Recently Watched Films 2016

[Dan Warburton]

Rosette, Les aventures de Rosette, 1983

Shot on the fly in lovely grainy Super 8, mostly in the streets around Les Halles, by a certain "Eric".. Rohmer, of course, who appears as Rosette's dad in the first of five quarter-hour episodes. The last one, "Rosette vole les voleurs" is pretty stupid, but the first four are typical Rohmer, and feature several well-known rohmériennes (Marie Rivière, Arielle Dombasle, Pascale Ogier..). Only available, as far as I know, on the extra bonus DVD in the Potemkine Rohmer box set.

[Dan Warburton]

Luc Moullet, Toujours moins, 2010

Thirteen minutes of vintage Moullet, here turning his attention and wry sense of humour to those machines that are gradually taking over our lives, not to mention taking our jobs - from ATMs to automats. The man is a national treasure and should be laid to rest in Pantheon. Even if he isn't dead yet.

[walto]

Synecdoche, New York (Kaufman, 2008)

It may be both the saddest and most disturbing movie I've ever seen, but I felt the need to watch it again after Philip Seymour Hoffman's death. Very hard to get through.

[Dan Warburton]

Synecdoche, New York (Kaufman, 2008)

It may be both the saddest and most disturbing movie I've ever seen

Wow, quite a claim that.. I wonder what I'd choose. I haven't seen this one (yet), but I like Kaufman's writing and am a big Hoffman fan (Philip Seymour.. though Dustin's not bad either). Meanwhile



Lucas Belvaux, 38 Témoins, 2012

The Holocaust didn't invent the notion of communal guilt, the idea that whole communities or even nations are able to turn a blind eye to suffering or injustice; it's been around at least since Luke 10:31 ("and by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side"), often accompanied by the idea that one person has the courage or honesty to do / say the right thing while everyone else turns away and pretends it never happened. Many films have explored the territory, from The Ox-Bow Incident to The White Ribbon, with the hero sometimes triumphing against the odds (Twelve Angry Men, Bad Day at Black Rock..) or exacting a nasty revenge (High Plains Drifter). But the consequences in Belvaux's film are more personally painful than bloody and dramatic - which probably explains why it's rubbed a few people up the wrong way. Billing it as a "neo-noir" is a dangerous mistake - this ain't John Dahl and Dennis Hopper is nowhere to be seen - though the setting in the port city of Le Havre does give it a rather cold, Scandinavian Kaurismäkian feel. And I take it that the decision to use the austere concrete urbanism of Auguste Perret as the backdrop to a sordid stabbing that nobody wants to admit witnessing is the director's idea, as the Didier Decoin novel that forms the basis of the screenplay seems to be based on the true story of the Kitty Genovese murder in Queens, NY https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kitty_Genovese. Whatever, it's a great move, as the story of Le Havre's reconstruction itself after the destruction of WWII is also a tale of painful remembering: the very buildings we see throughout the film are themselves constant reminders of the horror and brutality of past events. It's now a UNESCO World Heritage site, and well worth a visit (but take an umbrella)

[Dan Warburton]

Pedro Costa, Ossos, 1997

Return visit, and it's still my favourite Costa, of the ones I've seen. But, paradoxically, it's more difficult to make sense of this time round - what a great idea, the work of art which becomes less familiar the more time you spend with it (Pauline Kael might approve). What happens to the baby? What happens to the father? To Nurse Eduarda? I see the blog page I swiped the screenshot from expresses mild surprise that kids in a Lisbon slum would be listening to Wire's "Lowdown", until it acknowledges, of course, that it was the director who brought the disc into Fontainhas. It's a nice reminder of the fine line Costa draws between life / art, fiction / reality.

[Dan Warburton]

Abbas Kiarostami / Catherine Breillat / Raymond Depardon / Pavel Lungin / Claire Denis / Costa-Gavras / Raoul Ruiz, À propos de Nice, la suite, 1995

Only one of these seven sketches - the first - pays explicit homage to Jean Vigo's earlier film of the same name, but, with the possible exception of Costa-Gavras's (unless you recognise the locals) and most of Ruiz's (which, as usual, is barely comprehensible, if delightfully so), the city and its inhabitants are as present and as sharply drawn as in the Vigo original. Kiarostami takes his protagonist - another director - in search of people and places that featured in the earlier work; Denis films the local carnival, but knowing that her leading man is packing a pistol and intending to use it adds another more sinister meaning to the giant Dracula floats; Breillat films three people chatting on a bench and revealing an alarming undertow of racism (if her dialogue was actually scripted, I'd call it a masterpiece - if not, it's a horror story); Depardon's short features a narration from another seaside town, Beirut, but sets it against largely static shots of people crossing streets; Lungin explores his Russian heritage in a touching visit to a local old people's home and Russian cemetery; Costa-Gavras sets his camera up at a Jean-Marie Le Pen rally and films the faces of those listening to him in chilling and silent slowmotion.. and Ruiz, true to form, delivers a head-scratching tale of doppelgangers, ghosts and mirrors. It's an eclectic and enjoyable selection, which I hope might appear on DVD someday. As it was, I had to go to the Cinémathèque to see it, in a copy that looked as if it was old as the original A propos de Nice

