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This group is dedicated to discussing film as art
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1801
From: jaketwilson
Date: Mon Sep 8, 2003 8:08am
Subject: Re: The Ars Poetica of Heath Pevellini
> The reason I mentioned Stan & Ollie (and Arthur Lake) was to
indicate
> that Jack Lemmon was not bringing a new sensibility to fioms in the
> 50s. Dominated males have been a staple of comedies from Day One.
L&H were never sexy, though Chaplin and Keaton kind of were. (Louise
Brooks called Keaton the most beautiful man alive, which is
surprising but makes more sense than if she's said it about, say,
Harold Lloyd.)
Broad comedy is clearly a special case, though not so special it
should be ignored when thinking about H'wood's range of male
archetypes. Lemmon is a bit different because he was a "leading man"
(of sorts) and played seriocomic roles. What strikes me is that where
Grant, Stewart, Fonda etc could be put through all kinds of
humiliating paces and emerge with masculinity intact, the same
doesn't seem so true of their successors circa 1960. SOME LIKE IT HOT
works differently from how it would have earlier because neither
Lemmon the worrywart nor Curtis the pretty-boy really has male
authority in the first place. In a different way Rock Hudson seems
like a symptom of the same thing: compare BRINGING UP BABY to MAN'S
FAVORITE SPORT.
JTW
1802
From: George Robinson
Date: Mon Sep 8, 2003 8:50am
Subject: Re: Re: The Ars Poetica of Heath Pevellini
Nice catch, Damien, with the Sarris quote.
It seems particularly apposite to decry smugness when one is talking (even
indirectly) about Joel Schumacher, whose films reek of that quality.
George Robinson
Cry later, but for now let's enjoy the laughter.
--Tupac Shakur, "God Bless the Dead"
----- Original Message -----
From: "Damien Bona"
To:
Sent: Monday, September 08, 2003 2:34 AM
Subject: [a_film_by] Re: The Ars Poetica of Heath Pevellini
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
> wrote:
> > David,
> >
> > I'll stand pat on my statement that the exception that tests
> (probat)
> > one rule (Cocteau as an exception to the run of European directors)
> > is no more probative about the rule's existence or non-existence
> than
> > is another exception (Laurel and Hardy as exceptions to the
> > representation of male stars by Hollywood) that tests another rule.
>
> The reason I mentioned Stan & Ollie (and Arthur Lake) was to indicate
> that Jack Lemmon was not bringing a new sensibility to fioms in the
> 50s. Dominated males have been a staple of comedies from Day One.
>
> I haven't seen Back To God's Country or Yankee Pasha so I can't
> comment on those, but I do agree with David that, star status
> notwithstanding, leading men have long been degraded in the American
> cinema. In addition to comedies, this is especially true in such
> genres as the social drama (Paul Muni in I Am A Fugitive; Henry Fonda
> in The Grapes of Wrath), and film noir -- where the heroes were
> almost always made chumps because their libidoes led them to
> treacherous women and they were often slipped a mickey (Ralph Meeker
> in Kiss Me Deadly, Mitchum in Out Of The Past, Fred MacMurray in
> Double Indemnity).
>
>
> > Anyway, it's totally unimportant, unless we want to argue that
> Joseph > Pevney's feature career is important, but "that way lies
> madness," as
> > Sarris would say.
>
> The second half of Sarris's quote is along the lines of "madness is
> always preferable to smugness," with which I think we would all
> agree.
>
>
>
>
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> a_film_by-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>
>
1803
From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Mon Sep 8, 2003 10:16am
Subject: Re: Auteurism? Don't shoot the critic!
> > I think this is correct. Among other things, there's the legacy of
> > Bazin, but there's also the legacy of classicism: Hawks, for
example,
> > is praised as a classical artist; personal expression is far from
the
> > highest value.
On other hand there's an interesting essay by Edward Buscombe, 'Ideas
of Authorship,' reprinted in "Theories of Authorship," edited by John
Caughie. He emphasizes how the idea of the Romantic artist persists in
auteurism. I think this helps explain why calling someone an auteur is
so often considered a term of praise. Since the Romantic era at least
there has been the belief that art depends on personal expression and
organic unity. Since the auteur is often defined in terms of personal
expression, and the auteur seems the likely source of whatever unity
is in a work, the work of an auteur is, seemingly by definition, good
art.
Some other, pre-Romantic ideas about art depict the good artist as a
master of prexisisting techniques and traditions, or emphasize the
artists' ability to faithfully depict nature and human action. In
other words, Buscombe writes, they emphasize things outside the
personality of the artist: the world outside, and the traditions and
codes in the art itself.
Another interesting essay in "Theories of Authorship" is "Fiction of
the author/author of the fiction" by Michel Foucalt. Foucault tries to
identify the "function" of the author and finds four basic principles:
"the author is defined as a standard level of quality...
the author is defined as a certain field of conceptual or theoretical
coherence...
the author is seen as a stylistic uniformity...
the author is thus a definite historical figure in which a series of
events converge... Governing this function is the belief that there
must be - at a particular level of an author's thought, of his
conscious or unconscious desire - a point where contradictions are
resolved..."
Foucault for his part thinks the "author-function" operates
differently at different times and in different contexts and does not
refer simply to an actual individual. Foucault is not sympathetic to
criticism centered on the author: "Behind all these questions we could
here little more than the murmur of indifference: 'What matters who's
speaking.'"
I'll add one more point: I think there was in the mid-1960's a fissure
appearing between two conceptions of film: between an art of showing
and an art of images, between a clear window onto human action and a
series of images and sounds, the latter either read as symbols or seen
and heard as abstract forms comparable to music.
Having brought up these points, I'll mention two roundtable
discussions that deal with the above issues in interesting ways:
'Vingt ans après: le cinéma américan et la politique des
auteurs'
(Cahiers du Cinéma 172, Nov. 1965) and 'Movie Differences' in
Movie 8.
The former is available in Jim Hillier's "Cahiers du Cinéma: The
1960's." In it there's a consensus that the auteur should not be
identified with a thematic -- in other words, I think, the trend is to
separate the idea of the auteur from the idea of thematic coherence
(one kind of "conceptual or theoretical coherence," to use Foucault's
phrase.) At the same there is a renewed emphasis on personal
expression. From the persective of later developments -- attempts to
read films, to reject the idea of personal expression, to view art
works as constructions with internal contradictions to be exposed --
many of these ideas look regressive. There is on the other hand an
attempt to locate formal concerns that are deeper than personal style.
In particular modern or mannerist forms are as legitimate as
"classical" forms: an admission that seemed absolutely necessary in
the 1960's, even if there were many steps backward in theory and in
taste...
The "Movie" roundtable debates the importance of thematics vs. action
and action vs. images.
Paul
1804
From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Mon Sep 8, 2003 10:20am
Subject: Re: Auteurism? Don't shoot the critic!
Some excerpts from "20 Years After."
Comolli: The politique des auteurs was at one and the same time an
ambitious assertion - allowing cinema all the prestige of a complete
and separate art - and a very modest one - the cinematic auteur was
quite simply the equivalent of the writer, painter, or musician,
confronting his work as they confronted theirs. At the same time, this
definition was married to a premise which derived less from a critical
appreciation than from a value judgment. From the point at which the
quality of auteur was recognized in a certain film-maker his films
accorded each other a mutual value so that each succeeding film by
that 'auteur', when it wasn't absolutely excellent, had to be
'interesting' at least.
In other words, recognition was given to a certain fidelity of the
auteur to himself, to certain constants in interpretation, theme,
expression, etc. Which not only characterized the film-maker and every
one of his films, but signalled their essential interest.
This led to a kind of slippage. A confusion arose between the concept
of auteur and the concept of theme: you only had to identify certain
constants, a particular obsession in a film-maker, for him to be
labelled an 'auteur' - which is fair enough - and for him to be
considered great - which is in most cases not justified.
And on the other hand, it for some reason you liked a film-maker who
had previously not been recognized as an auteur, you fought tooth and
nail -- and what's more, successfully - to uncover some kind of
'thematic' in his oeuvre, thereby automatically authenticating the the
auteur and demonstrating the presumed quality of his work. To put it
in a nutshell, every great auteur had a thematic, every film-maker you
decided to call a great auteur had a thematic and the slightest trace
of a thematic meant that the oeuvre fell within the politique des
auteurs.
The phenomenon we are dealing with here is the stretching of the
politique des auteurs to the point where the auteur and his subject
matter endow each other with a mutual value. Obviously, even the worst
film-makers have their obsessions and they deal with them. Badly,
naturally. And they're of no great interest.
Fieschi: The question of the thematic is on the whole one big joke
- at least in the terms proposed. Ford's could make a breviary for
reactionaries. As for Walsh's, it boils down to two or three basic
principles in adventure stories; it obviously doesn't ever guarantee
the success of a particular film. Distant Drums is a fairly close
reworking of Objective Burma which in no way explains why the latter
is a great film an( first is not.
Comolli: In the same way you can say that Fuller's thematic isn't the
interesting thing in the world. If you're looking for ideas in
film-makers better look elsewhere. I'm not sure they are best
expressed in film.
...
Fieschi: It's a question of clarification through examples and it's
precisely at the level of examples that things get complicated. There
are, let's say, about sixty American film-makers who have signed their
name to films that are well-made, interesting or enthralling for
various reasons, whether for their plot, or because they had Bogart or
Cooper, or for some intuitive sense of landscape and other
aesthetically pleasing details.
Of course, these aspects are far from negligible. They have a great
part to play in the physical pleasure of the spectacle which America
has brought to perfection. But not overlooking them does not mean
seeing them only at the expense of more fundamental ideas. We all know
that cinephile's aberration of only seeing in a film that wonderful
moment when Jack Elam crushes a cigarette butt into the left eye of a
one-legged Apache chief while whistling the 'Marseillaise', or the
retort which Lee Marvin spews out a moment before he is rubbed out by
a hail of machine-gun bullets. The politique des auteurs rapidly
degenerated into a politique of the craftsman and then of the jobber.
These days it is fairly general practice to search the work of Ray
Enright or Joseph Pevney for the curiosities we used to excuse in a
Ford or a Boetticher. Soon we'll have the age of Henry Levin or Jean
Negulesco.
Excesses of this kind are evidence of the irreversible victory of
American cinema, and it is precisely because a particular battle has
been won that we must once again show ourselves to be demanding. Films
and film-makers are no longer unjustly ignored by the cinephile
audience, even if they are by distributors. The time has therefore
come to discuss things more calmly and to recognize that The
Sandpiper, In Harm's Way, even Lord Jim, are bad films. This in no way
robs The Bandwagon, Angel Face and Elmer Gantry of their merits.
Similarly, to praise some film by Gordon Douglas, Hathaway or Stuart
Heisler does not mean that their oeuvre as a whole has to be taken
into consideration. No doubt we are reaching the impossible stage as
far as a theory of cinema in general, and American cinema in
particular, is concerned; but for years, if Cahiers' position was to
be productive, a certain rigid dogmatic control was control was
needed. So were the appropriate classifications to separate the wheat
from the chaff.
Today we have to recover some sense of the film itself, which does
not, however, imply abandoning our basic options concerning people
like Hawks, Hitchcock, Ford and Kazan. We have to be alert, able to
recognize that Lilith (and The Brave Bulls makes no difference) is one
of the finest American films of recent years.
