deluxe-a-vision

The Perfect Human

2008-01-01T15:33:00.000-08:00

Jorgen Leth's 1967 mock-serious film study of the human animal, The Perfect Human, is just one of those things that delights me and makes me giggle irrepressively. Somehow it manages to be beautiful and comic at the same time.

Now we will see how the perfect human looks and what he can do.

The Perfect Human part 2

Zombies, Madmen, and Cats: The Films of Val Lewton

2007-10-30T21:13:00.000-07:00

I love Halloween. Especially the iconic images of Halloween: the gypsy fortune teller driving her cart through a forest at night, lit by a solitary lamp; ghostly women in diaphanous gowns who walk the halls of old houses at the ends of lonely roads; cackling witches; yowling black cats; grinning jack o' lanterns; and death riding a skeletal horse through a midnight sky. My idea of Halloween is, obviously, a romantic one based on the influence of a lifetime of Gothic literature, cheap, paper Halloween decorations, and old Hollywood movies.

In my opinion, the best horror films ever were made in Hollywood in the 30s and 40s and though I love Universal Horror as much as anyone else (The Black Cat, especially) my personal favorites are those kitschy, heavy-handed, offensively cliche RKO films made by Val Lewton on a shoestring budget with a repertory cast. He stole from classic literature frequently (both The 7th Victim and I Walked with a Zombie are drawn from Jane Eyre), relied on offensive stereotyping, and sometimes I'm damned if I can figure out what the point of the film is (what's with that woman in The Curse of the Cat People, anyway) but he also created fun, stylish, moody films that while not actually scary are spooky in that uniquely Halloween way. I guess I'm easy, give me an outmoded folk legend, an exotic locale, or a deserted house with subterranean waters and I'm yours.

The first time I saw them was on a cable channel Halloween marathon and I've been in love with them ever since. If the only Val Lewton film you've ever seen is Cat People, you should definitely check out some of the others. My personal favorites are:

I Walked with a Zombie - a young nurse travels to the West Indies to care for a madwoman and comes face to face with Voodoo, very evocative, very lifted from Jane Eyre.

Isle of the Dead - a group of people are trapped on an island with Boris Karloff and a dread disease. They're droppin' like flies.

The 7th Victim - a young career woman goes to the big city and gets involved with Satanists - can her little sister save her?

And, of course, last but never least, Cat People - a curse from the old country follows a young woman to her new home and destroys her life.

If you want some more ideas, read Wendell Jamieson's article from the New York Times or Bright Lights Film Journal's article on Val Lewton.

Have fun! Don't get sick on corn candy!

The Loss of Bergman and Antonioni

2007-08-01T06:26:00.000-07:00

Two giants of mid-century European cinema died this past week. Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni were responsible, in their own highly individualistic ways, for creating films that dealt with issues concerning man's place in the world, his existential angst, and alienation in the modern world. They also brought foreign film to the notice of American viewers for the first time.

I admit to being somewhat of a Bergman junkie. I've seen most, though definitely not all, of his films and the list of ones I admire deeply is long. He gets a bad rap for being heavy going and for dealing in big, serious themes like religion, death, and morality, but his films display a charm and wit unique to him, and though being rather serious, and possibly erring on the side of self-conscious intellectualism, the themes he explored are universal and seemingly timeless. Though I prefer the films Bergman made in the 1950s, ones like Cries and Whispers are as excellent as anything he made before. To list the films I admire most would tax any reader's patience and most of them are so famous as to be too obvious to mention. However, I have to suggest watching Summer Interlude since I believe it was one of his favorites and I know it is mine and practically no one ever mentions it.

While I feel a little two knowledgeable about Bergman (you know, like those people who can drone on endlessly about a subject they spend too much time and effort on - freakishly knowledgeable Star Trek or Harry Potter fans, for example) I've only seen two of Michelangelo Antonioni's films: L'avventura and Blow Up. I know practically nothing about his work or him, except that watching both of these films awed me and made me feel utterly stupid! Such complexity, such depth, and so perfectly rendered: I'll probably never completely understand what they're about, but I can enjoy trying to.

There's a lot in the press this week about Bergman and Antonioni, here are a few samples of what's out there:

Bergman, Antonioni and the Religiously Inclined - New York Times

Ingmar Bergman Obituary in the London Telegraph
Ingmar Bergman Obituary in The Guardian
Ingmar Bergman Obituary in The New York Times

Michelangelo Antonioni Obituary in the New York Times

Senses of Cinema on Michelangelo Antonioni

Happy Birthday Hume Cronyn

2007-07-19T14:37:00.000-07:00

Looking for something to write about (I seem to be temporarily out of ideas) I checked my favorite celebrity birthday site and realized that it was Hume Cronyn's birthday on July 18. A great but underrated actor, Cronyn often played strange, distasteful little men chock-full of neuroses and axes to grind. I don't think I've seen that many of his films, but the ones that come immediately to mind are People Will Talk (1951 ) and Shadow of a Doubt (1943), an excellent celebratory birthday pairing if I do say so.

In People Will Talk, Cronyn plays a weasley little college professor who, jealous of his colleague's success and popularity, sets out to destroy his reputation and strip him of his medical credentials. Written and directed by Joseph Mankiewicz and starring Cary Grant, Jeanne Crain, Finlay Currie, Walter Slezak, and Margaret Hamilton, the film is full of witty one-liners, thoughtful philosophic insight, and delightful characters. Cronyn's character and the confessions he forces from his victims provide the necessary tension to a film that would be too idyllic otherwise.

Cronyn's character in Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt is less cruel, but far more disturbing. Next door neighbor to the Newton family in peaceful Santa Rosa, California, Cronyn comes over every evening during their dinner to discuss various strategies for knocking off the head of the family. Relishing each gruesome detail, Herbie (Cronyn) follows crime stories in the paper as if murder were something abstract and benign, feeling far removed from their reality in his remote California town. Cronyn plays Herbie as both naive and ghoulish and, though his role is small, it helps to drive home Hitchcock's point that no place is safe, no matter what it looks like from the outside.

If you enjoy Hume Cronyn's particular brand of weird charm, you may want to watch some of his other films, such as Lifeboat (1944) with Talulah Bankhead and Walter Slezak or The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) with Lana Turner and John Garfield.

Movie Kitsch on KDOC

2007-07-05T08:34:00.000-07:00

It took a long time, but KDOC has finally realized that their success as an all-reruns all the time station lies in its ability to tap the retro/vintage crowd. Their programming is still eclectic (what politeness!), but on the whole they are closing in on quality camp, kitsch, and nostalgia, giving less airtime to bad shows from the 1980s like Matlock and Saved By the Bell and focusing more on the 1970s and beyond. Though their programming is definitely improving, it is still quite apparent that they don't totally get it. Their new graphics, though objectively better than before, have lost a certain je ne sais quoi that emphasized their unique low budgetness. My favorite was how their ads for Kojak always used surf guitar in the background as though, in their admiration for Quentin Tarantino, they hadn't noticed that surf guitar and crime are an LA thing, incongruous when paired with the mean streets of New York. A KDOC fan from way back, I remember how by 9pm their re-run programming used to be replaced by hours and hours of Dr. Gene Scott mumbling on about no one knows what and scribbling obscure and occult-looking symbols from a variety of ancient languages on a whiteboard. As nostalgic as I am, I'm glad those days are gone. Instead, we have Universal horror movies and countless hours of The Endless Summer, Elvis, and Annette Funicello/Frankie Avalon beach movies. Mini-marathons of Twilight Zone, Bewitched, and The Partridge Family. It's an improvement no matter how you look at it.

This saturday, as part of their series of Saturday night monster movies, they're showing The Mummy (1932) starring Boris Karloff and directed by Karl Freund. Sunday night's selection from retro surf culture is Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1966) with Frankie Avalon, Dwayne Hickman, and Vincent Price in a daring crossover role. It is my own rather worthless opinion that the beach movies are much less of a sure bet than the old monster movies. Last week, I watched The Wolf Man with Lon Chaney, Claude Rains, Bela Lugosi, and Maria Ouspenskaya, and the most troublesome thing about it was that I couldn't honestly believe that Claude Rains was supposed to be Lon Chaney's father. Bad special effects, corny lines, none of those things bothered me, but Lon Chaney as an Englishman? It was a minor irritant to my enjoyment of the movie.

On the other hand, I tried to watch Beach Blanket Bingo the next night and I didn't last 10 minutes. Almost immediately, Annette and Frankie go surfing for a few minutes and, of course, when Annette comes back to the beach after wiping out her massive and immovable flip is still intact! Wasn't she, you know, under water? Shouldn't that have had some effect? If that wasn't bad enough Frankie spent all his time ordering these "girls" (a hapless troupe of bikini-clad bimbos) around as if he were a sultan and they his harem. What made it even worse was that they were only to happy to satisfy his every wish. I would have popped him one!

So get the gang together, mix a coupla Singapore Slings, get some teeny tiny eatables and have yourselves a movie night courtesy of KDOC.

Golden Earrings: Ray Milland Goes Native

2007-06-28T19:36:00.001-07:00

Last Christmas my mother gave me the Marlene Dietrich Glamour Collection DVD box set from Universal. Pleasantly surprised that my mother, unlike some, pays enough attention to realize that I am a devotee of crappy, I mean, campy old movies, I have been savoring it ever since, watching each of the films at well-spaced intervals, never gorging myself on so many that I had nothing left to watch. After several delightful visits to Camp Marlene I had seen all the films in the set I felt were worth watching. The one remaining film, Golden Earrings, I had dismissed. What little I knew about it just didn't entice me. I mean, Marlene Dietrich and Ray Milland just being in the same movie is odd enough, but as Gypsies? This could never be good. And while it is no less plausible that Marlene should be an eastern European gypsy than, well, say a Southern Belle or a Spanish femme fatale, it seemed completely impossible to believe in Ray Milland as either a gypsy or a romantic leading man. Well, the other day, in desperation for something, anything, to watch I popped Golden Earrings into the DVD player and watched it. The whole thing. At every cringe-worthy moment, I cringed; at every offensive racial/cultural stereotype, I was duly offended. But for everything that is wrong with this movie -- and there's a lot, believe me -- I have to admit that in some horrible, kitschy, painful, embarrassing way I enjoyed it, which is odd because I can't think of one really positive thing to say about it. It's almost as if I enjoyed this film in spite of myself. Throughout, I felt that I knew better than to enjoy it, that to like it was somehow evidence of some deep seated tendencies I'd rather not delve too deeply into, let alone admit.

