Review of Richard III by Shakespeare

I just finished watching this adaptation of Shakespeare's Richard III from the 80's. It was really good. I haven't read Richard III. It's on my list of plays to read. The staging and acting was great. And having it set during the Fascist period of European History was really unique. I really liked the costmes, settings, and Art Deco buildings. I was totally absorbed by Ian McKellan's performance. He really portrayed Richard III in all his dictatorial nastiness. The other characters were good too. Annette Benning and Kristen Scott Thomas were exemplary as the love interests of Kings. Robert Downey, Jr. played a small role. And Jim Broadbent played Richard's counselor.

The film was filled with intrigue and murder. Little of which was not predictable for a Shakespeare play. I knew who was going to be murdered before it happened. Perhaps this is from watching too many Shakespeare films and studying playwriting. I guess the effects were lost on me. It didn't feel as visceral as other films. Perhaps they could have shown the murder of the young princes. That would have been gruesome indeed.

Further thougths about Richard Brody's Everything is Cinema

I'm now into the middle of Everything is Cinema, Richard Brody's book about Jean-luc Godard. For awhile it was getting tough to get through it. After Breathless Godard went through a low period. I read about and watched Alphaville, Godard's foray into Science Fiction. The film wasn't horrible, but it just wasn't that great. Perhaps I should learn not to always compare Godard to Breathless because he did do some quality films after Breathless. Vivre sa vie might well prove to be his best film. It stars his muse Anna Karina and takes on a subject matter that is far more complex than Breathless and perhaps his subsequent films which, according to Brody are mired in self deprecation. At least Pierrot le fou is. I have seen that film prior to reading the book. I'm going to watch it again and reassess what I thought of it.

Since starting to read the book I have watched Breathless and all the extras on the Critierion disc, Vivre sa vie, and Alphaville, as well as an interview of Godard by Dick Cavett from the late seventies. The interview was a discussion about Godard's direction in filmmaking. After watching the interview he seems very complex and philosophical.

Furthermore after reading the book I started to develop a deep dislike of Jean-paul Sartre. I'm getting sick of hearing about existential crisis, etc. I really hope the book moves into a discouse about post-structuralism in film, rather continually bring up Sartre. Yet, Godard liked Sartre so I may be out of luck. Hopefully I can get through the end of the book by the end of the semester. I'm interested to read about Godard's Weekend which many think is his best film.

Last Days in Vietnam by Kennedy

I was in high anticipation to see this film. I drove to Ithaca, NY which is about an hour from my house to see it at Cinemapolis which is an Art House movies complex on the Quad in Ithaca. Ithaca is a nice cozy place, but I was surprised that the Quad was so deserted! There was practically no one there. It was a Sunday evening so, perhaps, it would interfere with football to go to the Quad and watch a film? Oh, who knows! I just hope Cinemapolis can stay open without much interest from the College kids.

The film was very well done. I think this one and Citizenfour will be up for awards for documentay come awards season Citizenfour is another documentary I'm looking forward to seeing even if I have to drive two hours to see it. Last Days shows exactly what the title says the last days that an American presence was in Vietnam. What went on during those last hours, minutes, and who was the last person to leave Vietnam. It was a very visceral portrait of the Ambassador to Vietnam as well as of Native Vietnamese who couldn't get out in time.

The range of interviews and the depth of information were first class. The editing was also really good as well as the writing. The computer graphics were very good too. Everything was top notch. I was gripped with attention throughout the whole film.

Review of Pieces of April

This film is short and sweet and leaves you with a good feeling. It is a bit cliched. I thought the family resembled sixteen candles that movie from the 80s which is also about life in the burbs and conflict, etc. I really like the film for it's performances and writing though. It's cinematography was also well done, noticeably on a low budget and in digital format.

Katie Holmes plays an interesting character. She is a punk with tattoos, piercings and a plethora of rings, along with pigtails dyed red. I think she pulled off the role quite well. Obviously she was playing against character her. She gained fame for Dawson's Creek as a small town all american girl. In this film she is the antithesis of that. She is the black sheep. And her mother is all too critical of her. The mother, Patricia Clarkson, is also very good as the mother who is dying of breast cancer. Her overly critical, pushed to the limit mother comes off as sympathetic in the end, perhaps the entire movies because the premise of the film stems from her having cancer and being close to death.

Being a black sheep myself and with the holidays around the corner I could identify with some of the themes in this film. The daughter who hasn't done anything right, who's life is a "disaster." Who has tattoos and dresses "quirky." All hit home. Also the total antipathy towards suburbia and it's conformity and utter brainlessness. When I was young I used to loathe it so much.

Roger Ebert in his review makes a good point about how the film plays on stereotypes of young black men. During the sequence where her boyfriend is at the telephone booth I got the impression that he was up to something illegal. And his presentation to the family is also sketchy.

It was a good film. I wasn't aware that the director/writer had done this movie and others. I love What's Eating Gilbert Grape and I hope he does more films.

Review of Chabrol's Le Beau Serge

This was the first film of Chabrol's that I have seen. Along with Eric Rohmer he is a Nouvelle Vague director that I don't know much about. So much is said of Godard and Truffaut that other New Wave directors don't get much press. There aren't any books out in English about Chabrol. There are some film collections which I may buy. I watched Le Beau Serge on Hulu.com. The quality wasn't too bad for a film made over fifty years ago.

I thought the film was very well done. Chabrol was the first of the Cahiers du Cinema critics to make a feature film. The film was not set in Paris which struck me as different since most of the films I have seen from New Wave directors are set in Paris. Instead it was set in a small French town that looked impoverished. It was a new experience for me. I'm so used to the glitz and glamour of Paris in French movies. This was a welcome departure.

The story was also different. It involved childhood friends who had grown apart. One of them comes back to help his friend who has fallen on hard times and taken to drink. The climax is the ending, but the whole film hinges on a dance scene where the alcoholic friend beats up the friend trying to help. The trying to help friend doesn't leave. Many of the townspeople, including, surprisingly enough, the town priest tell him to leave. He stays which makes the end of the film very good.

In the end the alcoholic friend's wife has a healthy baby and it is implied that this is going to change him.

It's a simple, but powerful film. In the small town everyone is so resigned. They all think nothing ever changes. There is no point to trying. The main character with his city ways is looked at as an outsider. Why does he stay? Everyone else has given up. Why does he care? In the end his perseverance helps out his friend. The baby lives. The alcoholic is left happy. Things can be different.

Review of Godard's Vivre sa vie

This was the second time I had seen Vivre sa vie. The first time it left an impression on me. The ending is so tragic, so well done. It seems that Anna Karina is turning the corner leaving a life of prostitution. Then, quickly, she is being sold by her pimp to another pimp.

I could see some similarities to the films of Mizoguchi. Mizoguchi made several films about the life of prostititutes and other women who had suffered. His life of Oharu was a very well done film. It has been written that Vivre sa vie is Godard's best film from a technical standpoint. His camera work is much more sophisticated in Viver sa vie than in Breathless. There is still some Cinema verite influence in Vivre sa vie, but some shots are definitely more sophisticated. The famous shot of Anna Karina at the beginning of the film where the camera doesn't show her face. It only shows the back of her head is very unique. I kept wanting to see her face.

The scenes where she is taking clients are also similar to the famous back of head shot. Those scenes are set in small rooms and often don't show Karina's whole body or give a wide perspective of the action going on in the film. The shot only shows Karina's face or an askance shot of her sitting on the edge of a bed, or looking in the mirror. I like these shots very much. They were similar to dutch angle shots. Very unique.

The philosophical discourses in the film were, perhaps, the beginning for Godard's technique of self reflection in his films. The scene where he does a voice over while Karina looks at the camera is very different from Breathless or A Woman is a woman. There was some level of self reflection in A Woman is a Woman, but not as direct or philosophical as Vivre sa vie. I think that is what makes Vivre sa vie Godard's deepest film that I have seen so far. Richard Brody said that Godard was influenced by Sartre and existential philosophy more in Vivre sa vie, then in his previous films.

Aside from the deep philosophical statements, there is much said about prostitution in Paris. The discussion of the prostitution business gives the film an avant garde, taboo feel to it. At least it did for me. I can't recall so many films that discussed prostitution with such candor.

This film is deeper than A Woman is a Woman and it is more technically sound then Breathless. Yet it lacks the intensity of Breathless. I think Anna Karina is a good actrees, but Jean Seberg is hard to replace. C'est bon film!

Review of Bad Day at Black Rock

I had to read the screenplay and watch this film for my screenwriting class. I was not too disappointed. The acting was period and the writing was a little to formal from how language is spoken normally but the action, theme, and plot were very well done.

I had not seen a Spencer Tracy movie before and he was very good. Very reserved, very much on the side of justice.

The film follows the script almost to every word. There were, I thought, a few omissions here and there, but it was almost followed exactly. The plot, the action, all were straight from the script. I hadn't seen this film before. The other films we read and watched I had seen at least once or twice. This was the first one which I didn't already have visuals about the movie. So it was interesting to see what my imagination came up with before I saw it in the film. There were some spots that didn't register with my imagination such as the action scenes. I didn't have any visuals about the action sequences. I imagined a lot of sillouhettes, very dark, some black and white, plains imagery, classical Western images. It was interesting to see it on film. I've never been out West so all the images I have are from movies, TV, photos,the web.

This film was very much a classical-style Hollywood movie. It was totally linear. Totally on film with establishing shots, big shots of the train coming and going, a panorama shot of the town. There weren't any hyper close-ups either and the faces weren't too pretty.

It was gritty and Realist and the story was compelling. I don't know of too many films who address the treatment of Japanese- Americans during WWII. They were treated harshly, sent to internment camps, which forced them to give livilihoods, businesses, homes, etc. The film revolves around solving a missing person case which turns out to be a hate crime. In the end the missing Japanese farmer is found to have been murdered by a town bully and his henchmen.

I thought the script wasn't too predictable. The ending had a big twist. Some of the townspeople finally stand up to the bully. Justice is done. Tracy did his duty and brought some peace to Komako. I haven't see so many films set in the West so this was a new experience for me.

