The Noteworthy: Remembering Sarris, Verhoeven's Jesus, and an Eye Surgery

• Above: Via Them Heavy People, the late, great, Rainer Werner Fassbinder whose retrospective is currently traveling from city to city.

 News.

• Countless critics have been sharing their thoughts on the life & work of Andrew Sarris, who passed away on June 20th, 2012. Visit both Fandor and Indiewire's gateways to these often personal and heartfelt remembrances. Also make sure to read David Bordwell's comprehensive tribute.

• Tremendous news for those on Team Verhoeven: His long awaited, often stymied film about Jesus Christ has, against all odds, finally landed funding. For those who know Paul Verhoeven, and even more so for those who have encountered his book Jesus of Nazareth, you're well aware we're in store for something subversive and controversial.

• A new film blog has launched entitled Photogénie, thus far featuring coverage of Il Cinema Ritrovato. From their mission statement:
  
  "At photogenie.be, we want to combine a sense of wonderment with keen analyses. The connecting principle is the intense perception of cinema. The articles that will be published on this website – on films old and new, cinema past and present – will not try and force this perception to fit preconceived frameworks, but will endeavour to make the viewer receptive to what films can make us see, in an attempt to put the allure of the cinema into words."

Finds.

• Above: from Pushed and Filed, "Ingmar Bergman admiring one of three original Bruces from Jaws on the Universal backlot, 1975".

• At Indiewire, Woody Allen discusses his influences from Italian cinema on his latest release, To Rome with Love (which our own Ignatiy Vishnevetsky just reviewed).

• Cinema Scope's Adam Nayman takes an in-depth look at Canadian darling Sarah Polley's Take This Waltz:
  
  "The picture that emerges is of a writer-director coming out swinging, which is transferred over to the characters—who are fighting for each other and against their own impulses—and also to the texture of the film itself, which is torn between naturalism and lyricism."

• Above: from Uncle Sporkums, a "reproduction of the camera labels from the unreleased Jerry Lewis movie, The Day the Clown Cried."

• Via MetaFilter, watch the 13 episode documentary series Hollywood: A Celebration of the American Silent Film by Kevin Brownlow and David Gill.

• From Ted Fendt's Blog Howling Wretches, Eric Rohmer on the 1.33:1 aspect ratio:
  
  "In believing we were rediscovering the visual dynamism of the silent masterpieces, we were only turning our backs on them, and I’m surprised that widescreen continues to be popular in the profession, without anyone, critics or technicians, daring to bluntly confess that the low ceilings in multiplexes are the real reason behind a commercial rather than an aesthetic choice."

• Not for the squeamish, a preview of one of the special features from Criterion's new release of Steven Soderbergh's Gray's Anatomy starring Spalding Gray. The footage is of an eye surgery undergone by Gray:

• Also from the Criterion Current, David Cairns' essay "Thirty-Nine Steps to Happiness" from the new release of Alfred Hitchock's The 39 Steps.

• Via Gorilla vs. Bear on the occasion of their blog's takeover by group Peaking Lights, a terrific mix of Bollywood soundtrack music by The Horrors band member Tom Furse called The Bollywood Kid.

• Via Keyframe Daily's Twitter, fan-cut footage from Orson Welles' The Merchant of Venice:

From the archives.

• This week, a look back at Jonathan Rosenbaum's levelheaded assessment of the limitations of Woody Allen's cinema: "Notes Toward the Devaluation of Woody Allen"