OT: History and Film - Citizen Kane
mgene...@my-deja.com
I have posted this NYTimes Book Review late about William
Randolph Hearst, however, I have been intrigued by many of the
postings on this forum, dismissing the "nature" of biography as
well as how film portrays recent history (e.g., Hilary and Jackie,
The Insider, Gladiator)...
Kubrick probably read most of the Napoleon biographies for his
planned but not-executed film. How is his interest in the most
personal details of Napolean's life justified when some on AMK
have criticized the nature and intention of biographical writings and
biographies and memoirs about Kubrick himself?
Had Kubrick's film been made, would it have been "fair" to
Napoleon. Or an intrusion?
Is there a difference between a researcher's interest as opposed
to an artist's interest? Or does an "artist" or famous writer have
more freedom than "ordinary" people to "adapt," change and/or
visualize the facts of history?
Just wondering what a few of you think...
P.S. Citizen Kane is still one of my favorite films.
Best,
Genevieve
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A biography explains how William Randolph Hearst, tribune of the
people, became a crusader for capitalism.
By HAROLD EVANS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE CHIEF
The Life of William Randolph Hearst.
By David Nasaw.
Illustrated. 687 pp. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Company. $35.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
We all know how the publishing tycoon William Randolph Hearst
ends his days. He is a hollow hulk of a man entombed in a
Charles Addams mausoleum of art. Even his drunken harpy of a
mistress has abandoned him. He shuffles toward death through
Xanadu's darkened galleries, his impotence mocked by the
statuary he has spent a lifetime lifting from the palaces of Europe.
That, of course, was Orson Welles in the movie ''Citizen Kane,'' but
for most of us Charles Foster Kane and William Randolph Hearst
are indistinguishable; they morphed into the archetype of the
demagogic press baron who menaces democracy by cynical
manipulation and enriches himself in the process.
''Citizen Kane'' happens to be a distorted portrait of Hearst, but it
has for generations suborned our perceptions because Kane was
created by an artist. History has more to fear from an artist than a
hack. We see Richard III as a ''poisonous hunch-back'd toad,''
though he didn't have a hunchback at all, because Shakespeare's
intent was to epitomize evil and its inevitable retribution. Welles,
similarly, cannot allow his monster to depart, as he did in truth,
amid light and flowers at San Simeon, entertained in his final
happy years by the wittiest people in the world, attended to
devotedly by Marion Davies, his movie-star companion of 35 years,
because that finale would suggest redemption for a man who had
betrayed the socialist ideals dear to the young Welles.
David Nasaw's absorbing and ingeniously organized new
biography might finally rescue Hearst from the curse of Kane. ''The
Chief'' is not an authorized biography, but the Hearst family and the
Hearst Corporation gave Nasaw, a history professor at the City
University of New York, the keys to personal papers stored in a
Bronx warehouse since the 1920's, and the San Simeon papers
secured in a ranch bunkhouse after W. R.'s death in 1951 at the
age of 88.
Nasaw was a good choice. He is a meticulous researcher and a
cool analyst. His Hearst is altogether a larger, more sympathetic
figure than the vindictive, humorless crypto-fascist seen by the left.
He does not exculpate Hearst, the propagandist who signed up
Hitler and Mussolini and flayed Franklin D. Roosevelt as a
Communist dupe. He explains him and makes him human. We
empathize with him as a lover in his 80's writing poems to Davies,
whose descent into alcoholism all but broke his heart. We are
entertained by paradox. Nasaw shows us a tyrant who is always
courteous to his staff, so personally gentle he cannot bring himself
to sack the hopelessly incompetent. He spends fastidious
millions on his dream homes but instructs his staff to trap mice
live so they can be set free on the grounds. He is a pioneer of
slash-and-burn assaults on public figures who draws the line at
ferreting into private lives.
Mark Royce/Houghton Mifflin
David Nasaw
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"As a historian, what I wanted to do . . . was to get away from the
stories and the legends and the rumors that had circulated around
this man. Hearst was just too big and everybody had a story. And a
large number of those stories were not true. And I wanted to tell
the story from the inside out. I wanted to base my observations on
documents, on things Hearst had said and done. And I was able
to do that."
-- from an audio interview with David Nasaw (June 29, 2000)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nasaw's new material enables him to answer questions that have
intrigued earlier biographers. Why did the politically ambitious
George Hearst, his forty-niner father, yield W. R. control of The San
Francisco Examiner? W. R. was a party-loving Harvard dropout of
23, a chorus girl on each arm. His approach to scholarship, to the
distress of both his parents, was to send customized chamber
pots to his professors, each pot elaborately embossed on the
inside bottom with the professor's name. Nasaw's convincing
answer is that The Examiner was the bribe to break up their son's
infatuation with an aspiring actress, Eleanor Calhoun, who they
thought was digging for gold through her bedchamber.
The Examiner was going nowhere, anyway, so how did the boy
publisher succeed so brilliantly? Nasaw demonstrates that he did
not just buy his way up. In the crucial years, after his father's death
in 1891, he had to beg for money from his schoolmarm mother,
Phoebe, who inherited every cent of his father's fortune, and he
paid a price. Before Phoebe agreed to let him have $150,000 to
buy the failing New York Journal in 1895, he had to give up another
companion, Tessie Powers, a waitress he'd met in Cambridge
and lived with for nearly a decade.
The measure of Hearst's triumph is that when he takes over The
Examiner in 1887 he has 15,000 readers, and by his middle years
he has 20 million or more. As the Chief, he was dictating editorial
policy and news for 28 newspapers, a wire service and radio
stations, producing innovative newsreels, controlling a magazine
empire and running the Cosmopolitan film studio as one of the
most successful Hollywood movie producers in the 20's. On the
way, he invents synergy between print and film, insisting that his
magazine short-story writers give him the option on movie rights;
produces the first moving picture serials, including ''The Perils of
Pauline''; builds fabulous houses, amazing the architects with his
ability to carry multiple blueprints in his head; wins the mayoral
race in New York, only to be robbed by Tammany Hall fraud;
serves two terms in Congress; comes in second in the balloting
for president at the 1904 Democratic convention; and has a lot of
fun.
Rupert Murdoch's rise is the only modern parallel. He, too, started
with a single inherited newspaper and dared to win in multimedia,
though Murdoch has never run for public office -- or, for that matter,
written his own columns and interviews. W. R. was a delightful
writer and a keen observer. This is how he described his
contemporary Lord Northcliffe, the true creator of tabloid
journalism: ''Imagine a face that presents a mixture of Napoleon,
Edison and the left-hand cherub leaning over the frame of
Raphael's Sistine Madonna.'' W. R. had an eye for talent, but he
was inventive himself. He was insistent on news as narrative.
When there was no news, he made it with campaigns and
investigations. He was for three decades flamboyantly on the side
of the people, the immigrants and the unions -- against the
octopus in California, the Southern Pacific Railroad; against the
bosses of Tammany Hall, against the banks and Wall Street,
against the trusts and their Republican puppets. How they hated
him! As it was said of William Jennings Bryan, his onetime ally,
probably no man in civil life has exerted so much terror without
taking life.
Why did the tribune of the people become the crusader for
capitalism? It was not just hardening of the arteries. Nasaw
suggests that the turning point was the bloodshed in 1934, when
the phony peace between capital and labor ended in pitched
battles and gunfire across the country. Hearst feared that
revolutionary excesses would generate a homegrown fascist
movement that would destroy American democracy. Traveling in a
fleet of black limousines through southern and central Europe, he
saw firsthand how Nazism and Fascism had been spawned as an
antidote to Communism. The messages Nasaw examined reveal
how relentless Hearst became in enforcing execution of his
command to fight Communism. ''It is time to call in the cockroach
man,'' he instructed his editorial director. So Hearst reporters,
posing as students, set out to entrap ''un-American'' university
professors, unleashing in every city with a Hearst newspaper a
witch hunt that lasted 20 years.
Toward the end of his life, Nasaw says, W. R. relented. He was
appalled when his papers shared their files with Joe McCarthy. On
the eve of his 87th birthday, he directed his editors to back off the
anti-Communist campaign because it was irritating people and
''might be arousing war hysteria.'' Typically, he ended: ''This is a
must for all the papers. These instructions must be obeyed to the
letter.'' Untypically, his empire carried on as before, the twitchings
of a dying beast.
Nasaw's explanation of Hearst's anti-Communism is credible, but
it is harder to swallow W. R.'s response to Hitler and Mussolini. It
was one thing to commission them as columnists. (It's satisfying
to learn that the greedy Musso -- $1,500 a crack, or $15,000 in
today's currency -- could not write, and that Hitler always missed
his deadlines.) It was another to cable his New York editors to
make the Berlin correspondent's coverage of the Nazis more
favorable: ''Von Wiegand articles and cables seem too incendiary.
Think he should be instructed to send generally interesting news
without partisanship.'' The Hearst press did report the Nazi
violence, rather more than The Times of London under Geoffrey
Dawson, and in a private meeting with Hitler in 1934, Hearst did
make a personal appeal for the Jews. But he gravely misjudged
his man. It was a singular failure that he was blind to the realities
of Nazi rule and Nazi anti-Semitism. His isolationism was one of
the key factors in America's fatal hesitation before the world blew
up.
At the end of his examination of all the material, Nasaw confesses
that Hearst's confidence in Hitler remains ''baffling.'' The
conclusion is symptomatic of the scrupulous honesty that
distinguishes this biography of the most powerful publisher
America has ever known: Welles got that part right.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Harold Evans is the former editor of The Sunday Times and The
Times of London. His most recent book is ''The American
Century.''
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Mike Jackson
> I have posted this NYTimes Book Review late about William
> Randolph Hearst, however, I have been intrigued by many of the
> postings on this forum, dismissing the "nature" of biography as
> well as how film portrays recent history (e.g., Hilary and Jackie,
> The Insider, Gladiator)...
> Kubrick probably read most of the Napoleon biographies for his
> planned but not-executed film. How is his interest in the most
> personal details of Napolean's life justified when some on AMK
> have criticized the nature and intention of biographical writings and
> biographies and memoirs about Kubrick himself?
> Had Kubrick's film been made, would it have been "fair" to
> Napoleon. Or an intrusion?
> Is there a difference between a researcher's interest as opposed
> to an artist's interest? Or does an "artist" or famous writer have
> more freedom than "ordinary" people to "adapt," change and/or
> visualize the facts of history?
>
> Just wondering what a few of you think...
I think the distinction is that the biographies of Kubrick himself have
been done with little regard for the fact that they are seemingly oblivious
to the fact that his immediate family are still very much alive and bound
to be hurt by misrepresentations and outright repetition of worn out myths
about him that stretch believability to it's limits, besides the fact that
most all who knew him refute as untrue ...
To go off your topic further, I saw a bit on the making of "The Patriot"
last night on tv showing the computer animation used to create the kinds of
massive battle scenes Kubrick would have needed to realize the battle
scenes he probably envisioned for the Napoleon project he abandoned. I
couldn't help but be sad that if he'd just gotten to stay with us one more
decade, he might have finally had the computer tools to have done that
movie too...
--
Mike Jackson
Mental Pictures
Photography &
Graphic Design
(228) 696-2702 Phone/ Fax
(228) 918-4596 Cellular
mgene...@my-deja.com
men...@digiscape.com wrote:
> mgene...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> > I have posted this NYTimes Book Review late about William
> > Randolph Hearst, however, I have been intrigued by many of
the
> > postings on this forum, dismissing the "nature" of biography
as
> > well as how film portrays recent history (e.g., Hilary and Jackie,
> > The Insider, Gladiator)...
> > Kubrick probably read most of the Napoleon biographies for
his
> > planned but not-executed film. How is his interest in the most
> > personal details of Napolean's life justified when some on
AMK
> > have criticized the nature and intention of biographical writings
and
> > biographies and memoirs about Kubrick himself?
> > Had Kubrick's film been made, would it have been "fair" to
> > Napoleon. Or an intrusion?
> > Is there a difference between a researcher's interest as
opposed
> > to an artist's interest? Or does an "artist" or famous writer have
> > more freedom than "ordinary" people to "adapt," change and/or
> > visualize the facts of history?
> >
> > Just wondering what a few of you think...
>
have
> been done with little regard for the fact that they are seemingly
oblivious
> to the fact that his immediate family are still very much alive and
bound
> to be hurt by misrepresentations and outright repetition of worn
out myths
> about him that stretch believability to it's limits, besides the fact
that
> most all who knew him refute as untrue ...
Speaking of depictions...I read that Jeffery Wygand's ex-wife is
suing "someone" over what she perceived as the "unsympathetic"
portrayal of her in The Insider.
Wasn't it you, Mike, who enlightened us about The Making of The
Insider? :)
>
> To go off your topic further, I saw a bit on the making of "The
Patriot"
> last night on tv showing the computer animation used to create
the kinds of
> massive battle scenes Kubrick would have needed to realize the
battle
> scenes he probably envisioned for the Napoleon project he
abandoned. I
> couldn't help but be sad that if he'd just gotten to stay with us one
more
> decade, he might have finally had the computer tools to have
done that
> movie too...
I almost watched that piece on NBC. Part of the old-fashioned
audience member in me wants real bodies and extras.
But I guess for AI, the technology would have pleased Kubrick.
I just hope for the best regarding AI.
Best,
Genevieve
***********
Mike Jackson
> > I think the distinction is that the biographies of Kubrick himself
> have
> > been done with little regard for the fact that they are seemingly
> oblivious
> > to the fact that his immediate family are still very much alive and
> bound
> > to be hurt by misrepresentations and outright repetition of worn
> out myths
> > about him that stretch believability to it's limits, besides the fact
> that
> > most all who knew him refute as untrue ...
>
> Speaking of depictions...I read that Jeffery Wygand's ex-wife is
> suing "someone" over what she perceived as the "unsympathetic"
> portrayal of her in The Insider.
> Wasn't it you, Mike, who enlightened us about The Making of The
> Insider? :)
Yep that was me. I hadn't heard that story, which to me is funny because
Diane Verona who played her is one of my favorite actresses... I finally
saw "Heat" when it was on tv a few weeks back which I think you
recommended to me. It wasn't bad, but I missed the ending because of a
lightning storm... Alas, it was looking pretty interesting but I didn't
wanna fry my tv...
> > To go off your topic further, I saw a bit on the making of "The
> Patriot"
> > last night on tv showing the computer animation used to create
> the kinds of
> > massive battle scenes Kubrick would have needed to realize the
> battle
> > scenes he probably envisioned for the Napoleon project he
> abandoned. I
> > couldn't help but be sad that if he'd just gotten to stay with us one
> more
> > decade, he might have finally had the computer tools to have
> done that
> > movie too...
>
> I almost watched that piece on NBC. Part of the old-fashioned
> audience member in me wants real bodies and extras.
> But I guess for AI, the technology would have pleased Kubrick.
> I just hope for the best regarding AI.
>
It was one of the articles I read someplace where Kubrick was one time
talking about his plans for Napoleon and painted the picture of the
difficulty of making a film like that, perhaps having to hire an real army
and costuming them and so on. I've always imagined that was probably the
biggest reason as to why he abandoned the movie because by the 70's
something like that, on a scale with the battle scenes Spartacus would
have been cost prohibitive...
I thought the cgi soldier crowd effects looked passable on tv, but "The
Patriot" doesn't insire me enough to go see if they looke passable on the
theater screen... Simlar effects in "Titanic" didn't look entirely real...
I wonder if like in "Braveheart" Mel will tell some British soldier to "go
back to England and tell them America is free!" That Aussie sure doesn't
like the English! He keeps making movie that open a big can of whup ass on
Redcoats throughout history...
Way OT but what the hell, RIP for Walter Matthau who died today... Boy was
he ever a funny guy...
mgene...@my-deja.com
And I appreciated it. I am always glad to be enlightened. I still like
The Insider, but I like to know the 'real story' behind the scenes
and in real life. This is why I am presently reading biographies of
Jacqueline du Pre of "Hilary and Jackie." The biography written by
family members is different from the biography written by her
colleagues and former husband...The different facets of a person's
life and personality are complicated depending upon who is
writing and the decade and time about which they are writing.
Childhood, Teenage years, Early Young Man/Woman Period, and
so on...
I hadn't heard that story, which to me is funny because
> Diane Verona who played her is one of my favorite actresses...
Same here. I liked her much better in Heat.
I finally
> saw "Heat" when it was on tv a few weeks back which I think you
> recommended to me. It wasn't bad, but I missed the ending
because of a
> lightning storm... Alas, it was looking pretty interesting but I didn't
> wanna fry my tv...
Mike, You MUST rent it (during better weather conditions). They cut
a million scenes from the televised version. You know what the
networks do, It wasn't the "real" Heat.
I think he would have made Napoleon anyway, had the studios let
him...
> I thought the cgi soldier crowd effects looked passable on tv, but
"The
> Patriot" doesn't insire me enough to go see if they looke
passable on the
> theater screen... Simlar effects in "Titanic" didn't look entirely
real...
I totally agree. It looked so fake in "Titanic." But this is just the
beginning. I still hope there will another David Lean one day who
prefers to shoot on location. It's the difference between watching a
documentary on Istanbul and visiting it. Travelling is a very
important part of life and I would hate to think we are losing
authenticity in films, but I think we have already.
>
> I wonder if like in "Braveheart" Mel will tell some British soldier to
"go
> back to England and tell them America is free!" That Aussie sure
doesn't
> like the English! He keeps making movie that open a big can of
whup ass on
> Redcoats throughout history...
Well, he is originally from the States, right? He was born
"American" and his father took his children to Australia so that his
children wouldn't be drafted one day (Vietnam War).
>
> Way OT but what the hell, RIP for Walter Matthau who died
today... Boy was
> he ever a funny guy...
Oh, I've not heard this yet. He was really funny...Thank you for
telling us.
