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27001
From: Craig Keller
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 7:23am
Subject: Twentynine Palms, Continued Again evillights
JPC -- My apologies for taking so long (in a_f_b time, at least) to
revisit this thread.
On May 1, 2005, at 10:18 PM, jpcoursodon wrote:
> Dumont says that they were very much alike. Which i think is
> irrelevant. If it's true, then instead of not liking the character
> I also don't like the actress. Which is itself irrelevant...
I don't find it to be irrelevant, actually. I would stand up for as
subjective an ethos in relation to the merits/demerits of an actor as
the kind you've recently espoused with regard to the General
Principle of Pleasure in experiencing art. (With which I agree.)
And doesn't the former sort of fall under the latter, anyway? There
aren't any universal "musts" with regard to the mores of Art,
contrary to frequent critical tone in-print. (Even the most
persuasive critic surely must realize in the course of some
insomniacal nights that he's only an Army of One, and not God.) I
think we too-often end up having to qualify or defend our likes/
dislikes -- (and even when we do that, it must only be because le
débat gives us pleasure, right? -- otherwise we wouldn't be a_f_b
listmembers!) -- since sometimes, maybe, we tend toward the back-of-
the-brain assumption that, "My standpoint only counts for me, it's
aberrative in relation to the two or three dour normative conceptions
of film-acting, film-aesthetic, etc." We might be forgetting the
normatives are figments! Disliking Tom Cruise's performances because
he comes off on non-movie-related chat-shows as a robotic ideologue
who speaks only in motivational-cant is perfectly valid.
(Personally, I think the Cruisean "selfless narcissim" works to his
advantage in some of his films -- at least, the ones that count,
"i.m.o." -- 'Eyes Wide Shut' [apotheosis of Cruise's narcissim in
each close-up slow-zoom] and 'Magnolia.') Likewise, I'll admit I
liked Katia's performance because it was genuine psychology before
the camera, not just the portrayal of a genuine psychology -- even if
I didn't know that she was playing the bitch off-camera, I still
sensed the actorly facade was absent on-camera. And I also liked the
performance because a tiny piece of me fell in love with her erratic
behavior, and particular nudity.
> Dumont
> also said that the two (David and Katia) disliked each other
> intensely and that served his purpose. Fine. great art born out of
> widespread universal hatred.
It's heart-warming really.
> I don't see being "quite radical" as something automatically
> praiseworthy. Nothing is easier than to be "radical".
True. "All great art is radical but not all radical things are..."
etc. But the radicalism of the ending didn't seem precious or too
arbitrarily attached, for me at least, and that's why I laud it.
Something that might be interesting to ponder: When an artist
conceives "the radical part" first, in his earliest conception of a
new work, does the resulting work seem to fail aesthetically, seem
too based-upon-gimmick? More often, at least, than those cases when
"the radical part" was come upon like a "solution" somewhere further
along the line in the course of his planning the work? It might be
too abstract a question to pose, especially when we oftentimes can't
know for sure whether we're dealing with a radical-chicken or a
radical-egg -- and in any case it might require too deep a dip into
the biographical than strictly necessary for formulating a response.
Perhaps I was using the term (radical) somewhat evaluatively,
though. Yes, it's radical for the present because, to paraphrase
Burroughs, or cut him up, it unflinchingly shows Western civilization
what's on the end of its fork (America's fork specifically) circa
2003. Not many other films I've seen have done that, and I think the
fact that it did was a good thing. Sure, no-one saw the film, but it
articulated what it had to articulate in front of those who did. I
think you called me out on the radical-thing once before with
'demonlover' too, and I admit my love for that film falls along the
same lines (although I love it for broader reasons than 'Twentynine
Palms,' and love it more intensely) -- both films are articulations
so violent in their forms they're declarations of war.
> As far as Dumont is concerned, I can't tell what he had in mind.
> His "explanations" sound terribly weak and contrived to me. Saying
> that he wanted to make a violent movie like the things he sees on
> American TV (I'm quoting form a POSITIF interview).
Imagine if Chris Marker next decides to make something overtly
inspired by his love of 'The Practice'...
> To me the self-
> destructiveness may or may not be intentional -- I don't really
> care. I still see the movie as a king of Tingely machine ( although
> devoid of the sense of fun in Tingely's machines).
What's a Tingely machine?
> As far as David:
> he is a cipher, I don't think we have a right to endow him with
> intentions (even subconscious) of self-destruction. And please let's
> refrain from always blaming the victim. Even though from the very
> beginning of the film you get the feeling that he is somehow "asking
> for it" (whatever "it" is -- and it will end up by being raped).
When I spoke, err, wrote about their willingly having put themselves
in that situation, and the violence being the natural end-result,
that doesn't mean I was putting a "they were asking for it" slant on
the expression, or even arguing that the end-result of the flirtation
with peril had necessarily to be *SPOILER* anal-rape followed by
murder-suicide. But I do think these two "adventurers" were putting
themselves in danger, and something was going to come of it.
I could be off the mark, but -- and maybe this is another reason it
flopped -- I have the feeling that most Americans wouldn't even get
this from the film -- they'd just say, "Oh, look, it's modern western
America. It's creepy in the desert." It's not creepy in the desert,
it's creepy at the gas-stations. (Which, besides being crime-
beacons, have generally made a fucking eyesore of this country.)
> It's amazing, for instance, that he always asks the girl to drive in
> the most difficult terrain although she obviously is unfamiliar with
> both the kind of vehicule and the kind of road (she doesn't even
> know where the brake and accelerator are. Can she drive at all? Why
> is he making her drive and risk an accident then?") Then he gets
> upset because the truck gets a little scratched. Give me a break!
But both characters, not just Katia, are erratic pains-in-the-ass! I
know that's kind of a trite characterization (and an unfortunate quip
given the last act) -- on both my part and Dumont's -- but, as you
said, they're ciphers. I never like taking things to a "we just
agree to disagree" juncture, but I think this is a case where what
worked for me here didn't work for you. So at this point I'll ask:
What are your feelings about 'La Vie de Jésus' and 'L'Humanité'?
>
>
> I'll have to come back to the rest of your post later. But this
> has been a stimulating ecxchange (I think we've put everybody else
> to sleep). JPC.
craig.
27002
From: Adrian Martin
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 10:44am
Subject: re: twentynine palms (the return) apmartin90
Craig, thanks for bringing back the TWENTYNINE PALMS discussion! This
was one of the best films I saw in the past year of so; I caught it a
couple of times at various festivals (it has never been released in any
form in Australia). And I was coming to Dumont fresh (I must now see
the earlier films).
Has anyone mentioned the similarity between this and TWO-LANE BLACKTOP?
The narratively-attenuated road-movie structure, the widescreen
compositions taken from inside the car, the absence of a musical score
(one of Dumont's zanier inventions: that crazy Japanese pop song on we
hear over and over) - and the great scene in Hellman's film which is
devoted to a strange sense of mounting dread in a particular place
where they stop over is in a sense expanded to an entire film by
Dumont. I wonder if he had Hellman's film in his mind.
I have learnt a lot from the discussion of TWENTYNINE PALMS by Craig,
Jean-Pierre and Dan. An important point made by Dan was this oddly
loose relation of character to plot (plus his insightful observation
that horror films often have problems tying plot moves to character
traits). In fact, Dumont articulated something very like this when
explaining the 'experimental' nature of the project: once he had his
extremely minimal narrative framework in mind - a man and woman
travelling, and at the end the great rush of violation leading to
murder and suicide - then he simply 'trusted' that as a given, as a
kind of template, into which he would pour the particular man and woman
he cast - even if a certain 'unalignment' or contradiction between the
general framework and the specific incidental details were to emerge.
For me, this links the film to that '80s movement that includes
Wenders' (rather forgotten) THE STATE OF THINGS, Godard's DETECTIVE and
many others: films which 'float' until the end, when the introduction
of 'plot' always means violence, death, trauma, catastrophe, shocking
finality that 'closes down the film' almost instantly. (And here we
also remember the more metaphoric or poetic catastrophe that concludes
TWO-LANE BLACKTOP.)
TWENTYNINE PALMS, in terms of its critical reception, I think was a
victim of a certain kind of response wherein some people (especially
American critics) found it too abstract and corny as a 'report' on or
vision of America, too much a loaded 'foreign perspective'. Not being
American, I took the film more on face-value. It's not the kind of film
that can be liked, Manny Farber-style, for its 'deep-dish cultural
specificity'. This is OK with me.
I must also say - in terms of the whole 'psychological
characterisation' discussion - that I find the film enormously 'true to
life' in a certain way: for me, it is an extremely truthful record of a
'bad encounter' between two people who should never have gotten
together. As soon as we are with them, as the film starts, it's all
downhill: miscommunications, no shared language, completely 'out of
phase' with each other emotionally, hysterical scenes ... and even the
sex scenes (which are at moments rather comical) seem to me a monument
to this kind of 'unalignment' of the man and woman (it's almost
Lacanian! There is no possible relation between man and woman ... ) . I
have been in relationships like that ... however, unlike the characters
in this film, I made it out alive! (So too, I hasten to add, did the
other parties involved!) And Dumont's film captured, for me, what it
feels like to be in the midst of such a 'bad encounter' as few other
films have done. The scene with the dog, and their different relations
to it, is indelibly etched in my memory.
I also nominate myself and Robert as Co-Preisdents of the Katia
Golubeva Fan Club. I think she's terrific in every film I've seen her
in. The scene in Claire Denis' I CAN'T SLEEP where she impulsively rams
her car into the vehicle of the theatre director who 'led her on' is
like an anticipation of much in TWENTYNINE PALMS. I must track down the
Sharunas Bartas films in which she appears.
Adrian
27003
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 1:27pm
Subject: Re: Re: Auteurs, Canon, Pleasure and Change cellar47
--- Fred Camper wrote:
> As Richard points out, our group's Statement of
> Purpose allows that
> great auteurs can make bad films, and while their
> bad films may at times
> illuminate their great ones, I've so far not found
> much use for Sirk's
> "Thunder on the Hill," Minnelli's "Kismet," or,
> well, Brakhage's "The
> Stars Are Beautiful.
>
Well being a Dolores Gray fanatic, as well as an
admirerr of Howard Keel, I have plenty of use for
"Kismet." More use than Minnelli, in fact, who wasn't
crazy about getting the assignmnet. Consequently much
of its pizzazz should be credited to the great Jack
Cole.
>
> In our group, there is likely pretty strong
> agreement that "Vertigo"
> is a masterpiece of film art. A friend who wrote me
> on occasion of
> Vertigo's 1984 release that now that he'd finally
> seen it he found it
> overrated, received a reply something like this:
> "Now that I'm no longer
> teaching and no longer dependant on film for my
> living, I can come out
> of the closet and reveal that I think there are some
> immutable facts
> about film art, and one of them that "Vertigo" is a
> masterpiece whose
> status is beyond subjective judgment. Sorry, but you
> are just plain wrong."
Well I feel just the way your friend does about "Rules
of the Game."
The films that I
> call great don't
> give me pleasures based on moods or personal
> identifications with actors
> or characters or little dialogue bits that I love or
> a narrative that
> hooks me: they present visual (and often, aural)
> systems of expression
> in which all of the parts come together in a way
> that lifts me
> completely out of myself. The pleasure of such
> experiences is immense,
> even, at their best, almost orgasmic. But these
> experiences don't work
> for me because they push my buttons by appealing to
> the specifics of my
> psychic formation. Rather, it seems to me that their
> forms convincingly
> embody their visions, so that anyone can be moved by
> them. This is why I
> tend to say that people who don't see the greatness
> of the films that I
> love just aren't getting it, even while allowing for
> the possibility
> that I'm not "getting" the films that I don't love.
