2008 REPERTORY: Oldies but Goodies

[oscar jubis]

In a movie culture predicated in many ways on planned obsolescence, where most “new” stuff is already conceived as some sort of spin-off, it’s tempting to argue that newness has less to do with when a film is made as with its power to reach and change us. It’s also worth considering what we mean by “old”: as Jean-Luc Godard pointed out in the 1960s, we’re more apt to say, “I just saw an old Chaplin movie” than “I just read an old Dickens novel.”
(Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader)

HALLELUJAH (1929/USA)

A melo-drama in the original definition of the word: a dramatic story with music. An early "talkie" produced and directed by King Vidor for no pay as a concession to the studio. Perhaps the best film about the black experience until Sounder was released in the early 70s, certainly the most artistically conceived (Vidor received a most deserved Oscar nomination). The film lavishes attention on the daily routine and community life of African-Americans in the South (exteriors shot on location in Arkansas and Tennessee). Hallelujah opens with a series of scenes depicting sharecropping activities, a "pastorale" of great beauty and historical importance, then develops into a morality tale starring Zeke. The young man is torn between his unshakable religious faith and his weakness for women and vice. Hallelujah features an all-black cast who had scant opportunities to appear in films. Prominent among them, the "Black Garbo" Nina Mae McKinney, unforgettable in the role of the "hussy" or "flapper" Chick. The wonderful soundtrack includes a number of spirituals, early jazz tunes, and two Irving Berlin compositions: "Swanee River" and "End of the Road". The treatment of African Americans was advanced for the times but later some of Hallelujah's characterizations were justly criticized as stereotypical.

[oscar jubis]

FLOATING CLOUDS (1955/Japan)

Mikio Naruse, one of the four great Japanese Golden Age directors, comes from the school of hard-knocks. He grew up poor, his parents died when he was a kid, and he was denied a chance to direct for years despite obvious potential. After a decade as prop man and assistant, he quickly established a reputation as the premiere director of shomin-geki or lower-class dramas. Naruse was a social realist to the core. One can imagine the directors of Italian Neo-Realism becoming fast fans of Naruse had his films been shown in the West. In Japan, he was a consistent critical and commercial success. His concerns were almost exclusively materialist; his characters struggle to survive against the odds and maintain a modicum of dignity in a world full of betrayals and disappointments.

Floating Clouds was a huge hit at the Japanese box office and won 4 Japanese Academy awards. Naruse muse Hideko Takamine plays a young woman who once had a war-time romance with a married man while they both worked for the forestry department in Japanese-occupied Indochina. The plot concerns their on-and-off affair and their struggles with disease, infidelity, poverty, unemployment and family crises in post-war Japan. These are not the charming, middle-class folks one finds in Ozu's films of the same period. They inhabit a film of great rigor and austerity, devoid of the stylistic flourishes of Mizoguchi. Like many of Naruse's films, Floating Clouds is an adaptation of a novel by renowned author Fumiko Hayashi. Like Rossellini, Naruse's aim is to locate the truth and expose it, however painful. Floating Clouds deals with a number of issues other directors would rather forget, including the ignominy of national defeat and the reliance on prostitution and other shady activities as means of economic survival. It's a deeply moving film from beginning to end.

[Johann]

Excellent Oscar.

Nice to see a new repertory thread for 2008.
Great for '08!
Keep 'em coming man. Love your posts...

[oscar jubis]

Thanks a lot, man. I considered doing something entirely different for "08: one sentence reviews of everything I watch and the challenge of developing a grading system. Then decided to continue with same format as last two years: mid-size reviews of old movies I like a lot which I'm watching for the first time. Just watched Gregg Araki's inspired "pothead comedy" Smiley Face, which will probably just miss making my 2007 lists. Much, much better than Hey Dude, Where's My Car?. I also watched the new version of Blade Runner , which will definitely get on the list. It's a must-see! Next on this thread: Sam Fuller's favorite among his own.

[Johann]

Must be The Big Red One, right?

I'm not going to miss the new *final* cut of Blade Runner when it plays next week at the Bytowne. Seeing it on the big screen will be awesome. I got a bottle of Greg Norman's ready for the occasion. (and some healthy plants :)

[oscar jubis]

PARK ROW (1952/USA)

"Page One and the screen are bedmates. A headline has the impact of a headshot, pulp and raw stock fight linage and footage--a news lead is the opening of a film. Reporter and film director spill blood on the same emotional battlefield of what is fit to print and what is fit to film."
(Sam Fuller's 1975 interview at the American Film Institute)

"I always come away from Samuel Fuller films both admiring and jealous. I like to take lessons in filmmaking"
(Francois Truffaut in his book "The Films of My Life")

Samuel Fuller proposed to direct a script he had written about American journalism in the 1880s. Darryl F. Zanuck wanted to turn it into a musical. Instead, Fuller decided to produce it himself and spent his life savings ($200,000) on it. It was a labor of love for Fuller, who became a reporter at age 17 after five years as a copyboy. It's the story of Phineas Mitchell, a principled reporter who opts to quit his job rather than print anything but the truth. He sits with assorted colleages in a bar, drinking beer and dreaming aloud about the honest paper he could run. He is overheard by an older gentleman who decides to invest in Phineas' dream. He assembles a capable staff who turn "The Globe" into enough of a success to compete with his former employer, "The Star". Its owner, Charity Hackett, declares all-out war after failing to woo Phineas back. The plot weaves in the invention of the first linotype machine and efforts to raise $100,000 to build the pedestal needed for the Statue of Liberty. The love/hate relationship between Phineas and the beautiful, strong-willed Charity is fully explored.

Park Row features a cast of outstanding character actors, including Gene Evans and Mary Welch in the leads, but no stars. The film is compact and dynamic, with a camera that moves nimbly and elegantly about a specially built set. Jack Russell, who would get an Oscar nomination for Psycho, was in charge of cinematography. Besides the dolly and crane shots used, the film is characterized by closeups and medium shots in which the camera is placed slightly above and to the side of the actors, somewhere between the more extreme angles often used by Welles and conventional studio framing. Yet Fuller's focus is on straightforward storytelling and narrative economy without sacrificing character development. This film, "dedicated to American Journalism", is said to be Fuller's favorite* and it's easy to see why. It's magnificent.

*According to Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne. Park Row is not available on video and rarely screened. It was shown recently at the request of filmmaker John Sayles, who served as guest programmer.

[Chris Knipp]

I think the pothead fantasies are all about equally valid, Harry and Kumar Go to Shite Castle (just kidding), Dude, Where's My Car? (not "Hey Dude"), and Smiley Face. The earlier ones are a bit funnier, but Smiley Face focuses more accurately on pothead inertia and stoned behavior and has the definite virtue of ending the male domination of the genre. It seems a bit of a disappointment after Mysterious Skin, but with Araki, you never know. Getting into the stoner mentality, I was too lazy to write a review of Smiley Face, so thanks for bringing it up.

[Johann]

I read Fuller's autobiography A Third Face and remember him saying that of all his films, he is most proud of The Big Red One.

[Chris Knipp]

Fuller is most often quoted as saying Park Row was his favorite of his movies. But he was also very proud of his later accomplishment with The Big Red One.

[oscar jubis]

I agree that Smiley Face "focuses more accurately on pothead inertia and stoner behavior" than similar movies. Araki was consciously and adamantly looking for something light and comedic following the wonderful and "heavy" Mysterious Skin when he came across this script by Dylan Haggerty, a minor actor who plays the Ferris Wheel attendant in the movie. The humor derives from close observation or intimate knowledge of the self-absorption, self-consciousness, overvigilance, and altered perceptions facilitated by the popular herb. Smiley Face doesn't "reach" for laughs; it seems grounded by experience. And Anna Faris (Cindy from the Scary Movies) is just right for the central role.

I failed to find any direct quotes from Fuller but, for what it's worth, what was said on TCM about Park Row being his favorite is echoed on Fuller's Wikipedia page. No doubt he's proud about The Big Red One; it's such a personal work.

[Chris Knipp]

(Odd combo, isn't it? Fuller can be pretty trippy, but he seems like more of a speed type of guy.)

