Currently

Currently reading - Sabbath’s Theater by Philip Roth
Currently listening - Guy Chadwick’s Lazy, Soft and Slow
Currently watching - The Newsroom
Last film seen - Personal Shopper (2016)

Reel Adventures 9 - Recommendations

For each Reel Adventures at R.W. Norton Art Gallery in addition to the highlighted movie I provide a few other recommendations. Here are the recommendations from our 9th Reel Adventures.

Reel Adventures 9 - Trivia Questions

Here are the trivia questions from Reel Adventures 9 at R.W. Norton Art Gallery:

ROUND ONE
• What is the first name of the Soviet Premier?
• What type of cigar does the Ambassador turn down?
• Peace is our ________________ .
• What Star Wars character is voiced by Lieutenant Zogg?
• Where does Ripper keep his machine gun stored?

ROUND TWO
• What does Major Kong do as he says the line, “Well, boys, I reckon this is it.”?
• What is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous Communist plot we have ever had to face?
• Who are the three characters that Sellers plays?
• What drink does General Ripper ask Group Captain Mandrake to make him?
• What is the “name” of the two bombs?

ROUND THREE
• What is the best kind of start according to General Ripper?
• What are the three places Major Kong says he has been before he says, “that’s the stupidest thing I ever heard come over a set of earphones?”
• Ripper and Guano both emphasize the “pre” rather than the “per” when pronouncing a word. What are the two words (must be one from Ripper and one from Guano)?
• While Ripper stands in the bathroom, what are the two things Mandrake tells Ripper that we need?
• What does Major Kong say they would need if they was flying any lower?

BONUS
• What is the infamous typo in the opening credits?
• Who is the famous stepfather of Miss Scott?
• What’s the infamous use of ADR on Major Kong’s line? And why was the decision made to use ADR?

Reel Adventures 9 - Part 2

I gave a very short talk at R.W. Norton Art Gallery for Reel Adventures 9, after showing the first of two videos. Here's what I said:

"I just want to say a few words before the next round of trivia.

After that, we have a video I want to show with General Elder, our very special guest, who is here and will come take questions alongside me later on tonight.

98,99% percent of films you can discuss and do justice without ever talking about the director. But I don’t think you can do that with Dr. Strangelove.

In every field there is that name that rises to mythic proportions. The Beatles. Babe Ruth. Amelia Earhart. Miles Davis. Towering figures, the gold standard. The person that inspires and discourages because their work is so other level but also so seemingly impossible to match or equal.

It can be argued for film, that that person is Stanley Kubrick.

Although he only made 13 feature films in 48 years, you could say that Kubrick is responsible for making the greatest ever heist film, the greatest ever horror film, the greatest ever science fiction film, the greatest ever period film, the greatest ever war film and the greatest ever satirical film.

Kubrick is one of the most mysterious of filmmakers we’ve ever had so I’m certainly not going to set out to solve that in ten minutes. But I will leave you with this.

When we did Reel Adventures 6, I talked about the 17 different elements of film and gave you all a list of them as you were leaving. They were:

Camerawork, Editing, Lighting, Sound, Music, Acting, Storytelling, Color, Production Design, Wardrobe, Make-Up, Hair, Props, Special Effects, Locations, Direction and Shot Selection

If you are curious to see execution of the highest order of any of these 17 elements, all you have to do is look at Stanley Kubrick’s work.

I don’t use this word irresponsibly. Kubrick was a filmmaking virtuoso, simply one of the greatest talents ever to work in the medium.

Thank you."

Reel Adventures 9 - Part 1

It was a particularly special night last night at R.W. Norton Art Gallery for Reel Adventures 9, Dr. Strangelove! General Bob Elder joined us as well as a number of families who were gathering in town for the reunion of Operation Secret Squirrel.

I showed two videos, the one below, as well as an interview I conducted with General Elder, and then I gave a very short talk in between. Here is the first video I shared:

https://youtu.be/shci4NwtrMQ

My Top Films Seen in 2024

Here are the films, new and old, that I saw and most admired in 2024.

