Convergence for your barreling without blinders (5/6/11)

by Ryland Walker Knight

—On and up and forward!

Viewing Log #69: Hello stranger [1/10/11 - 1/17/11]

by Ryland Walker Knight

• Eccentricities of a Blonde [Manoel de Oliveira, 2009] All these frames—of light, of wood, of windows, of narrative—and the one that matters is only made tangible as exchange. That is, at bottom economics determine the course (already fixed, given the train that houses the story) of where such an obsession can go. Time's funny, too, in this leap-frog structure that sees daylight blink away, making the brief running time a kind of metonymy for bigger films by Senhor Oliveira; but the funniest thing is that a jig and a beard are all you need to see a man as younger. By contrast, the metonymy applied to "a blonde" and her "beautiful Chinese fan" is the saddest thing; that she's only seen for these things, that our narrator can only see these things. Her final posture of defeat—discarded like that poker chip thrown (that she stole), head hung to the floor in shadow and legs open almost in surrender—inverts her image from that sanctioned pedestal in the window, a final evacuation of the frame and of the image since we see neither her blonde shimmer nor her twirling fan. Money dooms love, indeed, as does thievery, the third metonymy at play: she stole his time, it blinked away. [Did any women write about this film?]
  
• Bellow [Christopher Tirrell, 2010] Watch it here. Honestly can't remember how I found this, but it was sitting open in a tab for a few days before I watched it. Certainly a fine example of a 5Dmk2 doing film-like work, though its low light images are rather particularly digital (which isn't a bad thing), making the sound a bigger part of the argument (as if the title didn't point there). In any case, I dug how obfuscating it was, how it seemed like a test was being passed but at the same time how these little compositions added up to something like an argument; an argument about the sudden rush of the world, either by accident or by necessity, and about a fire on the horizon of life, though its flames are lit not for light but for signaling. Which is to say for alerting the world to your mark, which is a funny metaphor for emulsion given this digital bend.
  
  
• Hudson Hawk [Michael Lehmann, 1991] # Some gchatting about Die Hard 2 with Haz resulted in a Bruce Willis investigation, which resulted in my giving this a go, wherein I lasted five minutes before I fell asleep.
  
  
• The Wrong Man [Hitch, 1956] Were I not so tired when I saw this, I would have more to say beyond: amazing, this is the grim kind of movie that Hitch was certainly capable of but rarely made given his love of a good joke. (Any bit of levity, no matter how brief, seems "worth it" to him in movies like, say, the Tippi two, which are often alarming but somehow not all-the-way horrifying.) That is, this flick is almost the anti-NXNW the way Fonda is some odd inverse of Cary Grant, or the way a pool of mud can reflect the sky. I'll hafta watch it again.
  
• Lifeboat [Hitch, 1944] I'd heard some cinephile types extol the cinematics of this one but I was always skeptical. Turns out: they were right and I was wrong! That said, this was the one I was super excited to see this last week of Hitch at the Castro. The print was in lousy condition, but the crowd was big and generally alright (some idiot snickers are to be expected) for this odd little capsule of a movie. Some of it's pat, sure, and dated; but its employment of the close-up is fabulous (punctuation, affect, a general timing device to break up the space/time) as is the relative lack of score.
  
  
• The Strange Case of Angelica [Manoel de Oliveira, 2010] Very simple, and slow, but I was charmed by its near-naive devotion to the image. That is, it almost takes on the devotion of its twin director-audience surrogate. What keeps it this side of hokey isn't just its commendable seriousness but that long scene of breakfast yacking amongst the other boarders, none of whom can fathom this young man's swing into his own head, nor his interest in certain images. Which makes me think the film is about, to a certain degree, the divide between the cinephile and the (excuse me) regular Joe-Jane voyeur: most images for most people serve strictly as a sociological referent, not a spiritual one. (Reminds me of something Ignatiy wrote about skipping a sunrise to watch a de Toth (or whatever) because we movie nuts need to see another life lived, which is of course something I've pushed back on in the past half a year or more, but also something I cannot escape. Nor should I try to mask that desire since it motivates just about any human aiming a camera to make images.) This is another way of saying we initiated always-already believe in a beyond, and we often want to join it.