Comolli: : In short, if you ask what characterizes an auteur, what
makes a film-maker an auteur in the strong sense of the term, you fall
into a new trap: it's his 'style', in other words the 'mise en scene',
a notion as dangerous, risky, infinitely variable and impossible to
pin down as auteur. Mise en scene means two things, one obvious - the
directing process; the other mysterious - the result of that process.
So when criticism talks about the mise en scene of a film, passes
judgment on it and discovers some special beauty in it, it is
sustaining a confusion - which may only be one of terminology -
between what is seen on the screen, i.e. a result, and what is deemed
to have produced the result, i.e. a set of means, a series of acts.
But in precise terms these means, these acts have no intrinsic value:
they are worth only what the result, the film, is worth. The latter
established the value of the former and not viceversa. In other words,
the fate of the mise en scene is to be wiped out in other words again,
the mise en scene is not and cannot be the object an object of
aesthetic appreciation. Its end product, the film, may make such a
claim. Mise en scene is not an object and not a work of art. Nor is it
an expression of anything. It is a means of expression - stylistic,
rhetorical, technical, etc. You can't judge a means. Conversely, the
essence of the cinema doesn't lie in its means. The mise en scene is
not part of the order of values. In Cahiers it has played the role of
an artefact; it was brought to the forefront because it was claimed
that the criteria for the beauty of a film were to be sought in the
mise en scene, but this was only an illusory explanation. The beauty
of films has to be looked for in the actual reality of films as
objects.
Mardore: The question is not to deny mise en scene in favour of
'style', which in any case should not be so different from it, but to
distinguish the people with a genuine personality from those with
'obsessions'. Character, as Welles would say, remains the sole
criterion. We don't take enough account of the personality, of
everything the auteur carries in himself, what he represents in the
world, the power he has to express the world. There are no aesthetic
criteria, just criteria of the individual. Cinephiles have denied this
in the name of some 'pure mise en scene' which is the least definable
notion imaginable. In fact the least gifted person whose personality
'explodes' in the work will always carry the day over the most skilled
technician. We have to learn that there aren't any rules. Intuition
and sensibility triumph over all theories.
Fieschi: The notion of 'character' stressed by Mardore is in fact of
primary importance for a correct definition of the auteur. And I
should add that it's better to have a bad character than no character
at all. Over a period of time people like Huston and Wilder, who have
after all had more failures than Wyler or Preminger, have over them
the advantage of a line followed with obstinacy if not always with
rigour. The fact that that line culminates in films like The Night of
the Iguana and Kiss Me Stupid is sufficient proof of its validity.
Mardore: The arbitrary definition of 'mise en scene' carried with it
an a priori refutation of all heresies and variants. Ten years ago a
film like Lilith would have been violently panned, and precisely in
the name of the politique des auteurs and mise en scene. Lilith uses
visual effects, camera angles, and cutting devices which would have
appeared obsolete and anti-aesthetic. In the mind of the politique des
auteurs the American cinema limited itself to a denial of any
dramatic, 'demiurgic' intervention from the auteur in question. That
over-simplification condemned a priori all mannered, baroque, in the
end non-conventional, forms (since simplicity and effacement are
variants of convention). In Lilith it is impossible to pinpoint the
extent of Rossen's intervention. A writer who uses an archaic form,
the preciosity of another age, isn't necessarily retarded or
simple-minded. He may have chosen the style in order to give himself a
certain narrative distance. We don't have the right to lay down the
law, to elevate one form at the expense of another. We have to defend
the notion of a pluralism of styles against a desiccated classicism,
which in any case was never there in the minds of American
film-makers. The important thing is to throw off the aesthetic and
moral shackles.
...
Claude Ollier:
Perhaps, at the point we have reached, it is in fact absolutely
essential to speak of the cinema in terms of formal innovation. Make
no mistake about it, what draws our interest to a particular film is
that it strikes a new note - what Celine called 'a minor music'. But
that 'minor music" can only be the art of using metaphor and metonymy
to assemble a new personal discourse out of both new and traditional
forms. The originality of a creative and innovatory mise en scene,
which is the hallmark of an auteur, must be analysed in terms of signs
and meanings If certain films in current production interest us
(Brazilian, Polish, Italian, French) it is because we are intrigued by
the forms they create. Our task is to establish what it is that
intrigues us in them and what links can be established between them
and earlier forms.
There is no reason why cinema should differ in this respect from
music or literature. However more complex it is, the problem remain
the same: forms have a future, an irreversible development. The
critic's role is to determine the precise extent of that innovation
and, as a result, the extent of what has to be shed.
1805
From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Mon Sep 8, 2003 10:49am
Subject: Re: Auteurism? Don't shoot the critic!
An excerpt from "Movie 8":
Theme and Action
Mark Shivas: (to Perkins): Your arguments against Vivre sa Vie and The
Eclipse make it sound as if you want to draw up rules about film
direction.
V.F. Perkins: Not rules exactly. As a critic I look for a harmony
between action and presentation. We're all accustomed to the idea of
an essential harmony between form and content, but I think "content"
has been too narrowly defined : we use it only of a film's thematic
subject. If this were all one could demand, then I would have to
regard Vivre sa Vie as a near-perfect movie. But I think there is
another requirement -- a correspondence between form and actual
content, that is between event and presentation. I don't think Vivre
sa Vie gives you a correspondence between the shape of the film, in
particular the shot-to-shot layout of its individual sequences, and
what happens in them. This sort of dislocation seems to occur whenever
a director regards his attitude as more important than the event he's
portraying.
Paul Mayersberg : But the thematic coherence is more important. Your
coherence of event and presentation is an extra. You couldn't do a
Mabuse on this basis.
VFP: The harmony should obtain for both sorts of content. I don't want
to impugn the traditional form/content relationship, but I think it's
important to extend it.
PM: For me, actual content that is not related to thematic content is
not much use. I could never regard Tourneur's Night of the Demon as a
masterpiece because in the last analysis it's a meaningless movie.
That doesn't stop it being very enjoyable.
VFP: I would regard your preference for theme over event as a
restatement of the old heresy -- which the cinema was virtually
invented to disprove -- that the intellect is superior to the body.
Perhaps I can best define my position through an example: in Wyler's
Loudest Whisper, during a sequence in a car the camera withdraws to
chauffeur position in order to get behind glass and prevent you from
hearing what the passengers are saying. You would not allow me to say
simply "This is wrong because it betrays the event"?
PM: It depends on the particular circumstance. In The Loudest Whisper
it's just a crude device intended to build up menace. But it all
depends what the director is trying to do.
VFP: You don't think it's crude in relation to a harmony that one can
insist on between what happens and the way it's shown
PM: That's exactly what I think. But the harmony is not yours, it's
the director's. You want things to be presented in the way you would
look at them. You shouldn't try to impose your way of looking at
things on other directors.
VFP: It doesn't amount to that. There's a huge range of ways of
filming any piece of action. But I would insist that the chosen method
maintain the integrity of the event. For example, I think it's almost
inevitably wrong to use the camera, as Wyler does, in order to
conceal. Film is the art of showing; it seems a contradiction to use
it in order not to show.
PM: Much more importantly it's an art of revealing. It's just as
legitimate to get an effect through what you omit as through what you
show. You show something, you get one effect; you don't show it, you
get another. But they're both effects, and they're both artificial.
It's all a question of selection. I think your distinction of event
from presentation is, from a director's point of view, the difference
between coming to film someone else's script and visualising a film
from the start. Quite often it's the film of which the director is
sole author that you object to in this way.
VFP: Perhaps, but there are obvious exceptions: Fuller, Preminger,
Hawks ...
PM: Antonioni and Godard have this in common, that they conceive
their films in shots. They don't write a scenario and then think how
to do it. A distinction between the event and the treatment is
meaningless for "The Eclipse" because the shots are events in
themselves. The film has a different kind of unity which does not the
involve the doing or making element that your preferred films involve.
VFP: All films involve it. On the set, for any film. the director does
two things: he sets up the action and he records it in a particular
way. He takes, say, a close-up of a woman. He doesn't produce some
phenomenon -- womancloseup -- just because he knows what he's going to
do before he gets to the shooting stage. But the best directors do
synthesise these two distinct functions. Baldly, it's no use setting
up a love-scene and then photographing the floor.
Ian A. Cameron: But what happens on the set can to be totally
different according to the way you've shown it.
VFP: Yes. My point is that the way it's photographed, edited etc. must
be designed to give the most lucid portrayal of what did happen.
PM: There's no such thing as the event distinct from what you are
shown.
MS: (to Perkins): Doesn't your requirements boil down to a demand for
an appearance of objectivity? Events can be arranged for effect in any
number of ways. Provided the arrangement doesn't *seem* to involve the
camera you are happy.
VFP: Provided that it's not only in the camera. A director shouldn't
use his camera and editing bench to impose something which he hasn't
been able to put into the action. One of the wonderful properties of
film is its lie-detector aspect: if an idea can't be expressed in
action then it's invalid. This is as true on the screen as it is in
life.
PM: You can't rule things out as easily as you seem to want, on
aesthetic or any other grounds. As Fieschi said, "you should love, not
a particular cinema, but the cinema." There's nothing a director can't
do, though there are things which may limit him if he tires. If a
device doesn't work, then there are specific reasons for the failure
in its specific context. It's a question of establishing a coherent
pattern. The problem with bad directors like Dearden is that their
devices stand out as devices. But a film that sets out to use devices
unashamedly, and incorporates them into a coherent pattern, is more
than acceptable.
IAC: (to Mayersberg): Do you think this coherence is essential ?
PM: Absolutely essential. The most important thing. Some coherences
are less interesting than others. But I can't imagine a good film
without its own coherence. I believe that films ought to have
"equations", whether their authors are aware of them or not. And I
need to feel that I've found that equation before I'm equipped to
tackle the detail.
MS: How would you decide after your first experience of a film whether
to go back to look for its "equation" ?
PM: Let's take a recent example -- Vanina Vanini. The first time, I
thought it was tremendous, obviously, but I couldn't reconcile the
film's apparently pessimistic ending with Rossellini's obvious
endorsement of his hero's faith in the French Revolution and its
meaning for Italy. So I went back and tried to work out the process of
the film step by step, to find a pattern that enclosed the characters
or at least would account for every scene. I will only regard a film
as significant if it has this pattern. I want a clear movement that I
can define and explain.
VFP: Two points. I don't believe the greatest films are to this extent
coherent. No matter how many times I see Vertigo or Rio Bravo or
Bigger Than Life, and no matter how clear I am about their essential
subjects, there's always a mystery, something that doesn't fit. Their
power would be weakened if all these mysteries were solved, if the
director was unwilling to say (with Nicholas Ray via Walt Whitman) "I
contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself." Also if you
applied this as a conscious and consistent critical method you would
get too far from what happens when you're actually in front of a film.
So completely intellectualised an attitude would be very dangerous.
PM: Obviously mine isn't the only way of looking at films. But it's a
method that works for me, so I use it. I'm not a spectator: I'm either
a potential film-maker or I'm a critic. I think in terms of functions.
