Scorcese v kubrick

[Aidan]

well?

[Moby2001]

>>well?<<

Kubrick: God
Scorcese: King

;-)

[Knut Sjurseth]

Moby2001 <moby...@aol.com> wrote in article
<19980208010...@ladder03.news.aol.com>...

Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam rivalling kings. :)
Oliver Stone, the fool, trying to assasinate them both with a magic
bullit.

-Knut-

[REllis9450]

As great as Kubrick is, Scorsese is better. Scorsese has all the filmmaking
skills of Kubrick, but he is a better director of actors. Are there any
performances in a Kubrick film to rival De Niro's work in "Mean Streets," "Taxi
Driver," and "Raging Bull?" I don't think so. Do you think Kubrick could make
a great movie like "Mean Streets" on a tight 28-day schedule and low budget,
the way Scorsese was forced to? Are there any performances in a Kubrick film
to rival DeNiro's. Of course, this is really a case of apples and (clockwork)
oranges. Kubrick does his thing, which is totally different from Scorsese's
thing, and both are geniuses.

Fun fact: When "Spartacus" was being refurbished, Scorsese was involved and
apparently had many conversations with SK over the phone. I bet those were
some interesting conversations.

[Seth Notes]

REllis9450 wrote:
>
> As great as Kubrick is, Scorsese is better. Scorsese has all the > filmmaking skills of Kubrick, but he is a better director of actors. > Are there any performances in a Kubrick film to rival De Niro's work > in "Mean Streets," "Taxi Driver," and "Raging Bull?" I don't think > so.

I do. Both R. Lee Ermey and Vincent D'Onofrio in "Full Metal Jacket."
Besides, give credit to De Niro. Scorsese is, granted, a great director
of actors, but consider this, Martin Scorsese's greatest direction of an
actress has to have been Sharon Stone in "Casino." Stone can't act.
She's been horrible in almost everything she's done. Yet, Scorsese got
a really impressive performance out of her. The movie was still only an
okay or good film.

De Niro is, by the way, a very interesting case. He only seems to give
great performances in films made by great directors (Scorsese, Cimino,
Leone, Coppola, Bertolucci). This is obviously not true of all actors.
Oddly, many of the directors for whom he's given these performances
aren't really actor's directors.

In any event, Kubrick understands that filmmaking isn't really about
acting, in the sense that stage direction is. In point of fact, he
hasn't put a lot of effort into learning how to direct actors. I recall
he once said that he learned everything he wanted to know about
directing actors from having read Stanislavsky and that was it. He cast
2001 on the basis of how the actors looked. He cast Malcolm McDowell
and Ryan O'Neal precisely for their outrageous acting styles. His
habitual reshooting comes from the fact that he oftentimes can't get the
actors to do the little he expects (and demands of them), not that he
has some fantastic ideas about how the actors should act (in the manner
of, say, Travis Bickle or Jake La Motta)

> Do you think Kubrick could make a great movie like "Mean Streets" on > a tight 28-day schedule and low budget, the way Scorsese was forced > to?

I quite agree that being able to direct under pressure is an impressive
skill. However, whether the method of production is more impressive in
Scorsese's case, the end resut is what matters. Dostoevesky took longer
to write his novels than did, say, Trollope, but Dostoevsky is clearly
the greater writer.

> Are there any performances in a Kubrick film to rival DeNiro's.
> Of course, this is really a case of apples and (clockwork)
> oranges. Kubrick does his thing, which is totally different from > Scorsese's thing, and both are geniuses.

Yes, but Scorsese's films have no significant underlying intellectual
structure. Kubrick's do. "Goodfellas" is a wonderful film, but what's
the message: crime doesn't pay? criminals aren't really romantic
people? decadence is fruitless?

Kubrick, at least, even if he refuses to condense his ideas to a
semantically convenient form, offers some intellectual vision which is
to be read and negotiated by the viewer. Kubrick is asking his viewers
to think about what he is saying. Even "Taxi Driver," which is about
alienation, doesn't do that so much. Great artists are not merely great
craftsmen. They do not simply appreciate art for arts sake. They know,
whether one speaks of Dante or Picasso or Beethoven or Shakespeare or
Joyce, that one must offer some philosophical *something* to the
reader (in the largest sense -- i.e., the person who looks at Cezanne's
paintings of Mont St. Victoire is, in fact, reading them). That
*something* needn't be a message (and preferably isn't). It certainly
oughtn't to be a political program. It is probably best left vague,
hinted at, ambivalently stated. (Clarity and immediacy are better left
to actual philosophical writings.) Kubrick, though I am certain his
influences are fairly lowbrow (B.F. Skinner, for God's sake), offers
this. Scorsese does not. The Coen Brothers offer it too. Fellini and
Leone did. Coppola and Herzog try to (though Herzog admits never to
having read a work of philosophy in his life). One of the reasons that
Godard will never be so great as he ought to be is that his
philosophical vision is bound up with a bunch of silly French radicals.
The net result is that his films, like those writings, are naive,
simltaneously overly-passionate and emotionally sterile, patronizingly
didactic, and, worst of all, completely and irredemably sincere. I'm
convinced that Godard needs to make a western (the same thing is true
for Woody Allen, Coppola, and Kurosawa).

I think that Scorsese has almost missed his calling. He ought to be
making religious movies. He ought to be exploring the rich tradition of
Catholicism (maybe historical, but perhaps better in contemporary
settings -- religious dilemmas still exists on the mean streets).
Whether or not Catholicism is right or wrong is not the point. It is
the thing to which Scorsese has access. It is the thing which he can
take seriously. For Scorsese to do a film inspired by Nietzsche or John
Stuart Mill would be a mistake. Not having seen "Kundun," I'm not
wondering if the lukewarm response it has received is due, at least in
part, to his having attempted seriously to deal with Buddhism but
failing. ("Seven Days in Tibet" it may be noted wasn't really about
Buddhism at all, except inasmuch as the audience may have learned a
little bit about the religious doctrine.) NB: "The Last Temptation of
Christ" also wouldn't really fill the bill in this case. It was his
rendition of Nikos Kazantzakis's highly idiosyncratic religious vision,
not of his own, or of his people's (remember: Scorsese wanted to be a
priest). It was a good movie, but not a great one. I, for one, would
love to see a movie in which Christianity was taken seriously (no, I'm
not a Christian), rather than merely as an object to be studied
vis-a-vis sexuality ("Priest") or "hot" issues like the death penalty
("Dead Man Walking").

> Fun fact: When "Spartacus" was being refurbished, Scorsese was > involved and apparently had many conversations with SK over the > phone. I bet those were some interesting conversations.

You never know of course. It could have been quite mundane. That
happens sometimes too. I, for one, like you would have loved to have
heard them.

[geoffrey alexander]

"Knut Sjurseth" <knu...@online.no> writes:

>-Knut-
>

Malick: the Pope.
Egoyan: the Alchemist.
Bertolucci: the Scribe.
Godard: the Wizard.

...fun game!

(Burton is really more the dispossessed prince, is he not? :)

--
Geoffrey Alexander
The Kubrick Site @ http://beethoven.iavalley.cc.ia.us/~tks

[Michael Stanley]

What a fascinating post Seth, pleasure to read.

[Michael Stanley]

I'm sure Scorsese shot for longer than 28 days on Mean Streets. Remember he
shot in both New York (exteriors) and Los Angeles (interiors).

Besides are you suggesting that Kubrick never experienced tight schedules
and budget restrictions?

Geoffrey will know how long The Killing shot for (about 20 days) and Paths
of Glory about twice that and they turned out quite acceptably.

Anyway both men survived their apprenticeship and now take their time
comfortably so I wouldn't contrast Kubrick with Scorsese as though Scorsese
was some quickie bohemian able to make any masterpiece in a month.

[Knut Sjurseth]

> >> Kubrick: God
> >> Scorcese: King
> >>
> >> ;-)
>
> >Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam rivalling kings. :)
> >Oliver Stone, the fool, trying to assasinate them both with a magic
> >bullit.
>
> >-Knut-
> >
>
> Malick: the Pope.
> Egoyan: the Alchemist.
> Bertolucci: the Scribe.
> Godard: the Wizard.
>
> ...fun game!
>
> (Burton is really more the dispossessed prince, is he not? :)

Hm. True. Sort of a "Hamlet".

-Knut-

[Knut Sjurseth]

Scorsese is *great*! But Kubrick strives for a different goal. He has
understood that this medium, film, is much too powerful to be run by
storytellers and great actor performances alone. A De Niro in 2001 would be
totally redundant and pointless. (A De Niro in "Brazil" on the other hand
was *Übergreat*!) :)

-Knut-

[Knut Sjurseth]

Having just read a book about Scorsese I understand what you're hinting at
with catholisism, a theme he's felt a distant obcession with (although he
is an atheist) throughout his career.

