ChiO
-
Posts
749 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Never
Posts posted by ChiO
-
-
As Director _and_ Actor:
1. *Citizen Kane*
2. *Touch of Evil*
3. *F For Fake*
-
lzcutter,
*I had the pleasure a long time ago, of meeting Cassavettes and Gena Rowlands at the end of a film tribute that we did for him....Cassavettes and Rowlands were two of the best.*
As is probably clear from a number of posts, I am in awe of Cassavetes as a director (and almost as much so as an actor). I choke-up just thinking of him, his films, and his struggles and integrity in getting his films made (and his support of Timothy Carey doesn't hurt). When Rowlands was in one of his films, it is magic. Being married to him was probably far more difficult than acting for him.
If you ever have contact with her again, please, on my behalf, beg, plead, cajole her for the release of *Husbands* and *Love Streams* on DVD.
*The best was an incredibly humble and modest Don Siegel*
That reinforces what I've heard and read elsewhere; that he is 180 degrees from what one would expect based on his films.
-
*Everyone seems to feel that way about Bergman, I know I once I did. Then I saw Fanny and Alexander and I finally understood.*
I loved Bergman...but it was a phase I outgrew.
Wait until I get to lead a Fuller/Cassavetes class with the discussion starter of "Compare and contrast the acting techniques of Gene Evans and Timothy Carey, and explain why chewing the scenery is better than chewing the cigar."
-
*I'm thinking June will be the kick-off and I'll start with Ford*
I just knew that you and MissG would get me to watch Ford again...and again...and again.
_Hey, Hey FrankG_ -- Did you see who's in first in the NL Central with the second-best record in the NL? Didya, huh, huh? Now we're beating up NY teams. Oh, we know it can't last, but already the second 100 years is looking better than the first. Maybe we can pass baseball notes in class while the others are discussing Fordian slips.
-
_lzcutter_ -- All seriousness aside and back to the real subject: Education, but definitely no class.
Some thoughts on one possible approach:
(1) _You_ start at time of your choosing.
(2) Two or three weeks in advance of the "start," (a) post the director or theme (no actors as topics, unless, of course, it's Timothy Carey), and (
3-5 suggested films that are reasonably readily available by the director or within the theme.(3) At the designated "start", post 2 or 3 discussion starters and let the students in the front of the classroom post away (while a couple of the girls in back are passing notes about "do you think Gary C. likes me, or does he really really likes me?").
(4) After a couple weeks, _you_ choose one of the participants to moderate the next class (either as a reward or punishment), and it starts all over again.
We'll know it's time to quit when the chosen topic is The Function of Mise-en-Scene in the Transgressive Feminist Cinema of Doris Wishman.
-
*But I'd still rather watch the Bucs get shellacked every game than watch one single Gary Cooper film.*
I knew it! You _are_ a Cubs fan!
I think your first extra-credit assignment (not that I mean to imply you'll need extra-credit) should be: *Why THE PRIDE OF THE YANKEES is my favorite baseball movie and how Gary Cooper played first base better than Willie Stargell.*
-
If you see any fast cool kids, please point them out for me. I wanna know what they look like.
-
_Frank-The-Cubs -Are-Finally-Leaving-Grimes_ --
The Murnau films being screening are:
*Nosferatu* (1922)
*The Last Laugh* (1924)
*Tartuffe* (1926)
*Faust* (1926)
*Sunrise* (1927)
*City Girl* (1928)
So that's two of my favorite films of all-time (The Last Laugh & Sunrise), two that I like alot (Nosferatu & Faust), and two I haven't seen.
*So you are a Sci-Fi guy then. This I didn't know.*
Actually, I don't consider myself as a Sci-Fi guy, but...I love '50s paranoia movies, from *Panic in the Streets* to Earth vs. Flying Saucers. They remind me of my carefree youth of ducking under the school desk for bomb drills, begging my Father to build a bomb shelter, knowing Sputnik would destroy us all, and Birchers ferreting out Commies.