At any rate, Golden Earrings is wartime spy thriller mit romantic fantasy about an English army officer who goes to Nazi Germany in order to smuggle out a formula for poison gas. While hiding from the Nazis, Denistoun (Ray Milland) meets up with Liddie (Marlene Dietrich), a Gypsy woman traveling alone who claims that spirits who live in the water told her he was coming and that, though a gadze (a non-gypsy), he is her man. Well, at first, he is disgusted by her filthy Gypsy habits and superstitions. After all, she is an offensive two-dimensional stereotype. But then, so is he. Ever the stiff-upper-lipped Englishman, he is more tightly-bound than nickel-62 and just about as fun. But then Denistoun decides to go with Liddie, traveling incognito as a Gypsy in her flimsy-looking vardo. Dark stained skin, large earrings in his ears, and sporting an eastern European peasant blouse, Denistoun "goes native" and becomes relaxed and carefree in a way that would have horrified his schoolmates at Sandhurst. He steals chickens, develops a ear for cimbalom music, and eats with his hands. What's more, having cast off his whiteness he becomes a gifted fortune teller, beginning to take on the psychic and supernatural world of the Gypsy stereotype (according to this film, the Roma are psychic and follow some sort of animistic earth-based religion. Who knew?).

As is so often the case, the film's point of view is best encapsulated by the trailer, which in this case summarizes the film as a tale about a "man from the civilized world" who comes into contact with the "primitive and passionate" world of the gypsy. If I'd watched the trailer first I would have known what I was in for and may never have watched the movie at all. I don't understand why Universal would have made this film, except maybe to rectify the fact that the Roma were the one minority Hollywood hadn't taken a shot at yet. Anyway, I can't say it isn't offensive or stereotyped or that the love story is so stirring that it makes up for all of its other flaws, but inexplicably, you may, like me, be able to enjoy its kitschiness, camp, and bad acting in spite of it all.

THIS JUST OUT: Banacek Season One

2007-06-03T09:01:00.000-07:00

Though I am probably in the minority here, I am excited about the recent release of Season One of Banacek on DVD. A cop drama from the early 1970s, Banacek starred George Peppard as a Polish-American insurance investigator with a penchant for reciting obscure Polish proverbs while smoking a cigarillo and wearing far too form-fitting turtlenecks and leisure pants. My primary joy in Banacek has been that, though set in Boston, the entire series was filmed either on the back lot at Universal or on location in Los Angeles, and I have enjoyed it as a sort of treasure hunt of LA streets and neighborhoods, much the way I do Rockford Files and CHiPs. But in watching reruns of the show during its short stint on KDOC, I have become familiar with certain elements of the Banacek character. Several things remain constant throughout: Banacek always solves the impossible to solve case, always has leggy women simply falling all over him, and is always self-consciously enjoying the most expensive of everything. So I ask myself, whose fantasy was this? It seems to me that the entire series is simply a middle-aged man's dream life escape from his ordinary humdrum existence. While Banacek is decidedly unbelievable as an irresistibly handsome millionaire genius, this is exactly what we are asked to believe of him. In its original pitch to the network the series must have been intended as a prolonged dream sequence framed within two explanatory episodes in which the mediocre, lonely, insurance salesman Banacek is knocked unconscious by a rogue pot of African violets only to wake up after a delicious fantasy of beautiful women, witty one-liners, and fantastic wealth to find that he is, once again, just a common wage slave. At least this is my reading and, I have to say, the series is much more believable this way.

Though you might want to just rent this one, it can be bought at Amazon and though you won't find much in the way of unqualified praise for this show, there are some fans out there. Check out these clips from YouTube:

Decompressing with Doris Day

2007-05-09T10:38:00.000-07:00

The semester is finally over and I have finished college. Audible sigh. This year has been the hardest of the four (actually more like five) that I've spent in college and I feel as though, through all of it, I have had either a cold or a migraine. But let's not forget that marathon ear infection last Fall, that was fun. I don't know if I've ever been so tired in all my life. I've been achy and crabby and sleepy and on Sunday morning the prospect of leaving the house left me in tears. You notice there have been no posts and if you extend that sort of inactivity to all other areas of my life you'll understand that the dishes need to be done, the floors cleaned, the car washed, the laundry done, while appointments must be made for oil changes, eye exams, etc. etc. etc. The list of things on the back burner is extensive. All semester long, with every new chore to be done I would just shake my head, raise my hands up and say, "I can't deal with that right now; I'll take care of it after graduation." Well, here it is. It's time to take care of it all, as well as all the new things that are now on the list, like look for a job, consolidate my student loans, consider running away to a graduate program, that kind of thing. I'm beginning to feel overwhelmed just putting it all down. Which brings me to my point: I am overwhelmed and, as with the end of every semester, my way of coping has been to escape into some thematically-arranged marathon film or TV watching. Last Spring it was Bob Newhart, last winter it was German Expressionist Horror which metamorphosed into Conrad Veidt (that one was long lived!), now it is Doris Day.

I think that the fact that it's Doris Day points to the seriousness of my condition. Nothing less than complete collapse could make me engage in such behavior. For weeks now I have watched Doris Day and Rock Hudson/James Garner/Rod Taylor pretend their way through early 1960s bedroom comedies and the effect is highly therapeutic. These films are like comfort food, like macaroni and cheese, for example. They're comforting and familiar and completely bad for you.
So far, I've watched Doris Day play fumbling feminine idiots against Rod Taylor's dominant male superiority in Do Not Disturb and The Glass Bottom Boat, Doris Day play the little wife to James Garner's friendly-but-slapstick-in-love-with-her-ness in Move Over Darling, and Rock Hudson in a variety of completely unbelievable roles: a nogoodnik advertising exec out for corporate blood until he is reformed by Doris' cuteness (Lover Come Back), and a hypochondriac business man with a fertile imagination and a hilarious side kick (Send Me No Flower s).

No matter what you're procrastinating, there's a Doris Day sex comedy just right for the occasion. Coming up in my near future: The Thrill of it All! and Pillow Talk. It's gonna be great!

Noir City: Los Angeles vs. New York

2007-04-18T15:22:00.000-07:00

The Noir Festival at the Egyptian Theatre is back again and LA noir is dukin' it out with New York. Though they're showing a great collection of films, my prejudice leans to the films set in Los Angeles, especially those featuring location shots in downtown neighborhoods. I've been writing my senior thesis on the relationship between booster rhetoric and downtown narratives in fiction and film so, of course, this is right up my street. Two films in particular, fit the bill: Sam Fuller's 1959 Crimson Kimono set in Little Tokyo and Robert Aldrich's Hollywood noir The Big Knife (1955). The Big Knife screened on April 14 (woops!) but you can rent it from Netflix, contrary to what American Cinematheque says and Crimson Kimono is showing on Friday April 20 at 7:30 pm.

Check out their website for a complete list of what's showing here.

Joan Crawford: They called her a scar-faced she-devil!

2007-03-23T18:38:00.000-07:00

Not really. That's just the tagline for A Woman's Face. Today is Joan Crawford's birthday and in honor of that fact what could be better than a film that pairs her with Conrad Veidt? Directed by George Cukor, A Woman's Face (1941) stars Joan Crawford as Anna Holm, a scheming con woman shut off from society because of a disfiguring facial scar. When a plastic surgeon (Melvyn Douglas) removes the scar, Anna is determined to start over but a chance at love from dashing playboy Torsten Barring (Conrad Veidt) draws her into a murder plot and a return to her criminal past.

Though I must confess I'm not a huge Crawford fan, I do have several favorites. Here's a short list:
The Women (1939)
Joan is Crystal Allen, a shopgirl having an affair with husband of society matron Mary Haines (Norman Shearer). When Haines hears the gossip around town she hops a train for a Reno divorce and Crystal marries the ex, but when Crystal steps out on her meal ticket with cowboy singer Buck Winston its back to the perfume counter for her!
Mildred Pierce (1945)
After her cheating husband leaves her, Mildred Pierce (Joan Crawford) proves she can become independent and successful with her own chain of restaurants, but in order to please her money hungry daughter she must sell out and marry a man she doesn't love. Blackmail, murder, revenge!
Johnny Guitar (1954)
Joan is Vienna"Gun-Queen of the Arizona frontier." When four men hold up a stagecoach and kill a man, the town officials come to Vienna's saloon to grab four of her friends. Vienna stands strong against them and is aided by the presence of old acquaintance Johnny Guitar (Sterling Hayden), who is not what he seems.
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
Joan plays Blanche Hudson a crippled actress living as a recluse in a Hollywood mansion with her aging child star sister Jane (Bette Davis). A combo psychological thriller, black comedy, and all out camp melodrama. Watch Crawford and Davis duke it out!

TO DO IN LOS ANGELES: Some Like It Hot

2007-03-19T18:36:00.000-07:00

Is it your fondest dream to watch the greatest American comedy on the big screen and in the presence of an appreciative audience? If it is, you're in luck because Wednesday night Some Like It Hot is showing at the ArcLight. Written by I. A. L. Diamond and directed by Billy Wilder, Some Like It Hot (1959) stars Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, Joe E. Brown, and George Raft in one of the greatest of all screwball comedies. A spoof on 1920s gangster films and slapstick, Some Like it Hot plays with gender, identity, and disguise and was condemned by the Catholic League of Decency (a heck of a recommendation in itself) for challenging the production code with its use of innuendo and controversial sexual and social themes.

Two struggling musicians, Joe and Jerry (Curtis and Lemmon), are on the run from a Chicago mob boss after witnessing the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Spats Columbo (Raft) orders their execution but they escape and in desperation join an all-girl band on their way to Florida. "Brand new" girls Josephine and Geraldine, er...Daphne, run into "Sugar" Kane Kowalczyk (Monroe), the band's Polish-American ukelele playing singer and it only gets more improbable from there.

Some Like It Hot will be shown at 8 pm on Wednesday March 21 at the ArcLight Theatre in Hollywood. Tickets are $11, $10 for ArcLight, AFI and Skirball members, on-site parking is $2 for four hours with validation. To order advance tickets, go to www.arclightcinemas.com, call 323.464.4226 or visit ArcLight Hollywood's box office at 6360 W Sunset Blvd. (at Ivar). Admission prices may vary depending on event.

Conrad Veidt as Ivan the Terrible in Waxworks

2007-03-12T18:24:00.000-07:00

Paul Leni 's 1924 film Waxworks (Das Wachsfigurenkabinett) stars Emil Jannings as The Caliph, Conrad Veidt as Ivan the Terrible, and Werner Krauss as Jack the Ripper in a story about a young writer (William Dieterle) who is hired by a carnival promoter to write stories about each of his wax figures. The first story about the Harun al Raschid and a young Baker's wife is wonderful, primarily for its set design, which depicts a fantasy Arabia of mushroom-shaped houses connected by miniature stairways and catwalks. The second story is about Ivan the Terrible who, habitually sentencing his enemies to death, orders the execution of the court chemist. The chemist decides to get his revenge by poisoning the Czar, but is interrupted after writing his name on an hourglass. Seeing his name there, Ivan is driven insane by the idea that he is about to die. The final story is not written by the young writer, but dreamt by him. Having fallen asleep while writing he dreams that the carnival promoter's beautiful daughter is being pursued by Jack the Ripper.

