bertrand tavernier bitchslapping truffaut?
monsieurblob
shit?
its alright if you have a go at critics who feel more important than
the films they review, its alright if you provide some counter to the
prevailing wind of criticism.
http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/03/tavernier.html
but the right wing always does this. it says political correctness is
bad, it says we should be able to have our own opinions etc, but it
doesnt at all. the right wing wants you to be right wing.
and what the hell, 'political correctness' is just a label product of
the obsessions of this right wing. lets say, for instance, that 300
years ago, it was 'unthinkable' to question the monarchy. and lets
correct it; it was 'politically incorrect' to question monarchy. thus,
political incorrectness was invented by the right wing.
i've never liked tavernier. he's an old flaky wannabe pansyboy. the
bait, l.627, st paul watchmaker, laissez passer, death watch are crap,
and ca commence aujord hui is alright. i havent seen captain conan
thou.
he's a trickster, a liar and as the review at imdb points out or lets
slip, comes up with dubious stuff like the laissez passer ending (the
whole movie too).
i'll cut and paste it:
Georgios Tsapanos (32009025...@t-online.de)
Berlin, Germany
Summary: Not at all politically correct
Bertrand Tavernier is without any doubt one of the leading french, and
not only french, filmmakers. That he is also a leading conservative
filmmaker has been evident from his very beginnings and not just since
"L.627" (1992) or his documentary on the french-algerian war "La
Guerre sans nom" (1992). With his latest film though Tavernier has
taken conservativism to the extremes of historical revisionism.
"Laissez-passer" emerges both as a technical masterpiece and a
political embarassment.
On first sight the 170-minutes film seems to deal with the day to day
life of filmmakers in german-occupied Paris during World War II. The
revisionism comes on different levels:
At first there is a somewhat film-in-film revenge on the french
nouvelle vague of the late 50´s and 60´s. Had the able craftsmen of
the time only been given the chance to develop their taste and make
their ideas come true, Tavernier seems to argue, they would have
revolutionized french cinema long before the likes of Godard, Truffaut
(whose "Le dernier metro" receives a special nod), Chabrol and all the
others; critics and filmmakers Tavernier didn´t really like when he
was a critic himself. Thus he rehabilitates the french cinema of
quality of the 50´s, a cinema the cahiers-du-cinema bunch dismissed
almost entirely. It helps to know that "Laissez-passer" deals with and
stars real-life-protagonists Tavernier not only knew but worked
closely with (for example Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost, scripters of
Taverniers first feature films), but knowing this Tavernier´s argument
gets only more dubious.
The second and even more questionable level of revisionism is a
thoroughly political one. "Laissez-passer" tries for nothing less than
the justification of collaboration by pointing out that it wasn´t
really collaboration with the nazis but enduring them. The film´s
protagonists stresses more than once that he may be working for a
german film company but works only on french films. That these films
were part of the propaganda war Tavernier conveniently doesn´t deal
with at all.
When everything´s said and done, according to Tavernier the
collaborators were even the real resistance fighters. Vichy civil
servants are shown as a resistance group who utilize their official
status to inform the british intelligence about german plans (the
Brits themselves being rather pathetic and more preoccupied with their
tea than with winning the war). Communist resistance members on the
other hand are shown as dogmatic opressors of their most faithful
members. And since nothing else is heard or seen from Vichy officials,
even the Vichy regime seems not to have been that bad alltogether.
Michael Curtis "Casablanca" was more radical in this point, as Claude
Rains alias Capitain Renault tosses an empty bottle of Vichy water
into a wastebasket. And "Casablanca" was made in 1942.
In 2001 Tavernier clads all this in well known images of frenchness;
note the heavy bicycling. The film´s last sentence informs us in voice
over by the director himself that the film´s protagonist had told him,
that given the chance he would do everything he did just once again.
Which means that it was ok to make films a n d to collaborate. Combine
this with the film´s title and you get the message to leave bygones be
bygones. Take the film´s dedication into consideration - to those who
lived through that time, a time when there were more important things
than stubbornly sticking to idealistic ideas - you get the message
that anybody who didn´t live through that time has no right to judge.
Au contraire, mon cher Bertrand, au contraire!
Tom Sutpen
'revisionism', as reported, is quite on-target. There never was anything
fundamentally flawed about French filmmaking before the New Wave. That was a
fiction constructed by the New Wavers themselves and cemented into "Fact' by
Francophillic critics and historians in this country.
As for the political dimension, I find it highly ironic that artists such
as Aurenche and Bost (along with the rest of the Tradition of Quality crowd)
are labelled as reactionaries by this imdb waterhead when it was precisely the
somewhat left-leaning social criticism in their work that critics like Truffaut
used as a primary component in their whiny, negative reviews.
And before we start throwing the word 'Collaboration" around, leave us not
forget that it was Truffaut who used to vocally defend Marshall Petain as a
youth, and it was Cine-God himself, Henri Langlois, who got so chummy with the
Reichsfilmkammer in Paris that he managed to increase his precious Cinematheque
collection during the Occupation exponentially.
By the way. "Captaine Conan" is an excellent movie . . . but you're
correct about most of the others.
Tom Sutpen
"Cinema is Truth, 24 Times a Second"
-- Jean-Luc Godard
"The Truth is 'what is'. And 'what should be' is a fantasy; a terrible,
terrible lie that someone gave the people long ago".
-- Lenny Bruce
monsieurblob
> I haven't seen this film but I'll agree that Tavernier's so-called
> 'revisionism', as reported, is quite on-target.
agree with who? i was disagreeing, so go agree wit someone else
There never was anything
> fundamentally flawed about French filmmaking before the New Wave. That was a
> fiction constructed by the New Wavers themselves and cemented into "Fact' by
> Francophillic critics and historians in this country.
is that a fact then, sutpen?
> As for the political dimension, I find it highly ironic that artists such
> as Aurenche and Bost (along with the rest of the Tradition of Quality crowd)
> are labelled as reactionaries by this imdb waterhead when it was precisely the
> somewhat left-leaning social criticism in their work that critics like Truffaut
> used as a primary component in their whiny, negative reviews.
so? nothing ironic in your comment, btw.
its easy to criticise the new wave for being a bunch of pointless
gits. but they went on the streets took their own paris reorientated
the industry towards them resulting in much better movies than the
qualité ones.
tavernier's pic is extremely dodgy film.
> And before we start throwing the word 'Collaboration" around, leave us not
> forget that it was Truffaut who used to vocally defend Marshall Petain as a
> youth, and it was Cine-God himself, Henri Langlois, who got so chummy with the
> Reichsfilmkammer in Paris that he managed to increase his precious Cinematheque
> collection during the Occupation exponentially.
>
the langlois thing is a good point
> By the way. "Captaine Conan" is an excellent movie . . . but you're
> correct about most of the others.
oh thank you...
Tom Sutpen
>> I haven't seen this film but I'll agree that Tavernier's so-called
>> 'revisionism', as reported, is quite on-target.
>
>
>agree with who? i was disagreeing, so go agree wit someone else
*****
I was agreeing wit me. You should, too.
>There never was anything
>> fundamentally flawed about French filmmaking before the New Wave. That was
>a
>> fiction constructed by the New Wavers themselves and cemented into "Fact'
>by
>> Francophillic critics and historians in this country.
>
>
>is that a fact then, sutpen?
*****
Fact? Damn skippy it's a fact. Hell, it's practically an article of faith.
