Thanks. Solipsism. Why don't the Filmwurld forum pages have spellcheck? My spelling system is solipsistic.
Thanks. Solipsism. Why don't the Filmwurld forum pages have spellcheck? My spelling system is solipsistic.
Just buggin' ya.
You said my English doesn't falter so I had to say it.
Spelling doesn't really matter. It's what's said that does.
"Set the controls for the heart of the Sun" - Pink Floyd
No your English doesn't falter. Spelling isn't everything but it does matter.
And since I'm a former English teacher, I ought to know better. But boys don't spell as well as girls and we take that to the grave, I guess.Mend your speech a little,
Lest it may mar your fortunes.
--Shakespeare, King Lear
Originally posted by Chris Knipp
I guess you just keep this thread for your own personal entertainment.
I understand how my not checking if there was a thread for the film gave you that impression, but YOU should know better. I've repeatedly stated I'd rather watch more film than post but I do in the hope of exchanging opinions about the films I watch. I'm trying to post on every film I watch as promised on January 1st. I haven't had internet access at home for almost one month. I'm trying to post from relatives' homes in less than desirable circumstances and with limited time to do it. I'm sorry I failed to search for your thread on The Assassination of Richard Nixon.
Wed Nov 16th
Gun Fury (USA, 1953) dvd
Solid western shot in Arizona, directed by Raoul Walsh, who made excellent films in just about every genre. Rock Hudson is ready to settle down in California with new wife Donna Reed. The Civil War is over and he vows to mind his own business and stay away from any kind of violence. In route to the west coast, he is left for dead and his wife kidnapped during a robbery. Like the hero of High Noon, Rock has difficulty finding men willing to help him get her back. Good film, but not as memorable a western as Walsh's own Pursued.
Thu Nov 17th
Down By Law (USA/Germany, 1986) dvd
Jim Jarmusch wanted to make a film starring his friends John Lurie and Tom Waits because he liked the chemistry between them. During a visit to Italy, a friend introduced him to Roberto Benigni and they hit it off immediately (mostly in French). Jarmusch altered the script to create a character for Benigni. Down by Law alternates between the pimp Lurie and the unemployed dj Waits in the poor parishes of New Orleans and how they come to be incarcerated. They share a cell with Benigni, whose anglophilia and attempts to master English idioms provides plenty of laughs. The three manage to escape through bayou swamps.
When I crave early Jarmusch, it's Mystery Train and Stranger Than Paradise I go for, over and over. But I'm glad I watched Down by Law a second time. I enjoyed it very much. This is quite an introduction to the US market to the talents of Mr. Benigni. This is also the first collaboration between Jarmusch and DP Robby Muller; his lensing and lighting here is every bit as awesome as that of Dead Man (thanks Criterion for the excellent transfer). John Lurie wrote the music score and Waits penned two songs prominently featured.
So you're saying that's what the DVD was, eh? I wouldn't have known that the lighting was great in Down by Law. I've seen a number of Benigni's movies, not all of them, and my impression, corroborated by Italian friends, is that he is best in improvised performances, not so good in cooked-up film stories like his latest movie about Iraq, La vita è bella, etc. I think he's hilarious in Down by Law, though even funnier in NIght on Earth. That sequence of the taxi driver is one of the single drollest passages in recent films. But he has some moments in Down by Law that rival it. I would probably agree that Down by Law isn't quite up to Stranger Than Paradise and Mystery Train, but they're all of a piece, too.(thanks Criterion for the excellent transfer)
Well, it's an obscure thread, though it took me only seconds to find it. On the other hand, I'm very very sorry you've had so much hardship, including lack of electricity. It would be churlish to criticize you for that. But I hope you can add your comments to the appropriate threads when you have the time. Otherwise this becomes a personal website within a collective website, doesn't it, really? If we all had our personal threads on this website, that would be kind of weird, to say the least. Alternately if the site's going to be all reviews and no talk, then it needs an edotor.I'm sorry I failed to search for your thread on The Assassination of Richard Nixon.
Originally posted by Chris Knipp
I wouldn't have known that the lighting was great in Down by Law. I would probably agree that Down by Law isn't quite up to Stranger Than Paradise and Mystery Train, but they're all of a piece, too.
I'm probably not the only one who often takes the use of lights in films for granted, until one watches a film in which inept lighting detracts significantly from an otherwise good film. Last case in point, Diego Lerman's Suddenly. Certain outdoor night scenes in Down by Law provide challenges to the DP in terms of lighting: long pans of New Orleans streets and especially, those involving the trio escaping through woods and bayou swamps. Boy, this picture looks fantastic! Muller is reportedly a pain in the ass but I'd put up with him to get my picture to look like this.
Yes, the Criterion transfer is beyond reproach. Among the extras, a press conference at Cannes '86 in which, as I remarked to Cristi, Jarmusch behaves like an arrogant asshole. Also included, a recent taped phone conversation between Jarmusch and Lurie in which the now mature auteur tells Lurie that he wonders why he behaved like a jerk at that conference.
Thursday Nov 17th (cont)
Play (Chile, 2005) at Beach Cinematheque
Cristina, a live-in nursemaid from the sticks, performs household chores and reads National Geographic to an ailing Hungarian. She takes out the trash and finds a briefcase. Flashback to how architect Tristan's briefcase got there. Back to Cristina, learning to smoke Tristan's cigs, listening to his music on his I-Pod, and investigating his life via objects found inside. Cristina calls his cell but no one answers. She finds him and follows him around the streets of her beloved Santiago. The inquisitive, naturally curious Cristina also becomes interested in Irene, Tristan's high-maintenance wife. Tristan has recently lost Irene to a long-haired Russian and finds himself with a lot of free-time when construction workers go on strike. He visits his blind mother, an stylishly exotic woman having a torrid affair with a younger man, a rude magician from Argentina. Play alternates between these characters from different social strata as they ambulate through the capital city. Tristan and Cristina eventually meet in rather unpredictable fashion.