Review of Une Femme Est Une Femme

I have gottten through the first hundred pages of Richard Brody's book Everything is Cinema about Jean Luc Godard. So far it is a great read. I should expect nothing less from a writer from the New Yorker which is so reputedly intelligent I should be in awe of every page. I find the parts about the film to inform my watching of the film much more involved and less prone to over analysis which I'm prone to. I watched Breathless and some of the extras on the Criterion disc which I wrote about in another blog post.

I didn't watch Godard's firt post-Breathless film Le Petit Soldat. It has a very interesting back story. The film was banned in France and Godard was under duress of deportation if he released the film outside of France. Godard is a Swiss National, so he had little leverage in what he could do about releasing a film that was graphic in it's depictions of torture on both sides of the Algerian War. I will watch the film, eventually. I really want to see what all the fuss is about.

Godard's second post-Breathless film came at a turning point in the History of the Nouvelle Vague. Many critics at the time had hailed that the New Wave had crested and lost it's force. Truffaut's second film Shoot the Piano Player didn't fair well and other New Wave filmmakers were not doing any better. Claude Chabrol, Eric Rohmer and others did films that didn't fair well commercially. Jacques Demy and Claire Denis and others weren't considered true New Wave filmmakers because they didn't come from the Cahiers du Cinema background or the Cinemathaque in Paris. So the New Wave was bombing at the box office and critically was becoming fractured.

One of the most interesting points the book talks about is Godard personal politics and his views towards the Cinema. Godard and other New Wave filmmakers were caught in a trap. They saw the traditional French left as too doctrinaire and saw the French right as too much against new art. Godard proposed that the Nouvelle Vague filmmakers would create a new Left which would make new art and change French politics.

For all it's grandeur and talk of new art and changing French politics how much it really did change Cinema and French politics I will have to keep reading.

The film was subpar. It tries to be too much. Like Brody says it combines musical with comedy that isn't really either one. Some of the music numbers are entertaining. The dialogue between Belmondo, Brialy, and Karina is good, but not that memorable. Brody also said that Karina was viewed as an unpolished actress and I agree with him.

It does have a Nouvelle Vague sensibilty about it which I like a lot. The shots, the really quick edits, some of the music, and Belmondo, who plays a secondary role to Brialy, make the film enjoyable. Yet much of the film is about boring, domestic life, much of which is based on Godard and Karina's life together. It's cute when they put books together to say things to each other. There are little moments like these that are portrayed so lovingly you get the impression of how much Godard really loved Karina

It is too bad that after this great send up of Karina by Godard that she miscarried and later on left him for another director which she broke up with and attempted suicide. I haven't read further in the book so I don't know what happened after the attempt of suicide.

As a filmmaker I really admire those little, simple, detailed shots of a couple's personal life. Those little joys must have meant so much to JLG to put on screen with such loving care. They are tender moments, funny and devoid of vulgarity. When I'm trying to write a scene I find it so difficult to portray those little moments that make life not just livable, but filled with love. The stripteases and referrences to fascists are not. Those got JLG into hotter water than he already was, but that's more about his politics which could be the subject of another blog post.

Review of Documentary on Breathless

 I started reading Brody's Everything is Cinema about Jean Luc Godard. It turns out he had a very up and down background before making Breathless which was his breakout hit and most remembered film of the French New Wave. After reading the first few chapters of the book I decided to re-watch Breathless. I had already seen it several times, but now the details became so much more obvious. The references to Switzerland, the characters names, the details of the story it was based on after reading the book and watching this film made the film more enjoyable and more understandable.

The film goes into how Godard didn't use a script which as an aspiring screenwriter I find interesting. It turns out he wrote the scenes for the day on the day of the shoot which caused his producer to become agitated. There was even a fistfight between JLG and his producer. Turns out he was shooting so short a time that the producer got nervous about how much money he was wasting.

The film talks about the buzz that started to surround the film. People; critics and others started to talk about Godard's film. Soon enough people said he was doing something great and all of Paris wanted to see his film.

 Godard refused to be interviewed for the doc film. The rest of the film concerns getting Jean Seberg to star in the film. At first she was attached to a major studio. Eventually they agreed to let her do the film for a small fee. At first she didn't want to do the film. At the time Godard was an unknown and she didn't think much of the role. She came around and, of course, the rest is history.

Review of Fassbinder's Love is Colder Than Death

This was the first film that I watched in the eclipse series of early Fassbinder films. In fact it was his first feature. I really liked this film. It was simple but complex, raw but stylish. I saw a number of similarities in this film that it might have inspired in other films. The opening sequence reminded me of Reservior Dogs or the Usual Suspects in parts. It is not as grand as those two films, but it has a style that resembles them.

The film is very tight. It is a film-noir picture with much borrowed from American crime films. Fassbinder was not remiss about how he borrowed from American crime movies for this picture. The film isn't long, it runs about 90 minutes. Yet it moves fast, there is a littel violence, a little sex and a great ending which I will not spoil by writing about it in this post.

I liked the dialogue. The opening is great when one guy asks Fassbinder's character for a cigarette and he beats him up. There is a lot of interesting dialogue. It's very understated, but always delivered cooly, directly, and simply. The shots of dialogue are also presented visually in a very simple, but creative way. The headshots on the train or in the gun shop or in the apartment are all done well.

Perhaps more arresting than the dialogue are the tracking shots. Those shots, the one in the police department, in the street, and on the train moving are all great. It totally distorts a viewer's impression of movement. I also liked what the cinematographer did with mirrors in car sequence shots. The image at the end of the film; Fassbinder and his girlfriend driving away, and in the mirror you see Fassbinder, just his eyes with sunglasses on.

I have seen the BRD trilogy and those films are very complex and elaborately produced. They must have had much larger budgets than this film. But this film shows Fassbinder's promise as a filmmaker and the great films he was to produce later in his short life.

Review of Indochine

I remember seeing ads for this film on HBO and Cinemax when I was in Middle School. I was hoping it had some type of pornography, how wrong I was! How perverted I was in my adolescent hopes!

This film is anything but pornographic. It is a big Lawrence of Arabia or Schindler's List style of a film. It has big events that intertwine the characters and brings them heartbreakingly into conflict with each other. The characters don't end well. They join the Communists, they are forced to flee, or they end up assasinated.

The film is about 2 hours 40 minutes. I wonder if there is a longer cut. There probably is and it do the film justice if it were released in some kind of Criterion collection edition. They should also make a documentary about the film Too bad they haven't already. Perhaps I'm the only one of this opinion?
Well my study of the film dovetailed with my study of French, neocolonialism, and scriptwriting. Those three subjects come across in the film in great amount.

I really like Catherine Deneuve in this picture. I adored her Belle du Jour. She is perfect. I'm planning on watching more of her films because they are mostly in French. So I will be able to watch films and learn French. The other character I really liked in the film was the French intelligence guy. He was serious and comical at the same time. When he goes in to rescue Deneuve from the Opium Den I thought that was couragious and a great thing to do for a friend. I had never seen the insdie of what an Opium Den looked like back in those day, but it was revealing.

The story is great up until the young Vietnamese girl shoots the French officer. It lags a bit afterwards, but the action picks up after awhile. I like how the story starts to go into flashback towards the end with Deneuve trying to find her adopted daughter. I thought it made the film more creative and lended some non-linearity to the story. The shots of the country where the film was shot were amazing. Totally great.

I have been reading about post-colonialism and I think Asia is a place that awakened after WWII to a new status in the World. Many countries, India, Vietnam, Burma, China they all had new paths to traverse after the fall of Imperialism throughout the World. I'm learning that politically Imperialism or Colonialism is dead. Yet, economically the system of neo-colonialism was still in effect after the war. It's interesting reading for me. I have a deep interest in the World System and current trends in World History

Review of the Plague

I watched this film because it was based on an Albert Camus novel of the same name. Camus is of interest to me because I'm currently learning about neo-colonialism and studying creative writing. Camus was a rival of Jean Paul Sartre. He was also a major voice of Algerians during the Franco- Algerian war.

The film is an Art House film. It starred some B list actors; William Hurt, Jean Marc Barr, and Robert Duvall. It told a linear story. It used camera angles that were standard. There were no major technical surprises in this film. I thought the best part about the film was the performances of the actors and the story. It takes place in a South American city infected with the plague

Each person is thought to be or is infected with the plague. It is only after some time that the plague is contained that things are returning to normal. The saddest part of the film is when the choir boy dies of the plague. I was saddened that he was killed. The film sets it up by having him sing very nicely, and then tragically he dies.

The film was interesting. It reminded me of Terry Gilliam's Brazil for some reason. Perhaps it was the big neo-classical building in the film. Every time anyone went to the Doctor's it was a neo-classical structure. Or, perhaps, it was the wrangling through bureaucracy that occurred every time some got the plague.

The ending was abrupt. I didn't see it coming that Jean Marc Barr's character would get shot down by the driver who had angst against non- Latinos for some reason which remains vague to me. This was quite an ending, yet it still remains vague as to why he went on a psychotic shooting spree.

Review of the Battle of Algeirs

This film was very interesting. It has become a classic and a criterion collection selection. I am reading a book about postcolonialism and this book dovetails nicely with the text. I reviewed another film White Material that is more recent than this film and deals with postcolonialism. The Battle of Algiers was older, more grainy, less formalist, but very effectual. It has a documentary feel to it.

The film starts and begins in the same place; the hideout of a suspected terrorist. The whole French colonial venture is called into question in this film. It raised questions in my conscience such as: why are the French still in Algeria? What is the purpose of Colonialism? Why does the West rule over the rest? I think I did not succumb to racist, nationalist, or imperialist cliches about Western involvement in foreign countries. Yet the  questions remain. I suppose it becomes more of a debate about whether or not the West, and in particular the USA, should intervene in places like Iraq or Afghanistan? Do we really have the right to launch airstrikes, etc in a land that is not our own?

