Recently Watched Films 2013

[Dan Warburton]

Ida Lupino, Outrage, 1950

I can't for the life of me figure out why this masterpiece isn't mentioned in the same breath as the great noirs and melodramas of the late 40s / early 50s. Actually, that's not true: I can – because a) it's a cunning mixture of noir and melodrama (with psychology and political attitude thrown in for good measure) and b) it was directed by a woman. There's a case for saying Outrage is one of the great – first? – feminist films. Not because it shows a woman taking the upper hand in a man's man's man's world – far from it, as it charts Ann Walton's descent into a personal hell after being raped after work (spurned by her workmates, insufficiently supported by her parents and fiancé, running away to seek anonymity packing oranges in rural California before the unwelcome attention of another man tips her over the edge altogether) – but because it does seek to outline, if only by pointing to their absence, possible "movements and ideologies aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social political rights for women", to quote the rather bland Wikidefinition. The principal actors, Mala Powers and Tod Andrews (as the intriguing lay priest Bruce Ferguson – we never do find out what caused him to "lose his faith" as an injured soldier during the war in Italy), are absolutely superb – calling this a B-movie is doing a serious disservice to all concerned – and the script, by Collier Young and Marvin Wald (who also penned Dassin's excellent Naked City), is as subtle and multilevelled as anything you might find in a vintage Sirk. But Lupino's camerawork is as important a player as the actors and what they do and say: quite apart from the Hitchcockian expressionist touches (the thud of the rubber stamps in the office, the accelerating intercutting panic of the identity parade) and the obvious symbolism (count the number of times Ann is seen behind bars – either on her bedroom windows, or behind a fence, or – for real – in jail), Lupino's choice of camera angle is masterly. And the end of the film, where Ann disappears altogether – a bus pulls up in front of the camera and drives off again without our seeing her getting on it – is stunning. This is so good that as soon as it finished we watched it all the way through again.

[Dan Warburton]

Moshe Mizrahi, Les stances à Sophie, 1971

The Art Ensemble's mythic soundtrack has become more famous than the film, which is a shame, as there's much to enjoy in Mizrahi's bright and bubbly feminist comedy about the hippie chick who marries into the bourgeoisie, especially the performances of Bernadette Lafont and Bulle Ogier, who are evidently having a ball with the dialogue. And, yes, the music is awesome.

[Dan Warburton]

Michel Gondry, L'écume des jours ("Mood Indigo"), 2013

Gorgeously potty and inventive adaptation of the Boris Vian book (hands up who's read it? I have to say my hand isn't up yet, but soon will be) - Gondry's definitely the man for the job, and he's got a strong cast to work with - though with major French box office figures like Romain Duris, Audrey Tautou, Omar Sy and Gad Elmaleh on board, one wonders why it didn't make more of a splash here in France. I guess nobody remembers Jean-Paul Sartre and Duke Ellington anymore. Talking of Sartre - or Jean-Sol Partre as he's called here - he apparently loved Vian's book. And talking of Elllington, watch out for a splendid cameo appearance from veteran free jazz pianist Bobby Few playing and singing "Sophisticated Lady".

[mudd]

it's a pretty good book. read it in school a long time ago and didn't really make any sense of it, but i reread it again maybe 5 years back and enjoyed it more.

m

[Dan Warburton]

Michelangelo Antonioni, Il grido ("The Cry"), 1957

Steve Cochran gives the performance of a lifetime as Aldo, drifting aimlessly with his daughter through the pale misty landscapes of the Po valley, only to return to where he started to find the town slated for demolition and the mother of his child with a new baby. Much to agree with in this write-up http://sensesofcinema.com/2003/cteq/il_grido/ - strongly recommended for Antonioni fans who haven't seen it.

[shirt]

Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974 (1974, Hara)

Extremely intimate and personal documentary from Kazuo Hara (The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On, Goodbye CP, A Dedicated Life) of his ex-wife's life post-separation. I think there's a lot to be said about Hara and his own insecurities through the film despite him hardly ever being on-screen (and the first time he is, we see him crying). The camera is mostly fixated on Miyuki and there's a deep sense of empowerment present as she (a feminist, bisexual, and stripper) is extremely open to express her own feelings and thoughts, the most insightful being those of Hara himself. The one line that killed me is "[Hara] only talks about what he wants to talk about. That's why he won't tell you he loves you". This statement sort of gives insight to what much of the film can tell you about Hara's motives for filming this, failed cultural expectations, unsatisfying gender roles, and the unrelenting desire for companionship in both parties.

