kingrat
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Posts posted by kingrat
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Chapter 7, on the New Wave, was one of the best in the series so far. Cousins did a brilliant job analyzing the jump cuts in a scene from *Breathless* and in relating how the invention of Techniscope enabled Sergio Leone to show something large in close-up (a boot, say) with the background mostly in focus, which had previously not been possible for wide-screen formats.
Cousins' enthusiasm for and sympathy with the New Wave directors was evident. Rather fuzzy chronology could have left the impression that Visconti and Antonioni began their careers a decade after Fellini, but Cousins showed several composed shots by Antonioni which have connections with modern painting (I would add, Mannerist painting as well).
Quibbles? No mention of Malle, Rohmer, or Chabrol, although Malle is hard to fit into the New Wave in this abbreviated odyssey, and Rohmer and Chabrol arguably did their best work a bit later. Clouzot's *The Wages of Fear* should have been mentioned along with Bergman, Tati, Fellini, and Bresson; if *The Wages of Fear* isn't a deeply personal film, what is? I'd like to have seen a mention of Rene Clement, who is also hard to fit into this shortened chronology. And if you're going to mention the music of *Once Upon a Time in the West*, as he rightly did, for heaven's sake mention Ennio Morricone by name.
However, these are quibbles, and Chapter 7 was very good. Cousins gets extra credit for indentifying *The Mother and the ***** as marking the end of the New Wave in France; clearly he understands Eustache's masterpiece. I'm looking forward to what Cousins has to say about *Ashes and Diamonds* in Chapter 8.
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I love *Nightmare Alley*. Tom has mentioned some of the excellent performances. The doors of the Fox vault are slowly opening, and TCM is getting to show some of their gems.
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From *La Traversee de Paris* (aka *Four Bags Full*, aka *A Pig Across Paris*): As the two men make their way across Paris, the subtitles inform us that their journey will take them "through the marshes." The French dialogue actually says through "Le Marais," which does indeed mean "the marsh," but in this context obviously means a well-known district in Paris.
SansFin, I have also noted that curse words frequently get softened in subtitles.
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Selisma, your posts give a fair and accurate account of the shortcomings of Cousins' series. I'm thoroughly enjoying his descriptions of various camera shots and would love to excerpt these to anyone interested in learning more about film.
Perhaps because Cousins is a documentary filmmaker, he simply is less interested in actors than most filmgoers are. Who else would show a shot of the "Bette Davis Picnic Area" and never mention Bette Davis in an account of 30s and 40s films? He is very uncomfortable with scenes or shots which emphasize the actor rather than the director's idea. He has also minimized writers and storytelling, though he did identify Cesare Zavattini as the key figure in neorealism. He actually placed much less emphasis on Rossellini than many would, which is fine with me.
A suggestion: could it be that Cousins objects so strongly to "Hollywood romantic entertainment" because he feels the seductive pull of it? Perhaps he loves Douglas Fairbanks and *The Thief of Bagdad*, but can't justify this intellectually and thus needs to fight the feeling? He points out, quite rightly, that Powell & Pressburger strike an ideal balance between romance and realism--but doesn't this imply that romance isn't such a bad thing after all?
The guy loves *Singin' in the Rain*, Hollywood romantic entertainment in spades, so he can't be all bad. I would guess that Cousins has attention deficit disorder, which would account for the bizarre jumps in chronology and subject. This is what we expect in conversation, but not in a more formal historical approach.
The series has made all of us think more about what our own accounts of the history of film would include, and that is a good thing. By the way, I'm not sorry for the repetition of threads on this subject because one of the other threads got totally sidetracked on political matters.
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Thanks, Cave Girl. I wanted to bump the thread to alert anyone who might be interested in tomorrow's Lewis Gilbert movies.
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Andy, that's a great description of the various shades of villainy that Vincent Price can play.
When forced to do so, he can even play dull second leads as in *Leave Her to Heaven*, but that's not the way we want to remember him.
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Those who are grumbly about *The Sound of Music* will probably enjoy the *Forbidden Broadway* parody: a sequel after the Trapp Family arrived in Vermont. Imagine the title song beginning not with "The hills are alive . . . ." but "I go to the mall, when I'm in Montpelier."
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Just a heads-up that the Lewis Gilbert films which were canceled a few months ago because of a memorial tribute will be shown on Thursday, Oct. 10. *The Seventh Dawn* (1964) has quite a few fans on these boards. At the time, American audiences weren't so interested in moral dilemmas in faraway Southeast Asia. William Holden and his Malayan friend work together to fight the Japanese in WWII, but then his friend goes to college in the Soviet Union and becomes a leader of the Communist insurgency. Susannah York and Capucine provide romantic complications. This movie holds up very well.