I also watched Indochine starring Catherine Deneuve which I thought was  a great film; one of the best I've seen about the predicament that Western countries find themselves in in the post WWII era. In that film it became all too clear that Western rule was coming to an end. Indochine was a great film about colonialist ventures that the West has launched.

Battle of Algiers was a low budget film. It's production values were low. Yet it still has a poigniancy about it. Still has a viscerality. It is the earliest film where the side of the Algerians or terrorists is openly given a forum. That is, perhaps, the best part of the film. We see what the non Western side strives for and their reasons for things like terrorist bombings of public places which I thought were disgraceful until the leader of the terrorist said that it was their only resort without war planes to do their dirty work.

I thought the Battle of Algiers to be a good film. Very cutting edge for it's time.

Review of Unforgiven

This was the second film as part of an assignment for my screenwriting class. I had seen the film before when it was released back in 1992. I was thoroughly impressed with it then, and I still enjoyed watching the film even though I knew what would happen. I read the screenplay by Peoples which I thought was great.

The screenplay moves along quickly. It was 121 pages in length but it went by quickly. There was hardly a wasted page or word. The ending sequence where Eastwood shoots Gene Hackman and all the other gunmen was written very uniquely. It just gives very short directions as to what would happen. Munny shoots, shoots, shoots until there is a big cloud of smoke. I like the ending, perhaps, best out of all the sequences in the film. The beginning is great too.

The cinematography should be commended. The shots of the West are great. So are the shots of scenes taking place at night. It reminded of a Rembrandt painting. Very dark with just a little candlelight.

It terms of the meaning of the film or it's theme I think much could be written about. It is clearly a mythical story that has emerged out the fables about the Wild West. Whether these stories are true I don't know. I suppose a historian of the American West would know. At least in this movie there is no overt characterization of American Indians as totally evil and one sided. It is about respecting a woman, even though she is a prostitute when the law refuses to be fair. Munney acts as the mystery man in black set out to put things right, but for a price. So, it seems that it is a film about the mythological Wild West. There is little law and the law is decidedly arbitrary.

I really enjoyed Gene Hackman's character. I thought he played it very well. He exudes arrogance and one man justice. The scene where he exposes English Bob as a fraud, is aside from the beginning and ending the best scene in the film. The tension that rises quickly and falls is great. And Hackman pulls off his character exceptionally well.

Of course Eastwood puts in a great performance too. This was his last Western he has said, and so far, has kept to that promise. The shots of his grimacing, wrinkled, scarred face really bring out the anguish, torture, and hard life his character has had to endure. I thought some of the scenes where he pears out of his upturned collar where a little light reveals his sharp eye were very well shot.

The story is great. The characters are great. The film stands as a new direction in Westerns. Yet it still upholds the myth that the American West was, and to some degree, still is.

Review of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

This was a film I had to watch for a screenwriting class I'm taking as part of a low res MA program in Creative Writing. I had to read the script first which took about 3 hours, then watch the film twice. Now I'm supposed to write something about it in my writer's notebook which are my blogs. The first time I watched the film, I had seen it previously some years ago, I kind of enjoyed it. The second time through I really wanted the film to be over after about 40 minutes.

I read Roger Ebert's review and I agree with what he says. The first 40- 45 minutes of the film are really good. I was thinking it would be a great film. Yet, when the chase scenes start it really slows down and gets interminably boring. I don't know how many times they stopped to look at the superposse. But, every time they did, I thought to myself, how long will this last? Can't they do anything else? A shoot out, some sex, something. Just a long drawn out chase scene, with nice shots mind you, but too long without any action.

The second thing that I really bothered me about the film was the Burt Bacharach music. In the first music sequence where Paul Newman rides around on the bicycle with Katherine Ross the music is fine. Not great. Just fine. Yet, by the time they are in Bolivia I was really disliking the music. It was so out of place. It just doesn't work. Burt Bacharach music in a Western it just doesn't fit. I don't know if there are unwritten rules about Westerns, like you can't have contemporary dialogue or music in them, like they do in Butch Cassidy, yet it would be very commendable if they would make some so the music stays out of the picture.

Lastly, I thought some comparisons to Bonnie and Clyde are very obvious which I didn't have a problem with. I enjoyed watching Bonnie and Clyde, especially the ending where they get slaughtered in a hail of bullets. Similar to how this film ends only instead of showing Butch and the Kid get it big time, it goes to freeze frame. I thought this was cool, but it didn't have the impact that the final scene of Bonnie and Clyde did. I suppose you couldn't copy the same thing from that film and make it yours, it would be too obvious for two films that were made so close together. Yet, they could have given the final sequence something more. More violence? More slaughter? Perhaps.

I also didn't like some of montage sequences which made the film harder to sit through a second time. It was merely pretty faces with music and no dialogue. As a writer I really enjoy dialogue. That's one of the things that is driving me away from film. It is pretty faces with some music and images. No writing needed, thus the predicament of a screenwriter.

Review of Master Builder

I like this film for it's ambition. The story was good. It followed the final days of a well off architect who refuses to give a recommendation to an aspiring builder. After much persuasion, the Master Builder yields and writes some praise for the aspiring builder.

I saw this film at the local Art House movie theater near where I live. It was about two hours long, shot totally on digital, but used a linear story line. The performances weren't bad, but they weren't great either. I think the story is set somewhere in the Mid West, the heartland of America and the characters seemed to embody a mid-western aura.

I think I liked the wife of the Master Builder best. She seemed so reserved, so unwilling to reveal herself. It was only at the end that we learn her parents home burnt down and that she lost twin boys early in infancy. After these revelations she was still an exemplar of composure. She didn't break down into tears or hysterics. She just kept her emotions in check which I found the most interesting part of the film. She had suffered several calamities and had been wronged by her husband, yet she still kept her composure.

This was definitely an Art House film. I don't think most audiences would like this film. It is certainly not a big budget Hollywood film. It is very far from that. There is a lot of complex dialogue. There is deep character development. There is tragedy, conflict, and not an "up" ending. All of which I enjoyed.

A good film.

Review of White Material

I have been reading, slowly but surely, a book about Post-colonialism. Having taken several course about Modern Imperialism and studied, in various forms about Empires in History, post-colonialism is the logical progression in furthering a study about World History, World Literature, and, in my case World Drama. I've been studying playwriting and I took it upon myself to read the great plays and gain some understanding of current theories in the Theatre. Yet, the book is large so it will take me sometime to read through it. I will also read shorter plays to provide some examples about post-colonial theatre and it has already yielded a start on a short play.

Anyway, I watched a film about French neo-colonialism in West Africa. It was a very good film. Less about the characters, I didn't know any of them save for Isaac De Bankole who had a small role. It was more about the story. French neo-colonialists are trying to hold on to a coffee plantation amidst a revolution in the host country. The French colonialists refuse to leave. The revolutionaries are growing stronger and more resentful of the French who live lavishly and own a large portion of land.

I had watched some colonial films before. Mostly made prior to 1968, the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement or the student protests in France. Zulu and Khartoum were two of my favorites. They are blatantly anti- Native, as in Zulu, and are also pro- Empire in Khartoum even though Charlton Heston loses his head at the end of that film.

This film was similar to those, except for the outcome and situation. The French neo-colonialists have no political control. There is not a military that is going to save them from the revolutionaries. In fact by the end of the film everyone is dead and the plantation is destroyed. Sorry for spoilers!

I enjoyed this film very much. The story was something you read in the headlines about Africa quite often. Yet I didn't know exactly where the story would end. I also enjoyed it immensely for taking on a topic such as neo-colonialism in Africa. I have tasked myself with watching the Battle of Algiers which is a film all about French involvement in Algeria. That is next on my list.

Review of Railway Man starring Colin Firth

I really enjoyed this film. It was screened at the Art House theater near where I live in Upstate NY. I had been waiting for many months to see this film. I had watched, years ago, Empire of the Sun by Spielberg, I have also taken several Asian History courses, and watched other movies and books about the horrors the Japanese inflicted upon other people in their Imperialist wars. So I was really excited to see this film brought to such a small market as Binghamton, NY. And I was not disappointed.

The acting by Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman was above par. I have seen quite a few of each of their pictures. An Ordinary Man by Firth was a very good performance as was Dogville and Australia by Kidman. Both are actors of acclaim. They both should be commended for doing high quality work for what must be below average payments for their efforts.

The film centers around Firth's character's experiences in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. I had previously read about these camps in a biography of the American General McCarthur's expereince in the Phillipines. His famous statement "I shall return" rings in my ears everytime I think of the Japanese advance in the Pacific. Anyway this was a further elaboration on the experience of the mistreatment that so many people endured at the hands of the Japanese. The Japanese brought about the end of Western Imperialism in Asia. They wiped out all of the British holding, only some of which were restored. Anyway, I digress, back to the film.

Firth's character goes through severe difficulties about his war time experience. He learns that the man who tortured him for building, of all things, a radio, is still free and has never been brought to justice for his misdeeds. So, Firth's character goes to Asia to confront him. These are the most tense scenes of the film. What will Firth's character do? In the end they become friends.

I think this film shows how memory can prey on one's conscience for years after it is over. The plague of post-traumatic stress disorder has affected many people involved in wars and I think this film is a testiment to their experiences. Any experience of hardship creates memories which we would part with, but, for some reason, just willn't go away. This film speaks of those memories for anyone who has served in a military campaign and couldn't come to terms with that experience.

I have a cousin who, he will probably be upset for mentioning him in my blog, served in Vietnam and, to this day, refuses to talk about his experiences there. I guess he could find some solace or comfort in this film. A good film.

Review of Transformers Age of Extinction

This was the first part in a double show of Summer blockbusters that I went to see. Of course you are asking yourself; how can I consider myself a serious film critic and go see a movie like Transformers? What about your musing about Dogme95 and the French New Wave? Well, honestly, I have lost a lot of respect for film as an art form, and from my view it doesn't seem to be getting any better. Well, enough of that. Transformers was what I expected. A big, special effects bloated movie with explosions, cool graphics, pretty faces, and muscles. Particularly Mark Wahlbergy and the girl who plays his 17teen year old daughter. The rest of the movie is not worth anything.