But I'm not so sure about your oppinions on Herzog. I wouldn't be so quick
to write him off as a dilletante. There really are *something* more to his
films than what meets the eye. Why oh why should a talented filmmaker need
to dwelve into classical philosophy in order to be able to put *something*
into his/her films??? Where did you pick up that rule?

Thanks for a highly interesting post! :)

-Knut-

[Phil Noir]

<Malick: the Pope.
Egoyan: the Alchemist.
Bertolucci: the Scribe.
Godard: the Wizard.
...fun game!>

Schumaker: The Queen.

A.I... The Grail.

[Seth Notes]

Michael Stanley wrote:

> I'm sure Scorsese shot for longer than 28 days on Mean Streets.
> Remember he shot in both New York (exteriors) and Los Angeles
> (interiors).
>
> Besides are you suggesting that Kubrick never experienced tight
> schedules and budget restrictions?

Honestly, I've no idea. The person who argued for Scorsese's
superiority argued that Scorsese filmed "Mean Streets" in 28 days and
that Kubrick had never done anything quite so quickly. I assumed it was
true, but argued that it was irrelevant.

> Anyway both men survived their apprenticeship and now take their
> time comfortably so I wouldn't contrast Kubrick with Scorsese as
> though Scorsese was some quickie bohemian able to make any
> masterpiece in a month.

I certainly agree. One of the things I most like about Scorsese's
movies is their attention to detail, especially in the case of the
"Goodfellas" and "Casino." I'm hoping that the Dean Martin (also to be
written, like those films, by Nicholas Pileggi) movie will demonstrate
the same sort of unpretentious intricacy.

[Seth Notes]

Knut Sjurseth wrote:

> But I'm not so sure about your oppinions on Herzog. I wouldn't be so
> quick to write him off as a dilletante.

If I sounded as though I were writing him off, it was unintentional.
I think he's a marvelous director sometimes. Other times, he strikes me
as abominally pretentious and unfocused (which has to do with his
working style).

> There really are *something* more to his films than what meets the
> eye.

Yes, I'd agree with that. Or, to phrase it in a slightly different way,
I'd say there's more to his films than what there immediately seems to
be.

> Why oh why should a talented filmmaker need to dwelve into classical
> philosophy in order to be able to put *something* into his/her
> films???

Well, I wouldn't say that a reading of classical philosophy (by which I
assume you mean Western philosophy generally) is necessary. As I
mentioned in my last post, I think Scorsese could benefit from turning
back to Catholicism for inspiration and there is a great deal more to
the intellectual heritage of Catholicism than just the philosophical
element. I think a Hindu (and I know nothing about Indian cinema or
literature) could make an insightful or deep movie if they so chose.
And not only that, I think it would be immediately obvious to Westerners
(or, for that matter, Taoists) that it was insightful or deep. The
point is that they have to be drawing on some form of mediation about
something significant.

So I do think that it is virtually impossible to attempt to come up with
anything meaningful to say without having read and studied widely.
People aren't able to generate interesting ideas without having
encountered many, many more of them. It's a common misperception that a
person's inherent "greatness" is adequate for him to be able to be
succesfully creative (whether as a thinker or as an artist). All but
universally, the real greatness comes with a tremendous amount of study
and a tremendous amount of work. I can't think of a single great
writer, thinker, or artist who wasn't intensely devoted to his craft.
Maybe some exist. There are certainly those whom people claim to
exist. The simple fact of the matter is that I can't see how ignorance
(I don't mean wrongheadedness, but actual ignorance) is ever helpful.

I do think that the quality of the ideas one invests in one's labors and
the tradition on which one is drawing are extremely important. A good
writer or artist can produce something entertaining or even intriguing
without a great motivating idea (Truman Capote comes to mind). But the
real greats draw on weighty ideas and heritages. Think of Joyce or
Dante. At least one of the reasons that there has not yet been a
Shakespeare of film is that few filmmakers have yet been very well
educated. The Coen brothers are an exception; so is Terrence Malick.
Woody Allen is an interesting case. He seems to be an intellectual,
claims that he isn't, wants people to think that he actually is, but
genuinely isn't.

Kubrick's films are absolutely wonderful. They are magnificent looking,
well-paced, often interesting, well acted, but I've always been quite
uncomfortable with his general world view, particularly his misanthrophy
which has struck me as more than just slightly adolescent. I mentioned
his reading of B.F. Skinner in one previous post. Look, Skinner might
be interesting here or there, but to draw so heavily on that for one's
conception of human nature strikes me as hopelessly impoverished.

And you can tell it in his public statements. He once said something
about how powerful nations behave like gangsters and smaller ones behave
like prostitutes. I admit that the actual quote has a certain ring to
it and geopolitical conflicts often resemble petty feuds while
relations between superpowers and their clients are often determined in
a very unequal fashion, but if that's the most interesting thing Kubrick
has to say about several thousand years of international politics then
he can't have thought very deeply on the matter.

Still, he clearly thinks more (and more deeply) about what he wants to
say in his films than do the people who make, say, "Titanic" or "The
Usual Suspects." (The first a film, I think, was incredibly stupid; the
second one I quite enjoyed.) Nonetheless, if you start working from
B.F. Skinner or Jung, you'll get something that might be good or bad,
but can't be too good. If you start working from Thomas Hobbes or St.
Augustine or Maimonedes or Hegel, you still might get something that
might be good or bad, but you could (if everything goes right and you
have a lot of luck and talent and work hard), get something a little
more insightful than "Full Metal Jacket." I loved "Full Metal Jacket,"
by the way. It might be the greatest war film ever made. I'm quite
sure that I've learned more about Vietnam from my reading however.
*Dispatches,* a book whose author, Michael Herr, co-wrote the "Full
Metal Jacket screenplay, comes to mind. And I really don't think that
Kubrick provided me with any new insights into human nature, under the
intense pressure of combat (even putatively futile combat) or otherwise.

Film probably will never have a Goethe or a Rabelais or a Virgil because
there are too many elements to control; and to expect any directors to
invest their projects with any sort of substantial intellectual
structure is probably to be too demanding. For my part, I try to enjoy
the good films when they come out and not look for too much insight from
them. I saw two magnificent movies recently: "Nil By Mouth" and "Four
Days in September." I really liked both of them and would recommend
both to anyone who asked, but neither could be called anything like
great. I don't discount the possibility of a true masterpiece in cinema
of the kind that would rival Dostoevsky or Rembrandt or whomever, but
I'm not expecting it either.

> Where did you pick up that rule?

It's something I've been thinking about for a long time. Harold Bloom
was significant in this. So was T.S. Eliot's essay "Tradition and the
Individual Talent." I've a friend who studies Nietzsche and he has
suggested to me embryonic versions of some of what I've said.

[Seth Notes]

Phil Noir wrote:

> Seth writes:
> <... there is a great deal more to the intellectual heritage of

> Catholicism than just the philosophical element.>
>

> Yeah, the Crusades were a blast.

I think you've missed the point of my posting (and this may be my
fault). I did not intend my argument as an apologia for the history of
Catholicism (though, since you've begged the question, I think it worth
noting that pretty much all of the criteria by which people now judge or
even condemn the nearly two thousand years of the Roman Catholic Church
have their roots in the moral and political doctrines of that Church).

I certainly didn't say that the Crusades (or, for that matter, the
Inquisition) were good. In fact, I refrained from referring to Catholic
political and military history altogether (NB: one could hardly classify
the Crusades as an element of the INTELLECTUAL heritage of the Catholic
Church). My point was only that there was a sizable body of ideas in
Catholic doctrine on which any creative artist might draw and that it
would be a good idea for someone who came out of that tradition (in this
case Scorsese, the non-believer) to look there for inspiration.

[Phil Noir]

Seth writes:
<... there is a great deal more to the intellectual heritage of Catholicism

than just the philosophical element.>

Yeah, the Crusades were a blast.

[John Benjamin Strelow]

Seth Notes <seth...@sprintmail.com> wrote:

>Yes, but Scorsese's films have no significant underlying intellectual
>structure. Kubrick's do. "Goodfellas" is a wonderful film, but what's
>the message: crime doesn't pay? criminals aren't really romantic
>people? decadence is fruitless?
>

I would disagree in your assertion that Scorsese's films have no
intellecutal structre, unless we want to play semantics games with the
meaning of "intellectual". MS puts his focus on more narrow points than
does SK. SK doesn't really make character studies. The closest is
probably _The Shining_ (or perhaps _Lolita_, which I have yet to see),
but that is as much about the dysfunction of society in general as the
dysfunction of the Torrances.

MS's _Cape Fear_, by contrast, is a horror-thriller based predominantly
on the disfunction of the central family. The mistrust between the
members of that family is at least as dangerous as DeNiro's stalking, for
it leaves them wide open to his disturbances.