The audio is purposefully out of sync with the video and while I was a bit skeptical of this at first, it was surprisingly affecting. It sort of forced me to focus even more intently on the words being spoken as I then matched them with the video. There was a specific scene in which Miyuki reprimands Hara and I felt it was very appropriate since I've been in similar situations where my flaws have been bluntly laid out by those I love and it always makes me feel a bit dizzy.

[Dan Warburton]

Just snatching this after reading yr review - thanks. Meanwhile, absolutely loved this last night:



Nikita Mikhalkov, Свой среди чужих, чужой среди своих ("At Home among Strangers"), 1974

Young Nikita was born into Soviet high society, an artistic family of aristocratic origins (his daddy penned the Soviet national anthem and mummy was an acclaimed poetess descended from famous painters), but that didn't stop the tight-fisted folks at Mosfilm from not providing him with more than 5400m of Kodak colour stock for his first feature. The shifts to and from grainy black and white were more due to lack of budget than to artistic reasons, but they work surprisingly well. It's a spaghetti western (or borscht western, or eastern, or whatever you want to call it), absolutely head over heels in love with Sergio Leone (Edouard Artemiev has fallen for Morricone in a big way too - those trumpets!), complete with gold bullion heist, drunken flatulent bandito lider maximo (Mikhalkov, above.. all that's missing is that Mexican accent), toothless halfwit gunslingers and a complex plot of double-dealing and betrayal that the young director handles with surprising coherence and brio. Fantastic locations in Georgia and Azerbaijan, great casting (no women alas, but I guess it was a man's world) and some truly spectacular camerawork. Highly recommended!

[Dan Warburton]

Jytte Rex, Silkeveyen, 2004

Working my way slowly but surely through those KGFTs.. this one's OK but a bit on the Tarkovsky-lite side (I see someone also namechecks Malick too, which figures). The blurb runs as follows: "Christine - a picture restorer - is terminally ill. While lying in her sick bed she delves into memories of her life and imagines the reunion with her late husband in the afterworld." Not quite so sure if she is terminally ill, but she's certainly suffering from something (we see her shunted into an MRI scanner), probably linked to the death of hubby (a plane crash). The Tarkovsky influence is quite clear - plenty of running water, and large black dogs lurking in interminable hospital corridors, not to mention the quotes from Leonardo da Vinci et al. - but at 73 minutes it all seems to whizz by a little too quickly, despite a heavy dose of Northern European seriousness aka Arvo Part.

[Dan Warburton]

Terence Davies, The Neon Bible, 1995

"It doesn't work, and that's entirely my fault," said the director. Well, if there's one thing you can count on Davies for, it's honesty. I snatched this based on Jonathan Rosenbaum's glowing review of it (someone else whose honesty I admire) http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.net/1996/0 ... c-moments/ but remain to be convinced. It's not a problem with the story, because there isn't much of one, really. Rosenbaum is on the money when he says that neither Davies nor John Kennedy Toole are very good storytellers as such (I was underwhelmed by the book, and am still not quite sold on A Confederacy of Dunces either, fwiw). The director's done his homework when it comes to costumes and sets, and his choice of period music is, as you might expect, impeccable, but it's all too squeaky clean and stylized. David's awkward courtship scene is framed as coldly and symmetrically as early Greenaway, and Jacob Tierney's Bressonian performance is curiously at odds with Gena Rowlands' warmth and fragility as Aunt Mae. The script is so laconic that other characters barely have room to develop: we don't see much of the boorish father, or understand much of why his widow descends into madness. A bit more text and far fewer of those infuriating slow zooms into dark doorways and starry skies wouldn't have gone amiss.