I know what you mean. The reason that I value "Those
Who Love Me can Take the Train" above all other films
starts with the story, the characters, and the
performers but REALLY kicks in because of the way
Chereau has synthesized it all into a work that takes
the form of aliving organism in and of itself. The
camera movements and cutting go far beyond the
invariably assumed subjectivity of "the artist's point
of view" into something quite different. The film
ITSELF has a character -- the includes a built in d.j.
Itthinks about it self all the time -- most typically
in the hesitation before Dominique's character
standing in the station and looking about before the
gears shift and the film's title hits the screen 500
ton "Monty Python" weight. This self-suffient status
isn'tatypical of the best of French cinema as it can
clearly be seen in such diverse works as "Out 1,"
"Adieu Phillipine," and "Double Messieurs." And you
can also find it in "Fellini Satyricon," late Gus
(particularly "Gerry") and much of Cassavetes
(particularly "Love Streams") But Chereau takes it to
a new level.
> I'm much more
> willing to admit that I could be wrong about Fellini
> than that I'm wrong
> about Brakhage or Sirk.
>
Well you're wrong about Fellini. But you're part of a
VERY large group in that, so there's no reason to feel
lonely.
__________________________________________________
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27004
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 1:42pm
Subject: Re: re: twentynine palms (the return) cellar47
--- Adrian Martin wrote:
> For me, this links the film to that '80s movement
> that includes
> Wenders' (rather forgotten) THE STATE OF THINGS,
Not forgotten by me! I think it's Wenders' best film.
I do wish more people had a chance to see Ruiz' "The
Territory," whosecastand production ambiance Wenders
ripped off to make "The State of Things."
> Godard's DETECTIVE and
> many others: films which 'float' until the end, when
> the introduction
> of 'plot' always means violence, death, trauma,
> catastrophe, shocking
> finality that 'closes down the film' almost
> instantly.
And I love "Detective" too -- which I luckily have on
a Japanese laserdisc.
(And here we
> also remember the more metaphoric or poetic
> catastrophe that concludes
> TWO-LANE BLACKTOP.)
Admiration for "Two-Lane Blacktop" goes without
saying. But seeing it mentioned just now hits a
particular personal chord. It's 6:30 AM. Last night I
was looking at some film footage I shot back in 1971
in 8mm. I madea DVD of it. It was of a trip I made to
California to visit a friend who one year later
comitted suicide. This friend,Peter Blum< was a rather
insightful critic with whom I wrote an article about
Godard that was published in the great, late Chicago
arts journal,"December." The footage I filmed includes
shots of Jonathan Rosenbaum and Warren Sonbert. I
had't looked at it in years and consequently I was
quite overcome.
Yahoo! Mail
Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour:
http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html
27005
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 1:57pm
Subject: Can a great director make a turkey? (Was: Auteurs, Canon, Pleasure and Change) sallitt1
"Can a great director make a turkey?" may not necessarily be the central
question of the auteurist debate, but historically it has been the
question out in front, the principal point of friction. Truffaut drew
considerable fire for his polemical claim that Renoir's worst film is
better than Delannoy's best. Kael's "Circles and Squares" attack on
Sarris, which did much to frame the auteurist debate in the U.S., began
with this Tolstoy quote: "Goethe? Shakespeare? Everything signed with
their names is considered good, and one wracks one's brains to find beauty
in their stupidities and failures, thus distorting the general taste. All
these great talents, the Goethes, the Shakespeares, the Beethovens, the
Michelangelos, created, side by side with their masterpieces, works not
merely mediocre, but quite simply frightful."
Auteurist vary a lot on how they would answer this question (and every
other question). But they certainly tend to go easy on accepted
directors. The general auteurist attitude seems to be, "If I'm shown a
home movie by Orson Welles, I intend to look at it carefully, compare it
to his other works, be slow to pass negative judgment, and take into
account the possibility that Welles may simply be ahead of me."
This is not a universal tendency. Truffaut once noted that reviewers on
the beat tended to pan every third film by a director. Sarris'
interpretation of this: the critic doesn't want the director to get out of
his or her jurisdiction. He pointed out that no critic in the world can
stop a cultist from seeing the next Welles film, and that the critic
naturally tries to preserve his or her power by discouraging such cults.
I sometimes group critics into "sadistic" and "masochistic" categories.
The sadistic critic positions himself or herself above the filmmaker as a
judge, and does not hesitate to put a favorite filmmaker in his or her
place. The masochistic critic looks up to the filmmaker as a source of
wisdom or pleasure, a teacher. This kind of critic is not eager to pass
negative judgment on a favorite, and pulls his or her punches when it
becomes necessary.
- Dan
27006
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 2:50pm
Subject: Re: Twentynine Palms, Continued Again jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Craig Keller
wrote:
>
> JPC -- My apologies for taking so long (in a_f_b time, at least)
to
> revisit this thread.
>
This is great! No time for a real response now, and as you say
there may be little to add...
Yes, it's radical for the present because, to paraphrase
> Burroughs, or cut him up, it unflinchingly shows Western
civilization
> what's on the end of its fork (America's fork specifically) circa
> 2003. Not many other films I've seen have done that, and I think
the
> fact that it did was a good thing.
Well, everybody (that is, everybody who likes the film) says that,
but I fail to see any profound (or even shallow) statement about the
state of western civilization in that film. Ugly gas stations and
pervert bad guys? That's deep?
>
> > To me the self-
> > destructiveness may or may not be intentional -- I don't really
> > care. I still see the movie as a king of Tingely machine (
although
> > devoid of the sense of fun in Tingely's machines).
>
> What's a Tingely machine?
>
I apologize for misspelling his name, it's Tinguely. He was a Swiss
artist (1925-1991) who built Rube Golberg-like machines, very
complicated, very useless, and often constructed so as to self-
destroy.
> > As far as David:
> > he is a cipher, I don't think we have a right to endow him with
> > intentions (even subconscious) of self-destruction. And please
let's
> > refrain from always blaming the victim. Even though from the very
> > beginning of the film you get the feeling that he is
somehow "asking
> > for it" (whatever "it" is -- and it will end up by being raped).
>
> When I spoke, err, wrote about their willingly having put
themselves
> in that situation, and the violence being the natural end-result,
> that doesn't mean I was putting a "they were asking for it" slant
on
> the expression, or even arguing that the end-result of the
flirtation
> with peril had necessarily to be *SPOILER* anal-rape followed by
> murder-suicide. But I do think these two "adventurers" were
putting
> themselves in danger, and something was going to come of it.
>
Well, adventurers always put themselves in danger. Mountain
climbers fall off and get killed, divers drown, explorers get
devoured by lions or cannibals, and you may get run over by a car
crossing the street. The girl who gets raped in "Irreversible" was
an adventurer too walking through that damn underpass... David and
kathia could have had a car breakdown in the desert and die of
thirst or sun exposure but that wouldn't have been as spectacular
as getting fucked in the ass. It wouldn't have been as grandly
representative of western civilization in the early 21st cent. as a
nice juicy rape. I think Dumont in this case is a highfalutin
panderer.
> I could be off the mark, but -- and maybe this is another reason
it
> flopped -- I have the feeling that most Americans wouldn't even
get
> this from the film -- they'd just say, "Oh, look, it's modern
western
> America. It's creepy in the desert." It's not creepy in the
desert,
> it's creepy at the gas-stations. (Which, besides being crime-
> beacons, have generally made a fucking eyesore of this country.)
>
But, Craig, Dumont says he made the film because he had visited
the desert and was scared somehow and wanted to communicate that
feeling. So it IS creepy in the desert because Dumont thinks it is
and wants us to feel that way. And we feel that way because we know
something bad is going to happen because this is a movie and
something has to happen. Myself, I never felt anything creepy about
the desert (I've driven through deserts too). Of course the gas
stations are creepy too. Everythingthing in the inhabited American
landscape tends to be.
I never like taking things to a "we just
> agree to disagree" juncture, but I think this is a case where
what
> worked for me here didn't work for you. So at this point I'll
ask:
> What are your feelings about 'La Vie de Jésus' and 'L'Humanité'?
> craig.
I liked L'HUMANITE" very much and saw it 3 or 4 times (once in a
theatre on a big screen, at the Montreal Film Fest, and that's the
way Dumont's films should be seen). But I must say that everything
that bothers be abour PALMS was somehow predictable from the
evidence of the earlier film. As for JESUS I also liked it but not a
smuch and saw it only once when it came out in france. I would have
to see it again. JPC
27007
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 2:55pm
Subject: Re: Re: Twentynine Palms, Continued Again sallitt1
> And we feel that way because we know
> something bad is going to happen because this is a movie and
> something has to happen.
I was completely prepared for the possibility that nothing (much) was
going to happen. Dumont never made this kind of film before, and I
wouldn't have put it past him at all not to give the audience a violent
release from the tedium. - Dan
27008
From: Elizabeth Nolan
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 3:22pm
Subject: Shooting through the WALL ... variant of 180 degree rule? eanmdphd
I first noticed this in MYSTIC RIVER:
After their daughter's murder, Penn and Tierry are being interviewed by
Bacon and Jackson in a ?restaurant. The three are sitting in a booth
closed on one side, Jackson sort of standing nearby. In the next shot,
probably to get a close-up, the camera apparently shots through the
wall on the side of the booth (I understand it is a breakaway walk /
how it is done, etc), but I am curious about this. It jarred me
momentarily.
I saw the same shooting through the wall in NORTH BY NORTHWEST:
When Thornhill is kissing Eve on the train, they are up against the
wall. The next shot is partially over her shoulder, but obviously, not
where a camera could be. Again, I'm curious about this shot... it's
not Eve's view, as it includes the back of her head. Still, it would
be odder to see just Thornhill's face when he is so close to Eve, yet
that is the view that she sees. I know about the 180 rule. Is
shooting through the wall a variant of it? Do certain directors do it
more than others?
Thanks, Elizabeth
27009
From: Matt Teichman
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 3:25pm
Subject: Re: Rameau's Nephew bufordrat
Andy Rector wrote:
>The most overwrought and annoying sequence, in my humble opinion, is
>the one where the young people are hanging about in the apartment,
>next to the speakers and table, playing Rameau and repeating lines
>circularly, trading roles, seemingly recording themselves until all
>becomes a garble. This sequence belabors its variations for at least
>20 minutes, discovering what Godard discovered in 20 seconds worth of
>film (8 or 9 years earlier) about direct sound, phonographs and texts
>interacting.
>
Are you talking about the hotel scene with Annette Michelson and Nam
June Paik? If so, I'm surprised to hear you didn't like it; I think of
it as one of the livlier sequences of the film, with some beautifully
sophisticated montage.
It is indeed tempting to read the film as something like "an essay in
the possibilities of sync sound technique," especially since that's the
way Snow tends to describe it. And while that may be the conceit under
which the script was written and the film realized, to me it is much
more than just a piece of conceptual art. The opening credits, for
instance, have more to offer than simply the fact that they are
unnecessarily elongated by permutations of the name "Michael Snow"--in
itself this idea is pretty banal. But something about their
relentlessness makes the scene hilarious, not in the manner of a silly
film student's exercise, but in a way that reminds me somewhat of George
Landow's sensibility (which is almost more than humorous--I'm tempted to
call it a parody of humor).