>> As for the political dimension, I find it highly ironic that artists
>such
>> as Aurenche and Bost (along with the rest of the Tradition of Quality
>crowd)
>> are labelled as reactionaries by this imdb waterhead when it was precisely
>the
>> somewhat left-leaning social criticism in their work that critics like
>Truffaut
>> used as a primary component in their whiny, negative reviews.
>
>
>so? nothing ironic in your comment, btw.
*****
Sez you! (sticks tounge out at Juan).
>its easy to criticise the new wave for being a bunch of pointless
>gits. but they went on the streets took their own paris reorientated
>the industry towards them resulting in much better movies than the
>qualité ones.
*****
No, they made much different movies than the qualite crowd. But then, the
New Wave wasn't so much New as it was Recent; part of a more general wave, if
you'd like, that started in Italy and the US while Truffaut & Co. were still
trying to get their essays published.
>tavernier's pic is extremely dodgy film.
*****
Can't comment. Haven't seen it.
>> And before we start throwing the word 'Collaboration" around, leave us
>not
>> forget that it was Truffaut who used to vocally defend Marshall Petain as a
>> youth, and it was Cine-God himself, Henri Langlois, who got so chummy with
>the
>> Reichsfilmkammer in Paris that he managed to increase his precious
>Cinematheque
>> collection during the Occupation exponentially.
>>
>
>
>
>the langlois thing is a good point
*****
Thank you, mon capitaine.
>> By the way. "Captaine Conan" is an excellent movie . . . but you're
>> correct about most of the others.
>
>
>oh thank you...
*****
You is welcome as the flowers in May
By the way, Juan, what p2p program did you use to download the Tavernier
film?
meat n potatoes
> is that all? how dare bertrand come up with such clumsy rhetorical
> shit?
>
> its alright if you have a go at critics who feel more important than
> the films they review, its alright if you provide some counter to the
> prevailing wind of criticism.
>
> http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/03/tavernier.html
>
> but the right wing always does this. it says political correctness is
> bad, it says we should be able to have our own opinions etc, but it
> doesnt at all. the right wing wants you to be right wing.
the left complained of mccarthyism. right complains of political
correctness. both are reactions to orthodoxy. actually, there are two
kinds of leftists and rightists. one kind are just like you say. they
want everyone to agree with themselves. indeed, if they held power,
they would try to silence the opponents. but, another kind, whether
leftist or rightist, stands for total freedom of speech. for example,
take alan dershawitz and the ACLU crowd. though left-liberals they
will even defend the right of neo-nazis to say and march according to
constitutional rights. and there are rightists who strongly argue
against impinging on the free expression, especially the libertarians.
the reason why you and i get along so well is because you're
politically incorrect leftist and i'm a politically incorrect
rightist. your openminded leftism and my openminded fascism co-exist
harmoniously because we can't stand orthodoxy of any kind. we speak
freely and we speak as individuals, unswayed by domgatists, critics,
academics, and other guardians of Culture.
>
> and what the hell, 'political correctness' is just a label product of
> the obsessions of this right wing. lets say, for instance, that 300
> years ago, it was 'unthinkable' to question the monarchy. and lets
> correct it; it was 'politically incorrect' to question monarchy. thus,
> political incorrectness was invented by the right wing.
there are two definitions of 'right wing', as an ideology or in terms
of historical context. for example, any force that gains and holds
power for a long duration becomes conservative or rightist--if not in
ideology, then in practice. they stand for preservation of the order,
of the status quo. in this sense, soviet union was run by communist
rightists. fidel castro is a rightwing patriarch more than a firebrand
revolutionary he had once been. so, yes, the definition of 'poltical
incorrectness' is always established by the powers-that-be, and all
powers, regardless of ideology, becomes, in time, rightist in
preserving its values, philosophy, and agenda. consider napoleon,
lenin, and mao. their societies became very orthodox and conservative
in fending off change and dissent. the intolerant leftists who run
the academies are, in fact, trying to maintain their power and
privelege thru political correctness. and there are many on the right
who challenge this orthodoxy but if they gain power, they would be
just the same. it's like the song by the who, 'won't get fooled
again'. party on the left is now party on the right... everybody
gets fooled except you and me. we have proven that freedom is not so
much a matter of ideology but a matter of personal integrity, courage,
dignity, pride, honesty, moral commitment, seriousness, depth,
profundity, masterfulness, and just about every virtue we may find in
the thesauras.
>
> i've never liked tavernier. he's an old flaky wannabe pansyboy. the
> bait, l.627, st paul watchmaker, laissez passer, death watch are crap,
> and ca commence aujord hui is alright. i havent seen captain conan
> thou.
i think tavernier is one of the best but we agree to disagree, as with
lard born frier. tavernier is a humanist director who pays close
attention to the details of life. he carefully examines human actions,
thoughts, words, motivatioins without showboating of any kind. he
dutifully serves the topic under investigation. you might compare him
with sidney lumet at his best: prince of the city and dog day
afternoon.
>
> he's a trickster, a liar and as the review at imdb points out or lets
> slip, comes up with dubious stuff like the laissez passer ending (the
> whole movie too).
there's nothing tricky about tavernier. his approach is sober, even
earnest at times, but never naive because his understanding of people
and society is complex and multifaceted.
>
> i'll cut and paste it:
>
>
> Georgios Tsapanos (32009025...@t-online.de)
> Berlin, Germany
> Summary: Not at all politically correct
>
> Bertrand Tavernier is without any doubt one of the leading french, and
> not only french, filmmakers. That he is also a leading conservative
> filmmaker has been evident from his very beginnings and not just since
> "L.627" (1992) or his documentary on the french-algerian war "La
> Guerre sans nom" (1992). With his latest film though Tavernier has
> taken conservativism to the extremes of historical revisionism.
> "Laissez-passer" emerges both as a technical masterpiece and a
> political embarassment.
actually, tavernier isn't a conservative but a humanist-liberal.
heaven knows he's not a free market capitalist, as evinced by his
stand against the dominance of hollywood in france. and, he's not a
neo-monarchist snob or flagwaving nationalist. he's essentially a man
without illusions, an existentialist who never compromised
existentialism, unlike sartre who opted for the essentialism of
marxism.
i think artfilm culture is so generally knee-jerk left that any
artfilm that doesn't demonize the right is considered heretical, or
rightist. in other words, unless a movie or moviemaker is blatanly
leftist, he must be a rightist. tavernier is essentially a liberal
humanist who likes to see both sides of the issue. he does so
unflinchingly. L627 may be sympathetic with cops burdened with doing
the dirty work of cleaning the streets of heroin dealers, but they are
not lionized as saint-heros like clint eastwood in dirty harry. they
are shown to sometimes use excessive force, act flippant and cynical,
and sometimes lose their heads. in fact, the french police didn't
like the movie. while the movie is clearly anti-drug, it's hardly
conservative. however, leftists, committed to portraying cops as
nothing but apish thugs, may find the movie blasphemous, and label it
as rightist when it's no such thing.
tavernier is great because he maintains just the right balance between
distance and closeness. it's an empathy rare in movies because
filmmakers find it hard to hold back from hugging their characters or
caricaturing them as villains. tavernier shows us the humanity of his
characters while showing that humanity isn't necessarily synonymous
with the humane.
>
> On first sight the 170-minutes film seems to deal with the day to day
> life of filmmakers in german-occupied Paris during World War II. The
> revisionism comes on different levels:
i haven't seen this movie. but, from what i've read, it's seems more
expansive than revisionist. in other words, it broadens our
understanding of the reality and issues of that era instead of turning
it upside down. besides, revisionism isn't necessarily bad. sorrow
and the pity was revisionist but it forced frenchmen to reconsider the
nature of the resistance.
