Cahiers2Cinéma

A Bit of Spotty Bother - 1896 style

2009-10-17T18:07:00.000-07:00

I spotted something really bizarre in the short film "A Nightmare"/"Le Cauchemar" from 1896 by Georges Méliès. You can read a summary of this very short film here or here, or watch it on one of the great Georges Méliès DVDs. (I watched it on this one.)

The crazy thing I found is, in the final scene, when we cut back to the original bedroom, Méliès' groin area is hand-blacked out by spotty marks. I am not trying to be a wise guy. You can see it in the last screen grab in this rotten tomatoes review. Here is the photo for convenience:

(click to enlarge)

But it is even more evident when you watch it on DVD, especially if your DVD player has a zoom feature, because the black dots are clearly hand-drawn on every frame—they hop around erratically (almost like they're animated...!). In the prior scene, this character had jumped around acrobatically, and possibly this is where some piece of fabric came loose. They had to do a camera stop where the actor (Georges Méliès himself) froze in position on the bed while the set is changed around him. In the finished film it is jump-cut together so that the background disappears instantly and he is awakened from his nightmare, back in his bedroom.

He is wearing sleeping underclothes, and maybe one of these two scenarios occurred: 1) Out of propriety, an exhibitor from way back when, or someone who owned the film print at some point in history, blacked it out because maybe there was a bulge they found offensive 2) Méliès (or his team) blacked it out on all prints (or the negative) because his flap had accidentally fallen open, leaving him exposed.

If it's the latter, you may ask, why wouldn't they reshoot? If you look at how exactly the match cut is of his body position between these scenes, perhaps this was the preferred solution (the screen grabs here don't show this—you have to watch the film). This is 1896, and Méliès is discovering and mastering new film techniques, and my guess is that replicating this special effect cut may have been daunting compared with simply blacking out the offending region. He had to freeze himself in a very awkward position (legs in the air) in the bed while his crew rearranged the set, until they turned the camera back on.

It was apparently quite hurried because you can see the remnant of the prior "nightmare" set on the right of screen which has not been properly covered up by the new set. Compare the before and after shots below. The bed (looks like a wheelbarrow) is in the exact same position in the frame, and the remnant of the first set is visible on the right side in the second frame grab.

Some film historian should be put to work to answer this important question! For instance, if all the existing film prints have this blacking out, then it likely originates in the negative. But if there is a "clean" print out there, then we can look at what was blacked out and make a guess as to why.

Il generale della Rovere (1959, Rossellini) - review

2009-10-14T01:00:00.000-07:00

(Don't be scared off by the drab cover art. The film is lighter, more fun and engaging than this serious-looking cover belies.)

Roberto Rossellini can be newly appreciated these days thanks to the appearance of a wide variety of his films on DVD—including several that I think were not available on VHS. He seems to have lagged behind other major directors in getting his work represented on DVD—and still many of his most significant works are not available. I find myself in the position of having neglected him in favor of other directors, such as those of the Nouvelle Vague and the other Italian directors.

One of the films that I can now evaluate is Il generale della Rovere from 1959. This film makes me question what is it that defines art? Because when I compare it to other films by Rossellini, it is much less "overtly artistic", and far more of a traditional narrative. Certainly there can be traditional narratives that are great works of art, but what is it that gives them that special ingredient that rises to the level of art? I am not attempting to answer the question here, just raising it, but I think it has something to do with the high level of craftsmanship of the writer and director primarily, and then I would compare it to what makes great novels rise to the level of art, even when they are traditional narratives, such as Madame Bovary or The Red and the Black. There is a long history of artists reaching a level of communication and beauty in their artistry in every medium, and why should cinema be any different? But it is interesting when you watch a director who is usually more overtly artistic make a film that is a traditional mainstream narrative.

I think here Rossellini shows, to my surprise and confusion, that he can ably direct a normal studio film. I just kept wondering why he was doing it. (You can find the backstory on how he came to direct the film elsewhere.) The subject matter is certainly above average, and from what I've read, was breaking some new ground in terms of representations of World War II subject matter for Italian audiences. It almost rises to the level of art, but I think because Rossellini is so comfortable in a different type of filmmaking (looser in his earlier days, more experimentally minimalist in his later days), the film does not rise to the high level of art one expects, as if he can't quite reach those heights when taking an approach to the medium that is not in his blood.

It should not be a surprise that he can direct a traditional studio narrative, since he directed several before, including Dov'è la Libertà...? in 1954. And if The White Ship, from 1942, is any indication, he was as much of a studio-trained insider as any of the other Italian directors of his generation. (This is another reason I find myself asking, since he already does know how to direct a traditional studio picture, why he made this film.) As studio-type pictures go, I enjoyed Rossellini's Dov'è la Libertà...? more than Il generale. For characters heading towards the gallows, Chaplin's Monsieur Verdoux was far more moving. Chaplin from '47 is surely a far leap from an Italian film from '59, but certain parts where Verdoux is in his cell with his white hair and de Sica is in his cell with his white hair made it hard to suppress comparisons, despite the ridiculously different aims and subjects of the films! But they do both share what is intended as a powerfully moving ending in the same dramatic setting of a prison execution. Perhaps if I had not seen Verdoux, which I considered greatly moving, I would have been more moved by Il generale's ending. Il generale is also similar to other films that I had seen prior, such as Kurosawa's Kagemusha (1980), which was made later, but which I had seen first. (Credit to Isabella Rossellini for pointing out that connection in a video interview.)

