crafts, dance, take care of their children, groom themselves and attend school while, in the soundtrack, Ms. Farrokhzad reads the poems she wrote inspired by her visit to the colony. A masterpiece.

Images From the Ghajar Dynasty (Iran, 1993) and
The School That Was Blown Away (Iran, 1996) on dvd

Color shorts written, edited and directed by Moshen Makhmalbaf (The Ciclist, Kandahar). Images is a documentary on paintings, photos and cinematographic images created during the late 19th and early 20th century accompanied by classical Persian music.
The School is a fiction feature about a man who visits a tent school where children from nomadic tribes and remote areas are taught by itinerant teachers. The man walks into the tent and begins to ask questions of the teacher and pupils. A bit later, the teacher asks the man whether he was sent by the Ministry of Education to monitor. Turns out the man is a former teacher feeling nostalgic about the hard but rewarding time he spent running a similar school.

Death Watch (France/UK/Germany, 1979) on PAL dvd
Directed by Bertrand Tavernier. An English-language movie based on a futuristic novel by David Compton that presages the popularity of reality TV. Somewhere in the future, in an unspecified English-speaking city, Roddy (Harvey Keitel) undergoes an experimental procedure to insert a miniature camera inside his eye. He is given pills that make it unnecessary for him to sleep and a small lantern because the camera needs to be almost constantly exposed to light. This "future" looks just like Glasgow, Scotland in 1979 but medicine has advanced to the degree that it's extremely rare for young people to die from natural causes. That's what makes Katherine (Romy Schneider) such an interesting subject for the new reality show "Death Watch", produced by Vincent (Harry Dean Stanton) and planned to be shot by this new type of cameraman that is Roddy. Katherine initially refuses, then signs, collects half a million and attempts to hide from the world. She fails because she meets Roddy, who befriends her and, unbeknown to her, is automatically sending footage of her to the network. We learn that both Katherine and Roddy, who start developing feelings for each other, are still emotionally attached to their former spouses. We also become aware that Katherine's doctor is associated with the network and cannot be trusted.
A compelling premise that touches on contemporary issues regarding privacy, voyeurism, and the significance of our eminent death as it impinges on daily life. An excellent cast which includes Max Von Sydow in a cameo performance as Katherine's ex-husband. But there are apparent problems in terms of the pacing and the clarity of the storytelling that may have to do with the script, Tavernier's direction of a film in English, or both. It seems important, for instance, to understand what lead to the break-ups of Roddy and Katherine's marriages but this remains ambiguous and unclear. Sometimes the film does not quite convey to my satisfaction what motivates the characters' behaviors. But overall, the movie is worth-seeing and thought-provoking.

[oscar jubis]

Saturday July 9th

Hellboy (USA, 2004)
I couldn't tell Hellboy from Astroboy so mine is a novice's opinion_for what it's worth, Hellboy is as good as any movie derived from comics. I may actually prefer it to others that made much more noise and money. Part of the reason may be the way Mike Mignola's books incorporate historical characters into a fantastic plot or the casting of Ron Perlman, but I give most of the credit to the Mexican Williams: writer/director Guillermo del Toro and cinematographer Guillermo Navarro. They are perfectly suited to adapting "Hellboy", after having collaborated in Cronos, Blade II and the excellent political drama/horror hybrid The Devil's Backbone. A bit overlong and confusing, Hellboy is still highly recommended to every fan of the genre.

Way Down East (USA, 1920)
Anna is a poor, honest girl tricked into a fake marriage by a callous playboy. When she gets pregnant, he reveals the truth and deserts her. The baby is born but becomes sick and dies. Ostracized by the community, she takes to the road and finally finds refuge as a serving girl at the home of Puritan farmers. Their son falls in love with her, but Anna's fear of her past being discovered keeps her from admitting she loves him back. "A Simple Story about Simple People" says the subtitle. Indeed, also a Victorian melodrama already outdated in 1920. But it's D.W. Griffith at the helm, and Lillian Gish instantly dispelling any evidence of stereotype in the character (as written) with a dynamic, moving performance. The climax of the film is awesome as the distraught Anna runs into a blizzard and collapses on the frozen river. The ice breaks and rushes towards the falls. An expertly edited sequence. I don't like Way Down East as much as the great Griffiths that came immediately before (Broken Blossoms) and after (Orphans of the Storm), but Way Down East is a good film and Gish was never better.

