the LAST FILM YOU'VE SEEN thread

Riefenstahl made films for the Nazi party, yes.

But you realise that hindsight is 20/20?

In the doc she regrets terribly making Triumph, but you guys are completely forgetting the times.

The early thirties in Germany was a time BEFORE the war.
Optimism was the vibe of the day, a new frontier for Germany.

The absolute horror that was to follow came after Riefenstahl worked for the Reich- after she made the films.

AFTER AFTER AFTER!

Am I getting it across here?

Leni had NOTHING to do with shaping the government or the Reich's policies. People love to dump on her and lump her in with the Nazi's. She doesn't hate Jews, she was no architect of ANYTHING anti-Semitic. Prove me wrong. And don't give me "she was in bed with Hitler! She was in deep with the Nazi's!"
Yeah, we know that.
What else you got?

Are we talking about Leni Riefenstahl here or are we talking about Hitler?

They are two separate stories, folks...

The fact is she wasn't a Nazi. She is asked point blank in the doc:
What is your visual idea of a fascist
She says she doesn't know.
She says: The Hitler salute? The seig heil?

She was employed by Hitler to make films. She did.
That's where it ends.
She doesn't endorse the Nazi's, never was a Nazi, she talks in the doc of how her views about Hitler changed when she started hearing about the sick shit he was perpetrating, and how the whole bottom fell out.

Johann wrote:

The anti-semitic sentiment didn't explode until later.
The German people thought it was POLITICAL CAMPAIGNING.

How little did they know...


You act as if anti-Semitism (you're supposed to capitalize the S, Johann) didn't exist in Germany before Hitler's rise. Wrong, very, very wrong. Just look at Richard Wagner, whise anti-Semitism is virulent but also a product of the century in which he lived (the century before Nazism). And Wagner is but one example, it's just the first that comes to mind.

You also imply that a nation is so gullible as to see anti-Semitism as "POLITICAL CAMPAIGNING". Give me a break. While I will admit that Nazi propaganda was a clever conditioning of the German people, it was a conditioning for the Final Solution; the hatred had already begun, crystalizing with Hitler's ascent to power.

Frankly, as a Jew whose parents survived the Holocaust, I'm a little offended by your rather flippant remarks. ("Dude had the charisma." "Ooh, we've hit a nerve!") Your history is specious at best, if not blatantly incorrect, and the manner in which you present yourself tells me you aren't thinking things through before you write them or you aren't policing yourself well enough. I shudder to think that either of them might not be the case.

Shudder away Bix.

I may be flip, but I'm also right.

Of course anti-Semitism was there. I'm not saying it wasn't.
I'm saying it didn't EXPLODE until later.

Am I wrong?

Are you looking for threadbare weaknesses in what I write?

I think before I write, even if that doesn't appear to be the case.

This discussion should be about Leni Riefenstahl.

I'm not a historian. I write from my heart.

Johann wrote:

Shudder away Bix.

I may be flip, but I'm also right.

Of course anti-Semitism was there. I'm not saying it wasn't.
I'm saying it didn't EXPLODE until later.

Am I wrong?

Right about what? Explode later? When is later? Hitler took power in 1933 and the persecution began immediately. Kristallnacht was in 1938, before he invaded Poland. Is there some sort of demarcation point where cruelty begins just because mass executions have begun? Is death the only explosion worth talking about?


This discussion should be about Leni Riefenstahl.

This is a quote from your original post:

"90% of the people supported Hitler before the war.
He was all about social justice and lifting Germany into a world power.
Work and Peace was the message.
Not "kill all Jews"- all of the anti-Semitic stuff came later.
It started small- people thought it was just political campaigning.
They didn't think people were serious about the Jewish hatred.
Then there was Goebbels. Then the shit hit the fan."

No mention of Riefenstahl there. Just some stuff about Hitler being all about "Work and Peace" and blaming anti-Semitism on Goebbels.

You're right, Johann: you're not a historian. And I don't think your heart's in the right place.

Later is HOLOCAUST LATER.

That "stuff" about Hitler is in the fucking documentary.

The documentary is about RIEFENSTAHL.

You zeroed in on true points found in the documentary.

I apologize that I wasn't writing up to your holy standards of historical accuracy.

You got a bone to pick, but it ain't with me.

The seeds of Jewish hatred was there before the Holocaust- I'm not disputing that at all.

All I meant was that pre-war Germany was about Work and Peace, social change, lifting Germany up. That's it.

Anti-Semitism was obviously and undeniably there, long before the Holocaust. But it was the Holocaust and the sheer horror of what Hitler was doing that woke everybody up to what a mistake it was to be behind this man- kinda like what's happening with Bush now. The people were realizing what was happening and it was dreadful.

Just ask Leni Riefenstahl.

By the way, I'm also aware of the "culpability" factor of Riefenstahl's "involvement" with the Nazi's.

I'm not so naive to think that she couldn't have known what powers she was dealing with, but at the same time that documentary put the hook in me.

If she's lying through her teeth about everything she says then I am one sorry ass mofo.

I believe her.

Maybe she's a greater actress than I can ever know?

I just respond as best I can.

There are some shady parts of her past that do not add up: dining with Himmler?!, employing camp detainees for a film that were then executed?!

Johann wrote:

I apologize that I wasn't writing up to your holy standards of historical accuracy.

Quit being so insulting both to your audience and to yourself. Your foot keeps going deeper into your mouth with every e-mail.

You got a bone to pick, but it ain't with me.