[Dan Warburton]

Joshua Oppenheimer / Christine Cynn / Anonymous, The Act of Killing, 2012

Holy shit, Batman. A documentary which invites real mass murderers (Anwar Congo, above right, is estimated to have personally killed more than a thousand people) to re-enact their crimes in the form of a western, gangster movie and even a Cecil B. DeMille musical (and that giant fish looks like something Matthew Barney could have dreamt up)? Jean Baudrillard would have had a field day with this. You could write a book about the story behind this one. Fortunately, Errol Morris, who co-produced the film with Werner Herzog, already has done: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/hist ... wed.3.html A film that I think everyone should see - but I doubt I could sit through it again.

[Dan Warburton]

Atom Egoyan, Calendar, 1993

I find Egoyan's stuff a bit uneven, but this is a little (73') gem. It could just as well have been called "Lost In Translation", as we, like the principal protagonist played by Egoyan himself, only get to understand barely a quarter of the spoken dialogue (unless, that is, you happen to be fluent in Armenian, and various other Eastern European / Mediterranean languages). I've seen his character compared to Woody Allen in a couple of reviews, but unlike Allen Egoyan makes no attempt to be likeable. The structure is linear - a succession of "guests" (call girls?) dine with the director chez lui before excusing themselves to use the telephone (from what little I can glean of their languages, their phone calls are erotic in nature), which sits on a water cooler behind which we see the calendar of Armenian churches Egoyan photographed with his wife the year before. Not saying anything else about it, but it's a subtle and often beautifully layered mix of film stocks and musics (diegetic and otherwise). Check it out.

[Dan Warburton]

Monte Hellman, Back Door to Hell, 1964

I think our man MRS enjoyed this more than I did (see RWF 2012 thread). Odd little low-budget war flick about three American recon soldiers trying to radio information out of Luzon to prepare for the forthcoming US invasion, notable for its casting of heartthrob singer Jimmie Rodgers as the slightly-too-nice lieutenant in command and a young Jack Nicholson who's so laidback he's practically asleep. There's a strange percussion-heavy soundtrack (sounds rather like Sun Ra at times), an amusing little cameo from Johnny Monteiro as Ramundo, who seems to be a Mexican bandit about six thousand miles too far southwest, and a plot that fizzles out too quickly into a barrage of stock footage. It's hard to spot touches of Hellman originality - maybe the slow circular skyward panning shot as Paco circles the captured Japanese captain? Suppose I should now watch its sister flick Flight To Fury but I feel like a change. War films are bit of a wank, really.

[Dan Warburton]

Christopher Nolan, Memento, 2000

Enjoyed this one very much, and am looking forward to watching again now I know the "real story" - Shutter Island was better second time round, hoping this will be too - though no complaints with this first viewing. It doesn't take long to figure out the reversed chronological order of the colour scenes, but as the film progresses the unveiling of the plot is quite ingenious and well handled. Can't really say more without spoilering everywhere, so I won't.

Well maybe I will - but, umm, I can't remember what I was going to write
Second time round, very good - love the tiny overlaps between the alternated colour scenes. It's all about edges - very musical, I thought.

[Dan Warburton]

Silvio Narizzano, Las flores del vicio aka Bloodbath aka The Sky Is Falling, 1979

Currrently on a Dennis Hopper 70s kick, so I couldn't pass this by. Well actually I probably could, firstly because the copy I snatched from KG is atrocious and secondly because it's a bloody mess - though not quite as bloody as the alternative title might have you believe. Expat misfits - a washed-up Hollywood actress (Carroll Baker, very good), a retired RAF Wing Commander and his wife, both alcoholics, a raving queen from Louisiana and Hopper's character, Chicken, a strung-out junky with serious religious hangups - find themselves in a Spanish seaside village populated by strange peasants who may or may not be into some kind of nasty occult business. Needless to say it all ends badly, but we never really find out why. Worth it if you're a Hopperhead, though, as one wag posted over at IMDb, Dennis could do roles like this in his sleep back in the dark days post-Last Movie.

