SCREENING LOG - 7/30-8/5, 2001

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I saw L'Argent, Hana-bi/Fireworks, Dr. T and the Women, Kadosh and Apocalypse Now Redux. In order of preference:

Apocalypse Now Redux (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979/2001)

I was fortunate to see a screening of this restored and reedited marvel in an IMAX theater -- but any theater would be far better than a tv screen to fully appreciate Coppola's mad vision of the Vietnam War. Regardless of what you may think of the results, I think there's no question that no film in the last 20 years has matched this one in terms of outward (and foolhardy) ambition. In terms of sheer megalomaniacal spectacle it's a must-see. Having said that, I wouldn't say that it's a masterpiece, though a scene like Col. Kilgore's aerial assault of the beachhead would easily merit that status by itself. Whatever points it has to make about the war aren't terribly insightful, and each scene after drifting scene gives only slight variations on the main ideas. What it does depict, with less canny brilliance than mad instinct, is the sensation of being irretrievably trapped in a surreal full-color horror show, something that Coppola must have felt all too much in the horror show he experienced in making the movie (his wife's documentray Hearts of Darkness: a Filmmaker's Apocalypse spills much of the dirt). New scenes in the 53 minutes of added footage include a re-encounter with the USO Playboy bunnies that is erotic, tender, funny and horrifying; and a stopover at a French plantation lost in time that begins with surrealist smoke and fog, segues to a warmly lit funeral ceremony, continues to ridiculous dinner table banter, and concludes with an oddly touching love scene. The painful final act has, unbelievably, been extended in length, and, even more unbelievably, it's better for it. There's a scene of Willard gazing outside his crude cell at a crowd of child spectators that in its own way seems to get at the heart of the inevitable outcome of the war. And so the complexities of this flawed masterpiece turned meta-text continue to blossom -- what version of this movie is best? Whatever version you love or hate, seeing this film again, in this manner, has ensured its lasting status in my mind as some kind of cinematic wonder.

L'Argent (Robert Bresson, 1983)

I'll have to see this movie again to probe deeper into its deceptive simplicity. It feels like a tale told a thousand times by a sage, told as if in a language of its own, with only the bare essentials left over. I had a hard time accepting the allegorical plot and where it was taking me, and I wasn't in the right frame of mind for Bresson's actors-as-automatons, but the ending is simply too powerful to forget. At least his ingenious editing rhythms can be appreciated immediately.

Kadosh (Amos Gitai, 1999)

Absorbing film about a Orthodox Jew being pressured by his rabbi father to divorce his wife because they've borne no children in 10 years. The opening half is terrific, especially when the camera is doing no more than capturing simple everyday rituals that tell so much more about the religion than the expository dialogue and melodramatic plot that surrounds and ultimately buries them. This film could have been a profound study of a religion and the people who live and die by its code; intstead it settles for pro-feminist agit-prop, after seeing the women in the film suffer so outrageously, you leave wondering why ANY woman would want to be an orthodox Jew.

Dr. T and the Women (Robert Altman, 2000)

Having too much sympathy for your female characters is still preferable to having almost none at all, which is the effect of Altman's treatment of a Dallas gynecologist being dragged down by the women in his life. A miscast Richard Gere does what he can in the title role, but it's the actresses who get the short end of Altman's satirical s(ch)tick. While I usually like Altman's cacophanous dialogue and detached, roving camerawork, here it made the film's messily sketched characters only messier. Helen Hunt is an inspirational enigma -- I, and Altman, for sure, loved the way her body moves during one particular dinner/shower/sex scene. Maybe that's what Altman was out to capture -- the mystery of the fair sex. But I couldn't connect with anyone else in the film even on the bodily level -- Laura Dern's part was especially embarrassing. I did like the wacky ending though -- at that point it was a welcome relief to be swept away from the world of Dallas women.

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