Best,
Genevieve
***********
Mike Jackson
> > Yep that was me.
>
> And I appreciated it. I am always glad to be enlightened. I still like
> The Insider, but I like to know the 'real story' behind the scenes
> and in real life. This is why I am presently reading biographies of
> Jacqueline du Pre of "Hilary and Jackie." The biography written by
> family members is different from the biography written by her
> colleagues and former husband...The different facets of a person's
> life and personality are complicated depending upon who is
> writing and the decade and time about which they are writing.
> Childhood, Teenage years, Early Young Man/Woman Period, and
> so on...
I watched an interview with George Clooney last night on Charlie Rose and he
was talking about the tremendous responsibility he felt toward portraying a
man who had died in "The Perfect Storm"; that he they couldn't just make say
a girlfriend mean to fix a plot point or give the character motivation for
going to sea because that would hurt a real person. I always liked George
though he has yet to really get to do a great film (I haven't seen The
Perfect Storm yet) but that's a consideration I don't think many people in
the Hollywood factory style of film make when it comes to those dreaded
words "based on a true story"...
I was sort of heartened to hear him talk about how they approached depicting
what no one can know about the Andrea Gail, which was what did happen in
those hours after contact was lost before it sank. It's the kind of thing
that you get in these kinds of movies that tell stuff that is really just
pure speculation and fabrication. Since they couldn't know, they at least
made that part entertaining and a sort of gift to those men's families and
loved ones from the way he described it. I'm looking forward to seeing that
one...
I particularly liked "Reversal of Fortune" where the law students all sit
around spinning their own ideas of what happened in the unknowable
circumstances of Sunny Von Bullow's coma and we see several versions and
then there's Glenn Close's voice as Sunny saying 'and that's all there is to
know and when you're where I am you'll know the truth...' That was one of
the only times I can really think of that something like that was done
well...
These "true stories" kind of books and movies can be instructive,
educational and moving, but one has to remember that they are just that;
stories... And one must remain skeptical of third hand information when
sometimes you can't even believe what you see with your own eyes...
> > I hadn't heard that story, which to me is funny because
> > Diane Verona who played her is one of my favorite actresses...
>
> Same here. I liked her much better in Heat.
>
> I finally
> > saw "Heat" when it was on tv a few weeks back which I think you
> > recommended to me. It wasn't bad, but I missed the ending
> because of a
> > lightning storm... Alas, it was looking pretty interesting but I didn't
> > wanna fry my tv...
>
> Mike, You MUST rent it (during better weather conditions). They cut
> a million scenes from the televised version. You know what the
> networks do, It wasn't the "real" Heat.
That kind of film suits Pacino much better... I thought the whole side story
of DeNiro and the girl was getting pretty drippy towards the end. I had to
cut out around the part where the girlfriend warns off Kilmer...
I've gotten to the point where I delight in the creative looping of
profanity in 'edited for tv'... There's nothing like the hilarity of
watching some really bad guy screaming "You mother jumper!" or Son of a
bear!" or something equally silly to replace the idea of 'profane'
language...
> > It was one of the articles I read someplace where Kubrick was
> one time
> > talking about his plans for Napoleon and painted the picture of
> the
> > difficulty of making a film like that, perhaps having to hire an real
> army
> > and costuming them and so on. I've always imagined that was
> probably the
> > biggest reason as to why he abandoned the movie because by
> the 70's
> > something like that, on a scale with the battle scenes Spartacus
> would
> > have been cost prohibitive...
>
> I think he would have made Napoleon anyway, had the studios let
> him...
I wonder... Remember he'd have needed thousands of period costumed extras...
I can't recall any movie of that sort since the sixties really... At least
not on the scale of recreating a Napoleonic battle...
> > I thought the cgi soldier crowd effects looked passable on tv, but
> "The
> > Patriot" doesn't insire me enough to go see if they looke
> passable on the
> > theater screen... Simlar effects in "Titanic" didn't look entirely
> real...
>
> I totally agree. It looked so fake in "Titanic." But this is just the
> beginning. I still hope there will another David Lean one day who
> prefers to shoot on location. It's the difference between watching a
> documentary on Istanbul and visiting it. Travelling is a very
> important part of life and I would hate to think we are losing
> authenticity in films, but I think we have already.
Well, authenticity is pretty ephemeral in the first place... Movies
Hollywood style are really just giant entertainment business ventures for
the most part and occasionally an artist or two slips in under the radar. I
think that CGI effects and digital tools will give smaller scale productions
epic feels in the future, though how to distribute them to a large audience
will remain a problem...
> > I wonder if like in "Braveheart" Mel will tell some British soldier to
> "go
> > back to England and tell them America is free!" That Aussie sure
> doesn't
> > like the English! He keeps making movie that open a big can of
> whup ass on
> > Redcoats throughout history...
>
> Well, he is originally from the States, right? He was born
> "American" and his father took his children to Australia so that his
> children wouldn't be drafted one day (Vietnam War).
I don't know, I always assumed he was Australian, but I don't follow E!
celeb profiles too closely. I still am always learning some factoid about
Kubrick here I never heard of before... I really loved "Tim" which is a
practically unknown Gibson film. I adored Piper Laurie ever since...
> > Way OT but what the hell, RIP for Walter Matthau who died
> today... Boy was
> > he ever a funny guy...
>
> Oh, I've not heard this yet. He was really funny...Thank you for
> telling us.
Too bad Old Foghorn wound up in "Fail Safe" instead of "Dr. Strangelove"...
He' would have been funny in that I'm sure...
Thornhill
>life and personality are complicated depending upon who is
>writing and the decade and time about which they are writing.
>Childhood, Teenage years, Early Young Man/Woman Period, and
>so on...
And, how does a person's biography change depending on the age,
nationality, education, gender, language (just to mention a few)
of the biographer? How might a biography of Napoleon, Hitler or
even Du Pre, change by the time the year 3000 rolls around?
Biography is very much like History. It is told only by the
victors. However, that doesn't necessarily discount the story
and history of the vanquished. It just colonizes it and gives
it a shape that the life may likely never have occupied itself,
or at least the life of the mind. It is all the most peculiar
mesh. Perhaps mush.
Thornhill
-----------------------------------------------------------
Got questions? Get answers over the phone at Keen.com.
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mgene...@my-deja.com
Thornhill <cthornhil...@worldnet.att.net.invalid> wrote:
> >The different facets of a person's
> >life and personality are complicated depending upon who is
> >writing and the decade and time about which they are writing.
> >Childhood, Teenage years, Early Young Man/Woman Period,
and
> >so on...
>
> And, how does a person's biography change depending on the
age,
> nationality, education, gender, language (just to mention a few)
> of the biographer? How might a biography of Napoleon, Hitler or
> even Du Pre, change by the time the year 3000 rolls around?
> Biography is very much like History. It is told only by the
> victors. However, that doesn't necessarily discount the story
> and history of the vanquished. It just colonizes it and gives
> it a shape that the life may likely never have occupied itself,
> or at least the life of the mind. It is all the most peculiar
> mesh. Perhaps mush.
>
> Thornhill
Excellent points, Thornhill. So, what's your main point here - that all
history is mush or that we should read and view everything with a
Block of Salt?
What frightens me is that many Americans only learn history (if
they do at all) from "the movies."
Genevieve
***********
Mike Jackson
> >The different facets of a person's
> >life and personality are complicated depending upon who is
> >writing and the decade and time about which they are writing.
> >Childhood, Teenage years, Early Young Man/Woman Period, and
> >so on...
>
> And, how does a person's biography change depending on the age,
> nationality, education, gender, language (just to mention a few)
> of the biographer?
It certainly makes me, who can speak no other language other than the
tiniest smattering of German, to wonder what I miss when I see a
non-english character from history walking around and spouting off in
perfect english in a Hollywood movie... I was never able to watch "The
Ten Commandments" without laughing hysterically after seeing Billy
Crystal lampooning Edward G. Robinson's nasal "Where's yer Moses nooow?
Where's yer Moses nooow?"
> How might a biography of Napoleon, Hitler or
> even Du Pre, change by the time the year 3000 rolls around?
It'll be like watching "Futurama". In the Year 3000 every school child
will know that Bill Gates invented the computer and Lucas and Spielberg
invented the movies and so on... Oh, and Solent Green, well, let's jut
say you'll want to skip that entree...
> Biography is very much like History. It is told only by the
> victors. However, that doesn't necessarily discount the story
> and history of the vanquished. It just colonizes it and gives
> it a shape that the life may likely never have occupied itself,
> or at least the life of the mind. It is all the most peculiar
> mesh. Perhaps mush.
"Who cares about the fifth Earl of Bathsdrop and Lady Higgenbottom
and... and... who killed Nigel Grinchgibbons?"
"I can feel my butt gettin' sore already!"
"Look upon me! I'll show you the life of the mind! I'll show you the
life of the Mind! I WILL SHOW YOU THE LIFE OF THE MIND!"
mgene...@my-deja.com
I dread those words too - and: "inspired by actual events."
> I was sort of heartened to hear him talk about how they
approached depicting
> what no one can know about the Andrea Gail, which was what
did happen in
> those hours after contact was lost before it sank. It's the kind of
thing
> that you get in these kinds of movies that tell stuff that is really
just
> pure speculation and fabrication. Since they couldn't know, they
at least
> made that part entertaining and a sort of gift to those men's
families and
> loved ones from the way he described it. I'm looking forward to
seeing that
> one...
Perhaps you will tell us what you think after you have seen this
film.
> I particularly liked "Reversal of Fortune" where the law students
all sit
> around spinning their own ideas of what happened in the
unknowable
> circumstances of Sunny Von Bullow's coma and we see several
versions and
> then there's Glenn Close's voice as Sunny saying 'and that's all
there is to
> know and when you're where I am you'll know the truth...' That
was one of
> the only times I can really think of that something like that was
done
> well...
Oh yes, I thought that was an extremely well-done film. This is a
good example of how a film based on recent "actual events' can be
made.
> These "true stories" kind of books and movies can be instructive,
> educational and moving, but one has to remember that they are
just that;
> stories... And one must remain skeptical of third hand
information when
> sometimes you can't even believe what you see with your own
eyes...
One must be even be skeptical of first hand information and
primary sources.
I don't know if you know this, but I maintain a website on Kubrick's
second wife, Ruth Sobotka. I have interviewed dozens of family
members, colleagues and a few of Kubrick's friends, and it has
been really been difficult to pull everything together. Sobotka was a
different person to certain family members who wanted to view her
in their own way, and she was a different person with her friends,
colleagues, husbands, etc.
I do not know if there is one truth, so to speak, in summing up a
person's character or personality, let alone, life. There are facts,
but even those can be somewhat elusive and tricky. (The website
is:
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~mgenevieve/ruthsobotkaprofile.ind
ex.html - if you are interested or mortified).
> > > I hadn't heard that story, which to me is funny because
> > > Diane Verona who played her is one of my favorite
actresses...
> >
> > Same here. I liked her much better in Heat.
> >
> > I finally
> > > saw "Heat" when it was on tv a few weeks back which I think
you
> > > recommended to me. It wasn't bad, but I missed the ending
> > because of a
> > > lightning storm... Alas, it was looking pretty interesting but I
didn't
> > > wanna fry my tv...
> >
> > Mike, You MUST rent it (during better weather conditions). They
cut
> > a million scenes from the televised version. You know what the
> > networks do, It wasn't the "real" Heat.
>
> That kind of film suits Pacino much better... I thought the whole
side story
> of DeNiro and the girl was getting pretty drippy towards the end. I
had to
> cut out around the part where the girlfriend warns off Kilmer...
Drippy? Why was it drippy? This reminds me of a little boy wanting
to skip the mushy scenes and get back to the "real action."
I didn't quite believe the romance between De Niro and his
girlfriend, although it had its moments. The beauty of the film was
that Michael Mann did a fine study of the relationships in Heat with
many of the leading characters. I mean, you don't just want the
bank heist scene and a purely action film, do you? This is why I
admire Mann because he gives you everything. He has directed
some of the most touching, human scenes in Heat and The Last
of The Mohicans that I have seen in years. It is like watching
Coppola at times. You get the whole picture. Women and children
are left out like some kind of distraction.
> I've gotten to the point where I delight in the creative looping of
> profanity in 'edited for tv'... There's nothing like the hilarity of
> watching some really bad guy screaming "You mother jumper!"
or Son of a
> bear!" or something equally silly to replace the idea of 'profane'
> language...
Yeah, that is hilarious, especially when De Niro is aiming to kill
some bastard in a hotel room, right, De Niro is going to say: Look
at me, look at me, you son of a bear!
But it wasn't his idea not to make Napoleon, was it? After all, he
made Barry Lyndon instead, which was no small feat. Just a
beautiful scaled-down version of whatever.
True on the first sentence. But audiences were thrilled with
Lawrence of Arabia. Now the history part, well...we won't go there.
> > > I wonder if like in "Braveheart" Mel will tell some British
soldier to
> > "go
> > > back to England and tell them America is free!" That Aussie
sure
> > doesn't
> > > like the English! He keeps making movie that open a big can
of
> > whup ass on
> > > Redcoats throughout history...
> >
> > Well, he is originally from the States, right? He was born
> > "American" and his father took his children to Australia so that
his
> > children wouldn't be drafted one day (Vietnam War).
>
> I don't know, I always assumed he was Australian, but I don't
follow E!
> celeb profiles too closely. I still am always learning some factoid
about
> Kubrick here I never heard of before... I really loved "Tim" which is
a
> practically unknown Gibson film. I adored Piper Laurie ever
since...
Never had seen that one, strangely enough. The first Gibson film I
saw was Gallapoli [sic] and that was another historical film I rather
not argue about...(since it involves a 'Middle Eastern' country).
Actually, most of the articles on Gibson bring up the fact that he
was born in the States.
> > > Way OT but what the hell, RIP for Walter Matthau who died
> > today... Boy was
> > > he ever a funny guy...
> >
> > Oh, I've not heard this yet. He was really funny...Thank you for
> > telling us.
>
> Too bad Old Foghorn wound up in "Fail Safe" instead of "Dr.
Strangelove"...
> He' would have been funny in that I'm sure...
You think so? Matthau in Dr. Strangelove?
I think I'm the only one on Earth who liked Fail Safe. Perhaps
because I liked Henry Fonda in political films.
Well, Mike, it has been great having this conversation with you
today. Too bad we haven't discussed Citizen Kane! ;)
I thought the book review made some interesting points about
what people think they know about Hearst from a film considered
to be the greatest film ever made - by some critics.
Best,
Genevieve
***********
Thornhill
>history is mush or that we should read and view everything with
a
>Block of Salt?
>What frightens me is that many Americans only learn history (if
>they do at all) from "the movies."
Genevieve,
Well, a block of salt is awfully 'like' a mush pile. I'm not
sure there is so very much to trust in "History", in any case.
We can know a few things...Napoleon was in this area, in this
month, in this year, etc...but I'm not sure that historical
perfection in a representation is always the very best choice
for fiction, whether biography or not. But, this is tricky.
It's like the debate nearcently about 'FMJ's Vietnam - Fact or
Fabrication?' Well, yes, the buildings are about as close to
authentic as you can get, as is the 'sense' of the fiction,
too. But then, if it were 'truly' lifelike, there would have
been dead bodies here and there, being tripped over and avoided
and simply part of the terrain. And at that moment of
"depictive reality" the film would have taken a dive instantly,
which may be the reason SK shot it as if it were on the moon and
hardly Vietnam at all (I say that while thinking FMJ is one of
the finest representations of war on film I've ever seen).
These sorts of things that are the window dressing for combat
usually do not play well to the rear echelon in the movie
theatre. It's difficult enough for a well-written book.
Spielberg attempted some of this in SPR. But re: the first 20-
30 minutes or so, he knew that to show it for what it was would
be interpreted by audiences as fantastical and 'not at all like
war', too brutal, and almost 'pornographic' (his own term). He
didn't get near close enough to "reality", but it was a good
try. So, my point is that History is a construct that is ever
changing and never really comprehensible or 'pinnable'. To try
to re-create life and death in fiction (and there *is* nothing
but fiction!) is quite the hardest thing to do. It's a fools
errand to try without a sense of balance, distance and
proximity, abstraction and empathy. In these, Stanley was
unparalleled (but, what else is new?).
Mike Jackson
> > I was sort of heartened to hear him talk about how they
> approached depicting
> > what no one can know about the Andrea Gail, which was what
> did happen in
> > those hours after contact was lost before it sank. It's the kind of
> thing
> > that you get in these kinds of movies that tell stuff that is really
> just
> > pure speculation and fabrication. Since they couldn't know, they
> at least
> > made that part entertaining and a sort of gift to those men's
> families and
> > loved ones from the way he described it. I'm looking forward to
> seeing that
> > one...
>
> Perhaps you will tell us what you think after you have seen this
> film.
I was actually thinking about trying to see it tomorrow. I broke my right
ankle the last weekend in May and I've been crawling the floor because this
damned cast prevents me from crawling the walls! I did a little test the
other day to see if I could drive with my left foot operating the gas and
brakes and I think I'm up to it finally...
> > These "true stories" kind of books and movies can be instructive,
> > educational and moving, but one has to remember that they are
> just that;
> > stories... And one must remain skeptical of third hand
> information when
> > sometimes you can't even believe what you see with your own
> eyes...
>
> One must be even be skeptical of first hand information and
> primary sources.
>
> I don't know if you know this, but I maintain a website on Kubrick's
> second wife, Ruth Sobotka. I have interviewed dozens of family
> members, colleagues and a few of Kubrick's friends, and it has
> been really been difficult to pull everything together. Sobotka was a
> different person to certain family members who wanted to view her
> in their own way, and she was a different person with her friends,
> colleagues, husbands, etc.
