A colleague who wrote a great book on Erice used the term "truncated film" to refer to a category of film, such as El Sur, that had its production or post-production interrupted or halted permanently and that resulted in a film vastly or meaningfully different that initially intended.
And the colleague's name was....?
Linda Ehrlich. You can hear her commentary on the Criterion edition of The Spirit of the Beehive.Originally Posted by Chris Knipp
And she specializes in Asian studies and Japanese as well as Spanish, unusual. It seems I should have seen The Spirit of the Beehive but I have not. Have you written about it?
I've commented about it, probably in these pages but long ago. I often list it as a top 10 all time. The shot that points the camera at Ana Torrent watching a film for the first time (It's Frankenstein dubbed into Castilian)is the first one that comes to mind. Such a poetic and spiritual film....
I have The Spirit of the Beehive on my Netflix list (on Criterion Collection DVD).
Googling I findThe video isn't very good - the soundtrack is faulty.Victor Erice on 'The Spirit Of The Beehives' at Pacific Film Archives ...
Video for watch the spirit of the beehive erice▶ 40:42
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc4UsOVvC6A
Aug 2, 2015 - Uploaded by dibyaduti
Noted Spanish director was at UC Berkeley's Pacific Film Archives on Aug 1 2015 to introduce his 1973 movie ...
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 06-20-2017 at 01:48 AM.
I liked this interview. Thanks. Check out this amusing and insightful video essay about the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WH3ovt68vIc
Thank you. I'll take a look at it, and, as I said, I have the whole film on my Netflix rental list.
I had the distinct pleasure of re-watching Edward Yang's A Brighter Summer Day on a theatrical screen and continue to be amazed at how some of the contemporary films that seem to me to be the highest achievements of the art of film are woefully under appreciated or remain unknown to the vast majority of filmgoers. It remains a problem for cinephilia to know what to do about foreign films that are too long for theatrical distribution. How else to explain, for example, the failure of the American art-cinema circuit to properly release a film like Yang's 4-hour masterpiece. Another great film from the early 90s that very few people have seen is the long version of Stanley Kwan's ACTRESS aka CENTER STAGE, the meta-cinematic biopic of the legendary Ruan Ling-yu. This post is also motivated by my growing conviction that Lav Diaz is a major talent and that his Norte: The End of History is the millennium version of "the A Brighter Summer Day phenomena: a masterpiece few have seen mainly because its running time makes it unsuitable for theatrical distribution. I have managed an art cinema since 2009 and I tell you, my audience that fills the seats for Sage-femme or Lost in Paris is not interested in a Filipino 4-hour film, no matter how great I tell them it is. (They also lack the patience and sensibility to enjoy the 103 minutes of Horse Money, another major recent film).
Last edited by oscar jubis; 08-02-2017 at 09:52 AM.
I think comparing Lav Diaz's boring, pretentious Norte to Yang's quiet autobiographical film is a stretch. As I said in my comment on rewatching A Briter Summer Day I still prefer Yang's hour-shorter later Yi Yi but I love both.
I can sympathize for your audience, but not sight unseen. I have watched and reviewed Norte: The End to History as you recall in Filmleaf as part of the 2013 NYFF. That's worlds away from the wonderful Edward Yang. I am a big fan of Yang, & described rewatching A Brighter Summer Day at Criterion in my Feb.-Mar. 2016 NY Movie Journal. I reviewed it at more length in 2012.
Most blockbusters are too long. Nolan's innovative (and superb) 106-minute-long Dunkirk is an admirable exception. But it's obvious 4 hrs. 20 mins. is a tough sell even for art houses.What would you do? You just have to promote it as a video or a mini-series. Olivier Assayas' Carlos the 5-hour miniseries (which I saw in a virtually non-stop NYFF screening at the Walter Reade) got some theatrical showings (at the Quad I think, after a blizzard). Edward Yang's movies are short for what they contain. Diaz's are long before you've watched 15 minutes of them because they're deadly dull, or so it seems: I've only watched the one, but obviously I'm not eager to delve deeper.
Norte has the scope, coherence and depth of a 19th Century Russian novel.
I added my first Cuban movie to the list: Memorias del Subdesarrollo (1968), no surprise there. There are a couple other Cuban movies that might one day get in, but just maybe, it's a privileged place.
Great films newly added to canon
1960. WILD RIVER (Kazan)
This is the first Elia Kazan film on the list. It's a film I finally caught up with, so to speak. There are still several movies likely to elicit surprising responses because I haven't seen them (or don't remember having seen them). It's possible that I watched a couple of scenes from it one night while broadcast on TV. Being true to my experience of cinema after high school, I watched a lot of fragments from movies; I "sampled" from movies quite a bit. This practice has only become more "natural" with clips on youtube and the overall fragmentation of experience often cited as characteristic of what is often labeled postmodernism. I'm not an unequivocal champion of technology but I am grateful that the (UK) Bluray of Wild River allows me to experience it in ideal, pristine conditions. I like how the Cinemascope images are composed but I love how the extended shots allow us the rich pleasure of seeing the performance and presence of exceptional stars who died young: Montgomery Clift and Lee Remick, and "character actor" Jo Van Fleet in the key role of an old lady who refuses to sell her little island so the government can tame the wild Tennessee river. The film presents substantial discourse about the inevitability of government (call it "civilization" and you realize this movie is a "western" of sorts even though it's set during the New Deal) and the resistance to it.
2011. A SEPARATION (Farhadi)
This Oscar winner has proven its worth as a perfectly crafted piece of dramaturgy over a dozen viewings. This is the Middle Easter film that I use the most in my classes because it is so engaging and because it elicits debate and promotes an understanding of the different layers of Iranian society and culture. I have seen students raised on Michael Bay and CGI fall under the spell of this subtitled masterpiece, and marvel over the intricacy of plot construction and the way Farhadi uses doors, mirrors, and architectural divisions to visualize separations between individuals and groups.
Last edited by oscar jubis; 12-19-2017 at 10:44 AM.
HIS GIRL FRIDAY
I had forgotten to add this 1940 adaptation of the 1928 play "The Front Page" directed and produced by Howard Hawks. His Girl Friday is an example of the Hollywood practice identified by film historian David Bordwell as "the switcheroo" and consisting of changing the gender of one character in a successful play or film. Hawks is famous for his genre versatility and for giving actors license to improvise. Stanley Cavell wrote the best criticism of this famous film in his 1979 book "Pursuits of Happiness" which concerns the genre of remarriage comedy. It has many instances of precise, intricate blocking and choreography of actors' movement. His Girl Friday has been called "slapstick" because of the fast and overlapping delivery of dialogue but the term undersells its deep reservoir of wisdom and inspiration.
Three movies from this decade make my beloved list of Favorite Films of all time!
THE STRANGE CASE OF ANGELICA (2010): 102 year-old Manoel de Oliveira's magical version of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is also a sort of autobiography. His grandson Ricardo Trepa plays a photographer in 1950s Oporto hired to document the funeral of a beautiful young bride.
BROOKLYN (2015): This is the film that proved Saoirse Ronan is an actress for the ages. Perhaps the film most beloved by my students. The film of late with the most pathos.
MR. TURNER (2014): The last 25 years in the life of British 19th century artist J.M.W. Turner dramatized in the fresh, inspired manner of writer/director Mike Leigh (Topsy-Turvy, about Gilbert & Sullivan). The cinematography of Dick Pope and the performance by Timothy Spall received prestigious recognition, at Cannes and elsewhere.
Last edited by oscar jubis; 10-21-2018 at 07:59 PM.
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