Reel Adventures

Here was our trivia and my talk from our first Reel Adventures at R.W. Norton Art Gallery. Can't wait to do it again this Friday for Hitchcock's Rear Window!

ROUND ONE
• Who do the glasses belong to that are found in the Mulwray’s pond?
• What trick of the trade does Gittes use to find out what time of night Mulwray left the reservoir?
• Gittes uses another trick of the trade when he first meets Yelburton. What does he take from his office?
• What department did Hollis Mulwray work for?
• A long take is a shot without any _________?


ROUND TWO
• What narrative device does Polanski use to demonstrate that Ms. Mulwray is nervous during the scene when Gittes starts talking about the connection between her father and her husband?
• What is the name of the club where Gittes goes to meet up for lunch with Noah Cross?
• What does Gittes borrow from the desk clerk at the Hall of Records?
• What do they beat Gittes with in the orange grove?
• What does Gittes do to Evelyn’s car to make it easier to follow her?


ROUND THREE
• What is one of the lines of voiceover from the film?
• To emphasize the point that the audience is seeing everything from Gittes’ perspective, Polanski often put the camera here while filming Jack Nicholson.
• Like a chorus in a song that the song comes back to, to give the song a certain structure, it is not uncommon in films to repeat certain stylistic gestures. In Chinatown, there is the repetition of the sound of a car horn in the final scene. In what scene, did we first hear the car horn honking?
• In what Los Angeles neighborhood does Gittes take a ride on a boat?
• What is playing on the radio during the scene at the morgue?


BONUS ROUND
• In what Parish was one of the main actor’s previous characters famously killed?
• John Hillerman who plays the character of Yelburton would go on to have a starring role in a hit 1980’s TV show. Name the show.
• Detective fiction that began appearing in the late twenties often served as source material for the movies that became film noir. Hammer is to Spillane as Marlowe is to Chandler as Spade is to this author.


TALK
I wanted to welcome everyone. My name is Jeffrey Goodman. I know many of you but for those I don’t, I’ve directed a few movies and spent a countless amount of time watching and thinking about film.

I wanted to thank Lewis and Ruth Norton and Emily Feazel who have been open to the idea of a film club from the first day it came up and who have been instrumental in making tonight happen.

I have a few things I’d like to say and then I’ll come back after the next round of trivia to answer any Chinatown or film-related questions you might have.

Just before I begin, I’m curious how many of you had never seen Chinatown before this event? Raise your hand if you could. Wow okay.

Last Tuesday, French-Swiss filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard passed away at the age of 91.
Godard is considered a massive figure in the history of cinema and his contributions would take hours to discuss. But if I were to single out the one thing he should most be remembered for, it is his efforts to get people to accept and view the medium of cinema as an artform that at times could be as artistic as ballet, painting, classical music, sculpture or any of the other high arts.

And so it seems fitting that we’re here today at an art gallery for Norton’s first-ever film club.

If, as Godard says, certain films are more than mere entertainment then there should be some sort of gain in looking more deeply at them.

So, Chinatown.

It is a film I would claim is of high artistic value. All of its components – hair, make-up, wardrobe, set design, framing, lighting, locations, sound, score, casting and camerawork – are overseen by master crafts people working together to make us believe we are in another time and place.

In fact, that is one of the most challenging aspects of film. Making something that we believe. And hiding all the thousands of pieces that go into making a finished film. One effective way of hiding the apparatus in film is what I’d like to focus on for the next few minutes and it’s the long take.

As all of you know, film is made up of a bunch of pieces, or “cuts” that are edited together to tell a story. The average number of cuts in a film is about 1,050. If films average 1,050 cuts and the average film is 120 minutes long, then there is on average a cut every 8.75 seconds.

What the long take does is attempt to illustrate a moment visually in a longer timeframe than normal without resorting to a cut. Filmmakers use long takes for many reasons but often it is to preserve the illusion that what it is in front of us is actually taking place rather than fabricated by a countless number of crafts people.

There have been several very famous long takes in the history of cinema. There is the three minute long take as Ray Liotta and Lorraine Bracco enter the Copacabana nightclub in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas, the nearly 4 minute opening sequence in Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil and Alfred Hitchcock’s 1948 film Rope where Hitchcock attempts to make us believe that we are watching an entire film without a single cut.

I won’t digress too far on this. But films used to only be made on film. And the magazines that went on the film cameras at most could hold a 1000 feet of film or about 11 minutes. Therefore, until digital cameras came about, it was technically impossible to film an entire movie in one long take.

There are very complicated, highly choreographed long takes where the camera is moving around a large amount of space without a cut and then there are other more modest long takes like this one in Chinatown. This long take in Chinatown lasts a minute or nearly 7x longer than your average shot.

And cut.

So my parting words are this:

I don’t want to ruin anyone’s enjoyment of watching films by lifting the curtain on how movies achieve their magic. I believe the opposite in fact - that if you learn more about how movies are made, know more about what you are watching, you will ultimately feel deeper enjoyment for the entire experience.

That is my hope from these Reel Adventures we have begun.

We really appreciate everyone coming out, hope you’re having fun so far and that we can do more of these in the future.