I don't just sit there and let it hit me. On principle you should
accept everything in any film initially, for the purposes of its
argument. Once you've made the effort to understand it, and can say
what you think its intentions are, you're in a position to reject it
if necessary. But you can't do one without the other.
IAC: Your kind of criticism can only provoke two reactions : I
disagree or I agree. The first may be useful as a starting
point for a discussion, but the second effectively stops any.
Everything is explicable in terms of the equation, once it's been
discovered. You can't go on and ask more questions, because a complete
explanation has been provided. This is the equation take it or leave
it.
PM: This is untrue simply because a really good film works on so many
levels. Though one equation may fit very nicely, that doesn't mean
that there aren't others equally applicable. You can take a set of
scenes from films by Minnelli, say, or Preminger and explain them
thematically. It may be quite satisfactory. But you can also explain
precisely the same scenes with an entirely different set of themes.
There's no need to pretend that your equation is the only valid one.
VFP: Surely any sort of criticism is valuable provided that it's
intelligent, that it's closely related to what actually occurs on the
screen and, most important, that it opens up avenues for discussion
rather than closing them down. This is where strictly evaluative
criticism is so annoying. If I wrote an article expanding my opinion
of the first sequence of The Eclipse it would probably be valueless:
the action is either convincing or implausible according to one's
particular experience. I think we all attempt to write criticism which
is useful whether or not it meets with agreement, criticism which
suggests more questions than it answers. I'd rather be an orator than
an oracle. To put it another way, the magazine won't really be a
success until it regarded as a witness stand rather than judgement
seat.
> I am in complete agreement that "Song of Songs" is
> terrible, but it's quiteunjust IMO to then say "And,
> finally, this is why Mamoulian is boring: because he
> cannot make a movie that is happening before us;
> instead, he makes a
> film that follows a text."
>
> What do you mean by that? Does "Love Me Tonight" not
> "happen before us"? What about "Applause" and "City
> Streets"? Are they phoned-in? I think not.
>
>
1806
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Sep 8, 2003 1:42pm
Subject: Re: Re: Joel Schumacher and . . . .Joseph Pevney ?!?!
Mitzi Green?!?!
She introduced "The Lady is a Tramp" on Broadway.
She is also the subect of one of the funniest
anecdotes in Arthur Laurents' "Original Story By."
--- Damien Bona wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
>
> wrote:
> > Having waded through the last through days of
> posts I
> > continue to be amazed that Joseph Pevney has
> emerged
> > as pivotial contributor to gay cinematic history.
> >
> > To say that I am unconvinced would be putting it
> > mildly.
> >
>
> Pevney has a bit of queer appreciation (at least
> among camp
> followers) because of his fierce Joan Crawford
> vehicle, Female On The
> Beach.
>
> I think that Pevney's main contribution to cinema
> was his performance
> as John Garfield's brother in Robert Rossen's Body
> And SOul.
>
> Little piece of trivia: Pevney is the widower of
> early '30s child
> actress Mitzi Green.
>
>
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1807
From: Patrick Ciccone
Date: Mon Sep 8, 2003 2:04pm
Subject: Claude Ollier & von Sternberg
Thanks for the long excerpt, Paul--I was wondering if anyone here can
point me to more places to find the criticism of Claude Ollier, now
that his name has come up. All I've read by him is the fabulous
essay on von Sternberg in CINEMA: A CRITICAL DICTIONARY. I know he's
also a novelist-any good?
Speaking of von Sternberg, has anybody heard about the 18-or-so retro
that Film Forum is supposed to run later this year?
Patrick
> Claude Ollier:
> Perhaps, at the point we have reached, it is in fact absolutely
> essential to speak of the cinema in terms of formal innovation. Make
> no mistake about it, what draws our interest to a particular film is
> that it strikes a new note - what Celine called 'a minor music'. But
> that 'minor music" can only be the art of using metaphor and
metonymy
> to assemble a new personal discourse out of both new and traditional
> forms. The originality of a creative and innovatory mise en scene,
> which is the hallmark of an auteur, must be analysed in terms of
signs
> and meanings If certain films in current production interest us
> (Brazilian, Polish, Italian, French) it is because we are intrigued
by
> the forms they create. Our task is to establish what it is that
> intrigues us in them and what links can be established between them
> and earlier forms.
> There is no reason why cinema should differ in this respect from
> music or literature. However more complex it is, the problem remain
> the same: forms have a future, an irreversible development. The
> critic's role is to determine the precise extent of that innovation
> and, as a result, the extent of what has to be shed.
1808
From: Patrick Ciccone
Date: Mon Sep 8, 2003 2:10pm
Subject: Re: Auteurism? Don't shoot the critic!
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Gallagher" wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Ruy Gardnier"
> >Somewhere I
> > can't find anymore, Antoine de Baecque claims that the "politics
of
> authors"
> > kept in itself the germ of the "effacement" of the author.
A point also made by Godard when he superimposes the words "Seulement
la main qui efface peut écrire" (Only the hand that erases can write)
over the image of the chalk M in the palm in M in the HISTOIRE(S) DU
CINEMA. This shot is elaborated in the excellent introduction in
Gunning's Lang book--which is also one of the best essays I know of
explaining what is at stake in auteurism. Someone should invite him
on board here.
Patrick
1809
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Sep 8, 2003 1:52pm
Subject: Re: Re: The Ars Poetica of Heath Pevellini
"SOME LIKE IT HOT
works differently from how it would have earlier
because neither
Lemmon the worrywart nor Curtis the pretty-boy really
has male
authority in the first place."
Thank Goodness!
Another reason why it's such a great film.
I admire the bravery/cowardice of these characters far
more than I do the macho gesturing of conventional
"heroes" who never cross gender barriers.
--- jaketwilson wrote:
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1810
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Sep 8, 2003 3:19pm
Subject: Re: Claude Ollier & von Sternberg
Ollier's "Souveniers Ecran" was published by Cahiers
du Cinema / Gallimard in 1981.
High time for an English translation!
--- Patrick Ciccone wrote:
> Thanks for the long excerpt, Paul--I was wondering
> if anyone here can
> point me to more places to find the criticism of
> Claude Ollier, now
> that his name has come up. All I've read by him is
> the fabulous
> essay on von Sternberg in CINEMA: A CRITICAL
> DICTIONARY. I know he's
> also a novelist-any good?
>
> Speaking of von Sternberg, has anybody heard about
> the 18-or-so retro
> that Film Forum is supposed to run later this year?
>
> Patrick
>
> > Claude Ollier:
> > Perhaps, at the point we have reached, it is in
> fact absolutely
> > essential to speak of the cinema in terms of
> formal innovation. Make
> > no mistake about it, what draws our interest to a
> particular film is
> > that it strikes a new note - what Celine called 'a
> minor music'. But
> > that 'minor music" can only be the art of using
> metaphor and
> metonymy
> > to assemble a new personal discourse out of both
> new and traditional
> > forms. The originality of a creative and
> innovatory mise en scene,
> > which is the hallmark of an auteur, must be
> analysed in terms of
> signs
> > and meanings If certain films in current
> production interest us
> > (Brazilian, Polish, Italian, French) it is because
> we are intrigued
> by
> > the forms they create. Our task is to establish
> what it is that
> > intrigues us in them and what links can be
> established between them
> > and earlier forms.
> > There is no reason why cinema should differ in
> this respect from
> > music or literature. However more complex it is,
> the problem remain
> > the same: forms have a future, an irreversible
> development. The
> > critic's role is to determine the precise extent
> of that innovation
> > and, as a result, the extent of what has to be
> shed.
>
>
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1811
From: George Robinson
Date: Mon Sep 8, 2003 4:21pm
Subject: Re: Boris Barnet (was The Ars Poetica of Heath Pevellini)
Since you mentioned Boris Barnet, maybe one of the wonderfully bright
folks herein can answer a question for me, of which all my reference
books and websites availeth not:
Was Boris Barnet Jewish? I know he was English, but the two aren't
mutually exclusive.
(which reminds me of a story my wife tells about a naive friend from the
midwest who, upon hearing that Sandy Koufax was gay, replied in all
sincerity, "B ut I thought he was Jewish!")
George Robinson
hotlove666 wrote:
>[snip]
>
>More news from Tinseltown: As NY battens down for the first Boris
>Barnet retrospective, the Hollywood Cinematheque is preparing for a
>23-picture retrospective of 3-D films (BELCH!). 'Scuse me...
>
>To Joseph K - I'll see if Andy's interested.
>
>
>
>To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
>a_film_by-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
>Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>
>.
>
>
>
--
Cry later, but for now let's enjoy the laughter.
--Tupac Shakur, "God Bless the Dead"
1812
From:
Date: Mon Sep 8, 2003 7:32pm
Subject: Demme
Enjoyed - and agreed with - the recent posts on Jonathan Demme.
Demme seems like a good candidate for auteur status.
In addition the films already mentioned, Swing Shift, Swimming to Cambodia,
and the music video Sun City are all fine!
The Demme-produced That Thing You Do! is also a good movie, but one is not
sure how much influence he had on it.
Only Demme film that seems not good: Silence of the Lambs. Even here the
technique is not bad, but do not like the subject matter.
Peter is right: Who Am I This Time? is fascinating.
Mike Grost
1813
From: Damien Bona
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 1:35am
Subject: Re: The Ars Poetica of Heath Pevellini
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> Hudson was something of a punching bag for
> directors, but what happens to him in Back to God's Country is
> extreme.
Hudson was discovered by Raoul Walsh, who put the actor in his first
film, Fighter Squadron, so I imagine Walsh probably treated him
decently on the four films they made together.
Sirk found Hudson to be a pleasant, simple young man who, unlike
Robert Stack, had no idea what Sirk was up to in his films.
1814
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 2:00am
Subject: Re: Re: The Ars Poetica of Heath Pevellini
Walsh intended "Fighter Squadron" to be a showcase for
new young talents he hoped to nuture. Hudson, rather
famously, ended up with an abbreviated and wordless
role as he couldn't handle dialogue at that time.
href="http://ehrensteinland.com/htmls/g012/jacklarson.html"
target="_blank">A young New York poet, trying his hand
at acting got the lion's share of the film. He was
snapped up for a television series with which I'm sure
you're all familiar. Later he wrote librettos for
Virgil Thompson's operas, and produced two of his
director-boyfriend's most notable films: "The China
Syndrome" and "Mike's Murder."
--- Damien Bona wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
>
> wrote:
> > Hudson was something of a punching bag for
> > directors, but what happens to him in Back to
> God's Country is
> > extreme.
>
> Hudson was discovered by Raoul Walsh, who put the
> actor in his first
> film, Fighter Squadron, so I imagine Walsh probably
> treated him
> decently on the four films they made together.
>
> Sirk found Hudson to be a pleasant, simple young man
> who, unlike
> Robert Stack, had no idea what Sirk was up to in his
> films.
>
>
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1815
From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 3:10am
Subject: Interview with Anna Karina
There's a charming recent interview with (the always charming)
Anna Karina here:
http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/movies/reviews/documents/03132795.asp
I was surprised when she said that "Carmen Jones" was banned in
France. Why was this?
Paul
1816
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 4:00am
Subject: Re: Interview with Anna Karina
This may have to do with the rights to the Bizet
opera.