I suppose by saying "less overtly artistic," I am comparing Il generale to Viaggio in Italia (1954) most of all. Unlike Godard, Rossellini doesn't call attention to the medium of film itself, so I think I was wrong when I said that earlier. But Viaggio in Italia has a very different feeling to it, one that dispenses with normal plot machinations in favor of the philosophical journey the characters are undergoing, and into which the inquisitive viewer gets deeply drawn and (hopefully) reciprocates with his or her own contemplation on the ideas presented and discussed by the characters. Il generale has entirely traditional plot machinations (not that Rossellini hasn't done this before more than once), but that doesn't mean I can just toss it away as worthless. What is it that can make it great cinema?

If it is reaching heights of poetry that make great cinema—even a dark poetry as is often the case with Rossellini—then Il generale is a lighter success than usual for him. Its ending is moving and perhaps poetic (or maybe one would just call it political or philosophical), but the ending of Germany Year Zero (1948) reaches a height that moves at least this viewer far more deeply. There's something about not fully understanding why a character does something (such as suicide to end that film) that begs to put it in the category of poetry, whereas a moving success of solid storytelling and performance seems to fit into a category more akin to that of great traditional literature or the dramatic arts. I think the difference is made when we fully understand the reasons for the character's heartbreaking demise all along, and we are gut-wrenchingly following them on their journey Those who are more artistically-minded instead tend to praise those films with a poetic angle, where things are only understood either through deeper contemplation, or from a realization of a non-literal reason, or a subtextual reason.

De Sica's own Umberto D. (1952)—let's categorize it as a traditional narrative—moves the viewer to tears with its bittersweet ending. But when a traditional narrative film is able to elicit an extreme height of emotion ,as Umberto does (sometimes this is subjective based on the viewer's state of mind upon entering the cinema), the intellectual/poetic viewer and the traditional narrative/dramatic emotional viewer may meet and enjoy the film at the same level. Perhaps the poetic-minded viewer feels the nuance of emotion has culminated to such a high level that it achieves poetry, and the dramatic emotional viewer is moved emotionally to the heights they demand in what they consider the greatest cinema. (There are probably stronger examples than Umberto D. but I'm blanking now in my haste to write.) But what if, even in Umberto D., there is something in the subtext that elicits that emotion from the poetic/intellectual viewer? I haven't seen it recently enough, so I wonder, because it is a slower film that I think allows time for contemplation of more subtextual issues than the normal traditional narrative film. Perhaps these two types of viewers are enthusiasts of the arts for different reasons, and never do meet. That might explain why some people can sit through the most horrible Hollywood weepy trash and think it is brilliant while others find it false and manipulative because there is no subtlety—only the overt contrived dramatic/emotional machinations draped over a paint-by-numbers traditional plot.

Back to this movie, one of the reasons Il generale della Rovere is worth watching and is an artistic success (if not a staggering one) is because of the very solid treatment of the lead character played by Vittorio de Sica. Both he, the writers, and the director have created a very compelling character, one whose progress we become deeply interested in, and whose transformation at the end is invigorating. We are so deeply pulled into this character's world and he is such a realistic concoction that our interest is completely captured. A comparison to Umberto D. in that regard is not unfounded. After this, I look forward to the drier experimental historical films of Rossellini (experimental in their matter-of-factness of presentation I have heard?) which luckily are also available on DVD, even if his other great works such as Viaggio in Italia, Paisan, Europa '51 and many others still aren't.

Empire of Passion (1978, Oshima) - Review

2009-10-05T14:23:00.000-07:00

This was not a great Oshima film. It is a straightforward story and only has brief moments that begin to approach “transcendent madness.” It is not long enough or weird enough to invite deep thought about anything besides the basic story, a disappointment in an art film. (Or I could consider it a success if I was hanging on every subtle beat of the unfolding story and performances, as with great novelistic films.) The movie seems to invite deeper contemplation when Seki bites Toyoji's hand and things get slightly weird, but it then seems to leave that aside and not explore pain/sex in the way Oshima has before (in In the Realm of the Senses (1976) and a little bit in The Pleasures of the Flesh (1965)). It then moves along to the conclusion in a fully engaging way, but it doesn't have a big emotional or intellectual payoff. It's a nicely done, slightly poetic end to the story.

Probably some digging into symbols, like Seki being blinded, may lead somewhere, but I'm not sure. It crossed my mind that possibly the film is a fantastical realization of what Oshima or the writer think is happening psychologically when two lovers cuckold a woman's husband. But there are too many stories where the lovers actually do kill the husband (and in real life) for it to bear fruit as a cinematic realization of subconscious underpinnings. If it was intended as a beautiful and extravagant fantasy of love, intense sexual love, or doomed lovers, it's too restrained to flower into something truly moving, and compared to In the Realm of the Senses, the intensity level is low. Another metaphor that could bear investigation is the well, which I also thought about as an external narrative depiction of internal confrontations—as if when you cheat you toss the lover down the well and are constantly trying to forget him, but then you have to keep tossing leaves down there to cover him up, and find yourself periodically drawn back to the well. Even as I say it, it sounds silly, so I'm skeptical that this was their intention. (The film's basic scenario—and not anything in the filming itself—has very similar elements to Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" and James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice.)

I wish I had seen In the Realm of the Senses more recently, but my memory is that it was a deeply engaging shock of a movie, where you were fully enveloped in the mad, explorative passion of the two lovers, which culminates in its disturbing climax. Even though my memory is vague, I think Empire of Passion suffers in comparison, especially since it treads on some similar subject matter—as if Oshima was in the Hollywood studio system, being forced to do a sequel. A quick perusal of his filmography on IMDB shows that he was stuck (if I may presume) in television for about six years before the breakout success of In the Realm of the Senses. Perhaps he was desperate to stay in the theatrical filmmaking game, regardless of how similar the narrative territory was. I believe the older, pre-Criterion DVD was titled In the Realm of Passion, and a look at the Japanese words show that this is probably the more accurate title. (I will have to investigate Oshima's TV period because he may have been there willingly, like Rossellini.)