[Dan Warburton]

Leo McCarey, Ruggles of Red Gap, 1935

Remind me to use this with my students - I can't think of a better and more entertaining exposure of the nuances of difference that existed - and still exist - between British and American English, and I'm sure there isn't a funnier one. Unlike Capra, whose comedies often leave a rather nasty (reactionary, misogynist..) aftertaste, McCarey (or rather Walter DeLeon's screenplay) takes potshots at everyone, Charles Laughton included. It's a great story, wonderfully cast, and filmed to perfection: damn, all this in just 90 minutes? I doubt anyone could turn out a comedy as rich and complex today in just an hour and a half. But maybe you have some recommendations?

[walto]

Leo McCarey, Ruggles of Red Gap, 1935

Remind me to use this with my students - I can't think of a better and more entertaining exposure of the nuances of difference that existed - and still exist - between British and American English, and I'm sure there isn't a funnier one. Unlike Capra, whose comedies often leave a rather nasty (reactionary, misogynist..) aftertaste, McCarey (or rather Walter DeLeon's screenplay) takes potshots at everyone, Charles Laughton included. It's a great story, wonderfully cast, and filmed to perfection: damn, all this in just 90 minutes? I doubt anyone could turn out a comedy as rich and complex today in just an hour and a half. But maybe you have some recommendations?

FWIW, I don't think of Capra as reactionary--at least not in the 30s. I love a lot of those movies precisely for their anti-conservative elements. In Bitter Tea, he took shit for having Stanwyck kiss a (fake but nevermind) Chinaman's hand. American Madness and and It's a Wonderful Life are about the arrogance of many financiers. You Can't take it With You is about eccentricity being cool. Maybe he got conservative later.

EDIT: I forgot Meet John Doe, which shows how it CAN happen here, how folksy, "feel good" candidates (like Reagan) can win over the decent (if stupid) segments of middle class, and get them to act against their own interests. Good lesson still, obviously.

[Dan Warburton]

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/05/03/books ... wanted=all



David Cronenberg, Eastern Promises, 2007

Return visit. Still unimpressed by Cassel, but I think that's more the fault of the screenplay than the actor himself, not that he's without blame. Watts does the English accent rather well, but I wish somebody would discreetly tell her that she doesn't have to show those two front teeth all the time. Mueller-Stahl is outstanding, and Mortensen does a good job of the accent and the body language.. But the story doesn't hang together - why would Watts not call the cops at the outset instead of going it alone like one of the Famous Five? Do we need to be told about her earlier miscarriage (I think not, but you can't help enjoy Skolimowski's Uncle Stepan)? The last ten minutes get worse and worse: 1) we find out - too late - that Viggo is on the right side of the law after all (well, sort of); 2) you don't just wander into a hospital and walk out with a baby; 3) wow, Viggo and Naomi - now a crusading double act, know exactly where to find the snivelling Cassel, yeah; 4) the kiss just doesn't cut it, sorry; 5) we don't even get the satisfaction of seeing Mueller-Stahl get nicked. No wonder the last shot comes across as ambiguous - I'm not sure even the director knows what it means. Competently shot, though nothing special. Music is meh. Nice bloody fight in the Finsbury Park Turkish baths though.

[Dan Warburton]

Marco Ferreri, Y'a bon les blancs, 1988

Who else but Ferreri and Azcona could come up with a tale of a relief convoy to sub-Saharan Africa carrying spaghetti and tomato sauce? Of course, everything goes horribly wrong, what with the party being temporarily stranded in a five-star hotel (and footing the bill), forced to barter away half their pasta, give their battery radios to a local chieftain to pass through his territory, stop their petrol being looted by paint-daubed warriors (Ferreri doesn't go into detail about which country this is meant to be: he includes every conceivable stereotype of black Africa and stupid colonial, and shoots them all down mercilessly) and finally having to leave two of their team behind when their truck breaks down. I've already said enough, so I won't spoil the ending, but it's not funny. But if you understand French, here's a clue: "Du ventre tu es né, au ventre tu retourneras… mais pas forcément celui de ta mère." Watch out for Michel Piccoli as a failed Catholic missionary ("I want to go home to Brittany!) and Alex Descas as one of the local tribesmen, having returned to the Sahel after years working at the Renault car plant in the suburbs of Paris.. Sacré Ferreri