All I Saw and Read in 2022

1/1  Bleak Moments

½ First Graders, The Time to Live and the Time to Die, Rich and Famous

1/3 Broadchurch

¼ Broadcast News

1/5 Terms of Endearment, These Truths: A History of the United States

1/6 The Truffle Hunters

1/7 A Little Life, Dheepan

1/8 Sinai Field Mission, Histoire(s) du cinema, Nouvelle vague

1/9 Pale Rider

1/12 Three women

1/13 Walkover

1/14 A High Wind in Jamaica

1/15 Zulu

1/16 Le Roman d’un tricheur, Where The Crawdads Sing, Homework

1/17 Pool Sharks, Story of Women, Abbas Kiarostami – Verites et songes, David Lynch, Don’t Look at Me

1/18 The Scorsese Machine

1/19 Jacques Rivette, le veilleur

1/20 Eric Rohmer, preuves a l’appui, Peaux de vaches

1/21 The Namesake

1/23 Jean Renoir le patron

1/24 Une chambre en ville

1/26 Mon oncle d’Amerique

1/27 Oliveira l’architecte

1/29 Gremlins

1/30 Beware of a Holy Whore

2/1 Introduction

2/3 The Sympathizer, Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence

2/4 The Woman Who Ran, Cry, Mother Spain

2/5 Sheila Levine Is Dead and Living in New York

2/6 The Tinder Swindler

2/7 Les anges du peche

2/9 Ricky Powell: The Individualist

2/13 Trois ponts sur la riviere

2/15 Success Is the Best Revenge

2/16 New Power: How Power Works in Our Hyperconnected World

2/17 Dim the Fluorescents, QT8: The First Eight

2/20 Homebound

2/21 All Madden

2/22 Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich

2/25 For Esme – with Love and Squalor

2/26 Belfast, Maine

2/27 Doomed Love

3/7 Public Housing

3/9 Charley Varrick, The Last Letter

3/11 Ballet

3/12 Reverse Angle

3/13 Domestic Violence, Southern Comfort

3/18 King Richard, Ford v Ferrari, Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain

3/29 24 Hours: The World of John and Yoko, No Time to Die, Local Hero, Mange ta soupe

3/30 Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin’ About Him)?

4/2 Welfare

4/3 Lou n’a pas dit non

4/27 The Book of Changes

4/30 Our Towns

5/5 Waiting for Lightning

5/8 Just Mercy

5/10 Killing Eve

5/14 Unfinished Business, Delinquent

5/20 La vie des morts

5/21 Talk to Her

5/30 This Is Us

5/31 We Own This City

6/3 Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, RBG

6/7 Stories We Tell

6/10 City Hall

6/11 High School II, Away from Her

6/12 Hustle, The Staircase

6/16 Where Peachtree Meets Sweet Auburn, On Our Way To Beautiful

6/19 Thoughts On Building Strong Towns Volume 1

6/28 Ball Four

7/3 On the Town

7/4 Ruby in Paradise

7/5 Room 666, Today

7/8 A Time for Dying

7/9 The Unfaithful Wife

7/11 The Apple

7/14 Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat

7/15 Flaming Creatures, The Crown Jewels of Iran, Bernie

7/16 The Hours and Times

7/17 From the Journals of Jean Seberg

8/7 The Dead Girl, Elmer Gantry

8/8 The Sign of Leo

8/18 The Border

9/1 Both Sides of the Blade

9/2 Nope

9/14 McEnroe

9/18 Here to Be Heard: The Story of the Slits, Words and Pictures

9/25 Locke, Quai des Orfevres

9/30 Searching for Mr. Rugoff

10/18 Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession

10/20 The Bear, The Playlist

10/21 Blue Chips, Warrior

10/23 Cool Runnings, Five Graves to Cairo

10/24 Hammett

10/25 The Unspeakable Act

11/6 Paradise Alley

11/7 The Lords of Flatbush

11/9 Armageddon Time

11/12 The Outfit

11/13 Still Life

11/15 Last Days

11/19 Tree of Smoke

11/20 Delamu

11/25 The Line of Beauty, The Lady Without Camelias

11/27 Next of Kin

12/4 The Favourite Game

12/12 Saint Jack

12/18 Irma Vep (series)

12/19 Deep End

12/24 Nobody’s Hero

12/26 Platform, Avatar: The Way of Water

12/30 Les Annees New Wave

My Top Films Seen in 2022

Here are the films, new and old, that I saw and most admired in 2022.

Claire Denis' Both Sides of the Blade

Although I have not rewatched most of Denis' films, I have seen the following at least once - Chocolat, S'en fout la mort, J'ai pas sommeil, US Go Home, Nenette et Boni, Beau travail, Trouble Every Day, Vendredi soir, L'intrus, 35 rhums, Let the Sunshine In, High Life and Both Sides of the Blade.  It seems that her work can be divided into at least two categories, films that make for fairly comfortable viewing (for instance, I place Nenette, Vendredi, 35 and Let the Sunshine into this category) and work that is up there with some of the cinema's most harrowing.  In this latter category, to begin with I would list J'ai pas sommeil, Trouble and Both Sides of the Blade.  It isn't gratuitous, there is a fearlessness at times with the way that Denis films the body and her ability, like Lynch, to burrow into raw and deeply disturbing situations involving her characters.  I am thinking about the long murder sequence involving Dalle, almost any moment with Camille or nearly every second Colin is on screen.   