For sure it sounds like Park Row was Fuller's personal favorite. It would be nice to get somebody who knew him to confirm that from his own words though. .
close observation or intimate knowledge Yes and it's a pretty neat trick to convey that, since a stoner can't even remember what happened five seconds ago, so how to recall the experience let alone describe it? I've been there, man, trust me. I know the observation is good, and even the feel of being stoned is well represented in a fresh visual way. Obviously Araki was looking for something light after Mysterious Skin (though his handling of that isn't heavy-handed; and he shows a light touch with heavy stuff throughout his earlier work). Indeed Anna Faris does an excellent job. Unfortunately though I found Smiley Face didn't leave a strong impression and I'm sorry it isn't better or more memorable than it is. Possibly for that reason but also simply due to other circumstances I didn't get to write a review of it. I think if you talk to comic masters (Steve Martin, Seinfeld, for example currently) you find humor doesn't just "happen" naturally. It takes a lot of work. Scenes in Dude, Where's My Car may be "artificial" in that they're self-consciously achieved, but one or two of them are quite memorable and you need to remember something for it to work. I think when you feel a movie "reaches" for laughs it's because the writers have failed. The effort should not show. But the reaching is always there. And all humor is grounded by experience.

There are many movies that depict drug use but only a few even try to convey what it feels and looks like to be high on drugs. One that comes to mind for me is the underappreciated Spun (2002), , directed by Jonas Akerlund and written by Creighton Vero and Will de los Santos, starring Jason Schwartzman and others, which is about methamphetimines, but really gives you the feeling of being stoned.

[oscar jubis]

MIX-UP ou MELI-MELO (France/1985)

Francoise Romand's debut tells the true story of two women who raised each other's daughters after the babies were mixed-up by the staff of a small maternity clinic in Nottingham, England. The story begins in 1936, reaches a crucial point two decades later when it came into the open, and continues until the daughters turned 48. Mix-Up is not a conventional documentary. It certainly includes interviews and family-owned photographs and videos. But Romand goes deeper into themes of identity, affiliation and representation by means of tableaux vivants, scenes that recreate past events using the real subjects, posed portraits in different configurations, and scenes in which two child actresses are used. Mix-Up achieves novelistic detail within 63-min duration by approaching the themes from multiple angles and appraising her subjects from a multiplicity of points of view.

The truth is that the border between fictional films and documentary has always been permeable. Nanook of the North (1922), considered to be a seminal work of documentary cinema, consists almost exclusively of recreations made according to the directions of Robert Flaherty. Fiction has a knack for intruding into the documentary intentions of filmmakers, and viceversa. The work of Francoise Romand belongs to a tradition of movies that consciously and vigorously experiment by combining aspects of both fiction and documentary. These include Jean Rouch's "docu-fictions", in which he had the subjects of his documentary footage create a fictional voice-over, and the work of Peter Watkins, Abbas Kiarostami (especially Close-Up) and others.

[oscar jubis]

LOS TARANTOS (Spain/1963)

This Oscar-nominee directed by Rovira-Belita is based on a play that transposes "Romeo and Juliet" to the gypsy community in Barcelona. Not quite a faithful adaptation of the Shakespeare classic even in terms of plot. Perhaps the best film ever made that showcases flamenco music and dance, in that it places the art form within the daily routine of the community that nurtures it. In that regard, it can hardly be called a "musical" because of all the playing, singing and dancing is organically integrated into the narrative. Bosley Crowther wrote in the New York Times: "This could just as well be a story plucked out of the columns of a Barcelona newspaper. Indeed, the way in which it is told, in a strikingly naturalistic fashion against settings that are the streets and parks and a colorful gypsy quarter of Barcelona—the latter on the edge of the city by the sea—is so vividly journalistic that it is not reminiscent of any other plot."

Los Tarantos features the debuts of Antonio Gades, the star of Carlos Saura's flamenco trilogy, and the drop-dead gorgeous, 15 year-old Sara Lezana. Legendary classical flamenco dancer Carmen Amaya closed the curtains on her acting career with this film completed shortly before her untimely death.

*A seemingly restored print of this color film was screened at the Spanish Cultural Center in Coral Gables. A screening of Rovira-Belita's El Amor Brujo, also an Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Film, is scheduled for next week.

[Chris Knipp]

Sounds wonderful. I would love to see it.

[oscar jubis]

The Spanish dvd doesn't have English subtitles. If it's released in the US, I'd let you know. I hadn't had reason to be optimistic about dvd release of classic Spanish cinema in the US until Criterion announced Juan Antonio Bardem's sensational Death of a Cyclist (http://www.criterion.com/asp/release.asp?id=427) is coming out in April.
I hope to be able to watch El Amor Brujo next tuesday. My wife's stepmom arrives from Spain that day.

[oscar jubis]

MIRACLE IN MILAN (ITALY/1951)

One of several memorable collaborations between director Vittorio De Sica and screenwriter Cesare Zavattini (Bicycle Thieves, Shoe-Shine, The Gold of Naples, Umberto D). It was named Best Foreign Film of 1951 by the New York Critics Circle and won the top prize at the 5th Cannes Film Festival (tied with Alf Sjoberg's Miss Julie). A thoroughly charming neorealist mix of satire and fantasy. Toto was abandoned as a baby and found by a kind, old lady in her cabbage patch. She raised him until age 7 when she died and he was placed in an orphanage. Released at 16, he joins Milan's homeless and becomes the leader of a shantytown community built on unused land on the outskirts of the city. The community is a model of democracy and egalitarianism. Then the owner of the land wants to develop it and orders the police to evict them. The poor and destitute living there resist as much as they can. Then the old lady who raised Toto descends from heaven to give him a magical, wish-fulfilling dove. Miracle in Milan comes across like a mix of Chaplin, Tati, and early Fellini. Inexplicably, it's not available on dvd in North America.

[Chris Knipp]

I saw this when I was quite young in the theater with my parents and some of their very good friends, one of whom proclaimed it "Charlie Chaplin with a Tuscan accent." It's wonderful, as I remember it. I remember that scene when the man and woman are of different races and each makes a wish....and the little skinny man who wins a whole chicken and is so hungry he devours it on the spot in a few minutes. And the music... and the big fat rich men in big overcoats. A good memory. Zavatini and De Sica--wonderful combination. Still using many non actors and "doppiaggio."

[oscar jubis]

Yes. Yes. I think it's remarkable how well you remember it (assuming you haven't seen it since then). The old man who wins the raffle for the chicken has one of those wonderfully fleshy, malleable faces, like Dominique Pinon (Amelie) but much older. Francesco Golisano is great in the lead. They used to call him "Geppa", the name of the recurring character he played in Sotto il sole di Roma (1948) and Vent'anni. He stopped acting in 1952 and died before 30 (auto accident). Perhaps the most Chaplinesque aspect of the film is the casting of and performance by Brunella Bovo as Toto's girl. She had a much longer acting career than Geppa, appearing in Fellini's The White Sheik (the Criterion dvd includes a recent interview with her) and a couple of low-budget American movies under the name "Barbara Hudson".
The would-be romance between an English-speaking black man and a Milanese girl is sketched in a few brief, silent scenes. Nicely done. The main speaking parts are apparently, as you say, dubbed as part of postproduction. Alessandro Cicognini composed the music for most of De Sica's best films.

[Chris Knipp]

Of course I remember. I like movies! I think I once re-watched it on a videotape but my memory of the first viewing is much more vivid than my memory of that time, which is vague.

Definitely dubbed. Pretty nearly all Italian movies have been dubbed even up to now, but now I think they're starting to record live a lot, but not all. "Il doppiaggio" was a a major element in "neorealismo" and the ability to use non-actors--something I've learned since seeing "Miracolo a Milano." I didn't know that when I was a kid. But Italian was sort of part of my life because my mother loved Italian and studied it most of her life, lived in Rome for a while with my sister, and co-founded in Baltimore, our home town, the Circolo Culturale Italiano di Baltimora.

Here's a guy making fun of Italian dubbing especially of a film dubbed from Japanese into English and then into Italian: http://www.revver.com/video/320518/dario-bandiera-e-il-doppiaggio-di-sandokan/.

[oscar jubis]

Funny guy this Dario Bandiera.

[Chris Knipp]

Indeed. Amazing schtick.