I haven't seen the other films, but *The Good Die Young* is a heist film with Laurence Harvey, Gloria Grahame, and Richard Basehart, so that sounds interesting. *Loss of Innocence*, based on a Rumer Godden novel, stars Kenneth More, Susannah York, and Danielle Darrieux. For me, another must see. There's also *The Admirable Crichton*, based on the J.M. Barrie play and starring David Niven.
Lewis Gilbert is best remembered, if at all, for directing Alfie. Another enjoyable film of his, *Cast a Dark Shadow*, will be shown on Oct. 22 during the Margaret Lockwood tribute. Lockwood, Dirk Bogarde, Mona Washbourne, and Kay Walsh are all terrific.
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Big confession: I've never seen *The Sound of Music*. At one time, I must have been one of the few people on the planet who hadn't seen it.
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There may be problems in getting the rights to his films. At one point TCM had announced showing all three of the Apu films in the same month, but then the schedule was changed.
I'd love to see a month-long tribute to Satyajit Ray like the one for Truffaut.
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Yet more evidence that too many people were taking too many drugs in the late 60s/early 70s. Kim Novak does her best, but no one could salvage this.
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The Mark Cousins thread has been taken over by political wrangling, so I will post here. Chapter 4, on the 1930s, showed Cousins' love for Vigo, Renoir, and Carne. He made intelligent comments about Leni Riefenstahl. His clip of the new sound film, with Bing Crosby singing, was well chosen to show the new lighting, the two-camera system, and the less inventive camera work.
Granted, he is a documentary filmmaker. Granted, as a director he's naturally inclined to talk more about directors than about actors or other film artists. Nonetheless, I could never have imagined even a cursory treatment of Hollywood in the 30s without a mention of Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, the Marx Brothers, W.C. Fields, Mae West, or Spencer Tracy, none of whom, I believe, Cousins has mentioned at all so far.
Cousins identified 6 Hollywood genres in the 30s: westerns, gangster movies, horror, musicals, comedy, and animation. No mention of drama outside of the first three genres. No mention of women's films. No mention of social issue films. No examples of any kind of comedy other than screwball.
Take the series as notes and clips from a filmmaker's journal, and it's quite rewarding, and the films TCM has programmed around it are great. But some of the omissions are startling.
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Good examples, lavender. How about Spencer Tracy as a cold-hearted villain in *Edward, My Son*? He may have been halfway to that role in *Sea of Grass*, just as Robert Walker's mixed-up kid in *Sea of Grass* may have suggested that he could play an out-and-out crazy like Bruno in *Strangers on a Train*.
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In some parts of the South "water" is pronounced "wawter." In other parts, "wadder." In other parts, the final "r" is dropped. This may be the common word pronounced the most different ways in the US.
And CaveGirl, I love it whenever I hear "Los Angle-lees" in old movies.
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It's definitely worth watching, if only for the references to unfamiliar films and the splendid discussions of individual shots or sequences, like the Odessa Steps sequence from *Battleship Potemkin*.
On the other hand, when he makes the interesting point that Mizoguchi used deep focus in a film a few years before *Citizen Kane*, does he mean to imply (I think he does) that *Citizen Kane* had the first use of deep focus in the US? Is this correct? And no mention of Gregg Toland.
Because Ozu is his choice as the example of classicism, the antithesis to the romanticism of "Holly-wooed," it was surprising that he used rather goopy romantic music with harps and strings to introduce his segment about Ozu.
And if classicism in any art is all about balance, clarity, proportion, and structure, Cousins' approach to filmmaking is not at all classical. He's impressionistic, quirky, personal, maybe even (gasp!) romantic.
Edited by: kingrat on Sep 17, 2013 6:19 PM
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Gerald, if you haven't yet seen Cousins' voiceover comments on the Odessa Steps sequence from *Battleship Potemkin*, I'm sure you'll enjoy it. I'd actually love to see a compilation of all his analyses of and comments on particular scenes and camera shots, because they are always informative and explained in language an ordinary viewer can understand.
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I expected to hate Jean Eustache's *The Mother and the *****--an unappealing title, over three and a half hours long and mainly about a man and the two women he's sleeping with. Oh, and Cahiers du Cinema voted it the best film of the 1970s. Sounded like a film I was going to hate.
And I loved it. The deadpan wit, the Zen nihilism. Because Jean-Pierre Leaud plays the main character just as he played leading roles for Truffaut and Godard, and the character is a shallow, narcissistic pseudo-intellectual who lives off an older woman while he pontificates and chases other women, the film seems to be a criticism--make that an evisceration--of Truffaut and Godard as well.