Many complain that this film is too long. Perhaps this is a valid
complaint, but then again, it's a complaint that can be leveled at just
about any feature film, as films like Kubelka's _Unsere Afrikareise_ or
Matthias Mueller's _Alpsee_ demonstrate.
-Matt
27010
From: Elizabeth Nolan
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 3:35pm
Subject: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, eanmdphd
I read discussions that seem to 'read' a lot into films.
Recently, I was listening to Lehman's commentary on NbN and he says
that the scene near the end of the movie with Leonard confronting
VanDamm about Eve was never written with any homosexual overtones, even
though the use of 'women's intuition' is mentioned by Leonard.
Leonard: You surely would have suspected. Why else would you have
decided not to tell Miss Kendall why our little treasure here has a
belly full of microfilm?
Phillip Vandamm: You seem to be trying to fill mine with rotten apples.
Leonard: Sometimes the truth does taste like a mouthful of worms.
Phillip Vandamm: Truth? I've heard nothing but innuendos.
Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, if you will. But I've never
trusted neatness. Neatness has always been the form of very deliberate
planning.
I could not access the script from the net, but I'm curious if the
'women's intution' had any quotation marks. I also appreciate that
some earlier scene / line / reference might have been omitted.
27011
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 3:35pm
Subject: Re: Shooting through the WALL ... variant of 180 degree rule? cellar47
--- Elizabeth Nolan wrote:
I know about the
> 180 rule. Is
> shooting through the wall a variant of it? Do
> certain directors do it
> more than others?
>
An interesting question. I can't recall anyone doing
it as a deliberate figure of style, though Ozu comes
close.
Kubrick moved through walls in "The Killers" and
Ophuls defies spacio-temproal niceties all the time.
And one of my favorte cuts is a reco-verso medium long
shot of Nicole Garcia taking her raincoat off in
"Duelle."
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27012
From: "thebradstevens"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 3:42pm
Subject: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, thebradstevens
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Elizabeth Nolan wrote:
>
>
> I could not access the script from the net, but I'm curious if the
> 'women's intution' had any quotation marks. I also appreciate that
> some earlier scene / line / reference might have been omitted.
I have a copy of the published screenplay, which was given away free
with SIGHT AND SOUND a few years back. There are no quotation marks.
Leonard's line is as follows:
"Call it my woman's intuition if you will, but I've never trusted
neatness. Neatness is always the result of deliberate planning."
27013
From: "Michael E. Kerpan, Jr."
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 3:48pm
Subject: Re: Shooting through the WALL ... variant of 180 degree rule? michaelkerpan
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein wrote:
> An interesting question. I can't recall anyone doing
> it as a deliberate figure of style, though Ozu comes
> close.
Ozu "shoots through" a mirror in one of his films -- but forgetting
which one offhand. Apparently it was a real pain to shoot. ;~}
27014
From: MG4273@...
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 0:01pm
Subject: Re: Shooting through the WALL ... variant of 180 degree rule? nzkpzq
I have a vague impression that many commercial film sets are built with
breakaway, removeable walls, to give the director greater choice of camera angles
and positions to shoot the scenes. The director will have a wall removed, so a
camera can be set up to shoot a scene. Then the wall will go back, so it can
appear in another shot, taken from another part of the set.
Hitchcock's book on Truffaut cites Ingrid Bergman's memories of shooting
"Under Capricorn", with walls moving all around, right in the middle of shots (off
camera), to allow the camera to track all over the sets. She apparently found
it disconcerting...
Such "impossible" points of view (behind a moved wall) are not necessarily
violations of the 180 degree rule. There is still an imaginary line, and the
audience sees everything from the "front" of this line, as if they were in a
theater looking at action on a stage.
My impression is that many shots in such later Fritz Lang films as "The Blue
Gardenia" would be impossible if Lang had not removed one of the set walls for
them. Could be wrong...
Mike Grost
27015
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 4:08pm
Subject: Re: Twentynine Palms, Continued Again jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > And we feel that way because we know
> > something bad is going to happen because this is a movie and
> > something has to happen.
>
> I was completely prepared for the possibility that nothing (much)
was
> going to happen. Dumont never made this kind of film before, and I
> wouldn't have put it past him at all not to give the audience a
violent
> release from the tedium. - Dan
Me neither. But after all it's an American film, so something HAS to
happen... And I'm not sure what you mean by "this kind of film". The
film to me is much more like his first two films than like any
American film I can think of (despite the TWO-LANE BLACKTOP connection
that Adrian -- I think -- has pointed out). JPC
27016
From: MG4273@...
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 0:07pm
Subject: Re: Re: Shooting through the WALL ... variant of 180 degree rule? nzkpzq
In a message dated 05-05-13 12:05:15 EDT, I wrote:
<< Hitchcock's book on Truffaut cites Ingrid Bergman's memories >>
Hey, meant Truffaut's book on Hitchcock. Too bad Hitch never wroter a book on
"The Films of Francois Tuffaut" - it would have been interesting.
Mike Grost
27017
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 4:23pm
Subject: Re: Shooting through the WALL ... variant of 180 degree rule? jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> I have a vague impression that many commercial film sets are built
with
> breakaway, removeable walls, to give the director greater choice
of camera angles
> and positions to shoot the scenes. > > Mike Grost
I have seen many interior scenes in which the camera enters a
room or tracks by the room where logically a wall should be and
there is no wall, like on a theatre stage. This is not at all that
those breakaway walls that are being removed out of our sight. We
are shown a room that is missing one wall. I have always been
surprised by this practice that appears in otherwise
quite "realistic" contexts.
As for "impossible" camera placements that are readily accepted by
audiences, what about all those shots from inside a refrigerator or
a fireplace?
JPC
27018
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 4:32pm
Subject: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Elizabeth Nolan wrote:
> I read discussions that seem to 'read' a lot into films.
>
> Recently, I was listening to Lehman's commentary on NbN and he
says
> that the scene near the end of the movie with Leonard confronting
> VanDamm about Eve was never written with any homosexual overtones,
even
> though the use of 'women's intuition' is mentioned by Leonard.
>
> There's a tendency these day to see homosexual overtones or
undertones everywhere. I don't think it's so far-fetched in the case
of NORTH BY NORTWEST, though. Remember, Vandamm tells Leonard: "I
believe you're jealous!" These are "bad guys" of the creepily suave
variety, so a bit of perversion (sorry David!)adds to the
picture.But I wouldn't make a big deal of it. And one can
be "jealous" without any sexual implications
JPC
27019
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 4:34pm
Subject: Re: Re: Twentynine Palms, Continued Again sallitt1
> And I'm not sure what you mean by "this kind of film". The
> film to me is much more like his first two films than like any
> American film I can think of
That's certainly true. But L'HUMANITE started with a violent act; and in
LA VIE DE JESUS the violence grew out of the social situation in a more
natural manner. Here Dumont puts a couple in an elemental landscape and
plays everything out on his own unhurried schedule. The earlier works
didn't establish enough of a precedent that I necessarily expected
violence to follow. - Dan
27020
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 4:43pm
Subject: Re: Re: Shooting through the WALL ... variant of 180 degree rule? cellar47
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
> As for "impossible" camera placements that are
> readily accepted by
> audiences, what about all those shots from inside a
> refrigerator or
> a fireplace?
>
Billy Wilder called it "The Santa Claus Shot."
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27021
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 4:44pm
Subject: Re: Shooting through the WALL ... variant of 180 degree rule? sallitt1
> I know about the 180 rule. Is
> shooting through the wall a variant of it?
If the eyeline between two people is parallel to a wall, and if the people
are up against the wall, then going through the wall will also break the
180-degree rule.
My sense is that the 180-degree rule is much easier to break with impunity
if there is anything at all unusual going on in the scene. You'll notice
the rule being broken if the violation occurs during a classic
old-Hollywood decoupage, but not if there's something wild about the
blocking or the camera angle. And a scene with a bunch of people has a
bunch of eyelines, so the rule feels weaker there.
As others have observed, it's quite common to go through a wall with a
moving camera. I wouldn't say there has ever been any rule about that
(unless you count Aristotle's unity of place!). But the weirdness of
shooting from an impossible place (in the Hitchcock example) might be
enough of an extenuating circumstance that the 180-degree rule no longer
seems much of a big deal. - Dan
27022
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 4:46pm
Subject: Re: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, cellar47
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
> >
> > There's a tendency these day to see homosexual
> overtones or
> undertones everywhere. I don't think it's so
> far-fetched in the case
> of NORTH BY NORTWEST, though. Remember, Vandamm
> tells Leonard: "I
> believe you're jealous!" These are "bad guys" of the
> creepily suave
> variety, so a bit of perversion (sorry David!)adds
> to the
> picture.But I wouldn't make a big deal of it. And
> one can
> be "jealous" without any sexual implications
>
Lehman may not have intended it but Hitchcock's no
fool. And Martin Landau himself has spoken of it as an
undertone. You might say he's "Smithers" to Mason's
"Mr. Burns."
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27023
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 4:48pm
Subject: Re: Shooting through the WALL ... variant of 180 degree rule? cellar47
--- Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > I know about the 180 rule. Is
> > shooting through the wall a variant of it?
>
> If the eyeline between two people is parallel to a
> wall, and if the people
> are up against the wall, then going through the wall
> will also break the
> 180-degree rule.
>
> My sense is that the 180-degree rule is much easier
> to break with impunity
> if there is anything at all unusual going on in the
> scene. You'll notice
> the rule being broken if the violation occurs during
> a classic
> old-Hollywood decoupage, but not if there's
> something wild about the
> blocking or the camera angle. And a scene with a
> bunch of people has a
> bunch of eyelines, so the rule feels weaker there.
>
I've suddenly remembered the filmmaker who breaks
spacio-temporal order consistently -- Raul Ruiz!
He's gone so far as to create POV shots from the
bottom of a glass and the sole of a shoe.
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27024
From: Jonathan Takagi
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 5:10pm
Subject: Re: Shooting through the WALL ... variant of 180 degree rule? jontakagi
On 5/13/05, David Ehrenstein wrote:
> He's gone so far as to create POV shots from the
> bottom of a glass and the sole of a shoe.
Or the inside of a mouth. The list could go on forever...
Jonathan Takagi
27025
From: Peter Henne
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 5:10pm
Subject: Re: Re: Auteurs, Canon, Pleasure and Change peterhenne
Online Now Send IM
The choices are not always between pleasure and pain. They can be between pleasure and reflection. They can also be between pleasure and awe--this distinction seems to correspond to the old-fashioned categories, the beautiful and the sublime. I'm guessing this short list of "pleasure or x" isn't exhaustive.
I think "appreciation" ought to be pulled apart from "pleasure," since you will always experience appreciation of a well-done work of art, but not pleasure in all cases.
Manoel de Oliveira satiates my pleasure centers like you wouldn't believe.
Peter Henne
Fred Camper wrote:
When Mike Hammer
slams the drawer on the sleazy doctor's hand, his scream is mirrored in
the distorted spaces of the film as a whole -- unpleasant, yes, but also
aestheticized in a powerful way, expressions of a distorted and
contorted and upside-down world in which values are lost.
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27026
From: "Brian Dauth"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 5:58pm
Subject: Re: Auteurs, Canon, Pleasure and Change cinebklyn
Richard writes:
> Many people have had the experience of undervaluing a film on first
viewing and than coming around to a better appreciation later because
of they've grown.