[Dan Warburton]

Jean-Charles Dudrumet, La corde raide, 1959

Given the competition with the many fine adultery-driven French thrillers made during the 50s, it's not surprising that this one has dropped off the radar. Along with its director, apparently - Dudrumet made just four features, the last one in 1965. But with two fine actors topping the bill - Annie Girardot and François Perier - it's certainly worth a look. Shame the script isn't better, though - without spoiling the plot (there is a twist, not altogether unpredictable but nicely done even so), a little more depth and detail would have given the two leads more to work with. And mixing Maurice Jarre's music down a bit might have helped too.

[Dan Warburton]

John Singleton, Boyz N The Hood, 1991

Boyz n the Hood received universal acclaim. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 96% based on 49 reviews, with an average score of 8.3/10, making the film a "Certified Fresh" on the website's rating system.[4] At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 73%, based on 18 reviews, which indicates "Generally favorable reviews".

Count me among the 4% who don't like it. And here's the one lukewarm review I found on RT, which I agree with http://www.brianorndorf.com/2011/07/rel ... eight.html (scroll down past Keanu Reeves!)
Even a critic I respect enormously, Jonathan Rosenbaum, turned in a positive (if brief) review in the Chicago Reader - and that I find surprising. As an indefatigable champion of the scandalously neglected Charles Burnett and author of a fine extended essay on Lee's Do The Right Thing, I would have thought he, of all people, would be the one to tell it like it is: Boyz is a sprawling, shoddy film, badly written, badly acted (only Ice Cube and Fishburne deserve any praise, but the latter's dismal clichés are nonetheless appallingly naïve), clumsily edited, and at least 30 minutes too long. The OST has some fine tracks, but the way they're used in the movie along with the gagbarf Stanley Clarke incidental music, is so predictably awful it's almost funny. Would it have garnered the acclaim it did if its director hadn't been a 23-year-old local African-American? I wonder. Mr Singleton's subsequent career hasn't quite lived up to the hype. Remake of Shaft, 2 Fast 2 Furious, anyone? Here he is just a couple of years ago:

They ain't letting the black people tell the stories. They want black people [to be] what they want them to be. And nobody is man enough to go and say that. They want black people to be who they want them to be, as opposed to what they are.

Well, if Boyz N The Hood is what they are, or were, God help them.

[Dan Warburton]

Raoul Ruiz, Trois vies et une seule mort, 1996

Mastroianni's next-to-last film, and he's on terrific form, playing not one but four different characters - or is it one bloke with a serious case of MPD? Who cares? Be warned: if you try to make any sense of this, you're really wasting your time (though I could happily give this the same number of repeat viewings as I did Mulholland Dr.). It's visually stunning, with a sharp script by Ruiz and Pascal Bonitzer (critic and frequent Rivette collaborator), but often headscratchingly dense - once you accept that there's not going to be any coherent rational explanation, you can enjoy it for what it is: great cinema. Along with Comedy of Innocence could be my favourite Ruiz so far, and certainly a good one to start with if you're coming to Ruiz's work for the first time.

[Alastair]

gagbarf Stanley Clarke

This is how he should always be referred to.

[Dan Warburton]

Laurie Anderson, Heart of a Dog, 2015

I know that laboured, rather precious delivery is something of an acquired taste, but I've always quite enjoyed Anderson's work, and count the complete United States Parts I-IV, which I saw in London over two consecutive nights back when I was 20 or so, as one of those great epiphanies (as I wrote elsewhere http://www.paristransatlantic.com/magaz ... urton.html). Well, Laurie has aged a bit since then - even if the voice hasn't, much - but, post 9/11, some of those earlier lines from "O Superman" seem eerily prophetic. Naturally, she has a few wry observations on the paranoid surveillance culture that sprang up after the Twin Towers came down, but spends more time talking about the last days of her beloved fox terrier Lolabelle. The other great love of her life, late husband Lou Reed, appears fleetingly in some upside-down home movies, and his "Turning Time Around" is used as closing music when we see that Anderson's film is dedicated to his memory.

