about that film, which one? Last Tango in Paris

 This was supposed to be Bertolucci's big film. His epic. The one that cleaned up at the Oscars. Well, it wasn't. It didn't win any major awards. Yet I felt after watching it for the fourth of fifth time that Brando should have won for best lead and Bertolucci should have won for best director. The film is very avant garde. Totally new in film. After the fall of the studio system, film was free to meander into different forms and one form it took was this film. It is, perhaps, a precursor to films of the era. Taxi Driver couldn't have been made without this film coming first. The Graduate came before, but never had sex and sexuality been taken so seriously before Last Tango in Paris.

I watched this film in High School and I didn't get it. I watched it again when I was teaching English in Shanghai and I got more of it. But it wasn't until I was a graduate student in Screenwriting that the whole thing came to me. It is such a depressing film. There is no up ending, there is nothing up about this film. It is truly a Paris "bleu" film. Brando's wife committed suicide. And the reason why is never revealed. Why would she kill herself? It torments Brando until the end of the film. Until he follows his mystery lover into her apartment and is fatally shot.

I've had moments of melancholy. I take an anti-depressant. In research it is said France is the largest consumer of anti-depressants. The US is second. And this film is no counter argument to that research. It is thoroughly a trip down the scale. To oblivion. Or at least the consideration of oblivion. To take one's life is the ultimate depression. I recently had a conversation with a friend and I commented how Hemingway said he writes drunk and edits sober. Well, he shot himself so take from that advice what you will. And Tango is like that saying. Live but beware. There are plenty of obstacles to being content. Is that what these characters were seeking? To be content? To live in peace?

The film is great. I noticed this time around that Bertolucci takes a pot shot at Francios Truffaut. The filmmaker that Jean Pierre Leaud plays seems devilishly like Truffaut. Yet it also reflects on memory and it's construction. How do we know our past? Is constantly reflecting on it a prison? If so how do we break free? Suicide? I guess that's what Brando's character thought. There is no exit, to steal from Sartre. We must live until our time comes. We must face banality. Trapped mediocrity.

If that's the case, Tango is anything but mediocre. It is a film that is great and will be in film history for decades to come.

reminiscing about Goodfellas

Goodfellas was the first movie that I saw as a teenager. I had seen other films like Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris, but I didn't understand it then. Now, years later after reading the script and watching it twice, I understood the basic plot of the film. Goodfellas hit me like a rock. I had just gotten into high school. It was sophomore year. The high school I went to had two feeder middle schools from different parts of the small city I lived in. One part of the feed came from the West side and the Southwest side. The other came from the East side and Southeast side. This stayed divided in High school. The East Side stayed with the East side and the West side stayed with the West side. Over the years I've thought about both sides of town. How they are different, how they don't get along, and how they come together. Anyway, I fell in with a crowd that was East Side and Southeast side. My friend, who was also the pitcher on our City Championship winning Greenman league baseball team had a VHS copy of Goodfellas. He also had a copy of the Rolling Stones Exile on Main St. My friend never did good in school, but he had pretty good taste in film and music. We watched Goodfellas I don't know how many times. 5, 6, 7, and plenty of scene studies. I just wanted to watch one part, just one scene. I was particularly taken by the scene with DeNiro smoking a cigarette thinking about how he was going to kill Morry. He smoked, and thought, the Cream song In the Sunshine of Your Love played over his murderous intent.

I thought the film was great. Now watching it again years later it still has the same effect. Only I recognize things. I watched some clips of the film on youtube, Just one scene. Like where he is driving and almost crashes. Just great. When Henry gets busted for dealing coke, just great. So much visual and aural poetry. The music, the visual scenes, and of course the story make it truly Scorsese's underappreciated masterpiece. I know it has a cult following but it was not lauded with awards. Scorsese didn't win the Oscar for best director. Something that alluded him until the Departed. It's too bad. What were the other films that year? 1989? I don't know. Surely he got a nom. Didn't he?

There were other things that I noticed when watching the film after so many years. That most of the first hour is told in flashback. That fateful day when Joe Pesci murders a made man proves the crew's undoing. Years ago I never realized that it was in flashback. until 1980 when the film plays in real time. I also assumed that Paulie was the Godfather. When I watched it again I realized that he wasn't the Godfather. He was a boss, but not the chief. It occurred to me when he was pressing Henry about the whereabouts of Billy Batts.

Like most mafia films Goodfellas ends badly. Everyone gets whacked or sent to prison. I remember when Henry Hill died. Some years ago it was a newsclip on msn.com or something. It was before facebook and all that. I wonder whatever happened to Jimmy Conway? Did he ever get out of prison?

Goodfellas is a great film. Especially with it's changing of perspective. Often films only have one perspecitve that of the main character. Goodfellas has many narrative voices, not just Henry's but his wife, too. The changing in perspective is another thing I noticed about the film this time around. Again a great film.

Martine Scorsese's influence on film can't be underestimated. He's made many films. And his voice resonates in my mind about film history from his documentaries and scenes from his narrative films inform my education about film. It's too bad I didn't go to NYU Film school. Then, perhaps, I could have studied under him and been a Scorsese disciple. I've seen his films many times and look forward to watching more films with Scorsese as director. Can't wait for the next one!

thoughts on The Danish Girl

This was an interesting movie. Even thought I felt like ti went on too long. And when I researched about the main character Lily I found several errors in the film. Lily underwent four operations, not two. And Lily's former wife married an Italian diplomat and died penniless after he went through most of their savings. In the film it shows her by his side with an Art dealer as he dies. It is a very emotional scene. But it isn't true. The real Gerda found out about Lily's death while she was in Morocco with her new husband. Like the story of Lily, the film seems to play into the sensationalism of the story.

The film reaches it's most intense periods when Lily goes to a ball dressed as a woman. After the ball she wants to become a woman. After years of living secretly as Lily she finally gets in touch with a doctor who is performing surgeries to make men into women. I believe Lily was the first to get such a surgery. Tragically Lily died about thirty days after her last surgery.

The film is very tender and heart rendering. I didn't know much about the transgender movement in this country or Europe or anywhere else. After the film I could really emphasize with Lily and people like her.

I was taken in with the story, but I thought it could have been better. And more factually accurate.

thoughts on Carol

This was a really good film. It builds dramatic tension incredibly well. The whole film I was waiting for when the two women would finally satisfy there longing for each other. It started out so simple. She was a shop girl into photography. She was in the middle of a divorce just discovering here feelings for other women. And from there the action slowly builds. Until, finally in a hotel room on New Year's Eve, they hook up. The scenes of their love making were almost like soft-core. Yet they had a tenderness that isn't found in soft-core. Afterword it is discovered that there was a Private dick spying on them for the older woman's husband. He intended to use it against her in the custody battle over their daughter.

Unlike most LGBT films this one ends up on an up ending. The divorce goes through and Blanchett's character loses her daughter, but the two women lovers end up together without much opposition from the husband or any of Mara's character's male suitors. The last scene leaves the viewer with the assumption that they will live together and happily ever after.

There is no violent scene like in Brokeback Mountain which end with the brutal beating of one of the gay cowboys. Nor is there an assassination like in Milk. From this I think it is true to say that Lesbians have it easier than gay men. Lesbianism has long been more easily accepted as a lifestyle than being a gay man. There is opposition. They have to distance themselves from the men in their lives, but they do it without much reprisal.

The films strength comes from the two characters involved in the relationship. Blanchett seems like a upper class woman who's sexuality was hidden for years by a loveless marriage. On the other hand is Rooney Mara's character which seems to have liked women from the start. So the major conflict with the story is between these two women who are in  love with each other and the male patriarchy which doesn't want to allow them to be in love with each other. This conflict is resolved when they do consumate their love.

