Didn't keep a log this week, to be perfectly honest, though I did watch a number of things of varying stripes. Didn't finish all of them, watched only pieces of some, and all because I was plumb worn out from some viral crazy weight that fell onto my head and heart sometime last weekend but didn't really register until early Monday when I could barely move a muscle. Which is a long sentence to say I was sick all week. But you may have gathered that if you follow my twitter or read that diary-like tumblr I reactivated a short time ago. To give a quick gloss, I watched a bunch of comedies to try to cheer me up and I kept at the Agnes Varda despite the haze (more on her to come). I even looked at the Martel movies again, Michael, in an abortive attempt to jog my brain that only lead me to fall asleep. That was a big problem with finishing movies this week: falling asleep. When the body needs rest, you must oblige it. The body is smart, complex, obnoxious in its stubborn patterns and wills and manifestations of improper treatment. And the brain cannot function without it! Go figure! So here's some images from the week that caught my eye enough for me to hit "pause" and "snapshot" in succession. This, of course, limits me to things viewed on my laptop and eschews a lot of the hilarious television I watched. In any case, here's to a better seven days to start tomorrow.
i. —Like gravity ii. —Point at it iii. —Sometimes you gotta iv. —Sometimes you oughta v. —Not like this
Gaslight [George Cukor, 1944] # So much more painful this time, though I can't imagine it not being painful. I really need to re-read Contesting Tears.
A Little Death [Gina Telaroli, 2009] Gina tells me this is a work in progress but it certainly looked cohesive and complete to my eyes.
Johnny Guitar [Nicholas Ray, 1954] # Color like you wouldn't believe, and all kinds of ideas of hierarchies. The stunt falls in the finale set piece really look like they hurt.
Inglourious Basterds [Quentin Tarantino, 2009] A blast, no doubt, despite prattle calls of ideological failure. More in The Notebook tomorrow (plus some extra notes at home). Gonna try to go again this week.
Design for Living [Ernst Lubitsch, 1933] Despite the class stuff, this could be made now. (Class is a no-no, it seems, in modern American comedy.) In fact, it's got a much more progressive idea of love and friendship than something like, say, Funny People. A real treat. And scandalous, too.
Trouble in Paradise [Ernst Lubitsch, 1932] # You can't change! Society is rigged! Hilarious!
The Thick Of It [Armando Iannucci, 2005/2007] Watched the whole show, including specials, all too quickly because I couldn't quit laughing at all that bile. Man, I am happy I don't know any Malcolm Tuckers.
In The Loop [Armando Iannucci, 2009] Yup: hilarious, biting, wonderful casting. I, too, take points off for the "aesthetic" but that's small potatoes in the bigger, faster, nastier, funnier scheme of things. Coogan cameo is brilliant.
Portrait of Jennie [William Dieterle, 1948] Kind of devastating idea of inspiration: that what haunts us propels us—and we're lucky if we ever find an error in time to grasp that feeling in our hands. Jennifer Jones' aloof attitude is perfect; Joseph Cotton has the worst hat in cinema.
Night of the Demon [Jacques Tourneur, 1957] The power of writing to change the world, more often for ill, makes this windy tale spin. Lots to unpack. Was fun to revisit Kevin's work with Chris Fujiwara, maybe my favorite of the Shooting Down Pictures video essays.
In A Lonely Place [Nick Ray, 1950] # More vicarious stuff, as I'm missing something grand again. I like how Steve described Bogie: "Mean X-rated expressions." Read Glenn and Hoberman, too, if you have yet to.
Celine and Julie go boating [Jacques Rivette, 1974] # Because I can. Because those girls are good to dream about. Because it's FUN.
Kings and Queen [Arnaud Desplechin, 2005] # Cuz a got a lovely note about it, I watched the last half hour. Then I skipped back to Amalric's dance before bed to wash the loneliness from my head-mouth. Listen: Marly Marl.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince [David Yates, 2009] Oh, my. What a waste, as usual, of all that talent (surrounding and guiding our boy in the middle); alternately, of all that money; further, of space (re: the kids). More here.
US Go Home [Claire Denis, 1994] # Trying to decipher the opening monologue sans soustitres.
Esther Kahn [Arnaud Desplechin, 2000] # For an ongoing project.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance [John Ford, 1962] # Looking for law talk, in skim mode.