Michael Mann's Ferrari

I went into Mann's latest film, skeptical to say the least.  Although I taught a college course on him, I really had not been fully moved by one of his films since The Insider (24 years ago!) and he hadn't made a film since Blackhat (8 years ago!)  

All that to say, I was completely unprepared for the experience of Ferrari.  First off, nothing in Mann's body of work resembles it in look.  Gone is the cool, heavily stylized photography of the Thief-Ali period.  Gone is the self-conscious, digital experimentation of the Collateral-Blackhat period.  Ferrari finds Mann working in a much more naturalistic register, not only in the way the film is shot and production designed but also in the framing (again, gone are the myriad of jump cuts and extreme close-ups).

Mann has always been incredibly precise in his location scouting, his character research, his attention to detail.  But what has always seemed like an almost unparalleled approach in truth seeking in terms of directorial preparation has always been expressed in a much more heightened and mannered execution.  For the first time the feel of how Mann approaches his work is echoed by what comes out the other end.  

There has been a knock on Mann his entire career about his female characters.  Their lack of dimension.  Penelope Cruz's Laura is his strongest female character to date and one any woman's director would be proud to claim as their own.

Certain works by certain artists force an entire reconsideration of an artist's career.  With Ferrari, Mann reminds us that at his heights he is every bit as effective as Scorsese, Coppola or any other filmmaker that has emerged since the end of classic Hollywood.  But, unlike his aforementioned peers, with Ferrari, Mann still seems to be growing at the tail end of his career, reaching heights that he's been chasing since the very beginning.

Michael Roemer's Nothing But a Man

My first experience with Roemer's work has me wanting to see everything he directed (which isn't very many films unfortunately).  I can't recall any earlier American film dealing more honestly and more humanely with the race movement in our country.

Terrence Davies' A Quiet Passion

Who was Terrence Davies?  A career of but eight narrative features, only two of which I have seen so far.  If this work is representative, he is a filmmaker interested in utilizing subtle, graceful means to explore, unflinchingly, the rich complexity of our lives.

Hong Sang-soo's In Front of Your Face

First off, the effect of Hong's color films in general have a greater impact on me than his black-and-white work.  There's just a warmth that the color gives his worlds that I miss when he gets away from it.  Also, there is a weight to this film and a number of the scenes in it - whether it is when Sang ok visits her childhood home, the long scene at the Novel restaurant and of course the final few minutes - that give his film a substance and heft that not all of Hong's work is interested in entertaining.

Shinji Somai's Typhoon Club

A Japanese film unlike any I have ever seen.  Part coming of age, part disaster film, part horror film (to name but a few of its many wonderful facets) all filmed with great rigor and artistry, but also infused with a tremendous sense of joy and freedom.  Reminds me a little of the first time I saw Pierrot Le Fou, when I was presented with something that defied all that I thought cinema was or could be.

Aki Kaurismaki's The Other Side of Hope

Is Kaurismaki part of that rare breed of filmmaker, the one that actually gets better in the latter part of their career?  I can't claim to have seen all his work but I've seen one or two from the 80s and 90s and now in the last month or so both this and Fallen Leaves.

One of the few who has taken up the mantle of humanist filmmaking and one of the few who can claim to have a tone and style all his own.  

Robert Bresson's Four Nights of a Dreamer

The only Bresson feature I had never seen is yet another astounding work by the French master.  It manages to maintain Bresson's rigorous style while bringing some warmth into his formal system of restraint and austerity.

Clint Eastwood's Juror #2

If this were to be the final film of Eastwood's career, not only would it be a great addition to his body of work.  But it would also belong to that small and fascinating group of great final films.

Reminded me, more than anything, of late Fritz Lang films like Beyond a Reasonable Doubt and While the City Sleeps.  One of those fever dreams of a film, in terms of how the viewer experiences it, that seems malformed and amateurish on the surface while retrospective and rich underneath. 

Jean Eustache's Une Sale Histoire

Jean Eustache is a legendary figure of the post Nouvelle Vague and the director of what may be the most important French film of the seventies, The Mother and the Whore.  

