Cahiers du Cinema's best of 2001
Paul Gallagher
1) Mulholland Drive (Lynch)
2) L'Anglaise et le duc (The Lady and the Duke) (Rohmer)
3) Millennium Mambo (Hou Hsiao-hsien)
4) Time and Tide (Tsui Hark)
5) Je rentre a la maison (I'm Going Home) (Oliveira)
6) Platform (Jia Zhang-ke)
Sauvage innocence (Wild Innocence) (Garrel)
8) Sobibor, 14 octobre 1943, 16 heures (Sobibor, Oct. 14, 1943, 4pm) (Lanzmann)
9) The Son's Room (Moretti)
10) R-Xmas (Ferrara)
Readers' top 10:
1) Mulholland Drive (Lynch)
2) The Son's Room (Moretti)
3) Va savoir (Rivette)
Millennium Mambo (Hou hsiao-hsien)
5) Trouble Every Day (Claire Denis)
6) L'anglaise et le duc (Rohmer)
7) Eloge de l'amour (In Praise of Love) (Godard)
8) Sous le sable (Under the Sand) (Ozon)
9) What Time Is It There? (Tsai Ming-liang)
10) Ghost of Mars (Carpenter)
----
Paul
Felix Tiaka
> 4) Time and Tide (Tsui Hark)
> Readers' top 10:
> 10) Ghost of Mars (Carpenter)
Am I the only one that thinks that these choices are completely insane?
American and Hong Kong action films are considered art? This reminds me of
Assays' Irma Vep, where Maggie Cheung's interviewer inserts his own views on
current state of cinema. "No one wants to see people talk, it's boring... HK
film is done best by John Woo, his action choreography with guns is like
ballet" or something like that.
Mike and Dorcie
Felix, what's up?
Some movies on the list surprised me as well. "Ghost of Mars" just makes me
laugh.
Dorcie
Reagen Sulewski
news:a387el$15tu9n$1...@ID-51106.news.dfncis.de:
Ordinarily, but not from the people that put Space Cowboys in their top 10
last year.
Jeff McCloud
> > Critics' top 10:
> > 4) Time and Tide (Tsui Hark)
>
> > Readers' top 10:
> > 10) Ghost of Mars (Carpenter)
>
> Am I the only one that thinks that these choices are completely insane?
> American and Hong Kong action films are considered art?
You are probably not the only one who thinks these choices are insane.
I, however, have no problem with these choices. Your dismissal of
"action" films as something less than "art" is rather snobbish, if I
may say so. I consider TIME AND TIDE to be one the ten best films of
the year--its use of color, movement, and cinematic space are
phenomenal. Plus, it has a scene where a woman gives birth during a
gun fight. As for the Carpenter film, I admire it quite a bit as well.
It is obviously no THING or ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK or ASSAULT ON THE
PRECINCT, but it still works itself through in interesting ways
(flashback structure, matriarchal society as the rule, a drug addict
hero, etc.). Natasha Henstridge gives a terrific performance in this
one--on par with Sigourney Weaver in ALIENS in my humble opinion.
MARS is obviously an auterist item for the French, so it is no
surprise that some readers of CAHIERS would dig it.
I am glad that the French dudes did manage to get Abel Ferrara on
their list. Now if some distributor will get its act together, North
Americans could see R'XMAS.
Jeff McCloud
Denise Perry
This is where it's at!
http://www.will.uiuc.edu/WILL_Contents/WILL/news/livewill.ram
Jeff McCloud
Sure they did, but those other films are better. I mean POOTIE TANG
is better than MEMENTO. Really.
Jeff McCloud
QueenMag
Memento was very good (and I seriously doubt Pootie Tang is better than it),
but didn't endear itself to me. I haven't seen most of the films on these
lists - maybe only a couple were even released in my city - so I don't know
how they measure up. I was surprised to see Ghost of Mars at No. 10, though.
Was it popular in France? Who knew.
Year-end Top Ten lists can be helpful in directing a person to what might be
better films, but they say more about the critic than anything else.
-qm
"Denise Perry" <dpe...@uiuc.edu> wrote in message
news:3c585228....@news.cso.uiuc.edu...
Paul Gallagher
>may say so. I consider TIME AND TIDE to be one the ten best films of
>the year--its use of color, movement, and cinematic space are
>phenomenal. Plus, it has a scene where a woman gives birth during a
>gun fight.
I thought _Time and Tide_ was great. I'm surprised it didn't get
a single vote in the Village Voice poll for the best of 2001,
since it seemed like Tsui Hark's year. _Time and Tide_ got a wide
release and was his first film to open in NYC out of Chinatown. There was
a popular Tsui Hark retrospective in New York this summer, and a successful
revival of _Once Upon a Time in China I and II_.
Paul
Man...An Ancient Race
p...@panix.com (Paul Gallagher) wrote in message news:<a3862d$e72$1...@panix3.panix.com>...
Paul Gallagher
>hero, etc.). Natasha Henstridge gives a terrific performance in this
>one--on par with Sigourney Weaver in ALIENS in my humble opinion.
>MARS is obviously an auterist item for the French, so it is no
>surprise that some readers of CAHIERS would dig it.
Stephane Delorme had an interesting take on _Ghosts of Mars_. He
pointed out that it is a kind of response to Carpenter's _Vampires_.
_Vampires_ showed a band of macho men in effect at war with women:
the master vampire is effeminate and the only roles for women are
as prostitutes or vampires. _Ghosts of Mars_ shows a society dominated
by women, where the lead women are powerful and the men are ridiculous
or ineffectual. Delorme thinks sexual relationships are shown as
impossible: the characters' only joy is getting high alone, the two
sexual characters, Pam Grier and Jason Stanks tham, both disappear. A key
scene shows Natasha Henstridge briefly succumbing to Statham and
immediately afterwards being possessed by a phantom -- the possession is
shown as pleasurable and sexual, but Henstridge resists it. Delorme
thinks this points to the heart of Carpenter's films: the highest human
relationship isn't love or sex but friendship; its object isn't the
couple or the family but the group and in particular alliances. _Ghosts
of Mars_ is a departure for Carpenter because it ultimately depends
on friendship between a man and a woman.
Paul
Paul Gallagher
>is cahiers du cinema a mainstream mag or buff rag?
It's something like Film Comment or Sight and Sound.
Paul
John Harkness
Well, yeah, sort of....
Film Comment and Sight And Sound do sort of recognize the existence of
a mainstream audience. Cahiers is a little strange, even for France.
(Put it this way -- it Film Comment puts a Farrelly Bros movie on the
cover, it's because they recognize the value of pop culture. If
Cahiers puts a Farrelly Bros movie on the cover, it's to demonstrate
that Americans don't understand the genius of the Farrelly Bros.
John Harkness
Paul Gallagher
>What? Did these people not see Memento in 2001?
Cahiers' editor, Charles Tesson, definitely disliked Memento, and thought
the concept behind it was a bad idea to begin with. However, Memento
was generally praised in France as it was in the US.
http://www.allocine.fr/film is a good site for finding out how French
critics and audiences reacted to a film.
Paul
Felix Tiaka
> >the year--its use of color, movement, and cinematic space are
> >phenomenal. Plus, it has a scene where a woman gives birth during a
> >gun fight.
