September 2010 Archives

Sally Menke, editor of all Quentin Tarantino's features, from "Reservoir Dogs" to "Inglourious Basterds," was found dead in Bronson Canyon early this morning, where she had gone hiking with her Labrador retriever in yesterday's record-setting 113-degree heat.

"Hi Sally" reels -- little messages sent from the set to the editing room -- appear as extras on some Tarantino DVD releases, including the above from "Death Proof," and the one below from "Inglourious Basterds."

P.S. I've read at least one (mis-)appreciation that, unsurprisingly, doesn't quite seem to understand what an editor like Menke does -- attributing structures that were in the script to the "editing." But it's not that simple. As Tarantino says in the clip above, he considers the final draft of the script the first cut of the movie, and the final cut of the movie the last draft of the script. Wesley Morris has a much smarter (and beautifully written) appreciation of their collaboration:

Since it opened the New York Film Festival Friday, David Fincher's "The Social Network" has set the movie blogosphere and comment sections all abuzz. But you needn't worry about encountering spoilers here because I haven't seen it, and won't until it opens theatrically this coming Friday, October 1. In the meantime, l'm also doing my best not to read about it, even though it's everywhere. And because the pre-opening coverage is ostensibly pegged to the film festival showing, I can't once again launch into my lament for the vanished civility of a time, not so long ago, when review embargoes were respected. But darn it's difficult and frustrating to avert your eyes every time see a mention of the movie on one of your favorite blogs or on Twitter or Facebook...

What I've noticed (in my peripheral vision, I assure you) is that some blogs and comments sections have virtually become Facebook over the weekend -- without the proprietary interface, of course. People are proclaiming to all the world (hear them roar!) that they simply do not need to see any movie that's about something as trivial as Facebook (not that they know what that means), or hyping it as the picture to beat for Oscar season, or speculating whether a certain D-list New York reviewer will maintain his reputation as a contrarian hack -- the only thing that's left of his reputation -- by ruining the movie's TomatoMeter rating.

Jonathan Rosenbaum begins his latest Cinema Scope Global Discoveries on DVD column with a "confession" that I find myself sympathetic to:

Since retiring from my job as a weekly reviewer in early 2008, I've been discovering that I usually prefer watching mediocre films of the past (chiefly from the '30s through the '70s) to watching mediocre films of the present--unlike some of my former readers, who assume that I've stopped writing about movies simply because I no longer aid the studio airheads in implementing their latest ad campaigns. I no longer train most of my attention on contemporary industry releases, as I was obliged to do for the preceding 20 years, because, in keeping with Raymond Durgnat's apt observation that dated films sometimes have more to teach us than "timeless" classics, I'm looking for stuff I can chew on. (Try to imagine what literary criticism would be like if most or all of its practitioners decided that 2010 publications currently on sale at K-Mart comprised the bulk of all the literature ever published that was worthy of our close attention.)

"Mad Men" Season 4, Episode 9 -- "The Beautiful Girls" -- was another of the series' killer movies. Like "The Rejected" (which I wrote and vuddeoed about a few weeks ago), it made superb use of office space -- the hallways, windows, corners and doors that those familiar with the sky-high digs of Sterling Cooper Draper Price have become part of the "Mad Men" memory-architecture. I wanted to pay tribute to that aspect of the series in this little essay about the ghosts on the 37th floor. Please take a look (it opens with a montage of portraits) and then read below for some notes...