--- Paul Gallagher wrote:
> There's a charming recent interview with (the always
> charming)
> Anna Karina here:
>
http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/movies/reviews/documents/03132795.asp
>
> I was surprised when she said that "Carmen Jones"
> was banned in
> France. Why was this?
>
> Paul
>
>
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1817
From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 4:03am
Subject: The Ars Poetica of Heath Pevellini
Boetticher and Hudson got on fine. Budd said he was the clumsiest man
he ever met: "If we were sitting here and Rock was on the other side
of the commissary and started toward us, he'd crash into two tables
on the way, upending one of them, and land about there."
1818
From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 4:07am
Subject: Demme
Amazed you don't like the subject of Silence of the Lambs, Mike. As
Peter knows, I loved The Truth about Charlie. In Brazil years ago I
saw a political documentary by JD - Haiti: Road to Freedom - which
was virtually a one-hour music video because of the heavy political
involvement of Haitian bands in the struggle. I haven't seen Buena
Vista Social Club, but it would have to go some to beat that one.
1819
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 4:10am
Subject: The Return of the Repressed
I hate to bring a stinkbomb to the party, but I've
come to believe the most damaging thing about
auteurism is the way it treats screenwriters. They're
kind of like a crazy relative locked away in the attic
that nobody wants to talk about, though everyone knows
is there.
Admittedly any number of scriptwriters are faceless
hacks. But not enough attention has been given to
important collaborators like I.A.L. Diamond (Wilder),
Suso Cecchi D'Amico (Visconti) and Hugo Butler (Losey)
It's fairly obvious (to me at least) that Jacques
Prevert is the auteur of "Les Enfants du Paradis,"
"Lumiere D'Ete" and "Le Crime de M.Lange."
Likewise "Singin' in the Rain" is a film by Betty
Comden and Adolph Green, and "The Manchurian
Candidate"
is the work of the creator of "Lord Love a Duck" far
more than the metteur en scene of "Seconds."
And "The Quiller Memorandum" is a Harold Pinter film
to the manner born.
Now I'll just sit back and wait for the brickbats to
rain down upon my head.
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1820
From: Paul Fileri
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 4:22am
Subject: Re: Interview with Anna Karina
Paul G. wrote:
> There's a charming recent interview with (the always charming)
> Anna Karina here [...]
And there's an even better one here at The Onion AV Club:
http://www.theonionavclub.com/avclub3918/avfeature_3918.html
The Onion, perhaps slightly flying under the radar, always tends to do very
worthwhile, lengthy interviews. Others ones to check out include recent
conversations with John Malkovich and Campbell Scott.
Paul
1821
From: Tag Gallagher
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 4:26am
Subject: Re: The Return of the Repressed
David Ehrenstein wrote:
> the most damaging thing about
> auteurism is the way it treats screenwriters.
You start about by defining "auteurism" as an ism that mistreats
screenwriters. What if there is another "auteurism" that has never
mistreated screenwriters? Seems to me that plentiful attention has been
paid to the screenwriters you mention for many decades now, in some
cases, and far more often than not, the people paying attention to them
have been critics than most people would describe as "auteurist." So I
question your assumption that "auteurism" is guilty of mistreatment --
except, of course, for what you pre-define as "auteurism" in what
appears to me to be a tautological argument . Surely, the attention
paid screenwriters is not "enough," but not enough attention is paid to
Shakespeare or Molière or Hitchcock or Welles or Ford, either, or even
to Bush.
There's no reason to blame soi-disant "auteurism" for mistreatment.
Writers have thrived in the sun of authentic auteurism.
1822
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 4:29am
Subject: Re: The Return of the Repressed
Where have writers "thrived"? I must have missed it.
Surely you're not making extravagant claims for
Richard Corliss, are you?
And while we're at it, where do you stand on Lamarr
Trotti? Does he exist for you at all?
--- Tag Gallagher wrote:
>
>
>
>
> David Ehrenstein wrote:
>
> > the most damaging thing about
> > auteurism is the way it treats screenwriters.
>
>
> You start about by defining "auteurism" as an ism
> that mistreats
> screenwriters. What if there is another "auteurism"
> that has never
> mistreated screenwriters? Seems to me that
> plentiful attention has been
> paid to the screenwriters you mention for many
> decades now, in some
> cases, and far more often than not, the people
> paying attention to them
> have been critics than most people would describe as
> "auteurist." So I
> question your assumption that "auteurism" is guilty
> of mistreatment --
> except, of course, for what you pre-define as
> "auteurism" in what
> appears to me to be a tautological argument .
> Surely, the attention
> paid screenwriters is not "enough," but not enough
> attention is paid to
> Shakespeare or Molière or Hitchcock or Welles or
> Ford, either, or even
> to Bush.
>
> There's no reason to blame soi-disant "auteurism"
> for mistreatment.
> Writers have thrived in the sun of authentic
> auteurism.
>
>
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1823
From: Zach Campbell
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 4:28am
Subject: Re: The Return of the Repressed
Zach:
> I hate to bring a stinkbomb to the party, but I've
> come to believe the most damaging thing about
> auteurism is the way it treats screenwriters.
No, the most damaging thing is the insistence that there is and must
be only one "auteur", particularly for films where two or more such
auteurs are quite clearly feasible. Consider:
> It's fairly obvious (to me at least) that Jacques
> Prevert is the auteur of "Les Enfants du Paradis,"
> "Lumiere D'Ete" and "Le Crime de M.Lange."
LE CRIME DE M. LANGE is most certainly and so obviously some Renoir!
Ignoring Prevert's major contribution is poor scholarship and
criticism, but the film would be remarkably different if someone
other than Renoir had directed it.
LES ENFANTS DU PARADIS is sort of my whipping boy for auteurism -- I
think it's as good as a film can possibly get while having plainly
mediocre direction. It does have one of the greatest performances of
all time, by Barrault.
> Admittedly any number of scriptwriters are faceless
> hacks. But not enough attention has been given to
> important collaborators like I.A.L. Diamond (Wilder),
> Suso Cecchi D'Amico (Visconti) and Hugo Butler (Losey)
Collaborators are certainly deserving of more exploration. Good
point.
--Zach
1824
From: Tag Gallagher
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 4:33am
Subject: Re: The Return of the Repressed
David Ehrenstein wrote:
>And while we're at it, where do you stand on Lamarr
>Trotti? Does he exist for you at all?
>
I stand on his shoulders.
1825
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 4:42am
Subject: Re: The Return of the Repressed
Rather uncomfortable for him, don't you think?
--- Tag Gallagher wrote:
>
>
> David Ehrenstein wrote:
>
> >And while we're at it, where do you stand on Lamarr
> >Trotti? Does he exist for you at all?
> >
>
> I stand on his shoulders.
>
>
>
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1826
From: Paul Fileri
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 6:37am
Subject: Guardian Spits on Welles
Behold the London Guardian's four-article feature (a tribute?) on Orson Welles, a man
(we've heard it before) "destroyed by his own greatness," committing career "suicide."
Recoil upon reading David Thomson and B. Ruby Rich -- the latter is clearly more
interested in Allison Anders and in some mindboggling fashion manages to identify
Tarantino, Aronofsky, Cameron, Fincher, Noe, and Von Trier as Welles's "boy wonder"
acolytes.
http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,4120,1031003,00.html
Paul
1827
From: Fred Camper
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 7:41am
Subject: Re: Guardian Spits on Welles
Sorry, gang, I've gotten overwhelmed with work and am something like 100
posts behind reading our group, but I couldn't resist replying to this one.
Paul of course gets it right that this article is yet another version of
the old cliché, and false one, about Welles.
I've long held the view that many others consider extreme that of the
films Welles fully directed (I haven't seen a few of the
never-regularly-released ones, and I'm not counting "Hearts of Age" or
"The Making of Othello,"), "Citizen Kane," while a fine film, is
actually the weakest.
From the lead article you would think that "Touch of Evil" was a mess,
as in Tanya's "You a mess, honey," rather than the all-cylinders-firing
flat-out masterpiece it is. (My defense of it is at
http://www.chicagoreader.com/movies/archives/1998/0998/09188.html )
And the Chartres footage in "F for Fake" is among the greatest moment in
any Welles film.
What I hated so much about the lead article is that it reads as if the
writer had never seen the films. The article could have been written
from reading a couple of biographies and looking at scripts of each film
broken down into shots. And in that, it is characteristic of so much
film writing.
As for Ruby Rich's article, the blaming of Welles for the problems of
women and Hollywood seems bizarre in the extreme, and her comparison of
"Touch of Evil" to "Citizen Kane" seems to hinge entirely on their
respective plots as justification for why one is better than the other.
Plus, neither she nor the writer of the lead seem to understand that
"some kind of a man" is spoken with love, by an ex-lover.
As for Welles's influence, since our group began with my post about
"late Wendkos," I might mention that Wendkos in his early films is
clearly, as Sarris understands, deeply influenced by Welles. The opening
of "The Burglar" is a "Citizen Kane" quotation, and the imagery of "The
Brotherhood of the Bell" and "The Mephisto Waltz" presumably would not
have been possible without Welles.
The people who tell the story of Welles the profligate while neglecting
the actual evidence on the screen could tell the same story about dozens
of great artists who lead troubled lives, simply by ignoring the work.
The deaf Beethoven was apparently ridiculous when conducting the world
premiere of his Ninth Symphony, as he could hardly hear the orchestra
and they couldn't keep up with him, or something like that. If you
ignored the music you could make him seem like a real fool. The idea
that failed artists fail because their lives are a wreck is absurd.
Consider the converse: do people who live neat and moral lives make good
art? And of course great artists don't always lead good lives.
Part of the reason we get this drek is that writers need to sound
knowledgeable and superior and tell a good story. Readers also like to
see icons taken down a peg. "Famous Artist John Jones Made Sublime Art
His Whole Life" is not going to attract readers nearly as much as "John
Jones Exposed as a Fake -- Monkeys Painted his Paintings."
- Fred
1828
From: George Robinson
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 8:28am
Subject: Re: The Return of the Repressed
I think that there is more than a grain of truth in what you say, David.
However, I would certainly contest a few of your specific assertions.
First, yeah, "Singin'" is as much Comden and Green as Kelly and Donen, but
the creative use of 'scope in "It's Always Fair Weather" and of color and
filters in "Funny Face" is clearly the work of either Donen or his DP and
those effects add immeasurably to both the meaning and the quality of the
films.
My father-in-law went to school with Izzy Diamond; David (may his memory be
a blessing) says that the initials stood for Interscholastic Algebra League
'cause apparently Diamond was a math wiz. (David became a physicist, not a
screenwriter.) There is a definite and major shift in the tone and focus of
Wilder's films after he stopped working with Brackett -- they are more
playful, and there are a lot more comedies than in the first part of his
directing career -- and clearly a lot of that had to do with Diamond. On the
other hand, Diamond's work before Wilder is pretty insignificant, which
suggests some combination of maturing and Wilder must have come into play.
As for M. Lange, I'm with Zach on this one; Prevert gives the film some of
its airiness and some of its politics, but Renoir gives it the visual
structure of the courtyard-as-community is the film's spine.
George Robinson
Cry later, but for now let's enjoy the laughter.