I find myself favoring early Oshima (first five or seven years perhaps), having had a similar lukewarm response to Taboo (1999) when it came out. His earlier films seem more radical in content and form. As horror or fantasy featuring ghostly apparitions (at least of the Japanese variety), this film does not bear up well in comparison to Kaidan (1964, Kobayashi), for example.

Thunder Over the Plains (1953, de Toth) - A Dreary Western

2009-10-02T14:13:00.000-07:00

Thunder Over the Plains (1953) is a truly dreary western from the usually estimable André de Toth. It features immaculate John Alton-like lighting from Bert Glennon who seems to bring a noir sensibility to Westerns (he did similar things in Felix Feist's Man Behind the Gun), and Citizen Kane-like framings which I'll attribute to de Toth.

The dreary comes from the very un-engrossing plot and, while the characters are developed moderately well, it is just a motley crew ripe for delivering boredom. None is given quite enough of a drive or a reason, and the conflict is lacking, making the whole film dull. I think a Screenwriting 101 teacher ought to have a field day with this one. A pretty great director directs the pants off this weak script but the problems must have been there on the page and should have been addressed before shooting.

The weakness starts right from the beginning, with an omniscient narrator and ostensibly tense scenes that unfurl before us with characters we don't yet care about. This is not an uncommon problem in omniscient narrator films, and this one has a historical bent which probably adds to the stodginess. The most important problem is Ben Westman, the character played by Charles McGraw. McGraw can't do much here—his character has no passion. He's supposed to be the Robin Hood fighting against the evil carpetbaggers, and Randolph Scott is the "hero" supposed to bring him in. On paper it might seem like a great struggle between two conflicted characters, but McGraw's raison d'être is thinly drawn.

I wonder if there was any McCarthy angle to this one that might explain its dreariness-- if there was an ulterior motive behind the picture that put traditional plot clashes on the back burner. In any case, the result is not fun to watch.

I've rarely watched a film so beautifully lit, directed (and to some extent acted) that was so painfully unwatchable. A lesson that just beautiful images alone can't carry a movie. This also reminds me that something must be going on in seemingly plotless masterpieces like Last Year at Marienbad to hold our attention that could be worth analyzing (for film or screenwriting students at least).
(This boring picture helps illustrate how boring the movie is. Screen grab courtesy of DVD Beaver review.)

Note: Originally written 07/10/09 but delayed posting due to procrastination of rewriting! This is a pretty messy draft but now the movie is too faded from memory to refine this.

Nagisa Oshima Re-emerging (Slowly)

2009-10-02T14:05:00.000-07:00

Nagisa Oshima is one of many under-represented filmmakers on U.S. DVD. Criterion throws us a little help by releasing In the Realm of the Senses and Empire of Passion, but where are the other masterworks by this giant of cinema? As Godard (or Truffaut perhaps) is to the French New Wave, so Nagisa Oshima is to the Japanese New Wave. I had the good fortune to see several of his films via other-region DVDs and Los Angeles-area screenings and sorely wish all his films were easier to see.

(These three pictures from Night and Fog in Japan (1960) should serve as a hint as to where distributors should start!!)

Note: Originally written 03/11/09 but delayed posting due to procrastination of plans to elaborate the entry!

Echo Park Film Center screening

2008-01-18T00:08:00.000-08:00

Here's the flyer for the screening of Elements!

La Promenade des Papillons

2009-07-03T00:37:00.001-07:00

Here is a great little silent film by Josie Basford, a filmmaker I met when she screened this film at an Echo Park Film Center open screening (first come, first serve, anyone can bring a film, so it can get quite crazy!).

She does a great job immersing fully into the old-school silent film style, as do her actors, but I especially enjoy her knack for beautiful image-making. Great original music too!

La Promenade Des Papillons from Josie Basford on Vimeo.

Mike Gilbert on Cinema Outtakes

2009-06-26T11:52:00.001-07:00

As promised, here are some outtakes from my earlier film "Mike Gilbert on Cinema."

As you can see, it was recorded pretty off-the-cuff, so stitching the original together was quite the chore. (Hell, even editing these outtakes together was a pain in the ass. Er, um, but it was all worth it!)

This is a peek behind the curtain of the pain and frustration that Mike goes through in order to create the apparently seamless magic of his final performance.

Mike Gilbert on Cinema Outtakes

Mike Gilbert On...

2009-06-23T13:38:00.000-07:00

I broke out sections from the longer "Mike Gilbert on Cinema" film (a 10-minute behemoth) into some bite-sized chunks, all under 1 minute.

Check back in a couple of days for "Outtakes From Mike Gilbert On Cinema".

Mike Gilbert On Miami Vice

Mike Gilbert on Tom Cruise

Mike Gilbert on Paris Hilton

Mike Gilbert on Fox

The "Mike Gilbert on Cinema" MySpace site:
www.myspace.com/mikegilbertoncinema

My YouTube movie page:
www.youtube.com/user/adrianbetamax
(Subscribe to my videos if you like what you see.)

The Infamous Tree Film

2009-06-20T12:24:00.000-07:00

Here is a film I made quite a while back (around November 21, 2007) but am only posting now. Much derided, and probably rightly so, I have maintained a bizarre fondness for it.