> I do not know if there is one truth, so to speak, in summing up a
> person's character or personality, let alone, life. There are facts,
> but even those can be somewhat elusive and tricky. (The website
> is:
> http://www.home.earthlink.net/~mgenevieve/ruthsobotkaprofile.ind
> ex.html - if you are interested or mortified).
I'll check it out...
> > > Mike, You MUST rent it (during better weather conditions). They
> cut
> > > a million scenes from the televised version. You know what the
> > > networks do, It wasn't the "real" Heat.
> >
> > That kind of film suits Pacino much better... I thought the whole
> side story
> > of DeNiro and the girl was getting pretty drippy towards the end. I
> had to
> > cut out around the part where the girlfriend warns off Kilmer...
>
> Drippy? Why was it drippy? This reminds me of a little boy wanting
> to skip the mushy scenes and get back to the "real action."
> I didn't quite believe the romance between De Niro and his
> girlfriend, although it had its moments.
that's what I meant, it was kinda too pat. On the other hand Verona and
Pacino are much better together and they had the best scenes. In fact their
relationship scenes were vastly more interesting than the shootem up stuff.
I wonder if that massive battle with machine guns was before after that real
life shootem up in LA a few years back where the guys botched their getaway
and held off the police for hours?
> The beauty of the film was that Michael Mann did a fine study of the
> relationships in Heat with many of the leading characters. I mean, you
> don't just want the bank heist scene and a purely action film, do you?
> This is why I admire Mann because he gives you everything. He has directed
> some of the most touching, human scenes in Heat and The Last of The
> Mohicans that I have seen in years. It is like watching Coppola at times.
> You get the whole picture. Women and children are left out like some kind
> of distraction.
Well it's the old Movies For Guys Who Like Movies vs The Chick Flick
argument... Personally I like movies that can strike more of a balance
between the two extremes. One of the things I disliked about EWS was we
spent more time following Dr. Bill around and less on what happened with
Alice. I watched Annie Hall again recently when it was on TCM or AMC I
forget which and I started thinking about EWS. The confessional scene Alice
has and just that whole scene like most of Annie Hall is something all men
and women can relate to because we've all walked through the same mine
fields sooner or later in relationships... In EWS, like in any horror movie
where the audience in general is tempted to scream "don't go in there!
that's where the monster is!", I'm sure every guy that saw EWS was watching
it like I was knowing that Bill was in trouble long before he even got into
bed with that joint. He doesn't even look at her when she asks how o I look
and he later he launches into his ill advised explanation about how women
are to his wife. There's nothing more universal than watching men and women
dance with their brains like that, full of possibilities both dramatic and
comic as they usually turn a simple misunderstanding from a waltz into a
verbal slugfest...
> > I've gotten to the point where I delight in the creative looping of
> > profanity in 'edited for tv'... There's nothing like the hilarity of
> > watching some really bad guy screaming "You mother jumper!"
> or Son of a
> > bear!" or something equally silly to replace the idea of 'profane'
> > language...
>
> Yeah, that is hilarious, especially when De Niro is aiming to kill
> some bastard in a hotel room, right, De Niro is going to say: Look
> at me, look at me, you son of a bear!
"You freaking son of a gun bumpkin!"
> > > I think he would have made Napoleon anyway, had the studios
> let
> > > him...
> >
> > I wonder... Remember he'd have needed thousands of period
> costumed extras...
> > I can't recall any movie of that sort since the sixties really... At
> least
> > not on the scale of recreating a Napoleonic battle...
>
> But it wasn't his idea not to make Napoleon, was it? After all, he
> made Barry Lyndon instead, which was no small feat. Just a
> beautiful scaled-down version of whatever.
I haven't had the opportunity of reading any bios so I don't know what made
him to abandon it, though I suspect from the one interview I read where he
talked about it that it was probably just too big...
> > Well, authenticity is pretty ephemeral in the first place... Movies
> > Hollywood style are really just giant entertainment business
> ventures for
> > the most part and occasionally an artist or two slips in under the
> radar. I
> > think that CGI effects and digital tools will give smaller scale
> productions
> > epic feels in the future, though how to distribute them to a large
> audience
> > will remain a problem...
>
> True on the first sentence. But audiences were thrilled with
> Lawrence of Arabia. Now the history part, well...we won't go there.
Well, you could do Lawrence with digital tools probably one day. All it's
going to take is the ability to create CGI that finally makes people wonder
what's live and what's Memorex. As for the rest, you'll still need good
actors, writers directors and producers. The easier and better those tools
get will make it possible for more people to at least have the kinds of
production and artistic control like Kubrick had to fight the studio system
for...
>
> > > Well, he is originally from the States, right? He was born
> > > "American" and his father took his children to Australia so that
> his
> > > children wouldn't be drafted one day (Vietnam War).
> >
> > I don't know, I always assumed he was Australian, but I don't
> follow E!
> > celeb profiles too closely. I still am always learning some factoid
> about
> > Kubrick here I never heard of before... I really loved "Tim" which is
> a
> > practically unknown Gibson film. I adored Piper Laurie ever
> since...
>
> Never had seen that one, strangely enough. The first Gibson film I
> saw was Gallapoli [sic] and that was another historical film I rather
> not argue about...(since it involves a 'Middle Eastern' country).
> Actually, most of the articles on Gibson bring up the fact that he
> was born in the States.
"Tim" is about a somewhat mentally challenged boy played by Gibson who falls
in love with a much older Piper who has a time trying to figure out what to
do with this situation. The actors that play Mel's parents in the film are
terrific too. It's worth watching, more so than many other things like the
Mad Max films...
> > Too bad Old Foghorn wound up in "Fail Safe" instead of "Dr.
> Strangelove"...
> > He' would have been funny in that I'm sure...
>
> You think so? Matthau in Dr. Strangelove?
> I think I'm the only one on Earth who liked Fail Safe. Perhaps
> because I liked Henry Fonda in political films.
It's a great film and long time one of my favorites. I saw it long before I
ever saw DS. It's a pity that the two films are often pitted against each
other though... Matthau was great as the smarmy scientist wanting to hit
first and be what was it 10 million up on casualties. I can only think of
"Pelam One Two Three" where he played another straight sort of dramatic
role. My brain is admittedly mushy on film recall at the moment though...
I'm hoping that AMC or TCM will reel off a mini film fest for him like
they've done for other greats when they pass on...
> Well, Mike, it has been great having this conversation with you
> today. Too bad we haven't discussed Citizen Kane! ;)
> I thought the book review made some interesting points about
> what people think they know about Hearst from a film considered
> to be the greatest film ever made - by some critics.
You know, I love the visual style of Citizen Kane and I am always amazed by
the fact that Welles is so young and reeling this movie off when I watch it,
but I really don't know enough to talk about too intelligently. I don't know
much about Hearst so that's why I didn't even take a stab at it. I haven't
even seen Kane in over a year or two, so I'd probably want to watch it again
if I can hobble around and find my copy... I'm afraid my vhs collection
looks like it's organized somewhat like Dr. Emmet Brown would do it...
Cheers
Thornhill
bio the other day. There were a couple of roundhouse punches
against Welles because he was a "lousy historian", which was
amusing since "Citizen Kane" isn't history, whether based on
Hearst or not. Nasaw may be fine biographer, but seems
goofussly uncritical regarding film.
Mike Jackson
> (Boaz -- cordially invited -- jumps into the fray)
All hail and welcome..
> I attended a seminar last fall at UCLA, where Haskell Wexler and
> Penelope Spheeris were discussing documentaries. It was rather
> interesting to hear Wexler call documentaries "fiction" because he felt
> that as soon as one uses their camera to focus on a particular piece of
> reality it no longer becomes reality but a manipulated form of reality
> that the filmmaker decides the public will see. In that sense,
> dramatic films based on true stories are works of fiction as well,
> since we are not seeing the actual persons but actors portraying real
> people. And all too often dialogue is re-written and augmented to work
> within a dramatic structure that doesn't necessarily follow true facts
> or sequence of events. Certainly, this goes back to Shakespeare with
> his "historical" plays, and probably before that -- probably as far
> back as Sophocles and the other Greek playwrights.
Well, it's like those silly "reality shows" that have sprung up in recent
years. Who in their right minds thinks that someone is 'themself' when
there's a cameraman and sound guy following you around?
> > I dread those words too - and: "inspired by actual events."
>
> I know what you mean. TV movies for the last fifteen years or more
> have made that phrase into a joke.
>
> I have a screenplay that I've written and have been working on trying
> to get it made as an independent feature. It is a true story, based on
> the published memoirs of its author, who also collaborated with me on
> the script. This person is not famous in any way, yet his story is
> quite remarkable and is worthy of a film. The problem I have had in
> generating interest in it among some people in Hollywood is that this
> person is not famous, therefore the script can be altered in any way
> the money people would see fit because "who's going to know the
> difference?" The problem is that any suggestions for changes come off
> as hokey and cliched compared to the actual events. But try telling
> that to someone who only sees the movie as "product" to park butts in
> theater seats and sell popcorn. Also, there are two scenes that might
> be misconstrued as "religious" when they are really not, but they are
> also the reasons this story exists in the first place. I can't tell
> you how many times I've been told to eliminate those to scenes. That
> would be like eliminating Kennedy's assasination from "JFK." These two
> scenes are not only major plot points but the foundation of the story's
> existence. (And let's not go into the historical problems surrounding
> Stone's film right now.)
Unfortunately if you don't want to listen to someone else's two cents of
script direction, you go to get the power to make it yourself... Garrison
Kellior once said something about politics that I think applies to the
suits of Hollywood in that both seem to attract a lot of people with too
much time on their hands... In Hollywood it's like you can't make a movie
without having a couple of car chases, a lot of scenes with guns and a
least one female nude scene; all other plots need not apply...
> > > I was sort of heartened to hear him talk about how they
> > approached depicting
> > > what no one can know about the Andrea Gail, which was what
> > did happen in
> > > those hours after contact was lost before it sank. It's the kind of
> > thing
> > > that you get in these kinds of movies that tell stuff that is really
> > just
> > > pure speculation and fabrication. Since they couldn't know, they
> > at least
> > > made that part entertaining and a sort of gift to those men's
> > families and
> > > loved ones from the way he described it. I'm looking forward to
> > seeing that
> > > one...
> >
> > Perhaps you will tell us what you think after you have seen this
> > film.
>
> I intend to see it as well soon. I'll throw my two cents worth in, if
> that's all right with everyone else here. I've been a bit testy
> lately, especially being overly sensitive about AFI. Sorry. It's just
> that there was a lot more going on than a lot of people were assuming.
The AFI is a large load of fetid dingo kidneys that occasionally stumbles
into congratulating good work, but often is simply trying to please all the
people all the time...
> > > These "true stories" kind of books and movies can be instructive,
> > > educational and moving, but one has to remember that they are
> > just that;
> > > stories... And one must remain skeptical of third hand
> > information when
> > > sometimes you can't even believe what you see with your own
> > eyes...
> >
> > One must be even be skeptical of first hand information and
> > primary sources.
>
> I agree. It's like trying to get information from six different people
> who just witnessed a crime or accident; you end up getting six
> different versions of the same event.
"He went thataway!"
> > > > Mike, You MUST rent it (during better weather conditions). They
> > cut
> > > > a million scenes from the televised version. You know what the
> > > > networks do, It wasn't the "real" Heat.
>
> I saw it when NBC ran it. They cut most of the scene with Pacino and
> De Niro together in the coffee shop. Idiots.
But I'm sure they made up for it with a a string of award winning
commercials...
> > Drippy? Why was it drippy? This reminds me of a little boy wanting
> > to skip the mushy scenes and get back to the "real action."
> > I didn't quite believe the romance between De Niro and his
> > girlfriend, although it had its moments. The beauty of the film was
> > that Michael Mann did a fine study of the relationships in Heat with
> > many of the leading characters. I mean, you don't just want the
> > bank heist scene and a purely action film, do you? This is why I
> > admire Mann because he gives you everything. He has directed
> > some of the most touching, human scenes in Heat and The Last
> > of The Mohicans that I have seen in years. It is like watching
> > Coppola at times. You get the whole picture. Women and children
> > are left out like some kind of distraction.
>
> The scenes with De Niro and Brenneman were very important to the
> story. All through the film De Niro boasts about how he can just
> remove himself from a situation in a short period of time if the heat
> gets too hot, unlike his partners in crime who are married or have
> girlfriends or who have houses and debts and things like that. Now his
> own beliefs are put to the test when he finds himself in love with this
> young woman whom he meets in a diner. He no longer can just drop what
> he's doing and look for higher ground, he now has to think about this
> woman, who is also a decent person with aspirations of being a
> commercial artists -- meaning she lives the straight life. He is now
> backed in a corner and faces a crisis of conscience over continuing his
> life as a criminal and dragging this woman into a lifestyle she doesn't
> deserve or to try to go straight himself with the money he has stashed
> away over the years and take this woman with him to a "safer"
> environment. It's his last act to get that one person who messed up
> the original heist that does De Niro in, and it even hurts Pacino
> emotionally when he has to do what he does at the end. It's a very
> moving final scene. So I say, yes, the scenes with De Niro and
> Brenneman are VERY essential to the whole story.
I didn't get to see the ending yet, but I thought the chemistry just wasn't
quite there with Brenneman and DeNiro in the parts I did see. The plot
point you mention though is one that is a good one though. Too many people
like DeNiro's character don't stop to think about the consequences of their
actions. I felt it was a bit thready for DeNiro to be so concerned about
anyone else when his character is the kind of guy that is firing an
automatic weapon indiscriminately on a city street though... In fairness I
didn't get to see the whole movie but I felt like Mann was trying to make
me feel sympathy for DeNiro were as the Kubrick style I admire is one of
simply laying out the story with a little more indifference for
sentimentalizing...
> > > I've gotten to the point where I delight in the creative looping of
> > > profanity in 'edited for tv'... There's nothing like the hilarity of
> > > watching some really bad guy screaming "You mother jumper!"
> > or Son of a
> > > bear!" or something equally silly to replace the idea of 'profane'
> > > language...
> >
> > Yeah, that is hilarious, especially when De Niro is aiming to kill
> > some bastard in a hotel room, right, De Niro is going to say: Look
> > at me, look at me, you son of a bear!
>
> Network TV is so pathetic. That's why I try to keep cable. I would
> prefer they not run movies if that's what they're going to keep doing.
> Just run their silly shows like "Who Wants to Be Married to a
> Millionaire Survivor?"
I thought it was "Who Wants To Eat A Millionaire Survivor"?
> > > > I think he would have made Napoleon anyway, had the studios
> > let
> > > > him...
>
> Kubrick was ready to make Napoleon right after "2001," but MGM pulled
> the plug when they found themselves in financial straights, mostly from
> spending on lavish spectacles that didn't make money. Only "Doctor
> Zhivago" and "2001" proved to be moneymakers, but they weren't enough
> to keep the good ship MGM afloat, so major cuts were made. Also, this
> came at a time when "Easy Rider" came out, and the studios decided that
> low budget independet movies for young people were the real money
> makers (sound familiar?).
>
> As for costuming and feeding extras portraying Napopleon's army, that
> too would be a major expense. There is a running joke out here in L.A.
> that goes, "Extras are props that eat." Like props in a film, one
> needs the extras for believability, but one also has to feed them as
> well.
Am I crazy or didn't he mention the idea of like hiring the a chunk of the
real French army for Napoleon?
> > > I wonder... Remember he'd have needed thousands of period
> > costumed extras...
> > > I can't recall any movie of that sort since the sixties really... At
> > least
> > > not on the scale of recreating a Napoleonic battle...
> >
> > But it wasn't his idea not to make Napoleon, was it? After all, he
> > made Barry Lyndon instead, which was no small feat. Just a
> > beautiful scaled-down version of whatever.
>
> "Barry Lyndon" was his alternative to Napoleon. But it still took
> about ten months and $11 million of Warner Bros. money to pull it off.
Wouldn't that have made it only slightly more expensive than Star Wars
around the same time?
> > > Well, authenticity is pretty ephemeral in the first place... Movies
> > > Hollywood style are really just giant entertainment business
> > ventures for
> > > the most part and occasionally an artist or two slips in under the
> > radar. I
> > > think that CGI effects and digital tools will give smaller scale
> > productions
> > > epic feels in the future, though how to distribute them to a large
> > audience
> > > will remain a problem...
>
> My big fear is that CGI will be the backlot of the 21st century, just
> as the studio backlots were considered "satisfactory" for the movie
> makers up until the end of WWII.
Well, I do too, but it just might make it possible that you could say shoot
your film project on a new high def video, edit digitally for much less
than film and retain the control you seek. It's not a perfect alternative,
but it is a least one that's getting more possible...
> > > > Well, he is originally from the States, right? He was born
> > > > "American" and his father took his children to Australia so that
> > his
> > > > children wouldn't be drafted one day (Vietnam War).
> > >
> > > I don't know, I always assumed he was Australian, but I don't
> > follow E!
> > > celeb profiles too closely. I still am always learning some factoid
> > about
> > > Kubrick here I never heard of before... I really loved "Tim" which
> is
> > a
> > > practically unknown Gibson film. I adored Piper Laurie ever
> > since...
>
> I'm surprised that no one here has mentioned that the Australians don't
> particularly like the English. If you've seen "Galipoli" or "Breaker
> Morant," you see clearly the Australian attitude towards England and
> vice versa. Remember, Australia was originally a penal colony for
> England's most disreputable people, and many English still feel that
> way towards Australia today.
I'm always amazed, though not well educated on why they shipped them >so<
far away from England. I've always supposed it was for a slave/prisoner
labor factor... You'd think they would have learned a lesson with their
long distance empire management skills from dealing with the former colony
of the United States...