--Tupac Shakur, "God Bless the Dead"
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Ehrenstein"
To:
Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2003 12:10 AM
Subject: [a_film_by] The Return of the Repressed
> I hate to bring a stinkbomb to the party, but I've
> come to believe the most damaging thing about
> auteurism is the way it treats screenwriters. They're
> kind of like a crazy relative locked away in the attic
> that nobody wants to talk about, though everyone knows
> is there.
>
> Admittedly any number of scriptwriters are faceless
> hacks. But not enough attention has been given to
> important collaborators like I.A.L. Diamond (Wilder),
> Suso Cecchi D'Amico (Visconti) and Hugo Butler (Losey)
>
> It's fairly obvious (to me at least) that Jacques
> Prevert is the auteur of "Les Enfants du Paradis,"
> "Lumiere D'Ete" and "Le Crime de M.Lange."
>
> Likewise "Singin' in the Rain" is a film by Betty
> Comden and Adolph Green, and "The Manchurian
> Candidate"
> is the work of the creator of "Lord Love a Duck" far
> more than the metteur en scene of "Seconds."
>
> And "The Quiller Memorandum" is a Harold Pinter film
> to the manner born.
>
> Now I'll just sit back and wait for the brickbats to
> rain down upon my head.
>
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
> http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
>
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> a_film_by-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>
>
1829
From: George Robinson
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 8:45am
Subject: Re: Guardian Spits on Welles
Unlike David Thomson, a man destroyed by his love of the sound of his own
voice.
Schmuck used to be a decent film critic until he began his love affair with
a mirror.
George Robinson
Cry later, but for now let's enjoy the laughter.
--Tupac Shakur, "God Bless the Dead"
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Fileri"
To:
Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2003 2:37 AM
Subject: [a_film_by] Guardian Spits on Welles
> Behold the London Guardian's four-article feature (a tribute?) on Orson
Welles, a man
> (we've heard it before) "destroyed by his own greatness," committing
career "suicide."
> Recoil upon reading David Thomson and B. Ruby Rich -- the latter is
clearly more
> interested in Allison Anders and in some mindboggling fashion manages to
identify
> Tarantino, Aronofsky, Cameron, Fincher, Noe, and Von Trier as Welles's
"boy wonder"
> acolytes.
>
> http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,4120,1031003,00.html
>
> Paul
>
>
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> a_film_by-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>
1830
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 0:54pm
Subject: Re: The Return of the Repressed
"First, yeah, "Singin'" is as much Comden and Green as
Kelly and Donen, but
the creative use of 'scope in "It's Always Fair
Weather" and of color and
filters in "Funny Face" is clearly the work of either
Donen or his DP and
those effects add immeasurably to both the meaning and
the quality of the
films."
Not"as much" --MORE. A fortiori "It's Always Fair
Weather" (a major influence on Sondheim's "Merrily We
Roll Along") which was derived from Dumas' "Vingt Ans
Apres."
As for the color filters in "Funny Face" look not to
the veteran DR, Ray June, but rather to Richard
Avedon.
And the script was by Roger Edens' BF, Leonard Gershe.
Donen's creativity can scarcely be denied. But his
talent is that of a collaborator not an originator.
--- George Robinson wrote:
>
>
>
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1831
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 1:03pm
Subject: Re: Guardian Spits on Welles
Welles "destroyed by his own genius"?
It only serves to toremind me of my favorite line in
the entire history of the cinema (from "Sunday Bloody
Sunda") :"Her come those tired old tits again."
Where would David Thomson be without the "failure" of
Orson Welles? Writing about Michael Cimino one
supposes.
--- Paul Fileri wrote:
> Behold the London Guardian's four-article feature (a
> tribute?) on Orson Welles, a man
> (we've heard it before) "destroyed by his own
> greatness," committing career "suicide."
> Recoil upon reading David Thomson and B. Ruby Rich
> -- the latter is clearly more
> interested in Allison Anders and in some
> mindboggling fashion manages to identify
> Tarantino, Aronofsky, Cameron, Fincher, Noe, and Von
> Trier as Welles's "boy wonder"
> acolytes.
>
>
http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,4120,1031003,00.html
>
> Paul
>
>
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1832
From: Rick Curnutte
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 1:35pm
Subject: Re: Guardian Spits on Welles
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
> I've long held the view that many others consider extreme that of
the
> films Welles fully directed (I haven't seen a few of the
> never-regularly-released ones, and I'm not counting "Hearts of
Age" or
> "The Making of Othello,"), "Citizen Kane," while a fine film, is
> actually the weakest.
Yes. For me, KANE, while certainly a revolutionary breakthrough, is
less effective than even an incomplete AMBERSONS. And my two
favorite Welles films, CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT and F FOR FAKE, seem to
encompass everything Welles was trying to say throughout his career
much more fluently and effortlessly.
I agree with Fred, as well, that most people like to see legends
torn down. While I believe that a serious reevaluation of KANE is in
order (the greatest film ever for 50 years?), but by no means does
that mean that Welles entire career was a failure.
Rick
1833
From: Tag Gallagher
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 2:43pm
Subject: Re: The Return of the Repressed
Where do you think he prefers for people to stand on him?
Don't you stand on him? I thought that was your point.
Myself, I stand on many shoulders. I have many feet.
David Ehrenstein wrote:
> Rather uncomfortable for him, don't you think?
>
> --- Tag Gallagher wrote:
> >
> >
> > David Ehrenstein wrote:
> >
> > >And while we're at it, where do you stand on Lamarr
> > >Trotti? Does he exist for you at all?
> > >
> >
> > I stand on his shoulders.
> >
> >
> >
>
>
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1834
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 4:29pm
Subject: Re: The Return of the Repressed
My point was that people like Lamar Trotti wrote
scripts that were INTERPRETED by directors like John
Ford (eg."Young Mr. Lincoln.")
--- Tag Gallagher wrote:
> Where do you think he prefers for people to stand on
> him?
> Don't you stand on him? I thought that was your
> point.
>
> Myself, I stand on many shoulders. I have many
> feet.
>
>
>
> David Ehrenstein wrote:
>
> > Rather uncomfortable for him, don't you think?
> >
> > --- Tag Gallagher wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > David Ehrenstein wrote:
> > >
> > > >And while we're at it, where do you stand on
> Lamarr
> > > >Trotti? Does he exist for you at all?
> > > >
> > >
> > > I stand on his shoulders.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> > __________________________________
> > Do you Yahoo!?
> > Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site
> design software
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1835
From: Paul Fileri
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 4:35pm
Subject: Re: Guardian Spits on Welles
Rick wrote:
> I agree with Fred, as well, that most people like to see legends
> torn down. While I believe that a serious reevaluation of KANE is in
> order (the greatest film ever for 50 years?), but by no means does
> that mean that Welles entire career was a failure.
But I think it's important to note that the Guardian feature isn't an example of a
legend being torn down. It's a perfect example of a legend/myth -- of Welles as a
career self-suicide who never made anything good or at the same level of achievment
after his early roots -- being perpetuated (it was enacted long ago). No respectable
Welles scholar sticks to this convenient story, ignoring known facts, regardless of
one's opinion of his later work in comparison to his earlier output. The fable of
Welles that Thomson and Conrad cling to and caress should be torn down.
Paul
1836
From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 4:39pm
Subject: Re: Interview with Anna Karina
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> This may have to do with the rights to the Bizet
> opera.
>
You're right. I asked on rec.arts.opera and was told that the heirs of
Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, the librettists of the opera,
filed a lawsuit that prevented the film's exhibition in France.
According to IMDb, it finally premiered in France on Dec. 16, 1981.
Paul
1837
From:
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 4:50pm
Subject: Fritz Lang and Geometry
"Fritz Lang's vision of life is profoundly expressed by his visual forms" - Andrew Sarris.
So what are Lang's visual forms?
Last night, The Big Heat (1953) was on TV again. These notes were added to my Lang article. They are certainly missing many important things. They are offered as a down payment on the goal of understanding Lang.
Clocks, Mirrors and Images
Lang uses his traditional subjects here. Images on walls, both paintings and photographs, are prominent here. Ford's house has a large photograph of a group of policeman. Although the dialogue does not specify this, one suspects it is Ford's graduation picture from the police academy. It is situated in the most prominent spot in the house, where one would place a religious icon. It does have a quasi-religious significance: it expresses Ford's whole world view, the value he places on being a police officer. It expresses what he and his family find most meaningful in the world.
The second shot in the film compares the evil Jeanette Nolan character with the grandfather clock on her staircase. Both are tall vertical figures. The shot is a kind of visual pun, expressing the equivalency of these two forces. Since clocks always have a sinister meaning in Lang, this is a striking indication of Nolan's power and sinister nature. A clock also presides over the bar, another place of corruption.
Mirrors here are associated with Gloria Grahame, and her pursuit by the monstrous Lee Marvin. This is similar to Joan Bennett and the villainous Dan Duryea in The Woman in the Window. Mirrors also are linked to other corrupt characters: there is one in the commissioner's' office, and at the Lagana mansion. When Ford moves into the hotel room, it too has a mirror, as well as one of the film's numerous and sinister pitchers.
The desk of the crooked cop who dies at the beginning recalls the desks owned by villains in many early Lang films. Much of the evil in the world seems to be plotted out at this desk. It is at the center of corruption. The prominence of a nearby clock also suggests the sinister nature of this locale.
Katie Bannion is associated with her refrigerator near the start of the film. In a movie filled with fire imagery, she is the only character associated with cooling.
Sinister Circles
Sinister circles abound here, just as they do in Metropolis and Ministry of Fear. Whenever we get near any people involved in the corruption, circular objects are near them. The cop's desk at the beginning contains a round lamp. Later, the house will include a cabinet near the door with swirling lines in its front glass panels. There is also a circular table near the door. When evil Mrs. Duncan talks to the police, there is a round little pitcher behind her. This is one of many sinister pitchers in the film. Late in the film, Mrs. Duncan sits in a highly curved chair.
The bar is a riot of circular forms. There are circular booths, carved out of an extended surface that joins the booths together: a vivid geometrical form. The actual bar itself is circular. There are circular shelves and tables inside it. When Lang shows a clock over the bar, it has a circular dial, and Lang then moves his camera down to reveal a still life of round brandy snifters. The staircase leading into the bar is circular: one of the few circular stairs in Lang. The phone in the booth has a round dial, and there is a picture on the wall of the booth that is all curving lines. The canopy outside in the street has scalloped edges, forming a series of near semicircles. The dress worn by Lucy Chapman, who works at the bar, is full of circular scallops on the shoulders and elsewhere. She also wears circular earrings, and a round, almost cylindrical necklace.
Lagana's big mob mansion has a circular drive out front, and a circular porch with shallow circular steps leading down. Lagana's desk has a lamp with a large round shade, and a unique curved horn-like stand. The horn is another circular shape. The desk chair has curved shapes in its back, and a large globe is in the corner of the room, often shown in the same frame with the mobsters. A later scene shows the curved fireplace screen, and a set of round decanters on a table in front of it: one of many sinister containers of liquid in the film.