[oscar jubis]

SECRETS OF A SOUL (Germany/1926)

Sigmund Freud refused to collaborate in film production because he didn't believe "satisfactory plastic representation of our abstractions was possible". He turned down offers from Hollywood's Samuel Goldwyn and Berlin's UFA. Two of Freud's close associates, Hanns Sachs and Karl Abraham, did agree to serve as consultants of the first film about psychoanalysis: Secrets of a Soul by G. W. Pabst. The film was very well received. It was instrumental in spreading psychoanalysis throughout the world. It is, in my opinion a notch below Pabst's masterpieces like Pandora's Box because the source material has obviously dated. It is a case history, based on an actual patient, about a man who develops a knife phobia and homicidal desires as a consequence of unresolved child trauma, frustrated desire to father a child, and intense feelings of jealousy towards the handsome cousin of his wife, whom he considers a rival. Secrets of a Soul (to call it "Secrets of a Psyche" would have confused the uninitiated) is basically a mystery which illustrates the use of free association and dream interpretation to locate the source of a patient's neurosis and facilitate his personal growth. As far as psychological mysteries goes, I like Pabst's film better than Spellbound, Hitchcock's stab at making a psychoanalytic film. What makes Secrets of a Soul special is the use of photography and art direction to convey interior processes like dreams, memories and fantasies. However, the important relationship between patient and doctor in psychoanalysis cannot possibly be dramatized with the necessary nuance within the limitations of the silent film.

[oscar jubis]

COLORADO TERRITORY (USA/1949)

Raoul Walsh, the archetypal action director, transposed his High Sierra to the western genre with excellent results. Dave Kehr points out that " the added emphasis on landscape makes it a more personal and more effective film" than its predecessor. Joel McCrea stars as a bandit sprung out of jail by his aged partner who convinces him to do one last heist before retiring. McCrea must deal with his partner's envious new associates, lawmen in pursuit, and juggle two romantic interests played to perfection by Dorothy Malone and Virginia Mayo (in a more complex part than she played in Walsh's masterpiece White Heat (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=13968#post13968)). Very fast moving like most Warners films of the period with breathtakingly dynamic action sequences and Walsh's keen eye for image composition clearly evident. Not on dvd. Thanks TCM.

[oscar jubis]

GRASS: A NATION'S BATTLE FOR LIFE (USA/1925)

Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, the guys who wrote and directed the original King Kong in 1933, debuted with this fascinating documentary about the 48-day yearly migration of the nomadic Bakhtiari tribe of Persia in search for pasture for their herd. Fifty thousand men, women and children cross a wide river in rafts that float on inflated goat skins and cross the steep, snow-covered Taurus mountains until they reach the grassy plains of southern Iran. It's a most perilous journey and a most exhilarating experience for the viewer. Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life was made originally for the University lecture circuit but was such a hit with audiences that Paramount Pictures decided to release it in commercial theaters. I watched a TV broadcast of the film, now available on a dvd said to include commentary from Mr. Cooper himself.

[oscar jubis]

LOVE (HUNGARY/1971)

Karoly Makk has remained in the shadow of Miklos Jancso among world-renowned Hungarian directors of his generation. At least in this country, Jancso's masterpieces like Red Psalm, The Red and the White and The Round Up are more frequently screened and discussed. My first viewing of this Cannes Jury Prize winner suggests Makk deserves more exposure. Love is based on a novel by Tibor Dery set in the early 60s. A school teacher named Luca (Mari Torocsik) manages to make her ailing mother-in-law (Lili Darvas) believe that her husband is making a film in New York when actually he's been incarcerated for months. The mother receives letters signed by her son which are actually written by Luca herself. Luca hasn't received any news about Janos, her filmmaker husband, for months and fears he might be dead. He was charged with vague "crimes against the state" and, as a result, Luca loses her job and the authorities move new tenants into her 2-bedroom apartment.

Half of Love takes place in the old woman's apartment but the film never feels stagy because of the frequent use of brief flashbacks to bring to life the characters' memories and fantasies. Makk's film is a miracle of succinct storytelling. Montages of images, each lasting no more than a second, are used to depict significant events from the past with great economy. Darvas and Torocsik are wonderfully restrained in their lead performances. Janos Toth's black & white cinematography reminded me of the work of Raoul Coutard in many of the films of the French New Wave. Makk and Toth collaborated on a second film, Cat's Play, which received an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film in 1975. I will be watching it soon, as both Love and Cat's Play were released on dvd by Facets Video in 2005 and largely ignored by the press.

[oscar jubis]

PITFALL (Japan/1962)

Hiroshi Teshigahara's feature debut is an adaptation of a novel by Kobo Abe deemed experimental at the time. It's the saga of an itinerant miner lured to a remote, abandoned town by a mystery man in white. The miner is murdered. The mystery man bribes the candy seller who witnesses the crime. There's an investigation, an innocent is framed for the murder, the miner's son hides while the ghost of his father searches for reasons why he was targeted. He encounters the ghosts of others who met a similar fate. Pitfall is an indictment of capitalism and post-war industrialization in Japan (It goes beyond being an expose of exploitation in the mining industry, implying that the repression affected a whole class) . Pitfall is just a notch below Teshigahara's masterpiece: Woman in the Dunes, which was released two years later. Toru Takemitsu's jazz-inflected modernist score makes quite an impression. It helps create the ominous mood that pervades the film.

[oscar jubis]

CHAMELEON STREET (USA/1991)

This unique film was part of the resurgence of American independent filmmaking of the late 1980s and early 1990s. It won the Grand Jury Prize at the 1990 Sundance Film Festival and was released commercially in 1991. Chameleon Street was hailed by critics and ignored by audiences. Wendell B. Harris, Jr., the writer, editor, director, and star of the film hasn't directed since then. Chameleon Street is based on the real-life exploits of William Douglas Street, a middle-class black man who impersonated a Yale graduate student, a civil rights lawyer, a Harvard-trained surgeon, and a Time magazine journalist. What we have here is a Black indie movie that doesn't take the point of view of youth from the ghetto. A literate, adult, African-American film that mentions the Sex Pistols, includes clips from Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast and Josef von Sternberg's The Shanghai Gesture, and makes brilliant use of voice-over narration. A serious-minded but very funny comedy about a black Zelig that confronts issues of race and class head on. A movie that broaches the existential concerns found in seminal Black novels like Richard Wright's "Native Son" and, especially, Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man". Like Abbas Kiarostami's Close Up, Chameleon Street features some of the impersonator's actual victims (including Detroit major Coleman Young and BKB star Paula McGee). Finally, one of best films released in 1991 is available on dvd.

[oscar jubis]

KILLER aka Tueur a Gages (Kasakhstan/1998)

"Darezhan Omirbaev is one of the most talented filmmakers currently working anywhere but his nationality seems to have doomed him to the margins". (Jonathan Rosenbaum)

This third feature by Omirbaev (1958) won the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes. "Killer", the film's English title, is inappropriate because it raises the wrong expectations. This is not a thriller or a crime movie although it depicts criminality, with the violence just off screen. The protagonist, Marat, works as a chaffeur for a mathematician (Omirbaev's former profession). He rear-ends a Mercedes while driving home from the hospital where his wife Aijan has just given birth to a son. He's forced to borrow money to pay for the repairs then loses his job when the government stops funding scientific institutions (something that also affected the Kazak film industry following the collapse of the Soviet Union). Marat is forced to get a loan from a guy with organized crime connections and the calamities continue.

Killer opens with a scene in which the mathematician can't find a building's exit. We watch him wandering the halls and getting contrasting answers as to which way to go. The scene keeps accruing meaning as the strightforward, clean narrative moves along. As a matter of fact, the film seems even more impressive and more significant after a second viewing. Omirbaev depicts a post-communist society that has lost its traditions and its moral compass. The institutional and economic collapse is dramatized with great economy and conviction. Every scene has a clear purpose, a reason for being.

*I watched Killer on import dvd. Omirbaev first two features, Kairat and Cardiogram are available on UK dvd at a rather steep price. A Region 1 dvd of any of Omirbaev features would definitely be appreciated and quite deserved.

[cinemabon]

I have learned a great deal about many films I would not have ordinarily considered from your posts, Oscar. Your comments and observations are insightful and informative. Thank you for taking the time to do this.

[oscar jubis]

It's very encouraging to learn you're getting something out of them. Thanks. I'll keep showcasing older titles I find worth mentioning. By the way, unless I say otherwise assume you can rent them on dvd from Netflix or Blockbuster.

[oscar jubis]

EL CID (USA-Italy-UK/1961)
PATTON (USA/1970)

These war epics constitute two of the most glaring gaps in my film viewing. I was too young to watch Patton in a theater when it was released. Whenever either were shown on TV, they were "formatted to fit the TV screen" and often abbreviated. El Cid and Patton belong to the Hollywood epic genre that must be watched on a big screen to be fully appreciated, especially because they were filmed on 70 mm stock. Realizing they're unlikely to be re-released theatrically and given that they've become available on state-of-the-art dvd which preserves their correct aspect ratio, I decided it was finally time to check them out.