The characters, the plot, does it really matter? I went to see it for explosions, cool animations. Was there enough of that? Ya, I guess. For the first hour and half the movie moved along with cool graphics and pretty faces until it reached a point where the end of the film was to commence. It proceeded until the end, when, big surprise Optimus Prime comes and saves the day. Yay.

This movie was for entertainment. If it has any meaning at all it is that film is about the visual depiction of a story. Characters, plot development, etc. those are left to another art form, theater perhaps? This was the first installment I have seen in the series and the end of the film was set up so there will, possibly be another one.

I am much older than the demographich the Hollywood execs are trying to reach, and from the box office reciepts, they are reaching them. It is mostly teenage boys with the Summer off from school. Fanboys, I think they are referred to. I'm sure I was one many years ago, when I changed I don't remember, perhaps in puberty. Anyway I don't appreciate these films so much because they are so devoid of substance. From watching these kinds of movies I become starved of films of substance. Bring on the serious season!

Review of Domestic Life

This was the first film I watched on Friday at the French Film Festival. It was a good film. I thought it would appeal more to women and upper middle class types from the suburbs. I thought my sister or sisters in law would really identify with this film. The film seemed to go on and on, and it seemed like it could go on about the utter banality of suburban life. The endless routine; wake, school, work, lunch, dinner, bed, repeat. I had just seen an art exhibit at the Whitney Museum of Art in New York. One of the sayings on one of the exhibits says "banality as savior" and I think this film really represents this idea. The character in the film are so addicted to the routine of life that it is their savior. They glory in their kids, their house, their cars, their friends, etc They need the routines, they need the social status. God forbid someone is different or misses lunch!

I grew up in the suburbs so, perhaps, I'm more cynical than most about life in the burbs. I really like a few of the characters. The women were really flaky. They wanted to shop, watch TV and gab. Only one of them worked as a free lance writer. They were so banal. So soulless. So empty. So smug in their affluence. So indifferent to anything outside the little burb World they inhabit.

Yet on reflection the film did bring in some of the fears of suburbia. It did present the possibility of a small child being kidnapped which was frightful. The kids also did misbehave. One of the wives was more flaky than the others. Yet, I can't escape from my conclusion that all the characters seem so shallow, so lacking in substance. Boring. Aesceptic. Banal.

I suppose the characters would change when the adults either stay together or divorce. When the kids grow into teenagers and become less dependent on their parents.

This was a different film. Great theme. Good characters. A strong criticism of suburbia.

Review of One of a Kind

I think I liked this film the most out of the films I saw at the French Film Festival. It started a man who had a "healing" gift. Of course I thought it was bogus from the start, but people came to see him. More than that it presented working class France in a way that I had never seen before. I am so used to high class costume dramas which have no relevance to contemporary society. It drives me crazy when my French teachers show another overblown costume drama. This was a much needed different perspective.

The main character lives in a trailer. Drives a motorcycle. Is divorced. Has a daughter. Works odd jobs and Finds love with an suicidal alcoholic. It is not a rosy picture. It doesn't debate the ideals of the French Revolution or some other ancient idea. What it does is present the lives of people working to survive. The ending, which I liked very much, shows the main character having just rescued the alcoholic from suicide, riding his motorcycle at sunset. She has been saved. He really is a healer. He does have a gift. He knew she was in trouble. He went to her. He saved her.

I think the film is great because it show how we all have problems. We, no matter what social class, have problems. Perhaps they are different problems, but the problems among the French working class are similar to those in the US. I really felt like I could relate to this film. The main character only had his father. He was only part time employed. He felt like he had a gift. I am in a similar predicament.

I enjoyed this film. I think it was really well written and shot.

Review of If You Don't, I Will

I saw this film as the last of the films I watched in the French Film Festival at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA. It, like the other films I saw, was a very personal film. I think it was also a very feminist inflected film. The ending revealed how the main character finally had enough of her brow beating male husband and left him for good.

The film started out like a typical romcom or marriage dramedy. I guess it was a combination of the two or, perhaps, it evolved in it's genre from something lighthearted and comedic, poking fun at the funny things in married life. Yet, ultimately, it ends on a bittersweet note. After refusing to come back to civilization, the main character stays in the woods for several days. Her husband doesn't make much of an effort to bring her back. Doesn't beg and plead for her to return. Eventually, he gets in contact with the authorities, but by then, she is long gone.

In a scene which I thought was symbolic of the situation of the main character a young deer gets caught in a ditch. The main character helps the deer out of the ditch. I thought the deer symbolized the woman in the marriage. She was caught in a ditch, then set free.

This film was decent. It was a micro film. It showed the liberation of a woman who had a husband who constantly demeaned her. Everything she did her commented negatively on. At one point in the film I was saying to myself, why doesn't she just leave him? Why does she put up with him? She finally gets up the courage and does so by the end of the film. It shows that ending a marriage is still hard. It is difficult to come to grips with a situation which is just not working. Not a bad film.

Review of Naked Lunch by Cronenberg

In continuing my study of Surealist film I watched Naked Lunch by Cronenberg. It is based on, but not a literal interpretation of William S. Burroughs novel of the same name. It loosely follows similar themese and locations, but isn't an adaptation of the book. Both are very explicit about homosexuality and drug addiction. From what I know, the book is even more frank than the film.

The film is interesting. Some scenes, like in so many Cronenberg films; the Fly, Existenz, and so on, there are several "gross-out" scenes. In Naked Lunch the typewriters morph into creatures that are sticky and look like oversized vaginas or mouths or something I can't describe. These parts are the most surreal aspects of the film from a visual stand point.

Thematically, the film develops from an exterminator's job to his pursuing a writing career while in Tangiers. The writer, and this did happen in real life to Burroughs, kills his wife accidentally, then flees. The writer, William Lee, is heavily involved with drugs and homosexuality. He becomes addicted to bug powder, then ends up with an "interzone" boy. The climax is when the character of the lesbian housekeeper is revealed to be the doctor who gave the writer a cure for bug powder addiction.

In the end the film seems more like an autobiography of Burroughs then a narrative film with substance. I enjoyed very much the intertwining of Burroughs life with narrative elements written in by the writers. Burroughs led an interesting life and I've had an interest in the Beat Generation since I was in High School, so I'm a little biased towards anything about them. The "gross out" scenes were done in way to present the withdrawal induced halucinations of the writer. They were well done, offering a glimpse into Burroughs creative process. I enjoyed watching the film, especially the scenes in Tangiers.

Review of Inland Empire by Lynch

Review of Mulholland Drive by Lynch

Thoughts on David Lynch

Comparing Two films: Doctor Zhivago by Lean and Reds by Warren Beatty

Review of the Russian Ark by Sukurov

Thoughts on the Long Take in Cinema

Review of Unforgiven (Japanese Adaptation)

Review of the Horses of Fukushima

Review of Monsterz

Review of All Around Appraiser Q

Review of Uzumasa Limelight

Review of A Coffee in Berlin

Review of Life Itself by Steve James

Review of Barry Lyndon by Kubrick

Review of Linklater's Boyhood

Review of Kurosawa's High and Low

This was a great film, perhps Kurosawa's best non-Samurai film. Kurosawa is best known for his epic Samurai films, but here he delves deeply into a suspense crime drama. And as usual he succeeds tremendously. The action builds slow to a tremendous climax. When the keystone cops are about to apprehend the kidnapper and psycho killer, I was wondering how he would setup the shot. How would we see the killer get apprehended? Would there be a chase scene? Would the kidnapper be killed?

The shot is setup with a medium close shot tracking the kidnapper to the hideout. We see those big black glasses with reflective lenses all the way until he is finally captured, alive, and ready to face up for his crimes. The glasses reminded me of Tom Cruise from Risky Business, perhaps High and Low is the inspiration? Who knows. The scene is done very well. There is no chases scene, but to my surprise the kidnapper attempts to swallow the bad herion, it creates a intense moment of tension, just short and powerful enough to keep you wrapped up in the scene. Just when you think, oh the killer has been apprehended it's all over, he almost gets the herion into his mouth.

Yet, the scene I liked best was at the end. Toshiro Mifune who plays an older business executive in High and Low comes to the prison and meets with the killer. The scene is setup as a singular meeting between Mifune and the kidnapper/killer. The kidnapper is going to be executed and has requested to see Mifune. In the shot the major theme of the film reaches it's most obvious expression. Throughout the film we see the clash of class between the high and low of Yokohama.

There is Mifune the big executive and his Chaffuer who's child was mistakenly kidnapped. In the final scene the kidnapper who is a poor medical intern reveals that he has stared at Mifune's house up on the hill. He flies into a psychotic rage about his horrid life. His arm starts to shake until he finally yells at Mifune that he has no regrets about the crime he has committed. In the extremely well written scene, the kidnapper goes onto say that he doesn't fear hell. He is finally dragged out of the meeting room, kicking and screaming. The camera fades out, a metal separator comes down where the two men were talking, and all you hear is the madman's psychotic yelling as the scene fades to black. Great stuff!

The performances were great. The shots of Yokohama were great, especially "junky alley." I don't think I'd ever seen such a thing in a Japanese film. So many junkies. Startling. The tension is built up to a peak. Kurosawa takes things slowly and carefully at first, then finishes with great gusto. Am I just repeating the nytimes review from when it was first released? Yes. I agree with what he has written. Hopefully I have added to the literature about High and Low.

I watched a Kurosawa film because this weekend I'm going to a Japanese film festival in Manhattan (as Tom Wolfe says "The Boutique Island") It's at the Japan Society. I'm looking forward to it. I think the film I'm looking forward to most is an adaptation of Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven into a Japanese film. Hopefully there will be some Samurai action. I can't get enough of that. Ciao!