Jerzy Skolimowski's Walkover

Skolimowski continues to be a filmmaker that intrigues me.  This is the fourth of his features I have seen, after seeing Le Depart, Moonlighting and Essential Killing.  All four films are incredibly different in their style and subject matter although in each Skolimowski proves he possesses an unusually strong cinematic eye as well as exceptional feel for the effectiveness of a camera capturing movement on film.  Walkover exudes that very New Wave quality of youth meandering through a city trying to find purpose and place.  The final ten minutes, in particular, churn up heaps of cinematic energy and leave the viewer with an outlook on life that powerfully captures a new generation's desire to reject the ways of the past.   

Olivier Assayas' Irma Vep

There is no film I have seen made in 2022 that has as much to say about what cinema has been and what it can be as it turns 127.  Of course there are remnants of Feuillade but in this opus it would be hard also not to think of Lynch's work in TV, Jarmusch's approach to music in Dead Man and Rivette's career of exploring meta.  Vincent Macaigne embodies the greatest and most complex depiction of a filmmaker the medium has ever given us while Assayas inhabits the specter of JLG to give us a work that manages all at once to flood us with emotions and ideas.  

Cy Endfield's Zulu

I've only seen three of his films but I feel completely confident in saying that Cy Endfield is a name that should be far more common and known in cinephile circles than it is.  Each of his films has a strong directorial presence and a position to the material that encourages contemplation without being distancing.  Although not my area of expertise, I can't think of a war film set up in remotely the same way as Zulu.  We remain in one location for the first two hours with very little in terms of plot as we get to know characters preparing for what is probably their final battle.  

Frederick Wiseman's Public Housing

Wiseman captures many sides of poverty and race in Chicago and begins to draw the characters and world that David Simon would only a few years later craft into his masterful series The Wire.  There are so many memorable scenes in this work that only further attest to the fact that Wiseman has a process and a temperament that enable him to reflect truths about certain sides of the American experience that no other filmmaker has been able to match.

Jean-Claude Biette's Trois ponts sur la riviere

I know more about French film than I know about almost anything else. And though I was aware of some of Biette's work, particularly Loin de Manhattan and Le champignon des Carpathes, this is the first of his movies I have seen.

Biette has a great feel for capturing spaces in a precisely realistic way, like a college student's apartment in Paris or a bookstore in Porto, Portugal.  Similarly, his dialogue and the way he lets his actors move around and express themselves, reinforces a directorial desire to adhere closely to the way these types of moments unfold in real life.  In fact, it seems that Biette's quest to remain accurate and truthful gives the film one of its most unique qualities, its willingness to show certain glances or moments without the need to explain them.  I am thinking, for instance, of the way Claire stares from her hotel window at the Brazilian guest, the brief scene suggesting it is normal for attraction to occur without ever being acted upon.  

I can only guess at the reasons for it but like Rivette's Out 1, Le Pont du Nord or even La bande des quatre, Biette includes, with the character of Frank, a subplot of noirish overtones.  Like in the abovementioned Rivette works, the subplot feels more artificial and more difficult to believe than one typically experiences in regular genre films while the foregrounded story, that of Arthur and Claire, feels far more real than most movies.

Robert Bresson's Les anges du peche

In a rare case, Bresson emerges in his first feature already a masterful filmmaker.  His style is not yet fully formed, that would not happen until his third feature, but his understanding and command of the medium's power are fully present.  

Although I imagine there is a way to view the film, being that it was made in 1943, as a film of resistance, I experienced it at face value as a film of faith.  As such, it demonstrates faith as well as anything I have seen on film.  Bresson finds the cinematic tools to make us understand certain beliefs, such as sacrificing worldly materials to attain a true spiritual state, that in less skilled hands would leave us unmoved and unenlightened.  I experienced the film not only as a film about religious faith but as an indication of Bresson's faith in the medium of cinema to plumb the depths of human experience and to emerge with emotions of a deep spiritual and intellectual power.

Jean-Luc Godard's Histoire(s) du cinema

Is it possible to praise a film in which you grasp less than 10% of what the filmmaker is saying?  I would argue that it is.  Particularly with someone like Godard who can send shockwaves through your brain with some of his insights and with the lyricism he sometimes finds as he works sound and image together.  

Jia Zhangke's Still Life

I am aware that Zhangke is highly revered in circles I admire but this is probably the first film of his I’ve seen in its entirety.  In its rigor - long takes and prominent film sound - it reminded me of 80s and 90s Hou Hsiao-hsien.  Its painterly lighting and framing of the highest order also recall the mastery of Hou.  Slow, thoughtful and with a touch of fantasy that yearns for something other than the every day grind of 21st century China, a great example of a great 21st century art film.

Claire Denis' and Serge Daney's Jacque Rivette, le veilleur

This dream of a documentary consists mostly of Denis filming the great film critic Daney talking with the great filmmaker Rivette.  It is by far the most thorough portrait of Rivette I have experienced to date and ranks as one of the most enlightening documentaries I have ever seen on a filmmaker.  

