well this’ll be a fairly capricious listing as it’s difficult to totalize my expressions of desire but let’s see here from the following: the exterminating angel from bunuel, juraj herz’s the cremator, jeunet’s delicatessen, ryuichi hiroki with vibrator, pasolini’s medea, fellini’s nights of cabiria, the saragossa manuscript, carné’s children of paradise, and samurai rebellion
wojciech has’ great literary adaptation, the saragossa manuscript, is a lot of fun. and hour glass sanitorium (premised on bruno schulz’z novella, sanatorium under the sign of the hourglass) just had a dvd pal release from mr. bongo films, also directed by has. elements of the fantastic and the surreal amongst the two
I was recently at a film screening covering Queer San Francisco 1970 – 1980. They showed the following:
Dyketactics (Barbara Hammer, 1974) 4 minutes, 16mm
Ronnie (Curt McDowell, 1972) 7 minutes, 16mm screened on video
Holding (Constance Beeson, 1971) 13 minutes, 16mm
The Place Between Our Bodies (Michael Wallin, 1975) 33 minutes, 16mm
Multiple Orgasm (Barbara Hammer, 1977) 10 minutes, 16mm
Loads (Curt McDowell, 1980) 22 minutes, 16mm
This following is what the Film Love website wrote which I’ll quote here as I haven’t really consolidated any thoughts or feeling, observances.
“Ranging from tender to political to obsessed, each of these San Francisco filmmakers represents sex on screen as a revolutionary act. Barbara Hammer’s pioneer 70s films brought explicit lesbian sexuality to audiences, while Curt McDowell’s direct, brutally frank filmmaking style culminates in Loads, a notorious filmed diary of his anonymous sexual encounters, and Ronnie, a humorous and affecting portrait of a straight hustler who will switch teams if the money’s right. Coni Beeson’s Holding documents the intimacy of a young lesbian couple at the beginning of the Women’s Movement, while Michael Wallin’s The Place Between Our Bodies explores the filmmaker’s search for emotional (and sexual) connection in the cruising atmosphere of mid-70s San Francisco. "
There was a second night which focused more explicitly on The Cockettes but unfortunately I couldn’t be there. Looked intriguing though.
Tree, Your Sap Beats Gently Against Mine Brittle Jam (Michael Kalmen, 1969) 19 minutes, super-8mm screened on video
Palace (Syd Dutton and Scott Runyon, 1971) 23 minutes, 16mm screened on video
Tricia’s Wedding (Sebastian, 1971) 33 minutes, 16mm
Elevator Girls in Bondage (Michael Kalmen, 1972) 56 minutes, 16mm screened on video
“Pansexual, psychedelic, and covered in glitter, the fabulous Cockettes were a cross between hippie commune, radical political theater troupe, and the best secondhand costume department in the world. Only 1970 San Francisco could have produced them. Back in the spotlight as the subject of a celebrated 2002 documentary, the Cockettes’ reputation as the anarchic heart of Gay Liberation (and as a fashion influence!) continues to grow.
This program of extremely rare short films (some courtesy the private collection of Cockette archivist Rumi) shows San Francisco’s legendary Cockettes in full anarchic bloom. In Tree, we see the twenty-year-old future Cockettes founder Hibiscus, along with troupe member Rumi Missabu in a naked, comic dance at Land’s End. Palace, the only known film made during an actual Cockettes performance, documents the backstage and onstage goings-on at the group’s only Halloween show, Les Ghouls.
The hilarious and highly politically incorrect Tricia’s Wedding is the Cockettes at their outrageous best. The 1971 White House nuptials of Richard Nixon’s daughter provided perfect satirical fodder for the group. Characters include Mick Jagger, Indira Gandhi, Mamie Eisenhower, and Prince Charles. Disco diva Sylvester portrays both Coretta Scott King and Mahalia Jackson. Eartha Kitt spikes the White House punch with LSD, and the resulting group orgy does not disappoint. Meanwhile, Marxist revolutionaries, along with perverts of various stripes, are skewered with inspired silliness in the political/sexual satire Elevator Girls in Bondage. In her greatest role, Cockette Rumi leads a striking group of hotel workers, “spouting a surreal mix of folk songs and Marxist maxims.”"
