3567              Top


From: Fred Camper
Date: Sun Nov 2, 2003 1:29am
Subject: Re: Re: Mankiewicz (was: Cahiers 1963: Best American Sound Films)
 
Well, I still love Mankiewicz, just as I have since the late 1960s.

It is true that most American auteurists, or many, do not hold him in
very high regard.

Reading through the posts, taken together they reminded me that in my
view there really can be no reasons for disliking a film, except that
you don't think it's a good film. Or something like that. As far as I'm
concerned, a great film can condescend toward its characters, it can
ignore its characters, it can be overly theatrical (or underly
theatrical), whatever. And these can be some of the things that make a
great film great, just as they can be the things that make a bad film bad.

Thanks for Chris for a fascinating defense of Mankiewicz, which I think
is on target, and will have to think about. But what I like about him is
different, and perhaps I can use our informal group to be a little bit
associative and poetic without having to back it up the way I might in a
published article. I also have the problem of not having seen any
Mankiewicz films in a very long time, though including things seen only
on TV I think I have seen all of them.

To my eyes, Mankiewicz does in fact have a distinctive and expressive
visual style. What happens to me during his films is that the details of
his frames, not just a character but a background object or a doorway,
the overall architecture of the spaces, all become invested with the
suggestiveness of words. This happens because of the way his generally
excellent, and complex, scripts work in relationship to the images. So
in fact I think it is crucial that he directs them. He creates a world
in which everything seems full of potential verbal associations,
meanings beneath the surface, all of which rhyme with the character
transformations or revelations that his scripts are studded with. Things
aren't what they seem because everything can have multiple meanings,
just as characters aren't what they seem at first either. The twist that
ends "Dragonwyck" is a relatively stark example of things he did much
more subtly later.

The potential associations I'm thinking of aren't "semiotic" ones in
that I don't mean you can look at a chair in a Mankiewicz film and come
up with possible specific connections. That's not something that ever
happens to me in a film I like anyway, in my experience, or hardly ever.
(An in-joke only of use to those who have seen this film: There is only
one film in film history that can be called a "system of signs": Hollis
Frampton's "Zorns Lemma.")

So what I see in Mankiewicz, anyway, are images that are crackling with
suggestive, almost literary, associations, that create a feeling of
allusiveness without specific allusions. This feeling even works for
ghosts, as in "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir." But this "feeling" has to do
with, and is what leads up to, all the key character
transformations/revelations that inform his films.

I like every one of the Mankiewicz films mentioned here. "All About Eve"
is great, "The Barefoot Contessa" is great, "Suddenly Last Summer" is
great, "The Quiet American" is great, "A Letter to Three Wives" is
great, "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" is great (and really moving, too, at
its end). I like "Sleuth" very much. "There Was a Crooked Man" is kind
of strange in that you wouldn't think Mankiewicz aesthetic would work in
the western , but it does.

"Cleopatra" suffered at the time for being the subject of enormous press
coverage. I can't compare it to films made before I was born, but I
think it was the most hyped film of my lifetime. (And one of my favorite
Warhol paintings is one of his paintings of newspaper front pages, this
one of a New York tabloid with the headline, "EDDIE FISHER BREAKS DOWN,"
and the sub head "In Hospital Here / Liz in Rome." If I remember right,
Fisher was married to Taylor and "broke down" when he learned she was
having an affair with Burton during the shooting of the film in Rome,
publicity that the studio played up even to the extent that some cynics
suggested that the affair was part of the hype.)

But, in fact, "Cleopatra" is great too, and it's curious how much it's
just a pure Mankiewicz film, and how much he just incorporates the
spectacle elements into his style.

If I understood Robert's post right, he has not, in my opinion, actually
seen "The Honey Pot." I don't think you can say you've seen a film
unless you see it to the end, and the last-half hour of "The Honey Pot,"
with its multiple twists, is the best part.

Like Richard, I haven't seen it since it came out. Still, I have little
doubt that it's a masterpiece, his greatest film, and his greatest film
in the specific sense of a late "testament" film. It's his "Anatahan,"
it's his "Lola Montez," it's his "Seven Women," it's his "Play Dirty."
Let me add that I don't think it's as great as any of those. If I had to
chop my favorite filmmakers list in half, Mankiewicz would probably be
in the bottom half. But that's not to diminish his greatness. Because
his films are like no others, they have expanded the possibility of what
cinema can be.

Oh, and by the way, to my friends, it's OK to hate a director or two
whose work I love. Just be careful that it's not more than three!

