SCREENING LOG - 10/31-11/6/2005

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Heaven's Gate (1980, Michael Cimino)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080855
TSPDT project #797
It's been a long time since I've seen any of Cimino's films, but given the nauseating racism of THE DEER HUNTER and YEAR OF THE DRAGON, I wouldn't be surprised if HEAVEN'S GATE becomes my favorite Cimino. (I do plan to revisit DEER HUNTER soon...) I don't know if HEAVEN'S GATE completely escapes charges of racism either, in its contradictory depiction of the European immigrants, it seems to lavish in every possble stereotype, idealizing them, celebrating them, condescending to them and condemning them, sometimes all at once. It's quite maddening and, I think, genuinely American. Same thing with its take on America, trying to be a shocking condemnation of capitalism while entombing those who oppose it in a cloud of romantic defeatism. After seeing this, GANGS OF NEW YORK makes a little more sense.

In terms of Westerns, I kept comparing it to ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST and THE WILD BUNCH. The former in how the film at times seems to project certain moments and motifs into infinitity, and it does so with far more insane brilliance and less reliance on familiar iconography; just the jaggedness and unevenness of the whole damn thing makes it more exciting to me than Leone's cool precision; and even if it amounts to a four hour funeral march for the American dream and movies dealing with such, it seems to point at new cinematic horizons that no one since has dared to take (except maybe Bela Tarr and Jarmusch when he's feeling ballsy). The rollerskating sequence and subsequent slow dance made me want to cry, because I had an idea for a scene like that and now it's just going to amount to a freaking unintentional homage... that, and Cimino's version looks about as beautiful as I could ever imagine.

In terms of THE WILD BUNCH, well I guess in terms of their respective climactic shootouts, I think there's a comparable sense of reckless abandon and very disturbing glee at the carnage they've unleashed, which seems totally antithetical to the moral outrage that's being implied by both. Though it was nice seeing someone pay homage to Eisenstein after so many years, even if his conclusions on revolution were more pessimistic than Eisenstein ever approached.

The ending -- yeah, a real slap in the face, to the audience, to Kristofferson's character and all like-minded well-meaning blueblood liberals everywhere, and probably to Cimino himself. But it is the logical conclusion to Cimino's argument, it's all of a piece with the beginning and middle -- while at the same time it's as if the 3+ hour middle had never happened. Kind of reminds me of ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA, wonder if Leone had seen HEAVEN'S GATE.
YES (#2 for 1980 between THE BIG RED ONE and RAGING BULL)

Katzelmacher (1969, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064536/
yes

Effi Briest (1974, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071458
yes

Metropolis (2001, Rintaro)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0293416
mixed

from the 2005 Indo-American Arts Council Film Festival:

Water (2005, Deepa Mehta)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0240200/
mixed

Amu (2005, Shonali Bose)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0414713
yes

from the Lincoln Center Centenary of Chinese Cinema:

Long Live the Mistress! (1947, Sang Hu)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0477890
mixed

An Orphan of the Streets aka Winter of Three Hairs (1949, Yan Gong,
Zhao Ming)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0470084
An explosive film that takes the Italian neo-realism and reinfuses it with some of its predecessors, like Vigo's youthful anarchy or the passionate street realism of the 30s Lianhua studio productions, not to mention WC Fields (the hero, a 10 year old orphan, has a cosmetic pug nose reminiscent of WC). Like a pint-sized Chaplin, he gets into one comic misadventure after another, gets the crap beaten out of him several times, and ultimately is adopted by a rich family, only to reward them Boudu style with a house riot where all his street friends running rampant in the mansion, a magnificent sequence. This is a very chaoitc, unnerving film about pretty much everything that was wrong in China at the end of WWII, and its conclusion is all but nihilistic -- the final sequence celebrating the advent of the Communist Party feels tacked-on, almost like a Hail Mary, but I don't think the film could have been any more honest to the times it portrays, people really were desperate and no one seemed to have an answer but Mao. So for historical purposes it's a great film, but as a movie in and of itself it is quite entertaining, shocking and unforgettable.
YES (#5 for 1949 between LE SANG DES BETES and INTRUDER IN THE DUST)

Serfs (1963, Li Jun)
not listed on IMDb
yes

Family (1957, Chen Xihe, Ye Ming)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0206738
yes

The Legend of Tianyun Mountain (1980, Xie Jin)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081632
YES (#5 for 1980 between BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ and THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK)

From the Mikio Naruse Festival:
Late Chrysanthemums (1954, Mikio Naruse)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046750
Naruse's incredible compassion for women struggling unglamorously to make a living strikes again. You've voiced my main thought which is the film's incredible lateral, virtually non-narrative exposition for the first third of the runtime, shifting adroitly from one character to the next, deepening our understanding of this milieu with each scene through an accumulation of multiple perspectives. Not to make stupid gender associations, but this strikes me as a "feminine" way of storytelling, associational rather than linear, more focused on developing relationships than driving plot. There's incredibly deft use of other devices such as voice over to deepen the multiple points of view further, and none of it calls attention to itself.
YES (#8 for 1954 between INAUGURATION OF THE PLEASURE DOME and ON THE
WATERFRONT)

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