MS enjoys examining the everyday lives of his characters to a different
extent than SK. If SK shows you someone's routine, it's so that you get
a better idea of the society (cf. _Barry Lyndon_ and _2001_). MS will
show you everyday lives so that you get a better sense of the character
and the specific world in which he lives. This is especially true for
his nonfiction pictures such as _GoodFellas_ and _Casino_.

I would agree with you in the sense that when SK chronicles someone's
fall, for example, it usually makes more of a comment on society and
human nature than a fall in a MS film. SK's characters fail because of
flaws in human nature, or because they're trapped in a flawed
human-designed system. MS's characters will fail because of their own
personal character traits.

I do not see that one approach is necessarily more "intellectual" than
the other. They are just different approaches.

>Kubrick, at least, even if he refuses to condense his ideas to a
>semantically convenient form, offers some intellectual vision which is
>to be read and negotiated by the viewer. Kubrick is asking his viewers
>to think about what he is saying. Even "Taxi Driver," which is about
>alienation, doesn't do that so much.

I think _Taxi Driver_ may be the one film where MS moves the most toward
the Kubrickean approach. Travis Bickle's alienation from society
comments as much on the society as it does on himself. His acceptance at
the end of the film as a hero also comments on the society.

I also feel that _Casino_ moves more in this direction, but I'm not sure
exactly how. It's more an intuitive feeling, in that when I watch
_Casino_ it seems similar to _Barry Lyndon_. I haven't sorted my
thoughts out on this comparision, however.

>Great artists are not merely great
>craftsmen. They do not simply appreciate art for arts sake. They know,

>. . . that one must offer some philosophical *something* to the

>reader (in the largest sense -- i.e., the person who looks at Cezanne's
>paintings of Mont St. Victoire is, in fact, reading them). That
>*something* needn't be a message (and preferably isn't). It certainly
>oughtn't to be a political program. It is probably best left vague,
>hinted at, ambivalently stated. (Clarity and immediacy are better left
>to actual philosophical writings.) Kubrick, though I am certain his
>influences are fairly lowbrow (B.F. Skinner, for God's sake), offers
>this. Scorsese does not. The Coen Brothers offer it too. Fellini and
>Leone did. Coppola and Herzog try to (though Herzog admits never to
>having read a work of philosophy in his life).

I disagree that the Coens offer this intangible something. I like
_Fargo_ and I love _Raising Arizona_, but I find almost no message in
either of them.

I also love Leone's films, but I fail to see where they offer more of
that something than Scorsese.

>One of the reasons that
>Godard will never be so great as he ought to be is that his
>philosophical vision is bound up with a bunch of silly French radicals.
>The net result is that his films, like those writings, are naive,
>simltaneously overly-passionate and emotionally sterile, patronizingly
>didactic, and, worst of all, completely and irredemably sincere. I'm
>convinced that Godard needs to make a western (the same thing is true
>for Woody Allen, Coppola, and Kurosawa).

Do you mean that Allen, Coppola, and Kurosawa should make westerns?
Hasn't Kurosawa come close enough by having half his work remade either
as westerns (_The Magnificent Seven_, _A Fistful of Dollars_) or as space
westerns (_Star Wars_; not exactly a remake, of course.)?

>I, for one, would
>love to see a movie in which Christianity was taken seriously (no, I'm
>not a Christian), rather than merely as an object to be studied
>vis-a-vis sexuality ("Priest") or "hot" issues like the death penalty
>("Dead Man Walking").

I too would like to see a movie where >any< religion was taken seriously.
Truly profound or interesting works about religion are few and far
between in cinema history, and next to nonexistant nowadays.

I love both Kubrick and Scorsese, but if given the choice I would rather
have Kubrick's work with me on the proverbial deserted island.

Kubrick = Bach.
Scorsese = Beethoven.

John Strelow
jstr...@ucla.edu

[HoerrJ]

geof...@beethoven.iavalley.cc.ia.us (geoffrey alexander) writes:

>Malick: the Pope.
>Egoyan: the Alchemist.
>Bertolucci: the Scribe.
>Godard: the Wizard.
>
>...fun game!
>

>(Burton is really more the dispossessed prince, is he not? :)

I'm almost afraid to ask -- who would John Waters be?

[geoffrey alexander]

"Michael Stanley" <sta...@tinet.ie> writes:

>What a fascinating post Seth, pleasure to read.

Hear, hear. And for the archive. Post more.

[geoffrey alexander]

"Michael Stanley" <sta...@tinet.ie> writes:

>I'm sure Scorsese shot for longer than 28 days on Mean Streets. Remember he
>shot in both New York (exteriors) and Los Angeles (interiors).

>Besides are you suggesting that Kubrick never experienced tight schedules
>and budget restrictions?

>Geoffrey will know how long The Killing shot for (about 20 days) and Paths

>of Glory about twice that and they turned out quite acceptably.

I am not the oracle I am only the editor :). Someone WILL know and that will
be recorded here, and on the site. THAT is what my job is. I only >appear<
delphic....

[geoffrey alexander]

phil...@aol.com (Phil Noir) writes:

><Malick: the Pope.
>Egoyan: the Alchemist.
>Bertolucci: the Scribe.
>Godard: the Wizard.
>...fun game!>

>Schumaker: The Queen.

No -- the Concubine....

>A.I... The Grail.

Yeah, I'd go with that....

[geoffrey alexander]

phil...@aol.com (Phil Noir) writes:

>Seth writes:
><... there is a great deal more to the intellectual heritage of Catholicism

>than just the philosophical element.>

>Yeah, the Crusades were a blast.

I think what he means is, that for every Aquinas there's a San Juan de la
Cruz or Teresa d'Avila. Let's spare some exactitude when the point is
serious. But of course, I'm a Vedantist; it's my nature.... ;)

[geoffrey alexander]

John Benjamin Strelow <jstr...@ucla.edu> writes:

[I've appended John's comments to the captires of Seth's post for editing
into the website article.; this struck me, however...]

>Kubrick = Bach.
>Scorsese = Beethoven.

...no; rather,

Kubrick=Beethoven
Scorsese=Felix Mendelsohnn...

[Malick=Schumann, IMO. I like Schumann....

:)]

[tak]

In article <6bl0qu$b4...@kirk.tinet.ie>, sta...@tinet.ie says...

>
>What a fascinating post Seth, pleasure to read.

Could someone repost it? I missed it the first time (although anybody who
tries to claim Herzog is a dillitente's gonna have to go through ME. And I'm
a mighty big boy... ;)

Mt
(a mighty big boy)

[Dr._Str...@juno.com]

In a new book by Martin Scorsese entitled, "A Personal Journey Through
Film with Martin Scorsese", he proves to be a huge Kubrick fan. Scorsese
says, "We are all children of D.W. Griffith and Stanley Kubrick."
Obviously a pretty high comment from one of America's greatest
filmmakers. The movies mentioned within the book are personal favorites
of Mr. Scorsese's, most of which are films from his childhood which
inspired him to pursue a career in film. Most of the films are obscure
B-movies, and foreign films although several Kubrick movies are talked
about in some detail. Scorsese even goes so far as to put a full page
picture of Kubrick in the back of the book. Obviously Scorsese is a
Kubrick fan himself.

Dr._Strangelove

-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet

[John Benjamin Strelow]

geof...@beethoven.iavalley.cc.ia.us (geoffrey alexander) wrote:

>John Benjamin Strelow <jstr...@ucla.edu> writes:

>>Kubrick = Bach.
>>Scorsese = Beethoven.
>

>...no; rather,
>
>Kubrick=Beethoven
>Scorsese=Felix Mendelsohnn...
>
>[Malick=Schumann, IMO. I like Schumann....
>
>:)]
>

Then who would Bach be? Welles, perhaps. Though I would prefer to liken
him to Buxtehude . . .

I kind of like Scorsese as Mendelssohn, in that Mendelssohn helped revive
Bach and Scorsese helps revives deteriorating films.

John Strelow
jstr...@ucla.edu

[Bryce Utting]

John Benjamin Strelow (jstr...@ucla.edu) wrote:
>>Kubrick=Beethoven
>>Scorsese=Felix Mendelsohnn...
>>
>>[Malick=Schumann, IMO. I like Schumann....
>

>Then who would Bach be? Welles, perhaps. Though I would prefer to liken
>him to Buxtehude . . .

I'd kindof figure Griffith as Bach, in the pantheon; Eisenstein as a
sort of Brahms maybe...? Nah. Welles an even-more- tragic Mozart,
though.

(Tarkovsky is a Tchaichovsky, of course)

>I kind of like Scorsese as Mendelssohn, in that Mendelssohn helped revive
>Bach and Scorsese helps revives deteriorating films.