In the theater this might seem a long slog, but it was perfect in two viewings on VHS. Yes, VHS, it's still not available on DVD. Yo, Criterion, get with the program!
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Andy, if you grew up in the South, there were no Irish parades on St. Patrick's Day, either. No one knew or cared where their ancestors were from. Everything was literally a matter of black or white. The South is different now, because of Hispanic immigration, but in the early 80s I had only vaguely heard the term "Hispanic."
Except for one classmate whose parents had escaped from Hungary, I didn't meet anyone who had close relatives in another country until I was in college or even older.
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Tom, thank you for creating this thread. Because of the recommendations here, I watched and recorded *Abandon Ship* and liked it very much. Possibly Tyrone Power's best performance, with a taut script and good direction by Richard Sale, and an excellent cast. Without this thread, I would have passed it up.
Richard Sale also directed *Suddenly*, another tight film. *Malaga* is a film of his I will look for. Oddly, *Abandon Ship* is the last film he directed. He and his wife created the TV series *Yancy Derringer*, but he never directed another movie, which seems like a real loss. He lived until 1993. (I had to look all this up, of course.)
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Jake, I like your comparison of *Revenge* to *Batman*. And I agree that Season 1 was quite good, but the storyline for Season 2 got muddled. Revenge would have made an excellent mini-series, but figuring how to keep spinning out plotlines and delaying a final Emily vs. Victoria showdown is problematic.
Madeleine Stowe is perfect as the snotty, corrupt (but extremely stylish) rich woman you want to see brought down.
By the way, she's certainly passed her TCM audition with flying colors, and this is a tough crowd!
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Unfortunately, when Kevin Brownlow obtained rights to show the film clips included in the HOLLYWOOD series, that did not include future media, which is why there is no DVD of the series.
I would love to see his series on TCM, but do not know if there are legal impediments to prevent that. Kevin Brownlow is a great friend of the network and has appeared at the festival more than once. He's an excellent speaker if you get the chance to hear him.
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If anyone is interested in reading more about the background of *The Graduate*, you will enjoy Mark Harris' *Pictures at a Revolution*, an in-depth look at the five Best Picture nominees for 1967.
Doris Day and Robert Redford in *The Graduate*? Jean-Luc Godard directing Terence Stamp and Alexandra Stewart in *Bonnie and Clyde*? Just a few of the preliminary ideas in the evolution of these films.
Edited by: kingrat on Sep 11, 2013 7:38 PM
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Another perspective: my other half, who doesn't regard himself as a classic film fan, started watching episode 2 and got very interested in it. He only tuned out when Lars von Trier had trouble forming a coherent word about Dreyer. (Cousins really needed to edit, if not omit, that interview.)
Yes, there are inaccuracies, and these need to be pointed out. Yes, the Christmas ornament was silly. Nonetheless, this can be an exciting introduction for some people.
There was a great deal of skipping around in time in episode 2. Although this weakens *The Story of Film* as history, if you can accept it as a personal essay, this doesn't matter so much. Cousins is especially good at showing how the lighting and shot composition work, as several people have noted, and this is most valuable.
"Classical" is a word with quite a few different meanings, as is "romantic," and Cousins should at least define how he wants to use his terms. Using "classical" to mean "realistic," or vice versa, is a huge stretch.
On the plus side, Cousins has made people eager to see some of the films he mentioned, and that's definitely a good thing.
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I'm another one who's hoping that *Act of Violence* will get one of the plum evening spots. Such a good film, with a terrific performance by Mary Astor.
I hope that Mary's tribute will have 40-50 films rather than just a couple of dozen. In any event, she's a most worthy choice for Star of the Month.
Pondering the TCM Message Boards
in General Discussions
Posted
I've been hesitating about whether to respond to MissW's initial question about why some posters have been less active or have dropped away from the boards. These are some of the reasons I have heard from other posters:
1. Too much whining and moaning on the boards about what TCM is or isn't showing.
2. Too much joke-making and too little discussion of films.
3. Some people seem focused on only one performer rather than having a broader interest.
4. Too much political wrangling.
Again, I'm simply reporting what others have said to me, and I think this is what MissW was asking about. I have no desire to step on anyone's toes. There are many bright people who have posted and continue to post. The best recommendations for films come from here. Many people have specialized knowledge about aspects of film and other disciplines. It's also great when newcomers discover TCM or a particular film and begin the process of exploring everything that's out there.
I hope this doesn't offend anyone, for that was certainly not my intention.