>
> At first there is a somewhat film-in-film revenge on the french
> nouvelle vague of the late 50´s and 60´s. Had the able craftsmen of
> the time only been given the chance to develop their taste and make
> their ideas come true, Tavernier seems to argue, they would have
> revolutionized french cinema long before the likes of Godard, Truffaut
> (whose "Le dernier metro" receives a special nod), Chabrol and all the
> others; critics and filmmakers Tavernier didn´t really like when he
> was a critic himself. Thus he rehabilitates the french cinema of
> quality of the 50´s, a cinema the cahiers-du-cinema bunch dismissed
> almost entirely. It helps to know that "Laissez-passer" deals with and
> stars real-life-protagonists Tavernier not only knew but worked
> closely with (for example Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost, scripters of
> Taverniers first feature films), but knowing this Tavernier´s argument
> gets only more dubious.
i wonder if the reviewer is misreading tavernier's intentions.
anyway, if that's tavernier's point, then it's not necessarily
anti-new wave because tavernier isn't saying the new wave destroyed
the lost possibility of the cinema of quality. rather, he's saying
cinema of quality could have been much more before the new wave even
happened.
it's like arguing that chinese film would have developed much earlier
if not for mao's crazy anti-cultural policies. this isn't blaming the
fifth generation filmmakers of china but only suggesting that great
films could have preceded the output of fifth generationers.
also, let's keep in mind that tavernier is french, and french wouldn't
be french if they didn't have strong opinions. think of godard's
intolerance, truffaut's arrogance, rohmer's haughtiness, etc. think
of claude lanzmann who thinks shoah should and must be the last
statement on the holocaust. french are a great people but their main
form of discourse is bitchslapping.
still, if we tackle the debate, tavernier is both right and wrong
about the new wave. he's right in the sense that the filmmakers of
cinema of quality were men of supreme talent and intelligence. they
were professionals, real masters of technique. for tavernier, who
cares more about impeccable narratives, fine writing, and skilled
acting, and has little taste for formalistic indulgences, the cinema
of quality may seem worth defending.
and, it's true that much of the new wave films were junk. however,
what made the new wave special and what made their gripe againt the
cinema of quality partly valid was the new wavers believed in the
zest, energy, youthfulness, and urge for personal expression in
cinema. new wavers were almost all amateurs in contrast to the
impressive professionalism of cinema of quality. new wavers saw alot
of movies and knew alot of details about moviemaking but they didn't
sharpen their skills thru practice. they learned as they went along.
in this way, they were often clunky, clumsy, embarassing, inept. but,
there was real energy and verve, a sense of freshness, of
experimentation and excitement.
one might compare cinema of quality with guys like frank sinatra and
perry como and new wavers with the beatles, bob dylan, neil young.
technically, sinatra was a far greater singer than dylan. and beatles
weren't great musicians. yet, there was something about dylan and the
beatles that was personal, refreshing, and exciting which was lacking
in the songs of guys who could really sing but conformed to what was
deemed good or quality singing. think of engelbert humperdinck whom i
love. he could really sing whereas hendrix really couldn't. but
hendrix was the more important artist because he did his own thing,
broadened the scope of popular music instead of conforming to
established tastes. while it could be argued that dean martin could
have sung 'like a rolling stone' better than dylan, what matters with
a song that personal is not so much finesse as eccentricity and
uniqueness. of course, this can also lead to really bad shit like
tori amos and patti smith. i think pauline kael once said in the old
days of hollywood, a movie could rarely be great because of strict
studio guidelines; but it was rarely totally terrible since the artist
didn't have the freedom to be terrible. today, a filmmaker can be very
great but as an auteur he can also be very very bad. have you seen
'anniversary party'? wow, that is truly sorryass. celebrities trying
to so truthful but only revealing their phonyass selves since in
reality they are nothing but phonyass fools.
truffaut and his cohorts clearly exaggerated the shortcomings of the
cinema of quality but in a way, their attacks were justified because
cinema of quality was the only show in town. later, when truffaut
established himself, he himself made movies in that mold. so what
truffaut was rebelling against was not so much cinema of quality but
the fact that only such was being backed by the film industry while
excluding all else.
this is a problem of dominance of any artistic school or style. there
is nothing inherently wrong with nazi neo-classicism or soviet social
realism. they become oppressive when they are the only artforms
allowed. so, once new wave got started and french cinema expanded
into other areas, cinema of quality needed to no longer be vilified
since it represented one among many forms of cinema. similarly, though
modernism attacked traditionalism, once modernism had been
established, postmodernism embraced traditionalism AND modernism. so,
in this sense, truffaut's attack on the establishment, though
exaggerated and simplistic, served its purpose in expanding french
film from ONLY cinema of quality to other forms as well.
something similar happened in the US of the 60s and 70s. american
cinema of the 50s, in terms of artistic and technical merit, can stand
up to anything made in later decades. think of vertigo, touch of evil,
searchers, shane, films of kazan, westerns of mann, those of ray, etc.
however, 50s cinema was essentially the film of old men, of
established technician-masters, and confined within censorious rules.
a film like midnight cowboy, taxi driver, mccabe and mrs miller, or
straw dogs could not have been made in that decade. indeed, the most
daring films of that decade are credited to sam fuller and this was
largely due to the fact that he made B-pictures neglected by the
studioheads. and a clunky but fresh and original film had to be made
independently: shadows by cassavettes, which paralleled the
developments of new wave. partly, the new wave was about young men
rebelling against old men, and the young have always caricatured
reality to fit and serve their needs and passions. so the Clash neatly
came up with the notion of fighting against the corporatization of
rock in the 70s when in fact popular music had always been
corporatized.
and, of course, familiarity breeds contempt. just as some americans
today trash hollywood and praise iranian cinema to high heaven, french
have often felt the same about their own culture while being
fascinated by american culture. how else would you explain the
popularity, though exaggerated, of jerry lewis?
and though most americans have tired of woody allen, he's still big in
europe.
also, keep in mind that in some cases, there is no clear dividing line
between old and new. guys like peckinpah and altman, though
identified with new american cinema, had their start when the old
system was still intact. similarly, guys like resnais and demy had a
successful career before the advent of the new wave; in fact, one
could argue they rode the coattails of new wave while not really being
part of it. and jean-paul melville made sensational films thru the
60s.
tavernier, having come to prominence in the post-new wave period of
the 70s, may be reacting to the excesses, hypocrisies, and lunacies of
the new wave, which reached its height with godard the maoist spewing
hatred and venom in every direction. tavernier would have noticed that
alot of new wavers made alot of noise, posed as innovators but had
precious little to say that was meaningful, intelligible, or
significant. in this climate, i think tavernier committed his art to
paying attention to reality, rather like charles dickens; a reality
which he perceived to have been twisted by ideology(godard),
romanticism(truffaut), stylization(resnais), toying with
genre(chabrol), or stuffy philosophizing(rohmer), and so urged him to
reconnect the viewer with reality, something that exists very much
apart from cinema, without cinema. for tavernier, reality is
paramount. cinema serves reality. cinema that shows reality most
truthfully in all its myriad details and overturns every stone, both
in the physical and psychological sense, is what's compelling for
tavernier.
of course, the new wave was never a unified movement. if anything, it
was memorable for its diversity and dissension. they were only united
in their passion for movies and an urge for personal expression.
otherwise, their values, politics, approaches, influences, and tastes
couldn't have been more different. lelouch, godard, rivette, rohmer,
etc were as different as the stones and gerry and the pacemakers.