But isn't it also possible to outgrow a film or filmmaker? Isn't it
possible that a first viewing can overvalue a film as well as
undervalue it?
> I would say that the formalist view is that appreciation equals
pleasure.
Such a view gives me pause. Equating appreciation with pleasure does
not work for me.
hl666 writes:
> Short answer: "It must give pleasure"
Wallace Stevens, "Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction"
Slightly longer:
"We reason of these things with later reason
And we make of what we see, what we see clearly
And have seen, a place dependent on ourselves."
Full text:
http://home.earthlink.net/~scofield99/data/W_Stevens_NotesSupreme.htm
Fred writes:
> But also, it seems obvious that simply because a work has a
recognizable style doesn't make it good: examples from other arts are
abundant.
I would agree.
> But I can't accept simply talking about "pleasure" without talking
about what kind of pleasure.
Agreed. I recognize the pleasure of an ice-cold glass of lemonade on
a hot day or the refreshing tang of a sea breeze as I walk along the
beach. While I would identify both as giving me pleasure, it is a
pleasure different and distinct from what I receive from movies.
> If someone told me that the pleasure they find in Sirk's films lies
in their loud colors and outrageously campy acting and stories, I
might suddenly explain that I had a plane to catch and walk away.
Why? Is there something wrong with that type of pleasure? Are they
lesser forms of pleasure?
> An explication of the pleasure of Hawks's adventure films that
restricts itself to talking about his exciting stories and effective
performances would leave me thinking I had shared little with the
person I was listening to.
But if those are the only areas in which that viewer experiences
pleasure, is it fair to view him or the discussion as being
restricted? Restriction implies not only a conscious or unconscious
narrowing, but also the availability to all viewers of a more open
field of vision.
> Taste is to some extent subjective, a product of both individual
tastes and the tastes of a sub-group or culture. But is it totally
subjective?
How can it be otherwise unless you assert an essential "human nature"
that every human being is born with? Is that what you are claiming?
> If so, why have so many across the centuries derived such intense
and visionary pleasures from Homer (even in translation), Chartres
Cathedral, Shakespeare, Bach, Titian?
You are imputing causes by pointing out correlations – that is a
logical fallacy. The fact that many people have been inspired by the
same works of art does not tell us anything concrete about either
those works of art or the people.
> True, there are other great older artists who were rediscovered
only in the 20th-century -- showing, perhaps, that culture factors
into it to some extent.
I certainly believe that culture and acculturation play a significant
role.
> My real point is that I can distinguish between the considerable
pleasures I derive from the careful pacing, moving time-crossing
structure, and superb acting in Leone's "Once Upon a Time in
America," and the mind-cleansing, transpersonal, visionary explosions
of Sirk's "The Tarnished Angels" or Brakhage's "The Text of Light"
So there are not just differences among pleasures, but hierarchies as
well?
Also, what do you mean when you say something is "mind-cleansing"
and "transpersonal"? I have seen the term "transpersonal" used with
regard to psychology and Eastern mysticism, but I am not sure of how
you are invoking it in this instance.
> The films that I call great don't give me pleasures based on moods
or personal identifications with actors or characters or little
dialogue bits that I love or a narrative that hooks me: they present
visual (and often, aural) systems of expression in which all of the
parts come together in a way that lifts me completely out of myself.
I understand, but a "lifting completely out of oneself" seems like a
very personal and idiosyncratic experience from which I would be hard-
pressed to extrapolate a universal definition of great artistry.
> Rather, it seems to me that their forms convincingly embody their
visions, so that anyone can be moved by them.
But doesn't this assertion put us back in the essentialist trap? If
anyone can be moved by them, then anyone/everyone must be equipped
with the ability to be moved in this way. Futhermore, if they are
not moved, isn't because of a conscious or unconscious choice on
their part not to bring this inherent ability into play?
> This is why I tend to say that people who don't see the greatness
of the films that I love just aren't getting it . . .
I would agree that they aren't getting it (e.g., I am not moved by
Sirk), but the questions remain: a) whether or not everyone possesses
the same capacity to "get it"; and b) whether one commonality among
all great art is its ability to lift those who get it out of
themselves.
David E. writes:
> The reason that I value "Those Who Love Me can Take the Train"
above all other films starts with the story, the characters, and the
performers but REALLY kicks in because of the way Chereau has
synthesized it all into a work that takes the form of a living
organism in and of itself.
&
> The film ITSELF has a character -- the includes a built in d.j.
&
> I thinks about it self all the time
If the film has character, thinks about itself, and takes the form of
a living organism, would this be a case where autonomy was actual and
not illusionary?
Brian
27027
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 6:22pm
Subject: Re: Re: Auteurs, Canon, Pleasure and Change cellar47
--- Brian Dauth wrote:
"If the film has character, thinks about itself, and
takes the form of
a living organism, would this be a case where autonomy
was actual and
not illusionary?"
No, it's illusionary -- but in a different way from
what's usually presented. A spectator has autonomy. A
film does not because it has a beginning, a middle and
an end. Godard's famous "Yes, but not necessarily in
that order" evokes a critical function that good
filmmkaing encourages. The great innovation that home
video offers is the ability to break the film apart
and examine it in detail. "Those Who Love" me actively
encourages such detailed analysis.
Eisenstein presumably did, as the bulk of his writings
concern specific moments in his films -- shots,
sequences. Yet he always ends up in the same place
--with the same set of meanings. One can find a lot
more in Eisenstein than he would allow, but that's not
what he wants -- and thus his severe limitations as an
artist.
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27028
From: LiLiPUT1@...
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 2:35pm
Subject: Re: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, scil1973
In a message dated 5/13/05 11:46:52 AM, cellar47@... writes:
> And Martin Landau himself has spoken of it as an
> undertone. You might say he's "Smithers" to Mason's
> "Mr. Burns."
>
Except that Smithers' homosexuality is far from an undertone. But even at
that, I'm sure there are some freakshows who think that to call Smithers gay
would be reading too deep into things. Witness what happened when the producers of
The Simpsons announced that someone would be coming out as gay this season.
Every article I read about it speculated Smithers as a candidate. How the fuck
could someone come out if they're already out?!?!? So we might as well be
watching NORTH BY NORTHWEST every Sunday night. Proof that the "you're reading too
deep into it" crowd is full of shit can be had, as always, in Patricia
White's book Uninvited - Classical Hollywood Cinema and Lesbian Representability.
Kevin John, a deep reader of surfaces
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
27029
From: Fred Camper
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 6:56pm
Subject: Re: Re: Auteurs, Canon, Pleasure and Change fredcamper
David Ehrenstein wrote:
> ....One can find a lot
> more in Eisenstein than he would allow
>... but that's not what he wants....
Perhaps those other things *were* also things that he wanted, and it's
just that he couldn't include them in his writings because he didn't
know how to write about them, or that he couldn't include them because
though he *did* know how to write about them he realized he sure as hell
better keep his mouth shut about them as a citizen of Stalin's USSR.
Fred Camper
27030
From: "Blake Lucas"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 6:58pm
Subject: Re: Can a great director make a turkey? (Was: Auteurs, Canon, Pleasure and Change) lukethedealer12
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
>
> I sometimes group critics into "sadistic" and "masochistic"
categories.
> The sadistic critic positions himself or herself above the filmmaker
as a
> judge, and does not hesitate to put a favorite filmmaker in his or
her
> place. The masochistic critic looks up to the filmmaker as a source
of
> wisdom or pleasure, a teacher. This kind of critic is not eager to
pass
> negative judgment on a favorite, and pulls his or her punches when
it
> becomes necessary.
You do not say which of these two groups you put yourself in, and even
though I know you I can't guess the answer. Just curious.
I don't have much time to jump in on this very articulate debate about
"pleasure," "bad films by great filmmakers," and so on, though do mean
to at least post something on "The Exile" sometime today, I hope. But
in the meantime, no one should have jumped to the conclusion (and I
don't think too many actually did) that I was saying something like
"Even the forlorn, impossible to defend "The Exile" is not a turkey
because it was made by the great Max Ophuls." Not at all. I happen
to love this one and think it's wonderful--it seemed like others agree.
I do think great filmmakers fail--and even in relatively small,
creatively focused bodies of work by filmmakers who do not have the
same degree of ongoing opportunity as some others--it tends to happen
just as much.
As an auteurist, though, I tend to be pleased when some seemingly
"forlorn, impossible to defend" work is defended and admired by
someone. A title much bandied about lately, "Skidoo," is a good
example. I wasn't one of the ones taking up for it. Though I don't
think it's Preminger's worst (and would vote for "Junie Moon" which
I had a really tough time with), I kind of have a feeling I wouldn't
think about him the way I do if it were even one of his best. But I
very much enjoyed all the warm things said about it, enough to want
to take another look sometime.
As far as pleasure is concerned, I vote for pleasure. I don't even
think it's an issue. Someone Like Laura Mulvey created a non-issue, in
my opinion. To me she is no goddess of criticsm, any more than CdC
on "Young Mr. Lincoln" is a sacred text. One of these days I'll weigh
in on both, if I live long enough, and that's a promise.
But JPC said something it is always well to bear in mind. Some works
may not give as immediate pleasure as others, but if we know they are
by artists we admire and generally take pleasure in, we are inclined
to work on them. For me "Muriel" was not immediately pleasurable at
all, as compared to "The Band Wagon," which definitely was. But on
many repeat viewings of both I'd say I now take equal pleasure in both
and would put them on the same level.
"The Exile," needless to say, is supremely pleasurable to me.
Blake
>
27031
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 7:11pm
Subject: Re: Re: Can a great director make a turkey? (Was: Auteurs, Canon, Pleasure and Change) sallitt1
>> I sometimes group critics into "sadistic" and "masochistic"
> categories.
>
> You do not say which of these two groups you put yourself in, and even
> though I know you I can't guess the answer. Just curious.
I'd certainly put myself in the "masochistic critic" category. As you
well know, there are a lot of films by major directors that I don't care
for; but I'm always wondering if the director is right and I'm wrong.
Seems to me that auteurists tend toward being masochistic critics. Kael
is, to me, the classic example of a sadistic critic. - Dan
27032
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 7:21pm
Subject: Re: Re: Auteurs, Canon, Pleasure and Change cellar47
--- Fred Camper wrote:
>
> Perhaps those other things *were* also things that
> he wanted, and it's
> just that he couldn't include them in his writings
> because he didn't
> know how to write about them, or that he couldn't
> include them because
> though he *did* know how to write about them he
> realized he sure as hell
> better keep his mouth shut about them as a citizen
> of Stalin's USSR.
>
Maybe. But I'm not so sure. Never forget that despite
all his troubles, Eisenstein was Stalin's favorite
filmmaker. He flourished, while his teacher Meyerhold,
like so many others, vanished into the Gulag.
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27033
From: "second_aq"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 3:43pm
Subject: Subtitleless ventures -Ophuls in french second_aq
One of problems of excluding non subtitled versions from a
retrospective is you frustate people who speak the language anyway and
others who want to learn or hear it. I have seen italian movies at the
Cinematheque in Paris without subtitles, reading articles about it
afterwards. But I remember an instance of loud whispering near me of
somebody translating most of the dialogue of a movie to a person who
didn't understand the language . That was in Montreal, it was an
american movie about Latin America "Under Fire" by Roger
Spottiswoode. As the language whispered was spanish, I understood the
connection between those specxtators and the subject and it didn't
bother too much.