- Fred

Top

3568


From:
Date: Sat Nov 1, 2003 8:36pm
Subject: Re: Steamboat round the Bend
 
This is phenomenal news. Somehow (probably due to the fact that, like Tag, I
have no recollection of it ever airing on television before) this is one
major Ford I've managed to miss.

For those who are interested, some other auteur films of interest airing on
television this month:

"Stella Dallas" (Vidor)
11/3 TCM

"Some Came Running" (Minnelli) (LBX)
11/5 TCM

"Drums Along the Mohawk" (Ford)
11/9 Fox Movie Channel

"The Lineup" (Siegel)
11/13 Encore Mystery

"Cruising" (Friedkin)
11/16 Encore

"Angel Face" (Preminger)
11/20 TCM

"Home from the Hill" (Minnelli) (LBX)
11/20 TCM

"Violent Saturday" (Fleischer)
11/22 Fox Movie Channel

Of these, I've only seen two before ("Some Came Running" and "Drums Along the
Mohawk"), so this should be a pretty exciting month of film-watching.

Peter
3569


From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Nov 2, 2003 1:48am
Subject: Re: Steamboat round the Bend
 
"Angel Face" is quite wonderful, despite all the
problems surrounding it. Hughes insitgated the whole
thing (Preminger was given it as a contractural
assignment), and for awhile it was just called "Murder
Story." In the documnetary on RKO that was made a
number of years back Jean Simmons and Robert Mitchum
both spoke of scene where he slaps her and Preminger
kept asking for re-takes -- insisting that Mitchum
REALLY slap Simmons. Mitchum told Preminger off in no
uncertain terms -- that if anyone was going to get hit
it would be him. Preminger went dead quite and the
shoot continued without incident.

Rivette loved "Angel Face" and a lot of its atmosphere
can be found in certain two-character dialogue scenes
in "Paris Belongs to Us" and "Merry Go Round."

--- ptonguette@a... wrote:


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3570


From:
Date: Sat Nov 1, 2003 9:00pm
Subject: Space for its own sake
 
Dan writes:

> And then there was Fregonese
> as an antidote: the kind of filmmaker that loves space for its own sake,
> so that every shot in the film had an integrity and reality of its own.
>

This is something I've wrestled with a lot lately.  Can (or should) we enjoy
a filmmaker's space for its own sake, divorced from a film's ostensible
subject matter or theme?  Is this a valid way to look at narrative films?  My
inclination right now is to answer a resounding "yes" simply because it seems to me
that the primary achievement of almost any great director (even ones who love
dialogue like Cukor) is a visual one and, thus, the films can be richly
experienced on that level alone. I must admit that this is an approach (dedicating
my focus of watching a film to the rhythms and moods created by its images)
that's unlocked a lot of auteurs who I previously had some problems with.
Fleischer, who Dan has written about as a guy who likes to "float in space," is one
of them. I guess I'm broaching the never-ending form vs. content debate
again, but that's not really what I'm talking about here so much.

(As to Mankiewicz: I saw "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" a long, long time ago and
don't remember it well enough to comment. Suffice it to say that I'm
interested enough in having another look that I've printed out Fred's post to take
with me to the video store next time I'm out.)

Peter


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
3571


From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Nov 2, 2003 2:28am
Subject: Re: Space for its own sake
 
"Elephant" is ENTIRELY about "space for its own
sake."

Losey is also space-centric: "The Damned," "Eve,"
Servant," "Modesty Blaise," "Boom!" "Secret Ceremony,"
and "Don Giovanni" in particular.

And then there's the all-time "Space Cadet," Michael
Snow.

--- ptonguette@a... wrote:


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3572


From: Peter Tonguette
Date: Sun Nov 2, 2003 2:32am
Subject: Re: Cahiers: The Outstanding Films of the Decade (1970-1980)
 
This is hardly a new observation, but my comment on The Young Turks
who changed American cinema in the '70s is that they frequently did
their best and richest work in the '80s and '90s and beyond. I love
no '70s Bogdanovich film like I love '81's "They All Laughed" (well
maybe "Daisy Miller"...) The one Coppola film which I embrace
wholeheartedly is "Tucker: The Man and His Dream" (88); it's the REAL
American classic he was accused of having made several times over in
the '70s. My two favorite Romeros were made in the '80s: "Day of the
Dead" and "Monkey Shines." And I won't deny the extraordinary range
and greatness of Altman's output during the '70s, but for me his
(largely unacknowledged) peak is still "Short Cuts" (93).
Friedkin: "The Exorcist" and "Sorcerer" are great, but so are "To
Live and Die in L.A." and "The Hunted." I don't know what reason I
would give for this "trend" beyond the fact that the commercial
marginalization of these directors seemed to bring out something in
them that hadn't been apparent (or AS apparent) in the earlier
stuff. Kent Jones wrote a really lucid piece on the post-70s work of
the young '70s auteurs in Film Comment a few years back.