>
> I thought _Time and Tide_ was great. I'm surprised it didn't get
> a single vote in the Village Voice poll for the best of 2001,
> since it seemed like Tsui Hark's year. _Time and Tide_ got a wide
> release and was his first film to open in NYC out of Chinatown. There was
> a popular Tsui Hark retrospective in New York this summer, and a
successful
> revival of _Once Upon a Time in China I and II_.
Ooops, I completely forgot about my post here.
To jeff, I'm not snobbish, and I've enjoyed time and tide as well as many
other tsui hark films. I love action films, martial arts and particularly
those that mix both. My point is that I don't think it was top ten, and
further on how come no one really says anything about the banality of some
of the choices on the Cahiers lists. Last year they had "ItmfL" below
"Mission to Mars".
Felix Tiaka
>
> Cahiers' editor, Charles Tesson, definitely disliked Memento, and thought
> the concept behind it was a bad idea to begin with. However, Memento
> was generally praised in France as it was in the US.
Did anyone see the following? very much like memento, it's smart and clever,
but not much else. I really couldn't watch Memento again.
septimus
I haven't seen that (but I sure will; I can seldom resist
watching Alien-knockoffs). However, I cannot help but
think Cahier's rationale for including this is mostly
auteurist, too. Take one of my guilty pleasures of
recent years, _Pitch Black_. It is somewhat cliched and has
major plot holes. But it is well crafted, it has enough
stuff on gender, race, religion, etc., for any academic
type to write 5 theses on; did it get on Cahier's top
ten list? I don't know but I seriously doubt it. And
judging from the few reviews of _GoM_ I've seen, I doubt
it is half as good as _Pitch Black_. This claim
that Cahier put actioners and art flicks on the same
playing field strikes me as fake, more a pretense than
a reality.
Paul Gallagher
>>Stephane Delorme had an interesting take on _Ghosts of Mars_...
>I haven't seen that (but I sure will; I can seldom resist
>watching Alien-knockoffs).
It's more of an _Assault on Precinct 13_ knockoff than an _Alien_
knockoff. Or _Rio Bravo_ with Natasha Henstridge playing a combination
of Angie Dickinson, Ricky Nelson, and Dean Martin...
However, I cannot help but
>think Cahier's rationale for including this is mostly
>auteurist, too. Take one of my guilty pleasures of
>recent years, _Pitch Black_. It is somewhat cliched and has
>major plot holes. But it is well crafted, it has enough
>stuff on gender, race, religion, etc., for any academic
>type to write 5 theses on; did it get on Cahier's top
>ten list? I don't know but I seriously doubt it. And
>judging from the few reviews of _GoM_ I've seen, I doubt
>it is half as good as _Pitch Black_.
I haven't seen the issue of Cahiers that reviewed _Pitch Black_.
_Pitch Black_ and _Ghosts of Mars_ have fairly similar stories,
but they're very different movies. They certainly look different:
_Pitch Black_ has lots of hand-held camera work and quick cutting,
which I didn't care for; Carpenter is an old-fashioned classical
filmmaker. _Ghosts of Mars_ is more of an action adventure film
than a horror film. I thought the "bat-lizards" in _Pitch Black_ were
much scarier than the phantoms in _Ghost of Mars_. I didn't
really get the point of the gender, race, and religion stuff
in _Pitch Black_, but I may be missing something.
Incidentally, one of the screenwriters of _Pitch Black_ wrote
on misc.writing.screenplays that their original idea was to have
the alien threat be ghosts of ancient warriors:
Twohy did considerable rewriting, but the film is still very
close to the final draft we wrote. We did *start out* with
the ghosts of ancient alien warriors, but they'd become the
hungry hibernating underground creatures that were in the film
by the time we were done...
The biggest change was that the "Riddick" character in our
version was a woman. Twohy has said that he didn't think a
woman could be threatening enough. Maybe not. Would've been
interesting to see.
Paul
QueenMag
news:a3jgtm$10q$1...@panix3.panix.com...
> Incidentally, one of the screenwriters of _Pitch Black_ wrote
> on misc.writing.screenplays that their original idea was to have
> the alien threat be ghosts of ancient warriors:
....
> The biggest change was that the "Riddick" character in our
> version was a woman. Twohy has said that he didn't think a
> woman could be threatening enough. Maybe not. Would've been
> interesting to see.
I'll say! Especially considering the interaction/tension between Riddick and
Fry in the final version. The film is a guilty pleasure of mine (I own it),
but listening to David Twohy in the DVD commentary really made me question
whether the film is making any statements. I really liked the character of
Fry, as well as the ending and general theme of redemption, but Twohy
sounded like he was half-asleep on the audiotrack and didn't provide much
insight into the ideas behind the film. I was left with the impression that
he set out to .... uhh, make an action thriller? And that's about it.
-QM
Paul Gallagher
of 2001 lists appear. There are several interesting articles. There is
a letter to the editor concerning "Ghosts of Mars," praising Carpenter's
mastery and regretting that "Ghosts of Mars" was a critical and commercial
failure not only in the US, but also in France. There's an article about
Chang Cheh -- people who think it's insane to call "Time and Tide" art
will have an even harder time with praise for "One Armed Swordsman." There
are retrospective articles on Sternberg and Skolimowski. There is an
interview with Sonic Youth, which is scoring Oliver Assayas' new film,
"Demonlover," and an interview with the Kirghiz filmmaker, Aktan Abdykalykov.
There is an article in praise of David Letterman. There are articles about
Tavernier's new film, "Laissez-passer," about the French cinema under
the Occupation: it depicts the Occupation as the golden age of French
film, and in particular praises the apprentice system that the New Wave
swept away, which leads Charles Tesson to conclude that Tavernier, who
has long been anti-New Wave, is claiming the New Wave did more harm to
the French cinema than the Germans during the Occupation.
Particularly interesting is an article reporting that Antonioni has completed
filming on his latest film, "Eros." It will be a film in three parts on
erotic themes. The directors of the other two parts are Pedro Almodovar and
Wong Kar-wai. Billy Wilder and Elia Kazan were also asked to direct,
but they declined. Although he is partially paralyzed, Antonioni is said
to be fully able to direct.
The article doesn't mention Antonioni's project based on Jack Finney's story,
"Destination: Verna." There were press reports about planning for
the film, which was to have starred Sophia Loren and Naomi Campbell, but
filming was postponed because of Antonioni's health. I assume the film
won't be made.
Since Wong Kar-wai is taking so long to finish "2046," it's surprising
that he took on yet another project.
Paul
septimus
>
> I finally got the January issue of Cahiers du Cinema, in which the best
> of 2001 lists appear. There are several interesting articles. There is
> a letter to the editor concerning "Ghosts of Mars," praising Carpenter's
> mastery and regretting that "Ghosts of Mars" was a critical and commercial
> failure not only in the US, but also in France. There's an article about
> Chang Cheh -- people who think it's insane to call "Time and Tide" art
> will have an even harder time with praise for "One Armed Swordsman."
I do suspect they try too hard to manufacture their own Hitchcock. But
I haven't seen _Ghost of Mars_. There is nothing in the world that
would
make me watch _Time and Tide_, but instead of my usual tiresome attacks
on
Tsui Hark, maybe I should commend his newfound internationalist
perspective
(an improvement on his xenophobic tendencies in his early days). I wish
more artist/populist/whatever you call them in China and Hong Kong do
their share to diffuse this poisonous xenophobic nationalism being
propagated in communist China.