Luc
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Blake Lucas"
wrote:
>
> But the head of the film department at the museum here
> refused to program four 30s Ophuls films in various languages which
> did not have subtitles (interestingly, he left in a few other earlier
> ones). The four were "Divine" (especially highly regarded by Ophuls
> aficionados), "Yoshiwara," "Werther," "Sans Landemain." I felt
> quite bitter about their exclusion, as I'm sure a lot of people did.
> I still haven't seen any of those four and wonder if I ever will.
> I went to everything else--mostly films I knew well, and enjoyed the
> earlier unsubtitled ones quite a bit (there were printed synopses to
> read before the films), and was very grateful to see those.
>
27034
From: "Blake Lucas"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 7:50pm
Subject: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, lukethedealer12
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Elizabeth Nolan wrote:
> Recently, I was listening to Lehman's commentary on NbN and he says
> that the scene near the end of the movie with Leonard confronting
> VanDamm about Eve was never written with any homosexual overtones,
even
> though the use of 'women's intuition' is mentioned by Leonard.
>
>
I haven't heard this commentary, but Lehman's seeming innocence amazes
me. I always thought this as much of a given in the movie as the fact
that Roger goes through most of it in that same gray suit.
I read David and JPC's responses before writing this--they fall on the
side of a homosexual Leonard but sound as if maybe it's arguable. But
I think there's no doubt Hitchcock directed it that way and Landau
played it that way, and I'm guessing they'd both readily say so (sounds
like Landau did). I wouldn't even need the "woman's intuition" line
though that certainly nails it.
Charlton Heston is famously on record as saying there is no homoerotic
subtext between Ben-Hur and Massala except in Gore Vidal's mind. I
found that about as hard to believe as this but watched the first few
scenes of "Ben-Hur" when it came on TV soon after reading that and saw
again the way these two characters reacted to each other after not
seeing each other for many years. Then there's the spear-throwing.
And does the rest of the whole story even make sense otherwise?
There's nothing like thwarted love/love turned to hate to drive a
narrative.
OK, Heston's an actor and maybe he really is as innocent as he seems
(but then why did he play it the same way Boyd did?). But Lehman's
a writer, and Leonard's antagonism to Eve is never far from the
surface throughout the film. I really thought the reason so obvious
that literally a child could understand it.
By the way, in his first "Hitchcock's Films" (I don't know if it is
still there), Robin Wood refers to "the homosexual spy Leonard"
(p. 102) as a given and gives a little discussion to him in these
terms at several points. This was long before Wood came out, of
course, and I don't know how he'd feel now about looking at the
character in the negative light he saw him in then.
I've always loved Leonard. Landau's looks and marvelous performance
are one more great asset of a great movie. I don't know too
much about Landau's struggles to establish himself, but I believe
this movie debut made his career, didn't it?
(P.S. If a moderator is reading this, no insult is intended to
Lehman or Heston, whose contributions to these and many other films
I respect and admire).
27035
From: "samfilms2003"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 7:56pm
Subject: Subtitleless ventures (Was Re: Mizoguchi on DVD -- in Japan -- at last) samfilms2003
>"Fred Patton" wrote:
Sorry for this much back quoting and a "me too" post but I
could not agree more.
The effect on pacing is the most surprising part of doing this with
DVD - perhaps because, in the small screen space of (my) typical
DVD viewing the experience tends toward the 'readerly' to begin
with.
(also the cinematographer in me gets to see nuances in light,
shadings, etc)
-Sam Wells
> There's the rhythm of camera movements, zooms, edits, physical
> movement including nuanced gestures that come together to construct
> the visual rhythm. There is also a rhythm to subtitle scanning, how
> the eye might run from left to right to quickly or less quickly
> decode the spoken, which is typically unintended and haphazard with
> the visual music.
>But
> with DVD's pro-choice, I've been trying to have a subsequent go
> without subs whenever I can manage, and typically I discover a
> richer viewing experience, and not the hybrid novel reading /
> picture viewing that seems to cohere more completely in one's
> corrective mind than it does.
27036
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 8:08pm
Subject: Re: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, cellar47
--- Blake Lucas wrote:
>
> I read David and JPC's responses before writing
> this--they fall on the
> side of a homosexual Leonard but sound as if maybe
> it's arguable. But
> I think there's no doubt Hitchcock directed it that
> way and Landau
> played it that way, and I'm guessing they'd both
> readily say so (sounds
> like Landau did). I wouldn't even need the "woman's
> intuition" line
> though that certainly nails it.
>
Even without the line it's there as a subtextual
shorthand. Maybe Lehman's resistance springs from the
fact that to him the subject would demand full-scale
treatment and Leonard's secondary character. Maybe
he's uncomfortable with the idea. But that just shows
Hitchcock's sophstication. He needed an extra
motivational link between Landau and mason. After all,
mason may be the head man but he does nothing himself.
He merely (suavely) gives orders that his underlings
carryout. And Saint, working undercover, is one of
these underlings. But she has a special status as
she's Mason's girlfriend too. So having Landau's
Lenoard as a romantic interloper fits perfectly.
In other words there's no need to analyze this all
that much. It's Hitchcock at his "functional" best.
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27037
From: "samfilms2003"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 8:10pm
Subject: Re: Shooting through the WALL ... variant of 180 degree rule? samfilms2003
>MG4273@a... wrote:
> I have a vague impression that many commercial film sets are built with
> breakaway, removeable walls, to give the director greater choice of camera angles
> and positions to shoot the scenes.
Yes.
-Sam
27038
From: "Michael E. Kerpan, Jr."
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 8:20pm
Subject: Re: Auteurs, Canon, Pleasure and Change michaelkerpan
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein wrote:
> Maybe. But I'm not so sure. Never forget that despite
> all his troubles, Eisenstein was Stalin's favorite
> filmmaker. He flourished, while his teacher Meyerhold,
> like so many others, vanished into the Gulag.
Meyerhold never made it to the Gulag. He was tortured and then shot
in a Moscow prison.
Ironically, his death was precipitated by (not caused by, as it was
inevitable) the flight of Japanese actress Yoshiko Okada (an early Ozu
star) and her lover, stage director Ryoukichi Sugimoto. These two
fled Japan because they were viewed as subversives (and because they
were involved in an adulterous relationship, and wanted to flee their
spouses as well as the Japanese military police). They had Japanese
communist friends who worked with Meyerhold, and planned to join them
in Moscow. Unknown to the couple, their Moscow friends had recently
fled to Paris (as Stalin had decided that the Japanese communists in
the USSR might all be spies), and the two were arrested shortly after
they set foot on Sakhalin Island. Sugimoto was shot rather promptly,
but Okada was tortured -- and eventually "confessed" that she and her
Moscow friends were indeed spies. Because these friends had been
Meyerhold proteges, her confession was used to help paint Meyerhold as
a spy master who led the Japanese spy ring. Okada WAS sent to the
Gulag -- and spent at 10 years there. After she was finally released,
she worked for Russian Radio, broadcasting Japanese-language classical
music and literature programs to Japan -- and later as a drama
teacher and translator. She finally returned to Japan in the 1970s
(where Yoji Yamada promptly put her to work in the latest Tora-san film).
27039
From: "samfilms2003"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 8:22pm
Subject: Re: Auteurs, Canon, Pleasure and Change samfilms2003
> Fred Camper wrote:
> Or you can watch "Yi Yi" and see the film I saw, full of exquisite and
> sensuous fields of color which seemed expressive of a deep ambivalence,
> an ambivalence mirrored in the oddly chaotic landscape with highways
> running through it.
And at the same time see a film which beautifully and directly
addresses the Asian cliche (i.e. imposed on)/conundrum of individuality vs
family identity, the *formal* notion of characterization as place holder
of said identities - which Yang boldly suggests, I think, can be fluid,
as if particle trajectories of identities in a cloud chamber (do Yang and
Hou make cloud-chamber cinema ?) -- culminating, for me in the
astonishing last scene with the grandmother and grandaughter,
where the grandaughter gives voice to grandma's silence.
(ie if you think I'm saying "Yi Yi" is a masterpiece you're right)
-Sam Wells
27040
From: Fred Camper
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 8:32pm
Subject: Re: Re: Auteurs, Canon, Pleasure and Change fredcamper
samfilms2003 wrote:
> if you think I'm saying "Yi Yi" is a masterpiece you're right
Me too.
Fred Camper
27041
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 8:41pm
Subject: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, LiLiPUT1@a... wrote:
>
> Proof that the "you're reading too
> deep into it" crowd is full of shit can be had, as always, in
Patricia
> White's book Uninvited - Classical Hollywood Cinema and Lesbian
Representability.
>
> Kevin John, a deep reader of surfaces
>
>
OK Kevin, you win, I'm full of shit. Everybody's gay and from now on
I'll try to read heterosexual undertones or overtones into every movie.
Seriously, the point is, whether Leonard is homosexual or not is of
little concern because his sexual orientation doesn't have any impact
on the film's plot, atmosphere, direction -- which is what really
counts. Maybe his boyfriend is the other hood (what's his name?) but
he still lusts after Vandamn, who is cuter. And he is jealous because
his object of desire prefers a gorgeous (female) blonde. It makes
perfect sense. But what does it bring to the story or our enjoyment of
it?
JPC
27042
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 8:52pm
Subject: Re: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, cellar47
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
> Seriously, the point is, whether Leonard is
> homosexual or not is of
> little concern because his sexual orientation
> doesn't have any impact
> on the film's plot, atmosphere, direction -- which
> is what really
> counts. Maybe his boyfriend is the other hood
> (what's his name?) but
> he still lusts after Vandamn, who is cuter. And he
> is jealous because
> his object of desire prefers a gorgeous (female)
> blonde. It makes
> perfect sense. But what does it bring to the story
> or our enjoyment of
> it?
>
It helps tighten the suspense noose, and allows
Hitchcock to do some interesting things. For example
it would have been rather jarring for a villain, more
or less out of the blue, to tromp on Cary Grant's
fingers on Mount Rushmore. Because Leonard has a
personal as well as a professional motive it twists
the knife a little more.
To me it's simply an Extra Added Attraction -- not
calling for "in depth" analysis at all.
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27043
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 9:03pm
Subject: Anatomy of Hell, anyone? jpcoursodon
Breillat's films have been discussed several times here but I don't
remember any sustained discussion of this one, which I saw for the
first time yesterday. I'd like views and opinions. I found it one of
the most idiotic films I've seen in a long time, on the lofty theme
of "Men hate women and women hate themselves and sex is hell." The
first line spoken by the "heroine" gives the tone. She has just
slashed her wrists (unfortunately for us she survives). A guy walks
in and asks: "Why did you do that?" She answers: "Because I am a
woman." And it gets worse.
She hires a gay guy to watch her nude and tell her how disgusting
she looks. I soon was identifying with the gay guy and feeling
increasingly repulsed by her whitish body sprawled on a bed like
some jellyfish. They move very slowly, like in a Duras film, and
exchange highly literary remarks in such heavily accented French
that I had to read most of the subtitles... To break the monotony
the guy sticks a broom handle up her ass (actually it's not a broom
but some kind of gardening tool; and maybe it's up her vagina,
that's not clear; Breillat can be so delicate...). He also applies
lipstick to her labia and asshole. IS THIS A SPOILER? OOPS! I don't
know what he does next because I turned the thing off to have dinner
(I have a strong stomach) but I'll know tonight. DON'T MISS THE NEXT
THRILLING CHAPTER!