Hype ruined Oldboy for me. It was everywhere and unavoidable. Then I watched Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance which I enjoyed. And maybe it is a bit uneven (don’ know, it has been some time now) but I remember thinking, after watching both, that it seemed more affective filmmaking. What were the reactions to Sympathy’s premiere? Of course, watching Sympathy first after hearing of Oldboy just added to this expectation. Oh well, I enjoyed them both, one to a lesser degree. Lady Vengeance looked nice but I was really ill-focused at the time and felt indifferent. Although that’s not entirely accurate either because I was very much waiting for it to end.
I suppose I should pretext this post by saying that it’s not my intention to totalize my opinion onto our collective existence. I recognize the limits as a person of a specific background, with specific privilege and my limits when speaking of film not only of film experiences but also of general knowledge and history of such. This certainly contributes to any views or muddling. And to be frank, I have a lot of scattered thoughts throughout this thread and these paragraphs aren’t very clear to what I am wanting to communicate. Maybe I can be more articulate if I relax or refine my thoughts through participation.
I don’t identify very much with the elements of this discussion that seem to focus on what ‘good’ or ‘bad’ cinema is and trying to wrassle that with gender politics. I mean, what’s the point of watching films or film making to only decide which is the ‘greatest’. (And who are accomplices in these standards of ‘greatness’ anyways..) It just appears as mystification, I don’t know, I recognize my implied value judgments there.. Although there are many great films from many different female bodied and male bodied and inbetween, outside of, all up and out and in all different ways bodied people. There are also many different filmmakers that most of us, all of us will probably never know. So as perspective any attempt to be comprehensive is on some level myopic, even if not intentionally mean spirited.
For myself, the discussion makes more sense when discussing society, it’s constructs and it’s modes of operation and how those relate and reformulate with people thus changing us and reflecting that change back – and the history of this experience, this embodiment. But this is too simple, too much reduction, only relates an aspect. As any one attempt probably will. This process of reduction of, of single focus, may have to be recognized in order to realize the multiplicity of experience and the value and validity therein.
And really I think I’m being obscure now. Maybe a more practical realization would be this. Someone earlier in this thread mentioned how Truffaut borrowed money from his wife to make his film. I think there’s something important to convey here about the myth of the individual. None of these great directors, despite being auteurs, realized their works on their own. And I mean this on a very base level of what inspires us to get up each day, who gets our coffee, who made our clothes, where did the film come from, who helped us learn about the things we love, who was a part of these experiences that led us to think, feel, know about life and it’s contents that are now being expressed on screen. As much as I think the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ cinema discussion is sort of mute, what seems adjunct to that muteness is the straw man of success and who perpetuates that success and at what cost and to measure up to what. That is to say, while the question ‘why are there really no great female film directors’ is a provocative one maybe it obscures the answer by encouraging prejudicial thinking in the first place.
On some level, I really want to speak to the ways in our collective history selective marginalization and exploitation have been rooted and nourished and edified in our social, economic, personal spheres and how the development of the film industry and it’s bureaucracy as a extension of these implicit hierarchies. Trying to talk about these artifices when confined only to academic and popular realizations of film I feel is misleading.
It’d be nice to have a pinned thread that list all the code commands that are applicable to this forum for users. I mean, posting pictures etc.. What else can one do exactly? Maybe this already exist?
Edit: Or on my wall, that would be great too! Thanks <’,))(
Orpheus M.:::: To frame the issue in terms of “women directors being as good as male directors” asks a loaded question and it channels the discourse down an avenue whose boundaries are falsely restricted from the outset.
This is pretty much what I was trying to communicate earlier but I’m afraid I just encouraged further mulling because of my passive ambiguity and by not being nearly as succinct. (and that’s not to spite some of the interesting discussion that followed!) I like your suggestions as well. Although I don’t really trust my knowledge or reading of film to lead such a discussion nor have the confidence for it really.
I think it could also be interesting in reading some film analysis informed by Judith Butler’s theories of gender performance and construction. It may provide a language for one way of reading gender in film without resorting to the essentialist or totalizing delineations of the film men make as opposed to the films women make.