On the flip side, a really interesting case study for me is Richard
Lester. His list of great '60s and '70s films is daunting: "The
Knack"; "Petulia"; "The Three Musketeers"; "The Four
Musketeers"; "Juggernaut"; "The Ritz"; "Cuba"; "Butch and Sundance."
And then we have one more great one made in 1980 - "Superman II" -
followed by virtual silence. Why was he unable to re-adjust to the
changing times as some of these other guys had? It wasn't for a lack
of trying; the list of unmade Lester films from this period is
staggering.

I can relate to Filipe's comment about the temptation to underrate
The Young Turks in an effort to draw attention to the great things
guys like Cukor, Aldrich, Preminger, Siegel, et al. And I don't know
that I have a problem with this per se. It's a polemical thing and
when the day comes that "Travels With My Aunt" is as canonized
as "The Godfather," I'll shut-up.

Peter
3573


From:
Date: Sat Nov 1, 2003 9:39pm
Subject: Re: Space for its own sake
 
David E. writes:

> Losey is also space-centric: "The Damned," "Eve,"
> Servant," "Modesty Blaise," "Boom!" "Secret Ceremony,"
> and "Don Giovanni" in particular.

I agree with you on Losey (the ones I've seen anyway.) But I guess my other
point was that I think it might be profitable to look at ALL great movies this
way - even ones which aren't explicitly space-centric. For example, I'm
possibly the last Woody Allen auteurist on earth and in my upcoming review of
"Anything Else," I talk a lot about the simple pleasures of him working with
'Scope compositions again. There's a real positive buzz I get from simply LOOKING
at this film and yet I wouldn't categorize Allen as being overtly into space
for its own sake.

Peter


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
3574


From: jaketwilson
Date: Sun Nov 2, 2003 4:32am
Subject: Re: Space for its own sake
 
Peter Tonguette wrote:

> This is something I've wrestled with a lot lately.  Can (or should) we en=
joy a filmmaker's space for its own sake, divorced from a film's ostensible=
subject matter or theme?  Is this a valid way to look at >narrative films? =
My inclination right now is to answer a resounding "yes" simply because it=
seems to me that the primary achievement of almost any great director (eve=
n ones who love dialogue like Cukor) is a >visual one and, thus, the films c=
an be richly experienced on that level alone.

I've no wish to open the form/content can of worms either, but maybe
there are other ways forward. I think we'd agree that movies aren't
just about space, but about actions performed in space -- even when, as
I gather happens sometimes in Snow, the only real actor is the camera.
But since ALL actions occur in space and time anyway, is there any real
difference between thinking about these actions and thinking about the
world in general?

Obviously, the way space gets presented in narrative film tends to
involve continually shifting relations between onscreen space and
offscreen space, what we can hear but not see, what we can see but the
characters can't, etc. So following what's going on in a movie from
shot to shot, never mind scene to scene, is an act of interpretation
that involves seeking out "significance" beyond the immediate sensory
data available to us at a given moment; if we fail to do this, we have
no hope of appreciating a movie's "form", much less its content.

I was pondering this in connection with Kiarostami's TEN, where in one
sense the "space" is extremely limited -- almost every shot is taken
from one of two fixed positions inside a car. Yet the much larger space
of the city is present in the film throughout, not just as a backdrop
(ambient sound, the view out the window) but via the heroine's physical
actions as she stops and starts the car, responds to other drivers,
etc. So it's less about providing a visual representation of a given
space than about allowing us to share the experience of what it's like
to inhabit this space -- for the heroine, the streets of Tehran are
more an obstacle course to be navigated than a series of objects to be
contemplated. In other words, it's only by following a narrative, and
placing ourselves imaginatively in the character's shoes, that we can
get much sense of the "space" which exists onscreen.

JTW
3575


From: Damien Bona
Date: Sun Nov 2, 2003 5:35am
Subject: Re: Cahiers: The Outstanding Films of the Decade (1970-1980)
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Peter Tonguette"
wrote:
>It's a polemical thing and
> when the day comes that "Travels With My Aunt" is as canonized
> as "The Godfather," I'll shut-up.