The film class assignment was to do a film in only three shots, and to think carefully about the cuts. Sensible suggestions included "Action, reaction, consequence," or "Beginning, middle, end (but not necessarily in that order)".

For some reason, my attempts at getting together a narrative film were thwarted, and out of some test footage for one of those narratives, I decided to just experiment with editing and the interplay between sound and image.

Here is the result, the much derided, infamous tree film, known simply as "3-Shot Film".

Please note: 5 seconds of black leader precedes the film, and it is generally not recommended that you hit the HQ button because playback is too slow, and quality seems fine on regular play.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhuH5g7AxkQ

A Time for Killing - Review

2009-06-18T01:31:00.000-07:00

As it turns out, my idea of using A Time for Killing (1967, Phil Karlson) as a jumping-off point for looking at the career of Phil Karlson was less than fortuitous, since Roger Corman was the original director, replaced by Karlson at some unknown point in the filmmaking. Although it was exciting to get that correction from famed film director Joe Dante in an unexpected visit to my comments section!

Despite the uncertainty about when he joined the film, I thought there were umistakable signs of Phil Karlson's touch that marked it as a legitimate but weak part of his oeuvre. The very intense close-ups reminded me of 99 River Street. In A Time for Killing, the extreme close-ups during the confrontation between George Hamilton and Max Baer Jr. are exquisitely and dramatically lit to a pleasantly jarring and intensifying effect. I can't cue up 99 River Street to check, but I remember something similar occurring in it (it may be the particular angle on the actors' faces that makes it a Karlson touch to me).

In a way, this alternating intense close-ups style is a microcosm of Karlson's approach to filmmaking. More so than most filmmakers, he keys in deeply on a few very intense, small-scale interpersonal relationships/confrontations. He draws you in to the characters and their confrontations at a very personal, intimate level, no matter how grand the setting of the drama, and frequently uses extreme close-ups at high points so that you get a an intense feeling for the emotions that the characters are feeling (and that the actors are hopefully effectively delivering). It's a small-scale cinema. This Western is not like Anthony Mann's. It may feature some scenery, but he does not film it in the same way. To be fair, the Netflix instant watch feature, which was the only way to view this rare film, other than awaiting a fortuitously timed Starz airing, was a panned-and-scanned version of a 2.35 film (per IMDB). Although I don't think seeing it properly would change my opinion because the amount of time he devotes to the landscape and how he uses it within the shots (for instance dollying against a certain background) would remain unchanged.

Despite being able to identify some Karlson trademarks, the film is not terrific. It is watchable and enjoyable to a point but faded quickly from consciousness for me and would not invite further viewings, not even the chance to see it in a proper letterbox format. One key problem that drags this down is the acting: George Hamilton is not a good actor, and I am not a fan of Glenn Ford, who brings pretty much the same narrow range of emotional gradations to almost every film he is in. (There are exceptions.) Inger Stevens was new to me and was not spectacular but was better to me than the guys. The film, probably due to its gestation as a project of two directors (and a studio with its own interests), seemed jumpy in places, and Inger Stevens' feistiness comes unexpectedly and at a much higher intensity level than was justified by her earlier scenes. (We hadn't seen a glimmer of it. She was a wallflower.) The film also has some ugly subject matter in terms of the rape. (I should elaborate on that, but I'm polishing off this review that I first drafted months ago when I watched the film.)

While it's like any film that takes a major event, like the Civil War, and approaches it through several characters (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly), I sense what I feel is the Karlson touch in this film where he does not seem to care as much about the large historical event but is more interested in these characters. In a film like this, his trademark is a detriment, because it is such a significant event in our history, and he is far less inquisitive about the historical aspects. To be fair, the plot is intimately tied to the Civil War, with George Hamilton wearing his Southern pride to the point of insanity, but Glenn Ford is more reactive to Hamilton, who is reduced to a crazy character for which the Civil War is only a device to motivate his behavior and create an interesting story. I think a better director (or maybe even Karlson if he had involvement from the beginning of the project) would have created a story that reflected more deeply on the Civil War and surrounding issues at the same time it told its characters' story.

Possible evidence of studio interference seemed in evidence to me in the form of the two stupid characters played by Corman/Dante regular Dick Miller and Emile Meyer (I think is the actor's name). Their scenes without exception seemed shoehorned in for comic relief very uneasily in a film in which they had no place. I wondered if some successful recent film had a similar dynamic that prompted the studio to insist. I was really scratching my head at Karlson for their inclusion, until Joe Dante educated me about Corman's involvement and stated that all the casting was Corman's (and probably the studio as well). So I'm quick to put all blame for that on Corman, although he may have had a plan that would have integrated them into the film less jarringly.

I have to admit it was pretty neat to see Harrison Ford in a film from 1967, after trying in vain to spot where the hell he is in Zabriskie Point (my conclusion is he is not in it!). Although he is so young in A Time for Killing that I totally missed him. I realized who it had to be later but his character didn't show up again after I had figured it out. I rewatched the beginning and was amazed I had watched his scenes without realizing it was him.

Also Timothy Carey, who I was quite excited to notice in the cast list, comes off pretty terribly in this film. It's the usual Carey insanity but it's just peppered here and there and not weaved in enough to build a fully developed character.

