SFIFF54 #4: A Useful Life

by Ryland Walker Knight

Federico Veiroj's A Useful Life is a black and white short feature (only 67 minutes) that doesn't need your eyes to be excellent but your eyes could only help its cause since its main point is a flip on the title of Dave Kehr's new book: movies matter. Not only that, our reparatory houses matter no matter what somebody with a microphone* tells you. Matter of fact, this movie's got rather simple aims but it's also got enough love for the movies that any cinephile will likely fall in love with it. The style echoes Bresson's presentational purity (this desk, this bag, this staircase) and the film is full of so many references that they're too many to name here** but the two that matter most are pretty tough to miss.

First, as hinted by a title card up front (the entire credits precede the film), there's a speech culled from Mark Twain about lying and the value of lying in a world of lies delivered by our main man from the cinematheque, Jorge (played by Uruguayan film critic Jorge Jellinek), in a law classroom when he nods, "Yes," to the query, "Are you the substitute teacher?" He finishes his speech (I wish I could quote it or find the passage online) as the real substitute teacher enters the classroom and leaves without confrontation. No one stops him. No one should. Besides, he's not the only one having fun in the scene: the student who asked him to take a role he was not meant for understands his practical joke and she laughs from her front row seat.

The second quote involves our man, alone, on a white staircase, trying out some Fred Astaire moves—up and down and around the steps—making himself smile for a good few minutes in an unbroken shot. It's truly a joyful moment, his movements filling the frame with an energy of something like discovery and everything like pleasure; that is, he's having a ball playing with this world. But it's not cloying because our man is more clumsy than graceful, moving in spurts, his hands still as slack at his sides as when he trudges Montevideo's streets or the hallways of his dying/dead home of cinema. It's not learning how to walk—he does that fine—, it's learning how to make use of what he learned in the dark, which is as good a classroom for life as any other arena. After all, the pick up line that works for Jorge isn't, "Care for a coffee?" Rather, with a bunch of teeth flashing: "Want to see a movie?"

* or an impressive New York apartment, or a lot of cash to withhold, or an institution's denial of said funds to hide behind

** in part because I could not tell you what other movies were mined for a lot of the sweeping score on the soundtrack

Represent Repertory #3: Tiers on tires, on tableaux

by Ryland Walker Knight

—Nothing?
Really, if you didn't read Brian's Tati preview, you should. He's got all the links you need and then some, including this one, which points to a translation by Bert Cardullo, complete with introductory table setting, of Bazin's review of M. Hulot's Holiday at Bright Lights. I missed the PFA screening on Thursday because of a certain poodle's stubborn ways and the resulting headache that installed but I am hoping to maybe trek up to the Rafael this week to catch it since that theatre is even better, and easily better than the YBCA screening room and the Red Vic (Jan 28 and Feb 3/4 respectively), not to mention the fact that, despite certain impulses (and my reputation?), I don't want to spend all day Saturday, January 30th, at the PFA.

I do, however, want to spend some time there on that day because, in addition to all the Tati going on around town these first two months of twenty-ten, the PFA will be hosting a Val Lewton series. Last summer I watched a bunch of the films via Netflix, but I've never seen them on a big screen so I'm pretty damned excited for that light and those shadows to meet my eyes all emulsified. What's more, the series is structured around double bills, which seems particularly apt given the B-movie status/history of Lewton's catalog. (Also, as many of you know, I'm a fan of that film-going format.) To a certain extent, I plan to mimic my Dreyer and Resnais format/s for this series, so expect some enthusiastic notes once the series starts next weekend, on the 22nd, with one of the best pairs imaginable: Cat People followed by The Seventh Victim. Not only are both films brisk (neither tops 75 minutes), they're plain bizarre—especially Robson's Victim, which I did not do justice to back at first blush. Flip-side: I'm particularly proud of this Cat People image essay. More to come for sure.

Though I may miss the James Benning night at YBCA on Friday, February 26th, I am marking the Nathaniel Dorsky evening earlier that week, on the 23rd at the PFA, as a must-attend. First billed as a trio, the night is now a full quartet of films. I've been very excited to see Sarabande and Winter since they debuted at TIFF 2008 and spawned a number of great articles, including a pair from The Notebook: Darren Hughes' interview with Dorsky and David Phelps' consideration of Sarabande (from its NYFF showing). If I play the game well enough, I might be able to interview Dorsky as well as have the chance to write about his newer works ahead of the pack as (I'm guessing, since he's bringing them with him) the second pair of films on the program that evening, titled Compline and Aubade, will be enjoying their Bay Area premieres. (I'll get back to you on all that, but, for now know that it's all very exciting. Especially since I've got my own brand-spankin-new copy of Devotional Cinema already broken in, already not-so-spankin-new.