Both films revolve around protagonists who are famous warriors at the moments in history which defined them. Both Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar (alias El Cid) and Gen. George Patton were well versed in military history and excellent field commanders. El Cid is set in Spain in mid-11th century when Christians and Moors were in constant battle for territory in the Iberian peninsula. Patton is set in the North African and European theaters of war between 1943 and 1945.

Similarities aside, what makes each film essential viewing is completely different. Patton is biography that provides a complex and multifaceted portrait of a man who was brilliant, sadistic, patriotic, arrogant, loyal, irreverent, confident and a bit eccentric (he was convinced he was the reincarnation of a number of famous historical leaders, for instance). The excellent script co-written by a young Francis Ford Coppola and performance by a perfectly-cast George C. Scott add up to one heck of a character study. El Cid was decidedly a less controversial figure, especially as portrayed here. He gets basically the "hero treatment" in this film. The performances by Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren (as his beloved Ximena) are based solely on the iconic public image of the stars. What makes El Cid special are the production values, and the masterful compositions and choreography of the action sequences characteristic of director Anthony Mann (his 50s westerns are the equal of Ford's).

Both films are thoroughly engaging and entertaining. They feel shorter than their almost-3 hour duration. I would say they are just a notch below the historical epics I consider to be the best of the genre: Griffith's Intolerance, Kubrick's Spartacus, Lean's Lawrence of Arabia, Beatty's Reds, and Bertolucci's The Last Emperor.

[cinemabon]

The opening shot of Patton is completely lost on video. I remember going to the Town and Country Theater (one screen!) and seeing it in 70mm with my mother, a big fan of Scott. She lived through WWII.

When the film opens, an American flag fills the screen from corner to corner. At the very bottom of the frame, a tiny man, dwarfed by the gargantuan image, walks up and we hear (in surround sound) men coming to attention. I thought it was a brilliant way to open a film. No music. No credits. Just George C. Scott delivering a brilliant speech as if addressing a large silent group. We, the audience, became the troops, listening to Patton as he sends his men in battle. The speech is honest, short, and rousing, just the kind you want to hear from a general.

Next, we hear that haunting echoing horn and the first refrains of the march composed by Jerry Goldsmith. In 70mm, this film was incredible to watch, for its attention to detail and for its incredible use of frame, Fred Koenekamp a long time Hollywood veteran.

Edmund North penned a straightforward script that adhered to the facts, while Coppola added the great twists based on conversations with Omar Bradley (such as the face slapping incident, toned down to slapping his helmet) that got Patton into trouble. He died right after the war in a car accident, strange irony to a man that lived life on the edge and often engaged the enemy close to the front lines. His belief in reincarnation and his devotion to literature and poetry were only briefly touched on in the film. He came from a wealthy family and did possess Ivory handled revolvers.

[oscar jubis]

Lucky you, having had a chance to watch it in 70 mm. As far as cinematography, I was even more impressed by El Cid. It was lensed by Robert Krasker (Odd Man Out, The Third Man).

[cinemabon]

"El Cid" was one of those films that came out at the wrong time. Perhaps five years earlier, it would have gained more praise and box office. (BSC did give their annual prize to Robert Krasker) As it was, people began to grow tired of seeing Heston in yet another religious epic. Reportedly, he and Loren fought continuously on the set and refused to ever work together again, hence Heston turned down the role in "Fall of the Roman Empire" that went to Stephen Boyd instead.

I remember going to the first run of "El Cid," though I saw it in 35mm. I recall being thrilled by the weepy "twist" at the end. I even remember the nuns in our Catholic school recommending we go (a sure sign it must be a bad movie... they actually took us to "The Ten Commandments," probably why I hate the movie to this day).

Some people have very strong attachments to religious epics, as I found out when I attacked TTC on IMDB regarding the over-the-top performances and what I consider to be poor direction by DeMille at the end of his career (he died shortly thereafter in1959, never winning an Oscar except as Producer). Several people came after me personally, invading my background, breaking into my private files, and printing my name and address! I withdrew from IMDB and pulled the nearly two hundred reviews I'd written over ten years from their site, having to delete every one of them. I no longer post or write any comments on that site... too hostile and vindictive!

Also, note that I removed a post I created regarding Hillary Clinton. I recieved so much flak, especially from NY women, that I pulled my comments for fear of another such attack. So much for freedom of the press!

[oscar jubis]

I agree with your comments about the IMDb boards but, in general, many folks are unreasonable when it comes to discussion of politics and religion.
Not a big fan of The Ten Commandments but it provides quite a spectacle if you manage to watch it in a theater. As far as Christian epics, the one I really like is King of Kings. Scorsese's Last Temptation doesn't qualify as an epic, right?

[cinemabon]

Well... we all know that in a region where people generally have dark curly black hair, brown eyes, and dark skin, giving birth to man with light brown hair, blue eyes, and being Caucasian would certainly make him stand out in the crowd. Perhaps that is why everyone stared at him. Although, during Shabbat, the Rabbi may have encountered difficulty attracting a following. ("Who is that guy?" one says. "I don't know," his friend replies, "but he isn't Jewish!")

At any rate, what happened to Jeffrey Hunter after "King of Kings" certainly should not happen to anyone so nice. Type cast as "Jesus" Hunter could not find work in America and ended up doing cheap westerns in Europe where he suffered from a stroke. He later died of a secondary stroke only eight years after his performance in "King of Kings."

While I find the film totally incredulous (as you can tell from my cynicism above), I did like the score by Miklos Rozsa, one of his best. I have him conducting a suite from the score on a rare vinyl recording that I have yet to transfer to digital (one of these days). Only the score from the film received any official recognition (Golden Globe nomination).

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by cinemabon
Only the score from the film received any official recognition (Golden Globe nomination).
Not quite. At the Golden Globes, King of Kings was also nominated for Best Drama and Best Director. Samuel Bronston received a Special Merit Award for producing it. The film was completely snubbed by Oscar. This agnostic prefers King of Kings to 4 of the 5 movies nominated for Best Picture that year: Fanny, Guns of Navarone, Judgement at Nuremberg and West Side Story. The other one was the best American movie that year: The Hustler.

I've seen a number of repertory films the past month besides practically Hitchcock's entire oeuvre. Standouts: the very good Samurai Rebellion (1967), a historical drama (not an actioner) by Masaki Kobayashi and starring Toshiro Mifune, and two excellent Antonioni features from the 1950s. Whether or not Story of a Love Affair (1950) and The Girlfriends (1955) qualify as works of Neo-realism is open to debate. What is clear is that Antonioni was a already a master a decade before he became world-famous with L'Avventura. Antonioni was in his late 30s when he released Story of a Love Affair, his first fictional feature, and had spent most of the 1940s directing documentaries. It's the work of a seasoned filmmaker and a mature, thoughtful person. I couldn't possibly recommend these two films with more enthusiasm.

[Chris Knipp]

There's a well-informed comment on CRONACA DI UN AMORE by a User on IMDb
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042355/#comment. Maybe you would care to say something about the "over-zealous" digital restoration of sound he alludes to. The title has a resonance of the period due to maybe the fame of Vasco Pratolini's novel CRONACE DI POVERI AMANTI, also made into a movie in 1954. LE AMICHE actually has a distinguished literary source, a story by Cesare Pavese. It too has a highly literate and informative User Comment on IMDb http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047821/#comment I haven't seen either one o these as far as I recall, but from the descriptions I don't know why anybody would discuss their relationship to "neorealism", especially after 1952.

Pratolini's novel CRONACA FAMILIARE was also made into a ilm in 1962 by Valerio Zurlini (IL DESERTO DEI TARTARI), maybe you've seen it.

If you have seen nearly all Hitchcock's oeurvre, that would be over sixty films.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
Maybe you would care to say something about the "over-zealous" digital restoration of sound he alludes to.
Reviews of the dvd of the restored print hail the sound quality of the Italian track and disparage the English one. I only payed attention to the former and have no reason to complain.

