Senses of Cinema editor Rolando Caputo introduces the new issue: "For some time now, Senses has wanted to publish an English language translation of Jean-Baptiste Thoret's seminal article, 'The Seventies Reloaded: (What does the cinema think about when it dreams of Baudrillard?),' first published in French in 2005. So, it has been some wait, but finally we've got our wish thanks to a translation by Daniel Fairfax that does full justice to the original. Thoret is both one of the most esteemed scholars on Baudrillard's writings (a long-term Editor-in-Chief of Panic, a French journal closely associated with Baudrillardian thought), and a specialist of the American cinema of the post-classical Hollywood period (author of Le Cinéma américain des années 70, 2006). Both strands come together in sticking fashion in 'The Seventies Reloaded.'"
Among the other highlights of Issue 59: Jiwei Xiao on Jia Zhangke, Peter Tonguette on King Vidor, Graham Daseler on Lubitsch's Trouble in Paradise (1932), Pedro Blas Gonzalez on John Huston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), Caputo's interview with José Luis Guerin and Brigitta Wagner's with Joe Swanberg. Then, of course, the book reviews, annotations and festival reports; Ben McCann inducts Marcel Carné into the Great Directors database; and let's note, too, that there's an international urbanism sub-theme going on throughout the issue, with a Melbourne on Film Dossier, John Fidler on Pamela Robertson Wojcik's book, The Apartment Plot: Urban Living in American Film and Popular Culture, 1945 to 1975, and Flannery Wilson on "The Ever-Changing Representations of Taipei in Contemporary Taiwanese Cinema."
Via Catherine Grant comes word of a new issue of Scope, which happens to kick off with Matthew Croombs examining the "Pasts and Futures of 1970s Film Theory." Also: Oliver Mayer on "one of the most salient features of [Chris Marker's] film practice, namely to draw on audiovisual archive material by integrating it into the extremely heterogeneous medial tissue of his films," Donna de Ville on "Cultivating the Cult Experience at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema" and Katharina Lindner on the female dancer on film. Plus, reviews of over two dozen books, a few films and seven conference reports.
The latest Offscreen features a handful of festival reports, Daniel Garrett on Rachel Ward's Beautiful Kate (2009) and Donato Totaro on Michael Winner's The Sentinel (1977). For TCM's Movie Morlocks, Richard Harland Smith walks us through "the latest issue of Steve Puchalski's essential, incomparable, irreverent, inflammatory, indomitable Shock Cinema."
GOINGS ON
The New York Asian Film Festival won't open until Friday, but the first round of reviews is already in. The Berlin edition of Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin/Madrid opens today, runs through July 4 and features work by Pedro Costa, Jean-Marie Straub, Manoel de Oliveira, Ken Jacobs and a whole lot more. The Militant Cinema series is on in London through July 3. Harun Farocki: Recognition and Tracking opens on Saturday in Sligo, Ireland and will be on view through August 20.
IN OTHER NEWS
"Filmmaker Bob Moricz has reported that legendary underground film actor Bob Cowan has passed away," notes Mike Everleth. "Cowan was a regular performer and collaborator with the filmmakers George and Mike Kuchar, and is most well-known as starring as the robot Xar in the classic film Sins of the Fleshapoids [1965]. But, more than just acting in the movie, Cowan also served as the film’s narrator and assembled its memorable music score." Movie City News points us to Jack Stevenson's interview with Mike Kuchar: "Bob Cowan was the original projectionist for The Chelsea Girls [1966], which premiered at a small theater in the basement of an office building on West 41st street in Manhattan. I was visiting with Bob up in the projection booth twenty minutes before the show when in walks Warhol with the cans of film fresh out of the lab. In a soft spoken but focused manner, Warhol suggested to Bob how the double tracks on the projectors should be orchestrated for the program. I left the booth as Bob jotted down Warhol's recommendations on a sheet of paper, and The Chelsea Girls began what was to be a long run at that theater."
Also via MCN, La Cinémathèque française's Serge Toubiana remembers Claudine Paquot, who, first as a librarian and then as an editorial assistant, was "the pillar" of Cahiers du Cinéma for over 30 years.
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