Viewing Log #61: Nothing's arrears [11/22/10 - 11/28/10]

by Ryland Walker Knight

• The second season of Mad Men [2008]. Compromise is the name of the game in this season. Life's full of it, or so it would appear in Matthew Weiner's world of tropes, and the joy to be had here isn't flight; it's here, if anywhere. The schematism of the writing in this show is really something. It often works, really. But it's also so tidy in the structure that characters, however well drawn, are reduced to ideas. I think it has to do with the period setting as much as the actual writing. Something about signifiers that I'm too lazy to read closer here beyond a favorite damning word of many so-called intellectuals like myself: over-determination. The allure of the show may be its sheen and its ludicrously gorgeous cast (television's a medium of faces at its best and at its worst), but I keep watching because of those moments when things fudge and because there's way less exposition in this season than last. For instance, the low-light of the season, which I lead with above: Joan's rape. It's a terrifying scene in part because it's about competing perceptions, and because of its final dissolve, which is easily the most striking image so far in the show. Joan's looking at her future in that shot: an idle man waiting for his mess to be cleaned. And I don't think my sympathies for Joan and her continued belittlement over the course of these thirteen episodes stems from Christina Hendricks' beauty but her talent at quivering, and my amazement at what these writers want to put her character through in order to counterpoint Peggy's ascension. It's no secret that Peggy's the biggest success (so far) because she's self reliant. What's doubly amazing is that she is, in fact, our model for America in the show, which may be its home run trot in the end. She loves popsicles, she asks for what she wants, she believes in a loving God, she's great at her job, she continues to out-do herself, and she's open to life for all her tight-lipped interactions with the world. Don's fascinating and Hamm's beautiful, too, but his "arc" is the hanger the suit drapes from, as that line in San Pedro attests; no, this show belongs to its ladies, including both Mrs. Drapers. Can't wait to see how Betty—that dingbat—fords the future.
  
  
• Inglourious Basterds [QT, 2009] # I do love this movie, lumpy though it may be, and the BluRay looks pretty incredible. The colors aren't quite celluloid rich but they still impress the eye at interesting wavelengths. Plus, the editing in this movie tickles synapses so well. (And not just bc RIP S.M.) Awful close to a masterpiece.
  
  
• Shadow of a Doubt [Alfred Hitchcock, 1943] # Well, the first half hour. Then we went to dinner, to give thanks. (Chloe wasn't impressed, by the way, though she did find Cotten's drawl creepy.)
  
  
• The second half of the first season of Mad Men [2007]. Seems like an unavoidable set-up season, with plenty to play out, but there were some moments I really dug: Betty shouldering the BB gun without a shred of affect save the smoke from her cigarette, that way John Slattery can be a total asshole but still charming, Joan's/C.Hendrick's eye brimming, Peggy's rise, Harry Crane, and the first glimpses of Duck Phillips' brand of creep. Not to mention Don's ability to, well, be a man despite also being another brand of louse prone to self-delusion and good old fashioned alcoholism.

—Come on back from way out west

Viewing Log #26: No, not caprice: it takes idle time. [12/21/09 - 12/27/09]

by Ryland Walker Knight

—Pride: pp.14-15

• A Serious Man [Coens, 2009] I just tweeted: "A SERIOUS MAN is so scary it hurts. Just about the most nihilistic film I've ever seen. Like NO COUNTRY times BURN AFTER READING to the nth." And I think it's kind of good? Don't quite know yet, but I do know that to toss it off as simply just nasty is to not reckon the nasty. In fact, I'd say that's exactly what they're predicting you'll do; what they might say is a "problem" at large. I don't think they're advocating a blind eye. The scary thing is that they might be advocating a bullet brunch. Or, that some lives aren't just quiet desperation: some lives are, in fact, pointless. Whether you eat the bullet is up to you, of course, but it's a debate you have to have every day. Luckily, or so it would appear, each of these guys has "somebody to love" and that makes them choose this world every morning. I walked out desperate for life. I should probably write some more about this one. Or, at the least, have a few good talks over a few good beers with a few good men I trust and love.
  
  
• Inglourious Basterds [Quentin Tarantino, 2009] # Wound up watching the digital copy in full. Looked good, but it was too easy to minimize while snacking.
  
• Black Book [Paul Verhoeven, 2006] # On a rainy and ugly day, I thought I'd see some real struggle and some real womanhood. [click here.]
  