I haven't seen either one o these as far as I recall, but from the descriptions I don't know why anybody would discuss their relationship to "neorealism", especially after 1952
You seem to be alluding to most film historians' identification of 1952 as the year when Neo-realism ended and the fact that The Girlfriends was not released until 1955. As you know, most art epochs or movements don't have clearly delineated chronological barriers. One can argue, for instance, that Fellini's La Strada (1954) is a neorealist film. One can argue also that Antonioni's The Cry, not released until 1957, has more neorealist traits than 1950's Story of a Love Affair. I think it would be incomplete to regard these films, and many others made in Italy post-1952, without considering how they adhere and depart from Neo-realism.

Pratolini's novel CRONACA FAMILIARE was also made into a ilm in 1962 by Valerio Zurlini (IL DESERTO DEI TARTARI), maybe you've seen it.
I haven't. I know it was never released theatrically in the US and it's now available on dvd. Seems like a must-see. It also seems like the type of epic, widescreen-format film that loses impact when viewed at home.

[Chris Knipp]

Interesting material for discusssion, but I think the other Italian movies you mention depart quite clearly from neorealismo though some of the methods of course carried over with both positive and negative results. Classification is something you can discuss in your classes, if you become a film teacher. Yes, no doubt Cronaca familiare would look better on a big screen. You might have to either get a big screen for home or use your imagination, for now. Have you seen Tarkovsky's Ivan's Childhood, which shared the Venice prize that year with Zurlini's Family Diary?

[oscar jubis]

This is what I wrote about it on 3/23/2005:

Ivan's Childhood (1962) on import dvd.
My second or third viewing of Andrei Tarkovsky's debut feature, also known as My Name is Ivan, is an adaptation of a WWII story by Vladimir Bogolomov. The project was offered to Tarkovsky when pre-production was already underway. He had little time to make any changes to the script he deemed necessary. The film won the Golden Lion at the Venice FF. Ivan's Childhood the only one of his features that is not a "head scratcher" in the sense that there's little open to interpretation, yet his visual style, his fractured concept of time, the primacy of the natural landscape and water imagery were already in evidence from the outset of his career. The film is concerned with a boy whose childhood was stolen by war, and the tensions experienced by the soldiers who become his surrogate family. Scenes at the war front are contrasted with idyllic pre-war scenes that may or may not be Ivan's dreams or memories. Toward the conclusion, Tarkovsky artfully incorporates newsreel footage from the days immediately after Germany's defeat, providing added historical context and a sense of closure that his subsequent six features don't provide so concretely.

**I anticipate that this thread is going to acquire a French emphasis during the fall as I'll be taking part in a Survey of French Cinema course. Main assignment is a 20-page essay. I already have four potential topics from which to choose. Dr. Rothman gave me a copy of the tentative syllabus and it seems to focus primarily on films from 1930 to the mid-1970s. I personally feel a need to address my inadequate exposure to French silents. Or attempt to address since so many key works of the era are hard to access.

[Chris Knipp]

Aha. I guess the correction would be it co-won the Golden Lion if my information is correct.

i hope you enjoy your French film course. I think film studies would just take the fun out of movies the way art school would have taken the fun out of making art, but that's just me.

I have taken art courses at various times in my life but only to learn techniques and to do the work and get encouragement. If your film studies get you some kind of encouragement for what you want to do in relation to film then that will make them worth while. What skills will you learn, do you think?

[oscar jubis]

Your information is correct. Lamentably, like most American film lovers, the only Zurlini I've seen is The Girl with a Suitcase, starring Claudia Cardinale. Actually, I own the dvd. I hope to get to know him better in the future.

The more I know about cinema the more I enjoy it. I learned a lot from the Hitchcock course, including the readings, lectures, discussions, and the research process involved in writing my essay. I don't want to think ahead too much as far as academic and career goals and such. I have serious familial and financial obligations that will probably keep me from putting the time and effort required to complete the Masters (which would require final written and oral exams, and a thesis). Rather than be disappointed, I'm taking a very here-and-now approach and focusing on getting the most out of the present opportunity. And that would be the abovementioned French course in the fall.

[Chris Knipp]

Well I'm glad that given that you have to limit your choices you have selecdted a course in French film since I am fond of French film as well, which you may realize by now.

My misgivings reflect a disenchantment with the academic world that has grown since I gave it up to become an artist and have been happy that I did. Maybe it's a psychological tic that we make up exaggerated justifications for the choidces that life has pitched us so we don't feel regreat. Much was great about college and graduate school and I do not regret that I havenot exactly used my so-called education as much as I've used stuff I learend more or less on my own or by accident. As long as it doesn't take the fun out of it for you that's awesome. By the same token in a smaller way i try to tell people that knowing how a movie ends is not going to "spoil' it for them. However, I do feel that the academic approach to the arts can be deadeninng in the wrong hands. I hope you don't run into that prob lem

[Johann]

Great to hear that your courses are going well Oscar.
I don't like being in a position of disappointment with my choices either.
At this point of my 33 years I have some regrets, but too few to mention. (Sinatra rules!)


I read the "Philosophy of Stanley Kubrick" at Ottawa U and it mentioned the question of life having meaning despite the arbitrariness of our decisions. It made me think really heavy about the meaning of each of our choices.
Kubrick was asked if we as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment in our lives even though our choices are completely arbitrary.
He replied YES, as long as you can deal with your own mortality.
(paraphrasing- I'll try to find the exact quote).

Stanley Kubrick is just as intelligent as Bob Dylan in my opinion..

[oscar jubis]

I'll try to be brief to avoid boring readers. Indeed Chris, regarding "film studies taking the fun out of movies", there was an academic movement that emerged circa 1980 as a rather extreme reaction against auterism. It applied to film existing structuralist and post-structuralist theories that followed the linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and extended it to other forms of communication. It was, as applied to film studies, an extremely theoretical approach often divorced from the experience of watching movies and largely detached from criticism. My conversations with film academics and my readings indicate the pendulum has swung back and film studies is undergoing a corrective period. There's much to be gained from studying the works of Lacan, Barthes, Derrida, Foucault,etc. but much to be lost when embraced dogmatically.

Last night I watched Lorna Doone (1922), widely regarded as the best of many adaptations of the Richard Doddridge Blackmore's novel about the romance between a farmer and an aristocratic woman in 17th century Devon, England. The film is quite faithful to the novel. It was one of the films directed by Maurice Tourneur (Father of Jacques) during his years in America (1914-1926) and very much in the French tradition of pictorial naturalism that stressed the integrity of the shot, location shooting, visual authenticity, and the effects of social and physical environments on the individual. It was associated with the political Left in France. The tradition stands in direct opposition with the more widely studied Cinematic Impressionism which focused on optical experimentation and the rendering of the characters' psychological states. Lorna Doone is a consistently beautiful film, shot mostly outdoors during early morning and late afternoon, and concerned with barriers that keep apart those belonging to different social classes. The titular character was played by the extremely cute Madge Bellamy who was cast memorably in John Ford's debut The Iron Horse before gradually fading from the spotlight. Tourneur returned to France and made a number of well-regarded but (now) little-seen films during the 30s and 40s.

[cinemabon]

TCM ran its first Elvis Mitchell interview with Bill Murray, who stated that while living in Paris, he started going to a theater showing silent movies. "I completely rediscovered cinema," Murray told Mitchell, during the somewhat somber interview.

This Sunday night features silent classic Keaton in "Sherlock, Jr."

"Lorna Doone" has had at least five reincarnations, starting in 1912, the last being in 1994 (six if you count the made-for-TV movie in 2001). Eye, it takes place in Scotland! It was also a cookie! ("I'd go to the moon, for a Lorna Doone!")

Tourneur was once a student of Auguste Rodin... started out as an actor in Eclair Studios; immigrated to the US in 1914, signed a contract with Paramount in 1919; he moved from Paramount to Universal and ended up as director on "Mysterious Island" at MGM; he quit MGM studios in 1926 after being demoted to Production supervisor from director. He returned to Europe and directed his last silent film in Germany, starring Marlene Dietrich. Ben Johnson's "Volpone" (1940) is considered his best work. He died Aug 8, 1961.

His son, Jacques "Jack" Tourneur directed such hits as "Cat People" and "Out of the past" for RKO.

[oscar jubis]

I have to check out those Elvis Mitchell interviews. Love TCM, simply love it.. Tomorrow is a great night for comedy lovers. The classic Keaton opens and "Fatty" Arbuckle closes a night of excellent programming.

Tourneur pere got in trouble in France because many felt he came to America to avoid enlisting during WWI. I really like Lorna Doone and even more, The Last of the Mohicans, but his French movies are unavailable as far as I know. Jacques was a giant, as far as I'm concerned. Two of his very best are very hard to access: Wichita and Nightfall. Faves? Probably I Walked with a Zombie and Stars in my Crown. But the two you mention and The Leopard Man are just as great.