>
> Particularly interesting is an article reporting that Antonioni has completed
> filming on his latest film, "Eros." It will be a film in three parts on
> erotic themes. The directors of the other two parts are Pedro Almodovar and
> Wong Kar-wai. Billy Wilder and Elia Kazan were also asked to direct,
> but they declined. Although he is partially paralyzed, Antonioni is said
> to be fully able to direct.
Never heard of this before. I hope it is better than _Beyond the
Clouds_!
(But the last segment starring guess-who is such a change of pace it is
absolutely the best thing about the film, according to me anyway.)
>
> Since Wong Kar-wai is taking so long to finish "2046," it's surprising
> that he took on yet another project.
>
Last I heard he is yanking the pretty boy Japanese pop idol and redoing
that part of the film. I have strong misgiving about _2046_ from the
start, but it will definitely surprise me one way or another!
Paul Gallagher
>I do suspect they try too hard to manufacture their own Hitchcock. But
>I haven't seen _Ghost of Mars_. There is nothing in the world that would
>make me watch _Time and Tide_, but instead of my usual tiresome attacks on
>Tsui Hark, maybe I should commend his newfound internationalist perspective
>(an improvement on his xenophobic tendencies in his early days).
I don't think "Ghosts of Mars" is a great film, but Robert Horton's comment
sounds right: "there is more lucid storytelling here than in almost
any other Hollywood picture of the year."
I didn't know what you thought about Tsui Hark. I'd welcome your perspective.
I'll look in google.com for your old posts. Oliver Assayas and "Irma
Vep" came up earlier in this thread. He very much admires King Hu, but
my understanding is that he doesn't care for most of the popular Hong
Kong cinema of the past twenty years, and doesn't like John Woo's work.
I don't know his specific reasons, however.
>Never heard of this before. I hope it is better than _Beyond the
>Clouds_!
>(But the last segment starring guess-who is such a change of pace it is
>absolutely the best thing about the film, according to me anyway.)
>
I agree that the segment with Irene Jacob is by far the best. I don't
think the other segments work dramatically. But there are beautiful
images and beautifully choreographed scenes throughout. It's probably
generally true of Antonioni that the images and the narrative are
relatively independent, but in "Beyond the Clouds" it's odd how
the narrative is almost deadweight.
Paul
NMacphe421
>Oliver Assayas and "Irma
>Vep" came up earlier in this thread. He very much admires King Hu, but
>my understanding is that he doesn't care for most of the popular Hong
>Kong cinema of the past twenty years, and doesn't like John Woo's work.
>I don't know his specific reasons, however.
>
From an interview I read with Assayas I got the impression that he likes Hong
Kong movies in general and takes some credit for their popularity in the West
via his work as a film critic; what he doesn't like is the reverse snobbery of
too many film fans who place HK filmmakers on a higher level that Fellini,
Bergman, etc. He didn't mention Woo specifically but he didn't seem too
enthused with the Americanization of Chinese culture evident in the
ultra-violent HK movies. .
septimus
> I didn't know what you thought about Tsui Hark. I'd welcome your perspective.
> I'll look in google.com for your old posts.
Please don't! My posts are not meant to be archived ...
>Oliver Assayas and "Irma
> Vep" came up earlier in this thread. He very much admires King Hu, but
> my understanding is that he doesn't care for most of the popular Hong
> Kong cinema of the past twenty years, and doesn't like John Woo's work.
> I don't know his specific reasons, however.
>
I like _A better tomorrow_ but the rest of Woo's work I find grotesque.
Actually MI:2 seems much more restraint and well-directed than _Hard
Boil_ and ABT2. Anyway, I am much more intrigued by the reasons of
the other critics who *like* Tsui Hark. (Reasons other than fight
choreography, which I am never interested in anyway.)
> I agree that the segment with Irene Jacob is by far the best. I don't
> think the other segments work dramatically. But there are beautiful
> images and beautifully choreographed scenes throughout. It's probably
> generally true of Antonioni that the images and the narrative are
> relatively independent, but in "Beyond the Clouds" it's odd how
> the narrative is almost deadweight.
_The Mystery of Oberwald_ (or whatever) is horribly flat too, I
thought. I like _La Notte_ and _L'Avventura_; maybe I suffer from
not seeing his work on the big screen. I hated the long takes
in _The Eclipse_ (my first Antonioni, which I did see in the
theater); given that, it's not likely I'd be crazy about
Tsai Ming-Liang.
Paul Gallagher
>From an interview I read with Assayas I got the impression that he likes Hong
>Kong movies in general and takes some credit for their popularity in the West
>via his work as a film critic; what he doesn't like is the reverse snobbery of
>too many film fans who place HK filmmakers on a higher level that Fellini,
>Bergman, etc. He didn't mention Woo specifically but he didn't seem too
>enthused with the Americanization of Chinese culture evident in the
>ultra-violent HK movies. .
I searched online and found an interview Assayas did with Steve Erickson
(who used to post on rec.arts.movies.)
SE: Are there a lot of people in France who have the same opinions as
the "journalist who loves John Woo" (Antoine Basler) who interviews
Maggie Cheung?
OA: Absolutely! He definitely represents a current in French filmmaking.
There are many people who believe the truth of today's cinema can
only be found in American and Hong Kong cinema, and that films
which don't directly depict violence are weak and out of synch
with the times. The things the journalist is saying are taken
almost word-for-word from things I've heard Matthieu Kassovitz say.
I think a lot of Hong Kong films are aesthetically interesting,
but they're successful with American audiences for all the wrong
reasons. John Woo is a really interesting filmmaker and very strong
visually, but the kind of recognition someone like him gets
says a lot about the degree of abstraction that both American movies
and audiences have gotten into.
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Village/4736/article6.html
Kassovitz directed "Hate" and is currently starring in "Amelie." Jan
Kounen ("Dobermann") and Luc Besson are similar directors. He represents
a very different point of view from Cahiers.
It would be interesting to compare the different points of view.
I mentioned Tavernier in a previous post. People like Tavernier
and Michel Ciment of "Positif" are especially critical of Cahiers and
the New Wave; so is Kassovitz; so are many people on r.a.m.past-films,
but for somewhat different reasons. For example, Tavernier and Kassovitz
might agree that "la nouvelle vague" is the major reason there is no
European film industry comparable to Hollywood. But Tavernier looks back
to the "cinema of quality" as a model, while Kassovitz looks to commercial
Hollywood and Hong Kong.
"Dobermann" might be a good example. Its attitude to Cahiers is very
much like Tom Sutpen's: in it -- pardon my French -- a guy "se torchait le
cul" with a copy of Cahiers. I get the sense Kounen learned the wrong lessons
from Hong Kong and the US: the violence is ugly and tiresome. But I'm
not sure on what grounds I prefer John Woo's gratuitous violence to
Kounen's. Is it mostly just formal excellence?
Paul
Paul Gallagher
>from Hong Kong and the US: the violence is ugly and tiresome. But I'm
>not sure on what grounds I prefer John Woo's gratuitous violence to
>Kounen's. Is it mostly just formal excellence?