Review of Bunuel's Viridiana

Bunuel is considered to be the godfather of Surrealist Cinema. I got that from IMDb.com. He even resembles Salvador Dali. They were both Spaniards. This is the first feature film of his that I have watched. It is not his best. In the ranking of Surrealist films The Discreet Charmo of the Bourgeosie makes the top 20. I'm anxious to watch that one and write a blog about it. Viridiana is a good film. The best part of the film is the end when the destitute people the lead female character is taking care of goes to town from the country manor and comes back to find that they have taken advantage of her. The poor people she was taking care of engorged themselves on food and wine and made a mess of everything. I guess the message would be not to trust poor people. Perhaps that is what Bunuel's intention was? Whatever he meant the sequence is great. He has, in a subversive pose, the poor people pose around a table like the Da Vinci's Last Supper and the woman who is supposed to take the picture lifts up her skirt and flashes them. Bunuel is definitely poking fun at the sacredness of that painting and it's stature and meaning to Christianity.

The film is definitely an overt exposition about the principles of Catholicism. The lead female is on her way to be a nun when she is summoned to see her uncle who is perverse and scheming. Throughout the film we see her decline from very pious to in the end bankrupt about the ideology of Catholicism. In the final scene we see her without her habit, her long blonde hair luxuriously let down to her shoulders. It is obvious that her experience with the poor and handicapped she was trying to help was the last straw. She has given up on charity.

The entire film builds up to the final dinner scene. It is carefully plotted out, slowly building intensity, and finally culminates in an attempted rape scene of the once chaste female lead. It is not a complicated film. The narrative is linear, the cinematography is standard. It's in black and white. There are some low shots of peoples shoes and lower parts of the door. Otherwise the focus is mostly on the heads of people. There is one memorable shot of a crown of thorns that the female lead brought with her from the convent. It is used in the film to symbolize her chastity, her religiosity. In the final sequence we see the crown of thorns being thrown into a fire. To add emphasis it is fished out of the fire while it is ablaze and is placed apart from the fire still burning. The camera dwells on this image for several seconds. The symbol the crown of thorns burning crown of thorns represents is well made. It is the best and most meaningful shot of the whole film.

The film only runs about an hour and a half. It was made in the early sixties and does move a bit slower than what contemporary audiences are used to. The shots last a bit longer. There is substantial dialogue. I was a little bored until the ending sequence. Still, it was  good movie and being raised Catholic with two parents who went to Church every weekend and made me make my confirmation it was somewhat shocking, yet also relieving when someone openly criticizes religion and the tenets of the Catholic Church.

I'm looking forward to more Bunuel films.

Thoughts on Surrealist Cinema

Since I've been watching David Lynch films I've taken it upon myself to study the Surrealist style of filmmaking. Tonight I read part of a short book about Surrealist Cinema. In it the author defines what Realism in Cinema is, then describes what Surrealism in Cinema is. After I finished reading I watched some films which I had seen before at MoMa during their retrospective about Salvador Dali and Film. Perhaps the most famous scene in the film Un Chien un Andalou is when the male character slits open the female character's eye. It's a good scene, quite shocking at first, or even second view.

I've watched a lot of Realist Cinema. I've seen many films from the Italian Neo-realist period and a number from the French New Wave as well as the New Hollywood and New German Cinema all of which have several realist masterpieces. I was a committed Realist. In one of my classes I declared that I was a Realist. Yet, I am drawn to Surrealist Cinema for it's inventiveness, it's creativity, and it's acceptance of subjectivity. The author of the book made clear the Surrealist Cinema makes no claims to be objective. He said, and the book was published some years ago, that films should show an opinion of the director, the director's stylist impression should made on the film. He goes on to say that Realist film is dragged down in the banality of everyday life. He muses that who really wants to see the events of everyday life? Aren't the events of everyday life banal? Are they not devoid of entertainment? Of meaning?

I haven't researched much into Surrealism as an art movement, but I'm making head way into it. Obviously it is not Social Realism a la the Soviet or, what I'm most familiar with, Chinese Communist Social Realism. Surrealist Cinema is deeply formalist. It does things, like the author of the book said, that don't make sense. In fact the author said that if you are making a Surrealist film you should eschew plot, get rid of thinking in terms of a definitive beginning, middle, and end. That's what draws me to Surrealism. It's imaginative qualities.

So, for the remainder of the Summer I will make an effort, I rarely accomplish everything I set out to do during the Summer, to watch and blog about Surrealist films. Hopefully I will grow as a film student, and, more importantly, a screenwriter and director. Whatever happens it should be fun.

Further Ruminations on Biskind's Down and Dirty Pictures

So I finished the book by Biskind. I read the last 60 or so pages this Sunday evening. The last part was like the rest of the book, centered around Harvey Weinstien and the Sundance film festival. Biskind goes into considerable detail about Harvery's failings and his decline in behavior as well as the declining stature of Miramax as a film company. He makes his point that Harvey and Miramax had receded into relative equality with it's competitors like Focus films and Sony Classics which for a period of time Miramax always got the best of. In several instances Harvey berates reporters and employess and gets into squabbles with studio heads like Barry Diller. Biskind talks about how the studio system and the indie market have blended into some kind of hybrid form in some cases. The big studios now have their own indie wings which may, in some instances, be profitable as well as critically successful. Yet, the indie movement, that began in the late 80s with a flourish by Sodherberg and sex, lies.. had lost any steam from it by the early 2000s.

The whole phenomenon of Pulp Fiction and Quentin Tarrantino was long past by the time the dot com bubble burst and indie films were co-opted by the big studios. Biskind talks about how many directors went from first film to franchise, which shows that the indie movement had lost any momentum it had. It is rare that a filmmaker refuses the big bucks to stay loyal to some kind of indie aesthetic in their work. Jim Jarmusch is one American director who has not gone for the big payday. His films still have an indie aesthetic that few other filmmkaers have kept. He is also free of the restrictions of genre too. Richard Linklater is another filmmaker who keeps making films from a personal perspective. His latest boyhood is releasing on Friday and I'm going to see it on a day when I'm not attending the Japanese film festival on my Summer trip to Manhattan.

Now that I've read the book I know a whole lot about Miramax and Harvey Weinstein. In fact the book could easily be made into a biography about Harvey. In Biskind's book he is a larger than life character. Perhaps cliche in his typical Jewish movie-producer mold a la Barton Fink, but his personality almost always makes good copy. He and Miramax were a very essential part to the explosion of indie films in the 90's. They helped many films and filmmakers get their movies out there and by doing so launched the careers of many directors, writers, and actors who no one had ever heard of. On the contrary, they kept most of the money to themselves and treated filmmakers very badly in some circumstances. Throughout the book I kept asking myself, would I work for Miramax? I quickly said, "no." Then I thought, "maybe." In the 90's Miramax was at the forefront of the indie movement and I'm sure it was exciting to work for. Yet, as Biskind reveals, other players emerged to take the top spot from Miramax, particularly Dreamworks and later James Schamus and Focus.

I think I like Biskind's book about the 70's more than this one. This book was all Harvey Weinstein and Robert Redford. I enjoyed reading it very much, I just think the Easy Riders.. was more about filmmaking. This book gets lost too much "in the numbers." It provides some information about filmmakers, but it doesn't stir my conscience the way the other book did. Perhaps it's because I took a course on American film history that focused on the "New Hollywood" or, perhaps it is that that period of time was just better; higher quality films, more filmmakers seeking to make great films. The New Hollywood also lasted longer the Indie movement of the 90's. It is obvious from Biskind that the Indie movement went into severe decline in the late 90's. Biskind even dates the beginning of the decline with Pulp Fiction. He states that the Indie movement essentially died after it's release. After Pulp many filmmakers wanted to win the lottery like Tarrantino and the Indie game became not making high quality films, but getting rich and famous. And if I recall correctly those are the wrong reasons to get into filmmaking.

The New Hollywood had more substance the 90's Indie movement. There just wasn't, as I've read in the Biskind book enough quality from filmmakers in the 90's to rival the 70's. The films don't have the intensity, the drama, the pushing the art form forward that the New Hollywood had. I suppose that's because the 90's didn't have a Vietnam or a Civil Rights movement. In the 90's there was some films that dealt with sex and sexuality, but that movement was largely to come later with the debate about gay marriage taking hold only recently. I suppose the film industry was like many Americans in the 90's; they wanted money like the dot com boom and bust. And many of the films and filmmakers were like that; here today gone tomorrow. In the last section of the book Biskind talks about how many filmmakers suffered from the one and done syndrome. They would produce one film, then the rest of their career were relatively obscure. As a screenwriter and filmmaker myself, I was a little encouraged to know that I might make a film, yet I was discouraged by the fact that they seemed like internet startups. A big IPO, then disaster, which for a filmmaker is obscurity and irrelevance.

I suppose going forward I will know what to avoid if I ever get the chance to turn a screenplay into a film. The age old lesson of history should apply to myself; learn the lessons of the past or be condemned to repeat them.

Review of Lost Highway by Lynch

After reading the screenplay I watched the film. It was a more intense, more aware viewing. I knew what some of the characters were going to say before they said it. I was more engaged in the film. Yet, I was still somewhat in the dark about what the film meant or how it made sense. Perhaps, like a surrealist masterpiece, it isn't supposed to make any sense. Perhaps I don't know enough about surrealism and film. Before I started my mini- film festival about David Lynch I was a committed realist following, so I thought in my inflated self-importance, the Italian neo-realist filmmakers like Rosselini, Visconti, and Fellini. Now, I've taken out some books from the library and will read a book about Surrealism and film. I'm sure they will discuss Lynch's films along with, hopefully, some discussion of Hitchcock films. And other films and filmmakers that I might not be aware of.

The film was great. I think it might be Lynch's best. The visuals are stunning at times. The narrative is gripping, totally a horror noir film if there ever was one.Similar to the screenplay the first half hour or so of the film is really gripping. I couldn't, even on the second viewing, pull myself away from it. The floating camera in the videotape is mesmerizing and Pullman puts in a great performance.

The last sequence is very good to. I was totally scared of the mystery man. Robert Blake was perfectly cast in that role. The visuals in that sequence are also a feast for the eyes. The fire, the lovemaking, the car, and, again, the mystery man. All compelling, all great.