Nice point.

butting

--
Bryce Utting http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~butting

the cross before me, the world behind me
no turning back

[Bilge Ebiri]

John Benjamin Strelow <jstr...@ucla.edu> wrote:

>Seth Notes <seth...@sprintmail.com> wrote:

>>I, for one, would
>>love to see a movie in which Christianity was taken seriously (no, I'm
>>not a Christian), rather than merely as an object to be studied
>>vis-a-vis sexuality ("Priest") or "hot" issues like the death penalty
>>("Dead Man Walking").
>
>I too would like to see a movie where >any< religion was taken seriously.
>Truly profound or interesting works about religion are few and far
>between in cinema history, and next to nonexistant nowadays.
>

Check out that atheist pederast Pier Paolo Pasolini's two masterpieces,
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW and THE HAWKS AND THE SPARROWS.
Obviously, they're not exactly recent, but they are two of the most
loving depictions of faith I have ever seen in my life.

Some would put Carl Teodor Dreyer's ORDET up there as well, but I
wouldn't.

love,

Bilge

[Martin Koolhoven]

John Benjamin Strelow wrote:

> Seth Notes <seth...@sprintmail.com> wrote:
>
> >Yes, but Scorsese's films have no significant underlying intellectual
>
> >structure. Kubrick's do. "Goodfellas" is a wonderful film, but
> what's
> >the message: crime doesn't pay? criminals aren't really romantic
> >people? decadence is fruitless?
> >

FUCK messages.

Martin (means it)

[Martin Koolhoven]

geoffrey alexander wrote:

> John Benjamin Strelow <jstr...@ucla.edu> writes:
>

> [I've appended John's comments to the captires of Seth's post for
> editing
> into the website article.; this struck me, however...]
>

> >Kubrick = Bach.
> >Scorsese = Beethoven.
>

> ...no; rather,

>
> Kubrick=Beethoven
> Scorsese=Felix Mendelsohnn...
>
> [Malick=Schumann, IMO. I like Schumann....
>

> :)]
>
> --

How aboutKubrick = Michael Jordan
Scorsese = Shaquille o'Neal (or whatever his name is)

or

Kubrick = Cola
Scorsese = 7Up

or

Kubrick = Chair
Scorsese = Table

or

Kubrick + Scorsese = Kubsese

Martin

[Phil Noir]

<Then who would Bach be? Welles, perhaps.>

I see Welles in a more Wagnerian mode...

[Gordon Dahlquist]

On 9 Feb 1998, Phil Noir wrote:

> <Then who would Bach be? Welles, perhaps.>
> I see Welles in a more Wagnerian mode...

But wagner exiled from beyreuth ...

[Zachary Isaac Ralston]

On 8 Feb 1998, geoffrey alexander wrote:

> >> Kubrick: God
> >> Scorcese: King

> >>
> >Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam rivalling kings. :)
> >Oliver Stone, the fool, trying to assasinate them both with a magic
> >bullit.
>
>

> Malick: the Pope.
> Egoyan: the Alchemist.
> Bertolucci: the Scribe.
> Godard: the Wizard.
>

Kurosawa: the Sage
Schumacher: The Witch
Bergman: the Prophet
Allen: the Jester
Lean: the Tailor

:)
-zach

[Kian Bergstrom]

In article <19980209172...@ladder02.news.aol.com>,
phil...@aol.com (Phil Noir) wrote:

<Then who would Bach be? Welles, perhaps.>
I see Welles in a more Wagnerian mode...

Considering both his career and his pioneering position in film history,
perhaps Alban Berg would be more appropriate. That might make John Ford
into Scheonberg, though, which I'm not entirely comfortable with.

Peter Greenaway would probably be Philip Glass.
Godard is Gorecki.
Altman is Steve Reich.
Maya Deren is John Cage.
Cimino is Mascagni.
Roger Corman is Satie.
Oliver Stone is Todd Machover (hehehe)

-K

------------------------------------------------------------
Kian Bergstrom - kber...@wso.williams.edu

He uses his camera like an old gunfighter with his
six shooter.
-Ryan O'Neal on Stanley Kubrick

In attempting to name everything that enters my
field of vision, I am in essence defending myself
against the hostile, unintelligable world that
presses in on me from all sides.
-from _The Magic of Words_, by Andrey Bely

ADAM WEST: I'm just a little crazy - obsessed
with fighting crime - but I have no superpowers.
SPACE GHOST: Then your whole life is a lie!
-from Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Episode 9

Finger me for my pgp public key,
and to get to know me better.

[Zachary Isaac Ralston]

On 9 Feb 1998, Bilge Ebiri wrote:

> >I too would like to see a movie where >any< religion was taken seriously.
> >Truly profound or interesting works about religion are few and far
> >between in cinema history, and next to nonexistant nowadays.
>

> Check out that atheist pederast Pier Paolo Pasolini's two masterpieces,
> THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW and THE HAWKS AND THE SPARROWS.
> Obviously, they're not exactly recent, but they are two of the most
> loving depictions of faith I have ever seen in my life.
>

Recent examples include Kundun and The Apostle.
As for the Apostle, I saw it with five other atheists, and all six of
us liked it. It's possible to not be religious and enjoy films that
inhabit a relgious agenda. That's why I like Scorsese almost as much as
Kubrick. To identify with a work of art is not to agree with the
filmmaker's moral make-up, but to accept it on external artistic grounds,
within a context, and in regard to how well that context is applied to a
particular story and character(s).

-zach

[Moby2001]

>>Kurosawa: the Sage
Schumacher: The Witch
Bergman: the Prophet
Allen: the Jester
Lean: the Tailor<<

And all the King's horses
And all the King's men
Couldn't put Michael Cimino
Back together again

;-)

[Tweeker]

> Could someone repost it? I missed it the first time (although anybody who
> tries to claim Herzog is a dillitente's gonna have to go through ME. And I'm
> a mighty big boy... ;)
>
> Mt
> (a mighty big boy)

http://www.dejanews.com records all uunet messages (except mine).

.______.
Tweek on

[Bilge Ebiri]

HAH! :)))

Beautiful...

love,

Bilge.

[BAHOA]

kubrick=guns n roses
scorsese=metalica
JUST KIDING! JUST KIDING! don't punish me.

[Knut Sjurseth]

> Kubrick = Bach.
> Scorsese = Beethoven.
>

Kubrick= Jesus
Scorsese= Buddah

Kubrick= Beatles
Scorsese= Rolling Stones

Kubrick= Marlene Dietrich
Scorsese= Madame Tussaud

Kubrick= peanut butter
Scorsese= raspberry jam

Kubrick= Monica Lewinsky
Scorsese= Paula Jones

Kubrick= sado-masochism
Scosese= transvestitism

Kubrick= vomit
Scosese= 'droppings'

...ah, can't think of anything more, now. I'm going to bed now. Good night,
world.

-Knut-

[Knut Sjurseth]

Martin Koolhoven <kool...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
> FUCK messages.
>
> Martin (means it)
>

Okay, I think we've rreahed the best and final argument in this tread. Well
said, Martin! :)

-Knut- (who'll give this whole thing a rest, now.)

[geoffrey alexander]

hoe...@aol.com (HoerrJ) writes:

>geof...@beethoven.iavalley.cc.ia.us (geoffrey alexander) writes:

>>Malick: the Pope.
>>Egoyan: the Alchemist.
>>Bertolucci: the Scribe.
>>Godard: the Wizard.
>>

>>...fun game!
>>
>>(Burton is really more the dispossessed prince, is he not? :)

>I'm almost afraid to ask -- who would John Waters be?

The frog the Princess kisses...
[score 20 for geoff....]

[geoffrey alexander]

t...@passport.ca (tak) writes:

>In article <6bl0qu$b4...@kirk.tinet.ie>, sta...@tinet.ie says...
>>
>>What a fascinating post Seth, pleasure to read.

>Could someone repost it? I missed it the first time (although anybody who

>tries to claim Herzog is a dillitente's gonna have to go through ME. And I'm
>a mighty big boy... ;)

>Mt
>(a mighty big boy)

So now, you're MAn Mountain...ya like like, Frenchie?

:)

[geoffrey alexander]

Martin Koolhoven <kool...@xs4all.nl> writes:

>geoffrey alexander wrote:

>> John Benjamin Strelow <jstr...@ucla.edu> writes:
>>
>> [I've appended John's comments to the captires of Seth's post for
>> editing
>> into the website article.; this struck me, however...]
>>

>> >Kubrick = Bach.
>> >Scorsese = Beethoven.
>>

>> ...no; rather,
>>
>> Kubrick=Beethoven
>> Scorsese=Felix Mendelsohnn...
>>
>> [Malick=Schumann, IMO. I like Schumann....
>>
>> :)]
>>
>> --

>How aboutKubrick = Michael Jordan
>Scorsese = Shaquille o'Neal (or whatever his name is)

>or

>Kubrick = Cola
>Scorsese = 7Up

>or

>Kubrick = Chair
>Scorsese = Table

>or

>Kubrick + Scorsese = Kubsese
>

>Martin
>

You Dutch are too literal, Martin. The game was in trying ying to coordinate
our residual tradition of mediaeval archetypes....