[cinemabon]

I don't know what happened to the planned Keaton shorts. However, I was supremely disappointed in the four Fatty Arbuckle 'feature' and three shorts. While I understand the importance of "speech cards" between takes, Arbuckle's film was overloaded. In the feature film version, we saw extremely brief moments of film shots, followed by long shots of the word cards, making the film seem so broken as to make it unwatchable. I had difficulty concentrating on which characters were which players as the re-made cards also contained biographical information that seem superfluous, very confusing.

[oscar jubis]

I don't think Keaton shorts were on the schedule. I never tire of Sherlock Jr.. A clear, indisputable influence on many films, especially Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo. I noticed the excessive use of title cards, especially one with Fatty and Melba.

[oscar jubis]

THE LONG VOYAGE HOME (1940)

John Ford was never as happy as during long sea voyages aboard his ship, the Araner, in the company of family and friends. This feature concerns merchant seamen sailing from South America to England with a stop in the US to pick up some TNT. It's based on four one-act Eugene O'Neill plays and it's a labor of love for Ford and many among the cast. John Wayne, who plays a Swede yearning to return home, Ward Bond, Ian Hunter, and other cast and crew members were regulars aboard the Araner. The ensemble acting is absolutely riveting. A kind of male counterpart to the outstanding showcase of acting skills one finds in All About Eve or The Women. No other film dramatizes the lives of sailors with such realism and passion. And the cinematographer was the great Gregg Toland, at the top of his game here and reportedly given a great deal of leeway by Mr. Ford. The Long Voyage Home received six Oscar nominations.

[oscar jubis]

MANDINGO (1975)

Mandingo was produced towards the end of a 10-year span in which the Hollywood studios bankrolled a slate of original and provocative films. Some of these films were made by emerging young directors like Scorsese, Altman, Coppola, and Malick. Others by older directors taking advantage of the relaxed censorship and Hollywood's aim to appeal to the counterculture, mainly young America. The latter group includes Sam Peckinpah, Arthur Penn, and Richard Fleischer (son of Max, the creator of those classic Betty Boop and Popeye cartoons). A central theme in Richard Fleischer's films is the decay of American society, whether in the near-future (Soylent Green) or in the South circa 1840 (Mandingo).

Mandingo is loosely based on a novel by Kyle Onstott and scripted by Norman Wexler (Oscar-nominee for Joe and Serpico). The ailing owner of a slave-breeding plantation (James Mason) finds a bride (Susan George) for his only son and a "Mandingo stud" (boxer-turned-actor Ken Norton) to breed and prizefight. This is a magnificently mounted, high-budget production of a film that deals with slavery and its implications more incisively and thoroughly than any other film before or since (only the relatively recent and sanitized Nightjohn and Manderlay come close). Mandingo is bound to make a lot of viewers of all races uncomfortable for a number of reasons. Many seemingly feel that slavery is something better left unexamined. They should stay away from a film that takes an unflinching look at the most lamentable time in American history.

By far, the best analysis of the film I could find was written by Robert Keser for The Film Journal: The Eye We Cannot Shut: Robert Fleischer's Mandingo (http://www.thefilmjournal.com/issue13/mandingo.html). Here's an excerpt:

"Nor has time blunted the critical edge of this remarkable and deeply political film, long championed by Robin Wood as “the greatest film about race ever made in Hollywood” (2). Without sentimentality or official pieties, Fleischer uses an unbridled and passionate melodrama to lay bare how slavery, the economic enterprise that turns humans into commodities, could not but distort the entire web of human relationships enabling it. To appropriate a phrase by John Berger from another context, Mandingo uniquely serves as “the eye we cannot shut”, the persistent vision of competing powers – the slave’s physical strength (and by extension sexual potency) against the master’s sovereign power to define reality and decide life or death.

Widespread audience acceptance at the box office surprised even its makers (the director himself said that “I was really not prepared for the great success of the film”). (3) Contrary to popular formulas in Hollywood, Mandingo provided no conventional heroics or even moral growth and made no attempt to manage audience reactions with distancing irony or historical panaceas. It also remains an unashamedly secular vision through the lens of 1975, joining such key films of that year as One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Barry Lyndon and Dog Day Afternoon, and social critiques from the year before like Chinatown and The Conversation. The fall of Saigon, the outbreak of the Lebanese civil war, and the Khmer Rouge seizure of a U.S. ship, made a heady political backdrop, as did the (still unsolved) murder of Pier Paolo Pasolini and the Manson family’s attempts to assassinate the U.S. president. At that year’s Oscar ceremonies, Bert Schneider, producer of Peter Davis’s Vietnam critique Hearts and Minds which won for Best Documentary, took the opportunity to read a telegram from the Viet Cong (the contemporary equivalent of congratulations from Osama bin Laden). Clearly, movies were offering no easy escape hatches, and Mandingo firmly refuses any reassurances that the system works. If the film points toward liberation, it is simply by exposing the social mechanisms that supported racial and patriarchal domination."

[Chris Knipp]

This was presented by the FSLC in February at the Walter Reade Theater as part of Film Comment Selects and I saw the trailer and it was news to me. I thought the title was of a sexploitation kind of pulp novel rather than this kind of thing
(see below: it was taken as such originally when shown). I didn't get to see it. It would have been interesting perhaps to have your own review of it since presumably you've just seen it in some form, whether in a theater of on home video isn't exactly clear. Since we're quoting I'll quote the FSLC program blurb:
Based on Kyle Onstott's bestselling 1957 novel, this incendiary and deeply disturbing melodrama about the way slavery debases and destroys both slaves and owners on a Louisiana slave breeding plantation in decline was dismissed in its day as tasteless exploitation or camp - "Like Gone with the Wind with all the characters in heat," as Leslie Halliwell put it. Only Time Out's David Pirie got it right: "The stereotype of the Deep South, with its stoical slaves and demure belles is effectively exploded here. Fleischer utilizes the real sexuality and violence behind slavery to mount a compelling slice of American Gothic, which analyzes in appropriately lurid terms, the twists and turns of a distorted society." With James Mason as the tyrannical patriarch, Perry King as the frustrated son and heir, Susan George as his flighty and less than virginal bride, and Ken Norton as the pure-bred Mandingo slave who become the center of the action.

https://tickets.filmlinc.com/php/calendar.php?month=2&day=23&year=2008&sid=&cmode=0&org=

[oscar jubis]

Well, I doubt that ONLY Pirie got it right. I was not quite 14 years old when Mandingo came out and reading film criticism exclusively in Spanish. I began to read film criticism in English when my command of the language improved significantly, after the summer of '76 spent in San Diego living with my college-age aunt and studying at Berlitz. So others are in better position to qualify the type of critical reception Mandingo received in the United States. I notice that Rosenbaum described it as "one of the most neglected and underrated Hollywood films of its era". I know that Kael neglected to review it. Keser's essay addresses some of the negativity from a number of critics including Vincent Camby.

Any film that makes people uncomfortable because of its images or the way the content forces them to think about what they wish to supress is bound to be met with derision (as a psychologically-natural response to the inherent anxiety). I think that is what accounts partly for the film's dismissal by a group of critics. I am, however, willing to admit that the film's often-inappropriate music score (and perhaps aspects of Susan George's performance) effectively confounds the tone of the film.

[Chris Knipp]

No doubt there was someone besides Pirie who "got it right"--but who? Have you a candidate? Blurb statements are necessarily oversimplifications or they'd be useless. What they surely mean is he was the only prominent New York critic who did. The only person with a voice.

I think the film has kitsch aspects but probably people and critics misread it as something tacky when it was serious, due to its link with blaxploitation and the way in which it was marketed. There was moreover already a whole "Mandingo" pulp novel series (Mandingo, Son of Mandingo, etc.) that was extremely tacky, lurid, and without redeeming social value. (Or was it?) . The bursting bodices type of thing, but with big black bucks. Really, really junk. That is, judging a (paperback pulp) book by its cover: I didn't read them. So the confusion seems pretty easy to understand--if people didn't watch the movie or paid little attention to it when watching it. I can't comment further on the film. As I mentioned I only saw the trailer, though I saw that several times before Film Comments Selects presentations at Lincoln Center this February. I don't think we can assume that the critics met the film with "derision" because it made them uncomfortable. My guess is that they either didn't see it or didn't perceive it accurately at all. I don't agree with you that being made uncomfortable automatically arouses a response of derision. It can get other responses such as silence--an even better way to cover up.. This whole episode bears looking into but the details may be hard to come by. Kael may not have seen it. She may not have known about it. It sounds like one many avoided. I would have. I did. Or maybe Kael saw it and "got it wrong." It wouldn't be the only time. I think she got A Clockwork Orange wrong, very wrong.