While most of the Nouvelle Vague was passionately making films to illustrate the uniqueness of film as an artform, Eustache was forging a counter direction.  At least here and in The Mother and the Whore, Eustache weaponizes words in the tradition of theater, proving through his ability as a writer and director of actors that film in the right hands can be just as cinematic when treated as a "verbal" medium.

Marva Nabili's The Sealed Soil

The type of film that every cinephile aspires to find, the work that is far less known that it should be by a filmmaker who is far from a household name.  

Profound in so many ways but chiefly in its framing, its location work, its acting, its work with sound, and the rhythms the editing of its images creates.

Nabili discusses Bresson's influence, which is clear.  This is "transcendental filmmaking" that is warmer but also slower (due to numerous very long takes) than the French master's work.

Hong Sang-soo's In Our Day

The 21st of Hong's features I have seen and among the strongest.

What's most striking is how much he has moved to the long take.  I would bet there are less than 20 cuts in the entire film.  His growing affinity for this choice of filming tracks well for Hong, as he is our greatest current practitioner of "distilled cinema".

When I call Hong's cinema distilled, it is chiefly two areas I am talking about - the process of making the film for Hong and then the resulting film experience for the viewer.

Hong removes any excess item to ensure the filmmaking act is as simple as possible - as few locations, as few cuts, as few actors, as few movements of the camera, as few props.  In doing so, he ensures that he can make his films quickly, inexpensively, and remain, as far as I can tell, the most prolific filmmaker we've had since Fassbinder.

And then there is the result of his methods, the film.  Like the poet in the movie says, "Maintaining a clear vision is the hardest thing in the world."

Hong, like Rohmer before him, pursues clarity by making a similar type film again and again.  He makes slight variations each time to the approach, tweaking small pieces of the method that could be cloudying up the vision.

I can imagine Hong saying, "Let me see what a film in almost only long takes does.  Will it make the emotions of my actors more fully felt, make my worlds more fully immersive, add clarity to my vision?  Or is there a different piece of my method I'll need to refine and adjust the next time out?"

It's this endless reducing in Hong's work as he pursues the essence of the medium that makes his work, to me, as important as any in current cinema.

David Simon and Eric Overmyer's Treme

For the way it tells the story of a community and city, I now rate it even higher than what I previously considered the best TV series I had ever watched, The Wire.

Reel Adventures 8 - Recommendations

For each Reel Adventures at R.W. Norton Art Gallery in addition to the highlighted movie I provide a few other recommendations. Here are the recommendations from our 8th Reel Adventures.

Reel Adventures 8 - Part 2

It was another very special night at R.W. Norton Art Gallery for Reel Adventures 8, The Godfather!

I gave a talk that was in two separate parts. Here is part two:

In previous talks, I’ve focused on the why. Why might the director have made the choices that he made. Today, my talk is perhaps slightly more surface. I am going to focus on the what. What did Coppola do with what was on the page of Puzo’s novel as he made it into a film.

Every artistic medium is different - sculpture from painting, opera from theater, film from literature. When it comes to the five senses, you can’t taste, smell or touch in a film but you can hear and see, which you can’t do in a novel.

So let’s look at how Coppola crafts what we see and hear in The Godfather.

Here’s what was on the page:
https://drive.google.com/.../1UlEm03o2g5yyUeZF.../view... (I read aloud from "At a quarter..." to "flights of steps.")

Now let’s look at the scene and what Coppola kept in as far as what we see and hear.

SHOW SCENE 1

https://drive.google.com/.../1tHZAKpg7RcUIBh4pBlb.../view...

Inspired by Coppola’s headings in his Notebook, I approached it with three headings of my own. What did Coppola take from the book, what did he eliminate and what did he add? Let’s take a look.

By no means is this list exhaustive but my hope is that it gives you a sense of Coppola’s talents and a feel for what happens from page to screen.

https://docs.google.com/.../1Rq9wqVptS70W6MkP9MJZ.../edit... (the PowerPoint we used to accompany this section)

Coppola takes these two lines of dialogue verbatim from the book. He eliminates most of the rest of the dialogue. He also gets rid of the bit about the Don calling for Hagen.