I remember my Mother referring to these arrangements between two women who lived together but weren't married. She called them "Boston Marriages." I don't know if they all involved lesbians, but I would imagine that it was a front for women who were in love with each other but couldn't get married.

The film was very enjoyable. All of the settings were very evocative of the times of the 50s in America and New York. All the Fedora hats and long skirts with cigarettes and dry martinis. The setting was staged down to the last detail.

Very good film.

thoughts on Macbeth

I thought this film was great. A tour de force. The cinematography and editing were top notch. I couldn't have asked for more from a film than what was given in this latest rendition of the Shakespeare classic. Being that I'm a great fan of Shakespeare; I've seen most of the adaptations of his works into film and of course I've seen Shakespeare in Love which I adore. I also go to a Shakespeare festival in the Summer not far from where I live.

The one draw back was the dialogue. I got most of it. There were parts that I didn't get because they were spoken at a low tone and in Elizabethan language which is difficult to grasp even at a normal volume. But I still got most of the dialogue and what I heard was pure poetry. I was in awe of the use of language and metaphor. Just great..

The battle scenes rivaled the best adaptations of battle scenes in a Shakespeare play or in any other battle scenes like Braveheart. The use of slow motion was enough to take my breathe away. And when it sped up I was thoroughly entertained. I was glued to the screen I didn't want to look away.

Fassbender was great. I've seen him in several films the last of which was 12 Years a Slave and he really brings the drama. His portrayal of the deeply psychotic Macbeth was worthy of awards. So was Marion Cotillard. She was brilliant as Lady Macbeth.

It was definitely an update and improvement on Roman Polanski's film from the 70s. There is also Kurosawa's Japanese adaptation of Macbeth for comparison. All three films are great. Yet it is Kurzel's latest rendering that raises the standard for filmmakers who dare to take on Shakespeare.

Another look at Hiroshima, Mon Amour

I watched Hiroshima, Mon Amour years ago. I remember parts of it, but it wasn't particularly clear to me. Recently I finished a book about The French New Wave which included a section about the Left Bank filmmakers which includes the director of Hiroshima, Alain Resnais. In the discussion about Hiroshima, the author filled me in on a lot of details I missed the first time I watched the film. The first time I saw the film I was unaware that Riva, the main character had had an affair with a German soldier near where she grew up. After the liberation of her town, the soldier was killed and she was humiliated. The townspeople shaved her head and her parents through her in the cellar when she started to breakdown from the humiliation and screaming fits she suffered from. The book also discussed how memory played a big role in the film. It is her memory of Niver that informs most of the film's narrative. After the initial thirty minutes or so, the film starts to flashback to Niver from Japan. The book I was reading says the Japanese man inserts himself into the French woman's past. Yet she doesn't allow him total access. It is her memory and she stays true to her recollection of humiliation and suffering.

I must admit that this film is one of the more difficult films to make sense of. It's structure is very disjointed. It goes from present to flashback, dialogue to voice over, Japan to France quickly. Yet I couldn't ignore Riva's suffering or the suffering of Hiroshima's residents from the nuclear bomb. This film wasn't initially released in the US because of the sympathy it arouses for Hiroshima and Riva's character. And it only played out of competition at the Cannes film festival in 1959. Yet it is sympathy which is engendered from this film. Sympathy for Hiroshima; was it really necessary to drop the bomb? The film includes some Cinema Verite-like shots of victims of the bombing. They are graphic and caused me to be taken aback at the burns suffered from the a-bomb.

Then the film shows the anguish that Riva's character goes through in deciding to leave Hiroshima. Should she stay with her Japanese lover? Or return to France and her husband? She is torn apart by the decision. And the ending is ambiguous as to whether she returns or not.

 I thought Hiroshima is a great film about memory and how it affects someone in the present. Riva's character seems to be bounding from place to place, searching for something, that she doesn't find. Peace? Of mind? Emotional stability? She cracks up twice during the film and anyone with that type past has to bear a burden that no one should have to bear. I guess it is like that when memories come flooding back to you years after you have lived through hard times. And how we deal with it in the past. We rationalize it and just something of the time. It's a passing of youth into adulthood. Yet we can't escape our past. Eventually it catches up to us. Or we keep searching for something to relieve the burden of the past.

Watching Nixon. Again?

Oliver Stone's Nixon is a great film. I'm surprised that it didn't get a best picture nod from the Academy. Too bad. I think it really deserved one. The film does suffer from a very opinionated authorial voice. If Nixon was really that bad, then how did he get elected twice? Or is there something wrong with the American electorate? Perhaps that's one of the questions the film seeks to answer. The film is set during a very tumultuous time in American history. The Vietnam War was raging. The Kennedy brothers were assassinated. MLK was gunned down. Race riots were tearing cities apart. Did Nixon really bring the country back together? Or was he just a beneficiary of death as the film presents as one of it's thematic questions? Did the death of his brothers and the death of Jack and Bobby Kennedy cause him to become a Law student and then, President of the United States? It's an interesting question. I wonder if the real Nixon thought about it.

Anthony Hopkins portrayal is very dark and melancholic. I enjoyed it immensely. His dark scowl is memorable. His mannerisms, his way of talking, all got Nixon down pat. I've scene several other films about Nixon and they all portray him similarly. The flashback scenes to his childhood are don in black and white and the language they use is from Elizabethan times. I'm not sure why Stone chose to do it that way, but it makes it more classical, like Shakespeare. We see the character of Nixon develop from a scared little boy into a deeply insecure man. In frequently flashing back Stone links the politician Nixon closely to his childhood. With a focus on his relationship with his mother standing out most of all. By showing his character in flashback Stone creates an epic legend about Nixon. A legend that plays to Republican audiences very well. Like the Soviet premier Brezhnev says in the film; "he had the World in his hand."

The editing in the film really impressed me. The overlays with voice over are excellent. I especially liked Nixon's speech at the Republican National Convention of 1968. His speech borders on demogaguery. And with all the images cut into the speech with voice over it is powerful cinema. And editing the past with the Constitutional Crisis that would engulf Nixon's presidency I didn't look away from the screen for long. It's use of audio and visual imagery brings the viewer deep into the psychology of the Republican party of the 70's and America during a time it was deeply divided.

I kept thinking how popular this film would be for Republicans. I don't like Dick Nixon. Yet, when I looked on Amazon.com for a book about Nixon there were three or four recently published volumes about Nixon. Even after all these years have past and America has changed, Nixon is still a popular topic to write about. I suppose it's like this film. Even after Nixon has died and time has past this film stands out as an excellent film about Nixon and America during the Nixon years.

Reflections on a my Film blog

When I was looking at how many blog posts I've made this year it is at about 100. By the end of the year I should have about 100 blog posts about films. That means I will have watched at least 100 films this year. Last year was similar with a total of around 85 blog posts. I've watched a lot of films. I wonder if this is a lot compared to other screenwriting students? I don't know. It's been fun. I've enjoyed most of the films. Some I could care less to have seen. Others I can't wait to see again.

I've started to watch films on my TV again. For a while I was only watching them on my computer. My computer is good enough, but I like watching them from a comfortable chair rather than the stiff chair that is around my computer. My TV is also much bigger than my computer so it doesn't create as much tension on my eyes or head. I get awfully stiff in my neck and the tension goes to my head and eye, so I'm looking for ways to lessen the stress on my neck and so far it has been working.

I should probably exercise or eat better. I'm sure that would help too.