The slowest part, where Mr. Eddy beats up the guy for tailgating, is a bit slow. Yet, I suppose, it creates fear of Mr. Eddy. Without that scene Mr. Eddy might not be so feared. The sight of him pistol whipping the tailgater creates a sense that he is a very violent man capable of brutality. This stays with us until the end when he gets it from Pullman or the Mystery Man.

I also like how the narrative appears circular. Pullman's character speaks the "Dick Laurent is dead" into the intercom. Pullman then hears the voice telling him that. It appears that the narrative is somehow overlapped. Somewhat confusing, yet compelling. I don't know if that is what Lynch is doing, making viewers confused, but it works. A total abstraction on film.

Review of Lost HIghway Screenplay by Lynch

I first saw Lost Highway in a film studies class. I was thoroughly entertained. Now after reading the script I have an even deeper appreciation for the film. The script was very good. David Lynch is a surrealist filmmaker and the script paints visuals and language with a wide brush. The sudden changes of character, the descriptions of the videotape of the Madison's house, and, of course, the mystery man played so deviously by Robert Blake make the script engrossing and hard to put down. At the end of the screenplay which is 114 pages, I was so glued to it, I couldn't look away. The descriptions, the language, all great.

I think the best parts of this screenplay are the beginning and the end. The part where Mr. Eddy beats up the guy for tailgating is a little boring. I don't really see how it adds to the story. It seems odd to have that sequence in the film. On the other hand, the beginning is dark, mysterious, and engaging. With each videotape comes a wanting for what it means, who has shot, and where the story will go. And with Robert Blake as the mystery man things get even more sinister. When Bill Pullman's character turns in the auto mechanic the film changes direction so decidedly that I wondered where it was going the first time I saw the movie. Definitely a surrealistic expression of cinematic art. I don't think there are too many films that have such an abrupt change in the composition of the main character. Perhaps a Hitchcock film has some similarity. Vertigo has a similar quality in Jimmy Stewart's character's mental state, but I can't remember a change like that in another film.

The film, as I mentioned before, languishes a little bit in the Mr. Eddy sequence, but it rebounds quickly with a very surrealist ending. Beginning with the auto mechanic and Mr. Eddy's wife having an affair the script begins to build up tension again reaching a climax when Bill Pullman or the mystery man kill Mr. Eddy. I thought the ending, from Andy's apartment to the final scene on the lost highway, was full of tension, mystery, ambivalence, and anxiety, As I read through it I wondered what would happen next. I remembered the basic plot of the film, but I didn't remember all of the details, so it was a deeper reading of the film.

In the script, which I realized for, perhaps, the first time was that Lynch uses longer descriptions of each scene. He also directs the camera which is a departure from other screenplays I have read. The descriptions are essential to the beginning of the film where the Madison's receive the videotapes. The first twenty or so pages of the script are very dark, very alluring, and very good writing. This is, perhaps Lynch's best film. After I watch the rest of his LA trilogy I will do a final assessment about Lynch's total work and hopeful make some grand conclusions about his films and his place in film history.

Review of Cloud Atlas Screenplay by the Wachowskis and Tykwer

I've taken it upon myself to read more screenplays and watch the movies. I suppose I'm becoming even more of a film geek than before. In a few weeks I will start a screenwriting class as part of my creative writing degree. I'm looking forward to it. Anyway I decided to read the screenplay to Cloud Atlas, than watch the film. In this blog I will make some comments about the screenplay only.

This was one of the longer screenplays that I have read. The total length of the screenplay in the book I borrowed from the library was 197 pages. It was also one of the more complex screenplays that I've read. At some points the language and vocabulary were difficult. It wasn't totally beyond me, it was just a little challenging. Especially since it changes time periods, locations, and characters frequently it is not as easy to follow. I showed this film in my Cinema and Digi class as an example of non-linear editing/story construction. If the class I will probably show it again.

The changes in dialect and the non-linear structure make the screenplay challenging, but some of the setting description and camera directions are pure poetry. I was engrossed in the script for about 3 hours on Sunday night. I ate dinner then was confronted by a choice; read the Cloud Atlas screenplay or watch the Yankees and Red Sox play. I chose the former. I had already seen the film so my visual imagination only thought of the actors and scenes from the film. I thought to myself while reading the screenplay what would it be like to read a screenplay that hasn't been made into a movie?

The movie follows the script to a tee. There is very little diversion from the script. Perhaps that is because the Wachowskis and Tykwer also directed the film. In most of the scripts I've read and watched the film there are some omissions or minor changes. Not in Cloud Atlas, what is written is what is shot. In today's film industry that is a rarity. Most scripts are heavily manipulated and in most cases more than one screenwriter works on the script.

I really learned a lot by reading the script. It was challenging. It was long, complex, but engrossing and entertaining. I have made a request to get the screenplay for V for Vendetta another Wachowski film. Looking forward to it.

Review of Blue Velvet by Lynch

This is the third film I've watched in my study of David Lynch's work. So far it's the best one. Eraserhead is very good, but I think Blue Velvet has more substance. Elephant is good. I didn't see Dune, perhaps I should. Blue Velvet is the first film that the term Lynchian could be used. It is similar in many ways to his Los Angeles trilogy which were the films that created the term "Lynchian."

The film as the nytimes reviewer said in an article about a re-release of Blue Velvet on it's twentieth anniversary reminds me of Hitchcock films from the late 50's and early 60's. Like Vertigo and Birds, Blue Velvet presents an eery setting only to be disturbed by something beneath the surface. The firetruck, the serene setting of a small city, the white picket fence, create a calm that is deeply disrupted by the inquisitiveness of a college kid and the masochistic drug dealer who abuses Rosselini's character.

Roger Ebert gave this film a harsh review. I don't agree that it should receive such a harsh treatment, only one star. I do agree with him that Lynch presents a satire of life in a small city. That there is a deep, dark underbelly to the seemingly quaint, orderly day-to-day life of a small city.

I really like Dennis Hopper's performance in the film. He came off as sadistic, violent, and deranged. I also thought Rosselini turned in a good performance. The technical aspects were well done. I liked the settings a lot; the apartment, the warehouse, the nightclub, the quaint homes, all created a ambience which took the viewer into a small city. And, as I mentioned before, the cinematography was great in creating the feeling of satire. I felt very turned off at the banality that is created by the showing of the flowers and picket fences, the firetruch, the hokiness of everyone. Then when it's juxtaposed against the violence and depravity of Rosselini's situation; her husband and son kidnapped by Hopper, and of course Hopper's sexual depravity, his violent temper, it creates a feeling of disgust, of horror, and raises the question that Jeffrey's character asks; why are there men like Frank?

A very good film.

Review of David Lynch's Elephant Man

Elephant Man was a very good film. I thought the performances and dialogue were extraordinary. John Hurt and Anthony Hopkins turn in performances that garnered Oscar noms, too bad this film didn't win any Oscars. It should have.

I'm in the midst of a David Lynch film festival. I have tasked myself with watching all of his films. I just bought the lime green collectors set off of amazon.com and am getting through all of them, from his earliest works up to his last movies Inland Empire. I plan on reviewing each film, then writing a blog devoted to analyzing Lynch's film ovuere.

There are many good things about Elephant Man; the performances, as I mentioned above, the writing is very good, and the cinematography is very well done as well. The film is shot in black and white which gives it a bleak, art house cinema feel. Throughout the film we see the two sides of Victorian society. On one side is the exploiters, those who want to profit from the Elephant Man as a freak. There is his master, Bytes, and later on the nightsman from the hospital. Both seek to exploit John Merrick for their personal gain. On the other side is the Doctor and polite Victorian society. They seek to save John Merrick from exploitation and destitution which his mired in when the good doctor rescues him from squalor.

Throughout the film I tried to guess what would happen. Would John Merrick end up peacefully? Or would he die a bad death at the hands of his former master? In the end Lynch fades out on a Merrick who is quietly settling in for sleep. In reality the real John Merrick died at 27, possibly from suicide. I knew that his former master would make a repeat appearance. I just didn't know how or when.

Of course the fulcrum point of the film comes when John Merrick escapes from servitude in the circus and makes it back to London. He is then discovered, runs away, and is cornered by a crowd of people and the police. It is here that he gives his famous lines, "I am not an animal. I am a human being." That is the best, most famous, line from the film.

This was Lynch's first mainstream film. It was his big break into Hollywood filmmaking. It was his first film in which he worked with famous actors like Anthony Hopkins. I think he turned in a good effort. Especially in revealing the Elephant Man which he does bit by bit. It is not until well into the film that we get full facial on the Elephant Man. Several other shots are framed nicely. Yet, it doesn't have the "Lynchian" sequences or ending that come in his later films like Blue Velvet and the LA trilogy.

Review of David Lynch's Eraserhead

This was Lynch's first feature. It took him a long times to make. It is shot in black and white which gives it a very serious, art house, neo-expressionist look. Of course, as with all Lynch films Eraserhead is just as weird, perhaps even more weird than some of his other films. The creatures in this film resemble the creatures from alien very strikingly. The plot centers around Henry a weird looking man with very high, wavy hair. He always looks distressed throughout the film, worried about something; the baby, his wife, the neighbor next door.

The narrative of the film is linear, unlike other Lynch films. It starts off with Henry in an industrial wasteland and moves to his wife's home, then to Henry's tiny apartment. There are several gross scenes with the hugely deformed baby. The gross scenes build tension up until the final sequence of the film when Henry stabs the baby with scissors and puts it out of it's misery. The dialogue is sparse. It is a short film, only about 86 minutes.

The things I liked best about the film are the shots and the tension sequences. There are several great camera shots of his neighbor which I thought were great and made even better by the use of light against the desolate, dark background. There were also a lot of great shots of the main character. Several using a brigh white against the dark background which brought his hair and face rendering it a stark outline against the black backdrop.

I was trying to find a review to argue with about this film but unfortunately there are very few out there. Only some short reviews of the film on the Guardian, the nytimes.com. Ebert.com didn't have anything. It is a very good film. Some of it resembles Lynch's short film that he made about his childhood. Eraserhead, Lynch has stated, is about his fears of being a father. There are clearly some themes in this film that allude to that.