I rented this movie primarily to see Conrad Veidt's performance as Ivan the Terrible since I've been on this jag lately to see everything he ever made. You may have noticed this. The film itself is not bad. Like many silents it's a little slow in spots, but Veidt's performance as Ivan the Terrible is really extraordinary. The scene where Ivan finds his name written on the chemist's hourglass is fascinating. You can see him going mad as he keeps turning the hourglass over and over in an attempt to prolong his life. It's the kind of thing lesser actors would have turned into satire, but in Veidt's performance it is truly magnificent.

THIS JUST OUT: The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

2007-03-06T10:18:00.000-08:00

A great example of British kitchen sink realism, Tony Richardson's 1962 "angry young man" film, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, has just been released on DVD. Colin Smith (Tom Courteney) is a bitter young man from a working class family. Uninterested in school and determined not to follow his father into factory work, Colin and his friend Mike (James Bolam) make their pocket money through petty crime. When they're arrested for the robbery of a bakery and sentenced to reform school, the Governor of the school (Michael Redgrave) takes a keen interest in Colin, but he cares less for his rehabilitation than his gifts as a broken-field runner. Colin finds himself torn between the need to please his captors and play the game and his determination not to participate in what he sees as a corrupt system.

Considered an example of British New Wave filmmaking, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner owes a lot to the innovations and themes of French New Wave films (The 400 Blows especially), such as long tracking shots, jump cuts, and the use of handheld cameras, but it also shares its focus on themes of individual angst. Having watched his father work for the local factory all his life only to die of a work-related illness, Smith has a clear understanding of working class oppression. Smith expresses a Marxist view of class inequity. As a member of the working class he feels that whether by working or by spending money his actions only go toward enriching the powerful and assisting his own oppression. The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner is a thoughtful film, socially engaged, artistically skillful, and extremely relevant in today's corporate/consumer culture.

Douglas Sirk: The Far Side of Paradise at American Cinematheque

2007-03-01T16:04:00.000-08:00

Imitation of Life, All I Desire, Magnificent Obsession, All That Heaven Allows, melodrama never got any better than in the hands of "weepies" master Douglas Sirk. In celebration of Sirk's "ability to transform often ludicrous material into sublime, multi-layered narratives" American Cinematheque will be showing nine of his films from March 1through March 4 at the Egyptian in Hollywood and from March 15 through 21 at the Aero in Santa Monica. Though they're showing all of Sirk's most famous melodramas, they're also showing several of his earlier and lesser known films as well, many of them not available on DVD. Bring your hanky!

Series Schedule at the Eqyptian Theatre
Series Schedule at the Aero

"…the word ‘melodrama’ has rather lost its meaning nowadays: people tend to lose the ‘melos’ in it, the music…Most great plays are based on melodrama situations, or have melodramatic endings…but craziness is very important…This is the dialectic – there is a very short distance between high art and trash, and trash that contains the element of craziness is by this very quality nearer to art." – Douglas Sirk

Imitation of Lifelessness at Bright Lights Film Journal
All That Heaven Allows and Written on the Wind at Images
Weepies at GreenCine
Home is Where the Heart Is: Studies in Melodrama and the Women's Film

The Further Adventures of a Conrad Veidt Devotee: Contraband

2007-02-22T08:10:00.000-08:00

Contraband (1940) was the first movie Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger fully collaborated on after making The Spy in Black the year before. A comic thriller set in a London blackout, Conrad Veidt plays Captain Andersen, a stern, imposing man who has a taste for adventure and a liking for smart, “troublesome” women. Captain Andersen commands the Helvig, a Danish freighter that's been delayed in port by British customs agents on the lookout for military contraband. While the ship is docked, two passengers slip ashore, though they've been ordered to stay aboard, Mrs. Sorensen (Valerie Hobson) and Mr. Pidgeon (Esmond Knight). The Captain has already had trouble from Mrs. Sorenson, a willful Englishwoman who believes that rules are made for other people, and his blood is up. Affronted by his passengers’ disobedience and, by law, responsible for his passengers while in port, Captain Andersen goes ashore to find them. After catching up with Mrs. Sorenson in London, circumstances reveal that she’s a British spy who, with Andersen, falls into the hands of a Nazi cell operating out of the basement of a Soho nightclub.

While the plot is reminiscent of early Hitchcock, the style and tone of the film is pure Powell. Rather than take itself seriously, Contraband’s thriller plot is constantly lightened up by tongue-in-cheek humor and romantic badinage (as well as a fair amount of what Ken Russell has called "bondage overtones"). Though it's not as developed visually as some of his later films, you can see the beginnings of certain stylistic tendencies in the film. Contraband contains several shots and sequences that appear in his later films, such as the eerie, fog enveloped men working on ships in the harbor, for instance, and the combination of a rapid close up of a clock face and the blaring of a train whistle from I Know Where I'm Going!.

Contraband seems to be overlooked by most viewers, even fans of Powell and Pressburger, as a pale imitation of a 1930s era Hitchcock thriller, but though it may be one of their lesser films, I thoroughly enjoyed its humor and felt it had all of the elements, whether fully developed or not, that one expects of an Archers film.

Senses of Cinema Review by Alexander C. Ives

Get Your Art House On: Fifty Years of Janus Films at LACMA

2007-02-17T08:06:00.000-08:00

From March 2 to April 7 LACMA will be showing new 35 mm prints of 23 of Janus Films' essential art house collection. All your favorites from film studies are here: Rashomon, The 400 Blows, The Seventh Seal, L'Avventura, and Knife in the Water as well as some films you may have missed. The selection focuses mainly on films from the 1950s and 60s, but also includes films from beyond, such as The Rules of the Game and, oddly, Pygmalion. Double Features on Friday and Saturday evenings start at 7:30 pm at LACMA's Leo S. Bing Theatre.

Tickets & Information
$9; $6 for museum and AFI members, seniors (62+), and students with valid ID. Price includes both films in a double bill, except where noted. $5 for the second film only with no advance purchase.

Please note: many programs sell out. Tickets are on sale now and may be purchased at the museum box office. For information call the box office at (323) 857-6010. Purchase of a film ticket includes entrance to the galleries.

Conrad Veidt in The Indian Tomb

2007-02-03T19:43:00.000-08:00

In answer to your question...No, I haven't tired of Conrad Veidt yet. I'm still enthralled. My most recent experience was the 1921 epic The Indian Tomb written by Fritz Lang, but directed by Joe May. Conrad Veidt stars as the vengeful but brooding Ayan III, the Maharajah of Bengal, who has a diabolical plot against his unfaithful wife (Erna Morena) and her British lover (Paul Richter). Ayan vows to build a tomb to his dead love and hires English architect Herbert Rowland (Olaf Fonss) to build it for him. Sworn to secrecy Rowland leaves abruptly, but his fiancee Irene (Mia May) follows him to India where danger and adventure begin.

At 3 1/2 hours long, I was somewhat hesitant to start watching this film, but it's like a good, old fashioned serial full of chases, danger, and women in distress and since it's set in India tigers, pythons, and yogis. And the key here is to treat it like a serial and watch it over a period of days. There is simply no way to watch it all at one sitting, you'll go mad. That being said, once you get used to the tempo and style of the film it really draws you in. One of the most expensive films of the 1920s, The Indian Tomb has impressive special effects and elaborate and beautiful sets that seem to go on forever.

The best thing about The Indian Tomb, however, is Conrad Veidt. Easily the best actor in the film, his portrayal of Ayan is fascinating and complex. Though clearly the "villain," Veidt imbues his character with pathos, eliciting our sympathy and our interest. Veidt's performance is highly stylized, using slow, almost dance-like movements, making him mysterious and otherworldly in comparison to those around him. With his piercing eyes, almost skeletal frame, jewels, velvet and satin clothes, Veidt portrays Ayan as the western image of a feminized oriental, emotional and irrational, and subject to cruel whims and desires. Though Ayan is never "manly" in the western sense, the scene where he suddenly appears masquerading as an androgynous temple deity emphasizes this representation.

Some reading to complicate your fun:
Orientalism by Edward Said
The Location of Culture by Homi Bhabha

Love Gone Wrong for Valentine's Day

2007-01-31T08:26:00.000-08:00

I love a theme and apparently the folks at Kino Video do, too. In order to celebrate the "romance and heartbreak" of Valentine's Day they're taking 30% off their series of "Love Gone Wrong" films. Included are the G. W. Pabst/Louise Brooks classic Diary of a Lost Girl, Fritz Lang's 1945 noir Scarlet Street, and the 1924 Carl Dreyer silent Michael, as well as more contemporary films, such as Wong Kar-Wai's Happy Together, Rajiv Menon's I Have Found It, and Claude Chabrol's Betty. So if Valentine's Day soppiness leaves you feeling bitter and mildly ill, at least you know that the understanding film hounds at Kino Video are thinking of you.

All Through the Night

2007-01-21T09:49:00.000-08:00

All Through the Night (1941) is a delightful romp through wartime propaganda. A comedy thriller with Bogart as a wisecracking New York gambler who stumbles onto a group of Nazi fifth colmunists who are planning to sabotage a battleship anchored in the harbor. Bogart rallies his small group of lovable underworld gangsters in a sudden burst of patriotism to overthrow a rather large group of Nazi operatives. All Through the Night is a rather generic wartime film that relies almost completely on its major characters playing parts they'd played in many films before. Conrad Veidt is the suave, almost friendly, but dangerous Nazi leader, Bogart plays his usual fast talking tough guy slightly more tongue in cheek than usual, and Lorre is a somewhat scummy lower echelon bad guy in the vein of Joe Cairo or Senor Ugarte. Likewise, Judith Anderson, Jane Darwell, Frank McHugh, and William Demerest all play parts we've all seen them play in better films. As a result, All Through the Night is a very comfortable, familiar experience, along the lines of the Bob Hope/Bing Crosby movies they used to show on Tom Hatten's Family Film Festival when I was a kid. There are several good lines in the film, mostly spoken by Bogart and his cronies, which taken with the performances themselves make the film worthwhile.