On the contrary, it most certainly is, as it would be with anyone making such inflammatory remarks.

You zeroed in on true points found in the documentary.

If the comments I've quoted of yours are truly from the documentary (which I have not seen) then either the facts are being misquoted or the film is wrong-headed. I suppose now I'll have to check it out to see which might be correct but I do so with the memories of thinking "Triumph Of The Will" (seen in college thirty years ago) and "Olympia" (on public TV, also at about the same time) were exhausting. In fact, I recall "Olympia" reminding me of "Wide World Of Sports".

Yes, this is a hot topic, and I didn't want to be credited with making any provocative remarks about the Nazis. Riefenstahl in my opinion, going largely by the film but also by her beautiful photos of the Nuba people (who certainly weren't blond and blue-eyed--though the primitivism of her celebration of their bodies is also a bit suspect), was a remarkable photographer and filmmaker -- and an opportunist and shady character -- who like many who operated during the Nazis preferred not to talk about that later on. She had a long life after WWII, doing the Nuba series, and then taking a boyfriend 40 years her junior who collaborated in a series of underwater photos done scuba diving in her 70's, also remarkable for a woman of an advanced age. It is troubling to think that sometimes artists are not nice or admirable people or at the very least of dubious politics. The documentary is worth seeing and debating her relationship to Hitler, etc., but it's been too long since I saw it to comment in detail. Wikipedia:

Quote:

---

She became a photographer and was later the first to photograph rock star Mick Jagger and his wife Bianca as a couple holding hands after they were married, as they were both admirers. Jagger told Riefenstahl he had seen Triumph of the Will at least 15 times.

---

The article tells us she published an underwater photo book on her 100th birthday. I think one can argue that her aesthetics of the body developed in the Triumph of the Will film expresses a fascist sensibility. I understand Richard Wagner's ideas were none too democratic or egalitarian; J.S. Bach was a grumpy dad...etc. I wouldn't say every artist or writer or fiilmmaker I like is somebody I admire as a person or would want to even meet. Riefenstahl is a pretty extreme case of that kind of thing. Leni is too interesting and accomplished a figure to dismiss simply because of her questionable associations, but there's no way to excuse her either. "The Wonderful and Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl"-- the moral ambiguity of her achievement is expressed in the title of Ray Müller's 1994 film that started this discussion. Take a look at the whole Wikipedia article on Leni Riefenstahl for more information. It contains some things that a later film has revealed and facts I didn't know from Müller.

Julie Christie won an Oscar for her role as a young jet-setting model in the developing world of mod England, circa the mid-60s. As screenwriter Frederic Raphael envisions her, and as Christie plays her, she's an innocent naif getting windblown from relationship to relationship, casually destroying families in the process while trying to find true happiness, but Raphael's script is too conflicted about her to either embrace or condemn her--there seems an indifference to providing her any depth, preferring to play out the film's real drama in the reactions of her male suitors, played by a psuedo-intellectual Dirk Bogarde and an effectively slimy Laurence Harvey (who steals the show). Raphael does score some points in his caustic humiliation of Britain's upper class, shown appearing to care for the Third World's poverty but coming off as merely posturing. (The opening credits--in which a large advertisment highlighting Christie's face is whitewashed over a poster of a malnourished African child--is in fact the film's cleverest moment.) Directed very professionally--without a trace of blood--by John Schlesinger; just think of what "Darling" could've become in the hands of Richard Lester. Not a bad film--in fact, I find myself recommending it--but not what it could have been.

Hey Bix- you jumped all over something that was in the film.

I wouldn't have said it unless I could point to something that gave me that perspective.

How about you quit being a reactionary?

FRANKLY, I don't think there's anyhing inflamatory about what I said.

Hitler DID have the charisma, I HAVE hit a nerve.

I respect your sensibility to the subject matter- I feel for your parents. I feel for anybody who lived during that horrific time.

But don't overreact- there are two sides to every story.

That documentary provides a view of someone who was living through that history- by all means check it out.

I would love to discuss it further, Chris is right.

You cannot dismiss Riefenstahl as "just a propaganda filmmmaker".
She was an artist of considerable merit who did other things.
She also has some shadiness to her life that needs to be addressed.

Is that it?
That's all anybody wants to say?

Well let me expand on what I said.

The whole thrust of my argument for Riefenstahl was that she worked for Hitler before the war. When optimism was the rage.

When she made Olympia Hitler attended the games but he didn't care one iota about it.

Do you think he wanted to see a black man beat Germans?
Would he have enjoyed that type of spectacle?

Do you think he would've approved of Leni filming the Nuba tribe?

If she was such a Nazi then wouldn't she be towing the line?

I'll say it again: she agreed to make Triumph of the Will only if it was the last film for the Reich.

Before she met Hitler was she anti-Semitic? No.
When she was in the mountains shooting her daredevil stunts, was she secretly thinking of exterminating Jews? No.

Is there anything on record of her saying or doing anything that proves she shared Hitler's views? No.

Are major combat operations over, Bix?

You got something to say about Riefenstahl or do you just want to attack my style?

Johann wrote:

Are major combat operations over, Bix?

You got something to say about Riefenstahl or do you just want to attack my style?

No. Now that this has devolved into acrimony and insults, I'll just withdraw from this conversation. Thanks for writing!

I simply fell in love with Julie Christie... in 70mm. This definitely was her year. She appeared in the two top films of the year, this and Dr. Zhivago, both presented in the large screen format. Of course, Schlesinger (nominated for Darling) went on to win the best director Oscar for Midnight Cowboy, shot only a few small budget features before he tackled the big budget, Darling.