-
_Frank-Cubs-13-Bucs-1-Grimes_ --
You know me too well. _Bergman_ -- Would've been a possibility with the early films, but not the post-Scenes from a Marriage stuff. _1950s Sci-Fi_ -- I actually have a draft proposal on the topic that I was going to submit to Facets, and this class is nearly identical, so...nevermind. _Ford at Fox_ -- I was momentarily tempted, but I feared that _MissG_ would lose all respect (if any remains) for me.
Murnau! Murnau! Murnau! -- I've seen four (Nosferatu, The Last Laugh, Faust, Sunrise) of the six films, but seeing Tartuffe and City Girl and, one hopes, digging deeper into his art is too much to pass up.
_lzcutter_ & _MissG_ --
Will there be any homework, will boys be forced to carry the books of any icky girls, and who is the Vice Principal imposing the discipline?
Subject to your responses, my hand is in the air (and it's not to ask for permission to go to the washroom).
-
Dear Frank-We-Wish-the-Cubs-Could-Play-the-Bucs-All-Season-Grimes:
Unlike many of your so-called friends, I have not participated in this sleazy little game of torturing you. I now, as a friend and compatriot, turn to you for advice.
Which one of the following classes should I take this summer at Facets Multimedia?
Ingmar Bergman: *Scenes from a Marriage* and Beyond
Watch the Skies!: Science Fiction, 1950's and Us
Ford at Fox: The Emergence of a Hollywood Master
Silent Shadows: The Films of F.W. Murnau
-
Lionel Stander narrating in the second-person in Blast of Silence.
Tom Neal in Detour.
-
I have found *The Dark Past* to be disappointing as well, and I like Rudolph Mate. The lecture at the end is worse than that in *Psycho* and not nearly as much fun (or educational) as that in Glen or Glenda.
Whenever I watch it, I wonder how it would work with Holden and Cobb switching roles. Somehow, William Holden with a pipe explaining a dream to a raging Lee J. Cobb seems more appropriate.
-
*Did you enjoy Basinger's book on Anthony Mann, ChiO?*
Absolutely, although I have 15 more pages to go (but I doubt that they'll change my mind).
*Was there anything surprising revealed in it?*
You mean something like, "Gary Cooper was a difficult star to work with, incapable of giving to his fellow actors, and turning what could have been a classic film of the Western genre into a mediocrity"? Oh...that wouldn't have been surprising? Nah, nothing like that. There is no biography -- it is straight-ahead film analysis. Not even any behind the scenes gossip. The quote below about Ray & Ryan is about as deep into acting as it goes. It did confirm my sense of the impact of John Alton on his films, and it provides lots of ideas, themes, technique, etc. to look for in his movies. It is going to be an excellent reference book as I watch and rewatch his films.
It has made me really want to see some of his films that I've missed, especially: Devil's Doorway, The Furies (it's coming soon from Criterion, I understand), The Tall Target, Men in War, and, yes, Man of the West. I also need to rewatch: Bend of the River, Strategic Air Command and El Cid.
I guess that's what a good book is suppose to do.
-
The DVD is on Kino International. No commentary, but the special feature is a long, very insightful essay by Ginsberg. The push-pull that you noted was autobiographical, but I imagine it is nearly universal.
There are two early episodes that are very emotionally painful, but moving, with a woman who has cigarette burns on her chest from a man she dated. She begs Joe to "do whatever you want to do to me." He says he'll "do whatever you want." She won't tell him what to do because that ruins the experience for her; he is clueless as to what to do because her desire makes him disinterested. Neither can satisfy the other on any level. The emotional and physical luridness is Fuller, but the look, subject and tone are '60s NYC independent filmmaking at its best (or, for some, its worst). Think Garfein (SOMETHING WILD), Clarke (THE CONNECTION), and Cassavetes.
I hope you like it. I think you will.