Cadillac Records [Darnell Jackson, 2008] # Watched with the grandma, on her behalf, though I never thought I would sit through it again. It's still hack cinema, through and through, from screenplay to execution, but Jeffrey Wright is a pleasure and so are all of those songs.
Scarface [Howard Hawks, 1932] # Grimey, angry, ugly. A real treat. Muni is sick, gross. She's all elbows, perfect in her lust.
US Go Home [Claire Denis, 1994] # Greg's dance, and some other points of interest.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance [John Ford, 1962] # Still one of my favorites, and it keeps getting richer as I keep getting older.
Wow, this is counterintuitive. But it's a treat nonetheless since the film has no Region 1 DVD. I went ahead and embedded the film here but you should definitely watch it full screen, and loud. It deserves to be seen just like its title declares (asks?) it to be. That way, the outsized colors that feed this melodrama will pack more punch and, we hope, shock you into a powerful feeling. I saw the film last summer before my Telluride trip (see the bottom and the comment thread of this post) and it kick-started a Nick Ray fascination that has only grown since (a recent example). In fact, I've had my favorite of his films, On Dangerous Ground, at home from Netflix for a little too long now. I sure would like to write something coherent about it, but that will probably have to wait since I'm on the hook for a long-form piece about James Gray for a certain publication to be named later. In any case, watch James Mason shiver and rant his way through an illness and addiction whose consequences hit home in more ways than one. New media, baby. It'll take over your life. Get it?
And, a reminder: my last Dreyer Diary shall hit The Notebook shortly, I'm told, and the link will appear in the link dump post below. While I'm here: March was rough stuff for a variety of reasons but the Dreyer films were a fine project to keep my brain active. I'm happy I met the films on the big screen (as with this Ray above, and On Dangerous Ground) since each is meant to be felt with the eyes (as a portal to the heart). For what it's worth: Ordet was/is my favorite. I'd like to write about it again, and better, some day. It has a lot to give. And, to reiterate what I tweeted@ Brian, all that nonsense comparing Silent Light to Ordet misses the fact that, plot point be damned, Reygadas' project is much more about tactility whereas Dreyer's project is about reorientation. You can find the perfect example of this shifting of perspective begin at the 3:55 mark in the clip below. (It occurs to me that I should say this comes a little late in the film, and that I should issue a spoiler warning for those concerned with such things.)
video unavailable; maybe again, some day, in a different form
What's really cool about On Dangerous Ground is that it's about both! I might say that those two films, along with some Hitchcock and Buñuel, are my favorites of the 1950s. I know it's a rich decade, as every one is, and that I cannot compare with some cinephiles' viewing history, but, are there any takers? Or, what's your favorite Nick Ray picture? And, for that matter, which Dreyer?
—Do we still have readers out there in the sphere? Can I provoke a response? To echo our stooly mope above: hit me.
This essay that I link to above, by Carloss James Chamberlin, from the way back machine at Senses of Cinema (which has a good new issue if you haven't looked at it), is something special. Thanks to Zach for turning me on to its smarts and its beauties. I think it's a good reminder for today. That the reason we have to pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off is because, perpetually, we fail. It's a nice reminder that tomorrow I'll be the same guy with the same stink and the same bank account and the same unhealthy patterns as much as some new and vital routines built this fall; that we gotta fight. The thing that may get lost in the hoopla today is that inside that complicated and fiercely intelligent speech our first black President delivered with great passion there was a note struck to signal that, yes, we have to work hard every singly day we step forward. The world does not always stand arms open to meet you. Sometimes, the ones you love and depend on will hurt you. All the time, there's this life. So live. You will lose things. You will misplace passions. You will fall on your face. You may lose an eye. But you may also find some kind of grace pushing up and pulling up and dusting up and building up—even if you're throwing up. Own your peapods. Stuff them full and let them bud, let them flower; let light spill everywhere. Look around you. Forget the weights, or push up past them, and know: this is good.