;)

[geoffrey alexander]

Bilge Ebiri <eb...@worldnet.att.net> writes:

>John Benjamin Strelow <jstr...@ucla.edu> wrote:
>>Seth Notes <seth...@sprintmail.com> wrote:
>

>>>I, for one, would
>>>love to see a movie in which Christianity was taken seriously (no, I'm
>>>not a Christian), rather than merely as an object to be studied
>>>vis-a-vis sexuality ("Priest") or "hot" issues like the death penalty
>>>("Dead Man Walking").
>>

>>I too would like to see a movie where >any< religion was taken seriously.
>>Truly profound or interesting works about religion are few and far
>>between in cinema history, and next to nonexistant nowadays.
>>

>Check out that atheist pederast Pier Paolo Pasolini's two masterpieces,
>THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW and THE HAWKS AND THE SPARROWS.
>Obviously, they're not exactly recent, but they are two of the most
>loving depictions of faith I have ever seen in my life.

>Some would put Carl Teodor Dreyer's ORDET up there as well, but I
>wouldn't.

>love,

>Bilge

Leave it to Ebiri, to put the conceptual lagniappe on the topping........

:)

[geoffrey alexander]

98...@williams.edu (Kian Bergstrom) writes:

>Peter Greenaway would probably be Philip Glass.
>Godard is Gorecki.
>Altman is Steve Reich.
>Maya Deren is John Cage.
>Cimino is Mascagni.
>Roger Corman is Satie.
>Oliver Stone is Todd Machover (hehehe)

Oh this is just silly. Roger Corman would be tone-deaf (or the younger of
the Thompson Twins....)

[Dan]

geoffrey alexander wrote:

> --
> Geoffrey Alexander
> The Kubrick Site @ http://beethoven.iavalley.cc.ia.us/~tks

Also, check out Robert Duvall's new movie, The Apostle. It's hypnotic.

You *will* tap your foot.

You *will* hum along.

You *will* see God.

[slav...@webtv.net]

Did someone say SCORCESE was an atheist?
(I thought I read he just isn't a Catholic anymore)

Is KUBRICK an atheist?

Let me know this.

Tim

p.s-I think SCORSESE is a better director of actors.

[Thrawn]

Or:

Kubrick = Elvis
Scoresee = The Rolling Stones
Schumacher = Vanilla Ice

Alex D Lg.

[Phil Noir]

slaveuno writes:
<Did someone say SCORCESE was an atheist?
(I thought I read he just isn't a Catholic anymore)
Is KUBRICK an atheist?>

I've heard that Scorcese wanders back and forth to Catholocism, but even if
he's a lapsed Catholic I doubt if he's an athiest; not in the hardcore sense
that we recognize -- perhaps a mild agnostic. The thread of spirituality in his
films seem to preclude the assumption that's he's given up on some kind of
higher power.

Kubrick seems ripe for athiesim, he has in fact made some kind of
acknowledgement to Stephen King that he doesn't believe in either [God, Hell or
ghosts] -- I forget the actual statement but to an athiest it's all pretty much
the same thing, and I am making not so great a leap here to conclude that the
man's interest in the subject is strictly artistic.

[Patrick Larkin]

Scorsese = Lou Reed
Kubrick = John Cale

[Frank Grimes]

slav...@webtv.net wrote:
>
> Did someone say SCORCESE was an atheist?
> (I thought I read he just isn't a Catholic anymore)
>
> Is KUBRICK an atheist?
>

Kubrick is Jewish

[J...@webtv.net]

What about David Lynch?
(any idea)

Tim

[Padraig L Henry]

On Sun, 08 Feb 1998 11:42:26 -0500, Seth Notes
<seth...@sprintmail.com> wrote:

>REllis9450 wrote:
>>
>> As great as Kubrick is, Scorsese is better. Scorsese has all the
>> filmmaking skills of Kubrick, but he is a better director of actors.
>> Are there any performances in a Kubrick film to rival De Niro's work
>> in "Mean Streets," "Taxi Driver," and "Raging Bull?" I don't think
>> so.
>
>I do. Both R. Lee Ermey and Vincent D'Onofrio in "Full Metal Jacket."
>Besides, give credit to De Niro. Scorsese is, granted, a great director
>of actors, but consider this, Martin Scorsese's greatest direction of an
>actress has to have been Sharon Stone in "Casino." Stone can't act.
>She's been horrible in almost everything she's done. Yet, Scorsese got
>a really impressive performance out of her. The movie was still only an
>okay or good film.

That is almost right. Scorsese also obtained very impressive
performances from his two leading women in Age of Innocence, an
underrated film and the closest Scorsese has come to emulating
Kubrick. Scorsese has often said that one of his own favourite films
(along with Brian Eno, among many others) is Kubrick`s Barry Lyndon,
and Age of Innocence is, in effect, his homage to Kubrick`s film.
While Barry Lyndon may be set in an 18th Century European context, and
Age of Innocence in a 19th Century American one, both films portray a
society`s impoverishment and social entrapment within its own forms,
protocols and rituals, its own tragedy and moral irrelevance, where
honest emotions are oppressively submerged in decorous formality, and
where the human content or humanity of an era becomes assimilated into
the autonomous distances of its artefacts and art.

>
>De Niro is, by the way, a very interesting case. He only seems to give
>great performances in films made by great directors (Scorsese, Cimino,
>Leone, Coppola, Bertolucci). This is obviously not true of all actors.
>Oddly, many of the directors for whom he's given these performances
>aren't really actor's directors.

A confusion of causality, or just coincidental? Ryan O`Neal is a lousy
actor; he was lousy in Barry Lyndon. That was Kubrick`s intention. But
because Barry Lyndon is a great film it is a mistake to conclude that
O`Neal`s acting is also great. This equally applies to many of De
Niro`s over-rated performances in great films. Unlike Scorsese,
Kubrick has never attempted, for whatever psychological or
methodological reasons (Though EWS just >might< be an exception to all
of this), to develop an emotional empathy with his actors.
>
>In any event, Kubrick understands that filmmaking isn't really about
>acting, in the sense that stage direction is. In point of fact, he
>hasn't put a lot of effort into learning how to direct actors. I recall
>he once said that he learned everything he wanted to know about
>directing actors from having read Stanislavsky and that was it. He cast
>2001 on the basis of how the actors looked. He cast Malcolm McDowell
>and Ryan O'Neal precisely for their outrageous acting styles. His
>habitual reshooting comes from the fact that he oftentimes can't get the
>actors to do the little he expects (and demands of them), not that he
>has some fantastic ideas about how the actors should act (in the manner
>of, say, Travis Bickle or Jake La Motta)

This is quite true, but I don`t believe it is due to any educational
or intellectual shortcomings on Kubrick`s part. I am certain he is
familiar with Brechtian techniques. Indeed, the problem with Kubrick`s
approach to actors up to now has been precisely his
over-intellectualisation at the expense of engendering organic social
engagement and dynamic discourse with his actors.

>
>> Do you think Kubrick could make a great movie like "Mean Streets" on
>> a tight 28-day schedule and low budget, the way Scorsese was forced
>> to?
>
>I quite agree that being able to direct under pressure is an impressive
>skill. However, whether the method of production is more impressive in
>Scorsese's case, the end resut is what matters. Dostoevesky took longer
>to write his novels than did, say, Trollope, but Dostoevsky is clearly
>the greater writer.

I do not think that time-schedules have any bearing on the end-result,
even in film. Joyce spent over 13 years on Finnegans Wake, Da Vinci
decades on the Mona Lisa, while other equally impressive work by them
was completed in record time.
>
>> Are there any performances in a Kubrick film to rival DeNiro's.
>> Of course, this is really a case of apples and (clockwork)
>> oranges. Kubrick does his thing, which is totally different from
>> Scorsese's thing, and both are geniuses.

>
>Yes, but Scorsese's films have no significant underlying intellectual
>structure. Kubrick's do. "Goodfellas" is a wonderful film, but what's
>the message: crime doesn't pay? criminals aren't really romantic
>people? decadence is fruitless?

None of these.

The intellectual structure revolves around Scorsese`s delicate
analysis of his characters` underlying motivations, psychoses, and
belief systems as mediated by their socio-economic contexts and
cultural ethos and conditioning. His moral messages are intentionally
ambiguous.
>
>Kubrick, at least, even if he refuses to condense his ideas to a
>semantically convenient form, offers some intellectual vision which is
>to be read and negotiated by the viewer. Kubrick is asking his viewers
>to think about what he is saying. Even "Taxi Driver," which is about
>alienation, doesn't do that so much. Great artists are not merely great
>craftsmen. They do not simply appreciate art for arts sake. They know,
>whether one speaks of Dante or Picasso or Beethoven or Shakespeare or
>Joyce, that one must offer some philosophical *something* to the
>reader (in the largest sense -- i.e., the person who looks at Cezanne's
>paintings of Mont St. Victoire is, in fact, reading them). That
>*something* needn't be a message (and preferably isn't). It certainly
>oughtn't to be a political program. It is probably best left vague,
>hinted at, ambivalently stated. (Clarity and immediacy are better left
>to actual philosophical writings.)