Review of Brief Encounter by David Lean

I first learned about this film from the Victoria and Albert Museum website. I don't remember when I saw the film exactly, but it said that Lean's Brief Encounter was a favorite of British moviegoers and that they play it every year with good attendance. I really like David Lean. I've seen his big hits; Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, and Passage to India. Yet, I've also seen some of his early works; Great Expectations and Brief Encounter. I really enjoyed Great Expectations. A lot of great camera work, shots, editing which Lean was so well known for.

Brief Encounter was a play based on a Noel Coward stage play. It was a one act play called Still Life. Lean and Coward expanded it into a full length screenplay which became the movie. It is not a long film. It only runs about an hour and a half. The film is in black and white. The shots are straight forward. There is, true to Lean's style, a great editing montage sequence where the woman looks out a train window at her and her lover dancing in a ballroom, at the Opera, and in a horse carriage. The dream sequence takes place in the window and the woman's face is reflected against the window the entire time the dream sequence is playing. It is a great montage of how film editing used to be done; with overlapping streams and imprints on top of other scenes. It is the most technically sophisticated part of the film.

The other great parts of the film are the dialogue and the rising tension between the two lead actors. What starts out as an innocent meeting turns into something more. Over the course of the film the tension rises until they finally confess to each other that they are deeply in love. Then, later on they kiss. Yet, they break it off. They don't commit total adultery.

I suppose that's the reason why this film is still popular in Britain today. From what I know, which isn't much, Britain is country that values restraint, perhaps, even to the point of repression. Perhaps a counterpoint to Brief Encounter is Lady Chatterley's Lover, a novel, made into a film several times. It was so scandalous that the book wasn't allowed to be published and the film could only be made after several decades had past. They are opposite. Brief Encounter is a film which the couple don't consummate their affair. They practice restraint and maintain their marriage vows keeping their passion for one another repressed inside of them. In Chatterley, the restraints are violated. Lady Chatterley commits adultery, with not only another man, but the a person of lower class standing, a big no-no in extremely class conscious Britain.

I enjoyed Brief Encounter. It reminded at times of Casablanca. The two protagonist close together, their faces filling up the screen, each word slowly coming out, revealing more emotion, creating more tension. A short, heartbreaking romance.

Further Discussions about Peter Biskind's book about 90's Independent Cinema

The last hundred pages I've read of Biskind's Down and Dirty pictures has been very informative. I grew up in the 90s and I remember watching Resevoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction on VHS. I borrowed from the local video store. Those stores aren't around anymore. Yet, the book tells the interesting and improbable story of Tarrantino. A video store clerk who becomes a global film phenomenon. One year he's an unknown and the next he's dating Mira Sorvino. Pulp Fiction was a huge hit, it brought Miramax big box office and critical acclaim. It made Tarrantino a rock-star director. He even got leverage over the Weinstein brothers which was unheard of. Yet, Pulp Fiction also spelled the end of the glory days of American Indie Cinema. It made it into a lottery where instead of filmmakers wanting to make good films, they all wanted to make Pulp Fiction. I remember that there were a crop of films that were remarkably similar to Pulp Fiction. Just as violent, sexy, provocative. I think Biskind puts it at 1994 when the Indie film movement went into decline. I think his assessment is right. I can't remember so many indie films from the late 90s from the States. And Miramax, which sold out to Disney, which I couldn't understand at all, moved away from doing edgy, avant garde films that might not do good box office, but were good films.

The book talks about The English Patient, a favorite film of mine. It gives all the dish about how it was almost not made, then finally, with Harvey Weinstein's help, it did get made. It was a Zaul Saentz production and all the talent took a defferred salaries most of which were never paid. The film went on to gross something like 220 million, and all Harvey Weinstein had to pay was for foreign distribution rights of 10 million dollars. Zaentz threatened to sue, but Weinstein simply said that "we're Walt Disney we have a hundred lawyers." I'm glad the film got made. Yet, it shows, even in the throws of the indie golden age, how hard it is to get a great movie produced.

Harvey, as I will call him, is the most colorful character of the book. His appetite is enormous, his drive is relentless, and his abilities at acquiring films and negotiating deals are legendary. He married a WASP, he was a  Jew. He comes from a humble background in Queens. One story Biskind tells is of Harvey at Martha's Vineyard in "WASP" central and he wast he only Jew there. Perhaps this commeuppance is why he turned away from making the films that Miramax made it's bones with. After Pulp Fiction, the English Patient, and some other films he was worth over 100 million dollars, correct me if I'm wrong. He makes the book enjoyable and is in stark contrast to the rather palid character of Robert Redford, the head of Sundance and the other major character in the book. They are very much polar opposites. Redford aloof and evasive. Harvey obsessive and controlling every detail. Yet both fuel the independent movement on opposite ends.

Biskind also talks about young filmmakers from the 90s; Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, Kevin Smith, Ed Burns, Steven Soderbergh, and Todd Solenz among others. He gives the dish about how they got their films made, whether they were flops and in most cases, modest successes. It was interesting to learn all the details about Good Will Hunting which Miramax rescued.

So far the book is interesting, like Raging Bulls, it is informative, it's more than just a gossip column. It delves deep into the film culture of the 1990s, and reveals how the films got acquired which seemed to be the way which films were distributed in those days. I don't know if acquisitions is still the way to get a film to an audience, but some of the stories Biskind tells in the book are intense. I can't believe film executives would pay so much money for a film they have only seen 10 or 15 minutes of.

Lastly, many of the filmmakers talked about in the book seemed to have gotten a bad deal. Many of them never made any money or sold at a price far less then the film took in at the box office. The Weinsteins in particular were tough customers. Yet, I guess back in those days if you had film that was indie or edgy, you wanted to be bought buy Miramax. I'll have to keep reading the book to find out exactly what happens to Miramax, because if I recall correctly it runs into financial troubles. I'm looking forward to the end of the book.

Review of The Graduate; Screenplay and Film

This was the second film I read the screenplay and watched the film. I had mentioned to my theater directing teacher to put on the Graduate, but she demurred because there weren't enough roles for the whole class to play. I put it on the back burner to read later. I had also read Larry Turman's introductory book about Film Producing. He was the producer behind the Graduate and reveals a lot of the work that went into make it a big hit. Peter Biskind's book Raging Bulls also goes into detail about how the film was cast. Instead of Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft it was supposed to by Robert Redford and Candice Bergen. Originally it was supposed to be WASPs, instead they cast Beverly Hills Jews. It was what Turman wanted. He was a big fan of Dustin Hoffman and had to have him in the film.

The script is good. It is definitely a product of the 60s. The wording, the language, and, of course the them really captures what it was like to live in the 60s. There were two parts left out of the film. At the beginning, Benjimin is supposed to make a speech and his fellow classmates are supposed to clear out, and he is left standing there all alone. This was cut from the script which I thought would have created more of an explanation about Benjimin's sense of directionlessness and disillusionment. I suppose the shots of him drifting around on the float in the pool suffice.

Another shot cut from the script is where Benjimin imagines his family and Mrs. Robinson going to dinner together. In the sequence he can't take being so close to Mrs. Robinson and screams out in anguish. It could have added more tension to film, but it was taken out.

The rest of the story reads smoothly, goes right along. I thought the script, like the film drags a little at the end. I don't know how it could have been done differently. How could Benjimin find out the address of the wedding other than go to the frat house? How does he stalk Mrs. Robinson's daughter without going to Berkley? I don't know. I thought the whole object of marrying Mrs. Robinson's daughter was farcical. It was funny, it makes the film outrageous, yet is it really believable? I suppose it doesn't matter; it's a movie, it's the 60s, a lot of strange things happen in movies and a lot of strange things happened in the 60s.

The best scene was, obviously, the seduction scene. The dialogue is great. It's compelling, intense, funny, awkward, and alluring. The whole sequence grabs your attention and doesn't let go until Benjimin finally leaves the Robinson house. Toward the end of the film, like I mentioned before, there is less dialogue, it is mostly scenes and music with little dialogue. I enjoy it, the music is great written especially for the film, and the shots, which must have cost a fortune, of the suspension bridge in California are great. Must have been a helicopter shot? Probably. Yet, there is little dialogue. I suppose it's not necessary for the rest of the film. Still a great film. I would like to show it in my American Cinema class.

Review of Gosford Park by Robert Altman

I decided to watch this movie again for at least the second time mainly because it stars Kristin Scott Thomas who I watched in The English Patient and Love Crime which I have reviewed previously in this blog. To my surprise this was Julain Fellowes first, I believe it's his first effort at film. Julian Fellowes is the creative genius behind Downton Abbey the big British costume drama that's airs on PBS on Sunday nights. I suppose it's a big hit. There have been several write ups in the times about it and it has been renewed for sebsequent seasons.

Gosford Park resembles Downton Abbey in many ways. They are both about essentially the same classes of people; British Aristocrats and the people "downstairs." It looks, visually, very much like Downton. It has the same palid, somewhat grey sky. An enormous estate, many rooms, a kitchen, a dining room, and so on. There are even several characters in Gosford Park that show up on Downton; Maggie Smith reprises her role as older, socialite collected an allowance. She plays the same gossipy Lady in Gosford as in Downton.

The plot swirls around the murder of the Lord of the house. He is knifed in his study. Perhaps it's just me, but I didn't determine that anyone way apprehended for the murder. There were several suspects, Maggie Smith, a man from downstairs, but there was no conclusive resolution. In the last scene the visitors simply drive away in their cars leaving Scott Thomas on the steps waving goodbye. I suppose that's what Fellowes wanted. Perhaps I should read the review to get my facts straight. Yet, I think I'm right, no one was arrested for the murder.

The film is a little longer then two hours. It is very dialogue heavy which is in stark contrast to many films made these days which are heavy on the visual effects and stylization. That said the costumes and hairstyles are very visually alluring. From the women's and men's hairstyles, I couldn't get over the women's bobs and how hard the men's hair was parted, to the dresses which looked very appropriate for a film set in 1932. The language was also particular for the time period. I thought to myself why don't British filmmakers make anything contemporary, then I remembered Danny Boyle's Trainspotting, and the thought passed.