[oscar jubis]

Sunday July 10th

The River (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=11702#post11702) (France/India/USA, 1951) on dvd

Daddy Long-Legs (USA, 1919) on TCM
Years before she co-founded United Artists, Mary Pickford was "America's Sweetheart". This first adaptation of Jean Webster's story is a good place to find out why. In the first half, Pickford's Judy is a mischievous, pre-teen orphan who stages a "prune strike", gets drunk on cider, and steals a doll from a rich, spoiled girl and gives it to a sick toddler. In the second half, a grown Judy gets to go to college thanks to a secret benefactor she calls Daddy Long-Legs. Mary Pickford's transformation from raucous tomboy to feminine, composed woman is a joy to behold. Talent-wise, Pickford was Chaplin's cousin. Comedy with pathos.

[oscar jubis]

Monday July 11th

Rumer Godden: An Indian Affair (UK, 1995) dvd
One-hour documentary directed by Sharon Maguire, a biography of the novelist, who was born in England and raised in India, where her novels are set. The documentary accompanies Ms. Godden on a trip to India at the age of 87 to revisit the places of her youth. It incorporates old photos and footage, clips from two film adaptations of her novels (The River and Black Narcissus), and an interview with the author.

Notre Musique (France, 2004) dvd
Jean Luc Godard's latest film is a political/cultural essay divided, like "The Divine Comedy", into Hell, Purgatory and Paradise. "Hell" is a 10-min montage of war images, both fictional and documentary, depicting conflicts from a variety of places and eras. Clips of films such as Alexandr Nevsky and Zulu are part of what's in essence a silent film with piano acompaniment. "Purgatory" takes place in Sarajevo, where a fictional conference called European Literary Encounters is to take place. It incorporates both fictional and real characters. Among the latter, Godard, there to give a lecture on "The Text and The Image".
Notre Musique needs to be approached as an essay, as a presentation of theses. The narrative fiction elements are primarily a conduit to ideas, and the film is full of them. The single earth-shaking event experienced by a fictional character, which I won't reveal, happens off screen. We learn about it through a phone call to Godard, after the conference has concluded. Ideally, Notre Musique would be watched with an audience willing to discuss it afterwards. Many characters, including Israelies, Palestinians and American Indians, present a variety of interesting comments on the history of human conflict, the relationshipp between art and politics, human nature, etc. It would be impossible to do justice to them on a short review. Perhaps of greater curiosity to filmbuffs are Godard's pronouncements. If he ever supported violent revolution, as alluded in many of his films, he seems to have modified his views considerably. It's implied at one point that Mao was ignorant and grossly out of touch. Godard states early on: "Humane people don't start revolutions. They start libraries". Another character completes the sentence: "And cementeries". A great deal of importance is giving to Spanish novelist Juan Goytisolo saying: "Killing a man to defend an idea is not defending an idea, it is killing a man", filmed inside the shell of a bombed cathedral and translated into other languages by an Egyptian-born French Jew. Godard's lecture centers on the idea that "Truth has two faces: shot and counter-shot. For instance, in 1948, Israelites walked on water to reach the Holy Land while Palestinians walked on water only to drown". The idea that we, or any group, comes to be defined primarily by the nature and characteristic of its foe or enemy, is given ample time, voiced with particular authority by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. Godard shows a picture of bombed buildings, looking like Europe after either world war and asks attendees to place it. "Virginia 1865", he corrects. The soundtrack of our world has been playing repeatedly for centuries. This is Our Music, he proposes.
Paradise brings back to life a character who dies at the end of purgatory. Paradise looks like a lush riverside forest where people laugh, play and read. Access to it is guarded by seemingly friendly uniformed men with guns. An ironic provocation from a man-of-ideas who's built a career around them.

[Chris Knipp]

Nice description. You make one really want to see it, you make it sound really worth seeing, but then I remember that I did see it and that I said it wasn't on my annual best list because it "failed to engage," http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=1194
but somewhere else I believe I said I might need to see it again to see what I thought. I don't think that's going to happen, because the later Godard has so consistently "failed to engage," but he sure was fascinating in his earlier days. You do this movie (I know it's not a "movie," though; it's a "film") more than justice. But I know you have a principle that I don't personally emphasis as much, which is "Cinema is a lot more than storytelling." -- Personal Disclosure, OSCAR JUBIS. I'm afraid that very often it is a lot less.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
the later Godard has so consistently "failed to engage," but he sure was fascinating in his earlier days.
I'm passionately engaged by Godard's images and ideas. His stories are thin and their telling is oblique (at least for the past 30 years), so it's easy to understand how someone looking for narrative would not be "engaged" by his films. Curious as to the last Godard you loved, if any.