Great comment, Peter. Travels WIth My Aunt is so much greater a
picture than The Godfather that the two shouldn't even be mentioned
together in the same sentece. And the same goes with such other
1972 releases as Mulligan's The Other, Hitchcock's Frenzy. But
don't hold your breath waiting for any of these three to surpass the
Coppola film on the Sight and Sound list.
3576


From: Damien Bona
Date: Sun Nov 2, 2003 5:35am
Subject: Re: Cahiers: The Outstanding Films of the Decade (1970-1980)
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Peter Tonguette"
wrote:
>It's a polemical thing and
> when the day comes that "Travels With My Aunt" is as canonized
> as "The Godfather," I'll shut-up.


Great comment, Peter. Travels WIth My Aunt is so much greater a
picture than The Godfather that the two shouldn't even be mentioned
together in the same sentece. And the same goes with such other
1972 releases as Mulligan's The Other, Hitchcock's Frenzy. But
don't hold your breath waiting for any of these three to surpass the
Coppola film on the Sight and Sound list.
3577


From: Tosh
Date: Sun Nov 2, 2003 5:39am
Subject: Saint-Germain-des-Pres films?
 
I think ONLY this list can help me out. I am looking for any films
that are shot in the Saint-Germain-des-Pres section of Paris.
Especially around the time of late 40's to early 50's. And if it has
Saint-Germain nightclub scenes -even better yet.

Right now I am researching Boris Vian during that time period - and I
want to put together a filmography of sorts that deal with either him
in it - or that particular location.

If any of you feel that this is a totally off-subject matter for this
list - feel free to contact me directly

Thanks!
--
Tosh Berman
TamTam Books
http://www.tamtambooks.com
3578


From: Zach Campbell
Date: Sun Nov 2, 2003 5:38am
Subject: Re: Space for its own sake
 
Peter wrote:
> Can (or should) we enjoy
> a filmmaker's space for its own sake, divorced from a film's
ostensible
> subject matter or theme?

Well, time and space are really what we're working with here: the
fundamental axes of the medium. The extent to which a filmmaker
addresses these aspects straight on varies, and the extent to which
an observer wants to interpet same varies as well.

That said, I think that it would be dissatisfying to say, "This
filmmaker is great because of his/her use of space." I guess that
I'm more interested in a filmmaker using space (doing) than a
filmmaker having a use of space (being), if that makes any sense?
The way Robert Mulligan constructs space in SUMMER OF '42, one of the
more overwhelming viewing experiences of my life (on video, no less),
is not ornamental: it's not as if the space is great in its own
compartmentalized, platonic way. Mulligan is a great filmmaker
partly because of his masterful control of space interacts with other
elements of the film, presenting a narrative (which is not say
he "merely" or "ultimately" just tells a story) that moves,
challenges, seduces, jilts, and wrestles with a viewer.

(Oh, and there's just no way that Mulligan's a mere parasite on
screenwriter Herman Raucher's 'genius' in SUMMER OF '42, either.
Hmph.)

--Zach
3579


From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Nov 2, 2003 5:41am
Subject: Re: Saint-Germain-des-Pres films?
 
One of the episodes of "Paris vu Par" (aka "Six in
Paris") was devoted to St Germain des Pres.

And I believe a film was made of "L'Ecume des jours."

"Around the World with Orson Welles" which is just out
on DVD features several sections set in Paris.

And I believe Louis Malle's "Zazie dans le Metro" has
a lot about St. Germain des Pres in it. But it's years
since I last saw it.
--- Tosh wrote:


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3580


From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Nov 2, 2003 5:44am
Subject: Re: Re: Space for its own sake
 
There are many truly dramatic spacial configurations
in Mulligan's film of Gavin Lambert's "Inside Daisy
Clover."

(Gavin's currently working on a bio of Natalie Wood,
BTW.)


--- Zach Campbell wrote:


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3581


From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Nov 2, 2003 5:44am
Subject: Metaphor and metonymy
 

I'm certain others here have a better handle on and more extensive
knowledge of
these matters, but I was under the impression that much of Saussurean
linguistics and
the sort of ruminations that derive from Jakobson's two-axis system
are
hopelessly
outmoded and inadequate when it comes to linguistics and how we
actually use and

understand language. (For example, see:
http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/nnh/
lacan.htm). They seem to only survive in a lot of lit theory, some
philosophy,
film
studies, visual art theory, etc. Am I wrong?>

I believe so. Thanks for the Norman Holland site, but his criticism
and theories didn't float my boat when I first read him in 1967, and
they still don't, although I'd love to see what he came up with in
that reader-response porn study.

