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SCREENING LOG
- 7/7-7/13, 2003
Back to 2003 Index
I watched LA RELIGIEUSE/THE NUN, CABIN IN THE SKY, CAPTURING
THE FRIEDMANS, SUSPIRIA, JONAH WHO WILL BE 25 IN THE YEAR
2000, MESSIDOR, FELLINI'S CASANOVA, SEVEN BEAUTIES, STREET
ANGEL (1928), THE MARQUISE OF O abd THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH.
Before I go on I should say that my viewings so far in 1976
have been perplexing and frustrating. Robin Wood once posited
the theory of the "incoherent text": a movie whose thematic
arguments are riddled with contradictions and hypocrisies,
but which make the film even more fascinating to watch as
a result. 1976 is a year riddled with such movies, including
the film Wood used as a prime example of his theory, TAXI
DRIVER, which also happens to be my favorite film of the year
-- with strong reservations and doubts. I say that because
after having turned off the TV in disgust upon finishing Lina
Wertmuller's SEVEN BEAUTIES and counting the various hypocrisies
and disgustingly sadistic cruelties evidenced in said film,
I had to take a step back and wonder how many of those grievances
could be laid at the feet of Scorsese's sociopathic masterpiece.
So that's a contradiction on my part that I have to acknowledge
-- maybe I need to see TAXI DRIVER again to get a better handle
on my thoughts, and it may just be a matter of privileged
timing -- I saw TAXI DRIVER as a teen and it had an indelible
effect on how I saw my world, and nothing can really be done
about that, it's personal history. It's possible that SEVEN
BEAUTIES would have appealed to me as an adolescent, but as
it is my adult perspective found it engaging but ultimately
reprehensible. If anyone is willing to argue the relative
ethical or moral merits of either film (or any other films
from 1976) I'm open to such endeavors.
For now, this year is really an amoral free-for-all as far
as I'm concerned, and I'm not sure if there's any movie worth
sticking up for. This is a scary year, where even something
as gentle and straightforward as a Rohmer movie yields disturbing
subtexts, and I'm not sure how many more movies I can watch
before my head explodes from the confusion -- I feel like
David Bowie screaming at the TV screens in THE MAN WHO FELL
TO EARTH (yet another frustratingly incoherent experience).
I think I need a trip to the multiplex to clean the palette...
Anyway, in schizophrenic order of preference:
Le Samourai Docs Rock in 2003 Recommendation of the Week
Capturing the Friedmans (2003, David Jarecki)
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0342172
To put it simply, I'll just say that no other new film so
far this year has got me talking with my friends as much as
this one. It's a documentary about the Friedmans, a Long Island
family whose father is arrested in 1988 for child pornography
and molesting children inside his house -- accusations which
may or may not be the product of neighborhood hysteria with
children being goaded to provide false testimony. But the
effect on the Friedman family is devastating nonetheless,
with one of the sons indicted as well. Another son decides
to record the family's disintegration on videotape -- and
here is where the film really kicks into overdrive. And while
the home videos provide the viewer with ample visual evidence
of the "truth" behind this family in crisis, the family's
fixation on videotaping themselves complicates our ability
to perceive what is real and what is being consciously presented.
It's a film whose topic is so fathomless it threatens to overrun
first-time director Jarecki, and yet he does an astounding
job weaving this unruly case into a streamlined narrative
(albeit in a slick way, but even the slickness provides an
ironic counterpoint to the film's unyielding non-resolutions).
I once criticized Kurosawa's RASHOMON for being content with
the simplistic, cynical theory that everyone lies, whereas
an even more disturbing realization might be that everyone
tells the truth, or at least thinks they are. This is a movie
that vividly realizes that theory, and it's so powerful and
disturbing that it even made me question the reasons why I
have Abbas Kiarostami's CLOSE-UP on my all time top 10 list;
it seems like that film's evil nemesis come to life, showing
how damaging and nightmarish the obsession of capturing life
on film can be.
Places at #1 for 2003
Andy Smith silent classic of the week
Street Angel (1928, Frank Borzage)
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0019429
This story of an Italian streetwalker turned saint through
loving a struggling artist may essentially amount to vintage
Hollywood syrup, but in the hands of Frank Borzage it sure
tastes sweet. Borzage knows how to take such shopworn ideals
as romance, true love and devotional sacrifice and breathe
life into them, probably because deep down inside he believes
in them as well. The pathos are empowered in no small way
by the charismatic performances of Charles Farrell and of
course Janet Gaynor, whose face radiates with the same sensuous
sentimentality Borzage invests in his melodrama. The moments
between the two of them achieve a genuine intimacy between
two hopelessly romantic souls, and thus should be savored.