> Part of the outrage against the English
> in "Breaker Morant" was that they treated the Australians as scapegoats
> to appease the Germans so as not to drag Germany into the Boer War (and
> since Morant, an Englishman, was so friendly with the Australians,
> particularly his unit, the Bushfeld Carboniers, the English felt he was
> now one of "them"). The irony to all of this was that more than ten
> years later England and Germany would be going at it anyway with WWI,
> including heavy fighting in Africa. (And I might add here
> that "Breaker Morant" owes a lot to Kubrick's "Paths of Glory" in its
> sturucture and its attudes towards war.)
I'll put in on my list of films to see again soon... I think I saw it, but
don't remember it or Galipoli very well...
> > Never had seen that one, strangely enough. The first Gibson film I
> > saw was Gallapoli [sic] and that was another historical film I rather
> > not argue about...(since it involves a 'Middle Eastern' country).
> > Actually, most of the articles on Gibson bring up the fact that he
> > was born in the States.
>
> Yes, but he spent most of his youth in Australia, which makes him by
> character and temperament Australian. There is a story where Gibson
> was going to audition for the lead in "Mad Max" and he'd gotten into a
> fight the night before by some tough Aussies who thought he was too
> much of a "pretty boy." He came to George Miller's office with his
> cuts and bruises and Miller cast him immediately. This may be
> another "urban legend" but it also suggests how rough and tumble the
> Aussies can get at times.
I thought we got a pretty good caricature from Crocodile Dundee...
G'day!
mgene...@my-deja.com
> > That kind of film suits Pacino much better... I thought the whole
> side story
> > of DeNiro and the girl was getting pretty drippy towards the
end. I
> had to
> > cut out around the part where the girlfriend warns off Kilmer...
>
> Drippy? Why was it drippy? This reminds me of a little boy
wanting
> to skip the mushy scenes and get back to the "real action."
> I didn't quite believe the romance between De Niro and his
> girlfriend, although it had its moments. The beauty of the film
was
> that Michael Mann did a fine study of the relationships in Heat
with
> many of the leading characters. I mean, you don't just want the
> bank heist scene and a purely action film, do you? This is why I
> admire Mann because he gives you everything. He has directed
> some of the most touching, human scenes in Heat and The Last
> of The Mohicans that I have seen in years. It is like watching
> Coppola at times. You get the whole picture. Women and
children
> are left out like some kind of distraction.
Sorry, Mike. I mean to write: Women and children are NOT left out
of the film like some kind of distraction.
boaz...@my-deja.com
(Boaz -- cordially invited -- jumps into the fray)
I attended a seminar last fall at UCLA, where Haskell Wexler and
Penelope Spheeris were discussing documentaries. It was rather
interesting to hear Wexler call documentaries "fiction" because he felt
that as soon as one uses their camera to focus on a particular piece of
reality it no longer becomes reality but a manipulated form of reality
that the filmmaker decides the public will see. In that sense,
dramatic films based on true stories are works of fiction as well,
since we are not seeing the actual persons but actors portraying real
people. And all too often dialogue is re-written and augmented to work
within a dramatic structure that doesn't necessarily follow true facts
or sequence of events. Certainly, this goes back to Shakespeare with
his "historical" plays, and probably before that -- probably as far
back as Sophocles and the other Greek playwrights.
>
> I dread those words too - and: "inspired by actual events."
I know what you mean. TV movies for the last fifteen years or more
have made that phrase into a joke.
I have a screenplay that I've written and have been working on trying
to get it made as an independent feature. It is a true story, based on
the published memoirs of its author, who also collaborated with me on
the script. This person is not famous in any way, yet his story is
quite remarkable and is worthy of a film. The problem I have had in
generating interest in it among some people in Hollywood is that this
person is not famous, therefore the script can be altered in any way
the money people would see fit because "who's going to know the
difference?" The problem is that any suggestions for changes come off
as hokey and cliched compared to the actual events. But try telling
that to someone who only sees the movie as "product" to park butts in
theater seats and sell popcorn. Also, there are two scenes that might
be misconstrued as "religious" when they are really not, but they are
also the reasons this story exists in the first place. I can't tell
you how many times I've been told to eliminate those to scenes. That
would be like eliminating Kennedy's assasination from "JFK." These two
scenes are not only major plot points but the foundation of the story's
existence. (And let's not go into the historical problems surrounding
Stone's film right now.)
>
> > I was sort of heartened to hear him talk about how they
> approached depicting
> > what no one can know about the Andrea Gail, which was what
> did happen in
> > those hours after contact was lost before it sank. It's the kind of
> thing
> > that you get in these kinds of movies that tell stuff that is really
> just
> > pure speculation and fabrication. Since they couldn't know, they
> at least
> > made that part entertaining and a sort of gift to those men's
> families and
> > loved ones from the way he described it. I'm looking forward to
> seeing that
> > one...
>
> Perhaps you will tell us what you think after you have seen this
> film.
I intend to see it as well soon. I'll throw my two cents worth in, if
that's all right with everyone else here. I've been a bit testy
lately, especially being overly sensitive about AFI. Sorry. It's just
that there was a lot more going on than a lot of people were assuming.
>
I agree. It's like trying to get information from six different people
who just witnessed a crime or accident; you end up getting six
different versions of the same event.
>
> I don't know if you know this, but I maintain a website on Kubrick's
> second wife, Ruth Sobotka. I have interviewed dozens of family
> members, colleagues and a few of Kubrick's friends, and it has
> been really been difficult to pull everything together. Sobotka was a
> different person to certain family members who wanted to view her
> in their own way, and she was a different person with her friends,
> colleagues, husbands, etc.
> I do not know if there is one truth, so to speak, in summing up a
> person's character or personality, let alone, life. There are facts,
> but even those can be somewhat elusive and tricky. (The website
> is:
> http://www.home.earthlink.net/~mgenevieve/ruthsobotkaprofile.ind
> ex.html - if you are interested or mortified).
I can only speak for myself, Gen. I'm impressed with your site. I
think it's very well done, like an on-line biography. Do you plan to
do more on it, expanding it, as it were?
>
> > > > I hadn't heard that story, which to me is funny because
> > > > Diane Verona who played her is one of my favorite
> actresses...
> > >
> > > Same here. I liked her much better in Heat.
> > >
> > > I finally
> > > > saw "Heat" when it was on tv a few weeks back which I think
> you
> > > > recommended to me. It wasn't bad, but I missed the ending
> > > because of a
> > > > lightning storm... Alas, it was looking pretty interesting but I
> didn't
> > > > wanna fry my tv...
> > >
> > > Mike, You MUST rent it (during better weather conditions). They
> cut
> > > a million scenes from the televised version. You know what the
> > > networks do, It wasn't the "real" Heat.
I saw it when NBC ran it. They cut most of the scene with Pacino and
De Niro together in the coffee shop. Idiots.
> >
> > That kind of film suits Pacino much better... I thought the whole
> side story
> > of DeNiro and the girl was getting pretty drippy towards the end. I
> had to
> > cut out around the part where the girlfriend warns off Kilmer...
>
> Drippy? Why was it drippy? This reminds me of a little boy wanting
> to skip the mushy scenes and get back to the "real action."
> I didn't quite believe the romance between De Niro and his
> girlfriend, although it had its moments. The beauty of the film was
> that Michael Mann did a fine study of the relationships in Heat with
> many of the leading characters. I mean, you don't just want the
> bank heist scene and a purely action film, do you? This is why I
> admire Mann because he gives you everything. He has directed
> some of the most touching, human scenes in Heat and The Last
> of The Mohicans that I have seen in years. It is like watching
> Coppola at times. You get the whole picture. Women and children
> are left out like some kind of distraction.
The scenes with De Niro and Brenneman were very important to the
story. All through the film De Niro boasts about how he can just
remove himself from a situation in a short period of time if the heat
gets too hot, unlike his partners in crime who are married or have
girlfriends or who have houses and debts and things like that. Now his
own beliefs are put to the test when he finds himself in love with this
young woman whom he meets in a diner. He no longer can just drop what
he's doing and look for higher ground, he now has to think about this
woman, who is also a decent person with aspirations of being a
commercial artists -- meaning she lives the straight life. He is now
backed in a corner and faces a crisis of conscience over continuing his
life as a criminal and dragging this woman into a lifestyle she doesn't
deserve or to try to go straight himself with the money he has stashed
away over the years and take this woman with him to a "safer"
environment. It's his last act to get that one person who messed up
the original heist that does De Niro in, and it even hurts Pacino
emotionally when he has to do what he does at the end. It's a very
moving final scene. So I say, yes, the scenes with De Niro and
Brenneman are VERY essential to the whole story.
>
> > I've gotten to the point where I delight in the creative looping of
> > profanity in 'edited for tv'... There's nothing like the hilarity of
> > watching some really bad guy screaming "You mother jumper!"
> or Son of a
> > bear!" or something equally silly to replace the idea of 'profane'
> > language...
>
> Yeah, that is hilarious, especially when De Niro is aiming to kill
> some bastard in a hotel room, right, De Niro is going to say: Look
> at me, look at me, you son of a bear!
Network TV is so pathetic. That's why I try to keep cable. I would
prefer they not run movies if that's what they're going to keep doing.
Just run their silly shows like "Who Wants to Be Married to a
Millionaire Survivor?"
>
> > > > It was one of the articles I read someplace where Kubrick
> was
> > > one time
> > > > talking about his plans for Napoleon and painted the picture
> of
> > > the
> > > > difficulty of making a film like that, perhaps having to hire an
> real
> > > army
> > > > and costuming them and so on. I've always imagined that
> was
> > > probably the
> > > > biggest reason as to why he abandoned the movie because
> by
> > > the 70's
> > > > something like that, on a scale with the battle scenes
> Spartacus
> > > would
> > > > have been cost prohibitive...
> > >
> > > I think he would have made Napoleon anyway, had the studios
> let
> > > him...
Kubrick was ready to make Napoleon right after "2001," but MGM pulled
the plug when they found themselves in financial straights, mostly from
spending on lavish spectacles that didn't make money. Only "Doctor
Zhivago" and "2001" proved to be moneymakers, but they weren't enough
to keep the good ship MGM afloat, so major cuts were made. Also, this
came at a time when "Easy Rider" came out, and the studios decided that
low budget independet movies for young people were the real money
makers (sound familiar?).
As for costuming and feeding extras portraying Napopleon's army, that
would be a major expense. There is a running joke out here in L.A.
that goes, "Extras are props that eat." Like props in a film, one
needs the extras for believability, but one also has to feed them as
well.
> >
> > I wonder... Remember he'd have needed thousands of period
> costumed extras...
> > I can't recall any movie of that sort since the sixties really... At
> least
> > not on the scale of recreating a Napoleonic battle...
>
> But it wasn't his idea not to make Napoleon, was it? After all, he
> made Barry Lyndon instead, which was no small feat. Just a
> beautiful scaled-down version of whatever.
"Barry Lyndon" was his alternative to Napoleon. But it still took
about ten months and $11 million of Warner Bros. money to pull it off.
>
My big fear is that CGI will be the backlot of the 21st century, just
as the studio backlots were considered "satisfactory" for the movie
makers up until the end of WWII. Parts of "Spartacus" suffer from too
much studio-bound work, either on the backlot or -- worse -- on sound
stages. But these were things Kubrick had no control over, since he
was a "hired hand," as he put it. Universal, which produced the movie,
insisted the film be shot in the States, considering how much it cost
MGM to do "Ben-Hur" in Italy. (Yes, the major battle in "Spartacus"
was done in Spain, but the rest of the movie was done right here in
southern California, including pick-up shots of the battle, and they
don't match very well.)
I'm surprised that no one here has mentioned that the Australians don't
particularly like the English. If you've seen "Galipoli" or "Breaker
Morant," you see clearly the Australian attitude towards England and
vice versa. Remember, Australia was originally a penal colony for
England's most disreputable people, and many English still feel that
way towards Australia today. Part of the outrage against the English
in "Breaker Morant" was that they treated the Australians as scapegoats
to appease the Germans so as not to drag Germany into the Boer War (and
since Morant, an Englishman, was so friendly with the Australians,
particularly his unit, the Bushfeld Carboniers, the English felt he was
now one of "them"). The irony to all of this was that more than ten
years later England and Germany would be going at it anyway with WWI,
including heavy fighting in Africa. (And I might add here
that "Breaker Morant" owes a lot to Kubrick's "Paths of Glory" in its
sturucture and its attudes towards war.)
>
> Never had seen that one, strangely enough. The first Gibson film I
> saw was Gallapoli [sic] and that was another historical film I rather
> not argue about...(since it involves a 'Middle Eastern' country).
> Actually, most of the articles on Gibson bring up the fact that he
> was born in the States.
Yes, but he spent most of his youth in Australia, which makes him by
character and temperament Australian. There is a story where Gibson
was going to audition for the lead in "Mad Max" and he'd gotten into a
fight the night before by some tough Aussies who thought he was too
much of a "pretty boy." He came to George Miller's office with his
cuts and bruises and Miller cast him immediately. This may be
another "urban legend" but it also suggests how rough and tumble the
Aussies can get at times.
>
> > > > Way OT but what the hell, RIP for Walter Matthau who died
> > > today... Boy was
> > > > he ever a funny guy...
> > >
> > > Oh, I've not heard this yet. He was really funny...Thank you for
> > > telling us.
As I said in another post, he was a joy to watch.
> >
> > Too bad Old Foghorn wound up in "Fail Safe" instead of "Dr.
> Strangelove"...
> > He' would have been funny in that I'm sure...
>
> You think so? Matthau in Dr. Strangelove?
> I think I'm the only one on Earth who liked Fail Safe. Perhaps
> because I liked Henry Fonda in political films.
>
> Well, Mike, it has been great having this conversation with you
> today. Too bad we haven't discussed Citizen Kane! ;)
> I thought the book review made some interesting points about
> what people think they know about Hearst from a film considered
> to be the greatest film ever made - by some critics.
>
> Best,
> Genevieve
> ***********
Well, for what it's worth, Gen, I'D like to discuss "Kane." Where
would you like to begin?
Boaz
And to read something that is not historical, doesn't have Mel Gibson
in it, isn't re-looped for network TV and doesn't involve William
Randolph Hearst, check out "I Only Have Eyes For You," a parody in four
unnatural acts by Boaz and Ichorwhip:
http://homestead.deja.com/user.boaz8741/eyes4u.html
boaz...@my-deja.com
(Boaz -- cordially invited -- jumps into the fray)
I attended a seminar last fall at UCLA, where Haskell Wexler and
Penelope Spheeris were discussing documentaries. It was rather
interesting to hear Wexler call documentaries "fiction" because he felt
that as soon as one uses their camera to focus on a particular piece of
reality it no longer becomes reality but a manipulated form of reality
that the filmmaker decides the public will see. In that sense,
dramatic films based on true stories are works of fiction as well,
since we are not seeing the actual persons but actors portraying real
people. And all too often dialogue is re-written and augmented to work
within a dramatic structure that doesn't necessarily follow true facts
or sequence of events. Certainly, this goes back to Shakespeare with
his "historical" plays, and probably before that -- probably as far
back as Sophocles and the other Greek playwrights.
>
> I dread those words too - and: "inspired by actual events."
I know what you mean. TV movies for the last fifteen years or more
have made that phrase into a joke.
I have a screenplay that I've written and have been working on trying
to get it made as an independent feature. It is a true story, based on
the published memoirs of its author, who also collaborated with me on
the script. This person is not famous in any way, yet his story is
quite remarkable and is worthy of a film. The problem I have had in
generating interest in it among some people in Hollywood is that this
person is not famous, therefore the script can be altered in any way
the money people would see fit because "who's going to know the
difference?" The problem is that any suggestions for changes come off
as hokey and cliched compared to the actual events. But try telling
that to someone who only sees the movie as "product" to park butts in
theater seats and sell popcorn. Also, there are two scenes that might
be misconstrued as "religious" when they are really not, but they are
also the reasons this story exists in the first place. I can't tell
you how many times I've been told to eliminate those to scenes. That
would be like eliminating Kennedy's assasination from "JFK." These two
scenes are not only major plot points but the foundation of the story's
existence. (And let's not go into the historical problems surrounding
Stone's film right now.)
>
> > I was sort of heartened to hear him talk about how they
> approached depicting
> > what no one can know about the Andrea Gail, which was what
> did happen in
> > those hours after contact was lost before it sank. It's the kind of
> thing
> > that you get in these kinds of movies that tell stuff that is really
> just
> > pure speculation and fabrication. Since they couldn't know, they
> at least
> > made that part entertaining and a sort of gift to those men's
> families and
> > loved ones from the way he described it. I'm looking forward to
> seeing that
> > one...
>
> Perhaps you will tell us what you think after you have seen this
> film.
I intend to see it as well soon. I'll throw my two cents worth in, if
that's all right with everyone else here. I've been a bit testy
lately, especially being overly sensitive about AFI. Sorry. It's just
that there was a lot more going on than a lot of people were assuming.
>
I agree. It's like trying to get information from six different people
who just witnessed a crime or accident; you end up getting six
different versions of the same event.
>
> I don't know if you know this, but I maintain a website on Kubrick's
> second wife, Ruth Sobotka. I have interviewed dozens of family
> members, colleagues and a few of Kubrick's friends, and it has
> been really been difficult to pull everything together. Sobotka was a
> different person to certain family members who wanted to view her
> in their own way, and she was a different person with her friends,
> colleagues, husbands, etc.
> I do not know if there is one truth, so to speak, in summing up a
> person's character or personality, let alone, life. There are facts,
> but even those can be somewhat elusive and tricky. (The website
> is:
> http://www.home.earthlink.net/~mgenevieve/ruthsobotkaprofile.ind
> ex.html - if you are interested or mortified).
I can only speak for myself, Gen. I'm impressed with your site. I
think it's very well done, like an on-line biography. Do you plan to
do more on it, expanding it, as it were?
>
> > > > I hadn't heard that story, which to me is funny because
> > > > Diane Verona who played her is one of my favorite
> actresses...