>
> The second and even more questionable level of revisionism is a
> thoroughly political one. "Laissez-passer" tries for nothing less than
> the justification of collaboration by pointing out that it wasn´t
> really collaboration with the nazis but enduring them. The film´s
> protagonists stresses more than once that he may be working for a
> german film company but works only on french films. That these films
> were part of the propaganda war Tavernier conveniently doesn´t deal
> with at all.
why does the reviewer think that the characters' words are tavernier's
own? and, isn't it possible for someone in a complex and compromised
position to do both, or at least honestly think he's doing both? was
eisenstein stalin's stooge? yes. was he man of vision and courage?
yes, and ivan the terrible pt 2 certainly didnt' make stalin happy.
was sidney poitier an uncle tom negro? yes. was he also a dignified
black actor who advanced possibilities for other black actors? yes.
is frank capra's 'why we fight' films worthy of admiration in fight
against fascism? yes. are they racially bigoted in presenting japanese
as subhuman beasts? yes. were french communists noble resistance
fighters against nazis? yes. were they fanatical, murderous, and
vengeful? yes.
there was more than one form of collaboration. there were active
supporters of the nazis but also anti-nazis who kept their mouths shut
to keep working. tavernier is to be lauded for being one of the few
directors who refuse to simply vilify one side. what the lefist
reviewer of the article is demanding is there be an orthodox reading
of the past where everyone who collaborated were simply bad.
>
> When everything´s said and done, according to Tavernier the
> collaborators were even the real resistance fighters. Vichy civil
> servants are shown as a resistance group who utilize their official
> status to inform the british intelligence about german plans (the
> Brits themselves being rather pathetic and more preoccupied with their
> tea than with winning the war). Communist resistance members on the
> other hand are shown as dogmatic opressors of their most faithful
> members. And since nothing else is heard or seen from Vichy officials,
> even the Vichy regime seems not to have been that bad alltogether.
> Michael Curtis "Casablanca" was more radical in this point, as Claude
> Rains alias Capitain Renault tosses an empty bottle of Vichy water
> into a wastebasket. And "Casablanca" was made in 1942.
tavernier is only trying to balance our understanding of history. we
all know of the shameful vichy era. we all know of the nazi
collaborators, the anti-semitism, the opportunism of many vichy
officials. what tavernier shows us is that the real story was far
from simple. and, showing such complexity doesn't let the vichy regime
off the hook, no more than showing german soldiers as human beings in
stalingrad justifies german war and aggression.
also, ever since sorrow and the pity came out, french communists have
been honored as the most important resistance fighters against the
nazis. true, but they had no choice as it was life or death with them;
they were not given the option of collaboration, unlike japanese
marxists who were and so chickenshittedly collaborated witho the
militarist government. that the french communist party was extreme,
fanatical, and ruthless is a well-known fact. communists became
heroes not because communism is noble but because it took the credit
for fighing nazism. if france had been overrun by soviets, surely the
rightists and fascists would have resisted and would be honored today
as saints and martyrs, just as russia has bestowed sainthood to tsar
nicholas the turd, largely because he was murdered by communists when
in fact he was a bloody sod himself.
>
> In 2001 Tavernier clads all this in well known images of frenchness;
> note the heavy bicycling. The film´s last sentence informs us in voice
> over by the director himself that the film´s protagonist had told him,
> that given the chance he would do everything he did just once again.
> Which means that it was ok to make films a n d to collaborate. Combine
> this with the film´s title and you get the message to leave bygones be
> bygones. Take the film´s dedication into consideration - to those who
> lived through that time, a time when there were more important things
> than stubbornly sticking to idealistic ideas - you get the message
> that anybody who didn´t live through that time has no right to judge.
>
> Au contraire, mon cher Bertrand, au contraire!
any artist living under totalitarian or even authoritarian regime must
collaborate and compromise. otherwise, he can't work at all... unless
it's something as private and secretive as writing(think of
solzhenitsyn). looks to me tavernier has made a film that honors
artists making the best of what they have.
take filmmakers of china. none have the freedom to show the real
horrors of the terrible regime that was mao's. some of their films
have gleaned the surface of great leap forward and the cultural
revolution but none have dared to state that 30 million died during
the great leap and as many as 20 million died during the cultural
revolution and that most of the arts and treasures of china were
destroyed at the time(something godard still hasn't addressed though
he championed that most foul regime during its worst excesses; also,
no leftist has hounded godard over this despite their constant whining
about riefenstahl). none have tackled the tianenman massacre. in
ignoring those key issues in their history, chinese filmmakers have
collaborated with the communist regime. but, they are still artists
trying, in their limited ways, to make good movies. i have no problem
with that. the problem is that the diehard leftist reviewer of the
article simply cannot abide by anyone having compromised himself with
rightwing oppression when he obviously has no problem with countless
artists and filmmakers who put food on their table by collaborating
with the cultural authorities who ran soviet union, communist china,
iron curtain nations of eastern europe. i'm glad szabo and forman were
able to emigrate to free countries but suppose they hadn't and had to
compromise with communist authorities to keep making movies. would i
vilify them as scum of the earth? no, but the the reviewer of the
above article can't see the complexity of artists in vichy france.
and, that is a problem of the left and political correctness.
monsieurblob
oh sure well lets go to the original sin please pretty please. lets
all learn italian and look for bitchslapping in the zavattini rants.
its clear that you found all your ranting on the dubious basis that
the new wave movies were worse than the qualité ones
the facts are the facts: it substituted a bunch of mooie makers for
another one. now i've only seen say 5 qualité pics and cant remember
not one title (bad sign) so i dont have the overall picture. but i
goddam love the new wave pics, i love the idea of it being their paris
thou this reaches ridiculous extents in the libération rants on amelie
and the outcome of those new wave pics? new wave pics all over the
world. and scientifically the much more general steve neale equation a
new film is a calculation of similitude and difference
and i'll buy that anyday over bertrands dodgy speculation and tortoise
speed studio stuck qualité
>
> >tavernier's pic is extremely dodgy film.
>
> *****
> Can't comment. Haven't seen it.
>
> >> And before we start throwing the word 'Collaboration" around, leave us
> not
> >> forget that it was Truffaut who used to vocally defend Marshall Petain as a
> >> youth, and it was Cine-God himself, Henri Langlois, who got so chummy with
> the
> >> Reichsfilmkammer in Paris that he managed to increase his precious
> Cinematheque
> >> collection during the Occupation exponentially.
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >the langlois thing is a good point
>
> *****
> Thank you, mon capitaine.
>
> >> By the way. "Captaine Conan" is an excellent movie . . . but you're
> >> correct about most of the others.
> >
> >
> >oh thank you...
>
> *****
> You is welcome as the flowers in May
>
> By the way, Juan, what p2p program did you use to download the Tavernier
> film?
i? well i troddled down to my nearest video store and guess what? it
had it and they're selling all their videos for 2 euros so i nearly
bought coz it costs the same to rent the dvd but coz i had a vague
sensation i wouldnt like it i rented the dvd instead.
p2ping i reserve to pics that dont get distribution in my country. the
bandwidth is pathetic and the network is too slow with unpopular
movies
as for recommending, well i've only tried two. bearshare and overnet.
bearshare has very few rare things. its alright with songs but
completely crap with rare movies.
last time i looked overnet had many more things so you may be better
off there. it was even better with songs and and alright with rare
movies.
monsieurblob
>ical incorrectness was invented by the right wing.