I am not going to write a reconsideration of Phil Karlson attempting to elevate him for consideration as one of the true greats, as I thought perhaps I might have done during this exercise in analysis. He is a director of interest but not one of the great artists. If you are watching an exciting genre film, especially a film noir, selecting a Phil Karlson film is going to be far more satisfying than a Henry Hathaway film. This exercise has helped me categorize him (although unfairly since he joined the film late). I think he is a director of high ability in his craft but, for my money, not one with the astronomically high artistic goals of, say, a Bergman, Fellini or Godard. Even Anthony Mann I think is reaching for something higher, and more clearly, Nicholas Ray, to cite just some random examples. As mentioned earlier in this blog, I'm searching for art, and I don't think we should spend a lot of time on directors who fall (or especially aim) short of it. Although a big caveat to that snobbishness is that with the right script, key crew and amazing performances, a director like this can easily make a film that achieves that high level. But other directors, like Sam Fuller, are more odds-on favorites to deliver something deeply artistically moving.

Access to Rare Films

2009-03-26T14:07:00.000-07:00

In this post from the indispensable Bioscope, there is news of access to rare films by an exciting new method from Warner Bros.

You pay $19.95 for a DVD-R (or $14.95 for download), but you get your own copy of rare films that may not see a commercial release. Pretty sweet stuff.
www.warnerarchive.com

The silents feature scores! That's because they have all shown on TCM, which means you could have saved a lot of money if you had been obsessively recording rare films from TCM over all these years!

I've recommended the Bioscope before for silent film enthusiasts, so make sure you add it to your links or Bloglines or Google Reader.

The Mystery of the Creeping Cheeses!

2008-01-30T09:04:00.000-08:00

At The Bioscope, a fantastic source for silent cinema news that I recently discovered, I was excited to learn of the release of a lavish new Georges Méliès box set coming out from Flicker Alley. Far more elaborate than the previous sets released, it will feature about 170 of his (very) short films. Here are the earlier releases:

The advertising says it's a comprehensive "survey", so even at five discs it doesn't seem to promise to include every one of his extant films, but I am sincerely hoping that one of my personal favorites, "Les Fromages automobiles," (1907) (aka "The Mystery of the Creeping Cheeses", I believe) will be included. I saw this at an Egyptian Theatre screening of very early cinema, and it had me laughing and my mind tripping at its unbridled absurdity.

Cross your fingers that Netflix carries this large Méliès set!

If you don't know Méliès yet, here is a good starter.
Cinema was about six years old when he made this, and you can see one of the early pioneers in action as he discovers cinema's unique magic. From 1901, here is "The Man with the Rubber Head":

Screening Alert - The Salvation Hunters

2009-03-13T14:31:00.000-07:00

Big-time screening alert! Josef von Sternberg's The Salvation Hunters (1925) will be screening at UCLA this Saturday March 14 as part of their 14th Festival of Preservation.

Info here.

From their site:

Saturday March 14 2009, 7:30PM

Preservation funded by The Stanford Theatre Foundation
THE SALVATION HUNTERS
(1925) Directed by Josef von Sternberg
Josef von Sternberg's first film--shot for less than $4,800 on location in San Pedro, Chinatown and the San Fernando Valley--was possibly Hollywood's first "independent" production. The gritty realism of its locations, the lack of artifice in its story and the lower depths of its characters shocked audiences and the industry alike. The film remains thoroughly modern. Sternberg's images thrive on composition and stasis. His ending resolves nothing and yet everything is different. The Salvation Hunters made a star not only of Sternberg, but also of Georgia Hale, who would play opposite Chaplin in The Gold Rush (1925).

Academy Photoplays. Producer: Josef von Sternberg. Screenwriter: Josef von Sternberg. Cinematographer: Edward Gheller. Editor: Josef von Sternberg. Cast: George K. Arthur, Georgia Hale, Bruce Guerin, Otto Matiesen, Nellie Bly Baker. 35mm, 72 min.

Preceded by...
OIL: A SYMPHONY IN MOTION
(1933) Directed by M.G. MacPherson

Preservation funded by The Stanford Theatre Foundation

Oil was produced by a Los Angeles collective of amateur filmmakers, called "Artkino," who here attempted a lyric documentary from the point of view of the oil itself.

Cinematographer: Jean Michelson. 35mm, 8 min.
Live musical accompaniment will be provided.

A Time for Killing (1967, Phil Karlson)

2009-03-12T00:01:00.000-07:00

For a limited time, Phil Karlson's 1967 film A Time for Killing will remain available for viewing via Netflix's Instant Watch feature. While it may have been available on VHS or TV airings, to me this is a rarity that has not appeared on DVD, to my knowledge. Phil Karlson has always proved an interesting director, especially in his film noirs: Kansas City Confidential (1952), 99 River Street (1953), Tight Spot (1955), The Phenix City Story (1955), 5 Against the House (1955) and The Brothers Rico (1957). (Some of those are less noirish than others.)

His IMDB entry seems to indicate some tumult at this point in his career (bouncing around to TV, getting involved in the Dean Martin "Matt Helm" light entertainments), so I am not sure this 1967 film will have something special in it, but when a director proves so thoroughly interesting over so many movies, I hope he will deliver, even in what looks like a very mainstream studio release.

Karlson's films often featured real locations to great effect (Reno in 5 Against the House and I believe Alabama locations in The Phenix City Story) and frequently presented very gritty plots, especially 99 River Street, which made a strong impression on me.

Join me in checking out a rarity from this director, and let's write some reviews of what we find in this film and make some general comments on his overall value as a director. Is he merely a stooge doing the studio's bidding in this major release? Or is there a special artistic value, some insight into human nature or politics or history...? We'll see!

I've invited Dennis Cozzalio of Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule to join me in this endeavor, and feel free to jump in. But the clock is ticking. This not-on-DVD film is only available for Instant Watch on Netflix until April 1, 2009. Don't miss this chance!! (No excuses if it's panned-and-scanned. Suck it up!)

More Silent Films on DVD, Please

2007-06-09T15:50:00.000-07:00

Well, that certainly was a feeble commitment! But now I'm back.