In the book, this is all one scene in one chapter. When Coppola turns it into a film, he breaks the scene into two parts, inserting the killing of Luca Brasi and the kidnapping of Hagen, between the two sections.

Coppola then adds all these lines of dialogue, which I think are important for two reasons:

1. As Coppola mentioned in the video, “People must feel like they are seeing a real thing.” These added lines of Italian dialogue add texture to the film and help us buy into and believe that we are in a specific world of Italian-Americans.

2. And by adding these references to “Pop” and “Pa”, I would make the case that Coppola is building up something that he will pay off later in the scene. More on that in a minute.

And then lastly, Coppola makes the decision to film this entire part of the scene in one 21 second long take. For those of you who haven’t been here before, a long take is simply a shot without any cuts. The camera turns on, films the scene, and then the camera turns off.

Now let’s look at the rest of the scene. Here’s what’s on the page, and please bear with me it’s a little long.

 
https://drive.google.com/.../1UlEm03o2g5yyUeZF.../view...
https://drive.google.com/.../1yZnJxtgN6VgTWKnzw5z.../view...
https://drive.google.com/.../18ZLHcnZzeumk7rGVf91.../view... (I read aloud from "Out in the street..." to "...everybody and everything.")

And here’s what’s onscreen.

SHOW SCENE TWO

https://drive.google.com/.../1Nz0Bpx4ayKEelSc6chN.../view...

And then we used the same PowerPoint as before to accompany the rest of the talk:

https://docs.google.com/.../1Rq9wqVptS70W6MkP9MJZ.../edit...

Using the exact same process as before, Coppola kept in Puzo’s description of the Don pointing but not handling the fruit. He also, as Puzo describes, has crowds gathering around after the Don has been shot.

Coppola eliminates all the Daily News stuff that Puzo mentions; he also never shows any police or detectives arriving.

In his notebook, in the columns next to this scene, Coppola wrote how would Hitchcock design this? DESIGN CAREFULLY!

Alfred Hitchcock was known as one of the most meticulous directors ever when it came to preparing to film. Hitchcock would draw out or storyboard every shot in his films, ensuring that they communicated his vision before he even went to film them. So Coppola was looking at Hitchcock as a role model for how he should approach this scene.

Coppola adds all kinds of little touches. He adds the following bits of dialogue – “Fredo, I’m going to buy some fruit”; “Okay Pop”; “Merry Christmas. I want some fruit.” and “Papa!”

I think the emotional high point of the scene is the final beat when Fredo screams out, “Papa!” But this only works the way that it does because of John Cazale’s ability as an actor, but even more important, because Coppola has designed it that way.

In other words, Coppola earns this emotional moment because he builds up to it by scattering the different mentions of “Pop” and “Pa” throughout the scene before finally paying it off with Fredo’s “Papa” at the very end. This sense of design and use of repetition is just one of the many examples in The Godfather of Coppola’s great skill as a writer and director.

You also see his skill in some of the visual choices he makes like this shot that is not from Fredo’s POV.

https://drive.google.com/.../1Wk3.../view...

This is a convention from the horror film genre, where we see a shot from an unidentified POV, alerting us to the fact that something ominous is about to happen. Which of course it does.

Or we see Coppola’s skill in how he translates Puzo’s line in the book – “Don Corleone knew immediately what was to happen” to directing this simple look of recognition on Brando’s face.

https://drive.google.com/.../1pVN7GkQXSmr2zRdkwPO.../view...

And we see his classy sense of direction in his elegant cut from the henchmen’s running feet to the shot of them running with their guns.

 
https://drive.google.com/.../1HGIukQqqCnx6aE9Bq2.../view...

And we see it in his choice of the high angle shot in the scene.

https://drive.google.com/.../125xWQFW_Cq.../view...

Like the asterisk in the prompt book that Coppola says means something of particular importance, the high angle shot serves that purpose for Coppola here. He hardly ever uses high angle shots in
the film so when he does we notice and realize, consciously or not, that this is an important moment.