My obsession with Conrad Veidt continues

2007-01-20T14:19:00.000-08:00

In an attempt to deny the fact that school has started again I have provided myself with a pointless obsession, the films of Conrad Veidt. Between those crazy kids at netflix and the used VHS tapes to be found on amazon, I am racking up quite a number of wasted hours watching movies no one even seems to know exist. So far, since The Man Who Laughs, I have seen Different From the Others (Germany, 1919) and All Through the Night (US, 1941). There's a contrast for you! Different From the Others is about a gay concert violinist Paul Korner (Conrad Veidt) who falls in love with one of his students and is blackmailed by a predatory criminal (Reinhold Schunzel) who threatens to expose him to the police. (Under Paragraph 175, Germany's anti-gay legislation, homosexuals could by imprisoned for up to five years) A sort of sex hygiene film, the well meant but didactic lecturing of "Dr. Magnus Hirschfield of the Institute for Sexual Science" tends to interfere with the storyline, being, as it is, only halfheartedly integrated into the plot. It's an interesting film, however, primarily because it reflects that brief moment of openness in Weimar Germany before Hitler came to power. The acting tends to be rather melodramatic by today's standards (Veidt spends rather a lot of time looking woebegone and lost with a hand to his head) and the makeup is a scream (I think we are supposed to intuit from the dark circles around his eyes that Reinhold Schunzel is the bad guy) but there are aspects of the film which make it worth seeing. Censored by the German government and later burned by the Nazis as "degenerate," a print of the film was found in the Ukraine and restored by the Filmmuseum Munchen. Missing sections of the film have been replaced with explanatory intertitles and still photos.

Tomorrow: All Through the Night

Conrad Veidt: The Man Who Laughs

2007-01-14T11:29:00.000-08:00

If you’re like me, you’ve only seen Conrad Veidt in a couple of films: as the sleepwalker in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), as the mean, nasty Major Strasser in Casablanca (1942), and the equally evil Jaffar in The Thief of Bagdad (1940). Until now, I had never seen any of the films he’d made in the twenty years between making a groundbreaking German Expressionist silent and playing smug bad guys in British and Hollywood movies. I had some recollection that he’d made some spy flicks for Michael Powell at some point, but I’d never seen them. So while looking for silent horror movies to watch on Netflix, I found the 1928 American silent horror classic The Man Who Laughs.

An adaptation of a Victor Hugo novel, Veidt plays the role of Gwynplaine, a nobleman's son, who is kidnapped by a political enemy and mutilated by a gypsy "surgeon" who carves his mouth into a hideous grin. Left behind by the gypsies as the flee the country, Gwynplaine wanders through a landscape of hangman’s gallows and snowy cliffs surrounding by poor people freezing to death in the snow. After rescuing a baby from her dead mother’s arms, he finds shelter with an old man who takes pity on him and his charge. Years later, Gwynplaine and his “family” have become a traveling circus act, in which he plays a clown, laughed at and taunted by the audience. He and the blind girl (Mary Philbin The Phantom of the Opera) fall in love, but they almost lose each other when Gwynplaine is drawn back into the world of political intrigue. He becomes the plaything of a jaded duchess (Olga Baclanova Freaks), and his enemies renew their efforts to control him.

If silent movies are too remote and melodramatic for you, this film may change your mind. Like many films of the time, it does seem to move rather slowly since we are used to a faster pace and more action, but The Man Who Laughs is visually quite beautiful in the way that German Expressionist films always are and Veidt’s portrayal of Gwynplaine is impressive. Considering that the only tools a silent actor really had were his facial expressions and his body language, Veidt managed to convey a great emotional expressiveness through only his eyes and hands, much of his face maintaining a continuous smile throughout the film. (From the photo, you can see how Veidt’s Gwynplaine must have been the origin for the Batman character The Joker).

Created in the same vein as other Universal successes like The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Phantom of the Opera (adaptations of other French novels in which a disfigured man looks for love from a sympathetic woman), Carl Laemmle hired two influential artists of the German Expressionist School: actor Conrad Veidt and director Paul Leni (Waxworks). German Expressionist aesthetics, as seen in The Man Who Laughs, laid the foundation for several popular American film genres such as noir and Universal horror films like Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Wolf Man.

The Kino DVD has several extras, but for me the most intriguing was a German short entitled “Filmstadt Hollywood” which contains home movies of Conrad Veidt relaxing with fellow European emigres Greta Garbo, Emil Jannings, Paul Leni, Carl Laemmle, and Camilla Horn.

The German Hollywood Connection

THIS JUST OUT Ballet Russes

2006-09-26T17:25:00.000-07:00

Dayna Goldfine and David Geller’s 2005 documentary about Colonel de Basil’s Ballet Russes de Monte Carlo and the subsequent “ballet wars” is out on DVD. Good news for all of you who (like me) weren’t able to go see it when it played last year for fleeting moments in far flung and obscure theatres across the country. (Honestly, it wasn’t that far away, but cross basin traffic made it seem so).

After briefly acquainting the viewer with the history of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, Goldfine and Geller detail how the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo was created as a continuation of the Diaghilev ballet and endured in various forms for over 30 years. The ballet companies encouraged some of the most unique artistic collaborations in the twentieth century and brought ballet to countries that had no previous exposure to it. Without Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes and the two companies that followed, there would be no ballet tradition in the U.S. nor would the talents of such genius as George Balanchine be known today. Through interviews with surviving members of the ballets and archival photos and film footage, the film captures a fascinating time in the history of dance. I’m sure Ballet Russes would have been even more enjoyable on the big screen, but you take what you can get.

Ballet Russes Site
Diaghilev Ballets Russes Season by Season
Frederic Franklin: 30 Years of Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo
A Ballet History
Danilova Collection at the Library of Congress

Books of Interest:
Irina: Ballet, Life and Love by Irina Baronova
The Ballets Russes: Colonel de Basil's Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo 1932-1952
Leonide Massine and the Twentieth Century Ballet
Massine: A Biography
Maria Tallchief: America's Prima Ballerina

On DVD:
Ballets Russes
Balanchine
Picasso and Dance
Gaite Parisienne

TO DO IN LOS ANGELES “Where were you in ’82?” American Hardcore at the ArcLight

2006-09-21T08:23:00.000-07:00

Feeling nostalgic? Longing to go back and revisit your punk rock past? Well, pull the docs out of the closet and head on over to the Arc Light because American Hardcore is showing tonight at 8pm. Directed by Paul Rachman from a screenplay by Stephen Blush (from his book of the same name) American Hardcore covers the history of the first generation (or only generation, depending on your viewpoint) of American punk, from 1980 to 1986, and charts the rise of bands like Black Flag and The Misfits. The film uses archival footage interspersed with interviews with members of 7 Seconds, The Adolescents, Black Flag, The Circle Jerks, and DOA. Rachman and Blush explore how Reagan-era conservativism created a tribe of disaffected youth who saw no hope in government institutions, leftist politics, or any global ideologies.

I feel compelled to warn you, however, this film does contain interviews with Henry Rollins, self-appointed expert-on-all-things-punk, and prolonged exposure to Rollins Pontification can be hazardous to your health. I know it is to mine.

Q&A after screening with filmmakers Paul Rachman and Steven Blush, Keith Morris of The Circle Jerks, and Jack Grisham of TSOL.

ArcLight Hollywood is located at 6360 W. Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 8:00 PM
Tickets are $11, $10 for ArcLight, AFI and Skirball members, on-site parking is $2 for four hours with validation. To order advance tickets, go to www.arclightcinemas.com, call 323.464.4226 or visit ArcLight Hollywood's box office at 6360 W Sunset Blvd. (at Ivar). Admission prices may vary depending on event.

View Trailer

TO DO IN LOS ANGELES Strange Dreams of Present and Future

2006-09-19T10:50:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, September 23 at 7:30pm, American Cinematheque at the Egyptian Theatre will be showing a group of film shorts that deal with life in the near future. While I have not seen the majority of the films, I am pleased to see that James Oxford’s “Smartcard” (US, 16 min) is among them. I had the privilege to see this film last January at Smogdance Film Festival where I was “working” as one of the festival’s judges and consider it one of the best films screened there.

Smartcard is about a world in which every aspect of life is integrated by the smartcard, a sort of credit card, keycard, and personal information record in one. Not only do you use your smartcard to get into your car and have it drive you, but to purchase goods, record your medical history, and every other sort of personal information. Your card knows the quickest way to drive you home, what food is lacking in your refrigerator, and what is best for you. In short, smartcard manages you, helping you to make decisions that enrich your life and make you a better consumer, I mean person. Tired from work and want to put off going to the market? Smartcard has decided that it would be better for you to do it now. Craving a candy bar at the minimart, smartcard knows that your doctor has determined that junk food is bad for you. While the smartcard starts by being annoyingly “helpful” and manipulative, by the end "Smartcard" suggests that there are more troubling reasons to be wary of integrated computer information systems.

Other films being shown are Jonathan Joffe’s "Cost of Living" (Canada, 10 min), which examines how much a man is willing to pay for possible immortality. Christopher Leone’s "K-7" (US, 18 min), in which an ordinary job interview becomes a battle for life or death when Vincent Kincaid rates a high score on his psychological profile. Jeremy Haccoun’s "Paradox" (UK, 19 min). Are the two gentlemen in a well? Are they in the present or in medieval times? Michael Lucas’ "Turn" (Australia, 11 min) a surreal comedy about love, traffic and survival.

Films will be screened in the Spielberg Theatre (the smaller one in the Egyptian, not the Lloyd E. Rigler Theatre) at the Egyptian with a discussion with directors Christopher Leone (K-7) and James Oxford (Smartcard) to follow.

Grauman’s Hollywood Egyptian Theatre is located at 6712 Hollywood Boulevard between Las Palmas and McCadden, just east of Highland Avenue in Hollywood.
Tickets are General Admission $9.00 (unless otherwise noted), Cinematheque Members $6.00, Seniors 65+/Students w/valid ID $7. 24-HOUR PROGRAM INFO: 323.466.3456

American Cinematheque
Program Information

Celebrate the Swedish Sphinx’s Birthday on September 18

2006-09-17T11:37:00.000-07:00

"I never said, 'I want to be alone.' I only said, 'I want to be left alone.' There is a whole world of difference."

With her breathtaking beauty and enigmatic persona, Greta Garbo remains the ultimate Hollywood icon. As MGM’s highest-paid star, Garbo had approval of story, costar, director and cinematographer, often closing the set to visitors and crewmembers. For fifteen years, Garbo wielded power that few could match—yet she was often at odds with the system that made her a phenomenon. She was famous for her reclusive lifestyle, which became part of the Garbo mystique. Except at the very beginning of her career, she granted no interviews, signed no autographs, attended no premieres, and answered no fan mail.

While Greta Garbo made over 25 films in Hollywood, many of them are unfamiliar to contemporary audiences due to a prejudice against silent films. But these are the films that made her famous and established her legendary association with John Gilbert.

THE TORRENT (1926) Garbo’s first film in the U.S. Directed by Monta Bell, Garbo plays Leonara, a Spanish peasant girl who is sent to Paris and becomes an opera singer.

FLESH AND THE DEVIL (1926) Directed by Clarence Brown and costarring John Gilbert. This marked Garbo’s first collaboration with director Clarence Brown as well as her first film with John Gilbert. This story of fallen love broke box office records across the country and established Garbo and Gilbert as great lovers of the silver screen.

LOVE (1927) Directed by Edmund Goldberg. The tagline for this film read simply, “Garbo and Gilbert in Love.” Garbo’s first version of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, made with two endings, happy and sad.