-
From *Anthony Mann* (Jeanine Basinger, 2007):
(discussing GOD'S LITTLE ACRE)
The primitive quality of Aldo Ray as an actor suits the role of Will. His desire to "pull the switch and light up the whole world" defines his desire to make their small-town world active by starting the closed-down cotton mill working again. Ryan, who is contrasted so well with Ray in MEN AT WAR, seems less perfectly cast here. He was more believable as an urban type (Nicholas Ray's ON DANGEROUS GROUND) or a stark western hero (Andre De Toth's DAY OF THE OUTLAW) or even as a villain (Mann's THE NAKED SPUR) than he is as a lusty, rural southern patriarch.
-
(Not a film that makes me think immediately of film noir, but it clearly is not any of the genres listed and, if anyone else would want to see this film, it most likely would be a reader of the film noir threads.)
Question: Is *COMING APART* (Ginsberg, 1969) (a) a pretentious, self-conscious attempt at an important "arty" movie, or (
a raw, frank dissection of the duplicity consuming a man's soul? Answer: Yes.
I loved it.
Milton Moses Ginsberg's first movie as a director (he made only three more) is a product of the late-'60s (the drugs, sex and clothing are dead giveaways), with *Cassavetes* as the most obvious stylistic point of reference. A psychiatrist, Joe (Rip Torn) has an apartment where he meets young female patients, young female neighbors, and young female pick-ups (see a trend?)...and his wife. Joe films the encounters -- or, at least some or portions of them. His profession is, naturally, known to his patients and wife, but may be unknown or hidden to others. Those women who want him cause him to pull away; those who spurn him results in him wanting them.
Joe's duplicity: He acts as if he cares about each of them when, in fact, it appears that he cares about nothing.
The entire movie takes place in the living room of Joe's apartment. The camera is static with long takes. The lower third of the frame is the back of a white sofa; the top two-thirds is a mirror. Most of the "action" is a two-shot of people on the sofa, with them, the rest of the room and the NYC skyline reflected in the mirror. When people are not on the sofa, usually their reflection is seen, but sometimes nothing but the sofa and mirror (and the reflection of objects) are visible.
The filming is surreptious. The camera is hidden in, what he tells one woman, a piece of kinetic art. The camera angle changes occasionally when he moves the "art." Takes end when either Joe turns the camera off or when it runs out of film.
Joe films the encounters so he can study or relive them, purportedly for a book. When he turns a camera back on or puts in more film, however, it is often unclear how much time has elapsed. A few seconds, 24 hours, a month? Are the gaps purely coincidental, intentional attempts not to re-experience an emotion (and is that emotion pleasurable or not), or merely to hide something from the viewer who is truly a voyeur? The one time Joe expresses rage is when a recurring young female ex-patient visitor has a camera with her and acts as if she's going to take pictures.
Rip Torn's performance is phenomenal -- forcing one to care about someone who appears to care about nothing. Ginsberg's construct of making the audience watch a character who is later going to watch what the audience is watching implicates the audienceas a participant in the character's duplicity.
Seldom has a movie on a single viewing moved me -- emotionally and intellectually -- as *COMING APART* has. It does what many great movies do -- forces you to love it or hate it. Being disinterested is not possible.
-
Today, replacing my "5 Minutes to Live" copy, I received the new Criterion release of BLAST OF SILENCE. It is now in _crisp_ black & white (mostly black), but luckily none of the sleaze and grime of the story was eliminated.
It was filmed in 1959-60 and released in 1961. Written, produced, starring and directed by Allen Baron, it is the tale of Frankie Bono, out-of-town hitman in NYC to bump off a mid-level mobster, but this movie is about tone and atmosphere. To call it "bleak" is only to scratch the surface. It is nihilistic -- we come from nothing and end as nothing. If anything resembling happiness occurs in between, it will be snuffed out quickly. Redemption is not in any part of the universe that Bono inhabits.
We experience the birth of the movie and Bono right at the start with dramatic shots of New York and a voice-over -- in the second-person. Given the story, the narration by blacklisted *Lionel Stander* (written by blacklisted Waldo Salt) is likely the voice of Satan rather than a Morgan Freeman-like voice of God.