Jean-Pierre Limosin's Abbas Kiarostami - Verites et songes

For many years I have minimized the benefits of YouTube, preferring to criticize the quality of the works available there that could not be found anywhere else rather than revel in finally being able to see certain things.  The French series of documentaries, Cineastes de notre temps and  Cinema, de notre temps, refute anything I may have thought or felt all these years.  The documentaries are difficult to see in the states yet are some of the most powerful documents of some of the medium's greatest directors.  I believe there are more than 50 documentaries in all ranging from Renoir to Moretti, Lang to Cassavetes and many, many others.

What makes the series special is evident when watching the one on Kiarostami.  It is not a history of Kiarostami's life or cinema but rather an attempt to spend some time with the filmmaker.  We hear him talk and see him interact with different people he has worked with and different people he runs into on the streets.  By the end, we are no longer grappling to understand how a man could create such extraordinary work because we have just spent time in his shoes, sitting in his chair, seeing and feeling the world as he experiences it.   

Jerzy Skolimowski's Deep End

I can't recall sexual awakening ever being treated by the cinema with as much hormonal neurosis.  Skolimowski once again proves he is able to unlock's cinema's ability to be poetic but also dangerous.  He is able to find extraordinary set pieces, like the pool in the final scenes, and elongate time so that his films occupy a logic that defies most narrative progressions and rhythms.  There is also a confidence in Skolimowski that enables him to go too far and to push past our level of comfort to deliver something that has that Lynchian charge that is both disturbing and powerful.    

Favorite (four), eighty-six

Just like in my other eighty-five posts in this series, I want to take a second to single out the highlights of my recent film viewing.  Most of the films I have been glad to see but only a very few have stayed with me.  This series is my filter for those and my hope is one or two will be good to you as well.

Jia Zhangke's Still Life

I am aware that Zhangke is highly revered in circles I admire but this is probably the first film of his I’ve seen in its entirety.  In its rigor - long takes and prominent film sound - it reminded me of 80s and 90s Hou Hsiao-hsien.  Its painterly lighting and framing of the highest order also recall the mastery of Hou.  Slow, thoughtful and with a touch of fantasy that yearns for something other than the every day grind of 21st century China, a great example of a great 21st century art film.

Billy Wilder's Five Graves to Cairo

One of Wilder's first American films, made before Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard.  Showing up on Rosenbaum's extended 1000+ essential films, it is not surprising that Rosenbaum was a fan.  He tends to champion films that take a more honest look at history and consistently places more importance on that aspect of a film than whether it is entertaining, moving or stylish.  I have never seen a mid-war propaganda film that was any more unflinching.  It seems so much of its time that you can still smell and taste the war on it.  

Peter Bogdanovich's Saint Jack

Reminds me of other films that play more as two halves than one whole - films like The Passenger, Tropical Malady and Mulholland Drive.  While the first half does a good enough job setting our world and the cast of characters surrounding Jack, it is the second part where Bogdanovich really impresses.  He uses silence and several inspired set pieces - the scheme to take down the senator, William's death, the kidnapping of Jack - to masterfully stretch time and remind us he could in moments rise to the level of the great filmmakers of his generation.   

Xan Cassavetes' Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession

It just so happens it is the second film I have seen in a row about a special period for the art film in the United States.  The previous film was Searching for Mr. Rugoff.  Both are worth a look but Jerry Harvey struck me as the more important figure and this work by Cassavetes felt far better shaped than Deutchman's tribute to Donald Rugoff.

Favorite (four), eighty-five

Just like in my other eighty-four posts in this series, I want to take a second to single out the highlights of my recent film viewing.  Most of the films I have been glad to see but only a very few have stayed with me.  This series is my filter for those and my hope is one or two will be good to you as well.

Steven Knight's Locke

Knight wrote Eastern Promises and Dirty Pretty Things, both of which I like quite a bit.  This time he writes and directs and takes a huge gamble by focusing the entire movie on Tom Hardy in his car driving.  Hardy's talent as an actor, particularly his voice and gestures, keep our attention and enable a film that could easily feel thin in its theatricality, to take on additional dimensions.  

Tony Richardson's The Border

A film that fits in with its mood and style with the end of the cycle of the American New Wave.  Reminiscent of films like Cutter's Way and Out of the Blue that use naturalistic means to examine a decaying American Dream.

Claire Denis' Both Sides of the Blade

Although I have not rewatched most of Denis' films, I have seen the following at least once - Chocolat, S'en fout la mort, J'ai pas sommeil, US Go Home, Nenette et Boni, Beau travail, Trouble Every Day, Vendredi soir, L'intrus, 35 rhums, Let the Sunshine In, High Life and Both Sides of the Blade.  It seems that her work can be divided into at least two categories, films that make for fairly comfortable viewing (for instance, I place Nenette, Vendredi, 35 and Let the Sunshine into this category) and work that is as up there with some of the cinema's most harrowing.  In this latter category, to begin with I would list J'ai pas sommeil, Trouble and Both Sides of the Blade.  It isn't gratuitous, there is a fearlessness at times with the way that Denis films the body and her ability, like Lynch, to burrow into raw and deeply disturbing situations involving her characters.  I am thinking about the long murder sequence involving Dalle or almost any moment with Camille or nearly second Colin is on screen.    