I wanted to begin with an appreciation of these women, young and old, whose lives intersect at various angles throughout the episode -- written by Dahvi Waller and Matthew Weiner and directed by Michael Uppendahl (who also shot Episode 2 this season, "Christmas Comes But Once a Year"). So, I decided to start with some faded film portraits (OK, Photoshopped frame grabs), with a semi-ironic nod to feminist film theory that would soon become popular (since politics and civil rights actually play a dramatic part in this episode). Each of the "girls" in the montage is the object of another's gaze -- usually a man's, and usually the one who is her most receptive audience, or at least her most important, at SCDP. Faye is seen doing what she does best, giving a presentation; Joan stands up for/to Roger; exception: Peggy and her friend Joyce (seen by Stan, who Peggy outplayed in "Waldorf Stories," and for whom they are both performing here); Miss Blankenship is talking to her boss, Don Draper (commenting that his daughter Sally looks much chubbier in photos); Sally is sitting on the couch in her father's office, while he is on the phone with her mother; Betty is on the other end of the line -- the only woman in this sequence who isn't being watched; Megan, SCDP's receptionist, is seen from Sally's POV, because Sally has a sympathetic connection with her; now we switch to another female-female perspective: Joyce (love her Bacall-like pocket pose affectation) in Peggy's office; and Peggy, in conversation with Joyce, but not beholden to her gaze (as you know, it is my contention that Peggy is the strongest character on the show). The overall movement of the sequence has brought us closer, from medium shot to Peggy's close-up. And, finally, almost all of the women in the preceding portraits, surrounding Don and bearing witness to the handover of Sally to Betty. This is an amazing shot -- the power of all those eyes. And for some reason it breaks my heart when Joyce enters that glass door (a significant location for her and Peggy) just as Betty and Sally are exiting. These three are strangers to one another, but everyone in the lobby is connected in some way, whether they know it or not.

I don't watch too much television, but I definitely read too much on the Internet. I know this because just last week I read something about television and now I can't remember where I read it.* The writer was mock-complaining that TV isn't as mindless and undemanding a leisure activity as it used to be, ever since "The Sopranos." What with "The Wire" and "Mad Men" and "Deadwood" and "Breaking Bad" and "Dexter" and other non-old-network series, you actually have to pay attention to watch TV these days. (If you remember reading something along those lines, please send me the link.) No more just leaving the set on whenever you're home in order to drown out the voices. These shows require as much concentration (and more memory and commitment) than most feature films -- or perhaps (a closer comparison) modern novels.

A New York Times essay by A.O. Scott last weekend asked: "Are Films Bad, or Is TV Just Better?" Yes, it's a false dilemma (what does the quality of one have to do with the quality of the other?), but it's the kind of headline that catches the notice of the knee-jerk TV haters who are still stuck in the three-network "vast wasteland" of 1961. Scott wrote:

In his latest column, Nicholas Kristof poses some important questions that undermine the myth of "fair and balanced" journalism. He recounts the story of the photo above, taken by Portland Press Herald photographer Gregory Rec on Friday, September 10, showing local Muslims gathering to pray for Eid al Fitr, marking the end of Ramadan. It appeared on the front page -- the kind of image accompanied by a feel-good story about "faith and forgiveness" (as the headline said), that has provided the traditional, benign, pro-religion front-page news-feature in American papers for decades. No problem there.

The problem was the date of the paper.

The day of this issue's publication, was September 11. And some readers were outraged that these images of American Muslims praying should appear on the anniversary of a deadly attack by radical avowed Muslims nine years earlier. If they'd waited for the next day's (September 12) paper, with coverage of the memorials that took place on September 11, they might have found the balance they were looking for, but on September 11 the paper was bombarded with complaints.

We have in the past examined my stunning and unforgettable cameo appearance in David Mamet's 1987 directorial debut feature "House of Games." What you may not know is that I also co-starred with Kris Kristofferson, Keith Carradine, Genevieve Bujold, Lori Singer, Joe Morton and Divine in Alan Rudolph's 1986 "Trouble in Mind," which was also shot in Seattle. Well, OK, I appeared in the background of a few shots. But I did share screen space with Singer ("Footloose," "Short Cuts") -- and Kristofferson, for at least a few 24 fps frames. As you can see above.

Here's the behind-the-scenes set-up: I was having the time of my life booking first-run "art films" at my friend Ann Browder's 250-seat Market Theater, formerly the Pike Place Cinema in the cobblestone Lower Post Alley in Seattle's historic Pike Place Farmer's Market. I can't remember how I had met Alan Rudolph, but I had interviewed him a few times and he had the world premiere his first film, "Welcome to L.A." (1977) in Seattle at the Harvard Exit Theater. (Robert Altman made one of his many trips to Seattle for that premiere, and hosted the world premiere of "3 Women" at the same theater.) "Choose Me" had also been a smash at the Seattle International Film Festival, of which I was a co-director/programmer. Anyway, this all comes together, trust me...

In his appreciative review of Ben Affleck's "The Town" this week, Roger Ebert perfectly describes the feeling of disengagement I often notice in modern action sequences: "... I persist in finding chases and gun battles curiously boring. I realize the characters have stopped making the decisions, and the stunt and effects artists have taken over."