  
• Inglourious Basterds [Quentin Tarantino, 2009] # Started it on my computer, then later in the day looked at the Blu Ray. Looked great, of course, but, as I tweeted, this movie demands celluloid's texture. Motes don't quite mote, and smoke won't quite curl, the same in digital's clarity.
  
• 2001 [Stanley Kubrick, 1968] # Works really well on Blu Ray; so alien, such a painting. I skipped around a lot and saw some beautiful things. "Jupiter And Beyond" is something wholly new, something Avatar can't touch (in any medium).
  
• North by Northwest [Alfred Hitchcock, 1959] # I dozed, but the Blu Ray's colors were out of control beautiful: all those greens popped so loud against all that grey.
  
• Le chant de styrène [Alain Resnais, 1958] # Off the Marienbad Blu Ray, watched without the soundtrack, which made it that much less representational and more just a bunch of color and movement plays.
  
  
• Black Book [Paul Verhoeven, 2006] Carice van Houten isn't only a pretty face, a total babe, but she's also a damn good (and game) actress. It's kind of crazy how good this movie is—and that I never heeded suggestions that I go see it in theatres—crazy in that way where you shock yourself at how much you love something. (The movie's pretty shocking, too, of course.) The holiday week forced me to break up the movie, which is a bummer, but it's so strong scene-to-scene—with almost every single interaction a bit of two-face; almost everything's about performance and/or artifice in some fashion or another—that it doesn't hurt the film too much to see it in pieces. It also helps that Verhoeven is such a pulpy goof who makes straight up entertaining movies. (Since I'm in a hierarchical mindset these daze as the decade winds down, I also want to say that 2006 was an especially strong year for this decade; and this movie's right up there on my list.)
  
  
• Taken [Pierre Morel, 2008] Plenty stupid. But the right kind of calories for dinner. Kinda makes me excited for this piece of junk. Funny that Zach threw up some notes the same day.
  
• The Girlfriend Experience [Steven Soderbergh, 2009] Tight little package. Sometimes funny, sometimes not, mostly a mirror for its often affectless actress and that wild time of October '08. Good lunchtime flick. My man GK kills his scene. Maybe better than I'm allowing it, honestly, in that it's got a mission and it nails it. (Cough.) I mean, it hammers her home (or not) in more ways than one, though it's also a tad one-note and defeatist.

—Get lit up already

Viewing Log #25: Get on the bus [12/14/09 - 12/20/09]

by Ryland Walker Knight

• North by Northwest [Alfred Hitchcock, 1959] # All in all, a gas. Simply one of the most fun movies of all time. And smart, too. Stanley Cavell would have you believe that this picture, by consistently referencing Hamlet, is Hitch telling you he's as good at making movies as Shakespeare was at writing plays. If you run with the idea that, as a film obsessed with performance, and whose plot spurs on from a poisoning at town's end, in a hamlet called Glen Cove, as we see "TOWNSEND" spelled on screen and pronounced "Towns-end" by Grant, then this makes sense.
  
  
• Paprika [Satoshi Kon, 2006] # Trippy and funny and scary, as ever. I still want Soft Pack to remix the opening credits song.
  
  
• Vertigo [Alfred Hitchcock, 1958] # Too bad the print was a 1996 restoration antique and some scenes were too dark. But, still, gorgeous and haunting, as ever. Danny said, "Every single shot is sad." And he's right. Jimmy-Scottie's the worst detective in the world and it shows right off the bat—he even says so!—"It's not my line..."—which makes us complicit in the worst case of not-seeing this side of Jim Crow. My entire body hurt walking out of this one this time.
  
• Avatar [James Cameron, 2009] More to come in a dedicated post both for the simple fact that it might garner some traffic and also because I thought the thing was, well, kind of awesome. And, just watch, it'll win Best Picture. [click here]
  
  
• Au hasard Balthazar [Robert Bresson, 1966] # Sometimes I feel compelled to immediately watch some Bresson after some Hitchcock. Can't explain it. But this movie rules, duh. I fell asleep almost instantaneously.
  
• Marnie [Alfred Hitchcock, 1964] # Still so frightening. That shot of Marnie's mom ill-lit atop the stairs, beckoning her to dinner, gives me shivers as she struggles back down those stairs, one shuffle-grunt at a time. The print was beautiful. [A quick hit.]
  