Tuesday July 12th

La Naissance de l'amour (France, 1993) PAL dvd
Guest commentary by Kent Jones. Review culled from excerpts of his essay on Phillipe Garrel that appeared on the May/June 1997 issue of Film Comment.

"It doesn't get much more "typically French" than Phillipe Garrel. He conceives a filmic moment in terms of time-stopping portraiture. Garrel honors the individual by refusing to embellish or soften life's verities in any way. His philosophy is that the only thing worth talking about is a man, a woman, and a child, and every other structure is either superfluous or destructive. He films what he refers as "the life of the artist", meaning anyone who attempts to function outside of the beehive existence of the careerist state. Garrel's a cinema of threadbare overcoats, naked lightbulbs, and peeling paint, of silent meals and small groupings. His camera is still most of the time, not only out of necessity, but also because only a still and poised camera can offer a just and non-intrusive rendering of intimate human experience.

Not even his American soulmate John Cassavetes registers so low on the Spectacle Scale. No other filmmaker has ever been better at filming the act of thought_his is a cinema of ruminating men. In La Naissance de l'amour, writer Jean-Pierre Leaud visits his girlfriend in Rome. She's leaving him for another guy because he's too self-absorbed. He asks if he can just sleep next to her one last time and she complies. She strips down to something out of Victoria's Secret. "What's that?" he asks. "It excites him" she answers. "It excites him", Leaud repeats over and over as Raoul Coutard's richly contrasted black-and-white camera stays fixed on this earthy woman and her embarrasment at being caught by an old lover objectifying herself for a new one, yet still knowing her own mind. The moment has a range of life experience that few films can touch."

Leaud's buddy is a theatre actor played by Lou Castel, the other male character in Naissance, who serves as counterpoint to Leaud. Castel's actor doesn't seem to know whether he's still married because he loves his wife or because the 14 year old and the newborn baby need a dad around the house. His flirtations and couplings with other women are highly tentative and tinged with a wobbly romanticism. There are many moments involving Castel as pregnant with meaning and as patiently observed as the one described by Kent Jones, some as simple as holding hands under the dinning table. Somehow Garrel strings together a series of life moments in the lives of two middle-aged men and makes them feel like a story.

Love Streams (USA, 1984) PAL dvd

The last film both written and directed by John Cassavetes is one of his best. Simple story: Gena Rowlands plays a wife whose husband wants to divorce her and whose daughter doesn't want to live with her. The dependent, warm and fragile woman can't quite cope. Her brother, played by Cassavetes, is a succesful writer of lurid romance novels who's incapable of intimacy. A lifestyle of alcohol and fast women. A film by Cassavetes is all about unmediated experience, unadulterated truth, complete honesty at the expense of your sense of emotional comfort. When his characters appear pathetic or make fools of themselves, or do crazy things, they are not ridiculed or belittled for laughs, or analyzed or explained away. It's all raw material for the viewer to react to and digest. Love Streams is a thoroughly engaging, emotionally powerful, achingly humane film by one of the greats.

[Chris Knipp]

Curious as to the last Godard you loved, if any.
Sympathy for the Devil, 1968.


"It doesn't get much more "typically French" than Phillipe Garrel.I think the "typically French" spelling is Philippe. I'm afraid this sentence rubbed me the wrong way. I didn't read further; but I wondered if he was related to the sexy Louis Garrel who's in The Dreamers and Ma Mère, and he is: he's his dad.

[Chris Knipp]

Have you heard anything about Machuca, directed by Andrés Wood, set in Chile in the early Seventies? It's here next week.

[oscar jubis]

*It is P-h-i-l-i-p-p-e Garrel, my bad.
*Jones is using the term "typically French" to contrast "the strongest current in French Cinema" with American cinema's "grounding itself in action and what it takes to set it in motion".
*I made 3 guesses in my mind: 1)Tout va Bien, 2)Alphaville, 3) Love? Not quite.
Godard punched out the producer of One on One after a festival screening for including the complete song over the ending titles. Remember how when slogans are being written on walls we never see the complete sentence/message? Godard disowned the film, which was released as Sympathy....
*Machuca looks promising. It's slowly being released around the country. It hasn't played in Chicago or here yet, but it will. I'd say go see it.