I think Taxi Driver did this brilliantly. But I also think that it is
not enough to want films, film-makers, and film criticism to be
informed by classical ideas about the arts and philosophy rather than
more modern theories. For instance, the new film theory of the last
few decades assertively challenges many previous forms of criticism,
such as the "appreciation" of the film-buff or music-lover, an
approach which often betrays the characteristics of fetishism.

Ingmar Bergman has described his own creative practice in the
following terms: "There is a brightly coloured thread sticking out of
the dark sack of the unconscious. If I begin to wind up this thread
.. a complete film will emerge" (Four Screenplays of Ingmar Bergman,
1960). The kinds of discourses which surround Bergman (and many other
artists) as a director centre on an anachronistic concept of the
self-expressive artist and perpetuate an unproblematic concept of the
imaginary of unified subjectivity itself - the myth of the coherent
philosophical vision.

> Kubrick, though I am certain his
>influences are fairly lowbrow (B.F. Skinner, for God's sake), offers
>this.

You misconstrue Kubrick`s relationship to Skinnerian behaviourism and
reinforcement theory ( do you describe it as low-brow merely because
you refute Skinner`s ideas?). Kubrick, in fact, was very critical of
Skinner`s Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971) when he observed, "It
works on the premise that human freedom and dignity have become
inconsistent with the survival of our civilisation. It`s a very
startling and sinister and not totally refutable contention, and
Clockwork Orange is very concerned with this idea" (Rolling Stone,
1972). And Clockwork Orange refutes this idea; Kubrick and his films
refute Skinner`s belief that "it is the environment that acts upon the
perceiving person, not the perceiving person who acts upon the
environment".

> Scorsese does not. The Coen Brothers offer it too. Fellini and
>Leone did. Coppola and Herzog try to (though Herzog admits never to
>having read a work of philosophy in his life).

Herzog admits to having read many works of philosophy.

> One of the reasons that
>Godard will never be so great as he ought to be is that his
>philosophical vision is bound up with a bunch of silly French radicals.

I disagree with this - they were not "silly French radicals". You seem
to be denying the integrity or "greatness" of an artist`s
philosophical vision to the extent to which such vision departs from
your own philosophical presuppositions. Ayn Rand had a fascistic
political philosophy and suffered from some hilarious and quaint
romantic delusions, yet The Fountainhead is a great novel.

>The net result is that his films, like those writings, are naive,
>simltaneously overly-passionate and emotionally sterile, patronizingly
>didactic, and, worst of all, completely and irredemably sincere. I'm
>convinced that Godard needs to make a western (the same thing is true
>for Woody Allen, Coppola, and Kurosawa).

And Kubrick and Scorsese? Godard`s films are subversive - not naive.
>
>I think that Scorsese has almost missed his calling. He ought to be
>making religious movies. He ought to be exploring the rich tradition of
>Catholicism (maybe historical, but perhaps better in contemporary
>settings -- religious dilemmas still exists on the mean streets).

His films are fundamentally informed by his "Catholic guilt" with all
its connotations.

>Whether or not Catholicism is right or wrong is not the point. It is
>the thing to which Scorsese has access. It is the thing which he can
>take seriously. For Scorsese to do a film inspired by Nietzsche or John
>Stuart Mill would be a mistake. Not having seen "Kundun," I'm not
>wondering if the lukewarm response it has received is due, at least in
>part, to his having attempted seriously to deal with Buddhism but
>failing. ("Seven Days in Tibet" it may be noted wasn't really about
>Buddhism at all, except inasmuch as the audience may have learned a
>little bit about the religious doctrine.

Buddhism is >not< a religious doctrine. It is not even a religion in
the strictest sense, but a dynamic philosophical and epistemological
<>method<.

>) NB: "The Last Temptation of
>Christ" also wouldn't really fill the bill in this case. It was his
>rendition of Nikos Kazantzakis's highly idiosyncratic religious vision,
>not of his own, or of his people's (remember: Scorsese wanted to be a
>priest). It was a good movie, but not a great one. I, for one, would

>love to see a movie in which Christianity was taken seriously (no, I'm
>not a Christian), rather than merely as an object to be studied
>vis-a-vis sexuality ("Priest") or "hot" issues like the death penalty
>("Dead Man Walking").

See my other post vis a vis Christian spirituality in film.

But as to the real challenges facing serious contemporary film-makers?
As Michel Foucault (one of those "silly French radicals"?) concluded:
"Marx and Freud? They still have a lot of harm to do to one another!"
I hope Kubrick sticks >both< his analytical and emotional boots in
with Eyes Wide Shut.

Padraig

[Padraig L Henry]

[MuseMalade]

Aren't these also elements in Visconti's THE LEOPARD and especially
Ophuls' THE EARRINGS OF MADAME DE...? I had assumed that BARRY LYNDON
and THE AGE OF INNOCENCE were both primarily influenced by those two
films.

MuseMalade

[Bilge Ebiri]

MuseMalade <musem...@aol.com> wrote:

>Aren't these also elements in Visconti's THE LEOPARD and especially
>Ophuls' THE EARRINGS OF MADAME DE...? I had assumed that BARRY LYNDON
>and THE AGE OF INNOCENCE were both primarily influenced by those two
>films.
>
>MuseMalade

Well, THE AGE OF INNOCCENCE certainly was influenced by THE LEOPARD, the
latter being one of Scorsese's "official" favorite films, but in a
stylistic sense. Visconti cuts to the heart of the social class he
portrays in THE LEOPARD essentially through a total stylistic immersion
in its rituals, to the point where he drags time and allows the viewer to
just "soak in" the atmosphere, especially in the last hour or so of the
film. The result is quite magnificent, but one gets the sense that only
someone who truly belonged to that class, a nobleman like Visconti, could
have pulled something like this off. Scorsese attempts something similar
through his cutting, but IMO his results are superficial -- his narrative
technique is suspended somewhere between BARRY LYNDON's tragic distance
and THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS' more classical expressiveness. Scorsese
wants to be there, and the film is a frenzied attempt to get there, and
in that it holds some value, as an artifact of longing that doesn't
really (IMO) get off the ground.

In that sense, BARRY LYNDON and THE LEOPARD (if I had to name the three
greatest films of all time, btw, it would be these two plus THE
CONFORMIST) are at opposite extremes of the spectrum. While BARRY LYNDON
is very specifically about our inability to break thru our boundaries and
get at the past, THE LEOPARD is a film which does so, particularly thanks
to Visconti's unique position. In that sense, THE LEOPARD really is the
only >truly< historical film ever made -- a film that shows a historical
process at work, and in fact >foregrounds< it, so much so that its
characters and situations, while completely "realistic", are also at the
service of something greater that is occuring at that very moment, in the
rise of the bourgeois classes to prominence in the wake of the
Risorgimento, and the Sicilian nobility's reaction to it and attempts to
preserve their succession and way of life. The impossible which BARRY
LYNDON presents to us is in fact the very impossible that THE LEOPARD
makes possible.

Kubrick said sometime before making BARRY LYNDON, when he was still
planning NAPOLEON, that he felt that a truly historical film had never
really been made -- I beg to differ and say that THE LEOPARD is that
film. Perhaps the very unique framing device Kubrick employs in BARRY
LYNDON was specifically the result of his attempts to penetrate the past
in his NAPOLEON project. While the subject of BARRY LYNDON is time, the
subject of THE LEOPARD is history, and in that sense, the two films
differ.

The subject of THE AGE OF INNOCENCE is, perhaps, ritual, but I wish the
result was a more compelling film.

love,

Bilge

[paddy eason]

Dan wrote:
>
> geoffrey alexander wrote:
>
> > Bilge Ebiri <eb...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
> >
> > >John Benjamin Strelow <jstr...@ucla.edu> wrote:
> > >>Seth Notes <seth...@sprintmail.com> wrote:
> > >

> > >>>I, for one, would
> > >>>love to see a movie in which Christianity was taken seriously (no, I'm
> > >>>not a Christian), rather than merely as an object to be studied
> > >>>vis-a-vis sexuality ("Priest") or "hot" issues like the death penalty
> > >>>("Dead Man Walking").
> > >>

> > >>I too would like to see a movie where >any< religion was taken seriously.
> > >>Truly profound or interesting works about religion are few and far
> > >>between in cinema history, and next to nonexistant nowadays.
> > >>
> >

I thought that Contact was pretty interesting and also even-handed on science v religion - at least for a big hollywood movie.