>Paul
There have been some interesting discussions on fr.rec.cinema.discussion
about these topics. Here is a comment by axys:
When [Kounen] claims kinship with the great Sam [Peckinpah], I laugh!
"The Wild Bunch," for example, is the opposite of "Dobermann." It's
an unfashionable film, despairing, a twilight film on the end of an
era, on old age, death, lost illusions... nothing to do with the
"wild fun" of Kounen. With Peckinpah, the fact of killing is not fun.
axys elsewhere wrote:
Maybe I'm alone on this, but I don't feel the violence in Woo is
particularly fun... I do not think that Woo conceives of the violence
he stages as fun: the climaxes of the films of this director are
dark, tense, dramatic, even tragic. It's completely the opposite of
the "fun" violence that is distanced and ironic. It is precisely this
very juvenile, very naive side characteristic of Hong Kong cinema
that repulses some people and sometimes leads to involuntary laughter.
Pleasure -- I do not like that word, except when it is a film by
Ophuls -- but yes, what one feels when watching "choreography" like
Woo's, you see what I mean, is for me a matter of purely aesthetic
concern, even technical... I don't feel any sadistic jubilation.
Drool doesn't come to my lips (I know you'll say I drool anyway,
but it's not of my own free will).
Paul
Paul Gallagher
>_The Mystery of Oberwald_ (or whatever) is horribly flat too, I
>thought. I like _La Notte_ and _L'Avventura_; maybe I suffer from
>not seeing his work on the big screen. I hated the long takes
>in _The Eclipse_ (my first Antonioni, which I did see in the
> theater); given that, it's not likely I'd be crazy about
>Tsai Ming-Liang.
"The Eclipse" is a film that really divides people. I've read there
was a big backlash against Antonioni back in 1962, both in the US
and Europe. Some people love "The Eclipse." It's Jonathan Rosenbaum's
choice for Antonioni's masterpiece. It's the favorite film of someone
I know (he owns the newsstand on Hudson St. and N. Moore if you care
to go discuss Antonioni...)
I saw it in the theater in the 1980's, but I barely remember it
apart from the stock exchange scene. Andrew Sarris and the Cahiers du
Cinema critics didn't like it much when it came out, although both Sarris
and Cahiers later praised "The Red Desert," which is my favorite Antonioni
film. (By the way "Red Desert" was released the same day I was born;
Pasolini's "The Gospel According to St. Matthew" and "Gilligan's Island"
also premiered on that day. And in fact I do identify with both Monica
Vitti's Giuliana and Gilligan.)
The situation at Cahiers was complicated because Roberto Rossellini,
who was something like a father figure to them, disliked Antonioni.
Godard was likely thinking of "L'Eclisse" when he wrote:
The film ["Vivre Sa Vie"] was an intellectual adventure: I wanted to try
to film a thought in action--but how do you do it? We still don't know.
In any case, something is revealed. This is why Antonioni's cinema of
non-communication isn't mine. Rossellini told me that I almost fell into the
Antonioni error, but just escaped. I believe sincerity is sufficient
when one has this kind of problem. I think it is wrong to say that the
more you look at someone the less you understand. Obviously, though, if
you look too much you inevitably end by wondering what the point is. If
you look at a wall for ten hours on end, you begin to ask questions about
the wall, and yet it's just a wall. You create useless problems. This, too,
is why the film is a series of sketches: one must let people live their
live, not look too long at them, otherwise one ends by no longer
understanding anything.
The screenwriter, Jean Gruault, described the incident with Rossellini
to Tag Gallagher:
He came out furious [from Vivre sa Vie] and dragged me aside to ball me
out for having made him waste his time," recounts Gruault. "Next day
we saw each other again, Jean-Luc and I, at The Raphael. Jean-Luc was
to drive Roberto to Orly and I was to pay his hotel bill... On the way
to the airport, he maintained a silence heavy with menace. Suddenly
he barked, in a voice prophetically low-pitched, like Cassandra
announcing the fall of Troy or Isaiah threatening an impious people
with the greatest evils: 'Jean-Luc, tu es au bord de l'antonionisme!'
[Jean-Luc, you are bordering on Antonioni-ism!'] The insult was such
that poor Godard lost control of the car for a second and nearly made
us join the scenery.
Godard's comment about "if you look at a wall for ten hours on end"
reminds me of Antonioni's "Chung Kuo," in which there are several
protracted shots of walls. Antonioni's camera would frequently dwell
on writing on walls or pillars, but the writing would be left
untranslated.
Paul
septimus
>
> In <a43d08$h70$1...@panix2.panix.com> p...@panix.com (Paul Gallagher) writes:
>
> >from Hong Kong and the US: the violence is ugly and tiresome. But I'm
> >not sure on what grounds I prefer John Woo's gratuitous violence to
> >Kounen's. Is it mostly just formal excellence?
>
> >Paul
> axys elsewhere wrote:
> Maybe I'm alone on this, but I don't feel the violence in Woo is
> particularly fun... I do not think that Woo conceives of the violence
> he stages as fun: the climaxes of the films of this director are
> dark, tense, dramatic, even tragic. It's completely the opposite of
> the "fun" violence that is distanced and ironic. It is precisely this
> very juvenile, very naive side characteristic of Hong Kong cinema
> that repulses some people and sometimes leads to involuntary laughter.
> Pleasure -- I do not like that word, except when it is a film by
> Ophuls -- but yes, what one feels when watching "choreography" like
> Woo's, you see what I mean, is for me a matter of purely aesthetic
> concern, even technical... I don't feel any sadistic jubilation.
> Drool doesn't come to my lips (I know you'll say I drool anyway,
> but it's not of my own free will).
>
I confess to admiring the choreography in MI:2. The Iberian touches
are consistent and carried through to the end, right down to the
matador-like motor-bike duel. _A Better Tomorrow_ (notwithstanding
its terrible soundtrack) is a very good film. I like it more than
_Godfather_ itself, which may be going a little too far, but it is
a tremendously heartfelt work. It is a film about come-backs, and
I'm sure most of you have heard the story behind it. Woo was
reduced to accepting Church handouts. (He was Catholic by the way,
Ian Mcdowell and others used to have a lot to say about his religion
and his aethestics in other newsgroups.) Ti Lung, one of the stars,
was once the martial art movie idol but had fallen on hard times. The
great Chow Yun-Fat, without question one of the best Chinese actors
of his generation, never had any luck with box offices. And then
they came together and made this really passionate film about
loyalty, betray, and "taking back what is yours." It was a smashing
success. I didn't even
think of the film as particularly violent (except at the end);
it is the *threat* of violence in every scene that gives the film
such power and tension. It comes in waves, the violence: you
take a beating, then you get right back up and take your
swing; the whole thing has such a beautiful rhythm to it. There
is not much of the sentimental glorification of victimhood and
over-wrought justification of revenge that plague so many HK
action films. (Chow's character is certainly not a saint.) And such
acting and thoughtful characterizations too, which are constructed
to maximize conflict and drama. Ti Lung represents old China, all
that stuff about family and brotherhood. Chow's Mark Lee is high on
"brotherly" loyalty too, but he is also the loner, the consummate,
disconnected modern man who
lives by a gangster's code so stark it is almost abstract. Chow
gave perhaps the performance of his career (it is certainly his
most intense ever); his work, and the film, swept the Hong
Kong academy awards and deserve every one of those prizes.