JPC
27044
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 9:08pm
Subject: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> It helps tighten the suspense noose, and allows
> Hitchcock to do some interesting things. For example
> it would have been rather jarring for a villain, more
> or less out of the blue, to tromp on Cary Grant's
> fingers on Mount Rushmore. Because Leonard has a
> personal as well as a professional motive it twists
> the knife a little more.
Not at all. Heterosexual villains do that sort of thing all the
time. Villains are sadistic more often than not. You don't have to
be gay to tromp on Cary Grant's fingers.
>
> To me it's simply an Extra Added Attraction -- not
> calling for "in depth" analysis at all.
>
Agreed.
JPC
>
>
>
> __________________________________
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> Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone.
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27045
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 9:20pm
Subject: Re: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, cellar47
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
> Not at all. Heterosexual villains do that sort of
> thing all the
> time. Villains are sadistic more often than not. You
> don't have to
> be gay to tromp on Cary Grant's fingers.
> >
Maybe.But gay villian like this are more fun. Think
too of Wendell Corey in "Desert Fury," and my favorite
romantic couple Earl Holliman and Lee van Cleef in
"The Big Combo."
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27046
From: "Blake Lucas"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 9:27pm
Subject: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, lukethedealer12
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> --- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
> >
> > Seriously, the point is, whether Leonard is
> > homosexual or not is of
> > little concern because his sexual orientation
> > doesn't have any impact
> > on the film's plot, atmosphere, direction -- which
> > is what really
> > counts. Maybe his boyfriend is the other hood
> > (what's his name?) but
> > he still lusts after Vandamn, who is cuter. And he
> > is jealous because
> > his object of desire prefers a gorgeous (female)
> > blonde. It makes
> > perfect sense. But what does it bring to the story
> > or our enjoyment of
> > it?
I think all of these speculations kind of make sense, and to me they
are interesting. I personally find it makes a better work when even
minor characters (and he isn't that minor) have some coloration,
something to make them more interesting. Look at any good Western
with say a group of four outlaws as antagonists--they could just be
four outlaws but if they all have personal idiosyncracies and an
interesting individuality, the movie is much more engaging (maybe
some are killers or rapists, and others are just greedy, or down on
their luck--I'm thinking of "The Bravados" directed by Henry King).
Here, we like "North by Northwest" to keep going back to it,
obviously. In an already great scene where the villains take Roger
to the house in the opening act and then Leonard and Vandamm come
in and they pour that glass of whiskey down him, knowing the
undercurrents of these relationships just make the scene better.
As Mason so wonderfully says "Games...must we?"
> It helps tighten the suspense noose, and allows
> Hitchcock to do some interesting things. For example
> it would have been rather jarring for a villain, more
> or less out of the blue, to tromp on Cary Grant's
> fingers on Mount Rushmore. Because Leonard has a
> personal as well as a professional motive it twists
> the knife a little more.
>
> To me it's simply an Extra Added Attraction -- not
> calling for "in depth" analysis at all.
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Yahoo! Mail Mobile
> Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone.
> http://mobile.yahoo.com/learn/mail
27047
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 9:28pm
Subject: Re: Anatomy of Hell, anyone? cellar47
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
I
> found it one of
> the most idiotic films I've seen in a long time,
SING OUT LOUISE!!!
They move very slowly, like in a
> Duras film, and
> exchange highly literary remarks in such heavily
> accented French
> that I had to read most of the subtitles...
Bingo! That's where she got the idea -- from Duras'
"Blue Eyes, Black Hair."
To break
> the monotony
> the guy sticks a broom handle up her ass (actually
> it's not a broom
> but some kind of gardening tool; and maybe it's up
> her vagina,
> that's not clear; Breillat can be so delicate...).
See? Duras didn't need gardening tools to convey
masochistic self-disgust! All she needed was a willing
slave. And in Yann Andrea she found one.
Breillat had to be content with a porn star.
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27048
From: "Blake Lucas"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 9:56pm
Subject: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, lukethedealer12
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
>> Maybe.But gay villian like this are more fun. Think
> too of Wendell Corey in "Desert Fury," and my favorite
> romantic couple Earl Holliman and Lee van Cleef in
> "The Big Combo."
>
I cannot help but comment, so fond am I of all these characters.
Holliman and Van Cleef don't make the film all by themselves
(it's a stunning, artistic work in every way) but they add
a great deal. "Desert Fury" is an underrated gem of Technicolor
noir as I assume everyone knows by now and stars the irreplaceable
Lizabeth Scott (take me, Lizabeth!). Still Corey's gay villain
does just about steal that one. He's mesmerizing.
Interestingly, Wendell Corey was equally mesmerizing as villainous
press agent "Smiley" in "The Big Knife" (Aldrich) and almost stole
that one, too, at least in his scenes. I wish he'd had more roles
like these.
Lee Van Cleef is the most memorable of the four outlaws Gregory Peck
pursues in "The Bravados" (he cries and pleads for his life as Peck
prepares to kill him, a bigger scene than he'd ever had up to that
time). Stephen Boyd is the lascivious, evil rapist (is there any
other kind?)--he was really great too. Albert Salmi is the cynical,
card-loving guy who kind of looks on at the others with an "I get
you guys" attitude. Henry Silva is the wary Indian--basically down
on his luck and wanting to help his family so he's a member of the
gang, too. Not a gay villain among them, but they're all memorable
even so. Gay or straight, give a guy a villain to play.
And Lizabeth Scott lives (literally, I believe).
>
> __________________________________________________
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27049
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 10:21pm
Subject: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Blake Lucas"
wrote:
>
>
> Interestingly, Wendell Corey was equally mesmerizing as villainous
> press agent "Smiley" in "The Big Knife" (Aldrich) and almost stole
> that one, too, at least in his scenes. I wish he'd had more roles
> like these.
>
I think I like Corey best when he is not a villain but just weak
and disgusted with what he is forced to do -- vide "I Walk Alone"
or "Thelma Jordon" (often misspelled "Jordan"). Interestingly he was
Jesse James in "Alias Jessie James," which I haven't seen.
JPC
>> And Lizabeth Scott lives (literally, I believe).
>
I never understood why everybody raves about Scott. She's a
terrible actress with a silly lisp. Is this OT?
JPC
> >
> > __________________________________________________
> > Do You Yahoo!?
> > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> > http://mail.yahoo.com
27050
From: "Brian Dauth"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 11:02pm
Subject: Re: Auteurs, Canon, Pleasure and Change cinebklyn
Henrik writes:
Mulvay said, that pleasure depends on pre-existing psychological
patterns at or within the spectator, and is as such a narcissistic
identification, where the spectator identifies with himself and his
own ideology.
Very Freudian and highly arguable. There are models of human
psychology other than Freud.
> As pleasure is based on whats within the spectator, so is
displeasure. It suggests, that we cannot identify with character,
ideology, plot, narration and/or signifiers.
With respect, I think that equating the pleasurable with what one can
identify with is reductive. I would, therefore, go on to argue that
the displeasurable is not just that which a person cannot identify
with.
> Displeasure blinds the viewer of the qualities in the text, as it
doesn't allow the spectator to identify with character, ideology,
plot, narrative and/or signifiers. And being blind, one cannot
appreciate, and in terms critic, the text.
But I do not need to identify with character or narrative in order to
discern qualities in the text. Also, it could be argued that
pleasure is more of a blinding factor than displeasure.
> I do believe, that a better understanding of what "peas" are would
allow a step towards an identification with them.
But I do not believe that a better understanding leads to a deeper
identification which results in pleasure rather than displeasure. I
think pleasure is far more complicated than that.
> However, I believe, that displeasure should entice us to dig
deeper, and by understanding the differences between ours and the
filmmakers ideology (to say one), begin to appreciate and value their
work.
I agree. If we are turned off by something, we should be willing to
dig deeper. But I also think that there comes a moment when it is
time to call off the search.
Peter writes:
> Some would say that positing pleasure as a necessary element for
aesthetic experience is a conservative way to go, e.g., the
minimalist and conceptualist strands in art of the '60s and '70s.
In the current political/cultural climate, I would venture that
opposition to pleasure is the conservative stance. I think it very
much depends on the cultural moment one finds oneself in.
> Some traditions put pleasure pretty low on the aesthetic scale,
such as medieval architecture--the whole point is to inspire awe, not
please.
But aren't these also cultures that see art as being created in
service of religion? Is there any notion of "art for art's sake?" in
pre-Romantic times?
> When you look at Goya's war prints, are you feeling pleasure? On
the level of appreciating formal invention, yes, but most certainly
the horrible depictions are part and parcel of the art, and
registering them as grotesque enters your aesthetic experience.
I may register them as grotesque, but I do not feel them as
grotesque. Just as I may register someone being mutilated on screen,
but do not feel it.
> I think that means feeling revulsion at the representations of torn
flesh, pitiless cruelty, etc. It's not very pleasant, but many have
found these prints supreme art.
I might feel revulsion at torn flesh in real life, not at its
representation. I am not revulsed by the ending of
Mankiewicz's "Suddenly, Last Summer" as cousin Sebastian is
devoured. I am waiting for the aesthetically pleasurable moment when
Catherine's scream awakens her (and the film) from the dream/memory
of what happened that day at Cabeza de Lobo.
Mike writes:
> This pleasure is aesthetic, and involves deep thinking, but it is a
pleasure-oriented cosmos all the same.
Mike points out something I should have said: for me cinematic
pleasure has both an intellectual component as well as an
emotional one.
> When I was a college student taking an Introduction to Music
Appreciation class, the distinguished musicologist who taught the
class told us all, "Remember, few things in life will give you more
pleasure than classical music." He was right.
He was right within a given context. For me it would be that few
things in life give more pleasure than John Coltrane, Branford
Marsalis, and Jason Moran.
> By extreme contrast, the academic study of the novel emphasizes
pain. Critics praise good novels as "wrenching, disturbing,
upsetting, traumatic", etc. Critics seek out the most depressing,
morbid experiences, and try to inflict them on readers.
I wonder if this represents a shift, whereby artists not longer just
want to depict pain, suffering, etc., but want their audience to feel
it as well.
> Film studies are suspended between these two poles. There are
people who emphasize joy and delight in film. But there are also
many, steeped in academic traditions of the novel, who
hate "entertainment", and try to find the most painful film
experiences, treating them as the summit of film art.
The "eat your peas" folk.
> You can watch "Yi Yi", and experience the death of a loved one,
guilt over failing a parent, the tortures of adultery, being fired
from one's job, unrequited love, middle aged angst, being a kid being
sadistically abused by a school teacher, etc.
I must dissent here. I do not experience any of these things as I
watch the film (which I feel is terrific). These experiences are
merely depicted.
Fred writes:
> I dunno, I think we're using "pleasure" too simply.
I agree. While wondering where pleasure fits in, we should also look
at what we mean by pleasure.
> When Mike Hammer slams the drawer on the sleazy doctor's hand, his
scream is mirrored in
the distorted spaces of the film as a whole -- unpleasant, yes, but
also aestheticized in a powerful way, expressions of a distorted and
contorted and upside-down world in which values are lost.
Unpleasant for the character in the film, but not for the audience
watching the fim.
Peter writes:
> The choices are not always between pleasure and pain. They can be
between pleasure and reflection. They can also be between pleasure
and awe—this distinction seems to correspond to the old-fashioned
categories, the beautiful and the sublime. I'm guessing this short
list of "pleasure or x" isn't exhaustive.
