We Live OK: 22 Selections, 07.09 + 10.09

by Ryland Walker Knight

—Lucky clouds (return)
This eddy ends now, and I'd like to share my final collage of imaginary reportage. These weeks have seen me see plenty. However, I worry I saw more inside than out. But that's why I'm finding a line back to a coast—in fact, back to the gold coast. That is, back home. Time to own up to that: I'm a Californian. So with my smile widening, I look forward to playing basketball in the winter, to eating fresh vegies as often as I can, to the PFA's healthy calendar, to trips up to Truckee's snowbanks, to a quick flight south or north, to The Trappist, to pho, to the Mission, to yelping my way around more dance floors, to breaking that habit of you. Here's to the steps taken, and the leaps yet; to footfalls, maybe, turning into feathered-up flights from our hard-earthed dirt and from our tubes of infotainment. We must remember to move amongst! Thus, there might be a little less frequency here (and elsewhere) as the calendar year winds-grinds to a close. Priorities will be re-arranged and if I'm to live alone by my next birthday I will have to make some kind of living happen quicker outside this site.

So, enjoy this latest and last collection over at VINYL IS IMAGES.

—I see your light touch my eyes.

Reminder: Straub-Huillet (and Ophüls) this weekend.

by Ryland Walker Knight

While it feels funny to shill for no good reason other than sheer nerd excitement, I am really thrilled at what's on the horizon. Thus: Friday at the Walter Reade theatre there's a 2-for-1 double bill that any self-aware cinephile (such as yours truly) would be remiss to skip: Straub-Huillet's The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach and Max Ophüls' La Ronde. Both films intrigue me for a variety of reasons but I must cop to the fact that I'm more excited about the chance to see another Straub-Huillet film on a big screen after falling so heedlessly in love with the first and only other feature of theirs that I have had the pleasure to see (Sicilia!, which I wrote about last spring). It would be plain dumb to be blasé about seeing another Ophüls on a big screen, so with the promotional aid-motivation, it makes a lot of sense to just dive in and enjoy that big and loud as well. But this isn't just some programming lark, mind you, it's a tribute, too. Richard Roud died 20 years ago and his stamp, though faint in name-drop terms, remains an ink blot on our movie-going as can't-fail compass J. Hoberman attests: "Program director (and then just director) of the New York Film Festival from 1963 through 1987, Richard Roud was one of the most influential cine-tastemakers to ever give New York the benefit of his sensibility—an early, loyal champion of such once-outré artists as Robert Bresson, Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette, Agnès Varda, Sergei Paradjanov, Dusan Makavejev, and R.W. Fassbinder, to name but a few." If my meager patronage is a vote of appreciation, I'm all for saying "Thanks." Those are some names to give to the world. (Or, at least, this little world I like to inhabit.)

On Sunday, as a bonus, the Walter Reade will screen Straub-Huillet's Moses and Aaron at 2pm, but that ticket costs $35, and apparently New Yorker Films will be releasing the film on DVD next week for a shade less cash. So I may skip that one. Still, that's probably something to see big, too, while the opportunity presents itself. Luckily, a friend of mine says, the Straub-Huillet pictures are all pretty sexy bookings guaranteed to attract a crowd (of fellow formalist goofs like me) in New York so there should be plenty more opportunities to see their emulsion shine in my time ahead here. For now, though, I'm pretty happy with what Friday should bring. Here's a sneak peak at the opening shot of La Ronde:

A matter of scale and color: Lola Montes

by Ryland Walker Knight

Max Ophuls' final film, the legendary Lola Montes, will grace Bay Area screens starting November 19th: at San Francisco's Castro Theatre, at San Rafael's Smith Rafael and at Berkeley's Rialto Elmwood. I saw it at the Castro. I cannot stress the importance of size enough. On such a grand scale as the Castro offers, all those screens Ophuls shoots through—like curtains, gates, stove pipes—become supple folds in the conjunction of space; his cinema of things is too full to be seen small. Another thought: I couldn't quite shake how much Paul Thomas Anderson seems to inherit from Ophuls' roving, snaking camera that hovers through life's stages. Also, color. Lots of lots of color—as punctuation, as affect, as paint in the image, as a reminder (at every moment) that your eyes are being directed. This issue seems crucial, and unexplored in any explicit terms in my piece, which can be found at The Auteurs' Notebook. I trust some morsels will shine through my hi-jinks.


[Martine Carol was teh hottness. Bonus!]