William E. Badgley's Here to Be Heard: The Story of the Slits

A must see for anyone into post-punk that wants to learn more about this seminal group.  Interesting to see that even people who leave a mark on music history sometimes have to move on to a life that has little to do with his or her art.   

Reel Adventures - RW Norton Art Gallery - Chinatown

On Friday night, I was part of launching the first-ever film club at RW Norton Art Gallery in Shreveport. The first film we showed at what will be a periodic film club was Chinatown. Here is the talk I gave that night:

I wanted to welcome everyone. My name is Jeffrey Goodman. I know many of you but for those of you who I don’t know - I’ve made a few movies, spent a considerable amount of time watching and thinking about film, and my hope for tonight is to share at least one thing about the cinema that stays with you.

I wanted to thank Lewis and Ruth Norton and Emily Feazel who have been open to the idea of a film club from the first day it came up and who have been instrumental in making tonight happen.

I have a short 5-7 minute talk I'd like to share, then we'll do another round of trivia and then I’ll come back to try to answer any Chinatown or film-related questions you might have.

And just before I begin, I’m curious how many of you had never seen Chinatown before this event? Raise your hand if you could. (It was probably half the room!)

Last Tuesday, French-Swiss filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard passed away at the age of 91. Godard is considered a massive figure in the history of cinema and his contributions would take hours to discuss. But if I were to single out the one thing he should most be remembered for, it is his efforts to get people to accept and view the medium of cinema as an artform that at times could be just as artistic as ballet, painting, classical music, sculpture or any of the other high arts.

And so it seems fitting that we’re here tonight at Norton's for its first-ever film club.

If, as Godard says, certain films are more than mere entertainment then there should be some sort of gain in looking more deeply at them.

So, Chinatown.

It is a film I would claim is of high artistic value. All of its components – hair, make-up, wardrobe, set design, framing, lighting, locations, sound, score, casting and camerawork – are overseen by master crafts people working together to make us believe we are in another time and place.

In fact, that is one of the most challenging aspects of film. Making something that we believe. And hiding all the thousands of pieces that go into making a finished film. One effective way of hiding the apparatus in film is what I’d like to focus on for the next few minutes and it’s the long take.

As all of you know, film is made up of a bunch of pieces, or “cuts” that are edited together to tell a story. The average number of cuts in a film is about 1,050. If films average 1,050 cuts and the average film is 120 minutes long, then there is on average a cut every 8.75 seconds.

What the long take does is attempt to illustrate a moment visually in a longer timeframe than normal without resorting to a cut. Filmmakers use long takes for many reasons but often it is to preserve the illusion that what it is in front of us is actually taking place rather than fabricated by a countless number of crafts people.

There have been several very famous long takes in the history of cinema. There is the three minute long take as Ray Liotta and Lorraine Bracco enter the Copacabana nightclub in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas, the nearly 4 minute opening sequence in Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil and Alfred Hitchcock’s 1948 film Rope in which Hitchcock attempts to make us believe that we are watching an entire film without a single cut.

I won’t digress too far on this. But films used to only be made on film. And the magazines that went on the film cameras at most could hold a 1000 feet of film or about 11 minutes. Therefore, until digital cameras came about, it was technically impossible to film an entire movie in one long take.

There are very complicated, highly choreographed long takes where the camera is moving around a large amount of space without a cut and then there are other more modest long takes like this one I am about to show you from Chinatown. This long take in Chinatown lasts a minute or nearly 7x longer than your average shot.

(Showed one minute long take from Chinatown.)

And cut.

So my parting words are this:

I don’t want to ruin anyone’s enjoyment of watching films by lifting the curtain somewhat on how movies achieve their magic. I believe the opposite in fact - that if you learn more about how movies are made, know more about what you are watching, you will ultimately feel deeper enjoyment for the entire experience.

That is my hope from these Reel Adventures we have just begun.

I really appreciate everyone coming out, hope you’re having fun so far and I look forward to the opportunity to do more of these in the future.

Favorite (four), eighty-four

Just like in my other eighty-three posts in this series, I want to take a second to single out the highlights of my recent film viewing.  Most of the films I have been glad to see but only a very few have stayed with me.  This series is my filter for those and my hope is one or two will be good to you as well.

Sara Driver's Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years 0f Jean-Michel Basquiat

It's the type of documentary that would be hard to imagine an outsider being able to make.  Driver is able to tap her network as well as lived experience to gather extraordinary footage of Basquiat and the NYC art world in the late seventies to early eighties.  For any fan of Basquiat or anyone just curious to learn a little more about the man and the unique era that inspired his work.  