THE KISS (1929) Directed by Jacques Feyder. This was the last film MGM made without dialogue (it used a soundtrack with music and sound-effects only), and marked the end of an era. A courtroom drama in which Garbo is tried for the murder of her jealous husband.

If you can’t sit through silent films, Garbo successfully transitioned into talkies to make the following films:

ANNA CHRISTIE (1930) Directed by Clarence Brown. Garbo Talks! Garbo’s low, husky voice was heard on screen for the first time in Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie. The movie was a huge success, but Garbo personally hated her performance. Audiences waited 16 minutes for her entrance to hear her say, “Gimme a whiskey, ginger ale on the side. And don’t be stingy, baby.”

ROMANCE (1930) Directed by Clarence Brown. Garbo plays prima donna Rita Cavallini in this period drama. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for this film as well as Anna Christie, but lost to Norma Shearer in The Divorcee.

QUEEN CHRISTINA (1934) Directed by Rouben Mamoulian. A historical drama that takes considerable liberty with fact. Christina inherits the Swedish throne in 1632 at the age of 6 after her father’s death on the battlefield. When she refuses to marry and produce an heir, she is forced to abdicate at the age of 28. This film tones down Christina’s lesbianism, but portrays her as a progressive woman of intelligence and sophistication who could not bow to the limitations placed on women of her time. One of my favorites.

CAMILLE (1936) Directed by George Cukor. Her performance as the doomed courtesan in Camille was called the finest ever recorded on film. Garbo was nominated for Academy Award for Best Actress again.

NINOTCHKA (1939) Directed by Ernst Lubitsch. Garbo in her first comedic role, Ninotchka was one of her favorite films and for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress again. Garbo plays a Soviet agent in Paris who falls in love with a French nobleman. Another favorite.

"Her instinct, her mastery over the machine, was pure witchcraft. I cannot analyze this woman's acting. I only know that no one else so effectively worked in front of a camera." —Bette Davis

TO DO IN LOS ANGELES AFI at ArcLight Presents Auntie Mame

2006-09-02T10:27:00.000-07:00

"Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death."

On Wednesday, September 6 at 8 pm AFI at the ArcLight will be showing the classic Hollywood comedy Auntie Mame. Starring Rosalind Russell, Forrest Tucker, Coral Browne, Fred Clark, and Roger Smith, Auntie Mame (Rosalind Russell) is a free-spirited socialite from the Roaring ‘20s forced to settle down and raise her nephew Patrick (Roger Smith) when her conservative brother dies. Mame immediately sets forth to expose her sheltered charge to all the wonders of New York, but a stuffy executor appointed by Patrick's father tries to protect the boy from experiencing too much of Mame's unconventional lifestyle. Despite his father’s preparations, Patrick and Mame quickly become devoted to each other and journey through the Great Depression collecting madcap adventures.

Tickets are $11, $10 for ArcLight, AFI and Skirball members, on-site parking is $2 for four hours with validation. To order advance tickets, go to www.arclightcinemas.com, call 323.464.4226, or visit ArcLight Hollywood's box office at 6360 W Sunset Blvd (at Ivar). Admission prices may vary depending on event.

Experience the irrepressible Mame in the original Patrick Dennis novels: Auntie Mame: An Irreverent Escapade and Around the World with Auntie Mame

Uncle Mame: The Life of Patrick Dennis
But Darling, I'm Your Auntie Mame!

FILM REVIEW Hour of the Furnaces Part 1

2006-09-01T16:12:00.000-07:00

El Grupo Cine Liberacion’s 1968 film, The Hour of the Furnaces, directed by Fernando Solanas, is an overview of how colonialism and neo-colonialism have disenfranchised the Latin American people from the Spanish conquest to the contemporary period as seen from a radical left perspective. Broken into sections in which it discusses different effects of colonialism and neo-colonialism, the final section provides a solution for the entire range of issues at work in Argentina: the transfer of power from the ruling class to the people through armed revolution.

Subtitled "Notes on Neo-Colonialism, Violence and Liberation," The Hour of the Furnaces juxtaposes quotes by writers and political figures such as Jean Paul Sartre, Aime Cesaire, Juan Peron, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Simon Bolivar, Frantz Fanon, and others, with documentary footage, archival stills, and voiceover narration in a Soviet montage-style agitprop piece. The Hour of the Furnaces focuses its attention largely on the various forces that work to impoverish and oppress the Argentinean people and sites the agrarian oligarchy, the industrial bourgeoisie, the military, and a corrupt government as the contemporary forces of neo-colonialism that maintain power over the wealth of the entire nation in the form of land, industry, and labor. While the oligarchy owns the overwhelming majority of farmland in the country, the bourgeoisie control trade and industry centered in Buenos Aires. The interests of both are served by the government and its military that legalize their policies and financial interests at the expense of the workers.

In addition to the economic system of oppression is the ideological oppression created by the triumvirate of church, mass media, and the importation of imperialist cultural products. The film makes a comparison between the church and faith healers, mind readers, and charlatans to show how the church benefits the ruling class by “sowing confusion” and replacing indigenous cultural practices with western culture through missionaries working in rural communities.
Likewise, the mass media serves to distract the people from a true understanding of their powerlessness in society by disseminating the ideology of the ruling class while suppressing discontent and dissent among the people. In the most arresting section of the film, graphic shots of cows being led through a slaughterhouse are interspersed with shots of advertising stills and young people dancing and buying records. American popular music is played continuously in this scene while the narrator echoes the ideas of Theodor Adorno, namely, that all mass media serves to keep the masses obedient to market forces as well as distracting the people from their oppression and exploitation. While the people think they are making their own decisions about what to buy and what cultural products to enjoy, they, like the cows in the slaughterhouse, are being led by a manipulating force to act against their own interests in favor of those of the ruling class. The film’s attitude toward this behavior is not entirely sympathetic, however. It suggests that by accepting the products of the mass media, Argentinean people have become complicit in the system of economic and cultural imperialism.

All of these sections taken together lead the filmmakers to their concluding section, The Choice. In this section, the filmmakers proclaim that the only way to correct the false history of colonialism and neo-colonialism is to “replace imperial violence with revolutionary violence” and suggests that martyrdom to the revolution will free not only future generations, but the one martyred as well. After the voiceover narration ends, a still of their ideal revolutionary martyr, Che Guevara, is shown in death.

While the statistics and much of the other specific information provided in this film now function only historically, aspects of The Hour of the Furnaces are perhaps more accurate today that they were in 1968, especially in its exploration of the effects of American cultural hegemony and its economic dependence upon cheap foreign labor. In addition, its indictment of the United States’ policy of supporting repressive governments through material and economic means shows the filmmakers’ tremendous foresight considering the events that would take place in Central America and elsewhere over the next twenty years. The film’s main importance lies, however, in its detailed explication of the causes and effects of neo-colonialism in Argentina and in the dramatic ways in which Solanas delivers its meaning.

Though this film is not available on DVD, one can sometimes find it in university a/v departments or collections and it is occasionally shown in film festivals around the country. Should it ever be shown at a festival in your area, I urge you to see it.

Vincent Canby's 1971 NY Times Review

THIS JUST OUT: The Jayne Mansfield Collection

2006-08-20T13:38:00.000-07:00

This newly released DVD set collects three of Jayne Mansfield’s late 1950s films: The Girl Can’t Help It, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? and the lesser known and lesser quality Sheriff of Fractured Jaw. Why they didn’t include Kiss Them for Me instead only God and the marketing execs at Twentieth Century Fox could ever know.

The Girl Can’t Help It (1956) co-stars Tom Ewell and Edmond O’Brien in a comedy about a down-and-out gangster who hires an alcoholic press agent to make his blonde bombshell girlfriend a recording star in 6 weeks. But what is he going to do when he finds out that she has no talent? And what is going to happen when the two fall in love?

Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957) co-stars Tony Randall, Betsy Drake, and Joan Blondell in a spoof of the TV advertising industry. Rockwell Hunter has found the perfect spokesmodel for Stay-Put lipstick, his big account. When Rita Marlowe, the famous actress with the oh-so-kissable lips, comes to New York he knows it’s his big chance, but in order to secure the account, Rock has to pretend to be Rita's "Lover Doll." Is Rock cut out to be a high power executive after all?

Sheriff Of Fractured Jaw (1958) A proper English gentleman, traveling in the American West, inadvertently stops an Indian attack on the stagecoach in which he is a passenger. When the stage gets to the nearest town, the raucous Fractured Jaw, it is being plagued by unruly cowboys, bandits, and marauding Indians. Our English gentleman quashes the mayhem and is appointed sheriff.

In addition to these three movies the DVD includes a 2001 documentary on Mansfield’s life as well as bonus extras on the constructed nature of Hollywood celebrity in the '50s and a discussion of how the Tashlin/Mansfield films reflect the concerns and ideas of 1950s America.

Official Jayne Mansfield Website
Jayne Mansfield on Find A Death
Jayne Mansfield Made a Career Being A Girl

This Just Out: A Canterbury Tale

2006-07-27T11:40:00.000-07:00

A DVD of the 1944 Powell and Pressburger film, A Canterbury Tale was released by Criterion a few days ago and a copy of it has already made its way to my door (thank you Amazon pre-order). The film takes its title from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and uses its theme of medieval pilgrimage to portray the wartime experiences of a group of Kentish citizens, a British soldier played by Dennis Price, an American soldier played by real life GI John Sweet, and a 'Land Girl' played by Sheila Sim. As the group arrives at the railway station in the fictitious small Kent town of Chillingbourne, the girl is attacked by the mysterious ‘glue man,’ who pours glue on the hair of girls seen with soldiers after dark. The three investigate the attack, thus beginning a pilgrimage that leads not only to the identity of the glue man, but also to a greater understanding of themselves.

For further information on this unusual film go to BFI ScreenOnline
Collection of Reviews and articles at the Powell and Pressburger Pages
Information about the film, transfer, and extra features at Criterion Collection
Article by Tamara Tracz at Senses of Cinema

Similar Powell and Pressburger films:
Edge of the World and I Know Where I’m Going!

In Honor of Ingmar Bergman's Birthday on July 14, my Top Five Bergman films (in descending order):

2006-07-06T10:10:00.000-07:00

Ingmar Bergman. Yes, I know you’re groaning, but when it comes to morose and redemptively weird you just can't beat him. His films have everything one needs: humor, death, love, beauty. You name it.

Summer Interlude Young love, a carefree summer holiday, alcoholism, a voyeuristic priest, an old woman who refuses to die, a poodle, accidental death, and lots of behind the scenes theatre stuff. You'll laugh (well, ok), you'll cry and you'll be thankful if your experience with first love didn’t end like this. A sad and beautiful film about love and loss.