I disagree with "axys elsewhere." In ABT2 there is this comic
relief character during the bloodiest of the fights; there can
be no doubt his scenes are played for laughs. (That's the
Tsang Kong (sp) character, who was the ex-con that tried
to keep Ti Lung away from gangsters in the first film; what a
sad caricature of that dignified character in the sequel.)
_Hard Boiled_ is so over the top I'd think Woo has to be out
of his mind to believe he is being serious. I wish I can say
the slaughter of the patients in the hospital juxtaposed with
the rescue of the babies is an autocritique of the film's
violence, but alas I think Woo was only trying to be manipulative
and crude. (Chow telling one of the babies smoking is bad
for his/her health is certainly meant as a joke.)
In short, when it comes to John Woo, I think there is ABT
and there are the rest. The first one is a labor of love.
I haven't seen _Bullet in the Head_ but I have a really low
opinion of the rest of his output.
septimus
>
Again, this makes for the most fascinating reading.
I've been on Rosenbaum's case a lot lately. His
failure to mention the Irene Jacob segment in
_Beyond the Clouds_ in his review -- when lot of people,
including
you and Cheshire, single that story out for praise
-- certainly doesn't endear him to the Jacob international
fan club. For that matter, his praising Antonioni
films for their existentism and neglecting to
mention Terrence Malick's philosophical pedigree
the very next week when he was writing about TTRL
didn't help, either. Like I said, I was tough
on Rosenbaum lately. But anyway, I'd really be
interested in why he thinks _The Eclipse_ is
a masterpiece. I guess I'll go hunt down one
of his older books when I have a chance then.
Paul Gallagher
>But anyway, I'd really be
>interested in why he thinks _The Eclipse_ is
>a masterpiece. I guess I'll go hunt down one
>of his older books when I have a chance then.
He writes about "The Eclipse" in "Placing Movies." He mentions how the
US critics who had supported "L'Avventura" -- Dwight MacDonald, John
Simon, Pauline Kael, and Andrew Sarris -- all turned against "The
Eclipse." Rosenbaum continues:
In the final scene Of ECLIPSE (1962)--my favorite Antonioni feature,
and the one that concludes the loose trilogy started by L'AVVENTURA
and LA NOTTE-- a lingering over an urban street corner while night
begins to fall, effected through montage rather than an extended take,
becomes one of the most terrifying poems in modern cinema simply through
its complex poetry of absence. The lead couple in this film, played by
Alain Delon and Monica Vitti, have previously planned to meet at this
corner, in front of a building site. (Another building site figures in
the opening sequence of L'AVVENTURA.) The unexplained fact that neither
character shows up is perturbing, but because their affair has been
more frivolous than serious, it hardly accounts to the overall feeling
of desolation and even terror in this sequence.
It's almost as if Antonioni has extracted the essence of the everyday
street life that serves as background throughout the picture, and
once we're presented with this essence in its undiluted form, it
suddenly threatens and comresses us. The implication here (and in
every Antonioni narrative) is that behind every story there's a place
and an absence, a mystery and a profound uncertainty, waiting like a
vampire at every moment to emerge and take over, to stop the story
dead in its tracks. And if we combine this place and absence,
this mystery and uncertainty into a single, irreducible entity, what
we have is the modern world itself--the place where all of us live,
and which most stories are designed to protect us from.
I think this is an insightful description of Antonioni's films, which
involve constantly searching for the meaning behind appearances --
meaning which is revealed in seemingly insignificant details and empty
spaces.
Paul
monterone
>
> The situation at Cahiers was complicated because Roberto Rossellini,
> who was something like a father figure to them, disliked Antonioni.
> Godard was likely thinking of "L'Eclisse" when he wrote:
> The film ["Vivre Sa Vie"] was an intellectual adventure: I wanted to try
> to film a thought in action--but how do you do it? We still don't know.
> In any case, something is revealed. This is why Antonioni's cinema of
> non-communication isn't mine. Rossellini told me that I almost fell into the
> Antonioni error, but just escaped.
> to Tag Gallagher:
> Suddenly
> he barked, in a voice prophetically low-pitched, like Cassandra
> announcing the fall of Troy or Isaiah threatening an impious people
> with the greatest evils: 'Jean-Luc, tu es au bord de l'antonionisme!'
> [Jean-Luc, you are bordering on Antonioni-ism!'] The insult was such
> that poor Godard lost control of the car for a second and nearly made
> us join the scenery.
Interesting, in light of Antonioni's own apparent debt to Rossellini:
in particular, the seeming influence of the Ingrid Bergman films
(_Voyage to Italy_; the volcanic _Stromboli_) on _L'Avventura_, as has
often been been remarked.
Paul Gallagher
>Interesting, in light of Antonioni's own apparent debt to Rossellini:
>in particular, the seeming influence of the Ingrid Bergman films
>(_Voyage to Italy_; the volcanic _Stromboli_) on _L'Avventura_, as has
>often been been remarked.
I don't know the specific reasons why Rossellini disliked Antonioni's
films. Tag Gallagher (who, by the way, used to post in the film newsgroups)
thought that Truffaut's dislike of Antonioni's films might reflect the
influence of his friend, Rossellini. Truffaut denounced Antonioni for
being "so terribly pompous." Comparing him to De Gaulle, who said, "French
men and women, I have understood you," Truffaut wrote, "Antonioni stands
like that and says, 'Women of the world, I have understood you.'"
Truffaut also criticized Antonioni for "childishly" following fashion.
He wrote, "My hostility to Antonioni helped me make L'Enfant Sauvage.
One of the big themes today us the difficulty of human communication.
This is very nice; it makes for good communication among intellectuals.
But when you come in contact with a family that includes a deaf-mute
child, only then do you realize what lack of communication means."
According to Jean Gruault, Rossellini ended up disliking quite a few people.
"When I told him I was going to collaborate with the decadent aesthete
Alain Resnais... I was immediately cast into the outer darkness in
company with Antonioni, Visconti, Kissinger (who didn't know proper
table manners), Lizzani (who had the fault of being a Communist),
Cottafavi (whom I had the fault to think a good filmmaker), Godard,
Rivette, Vario Merdone, Solinas, and Trombadori." Vario Merdone
is a pun on Mario Verdone. Rossellini also had a strong dislike for Fellini.
Gruault provides a lot of interesting anecdotes in Tag Gallagher's book on
Rossellini. Maybe he should write his memoirs?
"Caligula" is a fairly notorious film and has a fairly interesting story
behind it. Rossellini originally conceived of the film in the 1960's, and
Gruault started work on a screenplay. In the 1970's Rossellini thought
about to going to Hollywood to make the film. But the studio insisted on
casting Dustin Hoffman as Caligula. Rossellini objected on principle to
losing control of casting and abandoned his plans. He passed on the
"Caligula" concept to his nephew, Franco Rossellini, who eventually
produced the film along with Bob Guccione and Tinto Brass, using a
new script by Gore Vidal. It ended up a film with grotesque violence
and explicit sex, but with a prestigious cast: Malcolm McDowell, John
Gielgud, Peter O'Toole, and Helen Mirren.
Paul
Paul Gallagher
>Kassovitz directed "Hate" and is currently starring in "Amelie." Jan
>Kounen ("Dobermann") and Luc Besson are similar directors. He represents
>a very different point of view from Cahiers.
Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Christophe Gans are some other French "enfants
terribles" who are taking French film in a more commercial direction.
I still haven't seen Jeunet's Amelie, but I recently saw Gans' "The
Brotherhood of the Wolf," and I think he may turn out to be the most
talented of the group. The film doesn't show the sustained virtuosity
of some of his models, but it is a very entertaining film. And I did
notice that the film's point of view on the "ancien regime" seems
more progressive than Rohmer's in "The Lady and the Duke."
I think it's useful to accept films that are primarily exercises in
style on their own terms. "Mannerist" is usually used pejoratively,
but I think it may be useful to accept mannerism as a valid style.
Cahiers frequently refers to "mannerism" in films. One article
classified Scorsese, Coppola, and De Palma as "post-classicist,"
Ferrara, Cronenberg, and Lynch as "hard mannerists," Tim Burton as
a "soft mannerist," and Tarentino as a "hyper-mannerist." This might
be casting the "mannerist" net too wide... Mannerism is difficult to define,
but there is usually the implication of stylistic excess, artifice,
style for its own sake, playing with genre and stylistic
conventions for its own sake, play for play's sake... I'd distinguish
formal excess for dramatic purposes or formal experimentation from
mannerism. I think many of Tsui Hark's films qualify as mannerist. Maybe
John Woo's, maybe not.
I have to add that I tend to think John Shearman is closest to defining
the 16th century style that is the source of the term Mannerism: Mannerist
tendencies "should not be marked by qualities inimical to it, such as
strain, brutality, violence and overt passion. We require, in fact,
poise, refinement and sophistication, and works of art that are polished,
rarefied and idealized away from the natural: hot-house planys,
cultivate most carefully. Mannerism should, by tradition, speak a
silver-tongued language of articulate, if unnatural, beauty, not one
of incoherence, menace, and despair." Shearman was responding
to those critics who saw in 16th century art "incoherence, menace, and
despair" because the art was so strange.
In any case in the same way people learned to appreciate the previously
disparaged art of the 16th century, it may be useful to accept "mannerist"
films for what they are. This does risk losing sense of the moral tasks
of art, its role as "interrogator of reality." (I like this phrase from
Hoyveda, since it implies that film's responsibility is to ask questions,
not provide answers.) That's particularly a problem when violence is
depicted. I like Jackie Chan's comment, "I love action, I hate violence,"
but with some films it's violence, not action, that exerts its appeal.
Here's a different point of view. Hodson opposes mannerism in film on
aesthetic grounds:
One might even argue that the original Cahiers emphasis on interior
meaning and rhythm has been reversed as a pertinent critical focus.
The fascination with surface as surface and display as display
has supplanted auteur revelation with stylistic opacity. Pictorial
overlay and embellishment, once the pristine entree to the interior
meaning, can now be construed as signifiers of aesthetic self
exhaustion. We can no longer savour mise en scene for its inflective
or inspirational moment, that crucial point of narrative turning
or insight when mise en scene and directional vantage point come togther -
Ray, Ophuls, Hitchcock, Lang, von Sternberg, Ford, Minnelli, Lubitsch
and so on. In the apparent transparency of classical narrative
the great auteurs were able to bend mise en scene back upon itself
in intricate and surreptitious ways so that the alert spectator was
not only aware of direct narrative enhancement but also of mise
en scene as a form of meta-commentary. This mastery of mise en scene
was not a case of unproblematic pictorial garnishment. By comparison,
a number of contemporary Hollywood directors tend to indulge in
variations on mannerist mise en scene almost to the point of
devouring narrative interweave and resonance - Spielberg, De Palma,
Cameron, Lyne, Craven, Carpenter, Hooper, Lynch, Stone et al.
They can skillfully generate narrative energy, only to work it out in an
accelerated reflex (not reflexive) fashion. Today, many of Hollywood's
whiz kid directors are exponents of image burn out at the expense of
narrative modulation and subtlety. I would argue that today's examples
of extravagantly mannerist mise en scene are stylistic tactics
designed to trigger a form of audience blockage. Too often scenes are
played off on a one for one basis, tainting narratives with a sense of
strain or over-reach. Narrative modulation has become a lost art as
filmmakers strive to achieve instant impact. The instantaneous 'being'
and energy of popular Hollywood movies are deployed with a monotonous
intensity as though the pursuit of narrative overkill was mandatory
in order to retain power over a captive public. The public's insatiable
desire for visual stimulation results in an image 'too much'. Mise en
scene is rarely a process of sensuous visual accumulation; it is more
often a relentlesss visual stream of sock-it-to-me, throw-away icons.
The filmmaker now savagely fetishises the image at the expense of the
spectator. In this respect classicism has been reversed. But to what end?
( http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/ReadingRoom/5.2/Hodsdon.html )
Paul
septimus
>
>[Rosenbaum] writes about "The Eclipse" in "Placing Movies." He mentions how the
> US critics who had supported "L'Avventura" -- Dwight MacDonald, John
> Simon, Pauline Kael, and Andrew Sarris -- all turned against "The
> Eclipse." Rosenbaum continues:
>
> In the final scene Of ECLIPSE (1962)--my favorite Antonioni feature,
> and the one that concludes the loose trilogy started by L'AVVENTURA
> and LA NOTTE-- a lingering over an urban street corner while night
> begins to fall, effected through montage rather than an extended take,
> becomes one of the most terrifying poems in modern cinema simply through
> its complex poetry of absence. The lead couple in this film, played by
> Alain Delon and Monica Vitti, have previously planned to meet at this
> corner, in front of a building site. (Another building site figures in
> the opening sequence of L'AVVENTURA.) The unexplained fact that neither
> character shows up is perturbing, but because their affair has been
> more frivolous than serious, it hardly accounts to the overall feeling
> of desolation and even terror in this sequence.
> I think this is an insightful description of Antonioni's films, which
> involve constantly searching for the meaning behind appearances --
> meaning which is revealed in seemingly insignificant details and empty
> spaces.
I agree. I like the last 7 minutes of _The Eclipse_, and I am almost
tempted to say that I wish the rest of the film is like those 7 minutes,
sans leading characters, who have little redeeming qualities. Alright,
just a joke. I guess part of it is my beef with Monica Vitti. I know
I'm not the only one who complains about her. Her rather inexpressive
features don't seem the stuff to carry a film like this. Even in
_L'Avventura_, I dislike the scenes of her vamping around. (Don't mind
her so much in _Red Desert_ though.) Antonioni seems to have odd
choices
for his actresses.
Paul Gallagher
>I agree. I like the last 7 minutes of _The Eclipse_, and I am almost
>tempted to say that I wish the rest of the film is like those 7 minutes,
>sans leading characters, who have little redeeming qualities. Alright,
>just a joke. I guess part of it is my beef with Monica Vitti. I know
>I'm not the only one who complains about her. Her rather inexpressive
>features don't seem the stuff to carry a film like this. Even in
>_L'Avventura_, I dislike the scenes of her vamping around. (Don't mind
>her so much in _Red Desert_ though.) Antonioni seems to have odd
>choices
>for his actresses.
I like Monica Vitti, but would it be fair to say that Antonioni casts
largely based on the performer's physical appearance. They're pictorial
elements. Since the performances are so carefully controlled, would it
make much of a difference to cast more skilled actors and actresses?