And then again there are the details that Coppola adds. The Jake LaMotta poster at the fruit stand which is another Italian-American accent that Coppola adds to the design or the addition of Fredo fumbling with the gun which is just the perfect, succinct moment of visual characterization.

Coppola’s strong sense of design isn’t limited to what we see. It’s just as evident in what we hear.

At the beginning of the scene, we hear a trumpet playing scales in the background. As the action picks up, the trumpet slowly fades away, not replaced by music but rather natural sounds – running feet, gunshots, baskets of fruit being knocked over, the Don grunting. Most directors would lean on music to heighten the action and to guide our emotions. But Coppola believes in his actors, his camerawork, his editing and his design to do the job.

Coppola lets the scene play out with nearly 30 seconds of natural sounds (no music at all) before finally bringing back Nino Rota’s haunting Godfather theme as the Don falls to the ground.

To wrap it all up, I’ll leave you with this. Many people consider The Godfather as one of the great American films and Francis Ford Coppola one of the great American filmmakers. I think nowhere is Coppola’s talent more evident than when you see what he started with, in terms of The Godfather novel, and what he chose to have us see and hear as director of the film. Thank you.

Reel Adventures 8 - Part 1

It was another very special night at R.W. Norton Art Gallery for Reel Adventures 8, The Godfather!

I gave a talk that was in two separate parts. Here is part one:

You can break into directing in Hollywood a number of different ways. You can get your break after a big success directing on Broadway. You can act your way into it like Clint Eastwood, Greta Gerwig or Kevin Costner. You can be a successful producer, cameraman, director of music videos, TV or nowadays even an influencer and get a shot. Or like Francis Ford Coppola you can break through as a writer.

Coppola first got into the gates of Hollywood because of his skills as a screenwriter.

Today, what I’d like to do is focus on the adaptation process of film, and more specifically compare and contrast what’s in Mario Puzo’s Godfather novel versus what ended up on screen when Puzo and Coppola adapted the book into the first Godfather film.

We’re going to focus on one particular scene and after this video and the next round of trivia I’ll come back to take a look at it with you.

In the meantime, please enjoy this short video of Francis Ford Coppola sharing a few words about making The Godfather:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UDLlEXDWhQOEfxFPEBBomCcKUxoZMh1B/view?usp=sharing

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Recommendations from Reel Adventures 7

For each Reel Adventures at RW Norton Art Gallery in addition to the highlighted movie I provide a few other recommendations. Here are the recommendations from our 7th Reel Adventures.

Reel Adventures 7 - Trivia Questions

Here were the trivia questions from Reel Adventures 7 at R.W. Norton Art Gallery:

ROUND 1
• What brand does Alvin smoke?
• What does Brenda say Wisconsin is?
• What does Alvin tell the doctor he’s not paying for?
• What does Alvin say he needs the grabber for?
• What does Pete say Alvin will never make it past?

ROUND 2
• Who was President when Alvin was born?
• When did the hitchhiker tell her boyfriend that she’s pregnant?
• What type of sausage does Rose buy?
• What kind of storm is happening when they receive the phone call that Lyle has had a stroke?
• What does Alvin tell Rose that the doctor said?

ROUND 3
• What does Danny Riordan tell Alvin he can do in their yard?
• What is the first thing we see Alvin use the grabber for?
• What happened to the Polish boy?
• What explorer do they refer to in the cemetery?
• What does the lady play real loud to try to scare off the deer?

BONUS
• Who is the famous real-life brother of the “Olsen twins” in the film?
• Name 3 instances in the film where we hear something but don’t see it.
• What was Tom’s character’s name in Twin Peaks?

Reel Adventures 7 - The Straight Story Talk

Last night's Reel Adventures 7 was another special evening at RW Norton Art Gallery! Much more to come but here was my talk from last night. And last night marked a first as went ahead and announced the film for Reel Adventures 8, the first of the three Godfather movies.

 
We will share the date of Reel Adventures 8 as soon as we have it.