As for Chomsky, I used a transformational grammar text to teach
writing, found it very helpful, and when I tried to find it again
recently to coach my older stepson in English composition, it had
disappeared from the face of the Earth, along with all other texts
using that approach. So there's a lot of horse-switching going on in
education, and I would think in psychology and linguistics as well -
they are vast international fields, where generalizations are risky.

Chomsky gives us a precise way of writing a grammar of a language,
but his core axioms about the mind are gaga, and have had a bad
effect on his political writing. I once devised a Chomsky-based rule-
set for describing point of view structure in Paradise Lost and found
it to be a useful notation system, but if you put a gun to my head I
could probably come up with three more.

I recommend that anyone who has heard that Saussure and Jakobson are
passe read the Course in General Linguistics and Jakobson's Studies
in Poetics, then some Barthes and Genette (Figures III). I think
you'll find it more interesting than Metz, who never interested me.
The best applications of structuralist ideas to film are still
Bellour and the Cahiers group from '69 to '72. I use them every day.
But I can't speak for what happened to those ideas when they left
France and got sucked into the tenure-mills, where instant innovation
is the duty and prerogative of every first-year graduate student with
an essay to crank out: "Lacan asserts, wrongly..." You know the drill.
3582


From: Damien Bona
Date: Sun Nov 2, 2003 5:50am
Subject: Re: Space for its own sake
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, ptonguette@a... wrote:
> Dan writes:
>
> > And then there was Fregonese
> > as an antidote: the kind of filmmaker that loves space for its
own sake,
> > so that every shot in the film had an integrity and reality of
its own.
> >
>
> This is something I've wrestled with a lot lately.  Can (or should)
we enjoy
> a filmmaker's space for its own sake, divorced from a film's
ostensible
> subject matter or theme?  Is this a valid way to look at narrative
films?  My
> inclination right now is to answer a resounding "yes" simply
because it seems to me
> that the primary achievement of almost any great director (even
ones who love
> dialogue like Cukor) is a visual one and, thus, the films can be
richly
> experienced on that level alone.

I'm not quite sure what the concept of "space for its own sake" is.
But it sounds as if it what is being talked about is a visual
flamboyance, akin to elaborate camera movements that are there only
because it is possible to keep a camera in motion for minutes on end
(eg, John Farrow) and flashy editing that exists merely to call
attention to itself (such as in the films of Alan Parker)?

I've never seen a Hugo Fregonese picture, so I can't comment about
him specifically, but it seems that "space for its own sake" would
serve no particular purpose. On the other hand, Tashlin, Edwards,
Sirk, Kiarostami and Wes Anderson are among the filmmakers whose use
of space enhances and expands the narrative and thematic concerns of
their films.
3583


From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Nov 2, 2003 5:55am
Subject: St-Germain-des-Pres
 
Off the top of my head, I believe one of Welles' essay-films for the
BBC shows the quartier - it's available in the Around the World with
Orson Welles set.
3584


From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Nov 2, 2003 5:59am
Subject: Space for its own sake
 
I vote for space for the sake of something - as in Ozu.
3586


From: Peter Tonguette
Date: Sun Nov 2, 2003 6:28am
Subject: Re: Cahiers: The Outstanding Films of the Decade (1970-1980)
 
Damien writes:

> Great comment, Peter.

Thanks, Damien.

>And the same goes with such other
> 1972 releases as Mulligan's The Other

"The Other" is amazing! (And so is "Frenzy," though I think I'd vote
for "Family Plot" as the greatest of the post-"Marnie" Hitchcocks.)
But I'm continually astonished by Mulligan's body of work, with "The
Other" being one of my more recent discoveries. Offhand, I can't
think of a filmmaker who has more fully explored the possibilities of
subjective camera work.

Everyone should read Zach's essay on "Summer of '42" for his
discussion of these qualities in that film. It used to be up at his
personal web page; Zach?
3587


From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Sun Nov 2, 2003 6:31am
Subject: Re: Space for its own sake
 
Isn't "space for it's own sake" for the sake of some "thing"?

Thanks for the Kubelka post, Fred, I look forward to the chance to
see those films again (except OUR TRIP TO AFRICA, I regret to say).

-Jaime

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> I vote for space for the sake of something - as in Ozu.
3588


From: Peter Tonguette
Date: Sun Nov 2, 2003 6:52am
Subject: Re: Space for its own sake
 
[My first attempt at posting this got cut off by the Yahoo!
interface,
but that's just as well since I had some additional thoughts.]

Damien writes:

> But it sounds as if it what is being talked about is a visual
> flamboyance, akin to elaborate camera movements that are there only
> because it is possible to keep a camera in motion