Frederick Wiseman's High School II

Yet another powerful and important film from Wiseman.  While watching it, and I have never had this exact thought before, I couldn't help but think about the void that will be left when Wiseman is no longer making films.  No one in American film consistently examines our country, our people, our successes, our failures as deeply as Wiseman.  And no one takes the American dream to task, dissecting its shortcomings, in as profound and as important of a manner.  He is a giant in our country's cinema and among American artists in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Victor Nunez's Ruby in Paradise

What jumps out at first view is to think about the historical context in which it was made.  It was the height of American indy cinema and "auteurs" working overtime to emphasize their personal style.  Spike, the Coen brothers, Jarmusch, Hartley, Tarantino all came to the medium with heavily mannered approaches.  In fact, it is hard for me to think of an indy filmmaker, at that time, who was working in a more naturalistic way.  

Perhaps it's the fact that Nunez was 48 when he made Ruby.  Whatever the reasons, Nunez distinguishes himself from the rest of the abovementioned filmmakers by his careful attention to place and character and his subdued use of music, sound, and any other aspect of cinematic style.    

Jeremiah Zagar's Hustle

I will be the first to admit.  When it comes to sports films, I am willing to ignore and let slide stylistic elements I normally can't get past.  If you are like me and can be moved by Hollywood sports films like Hoosiers, Creed, Eddie the Eagle or The Way Back, this Sandler vehicle will most likely hook you in.  It is the type of underdog story and story of redemption that Hollywood can really deliver. 

 

Favorite (four), eighty-three

Just like in my other eighty-two posts in this series, I want to take a second to single out the highlights of my recent film viewing.  Most of the films I have been glad to see but only a very few have stayed with me.  This series is my filter for those and my hope is one or two will be good to you as well.

Arnaud Desplechin's La vie des morts

It's a film I have been wanting to see for more than 25 years that did not disappoint when I finally was able to track it down.  Before even making his first feature, Desplechin demonstrates his very special ability working with an ensemble of some of France's greatest actors.  And already so much of Desplechin's style is there - the edginess of the editing, the natural and almost laconic warmth and intimacy of the moments and his comfort in depicting the youth, particularly the females of his generation.

Frederick Wiseman's City Hall

In his most recent outing, Wiseman focuses on Boston and Mayor Marty Walsh who seems determined to make his city better for all the people.  It is a fascinating look at the countless sides of city government.  Wiseman uses Walsh and the work his team is doing to suggest that our country would be far better off if the US government looked to Boston as a model to work towards.

Sarah Polley's Stories We Tell

In the way she straddles the line between fact and fiction, Polley's "documentary" reminds me of Scorsese's Rolling Thunder Revue.  Polley should be commended for the film's originality, its bold approach to piecing together the past and the sheer result of the recreated footage her team put together.  It should serve as a lesson to all documentaries and the abundance of tawdry recreated footage used to fill in their story gaps.  

Gregory La Cava's Unfinished Business

A film that on the surface impresses by never going where you expect it.  In the way it feels like a romantic comedy dressed up like a drama, it reminded me of Cukor's Holiday.  La Cava puts it all together with great restraint and confidence and I can't ever recall liking Montgomery more than his performance here.  

Favorite (four), eighty-two

Just like in my other eighty-one posts in this series, I want to take a second to single out the highlights of my recent film viewing.  Most of the films I have been glad to see but only a very few have stayed with me.  This series is my filter for those and my hope is one or two will be good to you as well.

Andrew Horn's Doomed Love

An incredibly unique American independent film that, simply watching it, seems to have had a massive influence on Hal Hartley and his hyper-mannered style.  I cannot recall a filmmaker achieving a more consistent lyrical quality in his or her work using less means than Horn employs here - painted sets, painted props, a handful of actors and not a single shot of the outside world.

Frederick Wiseman's Public Housing

Wiseman captures many sides of poverty and race in Chicago and begins to draw the characters and world that David Simon would only a few years later craft into his masterful series The Wire.  There are so many memorable scenes in this work that only further attest to the fact that Wiseman has a process and a temperament that enable him to reflect truths about certain sides of the American experience that no other filmmaker has been able to match.

Wim Wenders' Reverse Angle

There's a period of Wenders' work form 1974-1985, from Alice in the Cities to Tokyo-Ga, that is among my favorite of any director's films.  Sure, it didn't hurt that Wenders had Robby Muller alongside him for almost the entirety of the run, framing the world in poetic ways arguably as well as any cinematographer in the history of the medium.

 

John Scheinfeld's Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin' About Him)?

I always loved Nilsson's song in Midnight Cowboy but I had never delved into the rest of his work which I can now begin to tell you is surprisingly rich and rewarding.  A fascinating portrait for anyone like me that loves Dylan, Scott Walker, Rufus Wainwright and countless other singer-songwriters.   

Favorite (four), eighty-one

Just like in my other eighty posts in this series, I want to take a second to single out the highlights of my recent film viewing.  Most of the films I have been glad to see but only a very few have stayed with me.  This series is my filter for those and my hope is one or two will be good to you as well.

Robert Bresson's Les anges du peche

In a rare case, Bresson emerges in his first feature already a masterful filmmaker.  His style is not yet fully formed, that would not happen until his third feature, but his understanding and command of the medium's power are fully present.  