> > >
> > > Same here. I liked her much better in Heat.
> > >
> > > I finally
> > > > saw "Heat" when it was on tv a few weeks back which I think
> you
> > > > recommended to me. It wasn't bad, but I missed the ending
> > > because of a
> > > > lightning storm... Alas, it was looking pretty interesting but I
> didn't
> > > > wanna fry my tv...
> > >
> > > Mike, You MUST rent it (during better weather conditions). They
> cut
> > > a million scenes from the televised version. You know what the
> > > networks do, It wasn't the "real" Heat.
I saw it when NBC ran it. They cut most of the scene with Pacino and
De Niro together in the coffee shop. Idiots.
> >
> > That kind of film suits Pacino much better... I thought the whole
> side story
> > of DeNiro and the girl was getting pretty drippy towards the end. I
> had to
> > cut out around the part where the girlfriend warns off Kilmer...
>
> Drippy? Why was it drippy? This reminds me of a little boy wanting
> to skip the mushy scenes and get back to the "real action."
> I didn't quite believe the romance between De Niro and his
> girlfriend, although it had its moments. The beauty of the film was
> that Michael Mann did a fine study of the relationships in Heat with
> many of the leading characters. I mean, you don't just want the
> bank heist scene and a purely action film, do you? This is why I
> admire Mann because he gives you everything. He has directed
> some of the most touching, human scenes in Heat and The Last
> of The Mohicans that I have seen in years. It is like watching
> Coppola at times. You get the whole picture. Women and children
> are left out like some kind of distraction.
The scenes with De Niro and Brenneman were very important to the
story. All through the film De Niro boasts about how he can just
remove himself from a situation in a short period of time if the heat
gets too hot, unlike his partners in crime who are married or have
girlfriends or who have houses and debts and things like that. Now his
own beliefs are put to the test when he finds himself in love with this
young woman whom he meets in a diner. He no longer can just drop what
he's doing and look for higher ground, he now has to think about this
woman, who is also a decent person with aspirations of being a
commercial artists -- meaning she lives the straight life. He is now
backed in a corner and faces a crisis of conscience over continuing his
life as a criminal and dragging this woman into a lifestyle she doesn't
deserve or to try to go straight himself with the money he has stashed
away over the years and take this woman with him to a "safer"
environment. It's his last act to get that one person who messed up
the original heist that does De Niro in, and it even hurts Pacino
emotionally when he has to do what he does at the end. It's a very
moving final scene. So I say, yes, the scenes with De Niro and
Brenneman are VERY essential to the whole story.
>
> > I've gotten to the point where I delight in the creative looping of
> > profanity in 'edited for tv'... There's nothing like the hilarity of
> > watching some really bad guy screaming "You mother jumper!"
> or Son of a
> > bear!" or something equally silly to replace the idea of 'profane'
> > language...
>
> Yeah, that is hilarious, especially when De Niro is aiming to kill
> some bastard in a hotel room, right, De Niro is going to say: Look
> at me, look at me, you son of a bear!
Network TV is so pathetic. That's why I try to keep cable. I would
prefer they not run movies if that's what they're going to keep doing.
Just run their silly shows like "Who Wants to Be Married to a
Millionaire Survivor?"
>
> > > > It was one of the articles I read someplace where Kubrick
> was
> > > one time
> > > > talking about his plans for Napoleon and painted the picture
> of
> > > the
> > > > difficulty of making a film like that, perhaps having to hire an
> real
> > > army
> > > > and costuming them and so on. I've always imagined that
> was
> > > probably the
> > > > biggest reason as to why he abandoned the movie because
> by
> > > the 70's
> > > > something like that, on a scale with the battle scenes
> Spartacus
> > > would
> > > > have been cost prohibitive...
> > >
> > > I think he would have made Napoleon anyway, had the studios
> let
> > > him...
Kubrick was ready to make Napoleon right after "2001," but MGM pulled
the plug when they found themselves in financial straights, mostly from
spending on lavish spectacles that didn't make money. Only "Doctor
Zhivago" and "2001" proved to be moneymakers, but they weren't enough
to keep the good ship MGM afloat, so major cuts were made. Also, this
came at a time when "Easy Rider" came out, and the studios decided that
low budget independet movies for young people were the real money
makers (sound familiar?).
As for costuming and feeding extras portraying Napopleon's army, that
too would be a major expense. There is a running joke out here in L.A.
that goes, "Extras are props that eat." Like props in a film, one
needs the extras for believability, but one also has to feed them as
well.
> >
> > I wonder... Remember he'd have needed thousands of period
> costumed extras...
> > I can't recall any movie of that sort since the sixties really... At
> least
> > not on the scale of recreating a Napoleonic battle...
>
> But it wasn't his idea not to make Napoleon, was it? After all, he
> made Barry Lyndon instead, which was no small feat. Just a
> beautiful scaled-down version of whatever.
"Barry Lyndon" was his alternative to Napoleon. But it still took
about ten months and $11 million of Warner Bros. money to pull it off.
>
My big fear is that CGI will be the backlot of the 21st century, just
as the studio backlots were considered "satisfactory" for the movie
makers up until the end of WWII. Parts of "Spartacus" suffer from too
much studio-bound work, either on the backlot or -- worse -- on sound
stages. But these were things Kubrick had no control over, since he
was a "hired hand," as he put it. Universal, which produced the movie,
insisted the film be shot in the States, considering how much it cost
MGM to do "Ben-Hur" in Italy. (Yes, the major battle in "Spartacus"
was done in Spain, but the rest of the movie was done right here in
southern California, including pick-up shots of the battle, and they
don't match very well.)
>
I'm surprised that no one here has mentioned that the Australians don't
particularly like the English. If you've seen "Galipoli" or "Breaker
Morant," you see clearly the Australian attitude towards England and
vice versa. Remember, Australia was originally a penal colony for
England's most disreputable people, and many English still feel that
way towards Australia today. Part of the outrage against the English
in "Breaker Morant" was that they treated the Australians as scapegoats
to appease the Germans so as not to drag Germany into the Boer War (and
since Morant, an Englishman, was so friendly with the Australians,
particularly his unit, the Bushfeld Carboniers, the English felt he was
now one of "them"). The irony to all of this was that more than ten
years later England and Germany would be going at it anyway with WWI,
including heavy fighting in Africa. (And I might add here
that "Breaker Morant" owes a lot to Kubrick's "Paths of Glory" in its
sturucture and its attudes towards war.)
>
> Never had seen that one, strangely enough. The first Gibson film I
> saw was Gallapoli [sic] and that was another historical film I rather
> not argue about...(since it involves a 'Middle Eastern' country).
> Actually, most of the articles on Gibson bring up the fact that he
> was born in the States.
Yes, but he spent most of his youth in Australia, which makes him by
character and temperament Australian. There is a story where Gibson
was going to audition for the lead in "Mad Max" and he'd gotten into a
fight the night before by some tough Aussies who thought he was too
much of a "pretty boy." He came to George Miller's office with his
cuts and bruises and Miller cast him immediately. This may be
another "urban legend" but it also suggests how rough and tumble the
Aussies can get at times.
>
> > > > Way OT but what the hell, RIP for Walter Matthau who died
> > > today... Boy was
> > > > he ever a funny guy...
> > >
> > > Oh, I've not heard this yet. He was really funny...Thank you for
> > > telling us.
As I said in another post, he was a joy to watch.
> >
> > Too bad Old Foghorn wound up in "Fail Safe" instead of "Dr.
> Strangelove"...
> > He' would have been funny in that I'm sure...
>
> You think so? Matthau in Dr. Strangelove?
> I think I'm the only one on Earth who liked Fail Safe. Perhaps
> because I liked Henry Fonda in political films.
>
> Well, Mike, it has been great having this conversation with you
> today. Too bad we haven't discussed Citizen Kane! ;)
> I thought the book review made some interesting points about
> what people think they know about Hearst from a film considered
> to be the greatest film ever made - by some critics.
>
> Best,
> Genevieve
> ***********
Well, for what it's worth, Gen, I'D like to discuss "Kane." Where
would you like to begin?
Boaz
And to read something that is not historical, doesn't have Mel Gibson
in it, isn't re-looped for network TV and doesn't involve William
Randolph Hearst, check out "I Only Have Eyes For You," a parody in four
unnatural acts by Boaz and Ichorwhip:
http://homestead.deja.com/user.boaz8741/eyes4u.html
mgene...@my-deja.com
Hurray, Boaz has arrived! - Gen says welcome! Especially since
she is getting lost on this thread...
> I attended a seminar last fall at UCLA, where Haskell Wexler and
> Penelope Spheeris were discussing documentaries. It was
rather
> interesting to hear Wexler call documentaries "fiction" because
he felt
> that as soon as one uses their camera to focus on a particular
piece of
> reality it no longer becomes reality but a manipulated form of
reality
> that the filmmaker decides the public will see. In that sense,
> dramatic films based on true stories are works of fiction as well,
> since we are not seeing the actual persons but actors portraying
real
> people. And all too often dialogue is re-written and augmented
to work
> within a dramatic structure that doesn't necessarily follow true
facts
> or sequence of events. Certainly, this goes back to
Shakespeare with
> his "historical" plays, and probably before that -- probably as far
> back as Sophocles and the other Greek playwrights.
I'm glad that you mentioned documentaries, Boaz. However, is not
the documentary (along with photography) the closest "chance"
that we have to depicting historical events? The images of The
Holocaust, the First and Second World Wars, Bosnia, Kosovo,
Chechnya [sic], Vietnam, well even the Civil War, weigh heavily on
my mind... All of the fictional Vietnam war films put together will not
erase the images from the documentaries I have watched in the
past about Vietnam.
Your comments on Wexler and HIS comments makes me think of
the emerging literary genre Creative Non-Fiction, which is really
reformulated essay writing and journalism with high standards. I
like this genre but when you think about the phrase: "Creative"
Non-Fiction, it makes me want to laugh for some reason.
> > I dread those words too - and: "inspired by actual events."
>
> I know what you mean. TV movies for the last fifteen years or
more
> have made that phrase into a joke.
And the movies are usually a joke too.
A number of us have seen parts of this work after we had finished
the "I Only Have Eyes For You" thingy. Talk about versatility.
Anyway, I'm impressed and would like to see your independent
film made. I don't understand the "this person is not famous"
argument made by the money men. That is the most ridiculous
thing I have heard in my life, but I'm not surprised.
*Please do tell us what you think about this film.
Interviewing people about any subject or event, well, you start
learning more about the person you are interviewing more than the
subject, if you know what I mean! People do like to talk about
themselves - then you are happily stuck with mini-biographies
within a biography.
> > I don't know if you know this, but I maintain a website on
Kubrick's
> > second wife, Ruth Sobotka. I have interviewed dozens of family
> > members, colleagues and a few of Kubrick's friends, and it
has
> > been really been difficult to pull everything together. Sobotka
was a
> > different person to certain family members who wanted to view
her
> > in their own way, and she was a different person with her
friends,
> > colleagues, husbands, etc.
> > I do not know if there is one truth, so to speak, in summing up
a
> > person's character or personality, let alone, life. There are
facts,
> > but even those can be somewhat elusive and tricky. (The
website
> > is:
> >
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~mgenevieve/ruthsobotkaprofile.ind
> > ex.html - if you are interested or mortified).
> I can only speak for myself, Gen. I'm impressed with your site. I
> think it's very well done, like an on-line biography. Do you plan to
> do more on it, expanding it, as it were?
Thanks, Boaz. I do plan to expand it - I'm very interested in the New
York of the late 1940s and the 1950s, the post-war culture which
really defined Kubrick's early world view. And I'm interested in the
early Kubrick period. Culturally speaking, it was a very exciting time
in which to live.
> > > > > I hadn't heard that story, which to me is funny because
> > > > > Diane Verona who played her is one of my favorite
> > actresses...
> > > >
> > > > Same here. I liked her much better in Heat.
> > > >
> > > > I finally
> > > > > saw "Heat" when it was on tv a few weeks back which I
think
> > you
> > > > > recommended to me. It wasn't bad, but I missed the
ending
> > > > because of a
> > > > > lightning storm... Alas, it was looking pretty interesting but
I
> > didn't
> > > > > wanna fry my tv...
> > > >
> > > > Mike, You MUST rent it (during better weather conditions).
They
> > cut
> > > > a million scenes from the televised version. You know what
the
> > > > networks do, It wasn't the "real" Heat.
>
> I saw it when NBC ran it. They cut most of the scene with Pacino
and
> De Niro together in the coffee shop. Idiots.
**Really! They cut one of the most important scenes where De
Niro and Pacino discuss their nightmares!! I couldn't believe it!
Remember - De Niro said he had a recurring dream where he
was drowning, and with Pacino, it was about victims of crime,
coming back from the dead, staring at him. It was a damn good
scene - and they cut it!
> > > That kind of film suits Pacino much better... I thought the
whole
> > side story
> > > of DeNiro and the girl was getting pretty drippy towards the
end. I
> > had to
> > > cut out around the part where the girlfriend warns off Kilmer...
> >
> > Drippy? Why was it drippy? This reminds me of a little boy
wanting
> > to skip the mushy scenes and get back to the "real action."
> > I didn't quite believe the romance between De Niro and his
> > girlfriend, although it had its moments. The beauty of the film
was
> > that Michael Mann did a fine study of the relationships in Heat
with
> > many of the leading characters. I mean, you don't just want the
> > bank heist scene and a purely action film, do you? This is why I
> > admire Mann because he gives you everything. He has
directed
> > some of the most touching, human scenes in Heat and The
Last
> > of The Mohicans that I have seen in years. It is like watching
> > Coppola at times. You get the whole picture. Women and
children
> > are not left out like some kind of distraction.
A very good description and justification of her character. Amy
Brenneman was very good in a difficult role. All the female
characters were well-represented in Heat. I do not think Heat got
the credit it deserved. De Niro, Tom Sizemore and Val Kilmer
worked like a real crew in that film. And I think Pacino - contrary to
critical opinion - did a good job in his role.
Also, Boaz, don't you think the location shooting was the best for
this film? I would love to see a book about the making of Heat.
> > > I've gotten to the point where I delight in the creative looping
of
> > > profanity in 'edited for tv'... There's nothing like the hilarity of
> > > watching some really bad guy screaming "You mother
jumper!"
> > or Son of a
> > > bear!" or something equally silly to replace the idea of
'profane'
> > > language...
> >
> > Yeah, that is hilarious, especially when De Niro is aiming to kill
> > some bastard in a hotel room, right, De Niro is going to say:
Look
> > at me, look at me, you son of a bear!
> Network TV is so pathetic. That's why I try to keep cable. I would
> prefer they not run movies if that's what they're going to keep
doing.
> Just run their silly shows like "Who Wants to Be Married to a
> Millionaire Survivor?"
Oh god. What happened when I wasn't looking? Are Americans
really so bored? I guess so.
I don't even have cable anymore. Not just for financial reasons, but
because they rerun the worst contemporary films and sitcoms that
I never wanted to watch in the first place. It's bad to waste money,
worse to waste time...
*So things have always been bad, is that what you are telling us?
> As for costuming and feeding extras portraying Napopleon's
army, that
> too would be a major expense. There is a running joke out here
in L.A.
> that goes, "Extras are props that eat." Like props in a film, one
> needs the extras for believability, but one also has to feed them
as
> well.
> > > I wonder... Remember he'd have needed thousands of
period
> > costumed extras...
> > > I can't recall any movie of that sort since the sixties really... At
> > least
> > > not on the scale of recreating a Napoleonic battle...
> >
> > But it wasn't his idea not to make Napoleon, was it? After all,
he
> > made Barry Lyndon instead, which was no small feat. Just a
> > beautiful scaled-down version of whatever.
>
> "Barry Lyndon" was his alternative to Napoleon. But it still took
> about ten months and $11 million of Warner Bros. money to pull
it off.
*And it made more money in Europe, didn't it? Not surprised.
*I share your fears about CGI. The backlots of the 21st century,
that's good...
*I remember Breaker Morant quite well and the controversy
surrounding it. This was during the Australian film renaissance,
was it not?
> > Never had seen that one, strangely enough. The first Gibson
film I
> > saw was Gallapoli [sic] and that was another historical film I
rather
> > not argue about...(since it involves a 'Middle Eastern' country).
> > Actually, most of the articles on Gibson bring up the fact that he
> > was born in the States.
>
> Yes, but he spent most of his youth in Australia, which makes
him by
> character and temperament Australian. There is a story where
Gibson
> was going to audition for the lead in "Mad Max" and he'd gotten
into a
> fight the night before by some tough Aussies who thought he
was too
> much of a "pretty boy." He came to George Miller's office with his
> cuts and bruises and Miller cast him immediately. This may be
> another "urban legend" but it also suggests how rough and
tumble the
> Aussies can get at times.
Oh yes, and now Russell Crowe is the latest star although I
wonder if he will have the staying power of Gibson. I think Crowe is
the better actor. He IS rather combustible...
> > > > > Way OT but what the hell, RIP for Walter Matthau who
died
> > > > today... Boy was
> > > > > he ever a funny guy...
> > > >
> > > > Oh, I've not heard this yet. He was really funny...Thank you
for
> > > > telling us.
>
> As I said in another post, he was a joy to watch.
> > > Too bad Old Foghorn wound up in "Fail Safe" instead of "Dr.
> > Strangelove"...
> > > He' would have been funny in that I'm sure...
> >
> > You think so? Matthau in Dr. Strangelove?
> > I think I'm the only one on Earth who liked Fail Safe. Perhaps
> > because I liked Henry Fonda in political films.
> >
> > Well, Mike, it has been great having this conversation with you
> > today. Too bad we haven't discussed Citizen Kane! ;)
> > I thought the book review made some interesting points about
> > what people think they know about Hearst from a film
considered
> > to be the greatest film ever made - by some critics.