>
> there are two definitions of 'right wing', as an ideology or in terms
> of historical context. for example, any force that gains and holds
> power for a long duration becomes conservative or rightist--if not in
> ideology, then in practice. they stand for preservation of the order,
> of the status quo. in this sense, soviet union was run by communist
> rightists. fidel castro is a rightwing patriarch more than a firebrand
> revolutionary he had once been. so, yes, the definition of 'poltical
> incorrectness' is always established by the powers-that-be, and all
> powers, regardless of ideology, becomes, in time, rightist in
oh ffs i'll answer this one some other day. ta
Tom Sutpen
>> No, they made much different movies than the qualite crowd. But then,
>the
>> New Wave wasn't so much New as it was Recent; part of a more general wave,
>if
>> you'd like, that started in Italy and the US while Truffaut & Co. were
>still
>> trying to get their essays published.
>
>
>
>oh sure well lets go to the original sin please pretty please. lets
>all learn italian and look for bitchslapping in the zavattini rants.
>its clear that you found all your ranting on the dubious basis that
>the new wave movies were worse than the qualité ones
*****
Wrong-o. I prefer the New Wave movies to the Qualite' films also. By far.
All I'm saying is that History has given the Tradition of Quality a raw deal
purely on the basis of a critical stance that was taken by a bunch of wannabe
filmmakers who sought to supplant the very films and filmmakers they were
pretending to condemn.
Though I will continue to insist that what happened in France in the late
50s was merely a local manifestation of something that was already happening in
other countries; a process that began with Neorealism and spread to both the US
and Britain before it finally reached France. The Nouvelle Vague was a great
movement, but outside of Godard's work, there was nothing revolutionary about
it.
>
>the facts are the facts: it substituted a bunch of mooie makers for
>another one. now i've only seen say 5 qualité pics and cant remember
>not one title (bad sign) so i dont have the overall picture. but i
>goddam love the new wave pics, i love the idea of it being their paris
>thou this reaches ridiculous extents in the libération rants on amelie
*****
Well I can name a bunch of qualite films. I've even seen a number of them.
I goddam love the new wave pics, too, Juan. That isn't what this is about. I'm
not saying the Nouvelle Vague was over-appreciated; I'm saying the Tradition de
la Qualite was under-appreciated, and has been since it was overthrown by the
New Wave.
In short, we're really not disagreeing here. You're merely missing the
trajectory of my argument.
monsieurblob
> On 19 April, 2004, Juan misconstrued what I said:
>
> >> No, they made much different movies than the qualite crowd. But then,
> the
> >> New Wave wasn't so much New as it was Recent; part of a more general wave,
> if
> >> you'd like, that started in Italy and the US while Truffaut & Co. were
> still
> >> trying to get their essays published.
> >
> >
> >
> >oh sure well lets go to the original sin please pretty please. lets
> >all learn italian and look for bitchslapping in the zavattini rants.
> >its clear that you found all your ranting on the dubious basis that
> >the new wave movies were worse than the qualité ones
>
> *****
> Wrong-o. I prefer the New Wave movies to the Qualite' films also. By far.
> All I'm saying is that History has given the Tradition of Quality a raw deal
> purely on the basis of a critical stance that was taken by a bunch of wannabe
> filmmakers who sought to supplant the very films and filmmakers they were
> pretending to condemn.
you assume what you say is shocking to the establishment. but it isnt.
there are loads of 'shocking' reasons as to why some movies have 'made
it throu history' and why some have.
the notion of film history is entirely questionable. and film history
according to who? to brunette, monaco, rosenbaum?
and you did say somewhere in your auteur theory thing that the qualité
pics were better than the new wave ones. and you said it to back up
your argument which i dunno if it was for the qualité or against the
new wave
but if what you said in this post is what you feel, then you're not
pretty sure about it either. you have a vague sense that the qualité
tradition hasnt been made justice too.
i am pretty sure that montxo armendariz is better than almodovar or
bunuel. i have a vague sense that he has nowhere as close the
international recognition our very own little fassbinder does.
and if i want to, i can say its shocking in an english accent like the
women in ealing pics do.
shocking. he lacks reputation on such a pathetic basis!
shocking! so unfair! so arbitrary!
as i said lets learn italian and search for the movies zavattini
condemned. lets come up with shocking information that will shock the
establishment.
monsieurblob
bunuel. i have a vague sense that he has nowhere as close the
international recognition our very own little fassbinder does.
-------------
time to restructure the following sentence.
i have a vague feeling that montxo armendariz is better than almodovar or
bunuel. i am pretty sure that he has nowhere as close the
Tom Sutpen
>> Wrong-o. I prefer the New Wave movies to the Qualite' films also. By
>far.
>> All I'm saying is that History has given the Tradition of Quality a raw
>deal
>> purely on the basis of a critical stance that was taken by a bunch of
>wannabe
>> filmmakers who sought to supplant the very films and filmmakers they were
>> pretending to condemn.
>
>
>
>you assume what you say is shocking to the establishment.
*****
No I don't. I'm not out to shock anybody (I'd hardly know how), ands I
don't give tuppence for the so-called establishment.
>but it isnt.
>there are loads of 'shocking' reasons as to why some movies have 'made
>it throu history' and why some have.
*****
Agreed.
>the notion of film history is entirely questionable. and film history
>according to who? to brunette, monaco, rosenbaum?
*****
Who cares? You ever see any two film histories land exactly on the same
spot. The interpretation of film history is as much an Art as film itself.
>and you did say somewhere in your auteur theory thing that the qualité
>pics were better than the new wave ones. and you said it to back up
>your argument which i dunno if it was for the qualité or against the
>new wave
*****
I seriously doubt that I claimed to prefer the Qualite to the Nouvelle
Vague, because it simply isn't true. My personal preference has always been
unwaveringly for the New Wave in that particular cinematic standoff.
But if I garbled something like that in the midst of that pathetic essay,
then that's another story entirely. You ought to know by now that I can't write
a coherent sentence of English without monumental effort. It's entirely
possible that I meant one thing and wrote what sounded like another. If I did,
and you can cite for me a specific instance, then I'll apologize to one and all
for my poor writing skills on that occasion. Without hesitation.
>but if what you said in this post is what you feel, then you're not
>pretty sure about it either. you have a vague sense that the qualité
>tradition hasnt been made justice too.
*****
That's true. I think the Tradition of Qualite films have been give the
fuzzy end of the lolipop, as it were. But that doesn't alter my personal
preference for what came afterwards. I'm quite sure of where I stand on these
matters.
(By the way, did you get my email the other day?)
monsieurblob
> On 19 April, 2004, Juan misconstrued what I said:
>
> >> No, they made much different movies than the qualite crowd. But then,
> the
> >> New Wave wasn't so much New as it was Recent; part of a more general wave,
> if
> >> you'd like, that started in Italy and the US while Truffaut & Co. were
> still
> >> trying to get their essays published.
> >
> >
> >
> >oh sure well lets go to the original sin please pretty please. lets
> >all learn italian and look for bitchslapping in the zavattini rants.
> >its clear that you found all your ranting on the dubious basis that
> >the new wave movies were worse than the qualité ones
>
> *****
> Wrong-o. I prefer the New Wave movies to the Qualite' films also. By far.
Eric Rohmer, at the end of the decade, wasn't sitting on the
bench. He was
busily making movies of such refinement and gentility that rumors
quickly
spread of stimulants (up to and including cattle-prods) being employed
in order
to prevent his cast and crew from falling asleep while the cameras
rolled.
----------
oooh come off it...
---------
Having seen a number of these 'Tradition de la Qualite' works ("Le
Rouge
et le Noir", "Les Orguilleaux", "La Belles de Nuit', etc), I'd
probably scratch
my head in bewilderment at the reception they were accorded if history
hadn't
revealed what these critics were up to. Not only is something like
"Les
Orguilleaux" not a bad film, it's better than at least a half-dozen of
the more
vaunted landmarks of 'le Nouvelle Vague' I can think of.