Although I imagine there is a way to view the film, being that it was made in 1943, as a film of resistance, I experienced it at face value as a film of faith.  As such, it demonstrates faith as well as anything I have seen on film.  Bresson finds the cinematic tools to make us understand certain beliefs, such as sacrificing worldly materials to attain a true spiritual state, that in less skilled hands would leave us unmoved and unenlightened.  I experienced the film not only as a film about faith but as an indication of Bresson's faith in the medium of cinema to plumb the depths of human experience and to emerge with emotions of a deep spiritual and intellectual revelatory power.

Jean-Claude Biette's Trois ponts sur la riviere

I know more about French film than I know about almost anything else. And though I was aware of some of Biette's work, particularly Loin de Manhattan and Le champignon des Carpathes, this is the first of his movies I have seen.

Biette has a great feel for capturing spaces in a precisely realistic way, like a college student's apartment in Paris or a bookstore in Porto, Portugal.  Similarly, his dialogue and the way he lets his actors move around and express themselves, reinforces a directorial desire to adhere closely to the way these types of moments unfold in real life.  In fact, it seems that Biette's quest to remain accurate and truthful give the film one of its most unique qualities, its willingness to show certain glances or moments without the need to explain them.  I am thinking, for instance, of the way Claire stares from her hotel window at the Brazilian guest, the brief scene suggesting it is normal for attraction to occur without ever being acted upon.  

I can only guess at the reasons for it but like Rivette's Out 1, Le Pont du Nord or even La bande des quatre, Biette includes, with the character of Frank, a subplot of noirish overtones.  Like in the abovementioned Rivette works, the subplot feels more artificial and more difficult to believe than one typically experiences in regular genre films while the foregrounded story, that of Arthur and Claire, feels far more real than most movies.

Josh Swade's Ricky Powell: The Individualist

Highly recommended for fans like me of the Beastie Boys.  Chances are, again like me, that you know less than 10% of the massive contribution Powell made to the early hip hop era and to the Beasties from their early career all the way until the completion of Ill Communication.   

 

Lee Man-hui's Homebound

Not only my first experience with a film by Man-hui but also probably the first Korean film I have seen that came out before 2000.  To summarize it in broad strokes, it feels like a Sirkian melodrama filmed in a more natural New Wave manner.  Yet, Man-hui gives it certain touches that make it distinctive and take it into territory that is neither Sirk nor New Wavish.  I am thinking about some of the ways Man-hui uses sound and music to draw the character of the military husband.  And, the institutional pressures, marriage in this case, feel even more oppressive than we typically experience in one of Sirk's films.    

      

2022

 2/6/22 I watched Felicity Morris' The Tinder Swindler.  Fairly compelling story on Netflix told in a thrown together manner.  

6/12/22 I watched Jeremiah Zagar's Hustle.  I will be the first to admit.  When it comes to sports films, I am willing to ignore and let slide stylistic elements I normally can't get past.  If you are like me and can be moved by Hollywood sports films like Hoosiers, Creed, Eddie the Eagle or The Way Back, this Sandler vehicle will most likely hook you in.  It is the type of underdog story and story of redemption that Hollywood can really deliver.    

9/1/22 I watched Claire Denis' Both Sides of the Blade.  Although I have not rewatched most of Denis' films, I have seen the following at least once - Chocolat, S'en fout la mort, J'ai pas sommeil, US Go Home, Nenette et Boni, Beau travail, Trouble Every Day, Vendredi soir, L'intrus, 35 rhums, Let the Sunshine In, High Life and Both Sides of the Blade.  It seems that her work can be divided into at least two categories, films that make for fairly comfortable viewing (for instance, I place Nenette, Vendredi, 35 and Let the Sunshine into this category) and work that is as up there with some of the cinema's most harrowing.  In this latter category, to begin with I would list J'ai pas sommeil, Trouble and Both Sides of the Blade.  It isn't gratuitous, there is a fearlessness at times with the way that Denis films the body and her ability, like Lynch, to burrow into raw and deeply disturbing situations involving her characters.  I am thinking about the long murder sequence involving Dalle or almost any moment with Camille or nearly second Colin is on screen.   

9/2/22 I watched Jordan Peele's Nope.  I was a huge fan of Get Out, much less so of Us and I would rank this one a distant second behind Peele's debut.  Peele has important ideas that he explores around race and even around the cinema's history.  While his dialogue at times is as sharp and cool as Tarantino's, he lacks Tarantino's ability at creating cinematically affecting visceral moments.  Peele also could have really benefitted from someone this time out editing and paring the whole thing down.

9/14/22 I watched Barney Douglas' McEnroe.  McEnroe is one of the great talkers and that part of the documentary is enjoyable even if there is very little new that emerges.

10/9/22 I watched James Gray’s Armageddon Time.  Gray comes back to a smaller canvas after Ad Astra and The Lost City of Z and the result feels personal.  Gray has always been adept at treading in familiar territory with touches that keep his work from feeling cliched and predictable.  Often he does it by privileging character over plot even at the risk of losing a certain forward momentum in his work.  There is mention of Kandinsky and abstract art and ultimately that is what Gray seems to be doing, holding up certain impressionistic moments in pursuit of a more liberated form.