I've realized I have to set aside specific time for blog writing and will do so.

In the meantime, let me say I watched an excellent silent film by John Ford, called The Blue Eagle (1926).

Here is the fabulous original poster:

I was watching a VHS copy of an airing from an AMC Film Preservation Festival from way back when. Although a significant naval battle sequence is missing, and occasionally in early scenes a 16mm film print had to be used, this held up as a stunning example of top-drawer Ford. (All the more so when the scenes were in 35mm.)

With the recent success studios seem to be having in packaging films in box sets organized by stars (Robert Mitchum Signature Collection, Tyrone Power Swashbuckler Box Set) or themes (Film Noir Classics Collection, Literary Classics Collection), it would be amazing if they could start doing this for silent films. There are certainly enough surviving films to justify a John Ford silent film box set. I know more than enough exist just from the bunch that I taped off the AMC Film Preservation Festival. There is a Hitchcock box from Lionsgate with several silents, so the ball may already be rolling. However, I remember my disappointment upon listening to the audio commentary for Warner Brothers' DVD of The Racket (1951, John Cromwell) (part of the Film Noir Classic Colleciton Vol. 3) and hearing repeated references to the Howard Hughes silent original (1928, Lewis Milestone) that the commentator (Eddie Muller) had obviously had the good fortune to see! What a shame that wasn't shoehorned onto the same disk.

Shoehorning may be a stroke of luck for the more esoteric film enthusiasts, as studios can wedge films they consider unreleasable as standalone titles into combo sets with other more popular movies. I just had the good fortune to see the 1933 Mystery of the Wax Museum (Michael Curtiz) on the flip side of Warner's House of Wax (1953, Andre de Toth) DVD and, even though I know it did exist on VHS in the past, I couldn't help but think that I was very fortunate to even be laying eyes on this 2-strip Technicolor rarity, obviously included mainly because of its relation to the more famous remake.

I had similar feelings about the TCM/Warner Bros. DVD "Forbidden Hollywood Collection Volume One" that contained Baby Face (1933, Alfred E. Green), Red-headed Woman (1932, Jack Conway), and Waterloo Bridge (1931, James Whale). Probably the latter was the toughest standalone sell, having no bankable classic star. You can find your own examples, but one other I watched recently was the Cary Grant Screen Legend Collection from Universal which is comprised of five films that I couldn't see ever being released standalone, yet here they are presented in pretty good quality by a major studio. I bought this one and so far have only watched Thirty Day Princess (1934, Marion Gering), but I had the pervasive feeling that I was lucky to be seeing a Sylvia Sidney vehicle from her prime that was something other than Hitchcock's Sabotage or some of her Fritz Lang films.

Obviously there are still countless films of interest that they haven't figured a way to shoehorn into more salable packages or groupings, but the trend may be of help. (It goes without saying that, like the explosion of TV-on-DVD, the more manageable and more versatile DVD format itself makes this all possible.)

One of the few negatives is that when the films are not standalone releases, you sometimes have to dig or be looking for something specific, otherwise you only come across certain important films as a stroke of luck. (If you're a Raoul Walsh enthusiast, there's one of his in the Cary Grant Screen Legends Collection. There's a Douglas Sirk film in the Rock Hudson Screen Legend Collection.) Universal's Screen Legend Collections are particularly troublesome in that even on the back of the sets you can find neither the year the films came out, nor the directors. Even on Amazon.com or DVD Empire the information is not readily available, and one is reduced to researching the titles individually on IMDB.

But going back to the desire to see a John Ford silent film box set, and more silent films in general packaged together and released, one name that pops into my mind is John Gilbert, who would be well worth a silent film box set or two—or even three—since many of his silent films survive—and that's just counting the major star vehicles from his prime. Although I have a feeling if I poke my nose into one of the Garbo collections I'm going to find at least one Gilbert there.

Who is Louis de Funès?

2007-12-26T14:12:00.000-08:00

If you've ever found yourself wondering, "Who is Louis de Funès?", watching this video will answer the question pretty definitively:

(No subtitles, but he's pretty mesmerizing even if you don't know a word of French!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZzgEwzYWfM

Yasuzo Masumura's Black Test Car (1962)

2007-12-27T11:37:00.000-08:00

"In 1996, 84-year-old Michelangelo Antonioni left his sick bed to attend the 10-day retrospective of Masumura’s films in Rome. Antonioni told reporters that Masumura had always been one of his personal favorites among world-class directors." (from the Fantoma DVD bio).

If you're a film buff, you should have heard of Yasuzo Masumura by now. If you're a Criterion Collection fan, you should have heard of Fantoma DVD.

Fantoma DVD presents films with a level of quality and care (and extras) that consistently match Criterion's.

Yasuzo Masumura is a Japanese director from the same era as Seijun Suzuki and has in common his personal artistic approach to genre pictures. While Criterion (and their cousin Home Vision Entertainment) have championed Seijun Suzuki's films, releasing many on DVD, it is Fantoma that has championed the equally deserving Yasuzo Masumura, lavishing as much care on the releases of his films as Criterion has on Suzuki's.

Already a big fan of Masumura, I was excited to find a new Fantoma release of yet another Yasuzo Masumura film, Black Test Car (1962). Happily it's on Netflix, and I've already queued it up. So far I had seen all of Fantoma's Masumura films. I think Afraid to Die (1960) is the place to start, and if I haven't enticed you on Masumura, it features a lead-role performance by Yukio Mishima!