Early in the film, Lagana is in bed, while his bodyguard George stands beside him. Lagana's bed has a round region in its headboard, and fills the left of the screen with its curvilinear shapes. By contrast, George is on the right side of the screen, in a region defined exclusively by rectilinear objects. It makes a pointed contrast between the two men, and their respective worlds. Lang cuts to this scene directly after a shot of the desk at Duncan's and its circular lamp, and shows another circular lamp here; this is perhaps an example of the associational montage found at its peak in M.
The commissioner's office has a long, oddly curved lamp on the desk, and a circular backed chair in which Ford sits - one of the few times Ford is against circular imagery in the film. Somehow, the chair seems to belong to the commissioner, and Ford is an alien presence in it, deeply uncomfortable. The commissioner also pours from another of the film's sinister circular pitchers.
Lee Marvin's apartment has a round hanging lantern, a semi-circular table in front of the mirror, a pair of lamps whose shiny stands are strangely curving pyramidal shapes, and that most sinister pitcher of all, the coffee pot. There is also an umbrella on the outdoor patio. Debby wears circular earrings, with hollow centers. By contrast, there is also an octagonal table in the apartment; such polygonal imagery is more often associated with Glenn Ford's hero in the film.
The auto-wrecking firm is full of tires, and circular shapes provided by the cars. There is also a round stool inside for the boss Mr. Atkins. This industrial area anticipates the railroad yard in Human Desire. Its chain link fence recalls the grill work in the window of Lt. Wilkes.
Larry's room has fans of cards in pictures on the wall. Lang also showed fans of cards in Dr. Mabuse, Der Spieler. The fans here have a nearly circular shape.
One use of circles in the film has nothing to do with corruption, although it is deeply sad and tragic. When Ford's house is being emptied out, the last objects taken from it are all circular: the lamps, the baby carriage with its round wheels, the phone on the floor. This scene is highly moving.
Ford and Geometry
By contrast, the hero played by Glenn Ford is associated with both polygonal and complex rectilinear imagery.
We see Ford in a series of three mirrors at Mrs. Duncan's. The mirrors are arranged at slight angles to each other, forming one of Lang's favorite polygonal shapes. Ford also moves near a bay window, one whose seat is a series of polygonal lines of alternating lengths. This is a geometrically complex window. We also see him with an octagonal table in front of the window. The teletype machine at the police station also has a non-90 degree arc on its surface; it provides information to Ford.
These are the only polygons linked to Ford, but his spaces also tend to form "complex rectilinear regions". Ford's office is an open region at the station, with many twists and turns in its outline, all strictly rectangular. His hotel room is also irregular in shape but rectilinear. Ford has two big scenes on the complex rectilinear staircase at his in-laws' apartment, a staircase also full of open space. There is also an outside staircase leading up to this typically urban building, which recalls Joan Bennett's apartment exterior in The Woman in the Window.
Ford's house has almost nothing circular in it, aside from a few glasses and some paper towels. It too is an open region of a complex rectilinear shape. The rectilinear purity of this house is striking. His daughter's bed, on which Ford sits, is a unique rectilinear blend of side walls with slats, an open area for sitting near the foot, and a flattened U baseboard. It is both complex and three dimensional, one of the film's unique shapes.
Mike Grost
1838
From: Rick Curnutte
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 5:42pm
Subject: Re: Guardian Spits on Welles
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Fileri" wrote:
> But I think it's important to note that the Guardian feature isn't
an example of a
> legend being torn down.
No, you're right and I realized this. I was making a general comment
on Welles and perception of him, not on the exact content of the
story at hand. Thanks for helping me make that clear, which I didn't
in my original post.
Rick
1839
From: Patrick Ciccone
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 6:14pm
Subject: Re: Guardian Spits on Welles
Jesus, the Thomson and Conrad are bad, but the B. Ruby Rich has to be
the stupidest, most-ill-conceived film-related article I've ever
read. And there is definitely some tough competition there.
PWC
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Fileri" wrote:
> Behold the London Guardian's four-article feature (a tribute?) on
Orson Welles, a man
> (we've heard it before) "destroyed by his own greatness,"
committing career "suicide."
> Recoil upon reading David Thomson and B. Ruby Rich -- the latter is
clearly more
> interested in Allison Anders and in some mindboggling fashion
manages to identify
> Tarantino, Aronofsky, Cameron, Fincher, Noe, and Von Trier as
Welles's "boy wonder"
> acolytes.
>
>
http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,4120,1031003,00.htm
l
>
> Paul
1840
From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 6:27pm
Subject: Return of the Repressed
1.Directors interpret scripts - even their own. When Joe Dante
decided to film the approach to the house in "It's a Good Life" set
against a backdrop of burned trees, he was interpreting Matheson's
script and even his career by identifying that house with the one in
Usher, also scripted by Matheson. I again quote Jean-Claude Biette's
conclusion to his piece on Wichita: "The job of the director is to
get the mosr out of the script - psychologically, morally,
ideologically. I can imagine no other definition of 'mise-en-scene.'
2. Directors have lots of input into the script-writing process, and
often continue making director's rewrites during shooting. This can
range from Cronenberg rewriter Poague's ghastly script for The Fly
and just not taking credit to sitting in the room every day together
(Welles and Manckiewicz, co-credited on Kane), to sitting with the
writer till a 65-pp treatment with detailed scene renditions is on
paper (Hitchcock), then reading drafts and giving "notes." Everyone
thought it was some kind of surrealist gesture when Resnais said he
followed Robbe-Grillet's Marienbad script closely, but AR pointed out
at the time that the way they worked on the script was SOP in
Hollywood.
There's a pricey French book which I wish we could have in English
comparing all versions of The Big Heat from book to film - The Double
Scenario of Fritz Lang - to show how mise-en-scene really begins at
the script stage, and writing continues in production and post-
production. Conversely, there's a funny article you can find in the
Herrick by a school teacher called "Rear Window: A Film by John
Michael Hayes," entirely based on the fact that there was a script
and Hayes'was the only name on it. Read the Cahiers Young Mr. Lincoln
piece for what this meant in that instance.
3. Look at M. Lange and Lumiere d'Ete, by two very distinctive film
authors, and tell me that Prevert is the author of those films.
4. Donen is a special case because his collaborators on the musicals
are so visible, and often co-signed. (Did you know, by the way, that
the sound of Kelly dancing was often looped by Donen, who was also a
dancer?) He pays tribute to collaborators more than anyone - look at
his Oscar speech - but he is also a lifelong technical innovator, and
I'd be careful about atributing any technical innovation in a Donen
film to Avedon or anyone else. Compare Donen to Sidney (also a
technical wiz, also at MGM) and it's night and day. I like both, but
Harvey Girls is definitely a small pleasure next to Singin' or Fair
Weather. And the latter are different in kind from The Bandwagon and
An American in Paris. That scale is a scale of film authors, from
minor to good to great, and it will continue to be constructed and
written about that way for the same reason that that school teacher
didn't do a follow-up article called "Peyton Place: A Film by John
Michael Hayes."
5. I love Evan Hunter's books as Ed McBain, and I just had the
pleasure of watching for the first time Strangers When We Meet, which
he adaptated from his novel. I'd say there's more Hunter in that film
than in The Birds, for obvious reasons, but I can tell without
reading it what the book would be like, and it would have few of the
qualities that make SWWM Quine's best film. However it was written,
it's Quine's handling of the party scene, ably executed by a great
ensemble cast, that makes the magic, not Hunter's cliched speeches
about crabgrass. Hats off to Hunter, whom Hitchcock considered a real
writer, capable of inventing stories and characters, and not just a
technician, but the visual plan of that party is the kind of blood in
the water I move toward - and I'm an old English major!
1841
From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 6:35pm
Subject: The Guardian Spits on Welles
The myth was created by the RKO Publicity Dept. at the behest of
George Scahefer in order to justify throwing the Mercury off the lot.
GS met personally with the editor of Hollywood Reporter (aka The
Repeater) to tell him how the story should be played. All this
happened while Welles was still in South Ameica, Subsequently,
writers like Higham and Thomson just kept printing and elaborating on
the myth.
1842
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 6:37pm
Subject: Re: Return of the Repressed
Joe Dante, by the way, has pointedly declined to take
a possessive credit on his films. They're "directed by
Joe Dante" not "a Joe Dante film" -- even though they
couldn't be by anyone else.
--- hotlove666 wrote:
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1843
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 6:42pm
Subject: Re: Re: Guardian Spits on Welles
Indeed. Ruby takes the cake.
But it's fairly obvious that Orson Welles is in no way
responsible for Alison Anders' manifest lack of
talent.
--- Patrick Ciccone wrote:
> Jesus, the Thomson and Conrad are bad, but the B.
> Ruby Rich has to be
> the stupidest, most-ill-conceived film-related
> article I've ever
> read. And there is definitely some tough
> competition there.
>
> PWC
>
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Fileri"
> wrote:
> > Behold the London Guardian's four-article feature
> (a tribute?) on
> Orson Welles, a man
> > (we've heard it before) "destroyed by his own
> greatness,"
> committing career "suicide."
> > Recoil upon reading David Thomson and B. Ruby Rich
> -- the latter is
> clearly more
> > interested in Allison Anders and in some
> mindboggling fashion
> manages to identify
> > Tarantino, Aronofsky, Cameron, Fincher, Noe, and
> Von Trier as
> Welles's "boy wonder"
> > acolytes.
> >
> >
>
http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,4120,1031003,00.htm
> l
> >
> > Paul
>
>
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1844
From: Rick Curnutte
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 6:45pm
Subject: Re: Guardian Spits on Welles
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> Indeed. Ruby takes the cake.
>
> But it's fairly obvious that Orson Welles is in no way
> responsible for Alison Anders' manifest lack of
> talent.
Yeah, the highlight of her extraordinarily lackluster filmography is
probably the episode of SEX AND THE CITY that she directed.
Rick
1845
From:
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 2:59pm
Subject: Re: Re: Guardian Spits on Welles
Echoing Fred and Rick, I prefer at least half a dozen other Welles films to
"Citizen Kane" - "The Magnificent Ambersons," "Touch of Evil," "Chimes at
Midnight," "The Immortal Story," "F for Fake," "Filming 'Othello'" - and would even
go so far as to say that the best material from "The Dreamers" surpasses the
entirety of "Kane." That isn't to say that it's not a marvelous movie: a
sequence like the transition from the library to Kane's boyhood is a key moment in
Welles; the performances of Orson, Cotten, Moorehead, et al, are superb; and
the film has the gleeful tone of a master discovering his tools. But even
Welles himself (who, like King Vidor, must be considered one of the most
'conscious' of all film artists; I think he knew exactly what he was doing and could
speak quite elegantly his films) preferred other movies to "Kane"; he was on
record as saying "The Trial" was his favorite until he made "Chimes," whereupon
that became the film he cited when asked for his own personal favorite. ("If
I had to get into heaven on the basis of one movie, that would be the one I'd
offer up.")
There are many reasons why I prefer "late" Welles to early Welles (though
"Ambersons" can scarcely be considered "late" in chronological terms, it's
definitely more "mature" than "Kane" in cinematic expressiveness terms), but
generally they relate to the greater degree of personal expression evidenced in the
former category; "Kane," for all its brilliance and resonance, has always felt
the tiniest bit hollow to me when compared to the deep feeling on display in
"Ambersons" and "Chimes" and, of course, "The Dreamers." I also just think he
became a better, more sophisticated film artist: maybe he never replicated the
stylistic panache and glitz of "Kane," but I don't see anything in that film
to match the use of space in the Battle of Shrewsbury or the rejection scene
in "Chimes at Midnight."