[Chris Knipp]

I don't care if Godard disowned Sympathy. You asked me the last one I loved. Of course Alphaville is one to go back to again and again. Some might to Weekend, not me. Breathless, which is so nostalgic and charming. La Chinoise at the time was exciting. So was Godard's cantankerous spirit. He appeared on the Berkeley campus with a panel and questions from the floor and an interrpreter he used as a foil -- a scene right out of one of his movies.

Garrel junior seems to be doing very well for somebody who just got in through nepotism. Or can it be that he has talent. Nothing like having talent and connections. I'm not the fan of Kent Jones that some of you guys are. His writing seems to me to be the usual solemn turgid self-important youthful academic kind of thing. Maybe I'll be proven wrong. At least he is well placed and producing serious stuff. Too serious, but he may be a good influence. But his blanket assertion of Garrel's profundity seems a bit naive. His shorthands are a bit crude at times: "He conceives a filmic moment in terms of time-stopping portraiture. Garrel honors the individual by refusing to embellish or soften life's verities in any way. His philosophy is that the only thing worth talking about is a man, a woman, and a child, and every other structure is either superfluous or destructive." "Every other structure"? Bad phrase. "Soften life's verities"? Pompous nonsense. The best example of that is "typically French." He just doesn't write all that well, Oscar. If he'd written "more truly French" that would have worked better. It's not what he's saying, it's how he says it.

I may see Machuca. A friend wants to go and it's at the San Rafael theater which I think is nice. But Michael Atkinson has shredded it in the Voice, and oftentimes when Atkinson shreds something, it's hard to put it back together, it remains partly in tatters.

[oscar jubis]

*I didn't mean to imply Sympathy is bad because Godard disowned it. I find it interesting that he'd get so upset about the song being played in its entirety over the final credits. It's something I'll keep in mind when I watch it again because it could potentially shine a light on Godard's intentions.
*I'd be interested in any Garrel but perhaps more so 1989's Emergency Kisses in which Maurice (Philippe's father), Philippe and Louis practically play themselves. Lamentably, the two films directed by Garrel I've watched this year are the only ones available anywhere with English subtitles.

[Chris Knipp]

That's a very telling point you brought up about Godard and I should've mentioned in my last response. It's something that shows he liked to provoke people, not provide answers. That may have been misunderstood in this country because compared to an American, he seemed so doctrinaire, but he was merely alluding to doctrines, not advocating them.

You'll just have to learn French so you can watch more of Garrel père's films. Your Spanish will give you a big boost with the grammar. I'm watching where the three actors in The Dreamers go. Whatever people think of that movie the actors' selecton by Bertolucci amounts to an anointment from on high. Michael Pitt has had more appearances, and stars in the new Gus Van Sant, which promises to be as interesting and provocative as Elephant. I'm also a bit of a Lucas Haas fan. Eva Green got almost cut out of a medieval epic, but she's just as voluptuous as Garrel if not more so and is going to go somewhere eventually. Louis Garrel is getting great roles judging by his appearance with Isabelle Huppert in Ma Mère, which I'm interrested to see; and it won't be long: it comes to Berkeley July 29. That's a series of one-week showings in which Tropical Malady is followed by Lila Says and then Ma Mère. If something does well they extend it.

[oscar jubis]

*I understand some French but certainly not enough to watch a film without English subtitles. I'd had to devote ample time to study it. My mother and brother speak it well so they'd be able to help me, but I'd have to limit my film-watching to no more than one per day. That would be a big sacrifice for me. As it is, I'm barely reducing the number of movies on my "To Watch" list.
*I've seen both Lila Says and Tropical Malady, the latter amounts to the most original/revolutionary film I've seen all year. Extremely curious as to your response to it. I'd watch paint dry if Huppert wielded the brush (re Ma Mere)
*Eva Green's perf will be restored on the director's cut of Kingdom of Heaven, to be released on dvd.