A very lovely work.
Places at #7 for its year, between THE DOCKS OF NEW YORK
and THE WIND
zetes Fixing Recommendation of the week
Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000 (1976, Alain Tanner)
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0074718
A Swiss precursor to the post-60s midlife crisis ensemble
movies a la RETURN OF THE SECAUCUS SEVEN and THE BIG CHILL,
this smart and highly engaging portrait of various people
and their varying levels of dissatisfaction with their occupations
and their endangered ideals. Tanner is a quirky, intuitive
artist, who lets his films build in a dialogue between his
characters natural circumstances and his own spontaneous narrative
impulses. He switches between several narrative threads while
never losing momentum -- there is a mounting sense of despair
throughout the film, but by the end it makes the resilient
optimism of the characters all the more poignant. Outstanding
performances abound from this great cast; if pressed to single
anyone out, I'd have to go with Jean-Luc Bideau as a rather
unusually charismatic high school teacher, Miou-Miou as a
grocery clerk who gives discounts at the register at her own
whim, and Jacques Denis as an unemployed printer-turned-farmhand-turned-teacher.
Places at #3 for 1976
The Marquise of O (1976, Eric Rohmer)
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0074870
Or, Love Means Never Having to Say I'm Sorry I Raped You.
A Russian colonel rescues the daughter of a German general,
but weeks later she finds herself mysteriously pregnant, scandalizing
herself and her family. Shortly beforehand, the colonel arrives
at their doorstep with a hangdog countenance and an urgent
proposal of marriage to the young lady. Mmm hmm. I can't deny
that, generally being a sucker for Rohmer movies, I enjoyed
watching this so much the first time that only later did I
find myself disturbed by how Rohmer reduces the act of rape
to a case of extremely bad manners brought about by a lapse
of etiquette (of course he would go on to make a likewise
assessment of the French Revolution in THE LADY AND THE DUKE),
allowing him to engage in a chess game of his beloved theme
of tactful morality. The film is shot so beautifully and the
story told in such a refreshingly direct way, which allows
us to savor the lively rhythm of human conversations and the
debate over acceptable conduct as much as Rohmer surely does,
that one feels disinclined to dwell on how much of this film
is potentially offensive, which I find a bit dishonest. I
feel somewhat the same about Almodovar's TALK TO HER -- and
yet there's so much to love about this film that I find myself
seduced all the same.
Places at #4 for 1976
Fellini's Casanova (1976, Federico Fellini)
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0074291
Possibly Fellini's last great film, and certainly one of
his most extravagant, this languid series of vignettes enacting
the sexual exploits of history's most famous lover has a detached
air that feels alternately dreamlike and robotic, fascinating
and boring. As in LA DOLCE VITA, Fellini seems to invite us
to take pleasure in and be simultaneously disgusted by the
extreme hedonism taking place, while noting how Casanova's
escapades are outrageously fun and grueling ordeals at once.
This kind of ambivalence informs the entire film right down
to Fellini's own ambivalence towards his subject, embodied
in Donald Sutherland's awkward turn as Casanova (Fellini cast
him as some kind of a joke on the Casanova legend, though
it's a joke that risks backfiring). Fellini seems to want
to scorn his subject while sharing in the revelry -- somehow
I don't mind the hypocrisy, when the film has so many moments
that achieve a splendid, phantasmagoric sense of its own.
Places at #7 for 1976
kerpan Rivette movie of the week
La Religieuse/The Nun (1966, Jacques Rivette)
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0060891
This chronicle of an 18th century girl (played admirably
by Godard mainstay Anna Karina) who is forced by her parents
into joining a convent where she is victimized by the politics
of the system was initially banned in France for its unflattering
portrayal of the clerical order, though it seems rather tame
by today's standards. Rivette is close to coming to his own,
with his trademark austere, stage-inflected dramatics in full
evidence, though much more direct in purpose than in later
films. The film is a revelation in how it reveals Mizoguchi
as a key influence -- not only in the thematic focus on a
woman's suffering but in its string-of-pearls assembly of
scenes leading to a climax of metaphysical devastation --
though the overalleffect actually more closely resembles late
period Dreyer. (And come to think of it, the casting of Francisco
Rabal as a hypocritical priest seems like a homage to Bunuel.)
Not quite as singular as the best of either artist, or of
Rivette -- the last few scenes seem to run on auto-pilot once
it's evident that the heroine's fate is sealed -- but there
are many fine moments of compelling drama throughout this,
the Rivette film that I've found to be the most accessible
(read: least perplexing, which in its own way is a disappointment
for this director, who in his own way demands total commitment
-- seems with Rivette I'm at an impasse) .