Watching Juo Dou and Raise the Red Lantern on a cold, Winter night

I decided to watch more films by Zhang Yimou. I saw coming home and I wanted to watch more of his films. I have seen Raise the Red Lantern five times. Tonight I watched Juo Dou for the first time and it did not disappoint. Li Gong is fantastic as the abused young wife of an old man who finds love with a younger man. There were several translations in the subtitles, so I was unsure of the exact relationship between Gong Li and her character's lover. Was he the old man's son? Nephew? I wasn't sure. Whatever he was it was scandalous. Zhang Yimou is a cinematographer by training. He had done several films as a cinematographer before he became a director. I really wanted to see his first directorial effort which was Red Sorghum, but I can't find a copy that is playable on a standard US DVD player. I'm going to order it anyway and see if it plays on my laptop.

Anyway in a book of interviews I'm reading about Zhang he says that he uses colors to portray his films. In Juo Dou the color red is very much on display. In the book, Yimou says in China the color red means passion. Before it became used by the Communists, red was a very popular color in China. In the film it is used at the same time as the first sexual encounter between Gong Li and her lover. Several sheets of cloth fall into a pool of water. The cloth is dyed red, the water is reflecting red, and the characters have a red reflection. It shows the enormous passion that the two lovers have for each other.


The passion plays out in their illicit affair time and again throughout the film. I was kept on edge to see what would happen when the two lovers went away from their baby boy for a tryst. The boy wonders back to the cheated on and bitter father who tries to drown the boy. He doesn't succeed and later on in the film he is even killed by the young boy who turns into a sociopath and kills his own father. It is a very dramatic scene. Gong Li is on the stairs screaming, her lover is dying, and their boy has a sadistic look on his face. The film ends with Gong Li burning everything to the ground; the fire reaching hire and more intense as she burns with it.

The setup is reached with the two lovers. The dramatic tension builds up to the death of the father. And the resolution happens when the boy finds the two lovers and kills his father.

I really enjoyed this film. Along with Raise the Red Lantern and the Story of Qui Jui it makes a trilogy starrring Gong Li and Zhang Yimou directing. When I was watching the end of Raise the Red Lantern, I thought back to when I was teaching English in Shanghai. I remember looking out of my window so excited with life. It was New Year's Holiday. I had a month off from teaching and plenty of money to go around Shanghai and Beijing. I remember Beijing was covered in snow when I got there. And it snowed again when I was leaving. I took the night train from Shanghai to Beijing. When I was on the train I had the weirdest dream, almost like a horror film. My old political science professor from undergrad decapitated my mother. It was a horrific dream that I'll never forget.

I stayed for four days in Beijing. I went to a hotel that my friend had recommended, but that I found unsuitable. I stayed at a hostel. It was adequate. Clean. Convenient to Beijing.

I remember the first day I was there. I went to the Forbidden City. I must have been so disoriented because I gave all the money in my wallet to a stranger! Luckily I got it back. I went into to the Mausoleum that contained Mao Zedong's body lying in state. It was strange to see him lying there dead. That day I toured the whole Forbidden City. It is an enormous place with several seperate large building and many more smaller ones. It took me the whole day just to get through it.

I guess all this is coming back because I watched the Last Emperor last night. Now I'm watching Zhang Yimou films. I don't know how many times I've seen the Last Emperor. I watched all the extras. One was about how Bertolucci found his way to East Asia and chose the story of Pu Yi to make a film about. The film shows how Bertolucci was looking for something outside of West Europe or North America. What he found was China. And the film is excellent no matter how many times I've seen it.

Ah China! When will I encounter you again. I see you on film and in books but it is no substitute for the real thing. Perhaps another walk around Chinatown? It's not the same. I hope to get back there someday.

Thoughts about The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie

I've seen this film three times.  I saw it once when I borrowed it from the library. Now I watched it twice more when I rented it off of Amazon.com. It is a very good film. It won the Oscar for best Foreign Language the year it was released. The film is hard to classify in terms of a genre, but it ranges from comedy to drama, politics to romance.

The film settles on the characters trying to have dinner or lunch which they are always prevented from doing. The scene in the Café shows the running gag in the film. First the ladies ask for Coffee, then Tea, and finally water, which doesn't come in time. While they are trying to get something to drink an army officer come over and tells them about his life. It is an interesting, surreal sequence that Bunuel is so good at. And it makes the film excellent. It blends dream and reality, so much that by the end you don't know whether what's going on is a dream or reality. A very surrealist film. Very entertaining. It is probably Bunuel's best film. And of course the women are all very pretty. I especially like Stephane Audran's cheekbones. I couldn't stop looking at her. She was so mesmerizing.

The film ends ambiguously with the group walking down a country road to where? I guess it is left up to the viewer to speculate where they are going. Perhaps they are lost? Or is it Bunuel torturing his characters. They must walk to an undetermined destination constantly searching for a place to eat. I could hardly say a bad thing about this film. It was well shot. The acting was good. The writing was creative and not too predictable. And of course Bunuel was a master at direction. Great film!

Thoughts on Learning to Drive

I saw this film at the local Art House near where I live. It was an interesting film. I liked it. Ben Kingsley playing a Sikh character really brought the film to life. He should get an award or something. It was a rather short film, about an hour and a half. I lost track of the structure of the film. At about 35 minutes left in the film the resolution started. She does get her license and does go to Vermont to see her daughter. So the film has an up ending. I didn't know why she didn't continue to be friends with Kingsley's character? She could have. Perhaps it was too complicated. She was starting anew after her divorce. And he was in a marriage to and Indian woman.

The film is funny, yet dramatic. A true Rom-Com. There are relationship problems, there immigration problems, there is a car accident, there are many plot points in the film. The major one is when she gets a new apartment and passes her driving test. She also reveals that she is from Queens. This is interesting because before she reveals that she is from Queens she puts it down. She also talks about her father who was a bum. I liked the hallucination scenes. And I liked it when Kingsley calls her alone and crazy.

When the accident occurs I thought the worse. I thought Kingsley's character was going to be assaulted or arrested. Luckily the situation was resolved and the tension went away and we were left with comedy again.

This was an enjoyable film with an up ending. Life ends and a new beginning starts.

thoughts on Labyrinth of Lies

This was a compelling story. The acting was good too. It didn't come off as cliche or overdetermined. I didn't know how it was going to end. When he quit his job as a prosecutor I thought that might be the end of the film. But he returns to his post and the film ends with the beginning of a trial of former Nazis. This is the third of good German films that have been screened in the US. I saw Phoenix which I thought was brilliantly done. Then I saw Victoria which is a bit hard to believe. Yet it was very avant garde and played to my sensibility of youth. The characters are all young guys and one young girl from Spain. It's story centers around a bank robbery gone horribly wrong. Tonight I watched Labyrinth of Lies. Another very good film that deals, like Phoenix, with the aftermath of the Holocaust.

In Labyrinth a young Lawyer sets out to investigate former SS for crimes committed at Aushwitz. He runs up against a myriad of obstacles. And after much research he finds out that so many people in Germany were Nazis to prosecute them all would be to indict most of the country. Yet he continues his quest to bring the war criminals to justice. Even though many people in Germany don't wish to know or look at the true extent of the crimes committed in the camps. The young Lawyer becomes obsessed with a Nazi doctor who did experiments on children. Unfortunately, the doctor gets away and dies in a swimming accident. Not in prison like he should have.