Here we are, joining the internet radio fray, with our first attempt at a podcast. This is an introductory test run in a lot of ways but I think you might get a kick out of the Eddie Huntington song we've chosen to use as intro/outro music this week. We experimented with a lot of hosting options and finally stumbled on the really cool site, podomatic, thanks to my friend Daniel's usage (he's "casting" his last course at UC Berkeley and you can listen here). We've got our own page there: CLICK HERE TO SEE IT and subscribe to the RSS and, if you like, download the file for your ride into work. As for this episode, there's a lot of rambling, a lot of dead air, and my nasal voice -- all great selling points. Please, listen! You might have guessed, but we talk about Pedro Almodovar, Nicholas Ray, and melodrama with detours into some talk of my Telluride trip and Slavoj Zizek and a little bashful scolding (with a smile) along the way. And, as the song says, don't be shy, let yourself go with the attraction, and talk at us in the comments. If you want the song, you can grab it here and dance your butts off (although, if the owners request its removal, we'll happily and heartily comply).
"Live in the world, or something."
UPDATE: If you want to subscribe in iTunes, please click here and enjoy. To those who already have, we thank you, and await your suggestions, comments, critiques, gripes, enthusiasms. Again: I hope we get liven things up a little more on the next episode. If anything, there will be another (smart, kind) voice to break up our monotone madness.
After a raucous eight hour drive complete with lunch stop in Paonia, I had time for the briefest of showers before our first Symposium function where, among other pleasantries, we were given our schedule for the weekend. Suffice to say, this looks to be fun. This morning and early afternoon are our pretty much our only free time so I thought I'd go ahead and detail what I've got in store ahead. And this is just a sliver of what the festival has to offer this year. Still, I don't think I'll be able to offer precise thoughts on all of this, but I'll give it a shot. Stay tuned.
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Friday: Most of the afternoon will be spent with the symposium, talking to Ken Burns, Peter Sellars and Paolo Cherchi-Usai. Linda Williams said Burns and Sellars have something of a spiel to impart but she hope we'll be able to ask some questions, and that we'll definitely have the opportunity for good conversation with Cherchi-Usai. Given his involvement with Kevin's project, I hope I can ask him about the role of criticism in film history, and preservation, beyond the obvious "more eyes can't hurt" argument. After that there's the "Opening Night Feed" with the rest of the town. Tonight we get to see Waltz With Bashir (dig) and A Private Century (a series of short films by Jan Sikl about memory using amateur "home movies"). Saturday: We get started early discussing films with the group before seeing The Last Command (Sternberg, 1928) before a quick lunch and an early afternoon screening of Mike Leigh's new film, Happy-Go-Lucky. In the afternoon we get to talk to one the festival's tributary David Fincher (others: Jean Simmons, Jan Troell, Richard Shickel) and Leigh before evening screenings of Youssou Ndour (a profile of the Senegalese musician and his plight to bridge an understanding of Islam outside "the fundamentalist monopoly of discourse surrounding [his religion]") and Innocence Unprotected, brought to Telluride by Festival Guest Director, Slavoj Zizek (this will be my second Makavejev in a cinema; that essay by Gary Morris is featured in the festival guide). Sunday: Another early morning discussion followed by the Indian film Firaaq, which Salman Rushdie has accompanied to help promote. Directly after that we get Laughing Til It Hurts, a group of silent comedies presented by Paolo Cherci Usai and his Pordenone Film Festival; this sounds like a real highlight. I hope there's time for a bite to eat before we hit the next film, With a Little Help from Myself (or, translated literally from French as "Help Yourself, and Heaven Will Help You"), from François Dupeyron, director of Monsieur Ibrahim. Our afternoon discussion features Dupeyron and his lead actress Félicité Wouassi first, followed by a conversation with Rushdie and Firaaq's director, Nandita Das. Sunday night ends with a screening of The Fall of Berlin, another Zizek pick. Monday: Again we discuss over breakfast before our last screening of Nicolas Ray's On Dangerous Ground, another pick by Zizek in his sidebar, "Neglected Noirs." The last official symposium activities are a noon seminar and Labor Day Picnic followed by a two hour block with Zizek to wrap it all up.
I'm not telling you to make the world better, because I don't think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I'm just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it. To seize the moment. And if you ask me why you should bother to do that, I could tell you that the grave's a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace. Nor do they sing there, or write, or argue, or see the tidal bore on the Amazon, or touch their children. And that's what there is to do and get it while you can and good luck at it. — Joan Didion
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