P.s. Some guys did see it when they were fifteen. Here's one who did, and has a lot to say about it:

http://sergioleoneifr.blogspot.com/2008/06/slifr-top-100-mandingo.html


It’s my hope that one day Mandingo will take its place beside universally recognized, socially trenchant and provocative films as Deliverance, Dog Day Afternoon and, yes, even The Godfather as among the best the decade had to offer.--Dennis Cozzalio of the blog, "Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule."

[oscar jubis]

Good piece by Dennis Cozzalio.

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
I think the film has kitsch aspects but probably people and critics misread it as something tacky when it was serious, due to its link with blaxploitation and the way in which it was marketed.
Well, subtle it ain't. It's in-your-face and never "politically correct". It's practically impossible to misinterpret what the film reveals about the nature and implications of slavery for all involved. No other film I've seen had the courage to display it with such clarity. It was marketed as a piece of populist entertainment and it worked. The film did well at the box office despite many critics not reviewing it or having a generally unfavorable opinion of it. Kitsch aspects? Definitely the overemphatic, often incongruent music score by Maurice Jarre.

I don't think we can assume that the critics met the film with "derision" because it made them uncomfortable. My guess is that they either didn't see it or didn't perceive it accurately at all. I don't agree with you that being made uncomfortable automatically arouses a response of derision.
I don't either. To clarify my position. I think the content and presentation would make a significant number of people uncomfortable or anxious. A common response (but not an automatic response and not the only response) to something that makes people uncomfortable/anxious is to treat it as an object of derision or ridicule.

[oscar jubis]

CHAIN (USA-Germany/2005)

Jem Cohen's acclaimed film is a radical mix of documentary and fiction. The documentary portion is a photographic montage of shopping malls, industrial parks, roads, construction sites and public areas shot over the course of 6 years in several US and Canadian cities, Dusseldorf, Belin, Paris, Melbourne, Warsaw, and the Netherlands. The fact that you cannot identify whether a given shot corresponds to Paris, Warsaw, or Orlando, FL illustrates the advance of globalization and cultural homogenization. "Chain's formidable power rests on the notion that these unlovely incrustations of worldwide anti-regionalism bespeak a fundamentally dehumanizing global economy, a concept that is immanent rather than argued." (Ed Halter/Village Voice). There is a brief monologue by an unseen currency trader and a soundtrack consisting of messages left on an answering machine offering help with credit-card debt. The overlaying of this soundtracks over images of failed banks and slavish consumerism leave a very strong impression.

Cohen also creates two fictional characters followed separately who provide subjective voice-over narrations. Tamiko is a 31 year-old executive for a Japanese company planning to open a theme park in the US. She's been sent on an extended trip to present a proposal to potential American partners and to study the leisure and entertainment habits of Americans. Her observations are often quite interesting. She marvels at the waste of space, and explains that Japanese companies have opened factories in small cities with racially homogeneous populations because a diverse workforce is potentially problematic. The other story concerns Amanda, a white woman about the same age as Tamiko who's left the home where she lived with her mother and half-sister. She spends her nights in an abandoned construction site or a condemned apartment building and her days at a shopping mall nearby. She finds a DV camera and becomes a sort of amateur cultural anthropologist. She also documents her day-to-day existence as she attempts to rejoin mainstream society.

This most compelling, thought-provoking film had a brief and limited run in 2005. It's not available of home video, but it's regularly broadcast on the Sundance Channel. Mr. Cohen won the Someone to Watch award at the 2005 Independent Spirit Awards.

[oscar jubis]

MAN'S CASTLE (USA/1933)

This Depression romance features Spencer Tracy and Loretta Young as a couple living in a shantytown in NYC. Tracy's Bill is a rather complex young man. He is crafty, resourceful, and carries himself with confidence, but beneath the surface he is insecure and anxious about his future prospects. One theme of the film concerns what people will or won't do to find food and shelter. But gradually the issue of whether Bill will supress his rootlessness and aimlessness in order to love his girl the way she obviously deserves takes hold. Being a pre-code film, co-habitation, sex, and pre-marital pregnancy are handled much more realistically than they would until the 1960s. Man's Castle includes some sublimely lyrical passages. This is Hollywood cinema at its best. Andrew Sarris wrote in the most influential book about film written in English ("The American Cinema: Directors and Directors 1929-1968): director "Frank Borzage was that rarity of rarities, an uncompromising romanticist. He plunged into the real world of poverty and oppression to impart an aura to his characters, not merely through soft focus and a fluid camera, but through a genuine concern with the wondrous inner life of lovers in the midst of adversity".

[Chris Knipp]

Wow! Quite a teaser. Not available on Netflix. Frank Borzage also directed A FAREWELL TO ARMS.

[oscar jubis]

The last two films I featured on this thread have never been released on any home video format. That's what's so great about Sundance Channel and Turner Classic Movies. A Farewell to Arms is also very good. TCM is showing Borzage's Living on Velvet on Friday and I just can't wait. Borzage is the most neglected major Hollywood director bar none. His films are totally devoid of the cynicism and sarcasm so prevalent nowadays.

[oscar jubis]

TRISTANA (Spain-France-Italy/1970)

Officially a co-production, this Luis Bunuel film is basically a Spanish film that includes the Italian actor Franco Nero and the French superstar Catherine Deneuve, both dubbed, in principal roles. Tristana is an adaptation of a novel by Benito Perez Galdos set in 1930s Toledo (as beautiful a Spanish town as any). A fairly faithful adaptation only during the first half hour of the film. Fernando Rey is an atheist intellectual and libertarian who adopts Tristana as a girl after her mother dies. He seduces her when she turns 19 and begins to restrict her freedom. Tristana's protest gradually become stronger; then she meets a handsome painter (Nero) and leaves with him. Two years later, both return to Toledo with the sad news that Tristana has a cancerous tumor in her leg. The film takes unusual turns that shift the balance of power in the relationships between the characters.

Perhaps the most neglected of Bunuel's late films, Tristana is a relentless attack against bourgeoise hypocrisy, left-leaning intellectuals, patriarchal power structures, and the Catholic church. Fernando Rey was born to play this type of role and it's surprising how effective Deneuve can be even when speaking with a borrowed voice.This film is ripe for reappraisal. One of the most interesting aspects of the film is the way in which Tristana assimilates some of the dubious traits of her own benefactor/tormentor. The picture and sound of the dvd of Tristana released in the UK a couple of years ago is not a significant improvement on the American vhs. One hopes a definitive dvd of Tristana will become available in the future.

[Johann]

I can easily see this one as a Criterion release.

I saw it a few years ago and remember liking it.

[oscar jubis]

Cinema has such a rich history, man. It's hard to keep up with all the films that come out on dvd and yet there's so many great films yet to be released. Stuff by major directors like Visconti (I've recently rewatched sumptuous, lush Senso and L'Innocente) and Bunuel. I can also envision Tristana on Criterion. It is El Maestro's second and last period film.

[oscar jubis]

LA MATERNELLE (France/1933)

I've refrained to use the word "masterpiece" to characterize any of the wonderful films I've celebrated in this thread. I was saving the word for a film like this collaboration between Jean Benoit-Levy and Marie Epstein. This adaptation of a Prix Goncourt novel by Leon Frapie is a masterpiece. It's the best French film of the 1930s that wasn't directed by cinema gods Clair, Vigo and Renoir.

Madeleine Renaud (Grand Illusion) plays Rose, a young woman who gets a job as cleaning lady in a Montmartre nursery school after her fortunes take a downturn. Her natural sensitivity and dedication help her become an important part of the children's lives. Rose develops a particularly deep bond with Marie, a possessive girl traumatized by her mother's abandonment after a lover proposes they emigrate. Rose offers the affection-starved waif a home. Marie has a crisis when she learns that Rose has accepted a marriage proposal.