The Seventh Seal What to say since most everyone's seen it. If you haven't, then I must ask how it is that you were able to resist a movie in which a soldier just returned from the Crusades rides around plague stricken Sweden putting off death by challenging him to a lengthy game of chess every evening while hanging out with new friends who are actors by trade and religious hysterics by nature? It's fabulous! Especially the part when the freaks come to town beating themselves and wailing because they feel the plague is God's punishment for their sins. Some things never change.

The Virgin Spring At first you think the whole thing's about this girl who's so pretty everyone makes an absurd fuss over her and you want to vomit, but then when she's killed almost immediately you get that there's a lot more to this flick (you also feel a little guilty for being so mean spirited). It’s medieval Sweden so her mother's a religious nut, of course, always mortifying her flesh to atone for her sins, but her dad's pretty mellow, so you have to wonder how the two of them ever hooked up. Once dad learns of his daughter’s death, it's off to the sauna where he prepares for a fight with her killers by beating himself with willow branches. He grabs the nearest knife and exciting he-man stuff ensues. Good overcomes evil very neatly in the end, but of course the girl’s still dead so it’s only so reassuring.

Wild Strawberries A universally appealing story about a man nearing the end of his life where he looks back at the joy and sorrow of the past and dwells too much on the mistakes (real and imagined) he's made in life. At the last it's bittersweet. (In terms of Swedish cinema that makes it practically an upper!) He manages to reconcile with his past and put it all into some sort of perspective. Some surreal dream sequences and a beautiful Erik Nordgren score make this an exceptionally lyrical film.

Ok. This last one's tough. Do I pick The Devil's Eye (about Don Juan, the Devil and a possible-time-off-for-good-behavior situation all done with a great heaping spoon full of black humor) or do I go for Through a Glass Darkly (about a schizophrenic chick living on an island with her husband, her father and her brother the last summer before they lock her up for good). She thinks God is a big black spider living in a crack in the wall of an unused room! The choice is frankly too difficult for me to make. On the one hand you have the Devil and the whole fiery pit of damnation thing and on the other you have insanity, family conflict, and Protestantism gone awry all in a picturesque island setting. I lean towards Through a Glass Darkly, but the power of Ultimate Evil is so strong. I guess it's a tie. Of course, if anyone has any definite feelings on this issue, be sure to let me know. It could decide me.

bergmanorama tribute site
bergman profile in senses of cinema
the bergman foundation

Dear Old Dad: A Father's Day Tribute

2006-06-18T16:23:00.000-07:00

For the first time in many a year my family did not get together for Father's Day today. While that was fine with me (dad gets a chance to relax at home in peace and quiet and I get some much needed work done) I have to admit that something is missing. While puttering around the homestead, I began to recall with fondness my father's charmingly grumpy ways. How he would complain each weekend while I was growing up that we had spent all his cash, the way he would become exasperated should one of us (most likely me) bring up any serious or shall we say unpleasant subjects right as he walked in the door. Didn't I know better than that? All dad wanted to do when he got home from work was to stand against the kitchen counter drinking a Johnny Walker on the rocks with a splash, not be hounded by the fools of women he was surrounded by. Lost in a dead end along memory lane, I became sentimental for times past and for the joy that an afternoon with dear old dad could bring. It occurs to me that plenty of families cannot get together for so important an occasion as Father's Day, so in case you are feeling as I do, I suggest that in honor of fathers everywhere, we have a double feature movie night.

As we all know, fathers have a special gift for exasperation. That look of persecution when the home front becomes too unmanageable, the tendency to retreat into the study or garage or wherever they hole up when they're trying to get away from it all, and, of course, the grin they give one when teased about these very things.

The first film must be Life with Father (1947). Starring William Powell and Irene Dunne with wonderful supporting roles played by Elizabeth Taylor and Zazu Pitts, the film shows how a strongwilled businessman and father loses control of his household when his wife and four sons take over. You'll feel right at home watching Powell carry on about household bills, house guests, and the role of the church, not to mention missionaries, young girls, and the purveyors of patent medicines.

Father of the Bride, please, not the Steve Martin remake, but the 1950 original with Spencer Tracy, Joan Bennett, and Elizabeth Taylor. Told in flashback voiceover by exasperated father supreme Spencer Tracy, the story is about the personal inconvenience to a father's household kingdom when his daughter decides to marry. The way he carries on, you'd think she did it just to spite him!

New York in the Summertime

2006-06-04T15:19:00.000-07:00

It’s been so damned hot here the last couple of days that I find myself thinking back longingly to the brief moment of June gloom we had just a couple of weeks ago. I feel cheated; I’m not ready for summer yet. I still need that last bit of cool weather before going into summer mole mode where I hide in darkened, air conditioned spaces and eat only cold foods, leaving the house only at night. I don’t know what to do with myself. When it’s this hot, most people go to a movie theatre and sit in the darkened caverns of full blast a/c with everyone else, but a quick glance at the newspaper has reminded me why I don’t go out to see movies more often. There’s just nothing out right now that I would willingly pay $9+parking to see and everything else that requires leaving the house just sounds too hot. My only trip outside today (a long walk) was a mistake. At 8 am it was already a million degrees and I arrived home melted, headachy, and crabby. So my answer to the 100+ degree heat is to barricade myself in the only room in the house equipped with air conditioning and watch movies, read, and dose with the cat. I suppose it would be comforting to watch movies with wintry themes requiring snow and frost, but seeing all those actors bundled up against the bitter cold makes me hot! I keep thinking, “What are they, crazy? Aren’t they hot?” I think the heat has begun to affect my brain since I can no longer tell the difference between real life and movies. I’ve decided to watch movies about people who look as hot and miserable as I feel or would feel if I were interested in braving the searing heat outdoors. So I have devised a sweaty summer movie night or several movie nights depending on your attention span and whether or not the weather breaks.

For whatever reason some of the best movies about being miserably hot in the summertime also happen to be set in New York in the fifties so I have chosen the following films:

Rear Window (1954) Taking place entirely in a small New York apartment in summertime, Rear Window is about professional photographer L.B. "Jeff" Jeffries (James Stewart) who breaks his leg while getting an action shot at an auto race. With nothing else to do, Jeff wiles away the hours observing his neighbors, a lonely spinster, a ballet dancer and her beaux, a composer. When he notices that the nagging wife who lives across from him suddenly disappears, he begins to suspect that her gruff husband (Raymond Burr) may have murdered her. Jeff enlists the help of his high society girlfriend Lisa Fremont (Grace Kelly) and his nurse Stella (Thelma Ritter) to investigate.

My Sister Eileen (1955) Ruth (Betty Garrett) and her beautiful sister Eileen (Janet Leigh) come to New York's Greenwich Village from small town Ohio looking for "fame, fortune and a 'For Rent' sign on Barrow Street." From their stifling basement apartment they encounter artists, bohemians, and players of all kinds, but fame and fortune are nowhere to be found. Also starring Jack Lemmon, Bob Fosse, and Dick York.

The Seven Year Itch (1955) Publishing exec Richard Sherman (Tom Ewell) sends his wife and son to the country for the summer while he stays home, virtuously working in the New York heat. Though reveling in his temporary freedom, Richard has resolved not to carouse and philander like other men in his situation, but his already active imagination goes into overdrive when a beautiful blonde actress (Marilyn Monroe) moves in upstairs.

Bells Are Ringing (1960) Judy Holiday, Dean Martin, Jean Stapleton, Eddie Foy, Jr., Frank Gorshin, and every character actor you’ve ever seen in a 1950s movie. Ella Peterson is a switchboard operator at “Susanswerphone,” an answering service for busy New Yorkers. A good-natured busybody, Ella makes up for being painfully shy in her personal life by trying to improve the lives of the service’s subscribers. After a series of misadventures which bring her in contact with the police, the mob, and the purveyors of high culture, Ella finds love with a crooning playwright.

Double Feature Movie Night: The Uninvited and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

2006-05-21T10:55:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning to a general dampness outside that seems to be evidence of either light rain or over-enthusiastic dew. Early morning fog has given way to clouds and it’s chilly but decidedly muggy outside. At once I realized that Los Angeles’ celebrated June gloom seems to have arrived early this year. Weather like this makes me (and everyone else in my family) want to go ‘up the coast.’ I long to linger on deserted stretches of shoreline, buffeted by strong winds and listening to the sounds of seabirds crying in the distance or to stand atop a craggy cliff, again buffeted by strong winds, the sea roaring below. While sitting on my soggy back step, my mind absorbed in a world of clichés drawn from Gothic literature and Hollywood movies, I realized my trip up to the land of ‘Bronte beaches’ (my sister’s phrase) was not to be. Alas, poverty and the exorbitant price of gas forbid my making this journey at the present moment. So I asked myself, “What is one to do when a trip up the coast is indicated but simply cannot be undertaken?” Why, watch a movie, of course. So I have devised a Bronte Beach Movie Night that should, if not exactly cure my wanderlust, at least allay it somewhat.

After but only a moment of thought, two films came to mind: The Uninvited and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. Though set in England rather than in California, these films are set in the proper coastal settings, with all the necessary moodiness and melancholy. The Uninvited begins with a brother and sister who discover an abandoned seaside house while on vacation. Buying the house for a remarkably low price, they begin to hear sounds of a woman crying during the night, much mystery and mayhem follows. The screenplay, written by Dodie Smith (101 Dalmations, I Capture the Castle) contains some wonderfully understated and sarcastic humor, and the characters are delightfully familiar, country doctors, devoted family retainers, and one Mrs. Holloway who is strongly reminiscent of Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca. Is it coincidental that she shares her name with a British women’s prison?

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir contains a similar beginning, a young widow looks for a house in a seaside village and decides to rent (against her estate agent’s advice) a remote “cottage” overlooking the sea only to find that it’s haunted. Far from becoming a mystery, however, the story becomes a meditation on love and loss. Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz (All About Eve, A Letter to Three Wives) with a score by Bernard Herrmann (Citizen Kane, Vertigo), this film has all the melancholy beach shots and windswept vistas one could wish for.

LACMA: Written for the Screen

2006-05-18T10:15:00.000-07:00

Los Angeles County Museum of Art is celebrating the best of film writing by showing ten films listed in the Writers Guild of America’s 101 Greatest Screenplays list. Shown in double features on Friday and Saturday nights, the films are grouped thematically, Casablanca and Manhattan, The Lady Eve and Groundhog Day, Rear Window and High Noon, Sunset Blvd and Adaptation, with an opportunity to attend a discussion of the art of writing for film by five of the screenwriters on the list. Perhaps the most interesting pairing is that of Rear Window and High Noon, shown under the heading of Unity of Place and Time on Friday May 26. These films have been linked together because of their atmosphere of claustrophobia and suspense, Rear Window through its use of limited space and High Noon through its restricted use of time.