> Well, for what it's worth, Gen, I'D like to discuss "Kane." Where
> would you like to begin?
Great Boaz, want to start with what YOU think about the first
paragraph of the book review? And the points it makes about the
inaccuracies of Citizen Kane, a film most of us admire
immensely?
boaz...@my-deja.com
> >
> > (Boaz -- cordially invited -- jumps into the fray)
>
> Hurray, Boaz has arrived! - Gen says welcome! Especially since
> she is getting lost on this thread...
Don't worry, I have my machete with me.
A good example of taking real images and manipulating them for other
purposes comes from one of Frank Capra's "Why We Fight" series of films
made exclusively for the U.S. military during WWII. In one of his
films he'd taken footage from "Triumph of the Will" and incorporated it
to paint a negative picture of Hitler and the motives of the Nazis.
According to his autobiography he had to, because when he'd seen
Reifenstahl's film he felt the Nazis had won the war -- or could easily
do so.
Also, a lot of documentaries on the Civil War on the History Channel
come across differently than Ken Burns' documentary on the same subject
and quite often the same battle. And yet they are discussing the same
topics and using the same Matthew Brady photos.
Sure, the documentary is going to be much closer to the "truth" than a
Hollywood version, but as to being the real "truth," we can't always be
sure.
I was at one of my favorite bookstores this evening, and I was looking
over a book on the Cherokee nation. The author, a Cherokee woman, said
at one point that the history of North America has not been fully told
and has only been told through the testimonies of the whites who took
over the land, killed many of the Natives, drove the rest from their
homes, enslaved the blacks, exploited the Asians . . . well, you get
the idea.
Not everyone thinks this way out here, but I just seem to have the
rotten luck to meet up with such philistines. (If anyone else is
curious as to the proposed movie we're discussing here, you can e-mail
me and I'll give you the webpage address.)
Thanks. I will.
>
> > > > I particularly liked "Reversal of Fortune" where the law
> students
> > > all sit
> > > > around spinning their own ideas of what happened in the
> > > unknowable
> > > > circumstances of Sunny Von Bullow's coma and we see
> several
> > > versions and
> > > > then there's Glenn Close's voice as Sunny saying 'and that's
> all
> > > there is to
> > > > know and when you're where I am you'll know the truth...' That
> > > was one of
> > > > the only times I can really think of that something like that
> was
> > > done
> > > > well...
> > >
> > > Oh yes, I thought that was an extremely well-done film. This is
> a
> > > good example of how a film based on recent "actual events'
> can be
> > > made.
Good screenplay by Nicholas Kazan and direction by Barbet Schroeder.
And Jeremy Irons was his most creepy with his deserved Oscar-winning
performance as Von Bulow.
> >
> > >
> > > > These "true stories" kind of books and movies can be
> instructive,
> > > > educational and moving, but one has to remember that they
> are
> > > just that;
> > > > stories... And one must remain skeptical of third hand
> > > information when
> > > > sometimes you can't even believe what you see with your
> own
> > > eyes...
> > >
> > > One must be even be skeptical of first hand information and
> > > primary sources.
> >
> > I agree. It's like trying to get information from six different
people
> > who just witnessed a crime or accident; you end up getting six
> > different versions of the same event.
>
> Interviewing people about any subject or event, well, you start
> learning more about the person you are interviewing more than the
> subject, if you know what I mean! People do like to talk about
> themselves - then you are happily stuck with mini-biographies
> within a biography.
It's like when the police tell witnesses, "Don't give me your life
story, just tell me what happened."
Excuse me for saying this, but a nice little documentary could be made
on this subject, considering the documentary footage and photos
available of New York in that period. But again we're talking about
getting funding for such things. As they said in "The Right
Stuff," "No bucks, no Buck Rogers."
Yes, and I was so pissed when they did that. It's like when "The
Fortune Cookie" was first aired on NBC. In order to fit the film in to
their two hour time slot and make room for their commercials they cut
out the scene where Lemmon gets his Chinese lunch with the fortune
cookie of the film's title. Talk about eliminating a plot point! I
wasn't aware of this until sometime later when I read about it, then I
saw the film uncut on cable. I swear, the people who make the
programming decisions there don't even watch what they air.
Every actor did some of their best work in that film. I don't know why
more people didn't go see it when it was showing in theaters.
> Also, Boaz, don't you think the location shooting was the best for
> this film? I would love to see a book about the making of Heat.
Me, too! The locations in downtown L.A., the docks at San Pedro
Harbor, the Hollywood hills, Mann used each and every one as a
character, not just a backdrop.
Yes, but it's worth having for American Movie Classics and Turner
Classic Movies. By the way, when TCM runs "The Wizard of Oz" on Monday
they are going to run Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon"
simultaneously on the SAP channel. So for anyone who has SAP on their
TV's or VCR's be sure to watch out for that.
Ever since the '60s Hollywood has been undergoing major financial
crises. Inflation, television, location shooting have all played a part
in the demise of the studio system. Sure, lots of films are still shot
on stages and backlots but it's not what it used to be. Of course,
throwing good money after bad doesn't help either.
>
> > As for costuming and feeding extras portraying Napopleon's
> army, that
> > too would be a major expense. There is a running joke out here
> in L.A.
> > that goes, "Extras are props that eat." Like props in a film, one
> > needs the extras for believability, but one also has to feed them
> as
> > well.
>
> > > > I wonder... Remember he'd have needed thousands of
> period
> > > costumed extras...
> > > > I can't recall any movie of that sort since the sixties
really... At
> > > least
> > > > not on the scale of recreating a Napoleonic battle...
> > >
> > > But it wasn't his idea not to make Napoleon, was it? After all,
> he
> > > made Barry Lyndon instead, which was no small feat. Just a
> > > beautiful scaled-down version of whatever.
> >
> > "Barry Lyndon" was his alternative to Napoleon. But it still took
> > about ten months and $11 million of Warner Bros. money to pull
> it off.
>
> *And it made more money in Europe, didn't it? Not surprised.
Yes, because the pacing was something European audiences were
accustomed to. Languid pacing and candlelit shots couldn't compete
with a mechanical shark.
The fact that I can see when a CGI shot is a CGI shot proves that the
technique hasn't been perfected yet. For example, there is a wide shot
during the opening battle in "Gladiator" that is clearly a CGI shot of
fireballs torching the forest and Roman and Germanic soldiers fighting
one another. And I could see the CGI effect in many shots for the
scenes in Rome, including the Colosseum. It's like when, as a kid, I
could watch an old movie and I could see that an exterior really wasn't
an exterior but on a soundstage, from the muffled sound and the way the
lighting looked. The same went for scenes on backlots. I suppose it
didn't help matters any that at 14 I took the Universal Studios tour.
It was The Emperor's New Clothes Syndrome for me ever since. I guess
that's why I like location shooting and admire people like David Lean,
who did his last several films entire on location.
Oh, yeah. And what a renaissance it was! Most of the best Australia
had to offer went "Hollywood." 'Nough said.
>
> > > Never had seen that one, strangely enough. The first Gibson
> film I
> > > saw was Gallapoli [sic] and that was another historical film I
> rather
> > > not argue about...(since it involves a 'Middle Eastern' country).
> > > Actually, most of the articles on Gibson bring up the fact that he
> > > was born in the States.
> >
> > Yes, but he spent most of his youth in Australia, which makes
> him by
> > character and temperament Australian. There is a story where
> Gibson
> > was going to audition for the lead in "Mad Max" and he'd gotten
> into a
> > fight the night before by some tough Aussies who thought he
> was too
> > much of a "pretty boy." He came to George Miller's office with his
> > cuts and bruises and Miller cast him immediately. This may be
> > another "urban legend" but it also suggests how rough and
> tumble the
> > Aussies can get at times.
>
> Oh yes, and now Russell Crowe is the latest star although I
> wonder if he will have the staying power of Gibson. I think Crowe is
> the better actor. He IS rather combustible...
In other words, the jury's still out on Crowe?
I'll have to go back to the first posting on this thread and re-read
it. As for "inaccuracies," I don't think Mankiewicz and Welles were
trying to do a real historical biography on Hearst but use his life as
a jump-off point to create a roman a' clef, thereby freeing themselves
from "facts" to where they could structure the film to their liking.
But we'll go further into that later.
Boaz
And to read something that is not historical, doesn't have Mel
Gibson in it, isn't re-looped for network TV, doesn't involve William
Randolph Hearst or has Regis Philbin within a thousand miles of it,
Peter Tonguette
>> Well, for what it's worth, Gen, I'D like to discuss "Kane." Where
>> would you like to begin?
>
>Great Boaz, want to start with what YOU think about the first
>paragraph of the book review? And the points it makes about the
>inaccuracies of Citizen Kane, a film most of us admire
>immensely?
It should be noted here that "Kane" is not a direct biography of Hearst, and,
as such, really shouldn't be held to this broad "historical accuracy" standard
that's trumped around so often. History has been altered in art for thousands
of years - the question of it's justification becomes one of artistic
seriousness more than anything. Is the film "truthful" in the broadest sense
of the term, is the film interesting? These are more pertinent, more relevant
questions to me than, is the film sticking to the history books.
One of the things that bothered me about a film like "Gladiator" was that it's
various simplifications/alterations of history were made entirely to make the
work easier for the audience, to make the film accessible to the broadest
portion of the population possible. On top of that, the actual events in
history were altogether more interesting than DreamWorks' Hollywood version.
For all of its effective battle scenes, it's a textbook example of
opportunities lost at Hollywood's relentless desire to please the paying
customer.
Peter
Peter Tonguette
>theatre. It's difficult enough for a well-written book.
War is impossible to depict in art. I don't think this is too broad or too
bold a statement. Documentaries can't cut it, movies can't cut it, fiction
can't cut it. A great deal of FMJ's success, for me, rests with the subtle
acknowledgment of this fact and Kubrick's attempt to deal with it by, instead,
relying on the film's extraordinary narrative devices to achieve the desired
effect within the audience.
The totality of Joker's sense of dislocation and disorientation in the face of
war is impossible to depict, and so we, the audience, are forced to experience
it as well, in the form of the film's jagged narrative structure.
boaz...@my-deja.com
ptong...@aol.com (Peter Tonguette) wrote:
> mgene...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> >> Well, for what it's worth, Gen, I'D like to discuss "Kane." Where
> >> would you like to begin?
> >
> >Great Boaz, want to start with what YOU think about the first
> >paragraph of the book review? And the points it makes about the
> >inaccuracies of Citizen Kane, a film most of us admire
> >immensely?
>
Hearst, and,
> as such, really shouldn't be held to this broad "historical accuracy"
standard
> that's trumped around so often. History has been altered in art for
thousands
> of years - the question of it's justification becomes one of artistic
> seriousness more than anything. Is the film "truthful" in the
broadest sense
> of the term, is the film interesting? These are more pertinent, more
relevant
> questions to me than, is the film sticking to the history books.
As I've said in another post on this thread, Mankiewicz and Welles
weren't setting out to do a biographical film about Hearst but to use
Hearst's life as a jump-off point to make their own movie about power.
Hearst was still a major influence in American journalism and he was
the perfect choice to base their story on. I think there's been a
misunderstanding over the years of "Kane" being a biography of Hearst.
Certainly, a lot of Hearst's life figured into the screenplay
(including the inside joke as to the name "Rosebud"), but Mankiewicz
and Welles had their own agenda. Besides, at that time Hearst would
have never allowed *anyone* to do a book biography on his life, let
alone a film, so everything had to be fictionalized. Hearst was very
powerful to the point that Louis B. Mayer at MGM was scared shitless of
him. So when Welles completed "Kane" Mayer offered RKO over $800,000 --
more than the actual cost of the film itself -- to buy the negative
and existing prints in order to destroy them and stay in good stead
with Hearst. Fortunately, RKO said no to the offer and the rest is --
pardon the expression -- history.
>
> One of the things that bothered me about a film like "Gladiator" was
that it's
> various simplifications/alterations of history were made entirely to
make the
> work easier for the audience, to make the film accessible to the
broadest
> portion of the population possible. On top of that, the actual
events in
> history were altogether more interesting than DreamWorks' Hollywood
version.
> For all of its effective battle scenes, it's a textbook example of
> opportunities lost at Hollywood's relentless desire to please the
paying
> customer.
>
> Peter
As I've said to some friends, Peter, "Gladiator" probably has more in
common with Euell Gibbons than Edward Gibbons (and I'll let everyone
else who reads this figure out for themselves who these two men were).
As an interesting ironic note, the re-enactment that takes place in the
arena in which Maximus and the other gladiators participate in is an
example of Rome tampering with historical facts in order to put on a
good show -- in this case with the intention of slaughtering all of the
gladiators. Unfortunately, this is also an error historically. Most
of the time participants in the rings were killed en masse because they
were slated for execution anyway, and this was a way of Roman authority
having their cake and eating it too, so to speak. They could kill the
miscreant in the form of a re-enactment of a battle or mythological
encounter -- all of which were true crowd pleasers. Scott and company
are almost as guilty for their tampering with the facts as the Romans
they criticize in the film.
There was one incident that occurred in the early days of Christianity
where a large number of Christians were tied to poles to be killed by
lions in the arena. But the trainer, in his attempt to make sure the
lions would have a sufficient appetite, let the lions go hungry too
long, so when they were let loose into the arena they staggered out
from weakness and dropped dead from starvation. Seeing a potential
riot on their hands, Roman authorities decided on an alternate plan of
action: they set fire to the Christians, so through the night the
Colosseum was illuminated with the glow of the flames and their blood
curdling screams filled the air with "sweet music."
But, as much as I liked "Gladiator," it's too bad that it fudged with
history so much. Something like "I, Claudius" is much closer to the
way things went in ancient Rome, however the Masterpiece Theater
version was very un-cinematic, what with being shot mostly in a studio
and on videotape. Von Sternberg originally tried to do a film version
in the 1930's, but so many problems caused it to be shut down in the
middle of principal photography that it never got finished, and became
the subject of a documentary "The Epic That Never Was."
Perhaps someday a major studio will greenlight a proper film set in
ancient Rome and not simply settle for some half-assed high concept
one, no matter how beautifully shot it may have been and no matter how
good the cast in it was.
Boaz
And to read something that isn't set in ancient Rome, check out "I Only
Jim Linwood
>It'll be like watching "Futurama". In the Year 3000 every school child
>will know that Bill Gates invented the computer and Lucas and Spielberg
>invented the movies and so on.>
There was an item on BBC Radio yesterday about William Friese-Greene in
connection with the forthcoming video release of the 1951 biopic The Magic Box.
I was always brought up to believe that WFG invented the cine-camera and this
was reinforced by the 1951 film boasting of British achievements for the
Festival of Britain.
It appears that the Kodak Institute a few years back looked very closely at
WFG's patent and tried to reconstruct the original camera which didn't work
because of the design of the shutter mechanism. When the original celluloid
film was examined it was found that the time interval between the frames was
too long making pedestrians appear to travel at 60 mph.
So Edison not WFG probably got there first; although the latter does deserve a
place in history for his pioneering work.
JL
Thornhill
>So Edison not WFG probably got there first
American know-how wins the day again! Spencer Tracy is a much
more prolific inventor than Robert Donat, anyway. Donat should
have known his invention would be eclipsed. He's too good
looking.
FMD
>What frightens me is that many Americans only learn history (if
>they do at all) from "the movies."
>
>Genevieve
What frightened me, when I was living in Europe (mostly France),
was how many Europeans thought assumed that American movies were
a
reliable guide to American history as well as contemporary life!
The things they believed about America were monumentally
ridiculous. I'm sure that many others have had this experience.
Of couse, all countries love to cultivate misinformation about
one
another. What's extraordinary about the Europeans is there
unaccountable trust in Hollywood as a guide to America! I've
seen
nothing like that anywhere else.
mgene...@my-deja.com
FMD <fmdolan...@socrates.berkeley.edu.invalid>
wrote:
> mgene...@my-deja.com wrote:
> >What frightens me is that many Americans only learn history (if
> >they do at all) from "the movies."
> >
> >Genevieve
>
> What frightened me, when I was living in Europe (mostly France),
> was how many Europeans thought assumed that American
movies were
> a
> reliable guide to American history as well as contemporary life!
> The things they believed about America were monumentally
> ridiculous. I'm sure that many others have had this experience.
> Of couse, all countries love to cultivate misinformation about
> one
> another. What's extraordinary about the Europeans is there
> unaccountable trust in Hollywood as a guide to America! I've
> seen
> nothing like that anywhere else.
This is a really good point. I lived in Turkey for two years and I was
astonished regarding what they believed about the States from
films -really bad films too. I saw American films in the video stores
in Istanbul that I had never seen in the U.S. Films made for the
Middle Eastern and Asian markets. I was so disgusted.
I have family who live in Austria, Germany, France and Eastern
Europe. I was shocked during my last visit to Germany that many
relatives still believed the streets-are-paved-with-gold myth or that
we all walk around with an Uzi.
What was also frightening was the behaviour of my
second-cousins - they have adopted everything American and
have no interest in their own country's history or culture...I am
speaking generally, of course. The few relatives who have been
able to visit me here are more understanding but they still cannot
comprehend the size of the United States or the massive cultural
differences between the individual states.
Thanks for bringing this subject up.
Best,
Genevieve
***********
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------
>
> Got questions? Get answers over the phone at Keen.com.
> Up to 100 minutes free!
> http://www.keen.com
>
>
mgene...@my-deja.com
ptong...@aol.com (Peter Tonguette) wrote:
> mgene...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
Where
> >> would you like to begin?
> >
> >Great Boaz, want to start with what YOU think about the first
> >paragraph of the book review? And the points it makes about
the
> >inaccuracies of Citizen Kane, a film most of us admire
> >immensely?