That is precisely the way I feel about those sections of obligatory, unfocused movement in most movies. They're almost like little intermissions shot by the B-team to give you a snack and potty break ("Let's all go to th lobby..."). We know nothing consequence is going to happen. The movie has entered cruise control and for the next few minutes we'll be watching one near-miss/narrow escape after another.

But this wasn't (and isn't) always so. David Bordwell looks to Hong Kong, and compares James Bond and Jackie Chan (by way of Sly Stallone), to show us how it's done.

This week, in a review of the film represented by the still above, I got to mention Buddy Hackett. Perhaps you will see why. Also, I found the opportunity to work in references to Don Knotts, Franklin Pangborn, Jerry Lewis, M. Emmet Walsh, Roman Polanski's "Fearless Vampire Killers, or Pardon Me But Your Teeth Are in My Neck" (aka "Dance of the Vampires"), the Three Stooges and "No Country for Old Men."

What is this movie, you say? Well, take a look here.

In honor of the late Claude Chabrol, one of the great filmmakers of the French New Wave, co-author with Eric Rohmer of the first book on Alfred Hitchcock, maker of moral thrillers and autopsier of the dis-ease of the bourgeoisie ("Les biches," "La femme infidel," "Le boucher," "La rupture," "Violette Nozière," "La cérémonie"...), here is my Opening Shot (and closing shot) piece for "La femme infidel:

A fairy-tale home in a wooded setting. Two women sit an an outdoor table in the shade of some tall trees. The camera glides across the lawn silently (we can't hear what they're saying, just barely audible laughter) at an oblique angle that takes us closer to the women, but not directly toward them. A big black trunk passes startlingly across the screen in the foreground. Then a smaller trunk comes into the shot, mid-distance, and nicely frames the image. That's all there is to the opening shot (which lasts less than 10 seconds), but to understand the context we have to consider the rest of the brief pre-titles sequence.

Continued here...

The "New Political Correctness," as I came to call it during the aughts (though it is neither new nor correct) is the pressure to reframe discussion by controlling language. In recent years it has come mostly from the political right ("moral clarity," "War on Christmas," "moral equivalence," "homicide bombers," "Freedom Fries," "restoring honor"...) and, I insist, is an insidious menace to society even greater than the old-school institutionalized PC that came from the left, because its motives are transparently rooted in demagoguery rather than civility and altruism.

Back in early 2007, Sarah Silverman's "Jesus Is Magic" prompted me to write this:

I've been arguing for several years now that, especially since 9/11, "political correctness" has evolved into a mostly reactionary phenomenon. The lefty PC that began as a way of showing sensitivity to minorities and those who had been discriminated against for years (women, the disabled, etc.) eventually turned into a form of monolithic, euphemistic denial of reality, where questioning was verboten and anything that could be interpreted as doubt or dissent was denounced as "fascist." Now we see the same thing coming from the right. The terminology has changed but the brainwashed thinking hasn't.

This week in reviews for the Chicago Sun-Times and RogerEbert.com, I was pleased to be able to quote from Joel and Ethan Coen's "Barton Fink" regarding the tradition of the wrestling picture in general and "Legendary" in particular:

Ah, the wrestling picture. In Joel and Ethan Coen's "Barton Fink," a New York playwright is lured to Hollywood (for the cash) and is assigned to write a wrestling movie for Wallace Beery at Capitol Pictures. Audrey, the companion of the great Southern novelist-turned-screenwriter and epic alcoholic Bill Mayhew, explains the formula to Barton:

"Well, usually, they're... simple morality tales. There's a good wrestler, and a bad wrestler whom he confronts at the end. In between, the good wrestler has a love interest or a child he has to protect. Bill would usually make the good wrestler a backwoods type, or a convict. And sometimes, instead of a waif, he'd have the wrestler protecting an idiot manchild. The studio always hated that."

"Legendary" has most of that and lots more (minus the idiot manchild), turned inside out and all twisted up like a pretzel, but just as simple and formulaic. Yet even though this picture stars a real WWE wrestler and was produced by the new WWE Studios, it's not just a wrestling picture. ("Big men in tights!" as another Capitol Pictures executive exclaims.) It's a wrestling tearjerker.