The Manuscript Found in Saragossa is a really good book and it seems Has did a fair job covering it. Although, I read the book sometime after watching the film. Mr Bongo films will be getting more copies of another of his films, The Hourglass Sanatorium, sometime soon. It seems as if he had admirable literary taste as this was based of Bruno Schulz’s story collection Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass which is real quality. He’s a director I would like to see more of.
Moje miasto and Ulica Brzozowa are both on youtube without subtitles. And Has’ Pozegnania, or Partings, which was released after Petla is on google video but also without subtitles.
I’d like to watch the Remembrance of Things to Come with Yannick Bellon. If anyone wants to comment, that would be appreciated. There was a wonderful short Marker collaborated with Polish director Walerian Borowczyk to create called Les Astronautes that can be found online.
I thought Soderbergh’s adaptation was a little more didactic bit of film making. It sought more answers or explanations rather than focusing so much on provoking questions. Provoking questions I feel was more conducive to what was Tarkovsky’s more open ended approach – at least in Solyaris. I find some affinity with other’s thoughts that Tarkovsky’s approach appeared more cerebral and I wonder how much this reflected the viewer’s more disconnected relationship from the characters. I thought the ending of the second adaptation was fairly sudden and I wasn’t very impressed by Viola Davis or Jeremy Davies performance. Davies I found to be particularly bothersome. His presentation or style in the film just wasn’t to my liking. Maybe a little too well played or contrived or one dimensional? Then there was that goofy twist that I felt had not much impact and was mostly an after thought. I liked Soderbergh’s adaptation though and it was interesting reading the script they had uploaded as an extra. The filmed version had some differences that I felt could carry a different tone.
I’d forgotten that Davies was in Saving Private Ryan which I think is the only other time I’ve seen him. Though, now that you bring it up, I’m curious about his performance in this. A friend of mine related to me that his style of expression is very similar when he’s on Lost and that it complements that show well. May be, but I felt differently here in Solaris as if as an actor he was trying to make his character more difficult to pin down by a singular, near incoherent way of communicating.
Also, I don’t think Soderbergh’s adaptation is a remake. He does credit the script Tarkovsky used in his film but as far as I know it was mostly his own interpretation from the original source material, Lem’s novel.
There are two books that come to mind immediately that speak directly to this topic. One is Film and the Anarchist Imagination from Richard Porton published by Verso.
Bearded bomb-throwers, self-indulgent nihilists, dangerous subversives — these characteristic cliches of anarchists in the popular imagination are often reproduced in the cinema. In Film and the Anarchist Imagination, the first comprehensive survey of anarchism in film, Richard Porton deconstructs such stereotypes while offering an authoritative account of films featuring anarchist characters and motifs. From the early cinema of Griffith and René Clair, to the work of Godard, Lina Wertmuller, Lizzie Borden and Ken Loach, Porton analyzes portrayals of anarchism in film, presenting commentaries and critiques of such classics as Zéro de Conduite, Vivre sa Vie, and Love and Anarchy. In addition, he provides an excellent guide to the complex traditions of anarchist thought, from Bakunin and Kropotkin to Emma Goldman and Murray Bookchin, disclosing a rich historical legacy that encompasses the Paris Commune, the Haymarket martyrs, the anarcho-syndicalists of the Spanish Civil War, as well as more familiar contemporary avatars like the Situationists and the enragés of May 68.
The other is an anthology recently released on AK Press titled Arena: On Anarchist Cinema
I recently watched Jonas for the first time. It felt very genuine and melancholy. I think some of the ideas explored remain relevant such as taking an account of one’s life or trying to reconcile one’s identity with one’s desires or the conflict of realizing those desires within the everyday or in a more general way, the effects of time. The word praxis also comes to mind. I first read about Jonas in Film Quarterly where, if I remember correctly, it was being offered as a counterpoint to Godard’s La Chinoise. Although I haven’t seen this.
I thought it really lost momentum in the latter half, at least compared to the compelling beginning. Maybe some of that was an intentional slowdown? HST is out in the desolate landscape taking shots with his revolver in monologue. Plus after watching it for the first time in a number of years I noticed the female bodied characters are treated terribly across the board (iirc). I don’t know how much of that is Thompson or Gilliam or how much was even conscious. It was just much more noticeable, pulled my attention away and made it more difficult for me to appreciate.