Thinking about pleasure and what you have written, why is it
necessary that pleasure have any opposite other than its absence? (I
am admittedly not a fan of binary thinking. I am Jamesian in the
sense that I always believe there is an "and."). I am not displeased
by the films of Douglas Sirk. It is merely that pleasure does not
arise in me when I am watching them.
> I think "appreciation" ought to be pulled apart from "pleasure,"
since you will always experience appreciation of a well-done work of
art, but not pleasure in all cases.
I agree. I think appreciation can occur whether there is pleasure,
displeasure, or neither.
Brian
27051
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 11:06pm
Subject: Re: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, cellar47
--- Blake Lucas wrote:
>
> And Lizabeth Scott lives (literally, I believe).
>
> >
She most certainly does.
http://ehrensteinland.com/htmls/g006/liz.html
She's attended American Cinematheque screenings of
"Desert Fury" and "Pitfall" in recent years, and was
very gracious and charming at each.
Every so often I see her shopping at the Ralph's on
Pico near Beverly Crest.
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27052
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 11:07pm
Subject: Re: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, cellar47
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
> >
> I never understood why everybody raves about
> Scott. She's a
> terrible actress with a silly lisp. Is this OT?
>
You're most definitely camp-challenged, J-P.
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27053
From: LiLiPUT1@...
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 7:24pm
Subject: Re: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, scil1973
In a message dated 5/13/05 3:43:22 PM, jpcoursodon@... writes:
> Seriously, the point is, whether Leonard is homosexual or not is of
> little concern because his sexual orientation doesn't have any impact
> on the film's plot, atmosphere, direction -- which is what really
> counts.
>
For you. The history of homosexuality in the cinema (and elsewhere) is one of
fleeting gestures, stolen glances, gossip and whispers, not plot, atmosphere
and direction (and please, certainly not "evidence"). Does this mean I get
nothing from the latter three? Of course not. But they are not the ONLY (nor
even, at times, the central) pleasures that really count.
Kevin John, a surface reader of depths
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
27054
From: "hotlove666"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 11:31pm
Subject: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, hotlove666
As noted in Hitchcock at Work, it's in Lehman's incomplete first
draft (so much for Landau's statement to me that he dreamed it up and
suggested to Hitchcock), which was submitted to the Production Code
Office, who warned Hitchcock about making Leonard too geffeminate.
This is the same bunch that totally missed gay script referenes re:
Bruno in drafts of Strangers on a Train - I guess the interevening
years had brought a new sophistication. Hitchcock left it in and
didn't have Landau play it effeminately, but he did (if I can believe
anything Landau says) have the actor fitted for a suit made by
Grant's personal tailor, knowing that Grant would recognize the drape
of the jacket and be unnerved. It could also be a doppelganger thing,
as Hitchcock was perfectly aware of Grant's sexuality.
When I asked Lehman recently via mail why they made Ed Lauter a
Mormon and looped a Mormon funeral ceremony at the last minute in
Family Plot, he said he couldn't remember that kind of detail any
more. This is why I prefer dealing w. documents, or at least cross-
checking statements against documents. Studio filmmaking at one time
created the mother of all paper trails, and it's a good idea to
follow it whenever we can. Of course, I'd never have known the suit
story if Landau hadn't told me, but given the fabulation factor, it
now has to be checked in the costume files...
Hitchcock's last duel with the Code folks was NBNW. They made him
loop a line at the end, "Come along Mrs. Thornhill," to show that Eve
and Roger are married. After considering a closeup of their feet
hovering over a suitcase w. a just-married sign in the lower berth
(storyboarded), he stole a c.u. of Saint from the cafeteria scene and
had Grant loop the line. Then he sent a note to production: "We're
going to need a shot of the train going into the tunnel at the end."
27055
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 11:32pm
Subject: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> --- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
> > >
> > I never understood why everybody raves about
> > Scott. She's a
> > terrible actress with a silly lisp. Is this OT?
> >
>
>
> You're most definitely camp-challenged, J-P.
>
>
> I know several people who like her a lot but not at all in a
camp spirit. And I suspect there's nothing campy in Blake's love of
her. Am I mistaken? JPC
> __________________________________
> Yahoo! Mail Mobile
> Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone.
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27056
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 11:42pm
Subject: To Hell and Back jpcoursodon
After watching the end of ANATOMY OF HELL and disliking it as much as
the rest, I watched the long Breillat interview (in French with
subtitles) on the DVD and was absolutely enthralled by everything
Breillat was saying and the way she said it. It's an absolutely
wonderful interview and it troubled me considerably, because I don't
think it can change my feelings about the film, but she sort of made
me ashamed of not responding to her film the way she would like us to
respond. She is so convincing! Such a power of seduction! Totally
different from the person you'd imagine she is from the films. I have
to mull this over some more.
JPC
27057
From: MG4273@...
Date: Fri May 13, 2005 7:50pm
Subject: Re: Auteurs, Canon, Pleasure and Change nzkpzq
One thing that is begining to occur to me. I almost always identify with the
characters on the scren, and feel whatever they are feeling. This works both
for pleasure and for pain.
Maybe other people do not experience films in this same way. An interesting
thought.
On personality tests, I always score extremely high on "empathy" - the
ability to feel what other people are feeling. This is neither good nor bad in
itself, one hastens to add - but it is a very strong trait in me. When the leads in
"Singin in the Rain" sing "Good Morning", I feel their joy. When that girl in
"Yi Yi" feels her neglect with the trash bag killed her grandmother (hope I'm
getting the plot right after a single viewing) I felt the tortures of the
damned. Going through "Yi Yi" felt like being tortured in a dentist's chair,
experiencing all the painful emotions felt by the characters, such as losing your
job, being abused by a teacher, etc.
By contrast, Brian writes: "I do not experience any of these things as I
watch the film (which I feel is terrific). These experiences are merely
depicted."
This would make one's whole experience of the film totally different (and
how!).
It also might explain all the pleasure I seem to feel from "light
entertainment", such as comic whodunit mysteries, music videos, little love stories like
"Win a Date With Tad Hamilton!" When I see a music video, I tend to identify,
say, with the dancers in it, and feel all their joy with the dance,
experiencing the rhythm of the music, the sensuous colors, the whole joy of the dance.
It is an overwhelmingly vivid experience, as if I were dancing myself. It is a
transport to a world of joy.
If other people are not experiencing this, it would explain why they are so
much less interested in seeing music videos than I am.
Mike Grost
27058
From: "Blake Lucas"
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 0:09am
Subject: Re: Desert Fury(Was:North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition,) lukethedealer12
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
> >
> > I know several people who like her a lot but not at all in a
> camp spirit. And I suspect there's nothing campy in Blake's love
of
> her. Am I mistaken? JPC
No. And I'd like to go over every scene and line in her movies with
you JPC to show why I believe she is not only supremely attractive
but a wonderful actress with reserves of depth, vulnerability,
reflection, a quietly yearning quality which I find piercing. And
yes, I also adore her voice.
Of course I realize you have seen her at least as much as I have and
probably more so I know your opinion is no more lightly taken.
David, I knew of her appearance at least at the "Desert Fury"
screening--and couldn't make it that night! That really hurt.
Also because I've never seen that movie on the big screen. Of
course I consider "Pitfall" one of her very best movies.
One more thing occurred to me later about Wendell Corey in "Desert
Fury" which also bears on what Kevin wrote a little while ago about
"stolen glances" and so on. Leonard in NBNW may be a minor character
(or on the line), Holliman and Van Cleef in "The Big Combo" played
characters who were minor for sure, but we remember them and most
especially that they were a gay couple. But Corey in "Desert Fury" is
not a minor character but a major one. While Burt Lancaster plays
the good guy ready to pick up the pieces for Scott when everything
else is inevitably destroyed, and Mary Astor is Scott's interesting
mother, it is Scott, Hodiak and Corey equally who are the main
characters. And despite the seeming prohibition on gayness in
Hollywood films, the whole film is about the fact that Hodiak is
sexually involved with both of the other two. Let's face it, the
adult audience knows there are men who may be drawn into sexual
relationships with people of both sexes at the same time. This
doesn't need to be spelled out. Scott and Corey's attitudes toward
each other are only one thing that makes it crystal-clear. But
one of the most interesting things in the movie to me is that the
male protagonist, Hodiak, is a weak character--in both relationships
it is the other who is the strong, driving force. And while we
might be used to appreciating something like this when it's a woman
(Scott), it's even more interesting in the case of the homosexual,
Corey, in every way the "man" in this relationship. At one point
he says to Hodiak something like "without me, you're nothing." And
it's certainly true.
By the way, we are supposed to name directors when we discuss films.
It was Lewis Allen.
Blake
> > __________________________________
> > Yahoo! Mail Mobile
> > Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone.
> > http://mobile.yahoo.com/learn/mail
27059
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 0:20am
Subject: Re: Re: Desert Fury(Was:North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition,) cellar47
--- Blake Lucas wrote:
But Corey in
> "Desert Fury" is
> not a minor character but a major one. While Burt
> Lancaster plays
> the good guy ready to pick up the pieces for Scott
> when everything
> else is inevitably destroyed, and Mary Astor is
> Scott's interesting
> mother, it is Scott, Hodiak and Corey equally who
> are the main
> characters. And despite the seeming prohibition on
> gayness in
> Hollywood films, the whole film is about the fact
> that Hodiak is
> sexually involved with both of the other two. Let's
> face it, the
> adult audience knows there are men who may be drawn
> into sexual
> relationships with people of both sexes at the same
> time. This
> doesn't need to be spelled out.
Well actually it is spelled out in Hodiak's speech
about how Corey picked him up at the Automat in Tims
Square. I go into this at length in my practially
book-length essay "Desert Fury, Mon Amour." (Which you
can find in "Film Quarterly: 40 Years -- a Selection."
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27060
From: "samfilms2003"
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 1:43am
Subject: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, samfilms2003
> > And Lizabeth Scott lives (literally, I believe).
> She most certainly does.
>
> http://ehrensteinland.com/htmls/g006/liz.html
David's like Alvy Singer in "Annie Hall" --
"I've got Marshall McLuhan right here" ;-)
-Sam
27061
From: Fred Camper
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 2:16am
Subject: Re: Re: Auteurs, Canon, Pleasure and Change fredcamper
In reply to Brian in
http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/a_film_by/message/27026
Me:
"If someone told me that the pleasure they find in Sirk's films lies in
their loud colors and outrageously campy acting and stories, I might
suddenly explain that I had a plane to catch and walk away."
Brian:
"Why? Is there something wrong with that type of pleasure? Are they
lesser forms of pleasure?"
and
"So there are not just differences among pleasures, but hierarchies as
well?"
Yes and yes. I'll have more to say about this and some of your other
points later, but it seems to me a given that there are different forms
and different degrees of pleasure. The view of Sirk I described, and
which I have heard more than once before, doesn't interest me. It seems
like a "taste," rather than an engagement with the profoundly
interlinked systematic structures and themes of his films. I don't see
the difference between this taste and a liking for certain foods or
certain colors. One can find "loud colors" and campy acting and stories
in all manner of junk.
Me, then Brian:
"If so, why have so many across the centuries derived such intense and
visionary pleasures from Homer (even in translation), Chartres
Cathedral, Shakespeare, Bach, Titian?"
"You are imputing causes by pointing out correlations - that is a
logical fallacy. The fact that many people have been inspired by the
same works of art does not tell us anything concrete about either those
works of art or the people."
Sorry, the fact that a few artists have deeply moved many people while
the great majority of artists from any period are forgotten certainly
does offer some pretty convincing evidence about the works and the
people, in my view.