Sitting in the State theater, with its 100 plus foot screen and watching Darling probably twenty or more times, I fell in love with Julie Christie. To me, she is one of the great stars from the 1960's. She had incredible screen presence, and could recite the telephone book beautifully. (Remember Far from the Madding Crowd, Heaven can Wait, McCabe and Mrs Miller, Shampoo, etc???) Unfortunately, she fell into obscurity after the 1970's only to be resurrected recently in Neverland. When Zhivago came out, we all fell in love with Julie, as she clearly became everyone's darling being the notorious, Laura.

Who can forget Zhivago, clutching his heart as the gorgeous Christie, just feet away, walks down the street oblivious to the fact her greatest love dropped dead right behind her. I fell a long time ago to Julie Christie. See her at the zenith of her career in Darling, for which she rightly won the year's top honor as Best Actress of the Year. (Omar Shariff, by the way, got robbed that year!)

I goofed: Only Zhivago was presented in 70mm. I forgot that Darling was shot almost docu style in Black and white, despite its ads saying, "Darling... in dazzling color!" Sorry... anyway, watch both.

Like the Samuel Johnson quote, cinemabon--one of my own favorites.

Johann---Read the Wikipedia article about Leni. Here are some lines from it:

Quote:

---

Her most famous works are documentary propaganda films for the German Nazi Party. . .

Triumph of the Will was a documentary glorifying Hitler and widely regarded as one of the most effective pieces of propaganda ever produced. It is generally regarded as a masterful, epic, innovative work of documentary filmmaking. Because it was commissioned by the Nazi party and used as propaganda, however, critics have said it is nearly impossible to separate the subject from the artist behind it.. . .

After World War II, she spent four years in a French detention camp. There were accusations she had used concentration camp inmates on her film sets, but those claims were not proven in court. Being unable to prove any culpable support of the Nazis, the court called her a sympathizer. In later interviews Riefenstahl maintained that she was "fascinated" by the Nazis but politically naïve and ignorant about the war crimes of which they were accused by critics. . . .

The History Channel, on its sister channel, History International, released a documentary entitled, Hitler's Women: Leni Riefensthal. In it, the accusation is made that Riefenstahl was acutely aware that her films were propaganda. They point to evidence such as the fact that Hitler had a sit-down discussion between Riefenstahl and Hitler's propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels at her personal German villa, as seen in this picture (Registation Required), to resolve differences the two were having which were causing strife in Hitler's early regime. Even more damning are the film clips of Riefenstahl dining with Goebbels and Himmler, and other top men of both the Brownshirt and SS branches of NSDAP, intercut with interviews with German historians and WWII scholars questioning how any one could appear at state dinners with top Nazi officials (eating at the high table with them, no less) and be completely unaware of what politics they were supporting. Furthering the connection, they cite the fact that Riefenstahl sent a celebratory telegram to Hitler after the successful military campaign in France, "Your deeds exceed the power of human imagination. They are without equal in the history of mankind. How can we ever thank you?. . .

Lastly, they detail interviews with actual Gypsy survivors of the Holocaust, who refute Riefensthal's claims that the concentration camp victims she used for filming were not killed [4]. . . .

The documentary comes to the conclusion that Riefenstahl suffered from a deep denial of her actual culpability, to the point that she even began to believe her own lies regarding her innocence.

---

Did Riefenstahl get a raw deal when her efforts to get funding for further films after the war were shunned? As the article implies, it had become hard to separate her from her work, her work from Hitler, and Hitler from the extermination camps he created. This is a little bit more than guilt by association given such evidence as her congratulation of Hitler for the defeat of France. About anti-Semitism however there seems to be no clearcut evidence, only the suspicion that exists for so many Germans: that she knew what was going on, she heard Hitler's speeches, she heard him denounce the Jews, and she chose to repress this knowledge or deny it later on. Nonetheless she was a remarkable filmmaker and photographer.

Sorry it's taken me so long to reply. I've been wanting to participate in several discussions. And I wish I could find the time to post longer opinions about some outstanding films out there. I am currently attending press screenings for the Miami International Film Festival (March 2nd-11th). I'm attending roughly two screenings a day and writing reviews. At this rate, I should surpass the 54 films I reviewed in my coverage of the 2006 fest. I will start posting them in about a week or so.

The two best films I've seen recently are Children of Men and 4. The former has the best mise-en-scene and art direction of any English-language film released in '06. The film is the perfect antidote to the current practice of covering a scene with multiple cameras and slicing-and-dicing the footage like an MTV video. Masterful long takes reminiscent of Ophuls and Sokurov prevail. And half the story is told visually, with the script sometimes seeming as an aide to the images. So it might seem slight if you're not watching closely. You can watch it with the sound turned off and the thing still makes sense. Silent film masters would approve.

4 is a Russian film with segments that recall Tarkovsky and Tarr, but it's a challenging, despairing, original, groundbreaking work of art. A second viewing was most rewarding. It received very good reviews, but none (not even J. Hoberman's) does justice to it. It's available on dvd. And I eventually found an essay in Sensesofcinema that truly enriches the experience of viewing it.