I’ve read one screenplay which was Resnais’ Hiroshima, mon amour. I took it up after reading Duras’ The Lover. It was my intention to watch the movie again after reading the screenplay as apparently there are a few differences between the published script and what actually made it on film. Some of the differences are marked by Duras’ during a later revision but some only seem to be alluded to and I don’t remember the film clearly enough to say. I thought it was worth while considering the appendices with more fleshed out descriptions of the two characters and backgrounds which help to round out certain locations and sequences. The copy I have also has stills which are nice.
Who do you read? over 3 years ago
lately, i’ve been reading galeano’s days and nights of love and war as well as marie mies’ patriarchy and accumulation on a world scale
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favorite films? over 3 years ago
well this’ll be a fairly capricious listing as it’s difficult to totalize my expressions of desire but let’s see here from the following: the exterminating angel from bunuel, juraj herz’s the cremator, jeunet’s delicatessen, ryuichi hiroki with vibrator, pasolini’s medea, fellini’s nights of cabiria, the saragossa manuscript, carné’s children of paradise, and samurai rebellion
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Documentaries over 3 years ago
The documentary Terror’s Advocate, from Barbet Schroeder, is fairly interesting.
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If you had to pick ONE film as your favorite... over 3 years ago
probably the exterminating angel from bunuel
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Gay and Lesbian Cinema over 3 years ago
recent of 04’, the rasberry reich from bruce la bruce – hilarious critique
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3 extremes over 3 years ago
The Dumplings feature dwarfs the edited version in this anthology. Just sayin’.
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Favorite auteurs missing from the profile selection box. over 3 years ago
Wojciech Has
Jan Nemec
Kenneth Anger
Juraj Herz
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tv shows? over 3 years ago
Sometimes Doctor Who, most often the older transmissions.
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ANY THOUGHTS ABOUT POLISH CINEMA? over 3 years ago
wojciech has’ great literary adaptation, the saragossa manuscript, is a lot of fun. and hour glass sanitorium (premised on bruno schulz’z novella, sanatorium under the sign of the hourglass) just had a dvd pal release from mr. bongo films, also directed by has. elements of the fantastic and the surreal amongst the two
Go to Comment
Gay and Lesbian Cinema about 3 years ago
I was recently at a film screening covering Queer San Francisco 1970 – 1980. They showed the following:
Dyketactics (Barbara Hammer, 1974) 4 minutes, 16mm
Ronnie (Curt McDowell, 1972) 7 minutes, 16mm screened on video
Holding (Constance Beeson, 1971) 13 minutes, 16mm
The Place Between Our Bodies (Michael Wallin, 1975) 33 minutes, 16mm
Multiple Orgasm (Barbara Hammer, 1977) 10 minutes, 16mm
Loads (Curt McDowell, 1980) 22 minutes, 16mm
This following is what the Film Love website wrote which I’ll quote here as I haven’t really consolidated any thoughts or feeling, observances.
“Ranging from tender to political to obsessed, each of these San Francisco filmmakers represents sex on screen as a revolutionary act. Barbara Hammer’s pioneer 70s films brought explicit lesbian sexuality to audiences, while Curt McDowell’s direct, brutally frank filmmaking style culminates in Loads, a notorious filmed diary of his anonymous sexual encounters, and Ronnie, a humorous and affecting portrait of a straight hustler who will switch teams if the money’s right. Coni Beeson’s Holding documents the intimacy of a young lesbian couple at the beginning of the Women’s Movement, while Michael Wallin’s The Place Between Our Bodies explores the filmmaker’s search for emotional (and sexual) connection in the cruising atmosphere of mid-70s San Francisco. "
There was a second night which focused more explicitly on The Cockettes but unfortunately I couldn’t be there. Looked intriguing though.