For me Red Angel (1966) would be up next, an incredible World War II film. After that I like Manji (1964), Giants & Toys (1958) (not quite as amazing as its fantastic premise, but still well worth watching) and finally Blind Beast (1969).

For the uninitiated, I highly recommend taking the Masumura/Fantoma leap now and rushing to watch Black Test Car with me, or start with one of the others! You can't go wrong.

How Do You Find Your Movies?

2008-01-11T19:55:00.000-08:00

How on earth do you find the movies worth watching in the sea of new and old DVD releases?
Are you gripped with terror about letting one amazing one slip by?!
Were you aware that the John Ford silent film DVDs from the Ford at Fox box set are available on Netflix? Had you even heard of the Fantoma Yasuzo Masumura DVDs mentioned in the post below?

One nifty way to keep track of at least new releases, if you are a Netflix customer, was to peruse their "releasing this week" page, which you had to surf one extra step to, past the initial "new release" tab, and which was conveniently categorized by genre, such as "foreign" and "classic". It was the equivalent of doing that walk down the Blockbuster new release wall. Now they've eliminated it completely and replaced it with an obnoxious scrolling bar of DVD covers that displays only four at a time, and the selections of which seem incredibly random and uninspired. I tried it once, scrolling vigorously in an attempt to see... I suppose something other than what they wanted to show me. Something interesting.

I didn't rely on this page, but it was a convenient tool that I occasionally used to find interesting foreign releases (like Tomás Gutiérrez Alea's The Twelve Chairs [oops, didn't watch it yet]) or obscure silent films that I hadn't realized were coming out on DVD. Now they only want you to see what they want you to see. They are hiding things. They make some earnest attempt to show you what they think you'll like based on your ratings or rental behavior, but that is horribly inaccurate, and what's more, if they'll have trouble delivering it to you within their famous one-day turnaround period (oh, say, if it's a popular new release title that they can't keep up with demand on) they just aren't going to show it to you.

For the complete brouhaha, visit their blog entry here, which is up to a whopping 1280 comments already! Another victim would be my recommendation Black Test Car, mentioned below, which I found out about by randomly visiting Fantoma's site and which was a Netflix "short wait" item that had to ship from a far-flung shipping center. This means it's on their "hide" list, so the only way you're going to find out about films like Black Test Car is if you stay tuned to this blog! :) In other words, you have to already know what you're looking for. (They haven't gotten so evil that they'll hide movies you directly search for yet.)

Now that the ability of important or fun films to slip through our fingers has been unnecessarily increased by Netflix's hiding techniques, the discerning movie buff has to be proactive about searching for films in other places. Does anyone have any suggestions they want to share of where you find your movies? (Not just new DVD releases, but old ones too.) For new releases, what I strongly desire is to read a fairly short list that I can scan in order to quickly spot the title of a long-awaited Buñuel film. I suppose the ideal list for me would be just the title, with the director in parentheses (and year of original release would be helpful).

One method I use is to check in with DVD Beaver's release calendar on a regular basis. This is a filtered calendar of what they consider noteworthy releases, geared towards cinephiles. I also bookmark important DVD companies' Web sites, like Kino, Criterion and Fantoma and check in with them from time to time. Or even Koch Lorber, although the latter's site does not invite friendly perusal like the former three, and it's more the quality of the directors they release than the quality of the discs. I used to also love Film Comment's section at the back of each issue, which spotlighted noteworthy DVD releases. But I don't pick that magazine up regularly anymore.

I don't entirely love DVD Beaver's calendar format, so does anyone have anything else out there? I guess it's probably fend for yourself: Pick a filmmaker, research their movies, and see which are on DVD or Netflix. But this is how we miss stuff!

I'll do my bit at least, with posts like the one below, to spotlight great films and filmmakers that are on DVD that might be below the radar. For the John Ford silents, just enter John Ford on Netflix and browse through his list to find the new silent releases, such as 3 Bad Men and The Iron Horse, amongst others. Still, any blogger's spotlighted DVD releases are going to be sporadic, and I'm really looking for something more comprehensive (yet only those films of interest to cinephiles). Also, any search I've done on Amazon has been horrible. Ugh. Anyone tried that? It's absurdly bad.

Mike Gilbert on Cinema

2008-03-07T16:50:00.001-08:00

Wasn't that another fun world premiere movie event?!
Thanks again to Dennis Cozzalio at Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule for hosting it and to everyone who participated by watching and commenting!

For posterity, here is the updated link to Dennis's broadcast and comments section:
http://sergioleoneifr.blogspot.com/2008/03/now-playing-mike-gilbert-on-cinema.html

Here also is the direct YouTube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4LQqGVcwXQ
(It's helpful to go there and rate it and comment so it gets more attention.)

Spread the word on Mike Gilbert and this movie if you enjoyed it!

Dennis has got another great post up right now about all the amazing cinema events going on in L.A. His post reminded me that I had been considering doing a weekend roundup of the best screenings to go to as a weekly feature here. I may still do that. In the meantime, check out my hopefully useful L.A. Film Calendar links on my sidebar.

The Making of Killer iPod Comment

2008-03-09T21:40:00.000-07:00

Is this brilliant or insane? I lean towards brilliant.

Keep in mind that this is "The Making of Killer iPod Comment", followed immediately by the actual film itself "Killer iPod Comment." And in total it is only 2:23! That's a lot of cinema in one short time span.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuqLcBlk0gE

For the record, I'm unclear on the "Comment" part of the title. When I saw a screening with the filmmakers IN PERSON (Can you believe it?! I am soooo lucky!!), I thought they introduced it as simply "The Making of Killer iPod."

Houdini the Movie Star

2008-03-14T10:13:00.000-07:00

This often comes as a surprise to people, so it's good that the situation will soon be rectified with this release from Kino.