Originally posted by bix171
I think Hitchcock's treatment of women, especially from the '50s onward, which has a degre of cruelty I'd say bordered on sadism (culminating in Tippi Hedren's attack in "The Birds"), stemmed from what appears to be a mistrust of women, especially blondes. He continually puts them in harm's way and forces them to defend themselves, whether it be Grace Kelly in "Rear Window" or "Dial M For Murder" up to the aforementioned Hedren in "Marnie" and "The Birds". Whether or not this comes from his personal interactions with these women on and off the set (my understanding is Hedren, in particular, rebuffed him although I've also read he was celibate after the birth of his daughter) I can't be sure but I do think it heightens the experience of watching his films.

I know very little about Hitchcock's personal life. Your comments are very interesting and worthy of consideration. I wonder though if simply from the 50s onwards, cinema allowed depiction of characters, both male and female, which were more flawed. It was a time when mainstream society developed an interest in Freudian psychology and films featured a number of deeply flawed, neurotic, even mad characters. Notice how Hitchcock's male protagonists were treated, so to speak, in films like Vertigo and Psycho.

Regarding Leni Riefenstahl and The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl, here's a review by the excellent critic Jonathan Rosenbaum for your consideration:

A fascinating if irritating and ultimately unsatisfactory 1993 German documentary by Ray Müller about the remarkable filmmaker whose work provided Nazi Germany with its greatest propaganda. It's important to know that this film was made at Riefenstahl's own instigation, clearly designed to accompany her then recently published autobiography, and that she had veto power over who would be interviewed (don't expect to see Susan Sontag here). Consequently this is more often self-portrait than portrait; like Hitler in Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will, she's presented as a fully formed deity without family background or ideology save a reverence for beauty and strength. Admittedly, compared to the Nazi industrialists who went unpunished, she has suffered disproportionately for her Nazi associations (albeit less than any Jew who was gassed), and she deserves full recognition as an extraordinary woman; even in her early 90s she remained a courageous deep-sea diver, as the film shows. But at 182 minutes the film has only a few skeptical asides, and it shirks certain basic historical facts--allowing its subject to insist, for instance, that Triumph of the Will was a "straight" documentary with no allusion to all the carefully crafted studio retakes. John Simon's gushing, unscholarly review of her autobiography in the New York Times, a literary equivalent to Reagan's Bitburg speech, concluded that Riefenstahl "may have compromised her humanity. But her artistic integrity, never." If you agree with Simon that artistic integrity has nothing to do with humanity, this is the movie you've been waiting for. Incidentally, the film's stupid title was coined strictly for the Anglo-American market; the original German title translates as "Leni Riefenstahl: The Power of Images."

Interesting point about the title of the Riefenstahl documentary, which of course suggests a hedging of bets to paliate a doubtful audience--but while Rosenbaum himeslf is fair to Riefenstahl, he goes a little overboard in implying the film is a promo job for her. Even if she may have had some control over it, it leaves you with plenty of serious doubts about her innocence of collaboration; the stuff about the concentration camp inmates taken out temporarily to work in a R film is there, for instance, and so is the dining with demon generals. Anyone who really cared would need to see other material, including the History Channel films alluded to by the Wikipedia piece--but I don't think Riefenstahl's dubious involvement in the Nazi propaganda campaign is left in any doubt and it remains true that she took a beating for it afterward and had remarkable accomplishments in silent film and photography before and after during an active lifetime that lasted 101 years. It's always interesting to see what Rosenbaum has had to say, but I'd be interested in your own opinion of the film, Oscar, if you have one.

It's true Children of Men has some remarkable long tracking shots and crowd scenes, but some of those scenes lack credibility as does the whole story with its many unexplained points. The dystopian future has pushed a lot of buttons for people who are worried, and resultingly gotten credit for a profundity and relevance that it quite lacks. I think it's one of the year's most overrated movies. We could debate that on the thread devoted to it

http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/show...threadid=1887.

Huge thanks to Chris and Oscar for adding something worthwhile.

Chris, what you posted from Wiki is pretty accurate.

Triumph absoultely glorifies Hitler- that was what she was commissioned to do. In that respect, she did her job extremely well- too well for some. But like I said, hindsight is 20/20.

She must've known what she was doing, but at the same time, she was under the thumbs of Nazis. The way I see it (and I could be wrong- I'm willing to be wrong here) she looked at it as "well, I've got a prominent position, I'm being giving free reign to be an artist, why not try something?"

I believe the Wiki quote where it says she was politically naive and ignorant of the war crimes they were accused of.

After seeing the doc (and it does seem like a self-portrait- she overrides Ray Muller in a few arguments- she demands answers to questions that he cannot answer) I am convinced she was CRIMINALLY NAIVE in her dealings with the top people in the Reich. Criminally naive.

She was caught up in a horrible time that she repeatedly regrets in the film. Muller tells her that the world is looking for an apology from her. This is where denial comes into play.
She says "where does my guilt lie? I've suffered enough" (I'm paraphrasing because I gave the tapes back to the public library)

Please watch the film guys- we might be able to come to a better understanding of one another's posts if we've all got the film on our minds

I guess we're coming to more of an agreement now.

I just wanted to add one thing--that I'd agree with Rosenbaum in saying the Muller documentary is "ultimately unsatisfactory"--because it needs to get to the bottom of more than it does, I guess. It disturbed me too, but I didn't feel like I'd wasted my time. I had put off seeing it for a while because I thought the woman would be distasteful. She sort of is, but whether "criminally naive" oir not, (don't think she came to acknowledge that afterward, Johann--she doesn't repudiate anything but stonewalls as I recall), her career is troubling. She was not under compulsion to make the propaganda films. Making propaganda films for any government is a dubious eneterprise to get involved in, even if the government isn't reprehensible, and even if you produce masterpices. They're tainted masterpieces--and moreover they're masterpieces that people often find heavy and boring. Fascism's self-worship is a lugubrious enterprise. But Riefenstahl's life was a remarkable one.