--

* Paddy Eason Computer Film Company, London
* mailto:pa...@cfc.co.uk http://cfc.co.uk/

There are no words in the English language that rhyme with "squirrel" or "orange".

* All opinions expressed here are solely mine.

[Martin Koolhoven]

Frank Grimes wrote:

He could still be a atheist.

Martin

[Seth Notes]

Padraig L Henry wrote:

> Seth Notes wrote:
> >De Niro is, by the way, a very interesting case. He only seems to
> >give great performances in films made by great directors (Scorsese,
> >Cimino, Leone, Coppola, Bertolucci). This is obviously not true of
> >all actors. Oddly, many of the directors for whom he's given these
> >performances aren't really actor's directors.
>
> A confusion of causality, or just coincidental?

Beats me. It may be a coincidence for all I know. It may be that he
just won't work hard unless he senses the director is going to produce
something worthwhile.

> >Yes, but Scorsese's films have no significant underlying
> >intellectual structure. Kubrick's do. "Goodfellas" is a wonderful
> >film, but what's the message: crime doesn't pay? criminals aren't
> >really romantic people? decadence is fruitless?
>
> None of these.
>
> The intellectual structure revolves around Scorsese`s delicate
> analysis of his characters` underlying motivations, psychoses, and
> belief systems as mediated by their socio-economic contexts and
> cultural ethos and conditioning. His moral messages are
> intentionally ambiguous.

This isn't exactly what I was getting at. I realize that I begged a
misinterpretation by using the word "message," which wasn't what I meant
at all. I'm not saying there isn't any analysis or framework to
"Goodfellas." I'm saying the film doesn't suggest any truly deep
understanding of... well, anything. Yes, it's nice to have ideas about
human nature and sociology, but those just help one to construct a
compelling and realistic narrative. They aren't necessarily what's
behing Scorsese's films.

> >Kubrick, at least, even if he refuses to condense his ideas to a
> >semantically convenient form, offers some intellectual vision which
> >is to be read and negotiated by the viewer. Kubrick is asking his
> >viewers to think about what he is saying. Even "Taxi Driver,"
> >which is about alienation, doesn't do that so much. Great artists
> >are not merely great craftsmen. They do not simply appreciate art
> >for arts sake. They know, whether one speaks of Dante or Picasso
> >or Beethoven or Shakespeare or Joyce, that one must offer some
> >philosophical *something* to the reader (in the largest sense --
> >i.e., the person who looks at Cezanne's paintings of Mont St.
> >Victoire is, in fact, reading them). That *something* needn't be a
> >message (and preferably isn't). It certainly oughtn't to be a
> >political program. It is probably best left vague, hinted at,
> >ambivalently stated. (Clarity and immediacy are better left
> >to actual philosophical writings.)
>
> I think Taxi Driver did this brilliantly. But I also think that it >> is not enough to want films, film-makers, and film criticism to be
> informed by classical ideas about the arts and philosophy rather
> than more modern theories. For instance, the new film theory of the
> last few decades assertively challenges many previous forms of
> criticism, such as the "appreciation" of the film-buff or music-
> lover, an approach which often betrays the characteristics of
> fetishism.

Well, to begin with I certainly don't think that any film's intellectual
structure should be based in film theory. Film theory is fine as a
guide to craft, beyond that it has nothing to say to anyone.

As far as your division between "more modern theories" and "classical
ideas" (meaning, presumably, everything that is not "modern"), I
respectfully disagree. An artist who wants to say something needs to
have ideas worth presenting. He can choose to draw on a vast array of
ideas which have developed over centuries. Or he can choose to pick a
very narrow subsection of those ideas from recent years.

> Ingmar Bergman has described his own creative practice in the
> following terms: "There is a brightly coloured thread sticking out
> of the dark sack of the unconscious. If I begin to wind up this

> thread... a complete film will emerge" (Four Screenplays of Ingmar

> Bergman, 1960). The kinds of discourses which surround Bergman (and
> many other artists) as a director centre on an anachronistic concept
> of the self-expressive artist and perpetuate an unproblematic
> concept of the imaginary of unified subjectivity itself - the myth
> of the coherent philosophical vision.

Bergman is the perfect example of what I'm talking about. "The Seventh
Seal" passes itself off as some incredibly nuanced meditation on death
and meaning. In fact it is (well made) pseudointellectual moping. I'd
rather watch that than the new "Great Expectations" of course, but
having seen it, I can't say that it really gave me anything to mull
over.

> > Kubrick, though I am certain his influences are fairly lowbrow
> > (B.F. Skinner, for God's sake), offers this.
>
> You misconstrue Kubrick`s relationship to Skinnerian behaviourism
> and reinforcement theory ( do you describe it as low-brow merely
> because you refute Skinner`s ideas?).

No, I describe it as lowbrow because it is. There are plenty of deep
ideas out there that are wrong: they are not lowbrow.

> Kubrick, in fact, was very critical of Skinner`s Beyond Freedom and
> Dignity (1971) when he observed, "It works on the premise that human
> freedom and dignity have become inconsistent with the survival of
> our civilisation. It`s a very startling and sinister and not totally
> refutable contention, and Clockwork Orange is very concerned with
> this idea" (Rolling Stone, 1972). And Clockwork Orange refutes this
> idea; Kubrick and his films refute Skinner`s belief that "it is the
> environment that acts upon the perceiving person, not the perceiving
> person who acts upon the environment".

You win here. But ultimately it doesn't alter my argument one way or
the other. The point is that Kubrick (whether he believes it or not) is
responding to Skinner. If that's his intellectual level, then that's
his intellectual level. It's not horrible, but it's not too deep
either. I'll take James Joyce or Milton any day over this sort of
thing.

> >Scorsese does not. The Coen Brothers offer it too. Fellini and
> >Leone did. Coppola and Herzog try to (though Herzog admits never
> >to having read a work of philosophy in his life).
>
> Herzog admits to having read many works of philosophy.

I once asked him about this in person at a lecture he gave. He claimed
that his sole experience reading philosophy was getting a few pages into
Hegel and stopping because his head hurt. Maybe he's said something
different elsewhere. I don't know why he would say two mutually
conflicting things, but it certainly is more than just a little
possible.

> > One of the reasons that Godard will never be so great as he ought
> > to be is that his philosophical vision is bound up with a bunch of
> > silly French radicals.
>
> I disagree with this - they were not "silly French radicals". You
> seem to be denying the integrity or "greatness" of an artist`s
> philosophical vision to the extent to which such vision departs from
> your own philosophical presuppositions.

Well, yes and no. I do think that the greatness of an artist's
philosophical vision limits the greatness of his work. I don't,
however, feel that I have to agree with his vision for his work to be
great.

And whether or not 1960s French radicals were silly or not is a debate
that we could play out all day. I, for one, have never seen anything of
real interest coming out of the debates among French communists. Pretty
much all of them strike me as self-indulgent, craving desperately to be
oppressed so they can justify their own mediocre
social positions to themselves. Marcuse is the perfect example. It is
very sexy to live in a police state (especially when the police are our
own psyches). You get to have all the romance of revolution and the
comfort of real security.

> Ayn Rand had a fascistic political philosophy and suffered from some
> hilarious and quaint romantic delusions, yet The Fountainhead is a
> great novel.

There was nothing even slightly Fascistic about Rand. If you want to
argue that capitalism is horrible, fine. But Fascistic? Hardly. Of
course, there is a Marxist tradition (which I'm pretty sure begins with
Trotsky) of arguing that Fascism must be identical with capitalism
because they are both opposed to Communism and there are, after all, two
parties in the great ideological debate (those that defend the interests
of the upper class and those that oppose them). This has always struck
me as intellectually dishonest. You can actually go back and read what
Mussolini wrote or what his intellectual predecessors believed. It
resembles the philosophy of Ayn Rand not in the least. In fact, as
opposed to Communism as Fascists tended to be, they were yet more
opposed to Capitalism, often tarring it (erroneously) with the epithet
"positivist."

Rand, to disagree with Mr. Henry yet further, was an attrociously bad
writer. Getting through *Atlas Shrugged* was painful.

> >The net result is that his films, like those writings, are naive,
> >simltaneously overly-passionate and emotionally sterile,
> >patronizingly didactic, and, worst of all, completely and
> >irredemably sincere. I'm convinced that Godard needs to make a
> >western (the same thing is true for Woody Allen, Coppola, and
> >Kurosawa).
>
> And Kubrick and Scorsese?

No and no. Godard and Woody Allen need to stop pretending they are
intellectuals because they are not. Coppola needs to make one because
he needs to get back to classical filmmaking and work in a genre for
which he has respect. Kurosawa needs to make one because he has always
wanted to.

> Godard`s films are subversive - not naive.

Godard's films are naive inasmuch as he really thinks he is being
subversive. If his films really were as subversive as he imagines them
to be, they might actually be more interesting. I actually need to see
more of his films to be quite honest. The ones I have seen however have
indicated to me that he has the disgruntlement with the modern world
that is accepted almost reflexively as a sign of sophistication, but
which really isn't saying much at all.