Wow, Kino is getting smart. They even have a trailer for it. I forgot to mention that the little I've seen already was extremely cheesy. But it's fun cheesy. I'm really glad this has the tin-can robot so you can see what I'm talking about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh0F1glgKBk

Cinefamily vs. The Steve Allen Theater

2008-04-10T23:50:00.000-07:00

L.A.'s excellent repertory and specialty moviegoing opportunities are approaching supernova status. We've had the Egyptian Theatre, LACMA, UCLA and the New Beverly for quite a while, and not too long ago, the American Cinematheque expanded from the Egyptian by adding the Aero Theatre on the West side. But now Cinefamily has come into existence at the Silent Movie Theatre, with a full slate of programming equal in volume and perhaps even exceeding (at least in these early months) in imagination to the Egyptian. Having been at my share of sparsely attended esoteric screenings, can the city really absorb and keep afloat this many amazing screening venues?

With my head nearly ready to explode already, I then noticed signs at my local coffee shop advertising a fairly aggressive slate of films at... The Steve Allen Theater. Yet another repertory film venue in L.A.?!? I can't believe it. I am not certain they are attempting to become a regular screening venue, but it seems like it, since they have a "Mystery Movies" program every Sunday at 9:00 p.m. for just five bucks.

The other indication, and the highlight for me, is their upcoming "Cronenberg Retrospective", which starts this Saturday April 12 at 8:00 p.m with a 20th anniversary screening of the essential Dead Ringers (1988). And it's free admission! (The rest of the series is eight bucks a pop.) Here's the rest of the schedule:

April 19 - Scanners
April 26 - Videodrome
May 3 - The Fly
May 10 - Naked Lunch
May 17 - Crash
May 24 - Existenz
May 31 - Spider (closing night) with the American premiere of his latest short film "At the suicide of the last Jew in the world in the last cinema in the world." (It's actually his segment from the multi-director film you'll find at the link.)

In any case, back to the real behemoth on the scene, the Cinefamily. If you didn't already know, in addition to the traditional single tickets available for any show, you can alternatively buy a membership for just $25 a month, which entitles you to attend unlimited screenings. With the regular price being $10 a show, you only have to see three films in a month and your membership has paid for itself. But with their extremely aggressive and amazing screening schedule (there are a lot of separate admission double features you could sit through), you could put your mind to it and easily see 10 or, heck, even 20 films in a month—a $200 value!! And what's more, there are often surprises in store. I went to see Dennis Hopper's The Last Movie, and Dennis Hopper attended, holding an impromptu Q&A after.

I also commend them for maintaining a highly committed silent film slate as well, given the historic venue. They've been doing Russian silents recently, and this weekend they are hosting the world premiere digital restoration of Abel Gance's almost five-hour La Roue (1923), a film which I'd only seen in a two-hour very rough VHS version. So, if you live anywhere close to the Silent Movie Theatre, you really have no excuse but to pony up $25 and at least try it for one month and gorge yourself on the awesome cinema there. The only thing that gives me pause is, with such an outstanding slate of film offerings all over the city (e.g., the Egyptian is just starting its reliably entertaining 10th Annual Festival of Film Noir!!), how can one commit to only a single L.A. theater?!

In all this excitement, don't forget the Dante's Inferno festival at the New Beverly Cinema, where film director Joe Dante is programming the theater with his favorites for a special run, with several significant in-person appearances. (Thanks to Dennis at Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule for making me aware of this in his post here.)

Basically, I'm saying it's all amazing, and you must go see everything. Sorry, there are no excuses. The filmgoing opportunities here in L.A. have always been outstanding the whole 10 years I've lived here, but they have now reached a fever pitch level that we may never see the like of again. As always, check my sidebar of L.A. Film Calendars to plan your week's moviegoing schedule for maximum participation and enjoyment.

The Wayward Cloud (2005, Tsai Ming-Liang)

2008-05-07T12:15:00.001-07:00

One of the most fun musical scenes in recent movie history, from Tsai Ming-Liang's The Wayward Cloud (2005):

Ah, yes, so pleasant and wholesome. The entire movie is just like this.
(For those who have seen the movie, don't reveal my deception!)

It's finally coming to DVD from Strand Releasing:

For more song-and-dance fun, see this blog where there is a "dance movie blogathon" going on:
Ferdy On Films, Etc.

Michael Powell Under the Radar

2008-05-08T10:08:00.000-07:00

A favorite topic of mine is finding buried treasures by great directors amongst the current trend of packaged DVDs. For example, a Cary Grant set hides a possible treasure by Raoul Walsh (Big Brown Eyes from 1936), and a Randolph Scott Western set quietly features two André de Toth films (Thunder Over the Plains [1953] and Riding Shotgun [1954]). Or how about a Classic Western Roundup Vol. 2 featuring The Man from the Alamo (1953, Budd Boetticher) and The Cimarron Kid (1952, Budd Boetticher)? In many cases, the directors aren't mentioned on the packaging. Even on Amazon the information is frequently missing, and I have to look the titles up individually on IMDB.

Recently I spotted another, courtesy of DVD Beaver's upcoming releases section, which does the great work of preventing these from slipping through the cracks. Classic British Thrillers features two early Michael Powell films flying in under the radar: The Phantom Light (1935) and Red Ensign (1934), plus The Upturned Glass (1947, Lawrence Huntington). In this case, the films are probably in less good hands with MPI than Universal or Warner Bros., but the release of these rare films is significant and the title "Classic British Thrillers" and cover art do not let you know what potential treasures are hiding inside.