Written for the Screen will run from May 19 to June 3, Fridays and Saturdays, with programs starting at 7:30 pm in LACMA’s Leo S. Bing Theatre. Tickets can be purchased in advance at the museum ticket office or online. Purchase of a film ticket includes entrance to the galleries (except specially ticketed exhibitions). General Admission is $9, members and students $6, tickets for the second film only $5 (cannot be purchased in advance).

A Healthy Dose of Bob

2006-05-12T19:51:00.000-07:00

I can tell Exams have finally tossed me over the edge and left me for dead when my Netflix queue is filled to bursting with sitcoms from my youth. Since my last Final on Wednesday (Math, don’t ask) I have been simply gorging myself on Season I of The Bob Newhart Show. From the moment I hear the theme song I’m lost in the long ago, feeling cozy and reminiscent and like I should be sitting curled up on the couch in my parents’ blue and brown late seventies family room. Though I couldn’t have told you one thing about the show before the DVD arrived, now it’s like Bob and I never parted, like the last thirty years never happened. The modular shelving and chrome light fixtures in Bob’s high-rise Chicago condo, the olive green, rust, and mustard colored kitchenette, the super long blouses and super short skirts, this is the way the world looked when I was born. I had forgotten it all, but now these things have become as familiar to me again as when I was seven. Nostalgia, just the thing to help me recover from Finals. Next up on the parade of the past, Mary Tyler Moore.

Madness and Mayhem: Films in Honor of Sigmund Freud’s Birthday

2006-05-06T09:17:00.000-07:00

Hollywood has always exhibited a fascination with Freudian psychoanalysis. In movies, hysterical women and guilty men spend copious amounts of time on the couch; charlatan doctors play wealthy women for their money or hypnotize them with disastrously comic results and corrupt ones use hypnosis to make patients carry out their bidding. How many scenes can you recall of patients lying on analyst’s couches or asking whether they should lie down on analyst’s couches or being hypnotized by bright lights or the mesmerizing gaze of a charismatic fiend? Every genre from light comedy to supernatural thriller has utilized the familiar images of psychoanalysis and hypnosis. Though you may never have enlisted the services of a mental health professional yourself, the language of psychoanalysis is familiar to you through its very reductive representation in Hollywood films.

In honor of the 150th anniversary of Sigmund Freud’s birth I would like to celebrate his pioneering work in hypnosis as a cure for hysteria and repressed trauma with a double feature movie night. Though there are more appropriate films available than anyone could watch in a single sitting, my personal choices would be Alfred Hitchcock’s 1945 Spellbound with Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman and the 1948 cult classic The Snake Pit starring Olivia de Havilland and directed by Anatole Litvak (Sorry, Wrong Number). These two films cover the use of hypnosis in addressing guilt induced psychosis, dream analysis, and the ever popular electroshock therapy. In case you're looking for some conversational ice breakers, here are some links to get you started.

Hollywood's Crazy Idea of Mental Hospitals
How Hypnosis Works
History of Hypnosis
Interpret Your Dreams
Mesmerism
Women and Hysteria

THIS JUST OUT The Films of Faith

2006-04-24T18:21:00.000-07:00

While I understand that everything in the world's largest theocracy, the United States of Jesusland, needs to be marketed to Christians, I do think that Warner Bros may be stretching it a bit here. For one thing, Protestantism is the name of the game these days and their Films of Faith Collection focuses wholly on Catholic themes. Perhaps they made this decision based on the TV ratings from the Pope’s funeral last year, one never knows. While I love a theme and admire the (probably unintended) kitschy ambition of the collection, their selection of films simply doesn't gratify me. That being the case, I have created my own collection of Catholic screen gems, focusing on nuns.

Song of Bernadette (1943) Jennifer Jones as the young girl who sees the Virgin Mary, Vincent Price as a cynical politician, and Gladys Cooper as a mean, jealous Mother Superior.

Bells of St Mary’s (1945) Bing Crosby is a singing priest with unconventional ways.

Black Narcissus (1947) Deborah Kerr, Jean Crain, Kathleen Byron, and Sabu – mad nuns, enough said.

Heaven Knows Mr Allison (1957) Deborah Kerr is a nun stranded on an island in the south Pacific with Robert Mitchum during WW2.

The Nun’s Story (1959) Audrey Hepburn plays a nun whose faith and vows are forever being tested. Will she be able to conform to the ways of the church or will she leave the order?

Lilies of the Field (1963) Sydney Poitier plays an unemployed construction worker who happens upon a group of German nuns in the Arizona desert. The best part is when he teaches them Southern spirituals.

The Sound of Music (1965) Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, Anna Lee, and Richard Haydn - A postulant falls in love and leaves the order. To music.

The Trouble with Angels (1966) Where Angels Go...Trouble Follows (1968) Rosalind Russell, Mary Wickes, Hayley Mills, Susan Saint James, and others. The first one is the best. Nuns and their charges navigate the complexities of Vatican II and the swinging sixties.

The Singing Nun (1966) Sister Ann’s singing gets her a record deal and everyone is listening to her light-hearted songs, but is she prepared for her new found fame?

The Flying Nun (TV 1967-70) Sally Fields – the misadventures of a nun whose enormous wimple enables her to fly.

A couple of films that feature nuns rather less prominently than the others, but are worth the price of admission:

Applause (1929) This vehicle for Ziegfeld piano sitter Helen Morgan tells the story of Kitty Darling, a faded burlesque star who sends her daughter to a convent to prevent her from following in her footsteps. Beautiful scenes of pre-Vatican II nuns walking with their trailing medieval habits amidst statuary and white swans.

Portrait of Jennie (1948) Jennifer Jones again, this time with Joseph Cotten. Lilian Gish plays the aging nun who remembers the mysterious Jennie from years before when she was sent to a convent after her trapeze artist parents died in a freak accident.

Nuns in Hollywood
Nun's Habits
Nun Dolls
Official Vatican Website

TO DO IN LOS ANGELES The Brothers Quay at USC and AMPAS

2006-04-17T08:42:00.000-07:00

Famous stop-motion experimental animators Steven and Timothy Quay will be making their first public appearances in the United States this week. The first being at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Friday evening and then on Sunday afternoon at USC's School of Cinema-Television. Both events will include a presentation of their work, discussion of their films and influences, and a Q & A period.

The Quays have been making animated films since the 1970s and are well known for their innovative and unique style, which is by turns bizarre and dreamlike. Influenced by the Czech artist Jan Svankmajer, their classic 1986 Street of Crocodiles is considered one of the best animated films of all time and has influenced countless filmmakers.

If you can't make it, but you are interested in seeing their films The Brothers Quay Collection provides a good introduction.

At AMPAS - Friday April 21 at 7:30pm at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Samuel Goldwyn Theatre located at 8949 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. (310) 247-3600. Tickets are $5 for the general public and $3 for Academy members and students. Tickets for this event will be available on the night of the screening, if still available. On the day of the event, doors open at 6:30 p.m. Tickets can be purchased at the time of the event, but they have been selling tickets by mail so how many seats are left is hard to say.

At USC - Sunday April 23 from 10 to 12 noon at USC School of Cinema-Television's Eileen Norris Cinema Theatre located just beyond the Booth Ferris Memorial Hall on West 34th Street in Los Angeles. This event is free.

Jayne Mansfield Made a Career of Being a Girl

2006-04-15T09:29:00.000-07:00

April 19 is Jayne Mansfield's birthday and though perhaps not a great actor or comedienne, she was a great star and became one of the leading icons of the late 1950s. In case you’ve never experienced Jayne Mansfield before, now might be the time. The films she made are light and funny and exhibit a classic 1950s obsession with good, clean sex. Probably her best film (and my favorite) is the 1956 Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? A spoof of the TV advertising industry, Rockwell Hunter has found the perfect spokesmodel for Stay-Put lipstick, his big account. When Rita Marlowe, the famous actress with the oh-so-kissable lips, comes to New York he knows it’s his big chance, but in order to secure the account, Rock has to pretend to be Rita's "Lover Doll." Is Rock cut out to be a high power executive after all? Co-starring are Tony Randall, Betsy Drake and Joan Blondell in her standard 1950s sidekick role.

I would think that Turner Classic Movies would, with their usual perspicacity, show a few of her movies on her birthday, but a quick glance of their online schedule proves me a hapless optimist. So while TCM can't help us on this one, several of her films are on DVD and Amazon has virtually everything she ever made. Netflix has a few, but they seem to be specializing in the exploitation films she made in Europe in the early 1960s, which are pretty painful. Even those might be worth watching as long as you’re not expecting too much. They do have the 1964 double feature Primitive Love/Mondo Balordo, which pairs Jayne with the horror great Boris Karloff. Apparently, Jayne plays some part in an international freak show which includes transvestites, 27-inch tall singing men, and Japanese bondage. You never know, it might be worth checking out.

Some of her better movies you might want to look for are: The Girl Can’t Help It with Tom Ewell, The Burglar, a low budget noir based on a David Goodis novel, and Kiss Them For Me with Cary Grant.

"A forty-one inch bust and a lot of perseverance will get you more than a cup of coffee-a lot more. But most girls don't know what to do with what they've got."

Official Jayne Mansfield Website

TO DO IN LOS ANGELES Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars

2006-04-13T09:47:00.000-07:00

"I have never seen anyone turn on an audience, men as well as women, the way he did that night. The minute he strode on stage, I could see that he was a character looking for a film."

As part of their 5th Annual Music Documentary Series, AFI at the ArcLight is showing D.A. Pennebaker's 1973 documentary Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Not released until 1983, Pennebaker's film captures David Bowie's final performance as alter-ego Ziggy Stardust in 1973 at London's Hammersmith Odeon Theater and features songs from Ziggy Stardust, Hunky Dory, Aladdin Sane, and other Bowie albums, as well as backstage footage.

Ziggy Stardust will be shown on Wednesday April 19 at 8 pm at ArcLight Hollywood, 6360 W. Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA.

Tickets are $11, $10 for ArcLight, AFI and Skirball members, on-site parking is $2 for four hours with validation.

For more information about the series go to AFI at the ArcLight
Information about Ziggy Stardust at the Ziggy Stardust Companion

TO DO IN LOS ANGELES 8th Annual Film Noir Festival at American Cinematheque

2006-04-13T08:12:00.000-07:00

It's time for the Film Noir Festival at American Cinematheque again. If you're looking for something to do this weekend, the festival will be showing double features at both the Egyptian in Hollywood and the Aero in Santa Monica. This weekend's schedule features films by Jean Negulesco, Robert Wise, Sam Fuller, and Jacques Tourneur. Noir fans, take note. Many of the films shown at the festival are not on DVD so this is often the only opportunity to see them. Festival host Eddie Muller often provides interesting background information about the films as well as interviews with actors and directors involved so it's always a unique experience.

The Film Noir Festival runs through April 16th at American Cinematheque, a non-profit organization dedicated to showing the best of film, classic to avant garde.