The film is a quick two hours. I enjoyed most of the film. The youthful post-War exuberance of the young characters is fun to watch. The lawyer and his friends always seem to be drinking and dancing. There is also talk of Germany as a young democracy. So much has been written about the Nazi period or Weimar. I think of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's The Marriage of Maria Braun which focuses on the immediate post-War years. And also his Berlin Alexanderplatz which is excellent. But I haven't seen any films about the prosecution of War criminals recently. Of course I've watched the Trials at Nuremberg. It's a classic. As is Spielberg's Schindler's List. I'm sure there are many more that I don't know of.

The point this film drills home is that so many people were complicit in Nazi crimes. How can they all be punished? Where does responsibility lie? With only Hitler and the higher ups? No. The foot soldiers were guilty too. And they had to be brought to justice. That's what this film shows. Germany's coming to grips with the extent of the Nazis crimes. It wasn't only Hitler, or the SS, it was also mechanics, bakers, and other people who carried out orders. They too are guilty.

Thoughts on Anna Karenina by Stoppard (film and screenplay)

The screenplay is 199 pages, but the film is only 2 hours, which means there were substantial cuts to the screenplay. Tom Stoppard wrote the screenplay so it is a bit hard to follow. Stoppard is one of the best, if not the best, dramatic writer working today. Last year I went to two of his plays which were being staged on Broadway at the roundabout theater. Indian Ink was comprehensible for me. The Real Thing I didn't get. Perhaps it was travel hangover or my penchant for distraction when I don't have my medicine. Anyway they were both great shows. This Fall I went to see Kiera Knightley in Therese Raquin. After I read the book and saw the play I thought I might pick up another Stoppard title. The screenplay did not disappoint. It was filled with detail yet long passage. It is filled with short scenes that cut rapidly from one to the next. It's level of detail was a little hard for me to grasp. I usually have trouble with details. I like to say I'm a big picture guy, let someone else handle the details.

The film is excellent. Too bad it didn't get any awards consideration. Knightley turns in another great performance. Count Vronski is memorable. The love affair reminds of Lady Chatterly in it's treatment of forbidden love. Of unbridled passion let loose. How scandalous it all was. Yet couldn't it have been solved? Didn't Anna have an alternative to suicide? I remember John Stuart Mill's courtship of a married woman in 19th Century England. He waited decades for his love to divorce and be with him only. I suppose the context was similar in Russia. Divorce was not accepted as widely as it is in contemporary times.

The costumes and setting are incredible. It won an Oscar for best costumes. But it was snubbed in other categories like adapted screenplay. The cinematography and set design were unique. The setting are all in a theater, yet in a neighborhood, or outside with snow on the ground. I thought it was a very unique setup. I didn't know when it was in the theater or outside in the forest. Of course I always knew when we were at Karenin's house. His character was pitiful. When I read the screenplay and it talked about how he uses a reusable condom I thought it was gross. Yet that was part of his character very responsible. Perhaps too responsible and that is what drove Anna into the arms of Vronski. Vronkski on the other hand is all for passion in life. Conquest of women, drinking with his army buddies, and strutting around in his calvary uniform, portray him as the opposite of Karenin.

It's a nice juxtaposition of character. And it is tragic that Anna chooses Vronkski because they can never marry under Russian law. Her end is also tragic. Perhaps one of the most tragic endings in history. Why can't she sleep? Why does she take morphine? Why doesn't she wait to go to the country? And why does she commit suicide? Too many questions. So tragic.

Thoughts about Truffaut Documentary The Man Who Loved Film

I've seen this documentary twice. It's a short look at the life of Truffaut. I read a biography of Truffaut that was more current and detailed. The film doesn't make any mention of his father being Jewish. The book does. Instead it gives an overview of Truffaut's life with many commentators, most of whom are British. The film must have been done in the 80's by BBC or something like it. I would have liked to see interviews from more people that worked with him extensively.

I was disappointed that Jean Pierre Leaud or Catherine Deneuve were not interviewed for the film. Truffaut was like a father figure for Jean Pierre. And Deneuve was Truffaut's greatest lover. Truffaut even suffered are major bout of depression after Deneuve called it quits. It would be interesting to hear their opinions about Truffaut since they are the ones who knew him at such critical points in his life

The film does go into Truffaut's untimely death from brain cancer at a relatively young age. The film left me wondering what Truffaut would have done had he lived longer. Would he have faded? Continued to produce auterist Cinema? Or would he have made more commercial products? My guess is he would have continued to make films that he liked. Film was his passion. The only thing he loved doing.

Lastly, I was left wondering whether he would have made up with Godard. They became bitter enemies after Godard attacked Truffaut's Day for Night which many consider his best film. I wonder if Godard was jealous of Truffaut's success? While Truffaut was making films like Day for Night Godard spent nearly all of the seventies in the "wilderness" not making films. It was only in the 80's that Godard became a filmmaker again with his film Every Man for Himself. They didn't speak for almost ten years so I suppose it's logical to think they never would have become friends again. Too bad.

Thoughts on Bed and Board by Truffaut

This was an interesting film in the Antionne Doinel series of films by Truffaut. It is a simple story. A man has a child then falls in love with a Japanese woman who he then breaks up with to go back with his French wife.

I was particularly taken aback by the beauty of the Japanese woman. I even started to think why does he go back to his wife rather then stay with Kyoko? Doinel dismisses her so easily. I thought it was a shame that he didn't stay with her.

The film is very French. There are numerous minor characters who give a distinctly French flavor. I liked how the film was set in a village within a big city. Everyone seemed to know everyone. The story develops slowly. Doinel plays a man trying to make a living by selling flowers. Eventually he does an experiment that goes awry and he must find a different job. This leads him to work for an American company. While at work he meets Kyoko. She loses a bracelet and when Doinel brings it back to her they fall in love.

It seemed like things were going well for Doinel until he meets Kyoko which exposes him to a different World. It would seem a no brainer to take up with Kyoko. Only she doesn't talk much. This causes Doinel to go back to his wife and they seem to live happily ever after.

Like the Soft Skin, this film is one of Truffaut's lesser appreciated films. It's enjoyable, but it's not great.

Thoughts about You Only Live Twice

I'm so reminded of controversies surrounding the Bond franchise. Especially this film. I read an article in the Japan Times which said that this film is hated by Japanese Feminists. I would really like to talk to Japanese feminists who don't like this film. I wonder exactly why they don't like it. Of course there is a lot of sexism. It portrays Japanese women as secondary and obedient to their male controllers. Like the character of Aki. She helps bond everywhere. She rescues him from near assasination twice. She plays a major role in the film. Then she is killed off by poison without any fanfare. Then, Bond takes up with another Japanese woman like Aki was never there to begin with. I guess they are special agents and people die in the adventure. But in the this film the women die first and often. I wonder if it's like that in all Bond films. Probably.

Aside from the sexism and cliche portrayal of Japanese women, the film follows traditional patterns of a Bond film. I was surprised to see that Roald Dahl had written the screenplay. I remember him as a novelist of the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. My oldest brother bought me the series one Christmas and I read them. That film has a lot of twists and turns, stunts and explosions, and sex. Yet it has a light air to it. It's almost comical how many times James eludes death in his pursuit of foiling the plot for World domination.

Bond is ridden with cliches and the story is almost always the same. Bond finds the bad guy. Bond foils the evil scheme. Bond ends up with the girl. If it is so ridden with cliches and bad writing, then why do people still watch? I would suppose it's for the action. For the intrigue. Isn't it fun to pretend your a secret agent working for MI6? And not only a secret agent, but the best one. The one who can't be defeated. Right. So?

You Only Live Twice is one of the better Connery Bond films. It was not a franchise low by any means. The franchise did reach a nadir in the late 70s when Connery was changed to Roger Moore. Then there was the Timothy Dalton Bond which many people didn't like. Yet the franchise seems to have turned it around with Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig.