Also reviewed by me: "Soul Kitchen, a goofy comedy by Fatih Akin ("Head-On," "The Edge of Heaven").

Above and behind. That is the dominant position for watching, for following, for shooting, for f***ing, in Anton Corbijn's "The American." Corbijn, the Dutch photographer and director best known for his music videos (U2, Nirvana, Depeche Mode) and his Joy Division biopic "Control," places his camera high in the sky, looking straight down at the landscape that resembles an intricate maze or a mosaic; or behind the central character Jack (George Clooney) as he walks through the crooked cobblestone streets of the medieval mountain village of Castel del Monte in the Abruzzo region of Italy; or in front of him, positioned so that we can glimpse behind him what he senses but can't see: that he's being observed...

"The American" (with a few last-act lapses) locks us into the justifiably paranoid state of mind of Jack (who's also known as Edward, Signore Farfalle and plain old Mr. Butterfly), a man on a mysterious and deadly mission. We don't know what the mission is, we just watch him wait, and watch him watch, and watch him go through the process of whatever it is he's doing. The obvious comparison is to Jean-Pierre Melville's "Le Samourai," in which Alain Delon plays an ascetic hit man. But I would consider "The American" a virtual remake of Jim Jarmusch's "The Limits of Control," starring a major international movie star instead of Isaach De Bankolé. Both mine the aesthetics of 1960s and 1970s European art films (notably Melville, Antonioni, Bertolucci) -- and it's no wonder that the mainstream American audiences who made it the top-grossing picture of the weekend (I saw it at a jam-packed Labor Day matinee) hated it.

It's all here, courtesy of Stephen Sondheim, Mike Nichols and MacLaine:

Then you career from career to career...
I got through all of last year
And I'm here.

Revisiting Dwight Macdonald's famous essay, "Masscult & Midcult," and other ideas old and new -- continued from "When 'I get it!' means 'I don't get it!' and vice-versa."

"It seems to me that nearly the whole Anglo-Saxon race, especially of course in America have lost the power to be individuals. They have become social insects like bees and ants. They are lost to humanity, and the great question for the future is whether that will spread or will be repulsed by the people who still exist..."
-- Roger Fry (1866-1930), from a letter quoted "Roger Fry," a biography written by Virginia Woolf(1940); also quoted by Dwight Macdonald in "Masscult & Midcult"

A while ago I added to the epigraphs in the upper right corner of this page a quotation from writer-actor-director Tom Noonan that echoed something I had long felt to be true, but had never articulated: "I don't think you go to a play to forget, or to a movie to be distracted. I think life generally is a distraction and that going to a movie is a way to get back, not go away." I don't feel that way very often anymore; gone are the days, when I was first discovering the richness of the still very young art of film, when I might see several masterpieces in a week, or even a day -- in classes, film series, rep houses, art houses, mainstream cinemas or on TV. But I was inclined to feel that movies,the art form of my time (and literature, music, art of all kinds), brought me closer to my own life by focusing my attention on what it means to be alive. Like millions of others, I found the only religion in which I could whole-heartedly believe in movie theaters, libraries, bookstores, and concert venues.¹

In "Masscult & Midcult" (1962), published when "Citizen Kane" was as old as "GoodFellas" and "Miller's Crossing" are today, Dwight Macdonald contends that art (movies included) no longer seeks engagement with an audience, but is content to serve as another opiate of the masses: "The production line grinds out a uniform product whose humble aim is not even entertainment, but merely distraction."

I'm late to mention this piece by William Saletan, published in Slate August 23 ("Is a mosque near Ground Zero 'insensitive'?"), which gets to the bottom of this manufactured emotional wedge issue like nothing else I've read. After briskly demolishing the initial rumors about the Park51 development, Saletan quotes the fallback position of opponents who have questioned the sensitivity of the project: Sarah Palin, Rudy Giuliani, Charles Krauthammer, William Kristol... all people renowned for their respect of others' sensitivities.

Feelings about 9/11 are raw and real. Many people, including families who lost loved ones that day, find the prospect of a mosque near Ground Zero upsetting. I've heard this reaction in my family, too. But feelings aren't reasons. You can't tell somebody not to build a house of worship somewhere just because the idea upsets you. You have to figure out why you're upset. What's the basis of your discomfort? Why should others respect it? For that matter, why should you?

This kind of reflection is missing from the sensitivity chorus....