The Egyptian Theatre is located at 6712 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood
The Aero Theatre is located at 1328 Montana Avenue at 14th Street in Santa Monica
Tickets are usually $9, $6 for members, and $7 for seniors/students with valid ID.

"It's Sister Ruth. She's Gone Mad"

2006-04-06T11:05:00.000-07:00

I have decided that, for me, the Ultimate Movie operates along the same lines as the Ultimate Ballet. The Ultimate Ballet should, of course, have the following components: an exotic locale, unrequited love, madness or a curse or something, and a healthy dose of hardcore angst. The Ultimate Movie I have in mind has a bonus, however. Nuns. For me, there are few things as picturesque as a pre-Vatican II nun and since they exist outside my personal experience I find them exotic as well.

Made in 1947 by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, Black Narcissus is about a group of Anglican nuns who travel to a remote village in the Himalayas to start a new branch of their order. A local Prince gives the nuns a huge but dilapidated palace set high upon a cliff and though they are warned that the House of Ladies (it used to house a local Prince’s wives) is no place for a nunnery, they forge ahead with their plans to do good, educating the young girls and curing disease. Beset with problems from the get-go, the young Sister Superior (Deborah Kerr) tries to maintain control, but the new environment seems to encourage nostalgia and exaggerated emotional outbursts and she is forced to turn to Mr. Dean, the Prince's agent, for help.

As confusion increases and tensions rise, the nuns find themselves at sixes and sevens. Sister Superior becomes lost in the long ago, dreaming of Conrad, the young man who jilted her, throwing her into the arms of the church; Sister Phillipa plants flowers instead of much needed vegetables while staring into the distance; and the paranoid and sinister Sister Ruth (Kathleen Byron) becomes obsessed with Mr. Dean and leaves the nunnery, wearing lipstick! The plot thickens and violence ensues. I won't give it away, but the end is very much like a tragic ballet, full of over the top melodrama. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: with mad nuns, you couldn’t possibly go wrong.

Truly, it is an incredibly beautiful film and I think the story would make the most amazing ballet. It has all of the aforementioned necessary qualities plus a mad nun. It could be like Giselle, only they’re nuns in the Himalayas not Rhineland maidens and Ruth dies more violently than Giselle does, but they both have a mad scene and I think we need another ballet with a mad scene. It’s time.

TO DO IN LOS ANGELES 2006 Silverlake Film Festival

2006-03-24T08:28:00.000-08:00

Taking place this week (March 23-31) the Silverlake Film Festival will be presenting over 200 films, 85 of which are premieres. A selection of independent film and video, the festival showcases films that might otherwise not be seen, especially on the big screen. Series within this year's festival will focus on third world cinema, new medias, films promoting social change, and a tribute to notorious Hollywood legend, Fatty Arbuckle. The films will be shown at LACE, the ArcLight, the Vista, and several other venues on the Eastside, making this a communitywide event and special programs and panels will include local and nationally recognized filmmakers, actors, activists, and politicans.

Information on times, locations and special events at the website of the 2006 Silverlake Film Festival

The Season of the Biblical Epic

2006-03-13T08:03:00.000-08:00

Several Easters ago, there was a Jesus-Christo-a-thon on TV wherein they showed only biblical epics for 24 hours. Of course, I was there...proving to all that I had no life, but in my constant search for meaning-through-kitsch it was essential that I experience this cultural moment. Of course, among many other things, I and my partner in societal scrutiny noticed a trend in the casting of Pontius Pilate in the New Testament films. Whether it was in the older Biblical Epics (we'll call them B.E.s for short) or even the more recent examples, there seems always to be a bizarre tendency to portray P. Pilate as a femmy Brit! In the 1961 Nicholas Ray classic King of Kings, P. Pilate is played by the fey Hurd Hatfield (of Dorian Grey fame), in Scorsese’s Last Temptation of Christ he is played by David Bowie, even in Monty Python's Life of Brian, Michael Palin camps him up as being just a bit of a nancy. He has a lisp and everything. In all, I noted only one example where this was not the case. In The Greatest Story Ever Told, starring Max Von Sydow in a stylish array of robes in Calvin Klein hues, Pilate is played by Telly Savalas, which as you can imagine is completely unbelievable as he is altogether too butch for the role. I didn't believe him for a minute.

This Easter we are planning to do the whole thing again, an activity I highly recommend to you. We shall dye Easter eggs, eat See’s Chocolate Bunnies, and take in the cheesy glory that is the B.E. You can test out our theory and watch the films of the New Testament or if you’re really keen, enjoy a Passover/Easter Combo. Kick off the weekend with the C.B. De Mille Old Testament extravaganza, The Ten Commandments starring Charlton Heston as Moses and Yul Brynner as Ramses, with Anne Baxter, Edward G. Robinson, Vincent Price, Yvonne de Carlo, Debra Paget, and many, many others. Follow up with a Victor Mature film or two, Samson and Delilah or The Robe, and experience the paramount achievements of early 1960s cinema with King of Kings and The Greatest Story Ever Told. The experience will change your life and improve you as a person, I guarantee it.

FILM REVIEW: I am Cuba

2006-03-04T08:33:00.000-08:00

“Why are you running away? You came to have fun. Don’t avert your eyes. Look! I am Cuba. For you, I am the casino, the bar, hotels and brothels. But the hands of these children and old people are also me."

I Am Cuba was made in 1964 as a propaganda film by the Soviet government. Coauthored by Soviet poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko and Cuban novelist Enrique Pineda Barnet and directed by Russian filmmaker Mikhail Kalatozov, I am Cuba explores European and American influences on Cuba during the pre-revolutionary period and chronicles the events leading up to the revolution itself. The first segment looks at Cuba under Batista and portrays it as a playground for Americans whose presence encourages the exploitation of women. The second segment tells the story of an elderly man living in poverty because the land on which he grows his sugar cane is sold to the United Fruit Company, an American agricultural corporation and the third segment follows a group of university students who plot against the Batista regime, but are caught and become martyrs to the revolution. In the final segment, a peasant joins the revolution after being driven from his home by Batista’s bombs. He goes to a rebel camp in the Sierra Maestra and joins Castro's troops to fight for the revolution.

The film begins with aerial shots of the Cuban landscape. Starting at the coast, the camera moves inland and a woman’s voice recounts the history of the Spanish conquest of Cuba beginning with Christopher Columbus’ visit to the island. Cuba is depicted as a country of great natural beauty that is colonized for the wealth that it can bring to the Spanish colonizers. After this brief introduction the film cuts to pre-revolutionary Cuba under Batista and looks at the long term consequences of colonial influence on Cuban culture.

In one of the most arresting scenes in the film, Kalatozov presents one of the main themes of the film: American domination through intimidation and the corrupting influence of American culture. The scene begins with the interior of a lavish nightclub decorated in a jumble of early 1960s Tropical style, Easter Island heads, and Africana. The camera examines a group of beautiful women who sit at the bar listening to a singer reminiscent of Otis Redding perform a nonsensical love song. As the camera moves away from the women, a group of American men sit discussing which of the women they want, claiming them proprietarily. A young woman, Maria, enters the nightclub and is taken to one of the men. She dances with him and, in a metaphor for American aggression, is dragged around the floor, repeatedly pushed into the arms of the other men. As the music becomes more rhythmic she moves involuntarily and the camera mimics her confusion by moving wildly among the sticks of cane that hang from the ceiling. In the background, women are shown dancing in bikinis and pseudo-African masks, showing how they are objectified and exotified for the American tourists.

This scene can be seen as an extended metaphor for American political, economic, and social relations with Cuba during Batista’s control. The American men in the nightclub feel they own Cuba and its people. The men feel a sense of ownership over Maria and treat her as a plaything, brutally, as if she has no say in her treatment or fate. She and the other women are seen as quaint and exotic and seem to be designed for the American’s pleasure and use. The visual aspects of this scene reinforce this idea. The nightclub’s background which provides a generalized sense of the tropical and exotic reveals that the Americans do not really know where they are or what culture it is they are visiting. For them, Havana is simply a vacation spot where their actions have no consequences and they may do as they please. The American soul music sung in Spanish increases this sense of confusion for the men, blurring the line which separates the United States from Cuba.

When one of the American men goes home with Maria, he wakes up to a different Havana from the one that existed for him the night before. He leaves the shanty Maria lives in only to get lost among the ramshackle buildings where small children beg him for money. He begins to panic and run from the crowd that has gathered around him. The woman’s voice from the opening of the film returns and asks him, “Why are you running away? You came to have fun. Don’t avert your eyes. Look! I am Cuba. For you, I am the casino, the bar, hotels and brothels. But the hands of these children and old people are also me." The rich American becomes lost in the Cuba that exists to support his playground; the world of pleasure that the rich Americans come to Havana to enjoy falls away and all that remains is the poverty of the people who must sell themselves to foreigners in order to survive.

Though I am Cuba was created as agitprop for the Soviet government, the film’s critical insight and incredible cinematography work together to create a film of great power. A must see for fans of international film.

Read a review of I am Cuba by Gary Morris at Bright Lights Film Journal

TO DO IN LOS ANGELES Dreams Fulfilled: African American Arts in Los Angeles

2006-02-10T10:10:00.000-08:00

From February through the end of April, The Huntington Library in San Marino, that's just south of Pasadena's Old Town in case you didn't know, is having a series of lectures, music, dance, and film celebrating African American arts and culture. The first of these events, on February 16 from 5:30 to 7pm, is a lecture focusing on African American artists in Los Angeles, from poet Langston Hughes, to Joseph Rickard, founder of the First Negro Classic Ballet in South Los Angeles in 1947. Other events include performances of the music of Harold Bruce Forsythe and The Langston Hughes Project, a reading of Hughes' poetry to jazz. The Library will also be displaying materials from their collection, including the papers of Hughes, Forsythe, and Rickard.

The Huntington Library is located at 1151 Oxford Road San Marino 626-405-2146 Regular admission in $15 for adults, $10 for students with ID, and $6 for kids, admission for the events ranges from $15 to free and seating is first come first serve.

Information on the Harlem Renaissance

Books by Langston Hughes and other writers of the Harlem Renaissance

"Miss Page is unable to dance tonight...or, indeed, any other night."

2006-02-05T18:28:00.000-08:00

Moira Shearer died on Tuesday at the age of 80 in Oxford, England. Cast as Vicky Page in Powell and Pressburger's 1948 film The Red Shoes, Moira Shearer was my first exposure to ballet, the first ballet dancer I ever saw. I was so young the first time I saw The Red Shoes that years later all I could remember of it was the row of red pointe shoes and the cane that rapped the floor smartly when it had found the perfect pair.

While Moira Shearer danced with the Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet, now the Royal Ballet, in some of the most important roles in British ballet, made several other films, acted, wrote, and lectured, it is for her performance in The Red Shoes that she will be remembered.

See Moira Shearer in two other Michael Powell films:
The Tales of Hoffman and Peeping Tom