The James Bond franchise has left an indelible mark on pop culture. I can only wonder at how many people pondered a life in service after seeing Bond films?

Thoughts about Truth

This film was a gripping newsroom drama. During the film I was reminded of All the President's Men which is a great film about the Watergate scandal. It also stars Robert Redford. Truth is about the military record of George W. Bush. Before the film I had wondered what happened to Dan Rather? I remember he stepped down from his anchor chair after the scandal. Truth fills in all the blanks and reveals how hard it is to be a journalist in the era of blogs and tweets.

The films best technique was when it showed Mary Mapes on the phone to Rather. Mapes was in Texas and Rather in New York. I really liked how it cut back and forth between the two places. Otherwise the film is not that great technically. The story is what drives the film. The wanting to know if the sources were solid. Wanting to know what would happen to Mary, Dan, and the rest of the crew really drew me into the film.

And I loved the characters who went on liberal rants. Especially Topher Grace. When he goes of on the TV executive about Viacom's control of the media market I felt like he was voicing a lot of the frustration that I and many others felt about the media in those days. The film is set in the days before facebook, twitter, and all the rest. Yet I think it speaks more to the point of doing journalism and searching for the truth when so much of the media is controlled by conglomerates who are concerned more with profit and market share than promoting a free media.

In the US there is freedom of speech. Yet as this film makes clear some of the freedoms lead to excess and hate speech. I really felt the Mapes character shows not only how a journalist works, but also as a female working in a male dominated industry. When she is chastised for bringing politics to journalism I wondered how fair that was. Doesn't Fox News bring in politics all the time? Isn't what they report on half truths and vituperative rhetoric? This was the era of George W. Bush. A time when journalists didn't have access to government. I remember Don Rumsfeld's treatment of the media. His famous statement about "unknown unknowns." When I watched that I wondered what was he talking about?

The film was great and I think Cate Blanchett should win some awards this year for her performance. Everybody was good; Redford as Dan Rather, Topher Grace as the struggling journalist, and Dennis Quad as the soldier in the trenches.

Sleeping With Other People, do I really wish I went to Columbia that badly?

The film could also be titled "I went to Columbia." There were promos for Columbia throughout the whole movie. And it really is just a college romp movie. I mean do we really need to be instructed about how to perform manual sex on a girl? Yet I liked some of the raunchiness of the film. I started to lose interest after the birthday party when the female protagonist starts to go out with the Tom Brady lawyer guy. I guess the writer felt like she had to get violent to save the script. Isn't it a little over the top? How likely would it be? Still, that was the best part of the film. The act of violence saved the movie from a boring, predictable ending. I didn't see the punch coming and I didn't see the two of them getting back together and getting married. Wasn't it sweet? A happy ending. Great.

Is this how relationships are? Do people sleep around while maintaining male-female friendships? It seems so. As a commentary on the dating scene in New York this film is right on point. When I lived in New York I had a terrible time meeting women. I went on a few dates, but never had as much fun as the male lead does in this film. Maybe I'm shy? Awkward? To hung up on old flames? Instead of Sex and the City, it was no Sex and the City.Of course that was back during the second term of the Bloomberg Administration. Perhaps things have changed? Perhaps not.

Anyway this film caused me to reflect back on a friend I had not too long ago. We did friend things, but it never evolved into a sexual relationship. She wanted to keep it platonic. I wanted more. Was I a pig for not being a friend without benefits? Maybe. I just didn't want to be the "guy friend." I wanted something more than just movie time and goodbye. We never talked about anything except movies or teaching. We were both grad students. She was in comparative lit and I was in screenwriting. We had things in common, but she just wasn't interested. Perhaps it's because she was German. I read somewhere that Germans aren't that interested in sex.

Anyway, after she told me she had a new boyfriend I told her I didn't want to keep being friends. This film got me thinking that maybe I gave up to easily. Maybe we should just be friends. Who knows? I haven't even tried tinder. I really should I hear it's a great hook up tool. But is that what I really want? What do I want? Am I obsessed with relationships and sex? No. I don't know what I'm obsessed with. It's not sex. I'm getting older. I'm 35. I'm not married and I don't have any kids. I'm still in school. Why do I put career first, then life? I think most people have to do that. This could go on forever. Just like this movie. I felt at a certain point that the film just went on and on. I wondered how it would end. Then the end came and I was happy it was over.

Great shots of New York. But not my favorite film.

Thoughts on Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice by Ozu

As usual with Ozu films this was a simple, yet intense film about Japanese family strive. It wasn't one of Ozu better films. I've seen Tokyo Story many times and that is definitely a better film. As is Floating Weeds. Green Tea Over Rice just doesn't have the creative shots and intense story that Ozu's other films have. Yet the story is still compelling enough to watch. The conflict is between a man and his wife who were arranged to be married. It seems like they have never been in love. By the end of the film they realize that they love and need each other.

The young girl who refuses the arranged marriage is the deepest character. She really represents modernity which seems to always be creeping on traditional values in Ozu's films. I liked her because she stood up against her mother and aunt. Even at the very end of the film she is standing up to a man who doesn't treat her right. I thought it was somewhat comical how she keeps slapping his hand away as they walk down the street.

Another thing I noticed about Ozu films and other films I watch is that Ozu doesn't use montage. He uses mise en scene, but no montage. And his mise en scene is brilliant as many critics have said. The shots of hallways and rooms is always so unique every time I watch an Ozu film. His style is very much his own and has never been duplicated.

This is one of Ozu's lesser known films, but it's a good film.

The General by Buster Keaton

Recently I started reading World Cinema again. I returned to basics and watched DW Griffith's A Corner in Wheat which is critical of Capital. Something Cinema has lost in it's post-War era. I also watched Chaplin by Attenborough and stars Robert Downey, Jr. It's a great film. Epic, dramatic, great. Anyway I went to Cinemapolis to watch The General as part of their silent film month. The director of the film museum gave a short speech. As did a historian. The film was about an hour and half and it was very dated in some parts. One part was when Buster Keaton grabs the Confederate flag and waves it bravely in battle. I don't know why it was so popular to sympathize with the South in film. Keaton does it here. As does Griffith in Birth of a Nation. And, perhaps the greatest film that sympathizes with the Southj, Gone With the Wind. Are these the only ones? I don't know. Of course things changed in the 60s and films changed with the times.

The film is entertaining. Even by today's standards the story and the effects still resonate. Even if they come off as simplistic in some parts. There is one scene where a thunder bolt strikes a tree. It is places like here that the film shows it's age and lack of sophistication. On the other hand the sequence of scenes surround the demolition of the bridge weren't bad. The comedy is played up. As is the drama. Johnny Gray finally gets his enlistment.

On Coming Home by Zhang Yimou

This was a touching film. I was entranced by the affection between Gong Li and the male protagonist. I felt the film really starts after his re-arrest. Up to that point is backstory. Yet the pace and poignancy of the sequence before they reach the train station, then at the train station is superb. The film then slows down and deals with the aftermath of that one day. Coming Home is a deep rumination about memory and loss. What we lose due to time or age and cannot be brought back. Except in this film it is the subject of the Cultural Revolution. Yimou doesn't directly address the politics of the Cultural Revolution. But I detected that he shows the Cultural Revolution in a very negative light. The government is manipulative of the teenage age girl. Another man from the government rapes Gong Li. The professor was sent away for more than a decade. These scenes are shown but not gone into or talked about much. Perhaps not since Farewell My Concubine does a film address the Cultural Revolution. In Concubine it is addressed only at the end of the film. Here it is the setting and the defining historical setting for the entire film.