Remembering, out of the black silence...you were born in pain...you were born with hate and anger built in...took a slap on the backside to blast out the scream and then you knew you were alive. Eight pounds, five ounces. Baby boy Frankie Bono. Father doing well. Later you learned to hold back the scream and let out the hate and anger another way.
You come into Manhattan by dark, whatever time of day it is. Through tunnels, like sewers, hidden under the city. But you don't mind that. It's always that way, whatever city it is.
You're alone. But you don't mind that. You're a loner. That's the way it should be.
The film was made for about $22,000 cash, some raw stock and equipment that *Baron* "liberated" after acting in CUBAN REBEL GIRLS. Baron, as Bono, looks and sounds like George C. Scott...without Scott's good humor. Peter Falk, a friend of Baron's, was going to do the role, but was offered a paying role in *MURDER, INC.* as filming was to begin. *Baron* decided to play the role because "I was the best actor available...and the only one I could afford." *Larry Tucker* (actor: ADVISE & CONSENT, SHOCK CORRIDOR; writer/producer: I LOVE YOU, ALICE B. TOKLAS, BOB & CAROL & TED & ALICE; writer: episodes of The Monkees) is fabulous as Big Ralphie, a slimy gun dealer.
The DVD has no commentary, but it includes a 60 minute documentary on the making of BLAST OF SILENCE. Originally filmed by a German team in 1990 (Baron won raves as a undiscovered Welles shortly before at a Munich film festival), an American in 2006 added footage that had been edited out and a new interview with Baron.
At 77 minutes, *BLAST OF SILENCE* is a near flawless film noir gem.
-
_FilmicFrank_ asks: *So have you ever seen This Gun for Hire?*
I don't believe I have.
Have you seen The Passion of Joan of Arc, you vulgarian, you?
-
My first thought when this thread started was that, based on the title ("Orson Welles matchup"), this was going to be a thread comparing Welles' performances in the two pictures. I thought that the more apt comparison of two Welles characters might be between *The Third Man* and Touch of Evil, so I didn't post. Now I see that it is more of a comparison of the films, so...
Definitely Citizen Kane. I enjoy *The Third Man* and Gus has certainly given an excellent explanation for his preference for it. *The Third Man* may well be the most Wellesian looking film that Welles didn't direct, but, as Dobie Gray sang in "The In Crowd," The original is still the greatest.
Few characters in movies take me for as joyous a rollercoaster ride as Charles Foster Kane. The opening shot -- what is he about? The projection room -- he may be good or bad, or both, but he's certainly "big", so let's find out. Youth -- sympathy for being ripped from one parent by the other. Early adulthood -- love his defiance of the powers-that-be, but his brashness can cause him to be unsympathetic as well. Eventually the arrogance consumes him...but yet, how can we forget the circumstances that caused it. No other film that I have seen collects all of the conflicting emotions that I've felt through the movie and then, in one single scene, forces me to relive every one in a matter of seconds, culminating with a simple common plaything being consumed by fire.
As I have posted before, few films touch on as many genres or styles of film, as well as subjects, and integrate them to create such a wonderous unified vision. Musical comedy -- the newsroom scene. Western/Americana -- his youth. Drama -- throughout. Melodrama -- his tryst. War. Politics. Domestic issues. Class warfare. Bio-pic. Film noir. Not much in the way of crime or gangster, but don't count Mr. Thatcher out.
Visually, both films can be stunning, but *Citizen Kane* is stunning _and_ incredible. And each time I see the underground chase in The Third Man, I am reminded that (BLASPHEMY ALERT!) Anthony Mann did it just as well a year earlier in He Walked by Night.
And *Citizen Kane* is just downright entertaining.
After over 40 years of watching Citizen Kane, it is still my favorite movie and I find something new with each viewing.
P.S. Switzerland did not invent the cuckoo clock.