----------
bla bla bla...
---------
nevertheless
knew Truffaut's work. And they loved it.
His movies were so . . . NICE, after all. So pleasant. See, they
didn't
make the kinds of demands on an audience that the films of Godard or
Bunuel or
Bergman did (the kind of demands his first three features held the
promise of).
---------
agaain, oook, but its just a loony value judgement!
-------------
> All I'm saying is that History has given the Tradition of Quality a raw deal
> purely on the basis of a critical stance that was taken by a bunch of wannabe
> filmmakers who sought to supplant the very films and filmmakers they were
> pretending to condemn.
> Though I will continue to insist that what happened in France in the late
> 50s was merely a local manifestation of something that was already happening in
> other countries; a process that began with Neorealism and spread to both the US
> and Britain before it finally reached France. The Nouvelle Vague was a great
> movement, but outside of Godard's work, there was nothing revolutionary about
> it.
-----------------------------
The "Cahiers" crowd might
have been great (if hardly consistent) filmmakers, but they were lousy
critics;
for the whole process of evaluating movies on the basis of an
extremely
ephemeral standard of authorship is ultimately irrelevent to the craft
of film
criticism.
When a review is occupied with mining for the 'signature' of a
director,
and proceeds to either applaud a film or damn it on that premise alone
-- while
managing to avoid the arguably more pertinent question of whether the
movie in
question is good or bad -- the result is worthless in every sense; a
big,
gaping, yawning non-sequitur, no matter how well-written or argued it
is.
Even if we were to warrant that "Cahiers du Cinema"s declaration of
war on
'le Tradition de la Qualite' was wholly motivated by aesthetic
concerns (which
I don't; but let's assume it anyway), then it merely underscores the
deficiencies of 'auteurist' approaches to cinema. The "Cahiers" crowd
might
have been great (if hardly consistent) filmmakers, but they were lousy
critics;
for the whole process of evaluating movies on the basis of an
extremely
ephemeral standard of authorship is ultimately irrelevent to the craft
of film
criticism.
When a review is occupied with mining for the 'signature' of a
director,
and proceeds to either applaud a film or damn it on that premise alone
-- while
managing to avoid the arguably more pertinent question of whether the
movie in
question is good or bad -- the result is worthless in every sense; a
big,
gaping, yawning non-sequitur, no matter how well-written or argued it
is.
-----------------
whhhhhhhhhhhoooooaa!!!!!
------------------
Even if you believe in such a thing as film authorship, its a
meaningless
preoccupation for a critic. Directorial 'mise-en-scene' rarely factors
into the
process, and it plays only a small part in what ends up on-screen.
Truffaut and
his colleagues were bad critics because they maintained a blissful
ignorance of
the necessity for collaboration. They ignored elemental phenomena as
commercial
imperitives, audience research, on-set warfare, and the labyrinthine
corporate
politics which are forever prevalent (not just in Hollywood). These
are some of
the most basic, determinative factors of film production and they
wrote as if
none of it existed.
Consequently, they were the first group of movie reviewers who
managed to
avoid writing about movies.
-------------
this is dodgy, in the sense that it describes them instead of exposing
them. you substitute looking for an auteur for the less revolutionary
and equally dodgy (but more boring as its not revolutionary) 'finding
whether a movie is good or bad'.
but anyway i get your point. its a good point. but there also exists
another point. that which fully embraces the auteur theory. so your
sentences lack a schizophrenia they aspire to reaching. but its good,
i like it and i learn a lot more from it than for say chris darke the
lefty teacher who tought new wave at uni.
all good writing when going loony and deciding to burst into the
dubious world of the value judgemente scene, should try to be
schizophrenic. so its good that you have doubts; i've always said
aspiring film writers if they want to study film should never be
forced to write about film if they dont feel coherent enough about it,
i.e they shouldnt be forced by the circumstances, they should restrain
from writing and claim the unwritability of film writing if they feel
that what they say will be flawed. these doubts as expressed by you
are good
but in a general sense its excellent writing.
monsieurblob
btw i seem to have answered your previous post when what i wanted to
answer was this one.
and yes i got your email but only coz you mentioned it here, saying
your email is monsie...@hotmail.com is weird to say the least so i
dont use it.
actually you're lucky i recieved it since the email closes down every
60 days if out of use...
monsieurblob
i've come across this interesting but interested take on right wing
ism. the right uses it a lot to claim they are 'what is'. but
rightism, like leftism, is mostly taking a stance on something and
many times rightism is about going back in time. and sometimes its
just about taking a stance on a matter like, say, homosexual marriage.
one can be for or against it depending on whether or not he was taught
in a catholic school. therefore rightism in this case at least can be
about changing the status quo if it feels catholic supremacy might die
(sticking religion into pulbic schools, favouring creationism over
darwinism is hardly a status quo thing). the rightist blames the
failure at vietnam on the internal destabilizing opposition, it claims
domino theory where the left claims globalisation.
also the right in cuba or soviet union is the right and the left in
these places continues to be the dictatorships. we can't claim the
definitions mix because these are global in nature. a rightist in cuba
will give support to the usa's policies because there's a universal
sense in rightism and leftism
in it he continues speculating on what happened, which is what being
sa rightist or leftist is usually about, speculating without having
enough info. rightism and leftism as concepts are also complacent
inertia, as if they made sense as if they explain the world when they
dont, they're just complacent gobblygook.
tavernier speculates in his movie, continues on his quijotesque
adventure trying to prove he's right and his opponents are wrong. we
dont know exactly what happened, we dont know exactly how much
cowardice there is in accepting to work for the propaganda machine.
so in a sense you're right. it is expansive, and given the putrid
state of things laissez passer was prolly a necessary pic; his
opponents do the same thats true. but does tavernier know what
happened? he seems pretty sure. right so he delivers a sort of
incoherent babble at the end but thats not enough, at least for me.
and so his movie's dodgy
surely if le monde and libération criticise laissez passer it makes
tavernier rightist at least in this matter...
argh this is far too complicated to fully respond. i liked it, i
thought it at parts unusually moderate, it was rather entertaining.
but this is not enough. i have considerable disagreements. i dont
usually give too much thought to political correctness, its not
something to bother about, and essentially so many times claiming a
position in political issues winds up being pc in the sense that
democracy is never perfect but renews itself every four years plus
when ppl vote for say the republican party they may do it for their
economic not their behavioural policies or vice versa so in the
overall context of things political correctness is not so much of a
problem because everyone vocal practices etc. also, i like academics a
lot more than you think i do, in the same way that you like criticism
a lot more than i do. i think our difference is much more deep rooted,
and indeed i dont feel too comfortable with your views. mm i'll go for
free speech sure but i'll disagree. i suppose we get along because you
fill this ng with things and without it there would be nothing, and
because those who have opposed you in this matter have done so poorly
Tom Sutpen
>> Wrong-o. I prefer the New Wave movies to the Qualite' films also. By
>far.
>-------------------------------------
>
> Eric Rohmer, at the end of the decade, wasn't sitting on the
>bench. He was
>busily making movies of such refinement and gentility that rumors
>quickly
>spread of stimulants (up to and including cattle-prods) being employed
>in order
>to prevent his cast and crew from falling asleep while the cameras
>rolled.
>----------
>
>oooh come off it...
*****
You come off it. It was a joke.
Sheesh. You really think cattle-prods would have got the job done, anyway?