Perhaps the best thing I like about Gosford Park, aside from the ability to gaze at Scott Thomas, is the very slow pacing of the film. As with Downton Abbey, the acting and action is never rushed, in fact some people would probably be turned off by the glacial like progression of the story. Yet, it works. It strikes a chord, like being rushed through the post-modern world and given a respite of a few hours to listen.

Gosford Park is a good film. I think Robert Altman was probably the director most suited to do something like it. I distinctly remember him saying in Biskind's Raging Bulls how much he hated Star Wars. Gosford Park is certainly another world from Star Wars.

Review of English Patient; Screenplay and Film

I've seen this film several times. In fact I've reviewed it previously on this blog. I'm going to study for a degree with a focus on screenwriting and now that school is over I though I would read some screenplays and watch the film. The script for English Patient was on my coffee table and I was reading a film history book which talks about it in a few chapters, so I picked it up and decided to read it. It's one of my favorite films with many of my favorite British actors; Ralph Fiennes, Kristin Scott Thomas, Colin Firth, Willen Dafoe, as well as produced by Saul Zaentz who is a legend in the Film World for his extremely high quality productions. Sadly, I found out he passed away recently. A terrible loss.

The script was written by Anthony Minghella, he directed as well. He has an interesting background which I will not go into here. The script is, perhaps I'm biased, but I think it's flawless. The way it's written to go back and forth from the past to the present creates an anxious feeling to know where the story will go next, to the past, which part, to where, the desert? A market? Italy? I liked that non-linear quality very much. Also the descriptions of the desert and the planes flying overhead, fantastic. It totally reminded me of Lawrence of Arabia, which this film should be compared to, in some ways. And off course the dialogue. Several of the exchanges between Fienes and Scott are truly memorable. A few days later I started to remember where they are talking about why Almasy went to the desert. The lines and scene played through my head and upon further reflection it was very well done. There many other good dialogue scenes, not only in the desert between Almasy and Mrs. Clinton, but at the villa in Italy with Willem Dafoe, Fiennes and Binoche. The tension between the actors, the war going on outside, and whatever else comes to the fore creates dramatic tension that is resolved with the death of Mrs. Clifton, the end of the war, and the death of Almasy.

The multiple resolutions creates a relief, the war is over, and it creates a devastating heartbreak. Almasy is too late to save Mrs. Clifton. The plane sequences bring in another dimension to the film. It is not just cars on the ground. There are aerial views and in the last scene Mr. Clifton crashes the plane, narrowly missing Almasy. It is a great idea to have the planes. At the beginning of the film they allow aerial views of the desert, they created eerie shadows on the sand, and allow for a very violent, dramatic crash sequence

The film, perhaps because Minghella directing and wrote, stays faithful to the script. It doesn't leave anything out of the film. From what I remember, each scene is included in the film. Several of the screenplays I've read aren't so faithful to the script. Most likely they leave some scenes out.

The script is based on a great book, which was adapted into a great screenplay, which was made into a great film. It's not just the script and the directing though, this film was incredibly well done in all aspects; photography, editing, writing, acting, etc. It won 9 Oscars and jumped started or revived several careers.

Review of documentary The Kid Stays in the Picture

Last year I took a film history course called American Masterworks. It really turned me on to the New Hollywood of the late 1960s and 1970s. I had seen most of the films we watched in class, but I saw them and analyzed them from a academic perspective. I think it was a good class to take. Perhaps I'm going against the grain, but I think the academic study of Cinema has merit. After the class I bought Peter Biskind's book about the New Hollywood and read it pretty thoroughly, maybe I should read it again. The book is great. One story that I latched on to from the book is about the making of the Godfather. I really like the Godfather I and II, the third one is okay, but not as good as the first two. Biskind talks about the relationship between Bob Evans, the subject of the film The Kid Stays in the Picture, and the director of the Godfather Francis Coppola. It was a tumultuous relationship, but in the end it produced, perhaps, the best film of the 1970s. I did some amazon and google searches and started reading more about Coppola and Evans. From reading the Biskind book and with a name like Evans, I thought Bob Evans was some kind of WASP. It turns out though he was an Jewsih from Manhattan. His father was a dentist, one of the first to accept African-American patients. So, I became more interested in Bob Evans.

The film is very well done. From a artistic standpoint it has many creative montage sequences that blend in well with old interviews and clips from movies. Yet it's Evans' story that makes the film a good one. Rising improbably from acting to studio head, he was the biggest film executive of the New Hollywood. Not only did he work on the Godfather, he also had a hand in Love Story, which I haven't seen, and Chinatown which I've seen many times, read the screenplay, and blogged about. He was also the film executive who made Roman Polanski a star. Polanski got his big break in Hollywood with Rosemary's Baby which Evans had a hand in. Evans was also married to Ali McGraw. It was at this point that Evans is on the top of his profession. Leading the New Hollywood movement from Paramount Studios he could do no wrong. He had the magic touch.

Yet after Chinatown and McGraw leaving him, Evans goes into a tailspin of addiction, failure, and depression. He continued to make films, but he was just riding the New Hollywood wave. I don't think he thought that his lucky would ever run out, yet it did. He was busted for drugs, lost his fortune, and stayed at a mental hospital for a while before escaping. Eventually he would return to making films

I'm an aspiring screenwriter and director. I study film in all it's aspects thinking that it will make my work better. Yet as part of that education, I've tasked myself with learning some things about the film business. I think without people like Bob Evans quality films would never get made, or films that are good would not be great. Clearly Evans had a tremendous eye for talent. He picked Roman Polanski, he selected the Godfather to be produced into a film, and, after some hesitation, gave Francis Coppola his big break. As Larry Turman who wrote the book, So You Want to be a Producer, emphasized repeatedly, producers must have taste and tenacity. Bob Evans embodies those qualities as good as any other producer of the New Hollywood. The films he made are almost as legendary as he is.

Review of Kiarostami's Ten

This was the first film I've watched by Kiarostami. I had learned about Iranian Cinema from Mark Cousins' The Story of Film which is great, probably the best documentary about the history of Cinema I've ever seen. It talked about Iranian Cinema's adherence to traditional film and how, even in the face of Islamic restrictions, Iranian filmmakers were making high quality films. Ten is no exception. It shows Iranian society in flux, perhaps, even in crisis.

The film revolves around a woman who has recently divorced and remarried. The film is dialogue driven. The entire film takes place in the woman's car. She drives around Tehran talking to her son about the divorce, to her friends about their love lifes, and to a prostitute. These conversations bring out Iranians lives. For a country that is repressed and strictly controlled, Ten reveals Iranians living life through divorce, through bratty kids, and social change. At times, especially the scene with the prostitute I was, not shocked, but jarred by the frankness and utter humanism of the dialogue of the film. With the exception of the little boy, the rest of the characters are women. In the discussion between the woman and her son we get a clear picture of the way Iranian women are treated. She is totally deferential to her son. Perhaps she is afraid she will lose him to her former husband, perhaps it is because she cannot stand up to a male, even a ten year old boy.

The women in the film all wear headscarves. They wear little to no makeup. Yet, they speak candidly about their lives, specifically about their relations with men. It is this insight into the life of an Iranian woman which makes the film so good. To learn what they think about divorce, about how they relate to men in Iran takes away some concealment of an Iranian woman's life. In the West we are often shown how women in the Middle East are badly mistreated. Ten reveals a deeper, humanistic portrait of an Iranian woman's struggle to get a divorce, raise a child, and help her friends. She does drive a car, she is independent, so she has attained some level of liberation from the patriarchal Iranian society.

I learned about this movie from Nicholas Rombes' book Cinema in the Digital Age. I had heard about Kiarostami previously from his other movies. The book writes about how Kiarostami used a "nondirected' technique to make the film. In the film he just attached two simple cameras to the dashboard of the car. The cameras are the only angle from which we see the actors; the boy, the woman, the woman's friends, the prostitute, they are all presented from the same angle. At times I thought it was like Taxi Cab confessions. I don't know which came first, but they are similar. It gives the film a very different perspective. The camera doesn't move. It is stationary. It creates a very simple style. At times I was a little bored. Yet, the dialogue kept me attentive.

Kiarostami has been hailed as a great auteur. I'm looking forward to watching more of his films.

Discussion about Biskind's book about The Rise of Independent Cinema in the 90s

This book is a another triumphant effort by Biskind. He really knows how to write. The narrative is quick, the information is revealing, and the gossip and anecdotes are juicy. I had read his book about the New Hollywood which I really like and got a whole lot of information about directors, producers, actors, and, of course, the films of the New Hollywood. This book is all about the 90s independent film movement. So far, I've read about 150 pages, the book has discussed in significant detail the creation and gradual rise of the Sundance film festival and the struggles and successes of the Miramax film company. The book provides big dish about Robert Redford and the first star of Sundance Steven Soderbergh. This discussion of what is now the biggest venue for indie film makers is good. Yet, I liked, for whatever reason, the portrayal of Harvey and Bob Weinstein, particularly Harvey Wienstein. He is a larger than life character. The descriptions of his tantrums, his view that he would never let the Nazis put him on a train without a fight, and his refusal to answer lawsuits against him make him a very colorful character.

So far, when I think about the book, I wonder to myself if I would ever want to work for Miramax. It seems like a way too stressful atmosphere. The Weinsteins are way too demanding and seem to be angry all the time. Yet, they were at the cusp of the independent film movement of the 90s. If you worked for them you could make quality films, take on Hollywood, and feel like you were changing the Hollywood system. This attitude to take on the big studios really interests me. I don't like the big films, the franchises, the exploitative nature of Hollywood. The Weinsteins from the 90s and Coppola and George Lucas with American Zoetrope in the 70s are great examples of film companies shaking up the system. Making great films, not just for profit, not just to exploit a niche, and to allow filmmakers a voice to express their personal stories and artistic ideas.