  
• Law of Desire [Pedro Almodovar, 1987] # Genuinely sad and maybe Pedro's best movie. I continue to find it hilarious how America never understood the real treasure that is Antonio Banderas: he's completely crazy. There's a reason Pedro kept casting him as an amor loco. He's so pretty that you believe he's dumb enough to follow his heart to such idiotic, devoted, mostly unrequited ends each and every time.
  
  
• La guerre est finie [Alain Resnais, 1966] A dead-end, all dopey with dreams of revolution long since calcified; nobody works for good, or achieves much of it. All the game's a jumble. The young bend around anarchy and the old hold tight old night moves. Yves Montand just beds babes with a frown and talks around his life, one scene using one name and then another scene plying another name, eventually slipping nearer that grave he's evaded so long. His star, his guiding light so he says, is fading with the age. [Here's the final '09 recherche.]

Stop the colors

by Ryland Walker Knight

i.

—print it

ii.


—momma-daughter

iii.



—wobbly oval,

iv.


—heed me

v.

—queer for liars

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.

Viewing Log #6: After midnight, searching [8/3/09 - 8/9/09]

by Ryland Walker Knight

—Whatever this world can give to me

• Notorious [Alfred Hitchcock, 1946] # Yearning to hear those words, to find a way back from poison, how to restore faith. He says it early: Actions speak louder.
  
• The Leopard Man [Jacques Tourneur, 1943] Fine vignettes of terror to instigate a lot of early "gaze" theory, but it doesn't hang together all that well. Still, each "hunt" is gripping and frightful.
  
• Who Killed Who? [Tex Avery, 1943] Sunday morning cartoons discovered on youtube after reading a Rosenbaum entry way too early. I made note of these over on the tumblr microsite. Watching these in kind of rapid succession kind of gave me a headache but I was laughing a lot, too.
  
• The Shooting of Dan McGoo [Tex Avery, 1945] click
  
• Red Hot Riding Hood [Tex Avery, 1943] click
  
• Little Rural Red Riding Hood [Tex Avery, 1949] click
  
  
• Duplicity [Tony Gilroy, 2009] Not as knotty as some would have you believe, but easily sexy and fun and a little smart and, most surprising, none of it's done with condescension. Gilroy's not hiding any so-called "twist," either, with that credit sequence finger pointing or the emerging ("fractal") structure.
  
  
• I Love You Man [John Hamburg, 2009] About as apt a double bill as can be imagined. This movie makes me feel good and I'm not ashamed one iota. I don't care if it's a simple thing; it works. Maybe more words will come of this.
  
• Shaun of the Dead [Edgar Wright, 2004] # "Alright, gay..." There's a real picture of friendship couched inside this zom-rom-com, which makes it easy for me to get nostalgic for a few worlds I've lived in (not just the most recently departed). But, beyond that, it was nice to see again how smart the movie really is at all events. —So many long takes!
  
  
• The Body Snatcher [Robert Wise, 1944] Just the beginning bit. Karloff is great, but I was tired and the Tourneur is real hard to follow. (In fact, I looked back at the zombies instead.)
  
• I Walked with a Zombie [Jacques Tourneur, 1943] # Hadn't seen since seeing those Costa pictures. What a tight, humble movie. What night, what walking, what tall grass and what big eyes. In what darkness do we see?
  
  
• A Man Escaped [Robert Bresson, 1956] # As hopeful as anything. Like comfort food, only healthier.
  
  
• The Curse of the Cat People [Gunther von Fritsch and Robert Wise, 1944] Kind of silly, though occasionally pretty. No real consequences here.
  
• Cat People [Jacques Tourneur, 1942] # A standby for all time. The dimensions of desire are deep and wide and violent. More said with pictures.

Convergence for his sentinel descent (7/20/09)

by Ryland Walker Knight

—for Steve

Viewing Log #1: Settling OK [6/24/09 to 7/4/09]

by Ryland Walker Knight

[I hope to make this a weekly feature, for me as much as for you, since it seems I'm able to watch a lot more over here, and I'd like to track my thought a little better than simply within my moleskins since, in theory, among other things, the internet is forever. And I don't want to use Twitter for this for some reason. I must say: watching all these, that is being this indulgent, has been super fun.]