[Dan Warburton]

Orson Welles, Macbeth, 1948

Shot in three weeks for $700,000, with dialogue pre-recorded and actors lipsyncing (to be honest I didn't spot this), Orson's Scotland looks remarkably like Peter Jackson's Middle Earth, which is hardly coincidental: where did Tolkien get that idea of waking trees from if not from Birnam Wood? [And what about Eowyn's response to the Witch King ("No man can kill me.." "I am no man!")? Another nod to the Bard: Macbeth: "I bear a charmed life, which must not yield / To one of woman born." Macduff: "Despair thy charm, / And let the angel whom thou still hast served / Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb / Untimely ripp'd."] OK, the accents are almost without exception terribly forced, except for Orson's kid Christopher who makes no effort at all (and comes off as such an annoying little brat I was glad when he got butchered), the sound of scenery being chewed almost drowns out Jacques Ibert's Stravinsky-inflected score, and Orson of course took his usual liberties with Shakespeare, moving lines around from here to there and adding new characters of his own (the Holy Father) - but the Gothic splendour of the sets and stunning chiaroscuro lighting still impress. And even when hammed up by Orson, Macbeth's Act 5 Scene 5 soliloquy will blow you away.

[Matt Wuethrich]

Nice run of films, Dan. My KG bookmark list just got that much longer! I haven't updated here in a spell but will try to do so soon – just so this thread doesn't have to be renamed "Dan W's Recently Watched Films"

[Dan Warburton]

I do at times feel rather guilty about monopolising the thread, but at the same time love to write up what I've seen, to keep my hand in at writing as much as share my enthusiasm (or lack of it). If nobody else feels like doing that, fine. I do, for the moment! Glad you enjoyed the posts above, Matt - I think you can give that Narizzano a miss though Have a few misgivings about this too:



Jacques Audiard, Regarde les hommes tomber, 1994

"The kind of film French critics love," sneers one reviewer at IMDb, and maybe s/he's got a point. Having a stellar cast - Yanne, Trintignant, Kassovitz, Bulle Ogier - and some stylish camerawork is not enough. It's adapted, as have been so many fine French noirs and neo-noirs, from American pulp, in this case Teri White's Triangle, but in her book the two soon-to-be hitmen are Vietnam vets. Hard to believe anyone could actually say "je t'aime" to Trintignant's truly odious character here (Marx, indeed). I suspect Audiard was playing for a Hoffman / Voight Midnight Cowboy vibe. And that Simon (Jean Yanne, wonderful despite all) would abandon wife, child, home and career to pursue the killers of a cop whose friendship with him we hardly see (though there's a latent homosexual subcurrent buzzing throughout the movie) is, well, hard to believe. Underwhelmed. But you can see where the greater later Audiards came from. That father figure fixation needs some treatment though, Jacko. Try analysis mate.

[jon abbey]

we appreciate it, Dan!

[Matt Wuethrich]

Thom Andersen, Zoopraxographer, 1974

A 60-minute documentary about the photographer and moving image pioneer Eadweard Muybridge. Instead of focusing on his somewhat dicey biography, it’s more concerned with his nearly 20-year project to document and catalog motion. A simple task but one that required a lot of new technology in the late 1800s. Using only photographic stills and Muybridge’s own motion captures, Andersen captures Muybridge’s project and illuminates what it really means to capture motion on film and hence what it means to make a film. Hypnotic and highly recommended.

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Jean-Pierre Gorin, Routine Pleasures, 1986

Another documentary. This one splits its time between a dialogue with the paintings and aphoristic wisdom of Manny Farber and a club of model railroad enthusiasts in San Diego. Gorin, acting as the narrator, throws in some self-reflection, comparing his own craft to Farber’s and that of the guys in the club. By far the most intriguing of the three is the club. The passion, and attention to detail they show for the railroads is astounding and the utter disregard they show for Gorin and his camera is profound. They need absolutely no confirmation from anyone that what they do is true and good. Worth it for the discussion of train whistle field recordings alone!

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Jeff Margolis, Richard Pryor: Live in Concert, 1979

After Jonathan Rosenbaum called this one of the greatest performances ever filmed, I was intrigued. It didn’t have me rolling like some of his albums (the racial commentary is pretty toned down) but I can see what Rosenbaum’s getting at. For about 80 minutes, Pryor is just in a flow --- one subject to the next, acting out everything from various animals to heart attacks to boxing matches. His facial expressions, movements, gestures, timing, it’s all impeccable but doesn’t feel rehearsed. He just starts and never stops. And to add physical achievement to the comic genius, note that he doesn’t break for water until over an hour into it (unless there’s been some editing).

[dialectics of shit]

we appreciate it, Dan!