Brian:
"Also, what do you mean when you say something is 'mind-cleansing' and
'transpersonal'?"
I thought I explained this. You feel like you are seeing the world
through the mind of another person, and in a way not idiosyncratic to
your tastes and ideas. Thus you are taken out of yourself. This hardly
ever happens to me "completely" -- I retain some of my tastes and
preferences during the viewing experience -- but the core of the
aesthetic effect lies in this visionary "seizing." It's "transpersonal"
because it could happen to anyone, and doesn't depend on the personality
of the viewer, except insofar as it depends on the ability of the viewer
to lose his personality, which is the point: you lose the specifics of
your tastes and become more like other humans.
Fred Camper
27062
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 2:19am
Subject: Re: Desert Fury(Was:North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition,) jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Blake Lucas"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
> wrote:
> > >
> > > I know several people who like her a lot but not at all in a
> > camp spirit. And I suspect there's nothing campy in Blake's love
> of
> > her. Am I mistaken? JPC
>
> No. And I'd like to go over every scene and line in her movies
with
> you JPC to show why I believe she is not only supremely attractive
A matter of taste, Blake. To me she's not attractive at all. For one
thing I hate her mouth. But this is neither here nor there and has
no place on this serious forum.
> but a wonderful actress with reserves of depth, vulnerability,
> reflection, a quietly yearning quality which I find piercing. And
> yes, I also adore her voice.
Again, matter of taste. Her voice, with the lisp, just makes me
laughs whenever she opens her mouth.
For the record, Tavernier (who wouldn't know camp from a hole in
the ground) thinks she's great.
JPC
27063
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 2:22am
Subject: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "samfilms2003" wrote:
> > > And Lizabeth Scott lives (literally, I believe).
>
> > She most certainly does.
> >
> > http://ehrensteinland.com/htmls/g006/liz.html
>
> David's like Alvy Singer in "Annie Hall" --
> "I've got Marshall McLuhan right here" ;-)
>
> -Sam
David always has a rabbit to pull out of a hat -- that's his Orson
side.
27064
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 2:23am
Subject: Re: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, cellar47
I think it would be fun to run a newspaper!
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "samfilms2003"
> wrote:
> > > > And Lizabeth Scott lives (literally, I
> believe).
> >
> > > She most certainly does.
> > >
> > > http://ehrensteinland.com/htmls/g006/liz.html
> >
> > David's like Alvy Singer in "Annie Hall" --
> > "I've got Marshall McLuhan right here" ;-)
> >
> > -Sam
>
> David always has a rabbit to pull out of a hat --
> that's his Orson
> side.
>
>
>
__________________________________________________
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27065
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 2:28am
Subject: Re: Auteurs, Canon, Pleasure and Change jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
> In reply to Brian in
, except insofar as it depends on the ability of the viewer
> to lose his personality, which is the point: you lose the specifics
of
> your tastes and become more like other humans.
>
> Fred Camper
Fascinating thread, Fred, but how in the world do you "lose" your
personality? This sounds like becoming something out of those pods in
INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. Of course I could understand it giving
it a zen twist (preferably after getting a little high). JPC
27066
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 3:18am
Subject: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> I think it would be fun to run a newspaper!
Someday you'll get your comeuppance, David!
27067
From: "Blake Lucas"
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 3:24am
Subject: Re: Desert Fury(Was:North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition,) lukethedealer12
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
>
> Well actually it is spelled out in Hodiak's speech
> about how Corey picked him up at the Automat in Tims
> Square. I go into this at length in my practially
> book-length essay "Desert Fury, Mon Amour." (Which you
> can find in "Film Quarterly: 40 Years -- a Selection."
>
After I wrote my post, I was out driving around and remembered your
essay "Desert Fury, Mon Amour." I was planning to come back and
inquire about it so you've already answered my question about
where it's collected. I want to read it again.
Naturally, you know the film backwards, much more than I do after
a couple of viewings on TV (but with good color at least). I
appreciate you didn't refute my sense of the dynamics of the
relationships, so feel I did basically get the film, but please tell
me the actual line of dialogue Corey had which was so good (I don't
think it's what I said). It seems to me it was something like (to
Hodiak) "They look at you and they're really seeing me." Is that
about right?
You know, Lizabeth Scott was also scheduled for "Dark City"
screening. We made it to that, but she cancelled. Too bad, because
that film not nearly as good as "Pitfall" and not nearly as
interesting as "Desert Fury."
>
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Yahoo! Mail Mobile
> Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone.
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27068
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 3:48am
Subject: Re: Re: Desert Fury(Was:North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition,) cellar47
--- Blake Lucas wrote:
It seems to me it was
> something like (to
> Hodiak) "They look at you and they're really seeing
> me." Is that
> about right?
>
That's right. Corey is tired of doing everything for
Hodiak and not getting credit for it.
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27069
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 3:49am
Subject: Re: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, cellar47
What does it matter what you say about people?
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
>
> wrote:
> > I think it would be fun to run a newspaper!
>
>
> Someday you'll get your comeuppance, David!
>
>
>
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27070
From: "Henrik Sylow"
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 8:21am
Subject: Re: Anatomy of Hell, anyone? henrik_sylow
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon" wrote:
> Breillat's films have been discussed several times here but I don't
> remember any sustained discussion of this one, which I saw for the
> first time yesterday. I'd like views and opinions. I found it one of
> the most idiotic films I've seen in a long time, on the lofty theme
> of "Men hate women and women hate themselves and sex is hell." The
> first line spoken by the "heroine" gives the tone. She has just
> slashed her wrists (unfortunately for us she survives). A guy walks
> in and asks: "Why did you do that?" She answers: "Because I am a
> woman." And it gets worse.
>
> She hires a gay guy to watch her nude and tell her how disgusting
> she looks. I soon was identifying with the gay guy and feeling
> increasingly repulsed by her whitish body sprawled on a bed like
> some jellyfish. They move very slowly, like in a Duras film, and
> exchange highly literary remarks in such heavily accented French
> that I had to read most of the subtitles... To break the monotony
> the guy sticks a broom handle up her ass (actually it's not a broom
> but some kind of gardening tool; and maybe it's up her vagina,
> that's not clear; Breillat can be so delicate...). He also applies
> lipstick to her labia and asshole. IS THIS A SPOILER? OOPS! I don't
> know what he does next because I turned the thing off to have dinner
> (I have a strong stomach) but I'll know tonight. DON'T MISS THE NEXT
> THRILLING CHAPTER!
>
> JPC
The use of the rake handle and the lipstick is to note, that for him,
the female openings are mere orifices. While she is sleeping, he first
paints the labia, then the rectum, then her mouth. For him, these
openings are not sexually significant, but merely orifices. This is
further noted upon during the second night, during which his fingering
of her vagina produces a leaking liquid (saliva) in her mouth, and
definitively, when he gets a rake and inserts in her ass while she sleeps.
For Breillat, sexuality is above body. In a later scene, the woman
takes a fresh tampon and says,
"Look at it. It has the same size as a penis, I can insert it without
any form of preparation and I don't feel anything doing it. If so, why
should I feel anything having sex? It is not intercourse that matters,
but the act itself."
In my opinion, her to date most brutal deconstruction of sexuality,
where Breillat directly suggests that the physical act of sex has no
meaning.
In "Romance X", Breillat explored the strict distinctions between love
and sex: "How can you love a man who doesn't fuck you?" The response
is significant: "I don't like men who fuck me." In "Anatomy of Hell",
Breillat explores the distinctions between the physical act of sex and
sex.
When I (with provocation in mind) asked Breillat why she was so
obsessed with "disgusting images" (in "Anatomy of Hell", she for
instance suggests that its the same curiosity by which a boy explores
the vagina of a little girl, that he later views a squashed dead bird
with), she basically blew a furious rage at me. To her these
"disgusting" images are of huge importance.
One such is the menstrual blood tea sequence. Here the woman takes a
soaked tampon, makes tea from it and handing it to the man, saying,
"In ancient times, the men would drink the blood of their enemy to
gain their strength. If you really hate me, you must drink my blood."
and later during the first intercourse, his groin and penis is covered
in menstrual blood and he is fascinated with its wetness. Not only
does Breillat hereby suggest, that both disgust and desire is beyond
our control. According to the Catholic Church, menstrual blood is
impure, but if Pagan, it represents fertility. Thus, I read the blood
as catharsis.
About the characters, Adrian in his last post about "Anatomy of Hell"
noted, that one must see them as abstractions. Breillat often makes
her characters into objects that serve only to speak Breillat's own
psychosexual thoughts. Her mise-en-scène becomes very surreal, almost
like late Buñuel: deconstructed thoughts, posing instead of acting. I
would also mean, that their anonymity, only known as "The Man" and
"The Woman", points towards them as abstractions.
Henrik
27071
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 0:58pm
Subject: Re: North by Northwest Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> What does it matter what you say about people?
>
> --- jpcoursodon wrote:
> > --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
> >
> > wrote:
> > > I think it would be fun to run a newspaper!
> >
> >
> > Someday you'll get your comeuppance, David!
> >
> >
> >
> You're some kind of a man, David!
>
> (and if we continue this little game we're gonna get
reprimanded!)
> __________________________________
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27072
From: "jpcoursodon"
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 1:16pm
Subject: Re: Anatomy of Hell, anyone? jpcoursodon
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Henrik Sylow"
wrote:
> In my opinion, her to date most brutal deconstruction of sexuality,
> where Breillat directly suggests that the physical act of sex has
no
> meaning.
>
>
> When I (with provocation in mind) asked Breillat why she was so
> obsessed with "disgusting images" (in "Anatomy of Hell", she for
> instance suggests that its the same curiosity by which a boy
explores
> the vagina of a little girl, that he later views a squashed dead
bird
> with), she basically blew a furious rage at me. To her these
> "disgusting" images are of huge importance.
>
> About the characters, Adrian in his last post about "Anatomy of
Hell"
> noted, that one must see them as abstractions. Breillat often makes
> her characters into objects that serve only to speak Breillat's own
> psychosexual thoughts. Her mise-en-scène becomes very surreal,
almost
> like late Buñuel: deconstructed thoughts, posing instead of
acting. I
> would also mean, that their anonymity, only known as "The Man" and
> "The Woman", points towards them as abstractions.
>
> Henrik
Talk about Spoilers! You've practically described the entire
film, Henrik!
Obviously the film is an 'abstraction" and there is no intention
to provide a narrative let alone any "realism." "The man" and "The
Woman" Breillat says are really "The First Man" and "The First
Woman". The abstraction (if I wrote a review of the film I'd title
it "La Philosophie dans le boudoir")interestingly/shockingly clashes
with the extreme physicality of displayed genitalia and secretions --
the "unwatchable" that Breillat insists IS watchable and must be
shown. There is no doubt that this is an extremely courageous film --
yet I wish it had one tenth of the intelligence and humanity and
warmth that Breillat displays in that absolutely wonderful interview
on the American DVD. Instead of her fascinating insights the film
gives us mostly platitudes on the verbal level. Perhaps she stuck
too closely to her book... JPC
I had missed Adrian's post on the film and will look it up.
27073
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 1:22pm
Subject: Re: Re: Anatomy of Hell, anyone? cellar47
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
>
> Talk about Spoilers! You've practically described
> the entire
> film, Henrik!
> Obviously the film is an 'abstraction" and there
> is no intention
> to provide a narrative let alone any "realism." "The
> man" and "The
> Woman" Breillat says are really "The First Man" and
>