Finally, to round things out, there will be a reprise of Hou Hsiao-hsien's City of Sadness on Saturday February 20th, which follows a putatively rare Ozu the night before, a silent gangster melodrama from 1930 called That Night's Wife. I hope to see both. But now, on this rather gorgeous day, I need to go for a run before I catch Jour de fête a little later on across the Bay.

Represent Repertory #2: Silent sight magnified colors, wipes

by Ryland Walker Knight

—Get in line
Though the Resnais series at the PFA is ending shortly, with tomorrow night's program of shorts and next Tuesday's screening of La guerre est finie, there are still some things on the horizon to get excited about. There's a few more oh-nine sights across the bay, but more importantly, maybe (because, lucky me, I live on this side of the Bay these daze), are some things at the Castro.

First, this Saturday, the 12th, there's the all-day winter event put on by the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. Though there are breaks, it's a full 12-hour block of films, complete with live accompaniment, and I hope to attend each screening since I've only seen one of the featured films before (the Keaton), and that only on a television set. There really is no comparison for seeing these films in an auditorium like the Castro, as was proved to me a couple summers ago (read more here and here), even if I'd often prefer way less live accompaniment and kitschy anachronisms/laugh tracks. Not only because it's on film, and the flicker matters, but because of the size. It's a real palace in there. Further, they're showing some really cool sounding pictures that all highlight the cinema's capacity to document:

• 11:30 AM, Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness [Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1927] A film shot entirely on location in Thailand, it's a precursor to King Kong without the stop-animation.
  
• 2:00 PM, J'accuse [Abel Gance, 1919] The epic, 162-minute pacifist picture of The Great War has long been unseen in its original construction here in the U.S. so this is quite a rare opportunity to see this (equally epic) restoration.
  
• 7:00 PM, Sherlock Jr. [Buster Keaton, 1924] That brisk comedy about the comedy of interpretation, and its frequent failure through projection, should shine bright. Further, it'll be introduced by Keaton's granddaughter, and there will be live foley, too, which might prove its own set of jokes both good and bad.
  
• 8:00 PM, or so The Goat [Buster Keaton and Malcolm St. Clair, 1921] I've never seen this short, though it's available on YouTube, but apparently it's another identity comedy (this one of the mistaken variety), and that can only lead to good gags, and chase scenes.
  
• 9:15 PM, West of Zanzibar [Tod Browning, 1928] Another Lon Chaney vehicle sure to get under everybody's skin since, right off the bat, his character is paralyzed fighting with his rival, Lionel Barrymore, and thereafter goes by "Dead Legs" as he plots his revenge for 18 years.

Hopefully I can add a few more cogent thoughts post-festival about what stung and what tickled from the day. You can probably bet on some of the same from my buddy Brian Darr, who not only writes Hell On Frisco Bay (and tweets up a storm @HellOnFriscoBay) but also serves as one of the festival's researchers and writers. —Inside, furtive, teasing tip: next summer's festival should be even more spectacular than previous years. —Further reading: the Silent Fest's blog, with notes from Brian and others.


What else? Oh, nothing but a bunch of Hitchcock. The real highlight for me and my boy Danny will be seeing Marnie on 35mm on the 17th since we both missed it during The Late Films. But there's also Vertigo the next day, and more than too many to choose from the other days, though I'll be prioritizing Preminger on the 19th for Skidoo and Bonjour Tristesse back over for what will probably be my final trip to Berkeley for the calendar year. If you happen to see me/us around town at one of these screenings, don't be afraid to say, "Hello." Even if I'm reading, chances are I'm paying more attention to other people talk around me than to the words entering my eyes.