I think she might've been saving her own skin by sending that telegram where she's blowing sunshine up Hitler's ass.
She talks about it in the documentary.

I mean he could've killed her at any time for any reason.

She had to be a "sympathizer" or else she probably would've had a pistol to her head in short order.

Think in terms of Polanski's The Pianist or Schindler's List- life and death was a silk thread thing.

Her artistry is what matters though.

For all of her naive crimes, she was still (in my opinion only) the greatest female filmmaker of all time.

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
he goes a little overboard in implying the film is a promo job for her.
Rosenbaum says it's "more often autobiography than biography", which is more subtle than calling it a "promo job".

I'd be interested in your own opinion of the film, Oscar, if you have one.
Of course I have an opinion since I've watched the doc, albeit not recently. Riefenstahl is a highly interesting subject for a documentary and the clips from her films leave no doubt as to her photographic skills. The controversies regarding the extent of her sympathizing and collaborating with the nazis make it compelling. Yet there's a lack of rigor, such as leaving out well known facts as pointed out by Rosenbaum, that render the film less than definitive.

It's true Children of Men has some remarkable long tracking shots and crowd scenes, but some of those scenes lack credibility as does the whole story with its many unexplained points. I think it's one of the year's most overrated movies. We could debate that on the thread devoted to it

What does "overrated" mean? That a lot of critics loved it and you didn't. I decided it would take at least a couple of hours to write a review that does justice to the film. I would have to manage to put into words what the film explains visually, which is time consuming. It would take just as long to retort to everything in your review with which I disagree. I regret not having the time because I think you missed a lot of what the film explains via mise-en-scene and art direction. Children of Man is basically a fictional projection of what the world could potentially become in 20 years if governments continue to declare pre-emptive wars, and pass Patriot Acts, and acquire nuclear weapons, and disregard Geneva Conventions, and erect border walls, and lie about weapons of mass destruction, and encourage "patriotism", etc. It's richly imagined, and consistently awe-some filmmaking.

*My vote for "greatest female filmmaker of all time" goes to... Agnes Varda.

Yet there's a lack of rigor, such as leaving out well known facts as pointed out by Rosenbaum, that render the film less than definitive.
What well known facts are those?

It's not really accurate to say a softened documentary is "autobiography" more than "biography." But such a "biography"woiuld be a a "promo job" and it would be a fake. If Muller's film is such a fake, then it is a lot worse than we have been saying. Maybe it is. ButI don't think even Rosenbaum is implying really that the film was made entirely by and for the pleasure of Riefenstahl.

As for Children of men, overrated means more admired than it quite deserves. It isn't about me. I'm not the only person who has found serious faults in its narrative.. See what your pal Rosenbaum says about it. Only he thinks the remarkable evocations of dystopian future and the technical accomplishments of the earlier parts redeem the later degeneration into an actioner. I think the weakness was there from the beginning in the unexplained and patchy premise.

When it comes to women making a contribution to cinema, one needs to broaden the palate before creating a picture... certainly in America, you had Ida Lupino, one of the very first female directors. In China, Esther Eng and Tang Shu-Sheun were early pioneers. Certainly Italian director, Len Wurtmuller would have to be considered since she had a tremendous impact on cinema (far greater than any documentarian). If its documentarians, Michelle Parkerson's name should be mentioned as should commercial filmmaker Penny Marshall.

I'm sure I'm leaving out many great female artists (behind the camera) whose work has carved out a place in cinema history with far greater impact than Riefenstahl. No one outside of Germany ever saw her work until after the war. When I saw Triumph of the Will, I did not think, "Wow, what a great filmmaker!" I thought, "No wonder the German's were convinced Hitler was a god." She made him look good. But that formula is old and she did not invent it. Any school kid in film school knows how to cut a film to make someone look good. Many propoganda films were made during World War II. Just because someone says it's great doesn't make it that way. Glorifying the 'Aryan' race is sick, twisted, demented, and completely racists to the 'nth' degree.

And to say that a filmmaker is not aware of the material when you spend weeks creating a script, shooting and then cutting the material is being extremely naive. Let's not delude ourselves on that score.

If I sound upset or angry, it is because so many people suffered... and she did nothing to make amends after the fact. Where is the documentary about the evils of the Nazi's she made after the war?

DOA

Supremely rare documentary from 1980 on the punk movement.

I found this vhs tape in the garbage, of all places (long story).

Profiling the Sex-Pistols, the X-Ray Spex, Generation X, Rich Kids, Sham 69 and others, plus using cool trax from Iggy Pop (Nightclubbing, Lust for Life) this film is a great slice of anarchy.

The songs are COMPLETE performances, unlike other docs on punk music which use snippets and soundbites.

What's really cool about this film is seeing just how up in arms the establishment were over bands like the Pistols.

Now they seem almost tame, but back in the mid to late 70's this music was like an atomic bomb of annoyance to the powers that be.

There is a famous "interview" clip of Sid and Nancy where she's trying to wake Sid up- he's nodding out due to the heroin and can barely answer anybody, let alone Nancy. Vintage.

There are several clips of british "authorities" who have nothing but contempt for the Pistols and punk in general.

Not much has changed.

I reckon George Bush doesn't know jack shit about "In the Land of Hope and Glory" or "Police and Thieves".