>
Hearst, and,
> as such, really shouldn't be held to this broad "historical
accuracy" standard
> that's trumped around so often. History has been altered in art
for thousands
> of years - the question of it's justification becomes one of artistic
> seriousness more than anything. Is the film "truthful" in the
broadest sense
> of the term, is the film interesting? These are more pertinent,
more relevant
> questions to me than, is the film sticking to the history books.
Not a 'direct biography...'This sounds like 'almost pregnant...'
It's still biography with an agenda, Peter. It was biographical
enough to hurt people. Not that Hearst cared a bit about facts in
his newspapers, but we're talking about Citizen Kane.
Does anyone remember - I think I mentioned on this forum The
American Experience documentaries on Hearst, Welles, and The
Making of Citizen Kane.
Welles admitted that the film was terribly unfair to Marion Davies
(spelling?). Anyway, after these documentaries, they showed
Citizen Kane in its entirely. It was a most sumptuous evening.
Time is what has given us distance and perspective. It applies to
biography too. Just think, the best Kubrick biography will probably
be written after we are-uh-not here... Well, you'll probably be alive,
Peter :)
Genevieve
************
Thornhill
broad or too >bold a statement. Documentaries can't cut it,
movies can't cut it, fiction
>can't cut it.
Hard not to agree. The very best writers on the subject must
either turn war and combat into something else, or deal with
other aspects and more 'removed' perspectives. Though I had
understood this to be true, I made the foolish mistake of saying
to someone (after Hurricane Andrew) that it was about as close
to a war-zone as I'd ever want to get. Just short-hand. I
didn't expect his cold, flat response: "Yeah, but the big
difference is there aren't any dead bodies around that should be
alive." He didn't go into his experience as infantry in Vietnam
any more than that, but it was a real kick in the teeth, though
humbly placed.
Some of the sense of war's joy-ride can be reasonably well-
captured on film...if you overlook most of it. So, I'd only
disagree, Peter, in so far as there are many representations of
war in art and film. It's just a matter of which is the more
truthful. No, it isn't something that can be shown, but if
attempted, must remain little known in the way a combat vet can
know it. It is simply a madness. Depictions that attempt
honesty, though incomplete, are the best we can hope for.
Goya's "Disasters of War" is honest. That sort of boldness
backfires in film and becomes, in the words of Spielberg,
'pornography' or just plain dumb about as easily and quickly as
John Wayne films did with troops on aircraft carriers during
WWII and Korea, the latter with lots of vets from the previous
war.
They laughed.
Thornhill
boaz...@my-deja.com
mgene...@my-deja.com wrote:
> In article <01f600d4...@usw-ex0104-026.remarq.com>,
> FMD <fmdolan...@socrates.berkeley.edu.invalid>
> wrote:
> > mgene...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > >What frightens me is that many Americans only learn history (if
> > >they do at all) from "the movies."
> > >
> > >Genevieve
I don't know what it is about history that turns so many people off.
Whenever I like to bring up a point about some historical event in
conversation people's eyes glaze over, as if I'm a professor about to
give a lecture. It's not as though people here in California aren't
interested in history. (However, the fact that this state used to be a
part of Mexico is all too often kept under the rug; most people would
rather that the history of California begin with Sutter's Mill.) The
interesting thing is that's it's usually the travelling Civil War re-
enactment shows or the Renaissance Faire. I have yet to bring myself
to go see the Romona pageant, the Romeo and Juliet of California
folklore.
The most fun I had studying history came in a high school class. The
teacher was a woman, still in her twenties, who had written her masters
thesis on the sex life of Benjamin Franklin. It appears, based on the
research she had done, that Franklin was truly "the father of our
country." He'd fathered 72 children, most of them illegitimate, and
most while he was ambassador to France. Franklin was the Kissinger of
his day, a rumpled old professorial type who nevertheless exuded
charisma and sexuality. He was a far cry from the powdered wig fops
who populated Versailles and other French courts. The young French
women adored him. We were told by the teacher that at one point a
French count was so angered by his daughter's dalliances with Franklin
that he'd had given her as a gift a new chamberpot with Franklin's
portrait painted on the bottom of the inside.
Now, if this were done as a film -- even sticking to the "facts" as
close as possible -- there is still the possibility that no one would
believe it or some other stuffy professor at an ivy league school would
refute its authenticity. Nevertheless, I can see this done in the vein
of "Tom Jones" with a bit of Molliere thrown in.
This teacher was a very opened minded person, being a product of
the '60s and all that. She would recommend movies to us, regardless of
the "authenticity" of some of the details; the idea was to get us to
see the films and be aware of the events so that we might check
the "facts" ourselves through the proper channels (and I don't mean the
History Channel either because it and cable as we know it didn't exist
then). She would recommend films such as "Patton" and "Tora! Tora!
Tora!" as much for their storytelling as their historical aspects. In
fact, she let me bring in my soundtrack album to "Patton" for extra
credit so I could play the speech that opened the film for those who
hadn't seen the film yet. (And has a historical note, the speech that
opened "Patton" was not one single speech but derived from many
speeches Patton gave to his troops over the course of his career in
Europe in WWII.)
And it wasn't just a list of names and events that she wanted us to
learn. We would also split the class in two, one side being opposed to
anti-war protestors and the other in favor of the protesting. The idea
was to test our knowledge and feeling towards the 1st Amendment, not to
mention the Constitution's right for Americans to assemble. And we
would learn through debate the importance of these rights set down by
the Founding Fathers and understand that when you deny the right of
someone to assemble or to speak out on something you don't agree with
you risk the chance of someday having your own beliefs supressed by
someone who doesn't agree with you. She felt this was far more
important a lesson than just remembering what day and year the
Constitution was drafted or who had the largest signature on the
Declaration of Independence. If we don't understand the reasons of
historical events and how they would later affect our present day then
it doesn't matter one way or the other if we see a film that
authentically depicts the Mormon's trek into Utah or if we see Tyrone
Power and Linda Darnell fend off a horde of locust; we still won't
understand the implications of that event and how it plays into our
present day lives.
> >
> > What frightened me, when I was living in Europe (mostly France),
> > was how many Europeans thought assumed that American
> movies were
> > a
> > reliable guide to American history as well as contemporary life!
> > The things they believed about America were monumentally
> > ridiculous. I'm sure that many others have had this experience.
> > Of couse, all countries love to cultivate misinformation about
> > one
> > another. What's extraordinary about the Europeans is there
> > unaccountable trust in Hollywood as a guide to America! I've
> > seen
> > nothing like that anywhere else.
And how is that any different than over a 150 years ago when gold was
found at Sutter's Mill here in California that began the mass migration
to the west? Not only did people uproot from their homesteads and
towns in the east to come out here, people from Europe came here,
believing that the streets of America were paved with gold. How many
times have we heard from immigrants who made their way through Ellis
Island that a cousin or some relative wrote back saying that New York
and America was the land of opportunity and that the streets were paved
with gold? Perhaps compared to the oppressive oligarchies that existed
at the time in Europe, a Europe that was a powderkeg which would
unleash WWI.
One of the things that seems to go unmentioned here is that it's human
nature to believe that the grass is greener on the other side of the
proverbial hill, that living in a larger city or a newer land will
bring rewards and happiness. I suppose if anything is ignored in
history it's that the people who often achieve success and wealth do so
on the sweat and backs of the others who were so naive to think they
could become rich landowners themselves. The factories, mines, farms
and forests were full of immigrants working for low wages and no
benefits, exploited by such powerful people. We see it today, in
different forms, but it still exists. People still risk their lives to
come to this country because they think there's a better life for them
than what exists back in their country, and that could be so. Whatever
the case, it appears that myths have always been the staple to which
coming to America was based. (My great grandfather on my father's side
came over from Ireland, not so much to seek his fame and fortune in
America, but because Ireland was going through the potato famine and he
had no choice but to seek a better life elsewhere. On the other hand,
my great-great grandparents on my mother's side were already here in
America, a few homesteaders from Europe from the post-War of 1812
period of settlement and others already here from the outset -- Native
Americans, if you will. And how they got the shaft from white
Europeans is something I don't want to get into right now.)
>
> This is a really good point. I lived in Turkey for two years and I
was
> astonished regarding what they believed about the States from
> films -really bad films too. I saw American films in the video stores
> in Istanbul that I had never seen in the U.S. Films made for the
> Middle Eastern and Asian markets. I was so disgusted.
> I have family who live in Austria, Germany, France and Eastern
> Europe. I was shocked during my last visit to Germany that many
> relatives still believed the streets-are-paved-with-gold myth or that
> we all walk around with an Uzi.
> What was also frightening was the behaviour of my
> second-cousins - they have adopted everything American and
> have no interest in their own country's history or culture...I am
> speaking generally, of course. The few relatives who have been
> able to visit me here are more understanding but they still cannot
> comprehend the size of the United States or the massive cultural
> differences between the individual states.
>
> Thanks for bringing this subject up.
>
> Best,
> Genevieve
> ***********
At the risk of sounding like some white supremacist, let's not ignore
people who come over here to America and bring their centuries-old
feuds with them and so many innocent people end up getting caught in
the crossfire. On the one hand, I think it's great that a refugee from
Vietnam will open a restaurant much like he had one in Saigon and
introduce some of his culture here in the States; on the other hand, I
don't like it when young Vietnamese gangs (as one example) terrorize
the streets of L.A. to fight out a feud that goes back to the old
country, long before America even got involved in that ugly war. So it
is in a way a two-way street, a two-way street paved with gold, if you
will.
On the other side of the coin, there is no question that America has
done its share of imposing its culture on the rest of the world. Take
a look at one entertainment entity, one whose name I will not mention
here. But they have done their part in imposing their views and their
character creations on other cultures where even in third world
countries one can see the famous cartoon mouse on a t-shirt worn by a
kid. And this entity has also been roundly criticized for its flagrant
distortion of history, often softening or homoginizing of the facts in
order to make a "feel-good" piece of entertainment. Yet they continue
to do so and will do so so long as they see a profit from their
endeavors.
So what we have here is a topic that goes beyond the mere platitude
of "being written by the victors." It's much more complicated than
that.
And, boy, did we get way off topic regarding "Citizen Kane" too!
Boaz
And here's something you won't find on the History Channel website, "I
Only Have Eyes For You," a parody in four unnatural acts by Boaz and
Ichorwhip:
http://homestead.deja.com/user.boaz8741/eyes4u.html
Peter Tonguette
You're right - bad phrasing. But, hey, it was late ;)
> History has been altered in art for
>> thousands
>> > of years - the question of it's justification becomes one of
>artistic
>> > seriousness more than anything. Is the film "truthful" in the
>> broadest sense
>> > of the term, is the film interesting? These are more pertinent,
>more
>> relevant
>> > questions to me than, is the film sticking to the history books.
(I should note that this section below was written by Boaz in response to me)
I agree, but I would still argue with the notion that a blind fidelity to
history is always (or even sometimes) a virtue in art. And this is especially
the case with a film like "Kane," where the life of Hearst was a starting off
point.
Peter
mgene...@my-deja.com
boaz...@my-deja.com wrote:
> <snip part of discussion>
>
> > >
> > > (Boaz -- cordially invited -- jumps into the fray)
> >
> > Hurray, Boaz has arrived! - Gen says welcome! Especially
since
> > she is getting lost on this thread...
>
> Don't worry, I have my machete with me.
*I'm still lost.
I read somewhere or maybe I saw it in a documentary about
Riefenstahl that the U.S. government once tried to show "Triumph
of the Will" as a way to show contempt for the Nazis, only the
audience and some notable writers found that it impressed the
American audience, it was such a good film.
> Also, a lot of documentaries on the Civil War on the History
Channel
> come across differently than Ken Burns' documentary on the
same subject
> and quite often the same battle. And yet they are discussing the
same
> topics and using the same Matthew Brady photos.
>
> Sure, the documentary is going to be much closer to the "truth"
than a
> Hollywood version, but as to being the real "truth," we can't
always be
> sure.
>
> I was at one of my favorite bookstores this evening, and I was
looking
> over a book on the Cherokee nation. The author, a Cherokee
woman, said
> at one point that the history of North America has not been fully
told
> and has only been told through the testimonies of the whites
who took
> over the land, killed many of the Natives, drove the rest from their
> homes, enslaved the blacks, exploited the Asians . . . well, you
get
> the idea.
*True, and this is the case, the world over. It's true in the case of
the former Soviet Union and true in China...
*You haven't met the right people - yet. Also, it's not the easiest
time to be in Hollywood these days even for the most seasoned
directors, I read...
Nicholas Kazan...What else has he done?
One cannot say that to an interviewee, though. Often their life story
is important to the interview, anyway.
I need to write a grant. The money is out there. Not as much, but
it's out there for many projects and subjects.
*Gee, why doesn't that surprise me. What DO these money men
watch?
*I do not know why either. I'm just grateful that I saw this film in the
theatre.
> > Also, Boaz, don't you think the location shooting was the best
for
> > this film? I would love to see a book about the making of Heat.
>
> Me, too! The locations in downtown L.A., the docks at San Pedro
> Harbor, the Hollywood hills, Mann used each and every one as a
> character, not just a backdrop.
What a great way to put it, Boaz, but that's what he did! I wonder
what his next film will be...I'm scared that he will be pressured to
make money because The Insider didn't...It seems like he is a
director he takes his time in choosing his material.
Thanks, I feel even better now. I'm lucky to have a computer!
*They certainly do that rather well...
*I liked Jaws, actually but I can like both, can't I? (I don't like it when
the shark is killed but whatever).
There was only one David Lean, I'm afraid. He certainly lived a long
time but stopped making films for a decade or so.
*I don't understand the question. I do not think Crowe cares too
much about being a film star. I could be wrong. Most actors with
opinions do not last in Hollywood, now do they?
Apologist!
> But we'll go further into that later.
*Now that I don't feel like it anymore...Good play.
Best,
Genevieve
************
boaz...@my-deja.com
mgene...@my-deja.com wrote:
> In article <8jmlr0$7j4$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> boaz...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > <snip part of discussion>
> >
> > > >
> > > > (Boaz -- cordially invited -- jumps into the fray)
> > >
> > > Hurray, Boaz has arrived! - Gen says welcome! Especially
> since
> > > she is getting lost on this thread...
> >
> > Don't worry, I have my machete with me.
>
> *I'm still lost.
Let me help chop out some of the extra treacle that's accumulated here.
<Boaz chops away with a mighty sweep of his machete until we get
to "Triumph of the Will>
> > A good example of taking real images and manipulating them for
> other
> > purposes comes from one of Frank Capra's "Why We Fight"
> series of films
> > made exclusively for the U.S. military during WWII. In one of his
> > films he'd taken footage from "Triumph of the Will" and
> incorporated it
> > to paint a negative picture of Hitler and the motives of the Nazis.
> > According to his autobiography he had to, because when he'd
> seen
> > Reifenstahl's film he felt the Nazis had won the war -- or could
> easily
> > do so.
>
> I read somewhere or maybe I saw it in a documentary about
> Riefenstahl that the U.S. government once tried to show "Triumph
> of the Will" as a way to show contempt for the Nazis, only the
> audience and some notable writers found that it impressed the
> American audience, it was such a good film.
Well, I suppose it depends upon who it was shown to. There were a lot
of Nazi sympathizers in America, or at least Americans who related to
Hitler's fascist views. I mean, it is a great piece of filmmaking,
there's no question about it. But when I first saw it in college, I
was on the one hand impressed with the film technique, but on the other
hand I found myself going from fear to anger as I watched it. Fear
because I knew what this all would lead to, and anger because so many
people allowed it to happen.
(As an aside, I recently saw a documentary about Reifenstahl where she
had actually tried to shoot the first rally in 1933. But she was so
overwhelmed by the logistics, and even Goebbels wasn't sure how
everything should have been staged for the camera. So we got to see
rare footage of the "dress rehearsal" from the year before. By the
time the next rally occurred a year later, Reifenstahl had the drill
down, and Hitler and co. were more comfortable as to how to appear on
camera. The implication was had this not happened and they had gone
with the 1933 footage the Nazis would have probably come across as
buffoons instead of this threat to the free world.
<Boaz chops away at a discussion on the Civil War>
> > I was at one of my favorite bookstores this evening, and I was
> looking
> > over a book on the Cherokee nation. The author, a Cherokee
> woman, said
> > at one point that the history of North America has not been fully
> told
> > and has only been told through the testimonies of the whites
> who took
> > over the land, killed many of the Natives, drove the rest from their
> > homes, enslaved the blacks, exploited the Asians . . . well, you
> get
> > the idea.
>
> *True, and this is the case, the world over. It's true in the case of
> the former Soviet Union and true in China...
Just good ol' human nature at work here, right?
>
> > > > > I dread those words too - and: "inspired by actual events."
> > > >
> > > > I know what you mean. TV movies for the last fifteen years or
> > > more
> > > > have made that phrase into a joke.
> > >
> > > And the movies are usually a joke too.
The reason so many "true events" make it as TV movies is that the story
is already there, and all the TV movie producer has to do is buy up the
rights and hire a hack -- I mean, writer -- and set to work by clicking
his screenwriting software on to the "cliche" command and out comes a
script to be filmed. I think about the scene in Altman's "The Player"
where yuppie studio development executive Peter Gallagher suggests that
the studio fire the writers and just go with stories he and his staff
find in the newspapers. "The stories write themselves," he claims.
I would have to say the worst offender of the lot (and there are a lot
of candidates out there) was the one made about the Branch Davidian
group BEFORE the crisis was resolved. In fact, they were still filming
when the compound went up in flames. Apparently, they didn't have it
in their budget to call in the writer for a re-write, so they ended it
with an "unresolved" conclusion.
<Boaz chops away at the description of his unproduced screenplay that
he also wants to direct as an independent feature>
> > > A number of us have seen parts of this work after we had
> finished
> > > the "I Only Have Eyes For You" thingy. Talk about versatility.