The performances are phenomenal. I thoroughly enjoyed Gong Li as a woman who can't remember. Her performance was heartfelt and emotionally gripping. Several scenes were memorable. The scene in the beginning where the husband has escaped from a prison camp and returned home is great. He is standing outside. Not sure if he can go in. His wife is standing there with a Mao statue on a mantle the door in front of her. Yet she doesn't open the door to see who is there. Tears come to her eyes, she looks at the police agent outside her window, yet she can't open the door for her husband. In the time of Maoist extremism I'm sure there were many of these kinds of stories. In fact Deng Xiaopeng's son was pushed out of a window and permanently disabled by red guards. If China is a World power now, it certainly wants to forget the Cultural Revolution. Which is the point of the film. To move forward memories must be dealt with. The hang over of Maoist excess has never been thoroughly addressed by the government. And until it is addressed people like Gong Li's character will remain afflicted with memory loss and deep psychosis.

The other great scene is the railway station where Li's character goes to pick up her husband every 5th of the month. I think the use of it repeatedly brings forth it's emotional aspect. People stream over the train railing, but her husband never comes. Instead he turns into a letter reader and becomes a very good friend of her's. It also shows how traumatic the events of her husband's escape from a camp was. She can't move forward from those memories. Yet they are so painful she can't recall them.

Great film from a great director.

Thoughts on Time Out of Mind

I really enjoyed this film. I thought Richard Gere was very good. Do I think he should get an Oscar nom? I think so. From the scene where he is begging for change to sleeping on a park bench he really turns in an exceptional performance. When he was begging I couldn't even tell it was him. And his portrayal of his character's confusion and frustration are emotional and deeply felt.

I saw this film at the local Art House theater where I am group leader of Indie Movie night. It probably will not get much of a wide release which is sad. I even heard from the girl who runs the concessions and ticketing counter that the film wasn't doing so well even at the Art House venue. I don't know why it hasn't caught on to a wider audience. Perhaps it's the subject matter. Homelessness, addiction, a broken family, and mental illness are the subjects that surround Gere's character. As it does many homeless according to this film. I was amazed at what a homeless person has to do to get off the streets. So much buearucracy. So many things to put up with. It is a very real portrait of the homeless in New York.

I thought the film was great in every way. The performances were great, the sound was great, the cinematography was great, and, of course, the story was very strong. Particularly the sound. The film used diagetic sound through most of the film. All sound came from the film for the first hour and a half. Then Gere's character goes to the bar where his daughter works and songs from outside of the film's action start to play. It was interesting that the sound was presented in such a creative way. And the sound really sticks with you. The sound of sirens or homeless people arguing off screen really affect how an audience interacts with the film. The other unique part of the film is it's cinematography. There are many great shots in the film. From the opening shot of Manhattan from Queens, to the last one of a slow fade to black while George's daughter runs after him, the cinematography reflects the emotions of George and everyone else in the film. There are many askance shots. I was reminded of Ozu's films by many of the shots where it shows just part of Gere's face or head. Or from a longer view of Gere from inside of a cafe looking outward. Like an observer not part of the action. Or, perhaps, a person looking at homeless people. So many times I have looked at a homeless person in New York or Binghamton. And of course the thoughts come, why don't they get a job? Medical help? Why don't they get off drugs?

It is these questions that the film addresses. It shows that getting off the streets is not easy. There many obstacles to overcome to finally getting help and getting off the street. With rent prices so high in New York it's no wonder that there are so many homeless there. But, as the film shows, there are ways to getting off the street, ways to get medical help, and re-connect with family that you have become estranged to.

I felt the end of the film was hopeful. George is trying to re-connect with his estranged daughter. After a conflict, she runs after him. I was left feeling that they were going to work it out. Yet, his daughter also said they had tried several times before. Maybe this time will work out? I guess it is more important that they are trying and hopefully will get somewhere.

World Cinema; Chapter 3, Notes

So, I started reading, or re-reading, World Cinema by Sklar. It is a general overview of Cinema from it's beginnings with the Lumieres and Edison. It brings up the earliest stars and artists of Cinema. I just read the chapter about the 1910 to 1920 period. D.W. Griffith features large in the story. As does Cabiria an epic Italian production which influenced Griffith to make his opus Intolerance. I've seen both films. I can't remember how many years ago it was, four or five. I originally read World Cinema while taking a summer course in Media Art at the state school I live by. It was a basic class. After it was over I read the book from the end of WWII to the end of the book which is in the early 2000s. I've taken it upon myself to read the book from the very beginning to the end. A companion piece is Mark Cousin's The Story of Film. I've seen that one twice and started to watch it again last month. I've fallen behind on my schedule to watch that one again. I even start to anticipate what happens next in the film. I also started to re-watch Martin Scorsese's Journey Through American Films. I've also watched his Voyage to Italy. It's great to learn about some of the filmmakers who have influenced Scorsese. Documentary films usually provide some detail and theoretical ideas, but books seem to be best for that. At least the two Sklar books I've read; World Cinema and another one about American Movies.

Reading the World Cinema book turns me on to early Cinema again. The book references Carl Theodor Dryer who I really like even if he is on the dark side. His film about Joan of Arc is incredible. And I watched Dreyers' Days of Wrath too, which was also great. Anyway the book mentions Dreyers Book of Satan. Dreyer was so influenced by DW Griffith's Intolerance that he made a film like Intolerance. According to the book it has three story lines all concerning aspects of religious tolerance. I'm going to give the film a look. I'm sure it won't disappoint.

The other direction the World Cinema book pulled me was to Charlie Chaplin. Now that I consider it Chaplin and Dreyer are about as different as night and day. Dreyer deals with the occult and human sufferering while Chaplin is comic and satirical. I've seen one or two Chaplin films. Regrettably I haven't seen The Great Dictator. Only parts of it. Looks funny though. I have seen Chaplin the Richard Attenborough film starring Robert Downey, Jr.. That film is great. If I were to teach an American Film class I would like to screen Chaplin. He was such a complicated person and his life story is so remarkable. It's too bad there isn't a more authoritative biography on Chaplin. I've come across a few books that were not bad, but nothing that is deserving of Chaplin's stature in World Cinema. He was the first mega star reaching continents and countries like no actor had done before.

There is a rather short book about Chaplin that I might read. I've decided that I'm going to read a biography of DW Griffith first. Then, I was thinking Orson Welles. I don't know where the World Cinema book will lead me, but I'm interested to find out.

Thoughts on Truffaut Biography

This was a well written biography about Truffaut. It was so intimate I felt myself becoming Truffaut. As I read the passages about his tumultuous childhood I reflected on my own childhood and found it to be much different from his. What I remember most after reading the book is Truffaut's struggles. He had a difficult upbringing and he struggled all the way until The 400 Blows were released. After the enormous success of his first film things went better for him. Yet all was not settled. I found very interesting the passages about his relationship with Catherine Deneuve. I deeply sympathized with Truffaut after the couple's breakup. He was so distraught that he sought psychiatric help. This period of his life was also, perhaps, his best creatively. The late sixties and early seventies is when he was at the top of his game. The Soft Skin, Two English Girls, and Day for Night all were created during this period. Critical reception varied, but it was clear that Truffaut was a auteur filmmaker who would be remembered in film history books.

Of course there is the famous falling out with Jean Luc Godard. After reading a book about Godard, then this one about Truffaut, and seeing the film Two in the Wave, I should have an understanding of the rift which developed between the two filmmakers. Yet, I find myself wanting more. I have read excerpts or the entirety of the letters the two filmmakers exchanged and it became clear that they were bitterly divided. Godard's criticism were harsh and Truffaut's responses were equally harsh.