Great post. You obviously "get it". It's hard to convey to younger people what an art revolution feels like, because there hasn't been one for a long time. I watched DOA way way back. As a huge The Clash fan, I prefer Rude Boy, but DOA is essential. Last year's American Hardcore does a good job depicting the early 80s scene in the USA.

I really wanna see American Hardcore.

My current fave band is Black Flag and I love Keith Morris & his Circle Jerks, so I can't wait.

Haven't seen Rude Boy but I'm up for anything Clash-wise.

Congrats on the accreditation, btw.

You're our man in Miami Oscar. Looking forward to your reports.

She's Gotta Have It



Never saw Spike Lee's debut before, but I've definitely heard about it.
Fuckin' awesome movie. And I mean fuckin'!
Nola Darling is a young black woman who likes sex. A lot.
She lives in Brooklyn, New York, in the same 'hood as Mars Blackmon, a street-wise cyclist played by Spike himself.

She's sleeping with Greer, a muscle-bound "Billy Dee Motherfucker" (according to Mars) and she doesn't know which man she should commit to: Greer, Mars or Jamie.
Jamie is a guy who followed her on the street when he first laid eyes on her and they start a relationship.
So, she ends up boning all three guys at the same time.
She even has a lesbian hitting on her!

This is a great comedy- an "art film comedy" in my estimation.

It's shot in stark, beautiful black and white with one color sequence by Ernest Dickerson.
There's nudity, and there's one scene in particular that made my jaw drop: the who's pussy is this? scene.

I love this movie.
There's nudity, hilarious situations and even though it's set in the 80's, it's the good 80's, the intelligent, witty 80's.

The end credits are worth sitting through too- the clapboard "roll call" was just as funny as anything in the movie.

[Now in release in New York, February 2007. First seen at the 2005 NYFF at Lincoln Center in the grandeur of Alice Tully Hall. Seen again in a little auditorium at Cinema Village. It was worthy of the grandeur.]

Regular Lovers/Les amants réguliers
Philippe Garrel, France, 2005, 178 min.

CK description for the NYFF:
1968, 1969: a small group of young men take active part in the May 1968 Paris riots in this lengthy and meandering historical mood piece shot in black and white for a New Wave look that's at once fresh and nostalgic. The cataclysm ends, hopes die down, boys pair off with girls, and the hash and then the opium come out. There's a painter, a guy named Gauthier who wants to design clothes, and others. The group gravitates to the house of the wealthy Antoine (Julien Lucas) but the focus is on a budding poet and draft resister called François (Louis Garrel, the director's son, recently seen in Bertolucci's The Dreamers, who looks almost too poetic to actually be one) and an art student and sculptor, Lilie (Clotilde Hesme), who fall in love. Lilie's pledge of eternal loyalty to Francois lasts till a wealthy sculptor sponsors her and she goes off to New York, leaving her sensitive and sweet young lover shattered. The young people and the Paris interiors and exteriors (Lilie says Francois is "beautiful inside and outside") are lovely to look upon but the film requires patience and the English subtitles are the kind that burn out whenever the background is white (Chris Knipp)

Comment on seeing the NYC screening, February 2007:
. . .but this is also the kind of film that burns itself into your memory and keeps coming back. It takes you to a special place. Garrel père must know whereof he speaks, because he evokes the seminal moment of the late Sixties effortlessly. With what seem like casual gestures and details, he seems to touch on everything important, the dream of revolution, the alienation from the working class, the celebration of art and love, the depression after the excitement died down, which fades into the extremism of the Seventies, the love of clothes and music and dancing. Nothing new, perhaps, but that’s why the film doesn’t push a “period” look on us. The grainy black and white, which itself is so intense it seems to burn itself into your soul, creates a time capsule of youth that’s more universal than Carnaby Street pink and greed or paisley prints. Louis Garrel is the principled young poet, and Clotilde Hesme is the strong, independent passionate girlfriend. Philippe Garrel takes time with each moment to make it real. Even battles are boring, and the escape from them is more boring still. 90% of life is showing up and 95% is waiting for something to happen. Of course this film could be cut. The piano theme that introduces the lovers and their love keeps coming back a little too often. But the very unedited quality is quintessentially Sixties. Garrel has made a film about the Sixties that feels made in the Sixties; he’s made a film for us by making a film for himself. It would be nice to get a copy of this that had nice yellow subtitles, in French. The French DVD ought to be good; the French critics were ecstatic about this film.

Andrew O’Hehir in Salon recently described Regular Lovers as “the transformative filmgoing experience of the last few months for me, but also a movie that would bore the pants and several layers of skin off many, many viewers. This kind of movie demands that we turn off the phone, stow the watch in a pocket and surrender to a sense of time that is altogether disconnected from our everyday lives. It's the same surrender demanded by old-school works of high culture, by Wagner's "Parsifal" or Brahms' Third. (And by Chinese opera, Indian classical music, Noh theater and other things I know even less about.)" Well said. Indeed this is one of those slow-burning cinematic epipahnies that may give fellow-afficianados a sense of conspiratorial intimacy and whose meaning transcends anything you can codify or analyse. Manohla Dargis called Regular Lovers "magnificent" in her review. . It unquestionably is. It has a truly epic quality (much in contrast to the beautiful hothouse claustrophobia of Bertolucci's The Dreamers), and I can only hope that more of the right Americans get a chance to see it on a big screen, and eventually that it gets better subtitles.

Available on French DVD.

RoboCop


At first glance this movie seems kitchy, corny.