12/18/22 I watched Olivier Assayas' Irma Vep.  There is no film I have seen made in 2022 that has as much to say about what cinema has been and what it can be as it turns 127.  Of course there are remnants of Feuillade but in this opus it would be hard also not to think of Lynch's work in TV, Jarmusch's approach to music in Dead Man and Rivette's career of exploring meta.  Vincent Macaigne embodies the greatest and most complex depiction of a filmmaker the medium has ever given us while Assayas inhabits the specter of JLG to give us a work that manages all at once to flood us with emotions and ideas.   

12/24/22 I watched Alain Guiraudie's Nobody's Hero.  It has much to say about France's current racial issues even if I found it a bit muddled in its subtext and conception.  

12/26/22 I watched James Cameron's Avatar: The Way of Water.  Way too long.  I admire Cameron's ambition and ability to transport us somewhere else but he overstays his welcome by about an hour.

1/24/22 I watched Steven Speilberg's The Fabelmans.  Spielberg's most autobiographical film to date is full of a few touching moments like the final scene with John Ford but mostly I found it unsure in its acting, tone, and emotional arc.  

4/9/22 I watched Austin and Meredith Bragg's Pinball: The Man Who Saved The Game.  I enjoyed its fresh material - I had never heard this story about pinball.  I also appreciated its warm spirit and strong acting for a film of this size.  

6/3/23 I watched Christophe Honore's Winter Boy.  I've been a fan of the few Honore works I've seen, in particular Sorry Angel.  In this one, there are moving moments and the acting is sublime but I never fully felt the milieu because the style, the coldness of the photography specifically, seemed a bit too overbearing.

6/28/23 I watched Laura Poitras' All the Beauty and the Bloodshed.  I was a fan of Poitras' Citizenfour and although I liked her latest a little less it sneaks up on you.  Particularly as it starts to circle back at the end to Nan's relationship with her parents and returns to her sister and her final days.  

7/28/23 I watched Max Walker-Silverman's A Love Song.  Dale Dickey turns in a great performance, full of quiet and depth.  And the film has moments that feel extraordinarily lived-in, fresh and real.  I felt it all a little thin when it ended, like I needed to spend longer in the world and be a part of a few more of her interactions.

10/21/23 I watched Lizzie Gottlieb's Turn Every Page: The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb.  One of these docs, although not rigorously made, that immediately made me want to seek additional information about the people it features.

2/6/24 I watched Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern's Meet Me in the Bathroom.  Great early views into The Strokes, LCD Soundsystem, Interpol, TV On The Radio and others.

2/10/24 I watched CB Stockfleth's The Elephant 6 Recording Co.  Fascinating for me to learn this originated less than an hour away from me in Ruston.  I can't wait to dig more into Olivia Tremor Control, Apples in Stereo and Neutral Milk Hotel.

4/10/24 I watched Thomas von Steinaecker's Werner Herzog: Radical Dreamer. Not earth shattering but I most appreciated it for the understanding it provided of Herzog's upbringing.

Favorite (four), eighty

Just like in my other seventy-nine posts in this series, I want to take a second to single out the highlights of my recent film viewing.  Most of the films I have been glad to see but only a very few have stayed with me.  This series is my filter for those and my hope is one or two will be good to you as well.

Sidney J Furie's Sheila Levine Is Dead and Living in New York

Someone close to me when they were in their early thirties made the comment that they had already seen and read almost every great work and so there was no longer much of a need to seek out undiscovered movies or albums.  The seeking muscle had been quenched.  

I don't think the above statement is all that uncommon of a sentiment for people coming out of the rich discovery phase of their teens and twenties.  But I also feel it inhibits many rewarding future discoveries, particularly of works that are a bit more hidden and unknown.

Take Furie's 1975 film Sheila Levine Is Dead and Living in New York.  It was made during the period that is arguably the group of movies I have seen the most of and know the most about.  Yet not only had I never seen Sheila, I hadn't even heard about it.  

What grabbed me the most while watching Sheila is the freedom of the acting.  Furie frames the three leads at a generous distance and leaves many of their moments with unadorned direction and unbroken takes.  The acting felt brave, as though Furie was giving them an unusual amount of support and space to express themselves.   

Claire Denis and Serge Daney's Jacques Rivette, le veilleur 

This dream of a documentary consists mostly of Denis filming the great film critic Daney talking with the great filmmaker Rivette.  It is by far the most thorough portrait of Rivette I have experienced to date and ranks as one of the most enlightening documentaries I have ever seen on a filmmaker.  

Hong Sang-soo's The Woman Who Ran

I will admit the presence of Kim Min-hee immediately elevates a Hong film experience for me and she is the center of this 2020 work.  Hong has a particularly clear vision here - tell the story of Min-hee's character by filming her in long discussions with three different people from her life.  As an observer to these three (four if you count the ex-boyfriend) interactions, the viewer slowly comes to know her.  It is Hong doing what he does best, using simple means to get at complex characters and emotions.

 

Patricia Mazuy's Peaux de vaches

An extremely interesting first feature that impresses with its toughness and an ability throughout to subvert expectations of where a certain scene is headed.  It is this concoction of elements that seem recognizable - the physicality of Cassavetes, the ominous tone of The Night of the Hunter and Out of the Blue and the feel for provincial life reminiscent of Pialat.  While it has all of this.  To Mazuy's credit, in the end it feels like none of the above.