-
Naremore's take (or was it his explanation of Chandler's intent?) regarding The Blue Dahlia's extrapolation from *The Best Years of Our Lives* was that Chandler was showing three men who had faced and dealt with what they thought was the greatest violence imaginable, only to return home and face violence that was more personal and, therefore, arguably worse.
I see that in The Blue Dahlia, but I wish the film had been in the hands of a director with more visual flair and a darker disposition. Did I hear Fritz Lang?
-
Naremore's take (or was it his explanation of Chandler's intent?) regarding The Blue Dahlia's extrapolation from *The Best Years of Our Lives* was that Chandler was showing three men who had faced and dealt with what they thought was the greatest violence imaginable, only to return home and face violence that was more personal and, therefore, arguably worse.
I see that in The Blue Dahlia, but I wish the film had been in the hands of a director with more visual flair and a darker disposition. Did I hear Fritz Lang?
-
Naremore's take (or was it his explanation of Chandler's intent?) regarding The Blue Dahlia's extrapolation from *The Best Years of Our Lives* was that Chandler was showing three men who had faced and dealt with what they thought was the greatest violence imaginable, only to return home and face violence that was more personal and, therefore, arguably worse.
I see that in The Blue Dahlia, but I wish the film had been in the hands of a director with more visual flair and a darker disposition. Did I hear Fritz Lang?
-
Naremore's take (or was it his explanation of Chandler's intent?) regarding The Blue Dahlia's extrapolation from *The Best Years of Our Lives* was that Chandler was showing three men who had faced and dealt with what they thought was the greatest violence imaginable, only to return home and face violence that was more personal and, therefore, arguably worse.
I see that in The Blue Dahlia, but I wish the film had been in the hands of a director with more visual flair and a darker disposition. Did I hear Fritz Lang?
-
Naremore's take (or was it his explanation of Chandler's intent?) regarding The Blue Dahlia's extrapolation from *The Best Years of Our Lives* was that Chandler was showing three men who had faced and dealt with what they thought was the greatest violence imaginable, only to return home and face violence that was more personal and, therefore, arguably worse.
I see that in The Blue Dahlia, but I wish the film had been in the hands of a director with more visual flair and a darker disposition. Did I hear Fritz Lang?
3-5 suggested films that are reasonably readily available by the director or within the theme.
Opinions on 70's Film Making
in General Discussions
Posted
Some '70s films that I don't think that have been mentioned and that I think may stand the test of time (translation: I really like them):
*Tristana* (Bunuel)
*Woodstock* (Wadleigh)
*McCabe & Mrs. Miller* (Altman) (one of the few of his I like)
*Two Lane Blacktop* (Hellman)
*Wanda* (Loden) (in my Top 15 of all time)
*Aguirre, The Wrath of God* (Herzog) (another one in the Top 15)
*Avanti* (Wilder)
*Fat City* (Huston) (maybe his best - yes, better than The Maltese Falcon)
*Last Tango in Paris* (Bertolucci)
*F For Fake* (Welles) (32 years after *Citizen Kane* + another 35 years = GENIUS)
*Martha* (Fassbinder) (after *Rear Window*, my favorite adaptation of a Cornell Woolrich story)
*Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia* (Peckinpah)
*Celine and Julie Go Boating* (Rivette)
*The Conversation* (Coppola) (when I think he's overrated, I watch this)
*Lancelot du lac* (Bresson)
*Phantom of Liberty* (Bunuel)
*A Woman Under the Influence* (Cassavetes) (still shattering 34 years later)
*Barry Lyndon* (Kubrick)
*The Killing of a Chinese Bookie* (Cassavetes)
*The Devil, Probably* (Bresson)
*Eraserhead* (Lynch)
*That Obscure Object of Desire* (Bunuel)
*Killer of Sheep* (Burnett) (another Top 15 -- no, Top 10)
*All That Jazz* (Fosse) (my favorite "musical")
*Apocalypse Now* (Coppola)