For example, Irene Jacob may be a much more skilled actor than Ines
Sastre, but I don't particularly see how casting Jacob in the first
segment of "Beyond the Clouds" would change it very much. I could be
wrong: for example, people often complain about the leads in "Zabriskie
Point."
Paul
septimus
> I like Monica Vitti, but would it be fair to say that Antonioni casts
> largely based on the performer's physical appearance. They're pictorial
> elements. Since the performances are so carefully controlled, would it
> make much of a difference to cast more skilled actors and actresses?
> For example, Irene Jacob may be a much more skilled actor than Ines
> Sastre, but I don't particularly see how casting Jacob in the first
> segment of "Beyond the Clouds" would change it very much. I could be
> wrong: for example, people often complain about the leads in "Zabriskie
> Point."
>
> Paul
How about Dominique Sanda for the lead in _The Eclipse_? To me she
may not be a much better actress but would be much more of a mystery,
a presence. (You may or may not like an actor who can challenge the
director's method, but I like her in that Bresson film.)
I'm just not convinced there is a whole lot of complex thoughts or
personality behind Vitti's pretty face, which makes it trying to
stare at her for those 10 minutes static takes. Of course I'm treading
close to blasphemy here to Antonioni fans ... but I know I'm not the
only person who has complained about Vitti (or the actors in
_Identification
of a Woman_, say).
On an absolutely unrelated topic: Oliver Stone (or Michael Mann)
is probably already starting production on a movie based
on campaign finance reform. Here is my preliminary suggestions
for the cast (in blatant Hollywood style):
Russell Crowe -- John McCain
Kevin Costner -- Mark Buse, aide to McCain
Jill Hennessy -- as yet unnamed assistant attorney with heart of gold
and acrobatic eyelashes + love interest
Gary Oldman -- Kenneth Lay
Tim Robbins -- Russell Feingold
Elizabeth Pena -- Nancy Pelosi
Carrot Top -- G.W. Bush
James Earl Jones -- Dick Cheney
As for Dick Armey, Tom DeLay, Phil Gramm, and Trent Lott, I hope
the fine actors cast as inquisitors in Dreyer's _Passion
of Joan of Arc_ can be "dug up" to do these gentlemen justice.
(Difficult to contain my glee today.)
Andrew King
The cinematography, set design, staging, and make-up from the few pictures
in Film Comment were enough to blow my mind. It seemed to me that not only
does Wisit Sartsanatieng have an unbelievable eye for Mise-en-Scene, but he
also has an unrestrained imagination. I thought the French would eat this
up, but I guess they just haven't seen it.
Film Comment raved about it.
septimus
>
> How about Dominique Sanda for the lead in _The Eclipse_?
Let me hasten to add that I have a hard time figuring out
what Vitti stands for, and in these very abstract films that
makes life difficult. This is a function of the fact that
I haven't seen her in anything other than Antonioni's films.
Sanda is a known quantity who has a certain sense of privilege
about her, for example, and Jeanne Moreau is always Jeanne
Moreau, capricous, indomitable of will. I have the same problem
with Stephane Audran -- don't know why Chabrol likes her so
much.
monterone
> septimus wrote:
> >
> > How about Dominique Sanda for the lead in _The Eclipse_?
I suppose that computers will eventually make it possible to "recast"
_Eclipse_ with "Dominique Sanda." Will films become more like
theater, capable of infinite variations?
> Let me hasten to add that I have a hard time figuring out
> what Vitti stands for, and in these very abstract films that
> makes life difficult.
"...Monica Vitti clearly represents a certain type of modern woman
found at almost any intellectual cocktail party. She is usually
searching for something, and as she strives to communicate what that
something is, the unwary male becomes enmeshed in a hopeless guessing
game. It is not marriage exactly, not money exactly, not security
exactly, not sex exactly, not companionship exactly, not a career
exactly -- in fact, not anything exactly. Ultimately, inexactitude
becomes the modern woman's secret weapon. By making the terms of
agreement vague and baiting the trap with tantalizing visions of
sexual experimentation, the woman feminizes man's instincts and
sensibilities. Because man, the eternal wanderer and truth-seeker, is
biologically incapable of woman's constancy, he is doomed to appear,
at least in Antonioni's films, as a pitiable weakling in terms of
woman's character. This, ultimately, is the cinematic psychology of
Michelangelo Antonioni." (Sarris, 1963, in _Confessions of a
Cultist_)
> This is a function of the fact that
> I haven't seen her in anything other than Antonioni's films.
Well, there's always _Modesty Blaise_. (Speaking of which, Dirk
Bogarde never made it into an Antonioni film, did he? He might have
fit in nicely, with that question mark of a face..)
I suppose I never questioned the acting in Antonioni, assuming it was
just what he wanted (a certain opacity..), but then I haven't seen
most of these films in ages. (Back then, I probably thought all
adults acted the same, anyway.) Did revisit _L'Avventura_ more
recently and was surprised at Vitti's comedienne-like vivacity,
actually; not the unalleviated "Antoniennui" I'd thought I remembered.
septimus
> "...Monica Vitti clearly represents a certain type of modern woman
> found at almost any intellectual cocktail party. She is usually
> searching for something, and as she strives to communicate what that
> something is, the unwary male becomes enmeshed in a hopeless guessing
> game. It is not marriage exactly, not money exactly, not security
> exactly, not sex exactly, not companionship exactly, not a career
> exactly -- in fact, not anything exactly. Ultimately, inexactitude
> becomes the modern woman's secret weapon. By making the terms of
> agreement vague and baiting the trap with tantalizing visions of
> sexual experimentation, the woman feminizes man's instincts and
> sensibilities. Because man, the eternal wanderer and truth-seeker, is
> biologically incapable of woman's constancy, he is doomed to appear,
> at least in Antonioni's films, as a pitiable weakling in terms of
> woman's character. This, ultimately, is the cinematic psychology of
> Michelangelo Antonioni." (Sarris, 1963, in _Confessions of a
> Cultist_)
This reminds me of Vanessa
Redgrave (there's your Antonioni connection) and her words in
David Hare's _Wetherby_. A stranger kills himself in her
apartment, and she spends the rest of the film coping ... turns
out he has been obsessed with this rather blank, uncharismatic,
blissfully self-obsessed student
with (I suppose) a casual, careless sexuality. The student stays
with Redgrave for a while, and her verdict is: this is the kind
of girl that men kills themselves over.
Paul Gallagher
I don't think this has been released yet in France. I read that Miramax
is releasing it in the US soon. Has it been shown in New York yet? Another
Thai film, "Mysterious Object at Noon," ran for a week this summer in
New York.
Paul
Paul Gallagher
>I guess part of it is my beef with Monica Vitti. I know
>I'm not the only one who complains about her. Her rather inexpressive
>features don't seem the stuff to carry a film like this. Even in
>_L'Avventura_, I dislike the scenes of her vamping around. (Don't mind
>her so much in _Red Desert_ though.) Antonioni seems to have odd
>choices
>for his actresses.
Christopher Buchholz, the male lead in "Eros," talked to Cahiers about
working with Antonioni. He initially had only a vague idea of the characters.
He saw the dialogue for each scene only a hour before each was filmed, and
the dialogue was often written only minutes before. Buchholz liked this
because it allowed for spontaneity.