[Dan Warburton]

Roland Joffé, The Mission, 1986

I probably should have switched off when I saw Jeremy Irons climbing the Iguazu Falls. Barefoot. And I really should have pulled the plug when he sits on a rock in the middle of the river with his oboe and charms the local Indians out of the trees playing that sickly sweet Morricone ditty (by the time this film is over, if you're stupid enough to watch it to its stupid conclusion, you'll feel like strapping Morricone to a crucifix yourself and throwing him over the bloody Iguazu Falls). Though it has its origins in a deal struck in the Treaty of Madrid in 1750 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of ... ry_1750%29 Robert Bolt's screenplay is about as historically authentic as the constipated dialogue he squeezes out ("So me you do not love!", indeed). Irons and de Niro have very little to do, the former remaining unflappably and dully pious throughout (I was rather pleased to see him gunned down to be honest), the latter seemingly bemused at the shallow character he has to play, and the sententious twaddle he has to speak. And this crap won the Palme d'Or? Well, 1986 was a pretty bad year - look at the competition.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_Cannes_Film_Festival Bon, if you want a longer and better-written putdown of this pompous compost, here's one for you http://www.nicksflickpicks.com/mission.html

[Wombatz]

what means shallow? here's musicologist helga de la motte haber on this:



Besides the Jesuit priest Gabriel (Jeremy Irons) and Mendoza (Robert De Niro), the principle characters in the film are members of a South American tribe who to this day live under primeval conditions and whose acting was coached by the director through simple instructions. The storyline is supported by the score, which Ennio Morricone tied in with the leitmotif. However, in The Mission, the three most important musical elements support ideas more than they characterize persons.

The director had reckoned that equipping his protagonist, the Jesuit priest Gabriel, with a sounding prop—the oboe—could be translated musically in such a way that it would have become evident to the audience why he was spared the destiny of the murdered missionary shown at the beginning of the film. The oboe melody, the central musical element, is closely aligned with the image. A close-up shot shows the histrionic, in no case very musical, movements of the priest’s fingers playing his oboe while the Indians approach him poised to attack. Morricone was able to remove any musical meaning from these finger movements. As in a ritardando, embellishments are developed that are reminiscent of the baroque practice of ornamentation. In combination with sustained tones, they bring about the emotionally haunting features of a floating melody that is only suggested.

A further element serves to evoke the indigenous people: repetitive, rhythmic echoes from archaic music combined with sounds from a panpipe. Moreover, Morricone conceived a Palestrina-style motet as a third musical element for the newly built mission. Independent from the film and going beyond the accusatory gesture of the director, Morricone wanted to make audible the possibility of the coexistence of the Indians and the conquerors. In order to do so he composed a combination of the three musical elements, which superimposed result in a harmony. The director found room for this powerful music (On Earth as It Is in Heaven) only in the trailer. It is also worth listening to the background noise (remnants of underscoring, in particular during the jungle scenes) woven in with the music in this film. The echo was carefully conceived—for example, an oboe melody with echo is used when the camera sweeps into the distance. It lends the film image depth and also contributes to the semantization of the images through the music.

[Dan Warburton]

Yes, Morricone's use of leitmotif is well-known, though it's hardly subtle. We're not talking Parsifal here. I've been working slowly but steadily through a huge Morricone 15 CD box set, as well as watching as many of the films he actually wrote music for as I can, and I've come to the conclusion that by the mid 80s or so he was more or less on autopilot. There are some good ones - I still like what he did for The Untouchables - but others (Once Upon A Time In America and Malena come to mind) are just treading water. Hats off to the guy though - he's still turning them out at the rate of half a dozen or so a year, which isn't bad for an 88-year-old. And I did like some of the new stuff in the last Tarantino. But as far as The Mission goes, I think the Indian chief who snapped his oboe in two had the right idea.

[Wombatz]

what i scratch my head at in that quote is how it presupposes a highly unlikely degree of sophisticated artistic interaction ... these theoreticians seem to be drawn to the most awful corporate dreck (probably because there's no auteur that could keep them from making the film a piece of text (aren't you buddies with michel chion? i think he he's guilty of that too) and of course blockbusters are a direct expression of our collective culture). it's from a survey book that eg also has serious discussions of the performative subtleties in coldplay videos etc ...

[Dan Warburton]

what i scratch my head at in that quote is how it presupposes a highly unlikely degree of sophisticated artistic interaction ... these theoreticians seem to be drawn to the most awful corporate dreck (probably because there's no auteur that could keep them from making the film a piece of text (aren't you buddies with michel chion? i think he he's guilty of that too) and of course blockbusters are a direct expression of our collective culture). it's from a survey book that eg also has serious discussions of the performative subtleties in coldplay videos etc ...

I'd like to say Michel is a "buddy", but we've only met on 4 or 5 occasions, once when Marie and I were invited to dinner chez lui and his partner. I must try and organise a rematch. But, yeah, see what you mean about the current direction (dérive? ) in academe.. And I do agree that Chion's writing on film is nowhere near as direct and enthralling as his live discussion. I'd love to sit in on some of his lectures.