I'll admit to a possible bias in my part in that I came to Welles' body of
work in an unconventional order: "Ambersons" was the first one I saw, the
restored "Touch of Evil" was the first one I saw theatrically, then "The Trial,"
then "Chimes"... and only then did I see "Kane."
I think the most productive way to think about Welles' career was proposed, I
believe, by Jonathan: not as a failed studio director, but as a successful
independent director. In that context, what stands out to me, having over the
last year seen so many Welles films (released and unreleased), is Welles'
remarkable adaptability: nothing was going to stop him from making movies, even if
that meant financing them himself or shooting them (literally) in his own
backyard. And nothing did stop him until the very end: the night he died he was
preparing to shoot some final scenes at UCLA for his 10-years in the making
magic film.
Ruby Rich's article is just painful. And it's even more painful once you
reflect on the profound way with which Welles collaborated with a woman - Oja
Kodar - during the last twenty years of his life. In this light, to try and
saddle Welles with this macho reputation is simply idiotic. Oja even directed
sections of "The Other Side of the Wind"! (And to David: I've always gone to
pains to recognize the importance of Kodar and Gary Graver's collaborations in
the late Welles films - and I'm as much of an auteurist as anyone here!)
Peter
http://hometown.aol.com/ptonguette/index.html
1846
From: Tristan
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 7:25pm
Subject: Leni Riefenstahl Dead at 101
If you hadn't heard yet... Thoughts anyone?
1847
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 7:31pm
Subject: Re: Leni Riefenstahl Dead at 101
75 years too late!!!
--- Tristan wrote:
> If you hadn't heard yet... Thoughts anyone?
>
>
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1848
From: Tag Gallagher
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 5:07pm
Subject: Re: The Return of the Repressed
You asked me where I stood on Trotti.
Your main point was that people whom you maliciously define as
"auteurists" mistreat screenwriters. I replied that auteurist critics
have written a great deal about screenwriters, not simply in books
devoted to screenwriters but in books devoted to directors with whom
they worked. Apparently you're unfamiliar with the works done on
Hitchcock and his screenwriters by Ken Mogg and many other people who've
written about Hitchcock, not to mention many other directors, not to
mention my own work on Ford and Rossellini. Before asking if I've heard
of Trotti you could at least have checked the index of my book (which
was written before any of the Fox papers became available).
Where do you "stand on" Trotti? Where do you "stand on" screenwriters?
How many books and articles have you written about screenwriters? Why
have you ignored the vast literature about screenwriters during the last
hundred years? When are you going to reveal in detail exactly what
Trotti's scripts and ideas and input were to the films he collaborated on?
But, more to the point of what started this exchange: do you seriously
feel that anyone who does NOT mistreat screenwriters is automatically
NOT an auteurist? Why do you define "auteurists" as people who abuse
screenwriters?
If you want to praise screenwriters, why don't you just do so (without
attacking "auteurists" (and me))?
David Ehrenstein wrote:
> My point was that people like Lamar Trotti wrote
> scripts that were INTERPRETED by directors like John
> Ford (eg."Young Mr. Lincoln.")
>
> --- Tag Gallagher wrote:
> > Where do you think he prefers for people to stand on
> > him?
> > Don't you stand on him? I thought that was your
> > point.
> >
> > Myself, I stand on many shoulders. I have many
> > feet.
> >
> >
> >
> > David Ehrenstein wrote:
> >
> > > Rather uncomfortable for him, don't you think?
> > >
> > > --- Tag Gallagher wrote:
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > David Ehrenstein wrote:
> > > >
> > > > >And while we're at it, where do you stand on
> > Lamarr
> > > > >Trotti? Does he exist for you at all?
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > I stand on his shoulders.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > > __________________________________
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1849
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 8:29pm
Subject: Re: The Return of the Repressed
"But, more to the point of what started this exchange:
do you seriously
feel that anyone who does NOT mistreat screenwriters
is automatically
NOT an auteurist? Why do you define "auteurists" as
people who abuse
screenwriters?"
Whoa! Hold the phone!
"Screenwriter abuse" is going way overboard.
"Screenwirter neglect" is more to the point.
What I've been trying to bring to this discussion is
some semblance of concern for those elements of
filmmaking can't be knee-jerkingly attributed to the
director.
In my opinion there are very few real auteurs. Fellini
and Hitchcock certainly qualify, but I wouldn't call
my favorite director of all time, Patrice Chereau, an
autuer.
There ae a host of really good and really better than
just good directors who aren't auteurs.
And there are more ways of looking at a film that
"through" it's director.
Frankly in most cases I find director-centered
analysis to be of increasingly minimal interest.
And I say this as someone who has written a lot about
directors in the past.
--- Tag Gallagher wrote:
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1850
From: Tag Gallagher
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 8:43pm
Subject: Re: The Return of the Repressed
>
>
> What I've been trying to bring to this discussion is
> some semblance of concern for those elements of
> filmmaking can't be knee-jerkingly attributed to the
> director.
The concern has not been lacking among authentic auteurists. That's my
point. Your either/or situation that simply does not exist.
Most good director studies try as much as possible to trace the genesis
of a film through its writers. It is very difficult to determine what
Lamar Trotti contributed to films -- all the more so when people like
Will Rogers, Irwin Cobb and Ford were also on board. If documents and
memos and transcripts of discussions existed, this would be fabulous.
But I don't know of such materials. It was far easier to trace the
writing and scripts and treatments of Paisan or Roma città aperta with
their dozens of writers than with any Ford film: but I haven't had
access to recently available documents.
The attention to "auteur" directors has served to bring a lot of
attention to various films that would otherwise have been neglected, and
along with that attention, attention to the writers. Would Hermann
Mankiewicz be so well known if Hathaway had directed Kane? This is not
to denigrate writers, only to point out that, as I said, screenwriters
have profitted from the sun of auteurism. Screenwriters are also
auteurs. No one ever denied this, least of all Truffaut, Ford or me.
>
>
> In my opinion there are very few real auteurs. Fellini
> and Hitchcock certainly qualify, but I wouldn't call
> my favorite director of all time, Patrice Chereau, an
> autuer.
You can define "auteur" anyway you like; everybody else does. But when
you start accusing "auteurists" of these terrible crimes, I take it
personally. Besides, it's not true, just not true.
Myself, I think that if a hundred people contributed to a film in ways
that leave trace of their personality, then each of those hundred people
is an auteur. Ford said it was wrong to compare directors to writers,
that it is more appropriate to compare them to architects. But others
directors do it all themselves...
The question isn't if someone is an "auteur." It's whether their
artists and what the peculiar nature of their art is. For me, any great
artist entirely redefines "cinema."
>
>
> There ae a host of really good and really better than
> just good directors who aren't auteurs.
>
> And there are more ways of looking at a film that
> "through" it's director.
Again, you're shadow boxing with non-existent demons. Nobody worth
listening to ever made any statements stating otherwise. Least of all
any authentic auteurist.
1851
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 8:49pm
Subject: Re: The Return of the Repressed
"Again, you're shadow boxing with non-existent demons.
Nobody worth
listening to ever made any statements stating
otherwise. Least of all
any authentic auteurist."
Then we're going to have to throw out half of film
criticism. These "demons" (your word, not mine) have
existed for years.
> Myself, I think that if a hundred people contributed
> to a film in ways
> that leave trace of their personality, then each of
> those hundred people
> is an auteur.
Well I certainly don't.
> Ford said it was wrong to compare
> directors to writers,
> that it is more appropriate to compare them to
> architects.
I'd compare them to orchestra conductors.
--- Tag Gallagher wrote:
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1852
From: George Robinson
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 8:54pm
Subject: Re: The Return of the Repressed
Oooh, screenwriter abuse! Sounds like kinky fun to me.
Where do I sign up?
All joking aside, one of my minor misgivings about this list in the
month or two since I joined has been that we seem to be spend an
inordinate amount of time rehashing these thirty-year-old battles -- who
is an auteur? can a screenwriter be an auteur? and so on.
There really comes a point at which these questions, while never to be
answered definitively, just aren't that compelling anymore. I began
writing film criticism in 1971 when these wars -- and that's what they
felt like back then -- were in full flame. But after thirty-plus years I
find other questions more interesting, at least in part (I suspect)
because I've seen all the Hawks films, all the Hitchcocks, all the
whoevers, and I can't work up that much enthusiasm for determining if
Reginald LeBorg is an auteur. In recent years, I find myself drawn much
more to questions of narrative and signification -- how do films create
meaning, how do they tell stories, how did film "grammar" evolve --
which are somewhat old hat also, but for me of more current interest.
Similarly, I've become fascinated with questions about genre and have
even developed a certain perverse interest in the B western (Ah, the
joys of Joseph Kane and Lesley Selander -- not to mention Ed Killy and
David Selman!)
Besides, aren't we all more or less on the same page here? Or at least
in the same chapter?
George (Lost my place in the book altogether) Robinson
David Ehrenstein wrote:
>"But, more to the point of what started this exchange:
>do you seriously
>feel that anyone who does NOT mistreat screenwriters
>is automatically
>NOT an auteurist? Why do you define "auteurists" as
>people who abuse
>screenwriters?"
>
>Whoa! Hold the phone!
>
>"Screenwriter abuse" is going way overboard.
>"Screenwirter neglect" is more to the point.
>
>What I've been trying to bring to this discussion is
>some semblance of concern for those elements of
>filmmaking can't be knee-jerkingly attributed to the
>director.
>
>In my opinion there are very few real auteurs. Fellini
>and Hitchcock certainly qualify, but I wouldn't call
>my favorite director of all time, Patrice Chereau, an
>autuer.
>
>There ae a host of really good and really better than
>just good directors who aren't auteurs.
>
>And there are more ways of looking at a film that
>"through" it's director.
>
>Frankly in most cases I find director-centered
>analysis to be of increasingly minimal interest.
>And I say this as someone who has written a lot about
>directors in the past.
>
>--- Tag Gallagher wrote:
>
>
>__________________________________
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>
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>
>
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>.
>
>
>
--
Cry later, but for now let's enjoy the laughter.
--Tupac Shakur, "God Bless the Dead"
1853
From: George Robinson
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 8:11pm
Subject: Re: The Return of the Repressed
I wouldn't argue with that. Indeed, I'm not that big a Donen fan --
except for Funny Face and It's Always Fair Weather.
Incidentally, I think there is a lot more thematic consistency (and
structural consistency for that matter) in Comden and Green's writing
than in Donen's filmography.
g
David Ehrenstein wrote:
>"First, yeah, "Singin'" is as much Comden and Green as
>Kelly and Donen, but
>the creative use of 'scope in "It's Always Fair
>Weather" and of color and
>filters in "Funny Face" is clearly the work of either
>Donen or his DP and
>those effects add immeasurably to both the meaning and
>the quality of the
>films."
>
>Not"as much" --MORE. A fortiori "It's Always Fair
>Weather" (a major influence on Sondheim's "Merrily We
>Roll Along") which was derived from Dumas' "Vingt Ans
>Apres."