Antonioni had very precise ideas for each scene and carefully controlled
the images and the movements of the actors, but the dialogue was of secondary
importance. Sometimes the movements Antonioni demanded interfered
with the delivery of the dialogue, but Antonoini never wavered from
and never doubted his plan for each scene.
If this working method is typical, it might explain the weakness of
the dialogue and acting in some of Antonioni's films.
Paul
Paul Gallagher
>I searched online and found an interview Assayas did with Steve Erickson
>(who used to post on rec.arts.movies.)
>SE: Are there a lot of people in France who have the same opinions as
> the "journalist who loves John Woo" (Antoine Basler) who interviews
> Maggie Cheung?
This reminds me: one of the more surprising films of 2001 was the direct-
to-video "Replicant," directed by Ringo Lam. I think it is an excellent
film, only incidentally an action film, with a moving performance by
Jean-Claude Van Damme.
Paul
Paul Gallagher
>The situation at Cahiers was complicated because Roberto Rossellini,
>who was something like a father figure to them, disliked Antonioni.
>Godard was likely thinking of "L'Eclisse" when he wrote:
> The film ["Vivre Sa Vie"] was an intellectual adventure: I wanted to try
> to film a thought in action--but how do you do it? We still don't know.
> In any case, something is revealed. This is why Antonioni's cinema of
> non-communication isn't mine.
There's a 1968 interview with Godard in "Jean Luc-Godard: Interviews,"
where he is asked whether "Le mepris" was an attempt to emulate Antonioni.
Godard replied, "No, not at all. The exact contrary." He described its
relation to Antonioni:
A funny thing happened with "Contempt" and Antonioni. When I made
"Contempt" I had a certain movie in mind and I tried to make it.
But "Contempt" came out completely different than I intended, and
I forgot the kind of film I had wanted to make in the first place.
Then when I saw "Red Desert" at the Venice Film Festival, I said to
myself: this is the kind of movie I wanted to make with "Contempt."
In a recent interview Godard was still displeased with "Contempt" and
said he didn't understand why it is now often considered his masterpiece
of the 1960's. (I think of "Contempt" as Godard's best film.)
By 1970 Godard was back to disliking Antonioni. In the documentary, "Godard
in America," he's asked about "Zabriskie Point," and he replies, pointing
to an ashtray, that it holds about as much interest for him as that
ashtray. He comments that Antonioni spent six million dollars "to blow up
some Frigidaires" and that the Dziga Vertov Group could make a hundred films
with that money. He says Antonioni is no different from Darryl Zanuck (the
last of the great studio bosses left in 1970), echoing a later comment
that if Abbie Hoffman and Bobby Seale were to make a film for MGM on
the Chicago 7 trial with Groucho Marx as Judge Hoffman, it would not
be a militant film, it would be a MGM film.
Jean-Pierre Gorin commented that he would rather watch the X-rated films
on 42nd Street than see "Zabriskie Point." Being a person with too much
free time, I checked what was playing in New York at the time. "Weekend,"
"Sympathy for the Devil," "Two or Three Things I Know About Her", Oshima's
"Boy," Glauber Rocha's "Antonio das Mortes," and Jancso's "Winter
Wind" were in the theaters -- the 1970 film market in New York was slightly
more adventurous than nowadays. And pace Gorin's comment, it's
interesting that one of the X-rated films playing near 42nd Street was
Brian De Palma's "Hi Mom!," which was heavily influenced by both Godard
and Antonioni, as well as providing a rather perceptive critique of radical
film.
More trivia: Andrew Sarris was at the meeting with Godard and Jean-Pierre
Gorin at New York University. Here's his reaction to "Jean-Pierre something
or other": "I didn't like [Godard's] assistant at all and I fought my
dislike because the last thing I wanted to be guilty of is a Sardi's
snub to someone I thought was getting a free ride on someone else's
reputation."
Jonathan Rosenbaum also seems to dislike Gorin, his former colleague
at UCSD: "...we regarded each other more than a little warily. I resented
what I regarded as the hard-sell, closet-intellectual demagoguery of his
lecturing style and his concomitant reputation as a campus ladykiller, and
he obviously felt threatened by my relationship with Manny [Farber --
also Gorin's friend]; the air was thick with bad vibes and petty
sibling rivalries."
Paul
monterone
>
> > Antonioni's cinema of
> > non-communication isn't mine.
>
For a rapprochement of sorts, there's Godard's interview with
Antonioni from _Cahiers_ in 1964, at the time of _Red Desert_. A
translation appears in "Interviews with Film Directors" (1967), edited
by Sarris.
There may be a touch of friction. Godard asks, "But isn't this beauty
of the modern world also the resolution of the characters'
psychological difficulties, doesn't it show vanity?" Antonioni ends
his reply: "But why have me speak of these things? I am not a
philosopher and all these observations have nothing to do with the
'invention' of the film."
Godard asks, "And must the sentiments be preserved?" Antonioni:
"What a question! Do you think it is easy to answer that? All I can
say about sentiments is that they must change. 'Must' isn't what I
mean to say. They are changing. They have already changed." A bit
later: "Moreover, you too, Godard, you make very modern films, your
way of treating subjects reveals an intense need to break with the
past."
Antonioni later remarks: "It's amusing: at this moment, I am
speaking with Godard, one of the most modern talented _cineastes_ of
today, and just a little while ago, I lunched with Rene Clair, one of
the greatest directors of the past: it wasn't at all the same genre
of conversation ... he is preoccupied with the future of the cinema.
We, on the contrary (you agree, I believe), have confidence in the
future of the cinema." Godard (who elsewhere derided "tous ces Rene
qui n'ont pas les idees claires" -- "all those Rene's who can't see
clearly") must have loved that juxtaposition...
Paul Gallagher
>For a rapprochement of sorts, there's Godard's interview with
>Antonioni from _Cahiers_ in 1964, at the time of _Red Desert_. A
>translation appears in "Interviews with Film Directors" (1967), edited
>by Sarris.
I wonder why Godard thought of "Contempt" as a failure, what he thought
"Red Desert" accomplished that "Contempt" failed to do, and how this
influenced his later work. "Contempt" is in part about modern neurotic
people, Paul and Camille, failing to live up to heroic models -- both
Odysseus and Fritz Lang, who were able to act, to defy the gods, to not
allow themselves to be overtaken by events. One interpretation of "Red
Desert" is that Guiliana is like an ancient goddess brought into the
modern world and she cannot endure it. She has to learn to adjust, to
fly around the poisonous yellow clouds. Maybe one difference might
be that the solution, if there is one, to the unresolved situation
of "Contempt," lies in action, while the resolution to "Red Desert" is a
change in perceptions and sentiments. (On the other hand "Contempt" begins
and ends with the camera, and the very last shot is of the sea -- giving
the impression that the cinema is more important than the story of
"Contempt," and more important than the cinema -- the recreation of
the world according to our desires -- is the world itself.)
There are some shots of very long duration in Godard's "Vivre sa vie" from
1962 and in "Les Carabiniers" from 1964. That might show Antonioni's
influence, but Godard's tendency was toward short and fragmented shots.
Godard commented that his poetic use of nature became "much more deliberate"
in "Pierrot le fou," and that has persisted to today. Maybe Antonioni's
influence can be found here.
Paul