The details of how Truffaut made his films are probably the most interesting parts of the book. It took him years to get Fahrenheit 451 into production, then finish it. It's a film which Truffaut was never completely happy about. Like the other films he made in the early and mid sixties, Truffaut didn't like the results. I still think 451 isn't a bad film, but perhaps it was the difficulty in getting it made which caused Truffaut to not like it. There was also substantial discussion of Truffaut's flops. It seemed like he was always moving between success and failure. One film would do good box office and be well received. Then the next year it would be just the opposite. He would release a film that did minimal box office and wasn't well received by critics. For example Missisippi Mermaid was supposed to be a great success. It had stars Deneuve and Bel mondo and Truffaut directing it, but it failed to do much in terms of critical reception or box office. And this was the film where Deneuve ended her relationship with Francios. But then came his most prolific period where he turned his best work.

I suppose Truffaut's filmmaking career shows how the artist or filmmaker or writer seems to struggle personally while turning out his or her best work. Must we always struggle to produce good art? Or films in Truffaut's case? It would seem so. The hardest material often produces the best result. Steven Speilberg's Schindler's List deals with the Holocaust a terribly difficult time in human history. Yet it might be his best film. I'm sure there are other examples of artists struggling with personal crisis or the sinues of war and have produced excellent art.

Truffaut really did struggle, but he made some really great films. I am still mesmerized by Two English Girls. Especially the shot of the bed spread and it's red blood stain. I don't think I'll ever be able to forget that image, that scene.

It is too bad Francois didn't live longer. He seemed to be moving into another good period in his filmmaking until he came down with terminal brain cancer. He struggled with it for several months before it got the best of him. I almost cried when I knew he was going to die. Such a talent, such a story of struggle, failure, success. Truffaut should be remembered as man who overcame adversity many times to become a great success.

Thoughts on Sicario

This was a very violent film. There were tons of guns and shooting and killing. It was entertaining, but I kept asking myself was it based on true events? Especially the scene where del Toro puts the gun to the police woman's chin and forces her to sign the paper. It was a tense scene which I enjoyed. I just didn't know how believable it was.

The beginning starts with a bang. I'll try not to go into spoilers, but the gruesome discovery at a suburban house in Arizona was appalling. So many dead bodies buried in the walls. A scene like this is believable. I've read about some really gruesome things that the cartel does in Mexico. It's too bad it is spreading North to the southwestern US.

The setup concerns the policewoman. She's some kind of SWAT member who is chosen for an assignment to take down leaders of a cartel. Josh Brolin plays the contact and turns out to be CIA. The lead character goes through a lot of moral quandaries which I found a bit too much. Wouldn't she think it was her duty? Perhaps she was already overwhelmed with the violence of the drug wars. In this film she was not. And it proves her undoing.

The story reaches it's climax when Del Toro confronts a police man who is a trafficker, then catches up to a middle man in the cartel hierarchy, and finally on to the cartel head. It turns out Del Toro's character is from Columbia and may, or may not have ties to cartels there. Whatever his past he is on the side of law enforcement in the US. The end of the film brings his legality as a law enforcement person into question. I don't think anyone thinks that Del Toro's character is anything but a mercenary out for justice for what was done to his family. Yet the murder scene of the cartel head and his family is no less gruesome. It is vigilante justice. And Brolin is nowhere to be found.

The film was going along very good until the bar scene. I thought it wasn't that great. She somehow hooks up with a guy who is corrupt and works for the cartel. I thought the female character would have been stronger. And the way she falls for the guy is a little unbelievable. Then Del Toro comes to save her. This is when I started to think of the film more of an action film with Del Toro at the center rather then a hard look at the reality of cartel land. As it plays out Brolin was just using her anyway and her character becomes very weak indeed. Yet, what can she do? What can anyone do in the drug wars? It seems so hopeless. The film does emphasize that aspect. What can the government of the US or Mexico do to stop the drug trade, the murders, the utter brutality of the cartels and the law enforcement authorities who enforce the laws every day? It's a tough question. Sicario is a film which pushes the issue. What will be done is less certain.

There were some great shots of landscapes in this film. I really liked the shots of Juarez. Good film.

Thoughts on Citizen Kane, AFI's ranking system, Westerns, and Reds

I've seen this film several times. It does look old after all these years. Yet it still is the greatest film ever. The DVD ad at Barnes and Nobles even ranks the film as the best ever. It their ranking system Citizen Kane is number one. It's ahead of The Godfather and many others. I was dismayed when I walked through Barnes and Nobles tonight. I go there often and look at the DVDs for sale. A few years ago Barnes and Nobles was in difficulties. Now I don't hear any of that. And their DVD section near where I live is much improved. They now have two sections of Criterion Collection films which are some of the best films ever made. They also, in addition to the greatest American films section which I take with some objections, have a Western's section. I've seen plenty of those. The Searchers, Dances with Wolves, the Spaghetti Westerns, and other Clint Eastwood pictures. I haven't seen too many Jimmy Stewart Westerns. Maybe I should watch one. Who Shot Liberty Valance? That's a good start.

Now back to the reasons why I have objections to the Greatest film rankings at Barnes and Noble. It doesn't include Warren Beatty's Reds. Reds is an incredible film that won nine academy awards, yet it's not in the top 100 films ever made? It sounds like McCarthyism to me. No film about the Russian revolution? An American's vision of the tumultuous times in Russia?

I was confounded and depressed when I realized that the film had been omitted. I felt like it was a set back for liberal America. The area where I live is semi-rural and not very big at all. I guess it's a reflection of Barnes and Noble politics. Or rather it's AFI, or American Film Institute. That's who did the rankings. Perhaps it they who are being McCarthyistic. Is that even a word, "McCarthyistic." Sounds like a religious term or rather some political slogan that encompasses what the Republican party means these days. With the forced resignation of John Boehner who knows where the Republicans in Congress are headed. Do they really want a firebrand to control the House? I don't think a firebrand can work with the Oval Office and do anything except shut down the government. Then where will we be?

I guess I could complain, but if it's that obvious of an omission and they planned such an extensive ranking without including Reds I should stop going to Barnes and Nobles. Perhaps they are in a conspiracy to control what we watch, and that doesn't include a film that is openly Socialist. That's too bad. The AFI should be ranking a film for it's merit, not it's political content. If they don't like the film because it's Communist or Socialst that shouldn't prohibit them from ranking a film of such beauty and poetry. The film is also a love story. Why don't they get that? Jack Reed was an American. He was a great writer. It's too bad the AFI doesn't recognize true art.

The film was great as ever. The story is epic and everything looks marvelous. Greg Toland was the best, Orson Welles was great. I couldn't tear my eyes away from the screen..

Thoughts on Phoenix

This was a simple, yet complex film. It's style is very period piece. I am always reminded of Fassbinder when I watch a film set in the post War era of Germany. The Marriage of Maria Braun is set in the immediate aftermath of Germany's defeat and it's landscapes and set designs are similar to the ones in Phoenix. I wondered how did the production team create such landscapes this late in the history of Berlin? How did it look so bombed out when Berlin has become, even the area by the Berlin Wall, subject to property development? The costumes were also very period piece. The hairstyles, etc all made the film believable. Much like Fassbinder's Maria Braun. That too had settings and costumes that took the viewer back to the Jazz Age.

The lead character, Nelly, was exceptionally good in her role as the concentration camp survivor and former singer. Up until the end I was wondering if she would ever sing again. When she finally did, it was the climax of the film and the best scene in the movie. She sings a song which she knows all the words by heart in front of her ex-husband who divorced her and turned her into the Nazis. Now that she survived the camps she has inherited an estate. So her husband has designs on the fortune.