Tree, Your Sap Beats Gently Against Mine Brittle Jam (Michael Kalmen, 1969) 19 minutes, super-8mm screened on video
Palace (Syd Dutton and Scott Runyon, 1971) 23 minutes, 16mm screened on video
Tricia’s Wedding (Sebastian, 1971) 33 minutes, 16mm
Elevator Girls in Bondage (Michael Kalmen, 1972) 56 minutes, 16mm screened on video
“Pansexual, psychedelic, and covered in glitter, the fabulous Cockettes were a cross between hippie commune, radical political theater troupe, and the best secondhand costume department in the world. Only 1970 San Francisco could have produced them. Back in the spotlight as the subject of a celebrated 2002 documentary, the Cockettes’ reputation as the anarchic heart of Gay Liberation (and as a fashion influence!) continues to grow.
This program of extremely rare short films (some courtesy the private collection of Cockette archivist Rumi) shows San Francisco’s legendary Cockettes in full anarchic bloom. In Tree, we see the twenty-year-old future Cockettes founder Hibiscus, along with troupe member Rumi Missabu in a naked, comic dance at Land’s End. Palace, the only known film made during an actual Cockettes performance, documents the backstage and onstage goings-on at the group’s only Halloween show, Les Ghouls.
The hilarious and highly politically incorrect Tricia’s Wedding is the Cockettes at their outrageous best. The 1971 White House nuptials of Richard Nixon’s daughter provided perfect satirical fodder for the group. Characters include Mick Jagger, Indira Gandhi, Mamie Eisenhower, and Prince Charles. Disco diva Sylvester portrays both Coretta Scott King and Mahalia Jackson. Eartha Kitt spikes the White House punch with LSD, and the resulting group orgy does not disappoint. Meanwhile, Marxist revolutionaries, along with perverts of various stripes, are skewered with inspired silliness in the political/sexual satire Elevator Girls in Bondage. In her greatest role, Cockette Rumi leads a striking group of hotel workers, “spouting a surreal mix of folk songs and Marxist maxims.”"
Go to Comment
OLDBOY - A DISAPPOINTMENT about 3 years ago
Hype ruined Oldboy for me. It was everywhere and unavoidable. Then I watched Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance which I enjoyed. And maybe it is a bit uneven (don’ know, it has been some time now) but I remember thinking, after watching both, that it seemed more affective filmmaking. What were the reactions to Sympathy’s premiere? Of course, watching Sympathy first after hearing of Oldboy just added to this expectation. Oh well, I enjoyed them both, one to a lesser degree. Lady Vengeance looked nice but I was really ill-focused at the time and felt indifferent. Although that’s not entirely accurate either because I was very much waiting for it to end.
Go to Comment
LETS TALK FRANKLY ABOUT FEMALE DIRECTORS about 3 years ago
I suppose I should pretext this post by saying that it’s not my intention to totalize my opinion onto our collective existence. I recognize the limits as a person of a specific background, with specific privilege and my limits when speaking of film not only of film experiences but also of general knowledge and history of such. This certainly contributes to any views or muddling. And to be frank, I have a lot of scattered thoughts throughout this thread and these paragraphs aren’t very clear to what I am wanting to communicate. Maybe I can be more articulate if I relax or refine my thoughts through participation.
I don’t identify very much with the elements of this discussion that seem to focus on what ‘good’ or ‘bad’ cinema is and trying to wrassle that with gender politics. I mean, what’s the point of watching films or film making to only decide which is the ‘greatest’. (And who are accomplices in these standards of ‘greatness’ anyways..) It just appears as mystification, I don’t know, I recognize my implied value judgments there.. Although there are many great films from many different female bodied and male bodied and inbetween, outside of, all up and out and in all different ways bodied people. There are also many different filmmakers that most of us, all of us will probably never know. So as perspective any attempt to be comprehensive is on some level myopic, even if not intentionally mean spirited.
For myself, the discussion makes more sense when discussing society, it’s constructs and it’s modes of operation and how those relate and reformulate with people thus changing us and reflecting that change back – and the history of this experience, this embodiment. But this is too simple, too much reduction, only relates an aspect. As any one attempt probably will. This process of reduction of, of single focus, may have to be recognized in order to realize the multiplicity of experience and the value and validity therein.