Wed. July 13th

Martha (Germany, 1974) dvd
I've watched about 25 movies directed by Rainer W. Fassbinder and I think this made-for-tv film is perhaps the best and definitely the most excrutiating to watch. Martha (Margrit Carstensen) is a 31 year-old virgin who works as a librarian and lives with her emotionally abusive and restrictive bourgeoise parents. While on vacation to Italy with her father, he dies of a heart attack. At the entrance to the German embassy she encounters Helmut (Karlheinz Bohm), a civil engineer she will eventually marry. The scene is a tour-de-force in which the camera goes around the couple 360 degrees while both actors meet face-to-face and spin around. They meet again at Helmut's brother's wedding and begin to date. Helmut is good looking and successful, and also cold and casually cruel, not unlike Martha's parents. Once married, Helmut begins in earnest to dominate and subjugate the suffering Martha. To some extent she is complicit in her own abuse, her marriage seems to perpetuate a relationship pattern she's been raised to repeat. Increasingly and methodically, Helmut incarcerates Martha and removes any trace of her own individuality.
Every aspect of production, particularly the cinematography (Michael Balhaus) and the acting, is excellent. If possible, Bohm is creepier here than in Peeping Tom. Carstensen's performance is detailed and carefully balanced between acquiescence and protestation. Fassbinder's film, from a story by Cornel Woolrich, is not only a commentary on bourgeoise marriage but also a treatise on the macabre dance between oppressor and oppressed. Martha is simply perfect. Every scene gives one the impression that a lot of thought and careful planning went into it, and that everyone was "on the same page", so to speak. I felt short-of-breath watching Martha and emotionally exhausted afterwards. I'm full of admiration for Fassbinder and everyone involved.

Fassbinder in Hollywood (USA, 2002) dvd
One hour documentary on the career of F.W. Fassbinder, includes clips of a dozen of his movies and interviews with Schygulla, Balhaus, Lommel and many of his collaborators. The film ponders the idea of the director working in Hollywood, which became more of a possibility as his films became more polished and demanded higher budgets. Interesting comments from Wim Wenders and others regarding the kind of studio film Fassbinder would direct.

[oscar jubis]

Thursday July 14th

Dazed and Confused (USA, 1993) dvd
Chelsea's pick. A movie I'd already seen twice. A sort-of American Grafitti for those of us who came-of-age in the 70s like writer/director Richard Linklater but less concerned with plot. Set in Texas, like Linklater's Slacker, but less specific about place. A rock comedy, like his School of Rock, but much less wholesome. Dazed and Confused (also a Led Zeppelin song) takes place on May 28th, 1976, the last day of the school year. It's concerned primarily with partying and juniors and seniors submitting incoming freshmen to hazing rituals. Dazed and Confused is funny and nails its time period, hence its nostalgic pull on folks of a certain age. I'm rather disappointed Linklater lets the bullies off easy. I wish Linklater had fit in some of the deleted scenes (included on the dvd) which expose the racism and sadism of two major characters. Moreover, unlike the 70s I remember, nobody here vomits from drinking too much or becomes unpleasantly paranoid after smoking pot. Dude doesn't want his teen comedy to turn into a "bummer", I guess. Large cast includes Ben Affleck, Matthew McConaughey, Parker Posey and Joey Lauren Adams.

Libeled Lady (USA, 1936) dvd
Newspaper prints lies about socialite (Myrna Loy). She sues for $5 million. Managing editor (Spencer Tracy) counter-maneuvers by having a former columnist (William Powell) first marry his fiancee (Jean Harlow) then seduce Loy. Complications ensue when Harlow falls for Powell and Powell falls for Loy. Libeled Lady is neither a great screwball comedy nor a classic but it's well worth-seeing. The clever plot takes a number of unpredictable turns during its fast and furious last twenty minutes. The direction by Jack Conway is undistinguished.

Not On the Lips (France, 2004) dvd
It's really sad the latest film from Alain Resnais went straight to video. It's my favorite musical since Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988). Not on the Lips is an adaptation of an operetta by Andre Barde and Maurice Yvain divided in three acts and set in Paris during the autumn of 1925. Sabine Azema and Pierre Arditi, the married couple from Melo play the Valandrays, a well-to-do couple. This time Azema has not one but three potential lovers: a gregarious older bachelor; a young, handsome artiste, and most significantly, an American to whom she was secretely married while living in Chicago. Azema's spinster sister (Isabelle Nanty) and a charming ingenue (Audrey Tatou) round up the cast. Romantic complications galore. Very funny and witty lyrics, a magnificent score, perfectly cast actors performing with ebullient energy and gusto, precise and evocative art direction...you name it, Not on the Lips put a smile on my face from beginning to end. Guaranteed a place on my year end Top 10.