> > > Anyway, I'm impressed and would like to see your independent
> > > film made. I don't understand the "this person is not famous"
> > > argument made by the money men. That is the most ridiculous
> > > thing I have heard in my life, but I'm not surprised.
It wasn't just money people who suggested that. Associates -- I
hesitate to call them friends -- also said I should do that, as if that
would speed up the process of getting a sale. Why? Did they think
they were going to get a finder's fee?
> > Not everyone thinks this way out here, but I just seem to have the
> > rotten luck to meet up with such philistines. (If anyone else is
> > curious as to the proposed movie we're discussing here, you
> can e-mail
> > me and I'll give you the webpage address.)
>
> *You haven't met the right people - yet. Also, it's not the easiest
> time to be in Hollywood these days even for the most seasoned
> directors, I read...
This is true. But it's always been true. Still, I'm confident. For
every "Shaft" or "M:I-2" or "Gone in 60 Seconds" there is
a "Butterfly," a "Jesus' Son" and a "Jerome."
<Boaz chops away at the discussion on "The Perfect Storm," which he
will see very soon>
<Boaz also goes apeshit with the machete on the discussion
about "Reversal of Fortune">
> > Good screenplay by Nicholas Kazan and direction by Barbet
> Schroeder.
> > And Jeremy Irons was his most creepy with his deserved
> Oscar-winning
> > performance as Von Bulow.
>
> Nicholas Kazan...What else has he done?
Off hand, I can't remember. But I know he's done more than that
script. And, yes, he is the son of Elia Kazan. But I found out from
at least one source (first hand) that Elia kicked his son out of the
house and told him to make his own way, not attempting to give the kid
a break. He seemed to do all right anyway.
<Boaz chops some more at a discussion on true events and interviews to
substantiate information>
Good luck. If you need any help, I have a background in documentary
filmmaking as well. (Hint, hint.)
<Boaz puts his hat back on and chops away some more regarding Michael
Mann's "Heat," to Mike Jackson>
The money, the bottom line, the numbers. It's all product to fill in
space between commercials.
<Boaz chops away -- pant,pant -- at the discussion about whether the
subplot of De Niro's romance with Brenneman was justified -- it was>
> > > Also, Boaz, don't you think the location shooting was the best
> for
> > > this film? I would love to see a book about the making of Heat.
> >
> > Me, too! The locations in downtown L.A., the docks at San Pedro
> > Harbor, the Hollywood hills, Mann used each and every one as a
> > character, not just a backdrop.
>
> What a great way to put it, Boaz, but that's what he did! I wonder
> what his next film will be...I'm scared that he will be pressured to
> make money because The Insider didn't...It seems like he is a
> director he takes his time in choosing his material.
Hopefully, he can afford to sit it out until he gets to do the next
project he wants to do.
I remember working briefly on a week long project over at 20th Century
Fox Studios at the time "The Last of the Mohicans" was still in
production. In fact, it had gone over budget and over schedule, it
should have wrapped by the time I was doing this project there.
Anyway, the person I was to report to was kind enough to let me look
through a file drawer of scripts they had available and to read one
while they got my computer and other things set up. I rifled through a
stack of such forgettable scripts as "Love Potion No. 9" and things
like that which eventually came and went in theaters. I noticed this
multi-colored script -- indicating numerous revisions and re-writes --
and it turned out to be the script to TLOTM. When I pulled it out and
said that I'll look through this one everyone looked at me as if I had
just lifted my leg and let a good one rip. "What?" I asked to their
expressions. "That's a troubled production," the person I was
reporting to finally said in a somber tone. It was amazing to see the
hand wringing from so many people regarding how things were going "bad"
on this film. But as I read the script I could see that it was pretty
good. By the time I got to page 40 the person I was reporting to asked
me (this was during lunch) what I thought of the script, and I
said, "If the final film turns out half as good as what I'm reading
here, you don't have anything to worry about. You've got one big hit
on your hands." Apparently, that wasn't what she wanted to hear from
me. The script disappeared after my first day at work. One young
woman said later on in the week that she would be invited to see the
dailies (which were being sent back to the studio from the North
Carolina location) and she said they were boring. Of course they were
boring! The takes hadn't been edited together in a cohesive manner
yet. But try explaining that to someone with no production
background. In any case, the "woe is us" stuff from the junior yuppie
bean counters got to wear pretty thin, and I was glad I was out of
there by the end of the week. (This same young woman gave me a Far
Side cartoon as I left, showing an Indian standing next to last in line
and he is waving at the reader. The caption read, "The Second to the
Last of the Mohicans.") Needless to say, the film was released a year
later and was a hit. Unfortunately, I never got to see any of the
people I had worked with the year before to say "I told you so" to them.
<Boaz chops away at the "creative looping" done for network TV while he
justifies having cable>
> > Yes, but it's worth having for American Movie Classics and
> Turner
> > Classic Movies. By the way, when TCM runs "The Wizard of Oz"
> on Monday
> > they are going to run Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon"
> > simultaneously on the SAP channel. So for anyone who has
> SAP on their
> > TV's or VCR's be sure to watch out for that.
>
> Thanks, I feel even better now. I'm lucky to have a computer!
What, you don't like the idea?
<Boaz chops away some more, this time chopping out a discussion of
Kubrick and Napoleon -- even though this IS AMK>
> > Ever since the '60s Hollywood has been undergoing major
> financial
> > crises. Inflation, television, location shooting have all played a
> part
> > in the demise of the studio system. Sure, lots of films are still
> shot
> > on stages and backlots but it's not what it used to be.
>
> Of course,
> > throwing good money after bad doesn't help either.
>
> *They certainly do that rather well...
They've turned it into an art form.
<Boaz chops away at a small discussion of extras and the need to feed
them>
> > > > "Barry Lyndon" was his alternative to Napoleon. But it still
> took
> > > > about ten months and $11 million of Warner Bros. money to
> pull
> > > it off.
> > >
> > > *And it made more money in Europe, didn't it? Not surprised.
> >
> > Yes, because the pacing was something European audiences
> were
> > accustomed to. Languid pacing and candlelit shots couldn't
> compete
> > with a mechanical shark.
>
> *I liked Jaws, actually but I can like both, can't I? (I don't like
it when
> the shark is killed but whatever).
I liked "Jaws" too. Unfortunately, not a lot of people share the same
tastes you and I have towards different kinds of film. And why didn't
you like it when the shark is killed? Did you want Scheider to capture
and rehabilitate it? Give it some ipecac to hurl up Robert Shaw?
Nobody in Amity really liked the guy anyway. The only things missing
with Shaw was a stovepipe hat and a peg leg.
<Boaz chops away some more about CGI effects and his fear that they may
be the new backlots for studios>
That was for the lambasting he got from the New York critics
after "Ryan's Daughter" was screened for them. It was as though he'd
entered a lion's den.
<Boaz chops away at discussions on David Lean, "Braveheart," Mel Gibson
and the Australian influence in Hollywood>
> > > Oh yes, and now Russell Crowe is the latest star although I
> > > wonder if he will have the staying power of Gibson. I think
> Crowe is
> > > the better actor. He IS rather combustible...
> >
> > In other words, the jury's still out on Crowe?
>
> *I don't understand the question. I do not think Crowe cares too
> much about being a film star. I could be wrong. Most actors with
> opinions do not last in Hollywood, now do they?
I meant that while "Gladiator" is a hit, it doesn't necessarily suggest
that Crowe will be a star from it -- at least not the same manner
Gibson became a star through "The Road Warrior" or (ugh) "Lethal
Weapon."
<Boaz chops away the discussion on Walter Matthau>
> > > > Well, for what it's worth, Gen, I'D like to discuss "Kane."
> Where
> > > > would you like to begin?
> > >
> > > Great Boaz, want to start with what YOU think about the first
> > > paragraph of the book review? And the points it makes about
> the
> > > inaccuracies of Citizen Kane, a film most of us admire
> > > immensely?
> >
> > I'll have to go back to the first posting on this thread and re-read
> > it. As for "inaccuracies," I don't think Mankiewicz and Welles
> were
> > trying to do a real historical biography on Hearst but use his life
> as
> > a jump-off point to create a roman a' clef, thereby freeing
> themselves
> > from "facts" to where they could structure the film to their liking.
>
> Apologist!
I beg your pardon, I am not apologizing for them. They knew what they
were doing, but they couldn't very well do the Hearst story for real,
not while he was still alive and not while he had the kind of influence
over moguls such as Louis B. Mayer. Welles wanted to do something that
would stand out in the minds of filmgoers, and he got his wish -- and
more than he bargained for. But this requires more detail.
>
> > But we'll go further into that later.
>
> *Now that I don't feel like it anymore...Good play.
Oh, gee, thanks.
>
> Best,
> Genevieve
> ************
Bested (and sweaty and sore from all that chopping),
Boaz
And to read something that even the bean counters at Fox might find
funny (then again, they might not), check out "I Only Have Eyes For
You," a parody in four unnatural acts by Boaz and Ichorwhip:
http://homestead.deja.com/user.boaz8741/eyes4u.html
And, since we were on the subject of Welles, Hearst and "Citizen Kane,"
check out this other webpage of mine:
http://homestead.deja.com/user.boaz8741/files/spartacuspool.htm
This is the Roman pool at the Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California.
Not only is this pool part of the Hearst Estate, it was also seen
briefly as part of the estate for Laurence Olivier's character
in "Spartacus," directed by Stanley Kubrick.
David Welsh
>him by character and temperament Australian. There is a story
>where Gibson was going to audition for the lead in "Mad Max"
>and he'd gotten into a fight the night before by some tough
>Aussies who thought he was too much of a "pretty boy." He came
>to George Miller's office with his cuts and bruises and Miller
>cast him immediately. This may be another "urban legend" but
>it also suggests how rough and tumble the Aussies can get at
>times.
Also, the American release of "Mad Max" has Gibson's voice
dubbed. The producers or distributors thought his Australian
accent was too thick for Americans to understand. This is still
found on videotape copies of the film, even after his becoming a
major star here with his original voice.
David Welsh
---
"Infinite are the arguments of mages." -- Ged
Andrew Foley
David Welsh wrote in message
<02aa821c...@usw-ex0103-086.remarq.com>...
>>Yes, but he spent most of his youth in Australia, which makes
>>him by character and temperament Australian. There is a story
>>where Gibson was going to audition for the lead in "Mad Max"
>>and he'd gotten into a fight the night before by some tough
>>Aussies who thought he was too much of a "pretty boy." He came
>>to George Miller's office with his cuts and bruises and Miller
>>cast him immediately. This may be another "urban legend" but
>>it also suggests how rough and tumble the Aussies can get at
>>times.
>
>dubbed. The producers or distributors thought his Australian
>accent was too thick for Americans to understand. This is still
>found on videotape copies of the film, even after his becoming a
>major star here with his original voice.
The American release of Mad Max (which was the version for British release
also) has *all* the voices dubbed into American, as well as being 10 minutes
shorter than the original. It was easy for me to tell in the theatrical
version I saw (twice -- not by choice, though: the second time was on a
double-bill with Mad Max II) that the dubbing artist who replaced Mel
Gibson's voice was... Mel Gibson.
Mike Jackson
mgene...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > I watched an interview with George Clooney last night on Charlie
> Rose and he
> > was talking about the tremendous responsibility he felt toward
> portraying a
> > man who had died in "The Perfect Storm"; that he they couldn't
> just make say
> > a girlfriend mean to fix a plot point or give the character
> motivation for
> > going to sea because that would hurt a real person.
> > I was sort of heartened to hear him talk about how they
> approached depicting
> > what no one can know about the Andrea Gail, which was what
> did happen in
> > those hours after contact was lost before it sank. It's the kind of
> thing
> > that you get in these kinds of movies that tell stuff that is really
> just
> > pure speculation and fabrication. Since they couldn't know, they
> at least
> > made that part entertaining and a sort of gift to those men's
> families and
> > loved ones from the way he described it. I'm looking forward to
> seeing that
> > one...
>
> Perhaps you will tell us what you think after you have seen this
> film.
<Mikey takes his delete key out and makes a big snip out of last Saturday's
post and fulfills the request...>
Well Genevieve, it's about what you'd expect. "The Perfect Storm" is an FX
driven summer blockbuster that does a passing try at having a heart about
it's subject matter. I wish I read the book which is getting more praise
than the film on which it is based. The FX of the storm of the century are
very close to seamless, mostly revealing themselves in the mere fact that
you know some of the scenes look so dangerous and frightening as waves tower
dozens of stories over the ships that they couldn't be anything else but
something created in a computer. It all looks pretty good, but despite the
fact they try to build the story for nearly an hour before the storm gets
blowing, it still has that stilted quality where you can't forget you're
watching a bunch of actors trying to convince you that you aren't watching a
bunch of actors you know...
Perhaps the best is John C. Reilly as Murph who's probably the only one in
the cast that can convince you he could be a fisherman. There are some
strange surprises like Karen Allen in the minor subplot of a sailboat that
was caught in the storm and had to be rescued by a Coast Guard rescue helo
that would later get in trouble trying to reach the Andrea Gail, the fishing
boat at the center of the movie. What makes it odd is Allen doesn't really
have anything to do with the part other than look scared, get tossed on some
CGI waves and exit the film after her character is rescued...
What bugged me about it was sappy stuff like the speech Clooney gives about
the joy of being a swordboat captain that I imagine would have real
fishermen hooting or gagging over the side. It's the kind of cornpone stuff
he can pull off when he cocks his head over, tucks his chin against his
chest and looks out from under his bushy eyebrows, but it's a one note thing
he does and it's wearing thin. But all in all, it's worth watching for some
good old fashioned escapism if you can just park your brain in neutral and
eat your popcorn...
I was about to nod off earlier and one of my favorite ghosts of blockbuster
films past came on the local UHF station and with my cast itching me like
hell, I stayed up and watched it. Though i's nothing like TPS, this old film
made me think about it again. I saw it sometime in the last summer before my
senior year in high school and it made me want to fly Navy jets, despite how
dopey the film looks to me in the years since. This funky old film was "The
Final Countdown" with Kirk Douglas, Martin Sheen, James "Movie of the Week"
Farentino, Katharine Ross and Charles Durning...
Now part of the reason I love this old turkey is just watching the planes;
the old Corsairs, Intruders and Crusaders. I watch the credits to the end
every time it's on just to see them flying. The movie was a letdown 20 years
ago because it's a strange time travel plot that really sort of goes
nowhere, filmed on the USS Nimitz apparently as the crew enacts every sort
of drill possible from a barricade crash landing of a Corsair to running
like Keystone cops through the passageways as Captain Kirk Douglas sounds
General Quarters. There are all sorts of novelties such as two F-14 Tomcats
duking it out with two old Japanese Zeros (actually T-6s) and the flimsy
time travel twist at the end that still makes me smile in spite of myself
every time...
Okay, so what the heck does this have to do with "The Perfect Storm" and why
am I even blathering about this in this thread? Well, let me bump along here
for a tiny bit more...
Well, "The Final Countdown" was one weird ass movie. For the life of me I
can't figure out how the film got made in the first place and since I've
never run across anyone who knew the particulars of it's production, it
remains a mystery to me. except for one or two aviation buff friends, I've
never met someone who liked it, much less remembers it at all. I wish I
could hear how someone passed the script for this film through Navy brass
and got them to loan out the Navy's premier carrier at the time for this.
One of the things that amuses me every time I watch it is that the movie is
full of bit parts given apparently to actual crewmen aboard the Nimitz at
the time it was filmed. It's practically bizarre to watch Kirk & co.
wandering through scenes playing the kind of military characters we're used
to from films, barking orders and looking appropriately grim. Douglas'
Nimitz captain would get on quite well with Dax from PoG, only the former
character is trapped in a really goofy film.... And then in the background
real sailors are either nonchalantly or self consciously speaking dialogue
as they run through their parts; "Aye, sir, helm to flank speed" or some
such the same way you'll see real sailors talking from a hundred Discovery
Channel documentaries. Or you'll catch them trying not to crack a grin as
Kirk tells them things like they've just traveled through time. You know a
real Navy crew would lock up that captain faster than you can say Captain
Queeg... The moral of that one is, point a camera at folks who've never been
in front of a camera before and you'll get a bunch of monotone, stilted
'actors'.
What get to me though and what made me think of the TPS was that in between
all that hokum I'm watching footage of real sailors absorbed in doing real
drills out on the ship that is cut into the action; planes catting off the
deck, guys loading ordinance, etc., to flesh out he plot of a 1980's carrier
suddenly back in time the day before Pearl Harbor is attacked in 1941. This
documentary style footage of guys probably just drilling for a work-up to a
cruise that I've seen the likes of before in TLC and Discovery channel
documentaries is great. The mix with Hollywood is jarring no matter how much
I want to forgive it and just enjoy the long retired planes flying....
But every darned blockbuster film suffers from some gimmick. A gimmick
itself is the new star of almost every film these days. Here are two films,
sort of randomly seen in the last few days, 20 years apart in their making
and all I can think of is how hard they are trying to be "real" and how
miserably the determination to act like "real" people shows through.
With the great film makers like a Kubrick you can see the difference, even
when he makes some story so patently silly at face value like a ghost story
set in a Colorado resort hotel. You know as it's flashing by that it's a
movie, but when you believe in a movie like Kubrick did, when you set out to
cross every t and dot every i, when you leave no detail unconsidered then
you can take an audience anywhere; to the other side of the Universe with
nothing more than a big black plywood slab and make them believe they just
saw something extraordinary, because indeed they did. They saw film making
raised to an art form, not a goofy idea gristed through some incredible
scenery or a "true life" story sleight of handed by actors more or less
playing themselves encroached on more and more by CGI that is so
unbelievable it jars you out of the story...
There's that old axiom that goes something like corn should be 'knee high by
the Fourth of July. At the movies on the Fourth Weekend holiday, the the
corn is over the top...