And really I think I’m being obscure now. Maybe a more practical realization would be this. Someone earlier in this thread mentioned how Truffaut borrowed money from his wife to make his film. I think there’s something important to convey here about the myth of the individual. None of these great directors, despite being auteurs, realized their works on their own. And I mean this on a very base level of what inspires us to get up each day, who gets our coffee, who made our clothes, where did the film come from, who helped us learn about the things we love, who was a part of these experiences that led us to think, feel, know about life and it’s contents that are now being expressed on screen. As much as I think the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ cinema discussion is sort of mute, what seems adjunct to that muteness is the straw man of success and who perpetuates that success and at what cost and to measure up to what. That is to say, while the question ‘why are there really no great female film directors’ is a provocative one maybe it obscures the answer by encouraging prejudicial thinking in the first place.On some level, I really want to speak to the ways in our collective history selective marginalization and exploitation have been rooted and nourished and edified in our social, economic, personal spheres and how the development of the film industry and it’s bureaucracy as a extension of these implicit hierarchies. Trying to talk about these artifices when confined only to academic and popular realizations of film I feel is misleading.
Go to Comment
Help make The Auteurs totally awesome about 3 years ago
It’d be nice to have a pinned thread that list all the code commands that are applicable to this forum for users. I mean, posting pictures etc.. What else can one do exactly? Maybe this already exist?
Edit: Or on my wall, that would be great too! Thanks <’,))(
: )
Go to Comment
LETS TALK FRANKLY ABOUT FEMALE DIRECTORS about 3 years ago
Orpheus M.:::: To frame the issue in terms of “women directors being as good as male directors” asks a loaded question and it channels the discourse down an avenue whose boundaries are falsely restricted from the outset.
This is pretty much what I was trying to communicate earlier but I’m afraid I just encouraged further mulling because of my passive ambiguity and by not being nearly as succinct. (and that’s not to spite some of the interesting discussion that followed!) I like your suggestions as well. Although I don’t really trust my knowledge or reading of film to lead such a discussion nor have the confidence for it really.
I think it could also be interesting in reading some film analysis informed by Judith Butler’s theories of gender performance and construction. It may provide a language for one way of reading gender in film without resorting to the essentialist or totalizing delineations of the film men make as opposed to the films women make.
Go to Comment
What if I say Wojciech Has? about 3 years ago
The Manuscript Found in Saragossa is a really good book and it seems Has did a fair job covering it. Although, I read the book sometime after watching the film. Mr Bongo films will be getting more copies of another of his films, The Hourglass Sanatorium, sometime soon. It seems as if he had admirable literary taste as this was based of Bruno Schulz’s story collection Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass which is real quality. He’s a director I would like to see more of.
Go to Comment
What if I say Wojciech Has? about 3 years ago
Moje miasto and Ulica Brzozowa are both on youtube without subtitles. And Has’ Pozegnania, or Partings, which was released after Petla is on google video but also without subtitles.
Go to Comment
What are the best documentary films ever? almost 3 years ago
If you appreciate jazz, then Jazz on a Summer’s Day is worth a look or listen.
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CHRIS MARKER almost 3 years ago
I’d like to watch the Remembrance of Things to Come with Yannick Bellon. If anyone wants to comment, that would be appreciated. There was a wonderful short Marker collaborated with Polish director Walerian Borowczyk to create called Les Astronautes that can be found online.
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what did you watch today? almost 3 years ago
Lubitsch’s The Shop Around the Corner. Now I feel very charmed and romantic.
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what can we expect from Tran Anh Hung's Norwegian Wood? almost 3 years ago
Unfortunately Jun Ichikawa passed away last year. I agree, he did an excellent adaptation of the short story.
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do you buy dvds or just rent them? almost 3 years ago
Mostly rent. Libraries are keen.
Go to Comment
Solyaris and Solaris almost 3 years ago
I thought Soderbergh’s adaptation was a little more didactic bit of film making. It sought more answers or explanations rather than focusing so much on provoking questions. Provoking questions I feel was more conducive to what was Tarkovsky’s more open ended approach – at least in Solyaris. I find some affinity with other’s thoughts that Tarkovsky’s approach appeared more cerebral and I wonder how much this reflected the viewer’s more disconnected relationship from the characters. I thought the ending of the second adaptation was fairly sudden and I wasn’t very impressed by Viola Davis or Jeremy Davies performance. Davies I found to be particularly bothersome. His presentation or style in the film just wasn’t to my liking. Maybe a little too well played or contrived or one dimensional? Then there was that goofy twist that I felt had not much impact and was mostly an after thought. I liked Soderbergh’s adaptation though and it was interesting reading the script they had uploaded as an extra. The filmed version had some differences that I felt could carry a different tone.