• Laura [Otto Preminger, 1944] Knotty and endlessly interpretable. One of those movies you can tell straight away is sure to be a classic. Also, the whodunit is hardly a hard puzzle, and that is hilariously on point.
• Christmas in July [Preston Sturges, 1940] # Kind of perfect, and surprisingly pictorial for Sturges. Really appreciate both how prol-trumpeting and how brisk the picture winds up: luck is swift, and stretches beyond class; in fact, it may even leaves class behind. Perfect for the 4th.

• Ishtar [Elaine May, 1987] Really doesn't deserve the bad rap. Elaine May is smarter than most movie people, especially the brand of comedy coming out of Ho'wood now. All her pictures are about the world, not just bedrooms.
• Ma Vie Sexuelle... [Arnaud Desplechin, 1996] # (scattered twenty minutes) For fun, but chiefly for an image.
• Daisy Kenyon [Otto Preminger, 1947] This made me sad. Dana Andrews is good, and Joan is something else, but Henry Fonda is spectacular. Also, I hate phones, too.

• Public Enemies [Michael Mann, 2009] # Second time was better. More soon elsewhere.

• Esther Kahn [Arnaud Desplechin, 2000] # (twenty more minutes) For an ongoing project.

• Holiday [George Cukor, 1938] # Oh, I want that life. Cary Grant, man, is undoubtedly the best.

• Transformers 2: Rise of the Fallen [Michael Bay, 2009] I said plenty, if not too much over here.
• Marnie [Alfred Hitchcock, 1964] # (scattered hour or so) Was interrupted a lot. Its formal rigor still amazes me.
• Rebecca [Alfred Hitchcock, 1940] # Too long, too talky. Still, some great stuff, as ever, but Selznick's fingers are felt too much.
• Bonjour Tristesse [Otto Preminger, 1958] Simply fabulous. So wobbly and ironic. Nivens is too, too good for his own (the movie's) good. And Seberg... why hello.

• The Passionate Friends [David Lean, 1949] Better than Brief Encounter. Yup, I said it. I mean, come on, this one has Claude Rains. Perfect for early AM grogginess and transitional sadness.

• Esther Kahn [Arnaud Desplechin, 2000] # (maybe twenty minutes) For an ongoing project.

• A New Leaf [Elaine May, 1971] # One of the great films, I'm fairly certain. Why can't there be more black as hell comedies? I'd like to write more about this one, and about comedy in general, and why the best ones organize money in complicated ways.

Convergence for a Sunday send off (5/10/09)

by Ryland Walker Knight

10 Personal Touchstones in American Cinema

by Ryland Walker Knight

[Originally posted at the curator corner, where you can read the full post.]

VINYL IS PODCAST #2: Future calendar highlights, with Brian Darr.

by Ryland Walker Knight and Mark Haslam

RWK here. This episode: we're joined by local hero and blogging buddy Brian Darr, of Hell on Frisco Bay, to talk the upcoming rep calendar. Of course, any talk about movies, especially a talk meant to cover so much, will spill over into other topics and other films other than the films and film series at hand. We even divert into a talk about Cut Copy and their upcoming, sold-out show in San Francisco on Sunday, October 5th, as well as Gus Van Sant and Michael Haneke, among other things, including my trip to Telluride, again, of course. Speaking of: a big apology to Howie Movshovitz, one of the real cool pair of moderators/hosts for our Student Symposium (the other: Linda Williams), whose name I totally blanked on during our recording session. If you make it that far, you'll hear me grasping, failing, griping -- and coming up with Harvey. The reason I didn't follow Brian's "on air" advice and splice in some kind of edit correction is because I just want to let the tape run. As I say at one point, this is not planned. I like it that way. I did a better job of projecting my voice this week, I think, which might make it easier to listen to, but I still dig how un-NPR we are on these experiments. Thanks for indulging us. We're still trying to make this mic work, but it's tough. I've got a (pretty cheap) directional mic so it really needs you to talk at it -- it doesn't record the space of the room all that well -- and, as is natural, Brian and Mark turned towards me to talk, to perform our conversation, so their voices are a little lower than mine in the mix. So turn it up.

Once again, we've got some dance music to introduce and end the episode, and you can grab it here. Yes, it's Cut Copy. Oh, you want a link to the podcast itself? Well, you can click this link to load iTunes and subscribe there or you can click this link to find our podomatic page or you can click this link to download the file directly from podomatic or you can click this link to subscribe to the RSS feed. The choice is yours. And, of course, please tell us things in the comments. If you're in the Bay, tell us what you're most interested in, what we may have forgotten. For one, I know there's a certain en vogue auteur we didn't talk about that will be exhibited in San Francisco in October. Do you know who? Where? When, exactly?