>Having seen a number of these 'Tradition de la Qualite' works ("Le
>Rouge
>et le Noir", "Les Orguilleaux", "La Belles de Nuit', etc), I'd
>probably scratch
>my head in bewilderment at the reception they were accorded if history
>hadn't
>revealed what these critics were up to. Not only is something like
>"Les
>Orguilleaux" not a bad film, it's better than at least a half-dozen of
>the more
>vaunted landmarks of 'le Nouvelle Vague' I can think of.
>
>----------
>
>bla bla bla..
*****
Well, I'm sure even you aren't willing to say that every movie that came
out of the New Wave was an unqualified masterpiece (though many were). Yves
Allgret's movie is leagues better than, say, "Le Beau Serge" or "Le Peau Douce"
or even (much as I like it) "Un Femme est Une Femme".
> His movies were so . . . NICE, after all. So pleasant. See, they
>didn't
>make the kinds of demands on an audience that the films of Godard or
>Bunuel or
>Bergman did (the kind of demands his first three features held the
>promise of).
>
>---------
>
>agaain, oook, but its just a loony value judgement!
>
*****
Well, of *course* it's a value judgement, loony or not. I was writing an
essay, not a news story. Besides, do you *really* think Truffaut's post-"Jules
et Jim" output was of the same caliber? True, a couple of his later films were
as good as any he'd made prior, but let's face it, after 1962 he was a
different kind of filmmaker.
> When a review is occupied with mining for the 'signature' of a
>director,
>and proceeds to either applaud a film or damn it on that premise alone
>-- while
>managing to avoid the arguably more pertinent question of whether the
>movie in
>question is good or bad -- the result is worthless in every sense; a
>big,
>gaping, yawning non-sequitur, no matter how well-written or argued it
>is.
>-----------------
>whhhhhhhhhhhoooooaa!!!!!
*****
I stand by every single word of that.
> Consequently, they were the first group of movie reviewers who
>managed to
>avoid writing about movies.
>
>-------------
>
>this is dodgy, in the sense that it describes them instead of exposing
>them. you substitute looking for an auteur for the less revolutionary
>and equally dodgy (but more boring as its not revolutionary) 'finding
>whether a movie is good or bad'.
*****
First, I wasn't writing an expose, for cryin' out loud. I *was* describing
them (or at least my impression of them.
And I'm of the opinion that, if you're going to write about film, which is
intellectually an impenetrable medium, I think we agree, then the only salient
point when discussing an individual work is whether it was good or it was bad.
It *is* more boring. It's *not* revolutionary. It's just the only way I can try
to rationalize film and not hate myself in the morning.
>
>
>but anyway i get your point. its a good point. but there also exists
>another point. that which fully embraces the auteur theory. so your
>sentences lack a schizophrenia they aspire to reaching. but its good,
>i like it and i learn a lot more from it than for say chris darke the
>lefty teacher who tought new wave at uni.
*****
I don't know that I was aspiring to schizophrenia, Juan. I'm not even sure
I understand what you mean, other than the basic formlessness of the parts that
were posted suggested the presence of a disordered mind, perhaps.
>
>all good writing when going loony and deciding to burst into the
>dubious world of the value judgemente scene, should try to be
>schizophrenic. so its good that you have doubts; i've always said
>aspiring film writers if they want to study film should never be
>forced to write about film if they dont feel coherent enough about it,
>i.e they shouldnt be forced by the circumstances, they should restrain
>from writing and claim the unwritability of film writing if they feel
>that what they say will be flawed. these doubts as expressed by you
>are good
>
>but in a general sense its excellent writing.
>
*****
Thank you, Juan. We might disagre on it's overall merit, but I'm glad you
liked it, just the same.
Tom Sutpen
>and yes i got your email but only coz you mentioned it here, saying
>your email is monsie...@hotmail.com is weird to say the least so i
>dont use it.
>
>actually you're lucky i recieved it since the email closes down every
>60 days if out of use...
*****
Well, you might wanna check it again, because I sent you another email
last night.
I think you'll find the info contained therein of some value.
madamoiselle blobois
in the pre-modern world, this is true. the right stood for the
privelege of privelege. in the modern world, right stands for
privelege of ability. the old right argued the nobility deserved power
because they were of superior lineage. the new right argues those with
the best ability, intelligence, workethic, and diligence should reap
the rewards of their ambition and labor.
also, most of the real progress in the 20th century were the product
of capitalism. marxism spoke of the future and progress, but the
statist emphasis of communism always led to stagnation and party
privelege.
> and sometimes its
> just about taking a stance on a matter like, say, homosexual marriage.
> one can be for or against it depending on whether or not he was taught
> in a catholic school. therefore rightism in this case at least can be
> about changing the status quo if it feels catholic supremacy might die
> (sticking religion into pulbic schools, favouring creationism over
> darwinism is hardly a status quo thing). the rightist blames the
> failure at vietnam on the internal destabilizing opposition, it claims
> domino theory where the left claims globalisation.
you're talking about fundamentalist conservatives who believe in
tradition and want to maintain or restore practices friendly to their
beliefs.
they tend to be dullards. there are arguments against homosexual
marriage outside the fundamentalism. also, homosexual marriage can be
understood as the decadent product of bourgeois capitalism, which it
is. hardline marxists believed in morality of the masses, basic rules
of conduct, and core values. communist countries banned homosexuality;
it was the capitalist nations, with their ideals of individualism,
that allowed increasing freedom for gays. in mao's china, homos were
shot in the head as capitalist-corrupted perverts.
as an individualist, i believe in gay freedom. but the concept of gay
marriage is individual eccentricity creeping into core values of the
majority.
>
> also the right in cuba or soviet union is the right and the left in
> these places continues to be the dictatorships. we can't claim the
> definitions mix because these are global in nature. a rightist in cuba
> will give support to the usa's policies because there's a universal
> sense in rightism and leftism
yes, ideologically, this is true. but, remember the communist
hardliners in russia were called 'conservatives' by the american
liberal media for blocking gorbachev and yeltsin's
pro-capitalist(rightist?)policies. so, it gets confused. those who
monopolize the power become defacto conservatives regardless of their
ideology. those who challenge this monopoly become reluctant radicals.
iranian fundies are good example. the western left didn't know what
to think about them: whether to see them as liberators fighting US
puppet shah, or rightwing medievalists even worse than shah himself.
also, leftism and rightism are often intertwined. castro is at once a
leftist in the economic sense but as a fierce nationalist he's a
rightist. the khmer rouge of cambodia were both extreme
maoist-leftists and xenophobic rightist-nationalists. they completely
eradicated the market economy but also killed all non cambodians in
cambodia and attacked vietnam in the name of reclaiming cambodian lost
to vietnam prior to french imperialism(when vietnamese were the
imperialists). ho chi minh was popular among the vietnamese for his
nationalism than his communism.
actually, speculation is crucial to novels or movies about history
because even the most fairminded historian never has all the facts.
history is a kind of archaeology. we have some facts and data, but the
real truth always eludes us. to speculate intelligently is to rise
above dogmatic rightism or leftism. it makes us understand that
there's always alot of grey between the black and white. speculation
is far from perfect but that is its intrinsic value; its confession
that it's not the final word. following WWII, the french left and the
gaullist pretty much dictated french memory of that period. according
to the left, the french communists were the noble heroes who helped
defeat nazism. according to gaullism, all of france had been nobly
united in resisting nazi oppression. tavernier says it wasn't that
simple. his police movie L627 is great precisely because it doesn't
give us simple good cop vs bad druggie or bad cop vs hapless victim
scenario.
this isn't to say there isn't simple good vs bad in this world.
murderers and rapists and hitler and stalin were bad, pure and simple.
but, most of us are not and we don't have much power. we all have to
get by thru compromise. tavernier observes and understands this
compromised condition of existence before passing judgment.