Represent Repertory #1: Fight sadness

by Ryland Walker Knight

The day after I returned to the Bay Area, I saw the new PFA film calendar online and tweeted twice (1, 2) about it. But that doesn't quite do justice to how cool a "Welcome Home!" these next two, final months of 2009 promise to be in my backyard cinematheque. A year ago I had quite a time covering the PFA, indulging in almost everything available by Jia Zhang-ke and Jean Eustache among other treats. This near-winter season I have the luck to catch a number of Alain Resnais and Otto Preminger films as well as four by Miklós Jancsó and a slew of features starring Ingrid Bergman. However, this go-round I hope to expand my horizons and attend both of the remaining Alternative Visions programs: next week, on November 10th there will be a series of recent a-g works by a variety of filmmakers and on December 1st, Harun Farocki's latest, In Comparison, will have its Bay Area premiere. I can't say I'm all that intrigued by the series on torture, but I do hope in the months and calendars to come that I look beyond the big-ticket items. That said, what a fun bunch of hit-makers!

This weekend sees the start of the Resnais series with a Friday night showing of Last Year At Marienbad, which I'm overdue for again, and always happy to see on a big screen (though I should take a look at the Criterion disc for that short film about plastic). The series skips Hiroshima, but there are a few from the 80s and it closes with La guerre est finie, so it should all be a fine primer for whenever Sony Pictures Classics decides to release Wild Grass on the gold coast. (Also worth reading: Mark Rappaport in Rouge.)
———> Friday Update: Jonathan Rosenbaum kicks of Moving Image Source's series of articles on this traveling Resnais retrospective with a piece called "The Unknown Statue"

I've already seen a number of Preminger films before, and already a few here in 2009—most notably Bonjour Tristesse, which was an easy revelation. But aside from Bunny Lake Is Missing, which I saw at MoMA with Danny and Miriam, I've not seen any on a big screen. Most excited for Skidoo, probably, of the films I haven't seen, but I'm eager to see Jean Seberg pout and Jimmy Stewart play piano in Cinemascope as well. Not to mention those Dana Andrews boxes of pride and alarming prize-snatching from the '40s. And, what the hell, Saint Joan can't be all bad, right? For one, it seems like you have to see every possible iteration of that story if you call yourself a cinephile; for another, it's an 18 year old Seberg for Heaven's sake. Chris Fujiwara's upcoming book should be good, but until then here's a Senses of Cinema profile he wrote.

Lastly, last night was the beginning of the Ingrid Bergman program. I did not attend the selection of rarities. Nor do I know if I'll take in all those 1930s Swedish joints, despite their fetish-object obscurity. I do, however, plan on attending all three of the screenings of the pictures she made with Roberto Rossellini as, get this, I've never seen one of his films. Stromboli and Europa '51 play on successive days late this month (the 28th and 29th, a weekend) while Voyage in Italy plays a week later (Dec 6th, a Sunday). Phelps assures me this trio should be a great start on my way to discovering all there is to relish about what kept Tag Gallagher busy filling his massive tome (850 pages?!). Worth guessing that Rivette's letter to the Rossellini will hold yet more resonance after those screenings.

But the PFA isn't the only rep screen in town, of course. Of course there's more than a few across the water in San Francisco. In fact, there's one right down town at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, where Joel Shepard keeps programming really cool things. I had to miss last week's one-shot showing of United Red Army, despite Danny calling it "unmissable," because of a family commitment. But I have no such ties tonight: Hou Hsiao-hsien's City of Sadness has a title that can turn off a lot of potential ticket buyers—and that's before you know it's over two and a half hours long, or made by a Taiwanese maestro known for long takes—but, silly me, I'm giddy for it. In fact, I'm the only person goofy enough to click "Attending" on the event's Facebook page. And, if you miss it tonight, there's a second show Sunday afternoon. That said, I know Brian will be joining me there—in fact, I'm planning on it—and I don't doubt a few other rep regulars will pop their bespectacled heads into the screening room.
———> Saturday Update: Brian wrote up a little something about the evening, and the film, and HHH, at his blog.
———
I may have missed out on a number of cool New York film events this summer, and I know I'll yearn to take in some cinema with all my friends back there as time marches on, but for right now I'm pretty jazzed to be here. I figure: I'm here, I'm planning on planting for the foreseeable future, I might as well go hard on the scene. After all, one of the pleasures of being a cinephile here, versus in Brooklyn, is that I have a social life outside the cinema; that movies are my thing, and that I can dip in and out of them as I please. I like being the biggest nerd in a group of friends who host wild dance parties and tussle in the streets and play basketball drunk. We're not "husbands" yet, nor do any of us even think that way right now, but, let me tell you, I definitely feel more alive around these guys—more prone to steal shoes and spill wine, to fall on the couch or spin on the hardwood floor. Besides, I'm not the only Pierrot fou in our crew. Nor am I hot doggin it all that often.