Benoit-Levy and Epstein used non-professional children from the neighborhood's schools and orphanages. They obviously spent a great deal of time and effort skillfully molding their performances. La Maternelle is both realistic and lyrical. There are expressionistic moments of intense beauty. The filmmakers' ability to depict events from the point of view of little Marie has never been surpassed. The use of quick montages to dramatize her interior states is highly effective. Renaud's performance, especially in scenes in which she interacts with the children, is a major reason why the film works so well.

[oscar jubis]

2008 ended and I failed to post here in the last three months. However, I posted on some additions to my canon here (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=20913#post20913).

*During autumn I concentrated on re-watching a dozen films by Godard (VIVRE SA VIE and ALPHAVILLE strike me as masterpieces) and discovering the films made by Kenji Mizoguchi during the 1930s. Japanese films in general were not screened in the West until 1950. It's lamentable that film buffs missed out on so many wonderful films from "the East" (American and European films were regularly shown in Japan, China and India since the Silent Era.)
Perhaps the best 1930s Mizoguchi is TALE OF THE LAST CHRYSANTHEMUMS (the subject of my longest academic essay to date) but the other three I watched are outstanding: SISTERS OF GION, THE DOWNFALL OF OSEN and OSAKA ELEGY.

*I've also developed a deeper appreciation for a few "melodramas" from the classic era that reward close scrutinity and repeat viewings. The films I have in mind include STELLA DALLAS with Barbara Stanwyck, NOW, VOYAGER starring Bette Davis, and GASLIGHT starring Ingrid Bergman (I assume everybody knows that Ophuls' LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN is a masterpiece of the highest order. The films have been grouped by philosopher Stanley Cavell under the term "melodramas of the unknown woman").

[cinemabon]

Stella Dallas? Now, Voyager? Gaslight? Oscar, that puts you in the catagory of the rank sentimentalist!

(pssst: I have my own copy of Now, Voyager)

[oscar jubis]

People my age living in these often cynical times find it easier to regard films belonging to certain genres, film noir for instance, with an open mind. We often fail to give enough thought to films that fall under labels like "weepie" or "melodrama" when in fact one can find as many masterpieces in these genres as in noir, or war pictures. One would think that modern women crits and academics would help direct us to the great films from those genres, as we men are often too macho to approach them with open minds... But modern women often misread the texts/messages as patriarchal or misogynistic (partly because there are movies of that period that deserve the label, partly out of sheer intellectual laziness and knee-jerk political posturing). So it's taken me a long time to come to appreciate movies like GASLIGHT, LETTER FROM AN UNKLNOWN WOMAN, STELLA DALLAS, CAMILLE and NOW,VOYAGER the way I appreciate the best noirs and westerns.
(I'm proud of you for having a copy of Now, Voyager!)

[cinemabon]

For many years I would not watch "Mrs. Skeffington" because I read somewhere that this Bette Davis vehicle was one of her worst. However, when it premiered on TCM, I sat enthralled with the idea that a married woman would be surrounded by admirers. She continues to attract men well into middle age and long after her husband divorces her, tired of her using him. The last third of the film is a lesson in humility. I won't spoil it, but if you've never seen it, I highly recommend it.

A film you will never see on TCM is "Ruggles of Red Gap." Oddly it is the story of a man put in his place by his class. He has no wish to escape it when his wealthy 'owner' goes broke and 'looses' his butler in a poker game. His new owners have no wish for a butler and the idea of being traded like a 'thing' so upsets the butler, he goes about proving that class is merely an illusion. Starring Charles Laughton, it is one of the most surprising older films I've ever seen. Highly recommended.

[oscar jubis]

Mr. Skeffington, you mean. I certainly would disagree with those who call it one of Bette Davis' worst but I probably liked it less than you. Probably, because I watched it a long time ago. Perhaps I'd appreciate it more the second time around.

Now RUGGLES OF RED GAP is more clearly a major, serious gap in my film viewing. I passed on the Asian dvd and the US vhs hoping that a proper dvd release would be forthcoming. I'm getting quite impatient. I might buy the vhs if I somehow find a cheap copy.Thanks for bringing these up!

One film I watched recently on TCM (and enjoyed a lot) is the Gable-Harlow vehicle HOLD YOUR MAN (1933) with an excellent script by Anita Loos (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Red-Headed Woman,etc.). Not on home video, lamentably.

[cinemabon]

Leo McCarey seems largely ignored by studios rushing to put out classic black and white films on DVD. I did find the DVD of "Ruggles of Red Gap" on Amazon's site, albeit from 'collectors' sources. They had the film on demand for anyone wishing to view the film once. I memorized the Gettysburg Address with my Laserdisc copy. On IMDB, I could not find one bad review... many say this is Laughton's masterpiece, although I would argue that "Hunchback..." is probably his best. I also liked him in Billy Wilder's "Witness for the Prosecution." In doing research I discovered that McCarey had to take two days to shoot the 'address' speech because Laughton kept choking with emotion. He immigrated to the US and became an American citizen.

The other long forgotten Leo McCarey film is "Make way for tomorrow." This great classic is so hard to find, only the French have bothered to preserve this great story of grandparents put out to pasture.

[oscar jubis]

We desperately need a Leo McCarey box set!!!
For now I'll be patient. A long-awaited Frank Borzage at 20th Century Fox boxset is finally here and I'm in the mood to be patient.

I know it's an odd choice but perhaps my favorite Laughton role is the French schoolteacher he played in Renoir's American-made THIS LAND IS MINE. Actually I like the ones you mention just about the same. He was so good... and his sole directorial effort is a class act.

[cinemabon]

Speaking of Renoir, I was watching a "how it was made..." doc on one of my James Bond DVD's, "The spy who loved me." Ken Adam stated that he brought the film's cinema photographer to the set, Claude Renoir to ask him how to light the set. His response floored Adam when he stated, "It doesn't matter, I can't see it anyway." Adam stated morosely that Renoir went blind (and was eventually replaced on the film, although he has the sole screen credit). Adam, desperate to light this enormous set, went to his friend Stanley Kubrick. Adam had just finished doing "Barry Lyndon" for Kubrick and won the Academy Award for his work on the film. Reluctantly, Kubrick came to the set and helped Adam light the set and suggested camera positions to shoot the large soundstage (the largest interior ever created to that date). However, Kubrick made Adam swear that he never ever helped make a James Bond movie! Years later, Kubrick gave Adam permission to put the story on the DVD doc knowing it no longer mattered.

How did Renoir continue to make films for the next two years if he was blind?

[Chris Knipp]

That's a good question. I'm also puzzled that there are several portraits by Pierre-August Renoir of a little boy identified as "Coco (Claude Renoir)" that are of dates before 1914. I didn't even know about this guy Claude Renoir. I studied Comp. Lit. at UC Berkeley under Alain Renoir, son of Jean, a memorable character who was an inspiration and help to me. I have just learned that he died a month ago, at 87. R.I.P., old stauncher! The Widipedia entry for Claude says
Claude Renoir (December 4, 1914 – September 5, 1993) was a cinematographer. He was the son of actor Pierre Renoir and nephew of director Jean Renoir. He was also the grandson of painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

He was apprenticed to Boris Kaufman and shot films directed by his uncle Jean Renoir. His later film credits included; Monsieur Vincent (1947), Roger Vadim's Barbarella (1968), Cleopatra (1963) and the Spy Who Loved Me (1977). He then lost his sight. But IMDb and the French edition of Wikipedia both list four more,
# 1977 : L'Animal de Claude Zidi
# 1977 : L'Espion qui m'aimait (The Spy Who Loved Me) de Lewis Gilbert
# 1978 : La Zizanie de Claude Zidi
# 1979 : Le Toubib de Pierre Granier-Deferre.

Kubrick's work on the James Bond film is liested on IMDb:

"The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) (lighting advisor: tanker scenes) (uncredited) "

This online The New "Petit Journal du Cinema" (in English) has some anecdotes by and about Alain Renoir--who also was a cameraman for his father Jean briefly--if anyone is interested, and the blog may have other things of interest:

http://commenting-the-commentaries.blogspot.com/2007/04/alain-renoir-on-his-fatherjean-renoir.html

[Johann]

Another little-known Kubrick fact:

Michael Moore wrote to him in England to ask for a print of Dr. Strangelove to inspire his cast and crew before shooting Canadian Bacon. Kubrick liked Michael's work and agreed.
The night before principal photography began Moore showed the film to his team. John Candy got drunk. True story.

[oscar jubis]

I'm watching THE HEIRESS late tonight. Any opinions? It's strange I haven't seen it because it's a Billy Wilder film with supposedly great photography and a score by Aaron Copland.