> >I think that Scorsese has almost missed his calling. He ought to
> >be making religious movies. He ought to be exploring the rich
> >tradition of Catholicism (maybe historical, but perhaps better in
> >contemporary settings -- religious dilemmas still exists on the
> >mean streets).

> His films are fundamentally informed by his "Catholic guilt" with
> all its connotations.

"Catholic guilt"? That's it? Look, I'm sure that in some Freudian
framework, all of Catholicism reduces to a prohibition on masturbation
or something like that, but that isn't what I'm talking about. The
simple fact of the matter is that for one and a half millenia, the
essential way of contemplating anything in the West (politics, personal
identity, morality, being, truth, art, whatever) was through Catholic
doctrine. Catholic thinking, moreover, didn't stop with the
Reformation. Scorsese or for that matter any filmmaker Catholic or not
could draw on these ideas. Besides, even if his films are informed by
his "Catholic guilt," that doesn't mean he has explored it artistically.

> >("Seven Days in Tibet" it may be noted wasn't really about
> >Buddhism at all, except inasmuch as the audience may have learned a

> >little bit about the religious doctrine.)

>
> Buddhism is >not< a religious doctrine. It is not even a religion in
> the strictest sense, but a dynamic philosophical and epistemological
> <>method<.

Okay fine. I'm no expert on Buddhism.

> But as to the real challenges facing serious contemporary film-

> makers? As Michel Foucault (one of those "silly French radicals"?)

> concluded: "Marx and Freud? They still have a lot of harm to do to
> one another!" I hope Kubrick sticks >both< his analytical and
> emotional boots in with Eyes Wide Shut.

Michel Foucault is the silly French radical par excellence actually.
Marx and Freud are interesting to an ever dwindling number of people
(who, for some reason, cling to the illusion that they are the most
significant thinkers on the planet). I suspect that trying to say
something about the tensions between the two really isn't much of a
fruitful exercise. I really have no idea what film-makers challenges
ought to be. That's for them to figure out. I do know that what they
have offered thus far has not been satisfying enough to qualify their
works as great.

I too, by the way, hope Kubrick sticks both boots in.

[Phil Noir]

Marty mentions Kubrick a few times in the current issue of "Fade In" magazine
(US). Basically they're discussing lame sex scenes and SC appears very eager to
see EWS. He ranks Kubrick below Kurusawa but is very flattering to him.

[Padraig L Henry]

On 13 Feb 1998 05:51:32 GMT, Bilge Ebiri <eb...@worldnet.att.net>
wrote:

That`s an interesting set of comparisons, Bilge. Its been so long
since I`ve seen The Leopard, or indeed any of Visconti`s films (apart
from The Dammed and Death in Venice). I must look out for a copy and
re-evaluate it anew.

Padraig

[Moby2001]

> Kubrick is Jewish
>>He could still be a atheist.

In an interview Kubrick himself stated that he had no religious upbringing
whatsoever. So, ethnically he's an American with Rumanian-Jewish roots.
Religiously, he's not anythingn we can pin a lable on.

[Aidan]

> As great as Kubrick is, Scorsese is better. Scorsese has all the
filmmaking
> skills of Kubrick, but he is a better director of actors. Are there any
> performances in a Kubrick film to rival De Niro's work in "Mean Streets,"
"Taxi

> Driver," and "Raging Bull?" I don't think so. Do you think Kubrick
could make

yes, but kubrick often worked with actors of lesser ability, in fact it
would be most interesting to see de niro in a kubrick film, just for
comparisons sake. A dave bowman as played by de niro perhaps? Or how about
a hal with the voice of joe pesci?

[Phil Noir]

Since Nobody Asked Dept:
(partial transcript of interview with Martin Scorsese, copyright FADE IN
magazine Winter 98)

MS: I see a lot of them on satellite television and Cinemax...by 12:30 at night
you see a lot of those love scenes with people somewhat naked, and you hear
soft music, and it's done with dissolves. Let's go! Let's see what Kubrick's
gonna do, you know what I'm saying?

FADE IN: As far as your contemporaries go, people at your level -- Kubrick,
Coppola , Kurosawa -- is there a sense of competition on your part, "I can't
wait to show them what I can do? "

MS: Well, I can't wait to see the new Kubrick film. My favorites around today,
on that level working are -- well, Kuosawa is on a level beyond Kubrick and all
of us.
----------------------------------------------------
Marty may be right, in fact I'm sure he's right, but I don't *care.*
:)

[Dr._Str...@juno.com]

In article <01bd39cf$6c4ad920$94927dc2@default>,

Kubrick works with actors of "lesser ability"??? I totally disagree with
that. Kubrick has worked with such talent as Jack Nicholson, (the most
nominated actor in the history of the academy), Peter Sellers, Kirk Douglass,
Sterling Hayden, Malcolm McDowell, George C. Scott, Shelley Duvall, Ryan O'
Neal, Laurence Olivier, Peter Ustinov, Tony Curtis, James Mason, Tom Cruise,
James Earl Jones (in his first major role by the way), Slim Pickens, etc. I
wouldn't consider any of these actors to be of "lesser ability". In fact
those actors have a combined 26 nominations for best actor between them. And
that's only in one category! I didn't even research into the best supporting
actor, best actress, or best supporting actress categories. I'm not saying by
any means that Scorsese doesn't work with great actors. But I believe that
they both make brilliant casting choices.
I agree with you that DeNiro did brilliant work in "Taxi Driver" and
"Mean Streets". I personally thought that his work in "Raging Bull" was
better but I won't argue that point. I believe that Peter Sellers triple-role
in "Dr. Strangelove" is as good of a performance as any role in the history of
film. Playing three roles is a challenge most actors wouldn't even attempt to
tackle but Sellers did, and to fantastic results.

-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/ Now offering spam-free web-based newsreading

[rod Munday]

Aidan wrote:
>
> > As great as Kubrick is, Scorsese is better. Scorsese has all the
> filmmaking
> > skills of Kubrick, but he is a better director of actors. Are there any
> > performances in a Kubrick film to rival De Niro's work in "Mean Streets,"
> "Taxi
> > Driver," and "Raging Bull?" I don't think so. Do you think Kubrick
> could make
>
> yes, but kubrick often worked with actors of lesser ability, in fact it
> would be most interesting to see de niro in a kubrick film, just for
> comparisons sake. A dave bowman as played by de niro perhaps? Or how about
> a hal with the voice of joe pesci?

You looking at me Hal? You LOOKING at ME!

Hmmmm...

Rod

[Clay Waldrop, Jr.]

Dr._Str...@juno.com wrote:
> Kubrick works with actors of "lesser ability"??? I totally disagree
with
> that. Kubrick has worked with such talent as Jack Nicholson, (the most
> nominated actor in the history of the academy), Peter Sellers, Kirk
Douglass,
> Sterling Hayden, Malcolm McDowell, George C. Scott, Shelley Duvall, Ryan
O'
> Neal, Laurence Olivier, Peter Ustinov, Tony Curtis, James Mason, Tom
Cruise,
> James Earl Jones (in his first major role by the way), Slim Pickens, etc.
I
> wouldn't consider any of these actors to be of "lesser ability". In fact
> those actors have a combined 26 nominations for best actor between them.
And
> that's only in one category! I didn't even research into the best
supporting
> actor, best actress, or best supporting actress categories. I'm not
saying by
> any means that Scorsese doesn't work with great actors. But I believe
that
> they both make brilliant casting choices.

I totally agree with this. I cannot understand for the life of me
why some people repeatedly say that Kubrick doesn't work with
talented actors. Are they unaware that he has made films
besides "2001?"

> I agree with you that DeNiro did brilliant work in "Taxi Driver" and
> "Mean Streets". I personally thought that his work in "Raging Bull" was
> better but I won't argue that point. I believe that Peter Sellers
triple-role
> in "Dr. Strangelove" is as good of a performance as any role in the
history of
> film. Playing three roles is a challenge most actors wouldn't even
attempt to
> tackle but Sellers did, and to fantastic results.

Absolutely. Peter Sellers in "Dr. Strangelove" and Malcolm
McDowell in ACO gave two of the very best performances I've
seen in >any< films at >any< time working under >any< director.
And these are hardly the only examples of superb performances
in Kubrick films. Kubrick's not an "actor's director?" Then just
what >is< an "actor's director?" Someone who pays equal
attention to plot, shot composition, editing, etc.? Guilty! And
a lot of filmmakers would be so lucky to be so guilty.

Clay

[Benjamin Johnson]

Padraig L Henry wrote:

> Buddhism is >not< a religious doctrine. It is not even a religion in
> the strictest sense, but a dynamic philosophical and epistemological
> <>method<.

Same difference.