But after watching it again for the umpteenth time I think it's a great, visionary film.

Paul Verhoeven is known for his stylistic, weirdish films and this one is no exception.

The RoboCop suit design is awesome.
The action is awesome- check out the Criterion version for all of the rated X scenes. And the story is awesome.

A cop named Murphy gets killed. (not entirely...)

A technological company capitalizes after another robot cop design went berzerko.

A cyborg made of titanium, flesh and kevlar brings sweet justice to the crooks of Detroit (or Delta City- take your pick).

Lovely movie that never bores me.

Coffy



Cult classic from Jack Hill starring Pam Grier as a nurse who's gotta avenge her heroin addicted sister.

This film is a wild ride.
Tarantino put it in his top-ten of all-time.


This is one hell of an violent adult film.

Pimps, bitches & ho's, drugs, shotguns, hand-cannons, needles, a sexy catfight, racism, afros, sexual situations and nudity, blood, gore, torture, this is grindhouse blaxploitation at it's finest.

I'm watching Hell Up in Harlem next- the sequel to Black Caesar with Fred Williamson

You're in the grind house now, Johann. Welcome your reports.

Christian Faure: Juste une question d'amour (Just a Question of Love, 2000) (TV) 88 mins. Netflix DVD.

Laurent (a vibrant Cyrille Thouvenin) is a 23-year-old agricultural student in Lille (with a passion for poetry) who knows he's gay but lets his parents think he's straight and that his roommate Carole (a sweet Caroline Veyt) is his future wife. He's held in this bind by the fact that a gay cousin, Marc, who was like a brother to him, came out only to wind up dying rejected by his parents, an example of in-family homophobia that seems to have been all too well accepted by his own mother and father. Laurent has been on a downward spiral in school ever since Marc's death. Marc's parents are around at family parties, the mother a basket case on tranquilizers, the father stolid and still unforgiving. This angers Laurent, but the trouble is that his mom and dad, who run a pharmacy, are very dear to him. He loves his parents; he loves family; and he loves kids. But he's stuck in a charade. It's already hurting Carole, who's more than a little in love with him, though she knows full well about his sexuality.

All this has to change when Laurent is attached as a trainee (stagère) to a nursery and lab run by the slightly older Cédric (sexy, soulful Stéphan Guérin-Tillié) and they fall in love.The more grown up and independent Cédric is impatient with Laurent's playing the "little hetero to mom and dad." When he came out to his mother Emma (Eva Darlan) 11 years earlier on the death of his dad, Cédric said she could "take it or leave it." Laurent's pretense is exploded from an unexpected source. The film takes us sympathetically through the pain of Laurent's parents and Emma's efforts to help.

The special virtue of Just a Question of Love is its balance. If it's primarily from the point of view of Laurent, and secondarily Cédric, and takes pains (though it's joyful, not painful) to make their love real (without any explicit nudity or sex though, just passionate kissing), it's just as much about the parents' difficult journey toward understanding of their sons' sexuality.

A beautiful gay coming-out-to-the-parents film that had an unusually high viewership and almost universally positive response when shown originally on French TV, this has meant a lot to a lot of gay men, especially young ones thinking about love and conflicts with parents and the kind of "intense love relationship such as I dream of having and regret not to have had up till now," as one young French blogger typically put it. In IMDb comments that rate it, it has gotten nothing but a 10/10: enough said? Splendid performances by everybody, especially Thouvenin, Guérin-Tillié, and Darlan; this is far more than a "TV movie" and like some of the best contemporary French films, manages to be both elegant and emotionally direct.

With his looks and personality, Cyrille Thouvenin is irresistible in the film: he's always running and leaping, troubled, vulnerable, acting out, but also bursting with youthful energy and smiles. The restrained but warm Eva Darlan is also very memorable. This is the kind of film a gay man can watch over and over, with much pleasure and some tears. Doing so is also helping my French quite a bit.

Hell Up In Harlem

I like this movie but I'm not sure I can explain why.

Black Caesar (Gibbs Jr.) is up in Harlem, working with his father Gibbs Sr. to clean up New York's mean streets.

People get shot a lot, death comes to the innocent and the guilty, there's a funky motown soundtrack by Edwin Starr (great in surround sound) and the blackness can't be beat brotha.

The plot is a little hard to follow, but basically it's just a relatively low-budget actioner from the early 70's that was a very popular sequel to Black Caesar which made Fred Williamson a star.

You'll Get Over It/À cause d'un garçon (2003) Netflix DVD.

Directed by Fabrice Cazeneuve, starring Julien Baumgartner as a lycée (high school) swim champ who gets outed by an admiring transfer from another school so he's forced to deal with being openly gay. This time the parents including the working class unionist dad are understanding. Memorable question from the dad at a dinner: "When you grow up, will you live with a man?" He says he doesn't know, but whatever he does, it will be frank and open. The lead isn't terrifically charismatic and the filmmaking isn't as fluid and winning as in Just a Question of Love, nor is there a satisfying gay relationship on offer, but this is a good treatment of the issues of girlfriend (she's not pleased) best mate (he remains a friend but wishes he'd been told) and classmates (swim team is mean, but coach protects him and when he wins a big meet for them, they come back).

Nettoyage à sec/Dry Cleaning (Anne Fontaine 1997). Netflix DVD.