Go to Comment
Solyaris and Solaris almost 3 years ago
I’d forgotten that Davies was in Saving Private Ryan which I think is the only other time I’ve seen him. Though, now that you bring it up, I’m curious about his performance in this. A friend of mine related to me that his style of expression is very similar when he’s on Lost and that it complements that show well. May be, but I felt differently here in Solaris as if as an actor he was trying to make his character more difficult to pin down by a singular, near incoherent way of communicating.
Also, I don’t think Soderbergh’s adaptation is a remake. He does credit the script Tarkovsky used in his film but as far as I know it was mostly his own interpretation from the original source material, Lem’s novel.
Go to Comment
Help make The Auteurs totally awesome almost 3 years ago
option for more posts or threads per page as so much becomes buried quickly.
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Anybody seen films from India? almost 3 years ago
I watched Umrao Jaan recently. Loved it! So much good song and dance – especially Rekha/Asha Bhosle(’s) Dil Cheez Kya Hai.
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TRULY ANARCHIC FILMS almost 3 years ago
There are two books that come to mind immediately that speak directly to this topic. One is Film and the Anarchist Imagination from Richard Porton published by Verso.
Bearded bomb-throwers, self-indulgent nihilists, dangerous subversives — these characteristic cliches of anarchists in the popular imagination are often reproduced in the cinema. In Film and the Anarchist Imagination, the first comprehensive survey of anarchism in film, Richard Porton deconstructs such stereotypes while offering an authoritative account of films featuring anarchist characters and motifs. From the early cinema of Griffith and René Clair, to the work of Godard, Lina Wertmuller, Lizzie Borden and Ken Loach, Porton analyzes portrayals of anarchism in film, presenting commentaries and critiques of such classics as Zéro de Conduite, Vivre sa Vie, and Love and Anarchy. In addition, he provides an excellent guide to the complex traditions of anarchist thought, from Bakunin and Kropotkin to Emma Goldman and Murray Bookchin, disclosing a rich historical legacy that encompasses the Paris Commune, the Haymarket martyrs, the anarcho-syndicalists of the Spanish Civil War, as well as more familiar contemporary avatars like the Situationists and the enragés of May 68.
The other is an anthology recently released on AK Press titled Arena: On Anarchist Cinema
Go to Comment
John Berger almost 3 years ago
I recently watched Jonas for the first time. It felt very genuine and melancholy. I think some of the ideas explored remain relevant such as taking an account of one’s life or trying to reconcile one’s identity with one’s desires or the conflict of realizing those desires within the everyday or in a more general way, the effects of time. The word praxis also comes to mind. I first read about Jonas in Film Quarterly where, if I remember correctly, it was being offered as a counterpoint to Godard’s La Chinoise. Although I haven’t seen this.
Go to Comment
Why was Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas so critically panned? almost 3 years ago
I thought it really lost momentum in the latter half, at least compared to the compelling beginning. Maybe some of that was an intentional slowdown? HST is out in the desolate landscape taking shots with his revolver in monologue. Plus after watching it for the first time in a number of years I noticed the female bodied characters are treated terribly across the board (iirc). I don’t know how much of that is Thompson or Gilliam or how much was even conscious. It was just much more noticeable, pulled my attention away and made it more difficult for me to appreciate.
Go to Comment
Screenplays almost 3 years ago
I’ve read one screenplay which was Resnais’ Hiroshima, mon amour. I took it up after reading Duras’ The Lover. It was my intention to watch the movie again after reading the screenplay as apparently there are a few differences between the published script and what actually made it on film. Some of the differences are marked by Duras’ during a later revision but some only seem to be alluded to and I don’t remember the film clearly enough to say. I thought it was worth while considering the appendices with more fleshed out descriptions of the two characters and backgrounds which help to round out certain locations and sequences. The copy I have also has stills which are nice.
Go to Comment
best film about an unattainable women? almost 3 years ago
Chris Marker’s La jetée, apparently influenced by the aforementioned Vertigo
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