>
> tavernier speculates in his movie, continues on his quijotesque
> adventure trying to prove he's right and his opponents are wrong. we
> dont know exactly what happened, we dont know exactly how much
> cowardice there is in accepting to work for the propaganda machine.
i haven't seen the movie but based on his other movies, the impression
i got is there's always another layer or side to truth.
life and nothing but, judge and the assassin, sunday in the country,
L627, it all starts today, etc are among the most intelligent,
thoughtful, and fairminded movies i've seen. tavernier may be
compared with sayles but there is no grandstanding, no artificial
sweetners, no muppet-talk. also, sayles confuses liberal
fuzzymindedness for complexity. it's tavernier who fixes the sharper
gaze, ruthless in its search for truth, but also forgiving.
>
> so in a sense you're right. it is expansive, and given the putrid
> state of things laissez passer was prolly a necessary pic; his
> opponents do the same thats true. but does tavernier know what
> happened? he seems pretty sure. right so he delivers a sort of
> incoherent babble at the end but thats not enough, at least for me.
> and so his movie's dodgy
i'll have to see it. you might be right.
i guess, given the context. remember, oliver stone, considered a
hardline leftist by conservatives is seen differently the left. the
french left saw Platoon as a US imperialist movie, just another Rambo.
>
>
> argh this is far too complicated to fully respond. i liked it, i
> thought it at parts unusually moderate, it was rather entertaining.
> but this is not enough. i have considerable disagreements. i dont
> usually give too much thought to political correctness, its not
> something to bother about, and essentially so many times claiming a
> position in political issues winds up being pc in the sense that
> democracy is never perfect but renews itself every four years plus
> when ppl vote for say the republican party they may do it for their
> economic not their behavioural policies or vice versa so in the
> overall context of things political correctness is not so much of a
> problem because everyone vocal practices etc. also, i like academics a
> lot more than you think i do, in the same way that you like criticism
> a lot more than i do. i think our difference is much more deep rooted,
> and indeed i dont feel too comfortable with your views. mm i'll go for
> free speech sure but i'll disagree. i suppose we get along because you
> fill this ng with things and without it there would be nothing, and
> because those who have opposed you in this matter have done so poorly
i think you and me is like bogey and rein at the end of casablanca.
we've shown the world how there's always hope and that truth and
honesty unite. when i, a fascist, can coexist in harmony with blob,
the leftist, it means humanity can be redeemed. it goes to show that
politically incorrect right and politically incorrect left are what we
need. truth beyond dogma.
monsieurblob
well like your opponents you jump on the evaluative bandwagon, hence
reducing the impact of what you say. what do i mean by evaluative?
well, constantly deciding whether a movie is good or not to help your
argument along.
the passing take on rohmer, for instance, is not 'just a joke', it
helps you to later on claim truffaut's 'isolation', not that i'm even
sayin truffaut being isolated is a point in itself but that fallacy is
a world to its own too.
>
> > His movies were so . . . NICE, after all. So pleasant. See, they
> >didn't
> >make the kinds of demands on an audience that the films of Godard or
> >Bunuel or
> >Bergman did (the kind of demands his first three features held the
> >promise of).
> >
> >---------
> >
> >agaain, oook, but its just a loony value judgement!
> >
>
> *****
> Well, of *course* it's a value judgement, loony or not. I was writing an
> essay, not a news story. Besides, do you *really* think Truffaut's post-"Jules
> et Jim" output was of the same caliber? True, a couple of his later films were
> as good as any he'd made prior, but let's face it, after 1962 he was a
> different kind of filmmaker.
ah well you see, what the hell am i sposed to say to a claim such as
do you *really* think Truffaut's post-"Jules et Jim" output was of the
same caliber? whatever! i may claim a matthew perry or bring als head
are crap and great but i'm not serious, i dont believe in what i
say... and whatsmore i'm not going to counter evaluation (yours) with
evaluation.
as for being a different filmmaker, so!?
ah well may you stay forever whatever. your response is impossible to
understand! so you feel better in the morning, yeah whatever. i can
tell ya one thing, i aint feel no better in the mornin when the night
fore i evaluated a movie, i feel like shit.
take the case oonga bloga the neanderthal when he showed off his cock
to the gazing females around him. he evaluates it, the bigger the
better.
so oonga bloga becomes cultural secretary for the tribe. and his task
is to evaluate the cocks of his fellow competitors. everything is fine
in that the bigger the better is maintained until one shiny day a
horde of neighbouring nomads settle in for a couple of months each of
them having cocks ten times the size of his. he evaluates them and
informs the flock. concluding a possible loss of prestige, he preaches
too big a cock is bad. 20 million years later whaddaya have?
evaluation points towards the evaluater thats all. pauline kael and
monsieur harkness. when the evaluater say it bad all we have is the
life story of the evaluater. when the evaluater say it good hey! we
have a description of the text.
so yeah perhaps i do want you writing a news story
as for the context in which you claimed your claim, i.e. your claim
that film writing should advance nice and slowly at snail speed
evaluating each and every movie this is bad this is good, well what
can i say, i think its boring *and* worse than trying to arrogant your
way up the ladder with stuff like politique des auteurs.
you see the thing is you pretend to reject the auteur theory or you
dont reject the auteur theory or you just want to say the auteur isnt
the only one (hence the aspiring schitzoness)
and politique des auteurs has been used by every auteur ever, nothing
scandalous about it
monsieurblob
> we've shown the world how there's always hope and that truth and
> honesty unite. when i, a fascist, can coexist in harmony with blob,
> the leftist, it means humanity can be redeemed. it goes to show that
> politically incorrect right and politically incorrect left are what we
> need. truth beyond dogma.
ooookayyy gaza but i'm not that much of a leftist, i cant stand left
economic models that uphold the state over the much more efficient
private enterprise. i dont condemn globalisation for instance, i just
think its an excellent description of the world we live in. it
explains wars. but thats as far as it goes. the left has never
understood that preaching against private property is violence. but
ill take philosophy ethics anytime over religion, robert stam over
matthew arnold. as description of the world they're excellent, their
models can describe john wayne while the right would prefer to forget
and silently maintain that and continue disserting on the immortality
of the soul. i say the two poles consist of envy and intolerance, so
i'll never be able to align myself to either.
as for me tolerating you, well i dunno gaza. ill never tolerate a
fascist because a fascist doesnt tolerate democracy. tolerating a
fascist isnt being politically incorrect, its tolerating a fascist.
but i dunno are you one? i havent read that much of your writing to
say that i tolerate you, but some of it points in that direction.
madamoiselle blobois
i reject state fascism. mussolini and hitler, very wrong. but
fascism, when used as a theory for understanding the world can be
useful, like marxism and freudianism. and, the thing is fascism has
been absorbed by--in fact, has been part and parcel of--everything and
everyone, from capitalists to leftists. multiculturalists are little
tribal fascists. man is irrational and we have to understand the
irrational philosophy of life to understand how man really thinks.
just as paganism underlines catholicism, fascism is at the root basis
of what we are. kubrick was right. so by fascism i mean 'fascism' as
anything defined as politically incorrect by the left or the stuffy
right. i'd say the 'fascism' of straw dogs understands human nature
more clearly than the liberalism of stanley kramer or marxism of
pontecorvo. guess who's coming to dinner and battle of
algiers--brilliant movie, btw--are irrelevant today but straw dogs
will always be true about human nature.