In this Teorema-style menage a trois story, the sexy young Loïc (Stanislas Merhar), a former drag performer, comes to live with Jean-Marie and Nicole and help them run their dry cleaning establishment in a town near Lille (Belfort) -- and disrupts their lives gradually and completely by sexually tempting them both. It's not so much that they were bored and repressed as that they never thought of the kind of thrills Loïc so boldly offers and so have no resistance to them, besides which, Jean-Marie has homosexual tendencies he has hitherto repressed. Loic isn't there to disrupt; he can't help doing it, but what he wants is the stability of a home that he's never had. Despite the familiar premise, the treatment is intriguing, the unfolding of the story highly suspenseful. You don't know what's going to happen, and that goes especially for the last astonishing few moments. I don't know enough about Anne Fontaine, having only seen her somewhat strange 2001 Comment j'ai tué mon père (How I Killed My Father, also starring Berling). A common thread is bourgeois repression. Fontaine's fortes (exhibited more successfully in Dry Cleaning than in the over-ambitious later film) seem to be the slow burn and the jaw-dropper ending. It's fun to observe chaos methodically take over an ordered existence. All three actors are fine and well cast. This was a striking debut for Merhar, then 26, and his ability to tempt either sex is totally believable. The backgrounds and technical side are well handled, and the suspense shows directing and screenwriting skill (Fontaine is a writer, director, and actor). Five Cesar nominations, and a Cesar win for Merhar -- Most Promising Actor (Meilleur espoir masculin).

Amy Heckerling's film of Cameron Crowe's "non-fiction" year in a California high school is fairly faithful to the book (Crowe wrote the script which is just as implausible) and it holds up pretty well after twenty-five years. But it's the cast of young up-and-comers (Sean Penn, Judge Reinhold, Phoebe Cates and the sublime Jennifer Jason Leigh) that makes the film work. Heckerling's comic timing was not yet fully developed--this was her first feature; she would be much more proficient in later films such as "Clueless" and "Look Who's Talking"--and Crowe has always been something of a killjoy, so there's a lot riding on cast chemistry and they deliever with the ease of old pros. A not bad way to pass an evening and a good way to intoduce your new teen to pitfalls of adolescence.

Well, Ridgemonth's back to Ridgemont. Curious about the t-shirt.

Jennifer Jason Leigh is my favorite actress, bar none. I know of few actresses working as fearlessly as her. "Miami Blues", "The Anniversary Party" (which she co-directed and co-wrote with Alan Cumming), "Mrs. Parker And The Vicious Circle", "The Hudsucker Proxy", "Single White Female" (she's great, the movie...not so great), "Short Cuts" (good in another bad film). Kubrick filmed her in "Eyes Wide Shut" but had to reshoot her scenes with another actress--God, what might have been!

Lotsa great actresses out there but Jennifer Jason Leigh, to me, knows no peer.

I deleted my post in the course of editing it but for the record here it is again.

Quote:

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You threw me off with that title, which relates to a satirical T-shirt series. It's been a long time since I saw this and I never thought I'd see Jennifer Jason Leigh described as "sublime." Didn't know about Amy HEckerling though I have seen Clueless, being a fan of Alicia Silverstone--I love her in Excess Baggage. Anyway, Fast Times sure is a classic from the great era of youth flicks, the fabulous Eighties.

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Here is the T-shirt site but I think the Ridgemonth spelling is a typo there too.

Jennifer is too angst-ridden for me, but she is distinctive and the movies you mention are good ones or at least good roles for her. I love Miami Blues. Don't agree with you on Short Cuts, which I like, maybe partly because of a laser disk of it with hours of fabulous extras inlcluding an interview with Pauline Kael, with Robert Altman, a making of, and the texts of all the Raymond Carver stories.

Quote:

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Originally posted by bix171
Jennifer Jason Leigh is my favorite actress, bar none. I know of few actresses working as fearlessly as her. "Miami Blues", "The Anniversary Party" (which she co-directed and co-wrote with Alan Cumming), "Mrs. Parker And The Vicious Circle", "The Hudsucker Proxy", "Single White Female" (she's great, the movie...not so great), "Short Cuts" (good in another bad film). Kubrick filmed her in "Eyes Wide Shut" but had to reshoot her scenes with another actress--God, what might have been!
Lotsa great actresses out there but Jennifer Jason Leigh, to me, knows no peer.

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I'm so happy someone here agrees the great JENNIFER JASON LEIGH has no peer. She is simply the best American actress. No one can touch her.

*This is an excerpt of a list I posted of Favorite Female Performances of the 90s:

JENNIFER JASON LEIGH---- (Georgia)
ROMANE BOHRINGER-------(Savage Nights)
CRISSY ROCK------------- (Ladybird, Ladybird)
JULIETTE BINOCHE-------- (Three Colors: Blue)
EMILY WATSON----------- (Breaking the Waves)

*Here's an excerpt of my comments about her performance as Dorothy Parker:

"Which brings me to Jennifer Jason Leigh as Dorothy Parker. If film appreciation is a rather subjective endeavor, evaluating a performance is even more so. I happen to think Ms. Leigh is one of the best actors working in film and her performance here is the type of no-net, bravura acting that is quite rare. Few actors take such chances. She understood that for Mrs. Parker sitting around that table was like being up on stage. She understood that a "naturalistic" portrayal would be totally wrong for the character, after doing her typically thorough research into the real Dorothy Parker."

*Here's a comment about Altman's Kansas City:

" I like Kansas City more than most viewers because Jennifer Jason Leigh is my favorite actress."

*Even decidedly "B" movies like Heart of Midnight are immediately elevated by her performance into something worth watching.