Since this episode is about twice as long as the previous one, and I always appreciate Rob's breakdowns, here's some minute markers for our rambling talk:

• 0:00 - 7:00: Intro, Jia Zhangke.
  
• 7:01 - 9:45: Envisioning Russia.
  
• 9:46 - 11:11: Manoel de Oliveira.
  
• 11:12 - 12:12: David Lean at PFA and The Castro (Lean Sundays in October), even a mention of Film Forum.
  
• 12:13 - 17:05: Godard in the 60s and Jean Eustache and Cut Copy.
  
• 17:06 - 18:36: The recent Milos Forman series that Brian enjoyed and wanted to highlight, if briefly.
  
• 18:37 - 20:08: Ning Ying's residence at PFA and the current BAM exhibit Mahjong: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Sigg Collection.
  
• 20:09 - 24:30: The current Alternative Visions line up of Avant-Garde Cinema, which will feature the Bay Area premiere of RR, which has Brian and me excited given James Benning's reputation and the words from Toronto, like those of Darren Hughes.
  
• 24:31 - 30:00: Running down the current Castro line up with a diversion to allow us some time to talk about this brand of cinephilia that privileges theatrical screenings over home screenings. We pick up a thread of last week, too, to talk about audience reactions, which then leads to some brief thoughts about Burn After Reading and a few trailers: W. (that's not the version we saw) and Milk.
  
• 30:01 - 38:45: The talk of those trailers spills into talk about Gus Van Sant and Alfred Hitchcock and Michael Haneke and James Franco. Here's that Reverse Shot issue I mention; here's Michael Koresky on Psycho, and mine on Cowgirls. BTW: Milk will premiere at The Castro on November 26th.
  
• 38:46 - 40:50: Lola Montez revival at the Castro.
  
• 40:51 - 44:50: The Mill Valley Film Festival, including talk of the tributes to Harriet Anderson and Paul Schrader and Happy-Go-Lucky and Kelly Reichardt.
  
• 44:51 - end: Goodbyes and some parting Cut Copy.
  

Call Me Murderous, Too #1: Melanie Daniels

by Claire Twisselman

[For the rest of the image essay click here.]

Clarity, not expertise; an interest in singularity.

by Ryland Walker Knight

Section 133 of Philosophical Investigations:

It is not our aim to refuse or complete the system of rules for the use of our words in unheard-of ways.

For the clarity that we are aiming at is indeed complete clarity. But this simply means that the philosophical problems should completely disappear.

The real discovery is the one that makes me capable of stopping doing philosophy when I want to.--The one that gives philosophy peace, so that it is no longer tormented by questions which bring itself in question.--Instead, we now demonstrate a method, by examples; and the series of examples can be broken off.--Problems are solved (difficulties eliminated), not a single problem.

There is not a philosophical method, though there are indeed methods, like different therapies.

Towards the very end of Film as Film:

Criticism itself is a public activity, concerned only with what can be communicated. I may feel a picture to be coherent but unless I can explain the nature of its coherence my feeling carries no greater critical weight than my response to the colour of the hero's tie. Though we may enjoy swapping preferences and prejudices among friends, a critical judgement is of value only when it can itself be criticized and tested against others' experience and perceptions.

A theory of criticism is useful, similarly, when it helps us to achieve a clarity and consistency in our discussion by providing an agreed language in which to express our perceptions and define our differences. Theory exists in the wake of experience and must remain adjustable to new experience. We cannot usefully construct a theory to aid in the judgement of movies yet to be made, but any theory (and particularly the one I have presented) should be disregarded the moment it is seen to obstruct rather than promote understanding and discourse.

[The pictures, of course, are ironic. Although it may be argued, with relative ease, that those two bogies are after their own brand of clarity and personal interests in singularity. The problems they face are that their singular interests plain reject anything other than their singular interests. Those two aim to refuse and complete a singular system of rules that will have nothing to do with cooperation, with the public, with other people; it's insulation instead of expansion. The search for singularity should look to find the ways in which the singular can live with its counterparts. Try as you might, you cannot deny or ignore the bonds of the world.]