>
>As for the color filters in "Funny Face" look not to
>the veteran DR, Ray June, but rather to Richard
>Avedon.
>And the script was by Roger Edens' BF, Leonard Gershe.
>
>Donen's creativity can scarcely be denied. But his
>talent is that of a collaborator not an originator.
>
>
>--- George Robinson wrote:
>
>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>__________________________________
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>
>
>
>.
>
>
>
--
Cry later, but for now let's enjoy the laughter.
--Tupac Shakur, "God Bless the Dead"
1854
From: George Robinson
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 8:26pm
Subject: Re: Leni Riefenstahl Dead at 101
Yeah. She was a Nazi-loving bitch who made wildly overrated very boring
films.
She had 60 camera crews for Triumph of the Will and still managed to use
footage that was out of focus.
And in or out of focus, the film is an attempt to make Hitler into God.
May she burn in hell, the fucking bitch.
George Robinson
Tristan wrote:
>If you hadn't heard yet... Thoughts anyone?
>
>
>
>To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
>a_film_by-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
>Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>
>.
>
>
>
--
Cry later, but for now let's enjoy the laughter.
--Tupac Shakur, "God Bless the Dead"
1855
From: George Robinson
Date: Tue Sep 9, 2003 8:24pm
Subject: Re: The Return of the Repressed
I'm five foot eight myself.
But if I was going to stand on someone's shoulders, it would be
Shaquille O'Neal. He's tall and his shoulders are broad enough to
support my (not inconsiderable) weight.
George (My weight? None of your damned business) Robinson
Tag Gallagher wrote:
>Where do you think he prefers for people to stand on him?
>Don't you stand on him? I thought that was your point.
>
>Myself, I stand on many shoulders. I have many feet.
>
>
>
>David Ehrenstein wrote:
>
>
>
>>Rather uncomfortable for him, don't you think?
>>
>>--- Tag Gallagher wrote:
>>
>>
>>>David Ehrenstein wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>And while we're at it, where do you stand on Lamarr
>>>>Trotti? Does he exist for you at all?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>I stand on his shoulders.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>__________________________________
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>
>
>
>[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
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1856
From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Wed Sep 10, 2003 1:11am
Subject: Re: Return of the Repressed
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> 1.Directors interpret scripts - even their own. When Joe Dante
> decided to film the approach to the house in "It's a Good Life" set
> against a backdrop of burned trees, he was interpreting Matheson's
> script and even his career by identifying that house with the one
in
> Usher, also scripted by Matheson. I again quote Jean-Claude
Biette's
> conclusion to his piece on Wichita: "The job of the director is to
> get the most out of the script - psychologically, morally,
> ideologically. I can imagine no other definition of 'mise-en-scene.'
I find the word "interpretation" misleading, since I think of film
direction as, at least in certain films, a creative act. It's also
rather demeaning, since interpretation implies that the screenplay has
aesthetic, ontological, or moral priority: it implies that the
director serves the script. On the contrary the script serves the
film: in mainstream narrative film, a good script provides
opportunities for effective mise en scene. The script rarely stands on
its own, and its literary value may be in exact opposition to its
cinematic value. Are scripts of any interest apart from the film? In
the theater, speech usually predominates, and the written play is the
origin of speech. In films speech is only one element among many;
"filmed theater" can make great films, but it's a limited strategy.
Lionel Trilling reviewed Bergman films without seeing the films, but
by only reading the scripts. Each to his own, but I think he was
missing out on something.
I think the idea of director as interpreter of the script also implies
that the film ought to serve the narrative of the film -- which I
don't think is the case.
Rather than the analogy to orchestral conductors -- I think directors
have far from freedom than even the Mahlers and Furtwänglers among
conductors -- I'd choose, for some films, the idea of composite
cinema, where the analogy is made to opera ("simultaneously narrative
and abstract, with the story bearing the same relation to the other
'codes' as the libretto of an opera bears to the music." - Noël
Burch.) Yoshikata Yoda and Carl Mayer can be our Beaumarchais and
Boito. If people can't bear to call directors "creators," I'd choose
to emphasize the role of choice, not interpretation. In the last 20
years popular music has become dominated by the role of choice -- hip
hop sampling and a DJ culture, sampling and mixing preexisting sounds
-- the role of choice has reached a qualitatively new level. Mizoguchi
and Murnau can be our Public Enemy and DJ Shadow.
Plus remember that the chef gets all the praise for the steak. The
cow
never gets any credit. That's life, that's art.
Paul
"I have never said that. What I said is that they deserve to be
treated like cattle."
1857
From: Joseph Kaufman
Date: Wed Sep 10, 2003 4:44am
Subject: Re: Leni Riefenstahl Dead at 101
>If you hadn't heard yet... Thoughts anyone?
She was guest of honor for the 1997 Cinecon convention. An
aberration for this organization that normally screens hard-to-see
silents and early talkies and has old Hollywood stars as guests. She
was given a prize for her body of cinematic work. The guy who ran
the convention that year and was responsible for the prize was ousted
and I don't think I've seen him around since. The award ceremony was
more fractious than when Elia Kazan received his lifetime achievement
Oscar.
Leni managed to get her picture taken with the mayor of Glendale, CA,
which later proved to be a public embarrassment for him. He pleaded
ignorance of who she was.
I met her briefly at the convention and my impression was that she
had tremendous energy, but that there was something deeply
duplicitous just under the surface. (No surprise there, perhaps.)
--
- Joe Kaufman
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
1858
From: jaketwilson
Date: Wed Sep 10, 2003 5:00am
Subject: Re: Return of the Repressed
> I find the word "interpretation" misleading, since I think of film
> direction as, at least in certain films, a creative act.
Maybe more like the way a portrait painter "interprets" his or her
model?
> I think the idea of director as interpreter of the script also
implies
> that the film ought to serve the narrative of the film -- which I
> don't think is the case.
I don't understand the viewpoint that looks down on narrative (as if
telling stories were a vulgar, populist thing to do). And I don't
think the librettist/composer analogy holds, because most filmmakers,
the avant-garde included, use representations as their raw material,
& this is only true of composers in a much more nebulous way. Debate
over screenwriters vs directors ignores the reality that most
worthwhile directors ARE screenwriters to some extent, as hotlove666
points out (post 1840). Though historically it may have been a useful
rhetorical gesture to claim that what happens at the production stage
is the only thing that matters, the saner argument for auteurism is
simply that filmmaking is a holistic process and the director is the
person whose job it is to unify all the elements.
Cinema remains a bastard form, and there is probably an enduring
split between those who borrow critical terms from theories of
theatre and literature, and those who think more about its relation
to painting and the other visual arts. Falling temperamentally into
the former camp, I've been struck by a couple of interviews where
Olivier Assayas talks about filmmaking as "writing" -- mentioning
Bergman and Cassavetes as filmmakers whose achievement was founded on
the fact that they were also great writers in the full literary sense.
JTW
1859
From: Henrik Sylow
Date: Wed Sep 10, 2003 7:51am
Subject: Re: Leni Riefenstahl Dead at 101
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, George Robinson wrote:
> Yeah. She was a Nazi-loving bitch who made wildly overrated very
boring films.
I am deeply offended and surprised that such a comment of slur is
allowed here, as Mr. Robinsons comment is notning but that of an
ignorant Troll. I hope Peter takes actions against him.
Leni was not and never was a Nazi. She was an oppotunist, who took
advantage of the regime, a crime she spend four years in prison for,
and later her friendship with Hitler, to make films that changed the
nature of film (I doubt that Ichikawa ever would have gotten the idea
or structure of "Tokyo Olympia" had it not been for Olympia).
On many occassions Leni has been questioned and attacked by the press
and others on her relationship with Hitler (it was rumored she was his
lover). On equal number of occassions she expressed shame and regret
about The Third Reich did and maintained, that she never was a member,
that she never was an antisemit, that she never participated in any
nazi activities (unless balls and social gatherings) and that she
never was Hitlers lover.
In a recent interview made in the mid 90s, she broke the interview,
put her hand on the knee of the interviewer and said "Please, no more
talk about the nazis. Im (90 something), I live with the shame every
day, isnt it about time to give me some peace?"
I want to end this short defence of Leni's genius and legacy with an
anecdote about how she became a director.
During the early twenties a very popular film series existed in
Germany; The Arnold Frank "Bergfilme". Very formulaic, good
mountaineer is in love with nice girl, bad mountaineer kidnaps her,
they climp alot, fight in the end, bad mountaineer falls and dies,
happy end. One day Mr. Frank got a letter from Leni saying "Im twice
as beautiful and twice as good an actress than your leading lady.
Employ me". He did and she became an actress. Some years went by and
during a scene she told Mr. Frank, I am twice the director you are,
let me direct a film. So she directed her next film (under the
guidence of Frank). That was her nature. If she wanted something, she
got her way and did it.
I will miss her.
Henrik Sylow
1860
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Sep 10, 2003 8:45am
Subject: Return of the Repressed
I don't object to David's use of "interpretation" for what a director
does as long as interpretation is understood as a creative act, and
not in a narrow way. The example I use from Joe Dante - a modest man,
as David notes - is one that actually recalls the way a critic
interprets: Joe knows Richard Matheson's work well, so his
extraordinary film of the script he and Matheson worked out together
includes a piece of pure criticism, associating the house in It's a
Good Life with the House of Usher (Corman's version, scripted by RM).
But of course much more than that intellectual connection went into
creating that little film. I used that example and the
word "interpretation" in an article I wrote on Matheson (see, we
auteurists love writers, too) for Written By, the magazine of the
WGA, which may still be posted on their web site. It was a way of
acknowledging that a writer may have independently created a great
screenplay, which the director then creatively interprets into a
film. One could say the same thing about Herrmann's score for
Vertigo, written after viewing a rough cut - that's interpretation,
and it certainly is creation in my book.
1861
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Sep 10, 2003 1:10pm
Subject: Re: Return of the Repressed
Glad you brought up Herrmann, who I'm sure everyone
would agree is far more than just another film
composer.
--- hotlove666 wrote:
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1862
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Sep 10, 2003 1:16pm
Subject: Re: Re: Leni Riefenstahl Dead at 101
>Leni was not and never was a Nazi. She was an
oppotunist, who took
advantage of the regime, a crime she spend four years
in prison for,
and later her friendship with Hitler, to make films
that changed the
nature of film (I doubt that Ichikawa ever would have
gotten the idea
or structure of "Tokyo Olympia" had it not been for
Olympia).
And I in turn am deeply offended by this slur against
Kon Ichikawa, a great filmmaker.
Leni Riefenstahl has spent the better part of her life
trying to gain leverage from the mere technicality of
not being an actual party member. Yet she was the
creator of SEVERAL Nazi propaganda films ( a fact that
she has always tried to deny) and had as Mr. Sylow
points out a "friendship with Hitler."
ENOUGH!
--- Henrik Sylow wrote:
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1863
From: Tosh
Date: Wed Sep 10, 2003 4:10pm
Subject: Re: Leni Riefenstahl Dead at 101
Leni Riefenstahl was one of those fascinating figures. I think one
can go on forever (and people will for decades) if her work is art or
not - but one thing for sure she helped invented the aes