Places at #16 for 1966, between VIOLENCE AT NOON and MARAT/SADE
bkamberger MGM musical of the week
Cabin in the Sky (1943, Vincente Minnelli)
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0035703
One of Arthur Freed's first MGM productions was this all-black
musical about an affable Everyman caught between a tug-of-war
between angelic and demonic influences. Vincente Minnelli's
directorial debut shows discernible traces of his mastery:
energetic dialogues and confident handling of an industrious
ensemble (charismatically led by Eddie "Rochester" Anderson
and Ethel Waters). Look for cameos by Duke Ellington and a
scene-stealing Louis Armstrong. With top-notch production
values, this is an enjoyable effort.
Places at #4 for 1943
Messidor (1978, Alain Tanner)
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0079548
In some ways a far cry from the witty orchestration of post-60s
beleaguered idealists of JONAH WHO WILL BE 25 IN THE YEAR
2000, this stoic and strangely fragmented road narrative follows
two runaway girls wandering throughout Switzerland, foraging,
begging and eventually murdering along their way to nowhere.
I was really into this for the first hour or so, even moreso
than I was with JONAH -- while the girls aren't quite the
brightest pair of lightbulbs to hit the road on their own,
Tanner's camera never nudges us to judge, just to observe
and accept -- the film literally hits its peak with a breathtaking
shot of the Alpine landscape, in the midst of which the two
girls are spotted urinating -- an image oddly beautiful in
its matter-of-factness. Unfortunately the film starts spinning
its wheels dramatically and offers endless variations on the
same dead-end episode until finally slouching towards the
inevitable. This kind of narrative head-banging may have its
own significance in reflecting how days pass to no end for
the hapless protagonists, though for now I found it rather
sloppy and unilluminating. Overall this intriguing but frustrating
film may amount to a Swiss precursor to Agnes Varda's superior
VAGABOND.
Places at #7 for 1978, between THE FIVE DEADLY VENOMS and
THE BUDDY HOLLY STORY
The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976, Nicholas Roeg)
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0076786
David Bowie, Mr. Is There Life on Mars? himself, is an inspired
choice to play a space alien disguised as a tycoon, out to
collect water from Earth to save his home planet. I never
really bought into the story, which made me feel that Roeg's
trademark hyperactive frame-and-cut technique was overcompensating
for something missing in the center (as further proof of overcompensation:
Roeg quadruples the number of MTV-style sex scenes from the
single instance in DON'T LOOK BACK). At least the killer soundtrack
does much to hold one's interest. I now feel that Mr. Roeg's
talents, so vivifying in PERFORMANCE, went a step down with
each subsequent film. This one is basically a sci-fi version
of WALKABOUT, though this time the aborigine becomes the empty
bourgeoise white person he encounters.
Places at #12 for 1976
Seven Beauties (1976, Lina Wertmuller)
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0075040
A charismatic but ruthless numskull Italian fights, kills,
bitch-slaps, begs, moans and f*cks his way through Mussolini's
Italy (equated with the mafia, sleazy bars and cathouses,
and an insane asylum), World War II and a Nazi concentration
camp. I'll give Wertmuller and actor Giancarlo Giannini credit
for somehow managing to make me care about this prick for
most of this film's duration, despite having various grotesque
caricatures of bug-eyed sweaty corpulent humanity repeatedly
stuck in my face, but as some kind of statement on the human
condition (which more or less boils down to "Crude stupid
chauvinistic Italian slobs are still better than crude stereotypical
sadistic Nazi killers" -- my what a groundbreaking insight)
it stinks -- the so-called moral resolve made in the last
scene merely underscores the film's terminal nihilism, which
the film cynically exploits for garish dramatic and stylistic
affectation under the guise of profundity. Honestly, I tried
to write reasonably and fairly about this film, and as narrative
it's admittedly a well crafted and engaging tour of the house
of horrors known as humanity -- but each time I try to come
to terms with this film my thoughts come back to one word:
disgust (a second would be contempt). Sorry.
Places at #13 for 1976
Chris-435, help me out Horror movie of the week
Suspiria (1978, Dario Argento)
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0076786
This is supposed to be a horror classic, and I may not be
a horror connoisseur, but all the same I simply don't get
it. Everything seemed obvious, and I was more repulsed than
terrified. I felt the movie trying to willfully box me into
a state of terror with its relentless migraine-inducing music,
oversaturated lighting schemes and gross-out impalement effects.
But the shoddy camerawork and clumsy narrative kept me at
arm's length. Personally, it was sad to see Alida Valli, so
lovely in THE THIRD MAN, go the way of the Baby Jane Davis/Crawford
freak hag.
Places at #13 for 1978
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