The debut of writer/director Alicia Scherson (who studied film in Cuba and Chicago) had its world premiere at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival where Scherson was named best "new narrative filmmaker". The Voice and the Times both recommended it. I knew this before the screening yet I was still surprised at how Play didn't bring forth any associations with other films. It seems to have been made by someone who's been paying close attention to the minutae of life, to small behavioral differences, to what makes Santiago different from other world capitals, rather than made by someone who's been watching too many movies. Play is character-based rather than plot-fueled, with unforced bits of magical realism here and a touch of the absurd there. I was still sitting after the final credits wishing I could spend more time with Tristan and Cristina, and wondering what happened to them when Ms. Scherson stopped pointing her High-Def SteadyCam at them. Know what I mean?
Lighting: In general I want to learn more about the technical side and be a bit more aware of camera work, lighting, and editing when I watch a movie and comment on it -- but you don't want to overdo that, because it can be a distraction from the overall experience. Focusing on the "cinematic" was something I used to harp on when I was young; I wrote an essay arguing that popular American reviewers talked too much about film as if it was theater or a novel. I was talking pre-Kael. To some extent Pauline Kael, with her keen visual memory, changed that, though conventional reviewers since still tend now to revert to talking like movies are books whenever they can. What I was less aware of then than I am now is how important the writing
is, more than anything else, particularly in something conventional of course, something with a lot of dialogue, such as a romantic comedy.
I would certainly say that the photography, which would include the lighting, of Jarmusch's Dead Man, is absolutely amazing. I don't know why people don't talk more about that aspect of Dead Man. The landscapes are shot just the way 19th-century photographers and painters saw landscape. It's a completely different look, unique for modern film.
I haven't seen a lot of the recent Criterion DVD's, but I just watched the Vadim And God Created Woman last week, and it looked great -- as it did when it was new, I realized, watching the DVD. Full of the brilliant light of the Côte d'Azur.
For those of you attending film festivals in the near future, check out the Chilean film Play, reviewed on this page. The title is easy to remember but it's a film you won't easily forget. It's not the type of foreign crowd-pleaser that gets picked up for distribution. It's doing the festival circuit right now and getting good reviews wherever it plays. I'm going out of my way to push this picture because Scherson is a young Latina filmmaker with a unique vision and there aren't enough of those. Actually, the only one that comes to mind is Lucrecia Martel from Argentina. Then again, you've all seen The Holy Girl. Well, what are you waiting for?
Originally posted by Chris Knipp
conventional reviewers since still tend now to revert to talking like movies are books whenever they can.
Most definitely. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they are afraid to turn off readers who are not familiar with the terminology. Though truth is the main questions I get when discussing a movie are "who's in it?" and "what is it about?". Problem is certain movies require use of film grammar terms for a proper review, meaning one that conveys what's like to experience the film. If one is reviewing a Preston Sturges film for instance, one concentrates on the writing and the performance style. But a film by Kubrick or Greenaway demands descriptions of visual style. I think it all depends on the essential elements of the film being reviewed.
I would certainly say that the photography, which would include the lighting, of Jarmusch's Dead Man, is absolutely amazing.
To review that film without mentioning Muller and/or his work would be a failure to address one of the key aspects that make Dead Man so accomplished.
Friday November 18th
God's Sanbox (Israel, 2004) Cosford Cinema
A 50-something writer from Jerusalem comes to a beach that borders the Sinai desert in search of her runaway daughter. A bartender tells them the true story of a blonde Jewish "hippie" and her doomed affair with the son of a Bedouin sheik. Turns out the writer and the "hippie" are the same person and 30 years ago she was forced to undergo ritual mutilation. Director Duron Eran engages in exotic-chic and softcore eroticism before turning the film into an expose of outdated, anti-woman traditions. The effect is jarring. God's Sandbox is poorly written and suffers from serious casting problems. This is the worst foreign film in general release I've seen all year.
Sat Nov. 19th
The Phantom of Liberty (France, 1974) dvd
The penultimate film by Luis Bunuel keeps getting better with age. Sandwiched between the better-known The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and That Obscure Object of Desire, Phantom has only in the last decade been acknowledged as a must-see. It's finally become available on a Criterion dvd almost devoid of extras (a brief interview with co-writer Carriere is not very illuminating).
The film comprises a series of interlocking episodes that illustrate with precision and economy various Bunuelian themes, such as the arbitrariness of convention, the modern world's ambivalent grasp of freedom, the hypocrisy within religious institutions, etc. It's full of paradoxes and absurdities that contain messages but, under the hands of the mature master, the film is light as spring air, efortlessly moving from one vignette to another. Guests sit on toilets around a table but sneak into a tiny dining room to eat their dinner, a mass killer is condemned to death so he is released into the arms of autograph seekers, a man in a playground gives pictures to preteen girls ("Show them to your friends but not to adults") and they turn out to be postcards of religious sites, a little girl is reported missing at school even though she's crearly there and accompanies her dad to the police station, etc. I've criticized Roger Ebert often, particularly for inaccurate plot descriptions, too many 4-star reviews, and not "getting" Kiarostami, but he summed up Phantom beautifully by stating: "In a world cast loose of its moorings by freedom, only anarchy is logical".
Other Bunuel films reviewed on this thread:
Viridiana
Nazarin
El Bruto
The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
Good to have the cross references.
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