Here was my talk. It was in two segments. I began by telling the audience the following:

"I explained that we would be talking a good deal about sound in film. And I felt a good way to start was a short video with the first half composed of images with the sound removed and the second half composed of sound with the images removed. For the second half, I asked the audience to close their eyes and try to picture or visualize what they were hearing."

Here's the video I showed:

https://youtu.be/vEq2URyw3ag

And then I came back after the second round of trivia and gave the following talk:

"We’ve all asked, have you seen this film? Seen that film? But has anyone ever asked you, have you heard the latest Emma Stone film? Heard the latest Adam Driver film? Chances are they have not.

In the history of film, there have been directors who have exceptionally strong eyes. Their movies visually leap out at you because of the lighting or the framing or the way that the camera gracefully moves across the screen. In this category, I would list first and foremost people like Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford, Fritz Lang, to name but a very few.

But then you have this other category of director, those directors who actually have stronger ears than eyes. Where it isn’t necessarily an image from one of their films that you remember but rather a certain sound or note from a song or the score. In this group, I would put people like Michael Mann, the French director Robert Bresson and today’s featured filmmaker David Lynch.

We often hear film described as a visual medium. But I take issue with that. Film is actually 50% a visual medium and 50% aural – Image AND Sound.

Let’s look at today’s film so I can show a few examples. And let me just clarify, when I say Lynch has a strong ear, I’m not saying he has great taste in music even though his collaboration with the composer Angelo Badalamenti is one of the most talked about in the history of the medium. What I’m specifically speaking about is how Lynch approaches sound. What we hear when music is not playing, when the characters are not speaking, the way everything else we see or don’t see onscreen sounds.

Let’s take a look at the film. There are three distinct moments where Lynch lets us hear but not see what’s happening.

SCENES

https://youtu.be/T9zK88jafHc
https://youtu.be/ISoG6sbmhdQ
https://youtu.be/3PDmNirNVss

So why does Lynch give us the information in this way?

Most directors would simply cut to Alvin falling or cut to Rose on the phone learning about Uncle Lyle’s stroke or cut to the lady crashing into the deer. But Lynch gives us the information differently.

Since we began Reel Adventures, one thing I have been trying to get all of us to do a little more as viewers is ask why. Why did the director make the choices he or she made and how do those choices support the vision they’re trying to convey.

And when we ask why, we never know for sure. We’re simply trying to think a little more deeply, analyze a little bit more, in hopes of uncovering layers that make the entire moviegoing experience more satisfying.

So why do we think Lynch might have shot these three sequences in this way:

First explanation.

He is an independent filmmaker and did not have the resources to actually film the scenes so he just had us hear them instead. That’s a hypothesis but probably unlikely as, aside from the car crash, they were fairly easy scenes that could be filmed pretty quickly.

Second explanation.

Lynch found the scenes fairly unimportant and therefore unnecessary to film. Again, probably not the reason, since the phone call and even Alvin’s fall on some level, are the incidents that set the entire plot in motion.

So, why?

My guess is Lynch withholds our ability to see these moments because he believes that our ears are actually more creative than our eyes. That our imaginations are more engaged when we hear something than when we see something.

Think about when you were a kid. When you were afraid and heard a sound at night and how your mind would start creating images of what it thought you might have heard. This is what Lynch is up to, in my opinion.

Lynch is aware that our imaginations are unleashed when we hear but can’t see. And that’s the effect I think he is interested in recreating when he withholds our ability to see here.

When we hear something but don’t see it, we have to do all the work ourselves to create the picture. And often times, the picture we create is more expressive, more complex than the actual image.

And so I’ll leave with this to conclude. I’ve insisted on the word “why” today and throughout our Reel Adventures so far. And I’ve explained that I think why Lynch chooses not to show us certain scenes is because he wants to spark our emotions and engage our imaginations. But why does he want to do this?

Filmmakers want the moviegoing experience to be interactive. They want their viewers to become involved. Some filmmakers attempt to accomplish this by trying to make us feel the emotions of their actors. Others do it by making us try to figure out their plots. And then others, like Lynch here, do it essentially by making us at times make the images ourselves.

And, so to me, that is the why.

Thank you."

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