Sex appeal is a big deal.

by Ryland Walker Knight

I think whoever decided to put Naomi Watts in a Tippi Hedren beehive, whether they knew it or not, was out to slay me. Marnie is a favorite -- and ever more as I continue to reflect on its smarts (as much as on its imbalanced structure). As far as movies about unfolding a psychoanalytic logic in dense plotting go, I think Vertigo may, indeed, be the better picture, but there's something so off about Kim Novak that I never have an urge to watch it again. Now, if Tippi had played Madeline, it would have been a distinctly different picture (a different brand of obsession), but her insecurities are much more endearing, Naomi Watts style, than the fussy "hot girl" posture Novak inhabits. Another way to put it, I'll wager, is that Novak isn't as good looking as Grace Kelley. Yes, of course, that's a fruitless comparison. But, in all seriousness, I think it has something to say for how To Catch a Thief works so well. Maybe more important: look at how different an actor Jimmy Stewart is around Kelley in Rear Window. (I think his range is underrated, or often neglected, in conversations that favor his particular line-reading, um, habits.) This, of course, signals how the men each of these three ladies play off constitute different dynamics, in varying registers, of attractiveness (as a screen couple, as individual screen stars, as something or somebodies I want to watch) and efficacy (as actors, as crucial to the films they star in, as couples). Which is another cool thing to think about: how a star's (or any person's) sexiness is constituted by the other star (or person) that s/he plays with/off. That whole "it takes two" thing.

Sex appeal is a big deal. Especially in movies; definitely in Hitchcock*. These Vanity Fair restagings (more here) seem to understand this, and are, for the most part, pretty cool. Although that beehive looks pretty good to these eyes, the Rear Window remake may be the sexiest photo. It's pretty clear Seth Rogen's North by Northwest run is the most unsexy, which is a bummer, since Cary Grant is so damned sexy (to go along with his funny). Robert Downey Jr is a good looking guy, and a special kind of actor, but the new To Catch a Thief still life seems a little off the mark, too -- but not for lack of sexy. I think it speaks to the confidence and breezy charm of Cary Grant more than the look of consternation on Downey's face (and Grace Kelley's regal beauty is a world away from Gweneth Paltrow's too-skinny Hollywood good looks). Even when Grant is peeved he looks at ease, comfortable. It's why that crop-dusting scene is so funny, while scary: he's wearing a suit, he's waiting, he's a little impatient, but he's game. Seth Rogen is game but that expression he's wearing, along with the way the suit is falling about him (unflattering), makes him look less than comfortable in his own skin, much less the costume-skin of a legend. Really, though, the best of this project has to be the revision of Psycho with Marion Cotillard. (Dig that Janet Leigh's character is named Marion Crane.) And, no, not because she's naked, as the dude on Film School Rejects said, "but I love the fact that it recreates the scene in blocks." But we shouldn't ignore Cotillard's lithe limbs**. This famous murder is definitely some kind of punishment for being sexy. And, you know, stealing mad money.

But my interest in Hitchcock has way less to do with sex than all of this, than a lot of criticism, actually, which makes this post yet more silly and transparent. It's clearly a concern for the man (again: why so many blondes? why this fear of women?) but what I find most striking -- at least now, at my refined, ripe, naive, silver age -- is the evolution of his interest in America as such a powerful locus of challenging moral forces. But, wait, you say: To Catch a Thief takes place in France! Yes, it does. But America is very much on its mind: people are always telling Cary Grant's John Robie to go back to America; Grace Kelley's Frances Stevens beckons him away from France; Robie becomes a stand in for America, as he is characterized as a trickster, like many mythical Americans, always scheming to achieve his rightful (in his eyes, at least) slice of the devil's pie. What that pie is, exactly, I'll leave, for now, to you to decide.


*This is not to say that I think "ugly" people shouldn't be in films. Rather, there's a certain kind of star cinema that relies on an audience's projection of sexual desire.

**I had no idea Cotillard was this radiant, having not seen La Vie En Rose, which I fear being one long downward spiral of pain. But I may rent it yet since I haven't seen anything with her, except stills like this, and I had no idea I should be super excited (on a superficial level at least) to see her act with Johnny Depp and Christian Bale in the new Michael Mann movie, Public Enemies (due 2009).




[Eva Marie Saint ain't half bad, either.]
[This America is a cross roads of faces and lands.]
[This America is North by Northwest, a no-place, a myth, an end.]