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SCREENING LOG
- 12/8-12/14, 2003
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I watched OPENING NIGHT, THE LACEMAKER, TWILIGHT OF THE
ICE NYMPHS, ARCHANGEL, THE DUELLISTS, LONG DAY'S JOUNEY INTO
NIGHT, THE DEVIL PROBABLY, THE HEART OF THE WORLD and OUTRAGEOUS!
In order of preference:
The Devil, Probably (1977, Robert Bresson) second
viewing
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0075938
There's no sense in telling me
The wisdom of a fool won't set you free
But that's the way that it goes
And it's what nobody knows
While every day my confusion grows
Every time I see you falling
I get down on my knees and pray
I'm waiting for that final moment
You'll say the words that I can't say
#2 for 1977 between SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER and ANNIE HALL
The Heart of the World (2000, Guy Maddin) second viewing
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0260948
A surefire entry among the greatest short films ever made
is this frantic six-minute timewarp involving a love quadrangle
between a mortician, an actor of passion plays and a greedy
industrialist, who vie for the heart of State Scientist Anna
while the heart of the world suffers a fatal heart attack.
Commissioned for the 25th anniversary of the Toronto Film
Festival, this six-minute miracle is not only a compendium
of all the greatest moments and stylistic effects of silent
cinema, from German Expressionism to Soviet Formalism, from
Melies to METROPOLIS -- but also a challenge to the contemporary
world of filmmakers to be as bold and as innovative as their
forebears, to transform the world through their vision just
as their hopelessly idealistic predecessors once aspired to
do. In diving headlong into the past, Maddin proves that the
earliest films remain the most visionary, and blazes a scorching
trail for the future of cinema -- the question is will anyone
dare explore it? #3 for 2000 between YI YI and THE GLEANERS
AND I
Long Day's Journey into Night (1962, Sidney Lumet)
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0056196
Handsome and haunting adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's masterpiece,
impressively handled by Lumet with a beguiling mixture of
inspired staging and disciplined camerawork, making as inspired
use of space as he did with TWELVE ANGRY MEN's single jury
room. Ralph Richardson's patriarch comes off a little too
much of a fall guy for the dysfunctional grievances of wife
Katharine Hepburn and sons Jason Robards and Dean Stockwell
to air out their dirty family laundry, but the performances
are first-rate. Hepburn is the true standout, using her well-known
eccentricities of theatrical speech and expression -- that
quavering voice, that mortified smile -- to devastating effect
as a disintegrating dopehead housewife. #8 for 1962 between
MY NAME IS IVAN and KNIFE IN THE WATER
Opening Night (1977, John Cassavetes)
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0079672
Another high-wire experiment from Cassavetes that perhaps
is more profound upon reflection than upon viewing -- Gena
Rowlands plays an aging movie star taking part in a stage
production; deeply troubled by the accidental death of an
obsessive fan and the advanced age of the role she is rehearsing,
she descends into a maelstrom of self-destructive behavior
in order to find a genuine connection to her character. The
results aren't terribly pretty, and the ending (which is a
film of the actual production performed in front of a live
audience) is a bit too cute for the insights of the film to
resound, but Rowlands invests her entire being into her performance,
and there are plenty of intriguing moments throughout that
explore her character's psychological deconstruction much
in the manner of Ingmar Bergman's films. Most impressive is
Cassavetes' navigation of the theater space from frontstage
to back, resulting in some remarkable dramatic moments. #10
for 1977 between THE GETTING OF WISDOM and PROVIDENCE
Archangel (1990, Guy Maddin)
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0099053
At the end of World War I and in the midst of the Russian
Revolution, several stray souls congregate in a remote village
nursing old wounds and lost memories. Maddin's homage to early
sound cinema is, like a number of its source texts, rather
uneven both technically and narratively, but Maddin's brilliance
lies in embracing those rough edges for all the mystery and
allure they can offer. As is the case with all three Maddin
features I've seen, the film occupies a weird paradoxical
deadpan stance between giddy parody and deadpan fetishism,
leading to some truly unique effects that feel both contrived
and refreshing, and memorably insignificant. Maddin has difficulty
sustaining this zone of feeling for the length of an entire
feature -- the film feels like it ends fifteen minutes before
it does, but nonetheless the many quirks to be found up to
the very end have a lingering cumulative effect. #8 for 1990
between PUMP UP THE VOLUME and DICK TRACY
Twilight of the Ice Nymphs (1997, Guy Maddin)
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0120393
Perhaps Maddin's most opulent film, a lushly photographed
fantasia about the lusty deceits that transpire around an
ostrich farm. The style, marked by colors that seem to bleed
from the screen, is so overwhelming that the baroque story
is easily lost. The film isn't quite poetic enough to sustain
a complete dissociation from narrative, nor is the narrative
compelling enough in its own right, but as uneven indulgences
go this easily merits rank alongside the likes of BLACK NARCISSUS
. Outrageous! (1977, Richard Benner)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076513
I'm afraid I was at a disadvantage watching a very poor
print of this groundbreaker in gay cinema about a transvestite
cabaret performer who imparts a few life lessons on his depressed
and distressed female roommate. The film is perhaps best appreciated
as a performance documentary of the legendary Craig Russell,
who gives uncanny and thrilling impersonations of Judy Garland,
Carol Channing and Bette Davis among others. The rest felt
like the standard wholesome narrative involving a troubled
mainstream person who learns to appreciate life helped by
the simple, quirky sagacty of a cuddly Islander/Indian/Negro/Disabled
Person/Homosexual/Space Alien.
The Lacemaker (1977, Claude Goretta)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075932
A very young and slightly pudgy Isabelle Huppert (looking
nothing like she does now) made a memorable breakthrough as
the unlikely heroine, a humble hairdresser who enters an unlikely
romance with a handsome academic. There are a number of quiet,
remarkably observed moments involving her as well as her best
friend, who's getting over an affair with a married man. Unfortunately
the film comes up with little at the end in regards its insights
into the class and gender questions it raises.
The Duellists (1977, Ridley Scott)
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0075968
This was great back when it was called BARRY LYNDON. Scott's
debut feature is characteristically a feast for the eyes,
with immaculate use of European landscapes shrouded in morning
mist and battle smoke. Beyond that it's a very mixed bag --
the odd choice to pick Harvey Keitel and Keith Carradine as
Napoleonic officers at best serves as a muddled contrast between
East Coast vs. West Coast acting styles ("You Talkin' To Me?"
vs. "Chill Out Dude, I'm, Like, a French Officer!"), but what
that has to do with 19th century France or Joseph Conrad is
beyond me. The Conradian themes of noble man forced to faced
his savage doppelganger Other deserve much more than Scott's
superficial gloss -- the film is played for effective pacing
and pleasurable viewing, lulling the viewer into a kind of
stupefied bemusement at the sumptuous visual textures -- the
jawdropping final shot being the prime example: it's gorgeous,
but so what?
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