It becomes a cat and mouse game between Johnny and Nelly. There are some taut dramatic scenes in the film that, I thought, were well written. The dialogue or the lack of dialogue because what should be said is not come off as leaving me wanting more. Nelly has to conceal the fact that she is the ex-husband's wife because her face has been reconstructed and she doesn't look the same. Not only the dialogue and the settings, but the story is a strong one. It kept me glued to the screen. I, as I usually do, kept my clockphone out with me, and timed the film to it's very end which comes right after Nelly sings her song and is very abrupt. The film goes out of focus and Nelly has revealed to her ex-husband and what's left of her family that she did not die. That she lived. Her concentration camp marking and the fact that she knew the song by heart reveal the secret that she did so much to keep from her ex-husband.

It's a short riveting film. I enjoyed it. I wish it were longer.

Thoughts on Ozu's Tokyo Story

I've seen this film several times. The first time I had trouble getting through it. I don't think I understood the depth of the story. It is a simple visual style that brings you in to the small World of the elderly couple visiting Tokyo. It is too bad that their children are all to busy to show them around Tokyo. Then story delves into themes that Ozu deals with in many of his films. Ancestor worship, the conflict between a modernizing Japan and it's agrarian past. Clearly the parents are from a rural area that is undergoing the process of industrialization. There are a number of scenes that show the factories humming along, billowing smoke, and of course the train runs through the middle of the village. It is these changes that the elderly couple and all of Japan confront in this story. Further into the story the subject of the War is touched on, but not too deeply explored.

At first I thought the first daughter who operates the beauty salon was evil. She comes off as very selfish and mean. Then, after her father gets drunk, and it is revealed that he has a past history of alcohol abuse, I changed somewhat my opinion. Perhaps the father was a drunk who neglected or even abused his children. The death of the second son is not revealed in the film at all. The audience is left guessing about what happened to him. Did he die in the war? Some accident? We do not know. Yet the widowed daughter in-law seems to suffer the most. She can't remarry she is still beholden to her dead husband's family. By the end of the film and her dialogue to her former father in law I got the impression that she was suffering from depression. She felt wronged by her husband's death and now was alienated by modern Japanese society. Her life in Tokyo was unfulfilling. She seemed hopeless. The smile she wore on her face dissipated by the end of the film. She was left in tears. I really started to feel for her at the end of the film.

The simplicity of Ozu's mise en scene is well documented. His style is so unique. I was measuring where the center of a shot of Ozu's was. It put the character's center at around their waistline. I felt like I was always looking up to the characters onscreen. Sometimes I was in pure awe of the mise en scene. It was like looking at a painting. Especially the shots of the rooms. The camera was framed to include just the room. It didn't pan in to do a close-up. Yet it did do a reverse technique that had read about. Ozu would bring the camera around to the complete opposite side of the character while they were talking. This was somewhat disorienting, but it still worked.

Tokyo is on my bucket list of places to go to. I've read that it is a bustling megatropolis with fun and amuzement aplenty. I would very much like to the places I have only seen in films or art books. And of course I would get to somewhere that Ozu, Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, or other masters of Japanese cinema shot films, wrote films, and discussed films. It would be worth the trip.

Thoughts on Wong Kar Wai's In the Mood for Love

I first encountered this film while I was living in Shanghai and teaching English. I was a full time ESL teacher with four sections of High School Freshman and two sections of tech school students. It was the first time I had a job that paid decent in the local living standard. It was my first full time teaching job. It was low responsibility. I could teach in the late morning and early afternoon then have the evenings to myself. I also had Fridays off which meant I could watch films and drink wine on Thursday nights before going to the museum or art district or film on Friday or Saturday. Shanghai is a big city and the center for culture and arts for the mainland. It was in Shanghai that I went to my first film festival. It was an Australian film festival. The films weren't bad. The films were screened in old style cineplex with multiple screens but the outside of the building was preserved to look like a 30s or 40s film theater.

In Shanghai back in 2005-2006 there were movie stalls all over the city. The government cracked down on some of the piracy but it still continued much to my pleasure, but probably to the disdain of filmmakers and others who didn't get any profit from the pirated DVDs. There were several spots you could buy DVDs. In particular there was a dealer right near the bus I would ride from the library to where I lived just over the bridge from the old French concession in Shanghai. There, while waiting for the bus I would browse the DVDs and almost always buy a few. By the time I left Shanghai I had accumulated a collection of DVDs some of dubious character and quality. Yet it was these DVDs which lasted for me through most of grad school and up to the present.

My cinephilia began in ernst while I was teaching in Shanghai. I had an apartment all to myself and my love of movies took a turn in a more serious direction. It was here that I began to shed that discrimination of literary snobs who put down Cinema as not a serious art form. It was here that I could watch films every day, and write criticisms, and think about how I was going to work in the film industry and make films.

It was an exciting time to live in China, and, perhaps even more so in Shanghai. It was where things were happening. The economy was booming and some rights had been tolerated since Tianamen. As a foreigner I could mingle with other foreigners or Chinese from Shanghai or from other provinces. It was easy to meet people. Unlike other places I've been where it was hard for me to meet anyone. There was an online website called SmartShanghai. It listed all the happening that were going on in Shanghai that week. It also had a dating section where you could find people to meet for coffee or a drink or dinner. It was a fun time, but now that I have been back in the state for ten years I'm mostly reminded of the things I left behind to spend time in China. Those friendships which never quite recovered from the gap year I did in China. I think some of my friends didn't like the fact that I went anywhere but the good ol' US. My motives were clearly complicated, and it would be an argument. Yet I wanted to see the big World, to go where things were happening. Not be stuck in a small provincial town which seemed to me a dead end.

The film is like that. In the Mood for Love captures a time, a place, a feeling. The couples are suspicious of their partners and become friends to support each other. There is a lot about In the Mood for Love that is great. This time I watched the film I noticed the Ozu like cinematography. The slow sequences with music were great, but the scenes where the inside of the apartment is shown are also great. It showed Maggie Cheung sitting in a hallway having a glass of something in a shadow. There I was reminded of Ozu's penchant for shooting askance shots from a different angle. There were also many shots of shoes moving or head shots quickly focused. And of course the Qi Paos were so period piece. I couldn't get over the colors and patterns.

Some day I'll go back and see if all the things I loved to got are still there. Some day.

Thoughts about New York in the Fifties

This is a short documentary about NYC in the fifties literary scene. It was before the entry of film or TV and of course not the Web. It's not that great, but it shows a time period that is interesting to anyone with a literary bent. The author is Dan Wakefield who moves from Indiana to New York to study at Columbia. It talks about the literary foment of talent during a time when New York became the center of the art world. Norman Mailer was a big influence and critical voice during these times. It talks about the culture of three martini lunches and Greenwich Village which was and perhaps still is the center of bohemian life in the States.

The film stirs in me memories of my time spent as a graduate student in Queens at SJU. It wasn't NYU and not Columbia but I empathize with Wakefields feelings of awe when he first went to Greenwich Village. I'm from Upstate which is not as far off as Indiana, but to a native New Yorker it might as well be. Anything west of the Hudson or North of the Tappen Zee is "hick" country to New Yorkers. I took the F train into Manhattan from Queens. It took about a half hour to reach Manhattan. I would watch the stops with nervous anticipation until it turned into Manhattan. It was another thirty minutes until the train reached West 4th street which was in the center of the West Village. I don't know how it was in Wakefield's time but I found myself spending more of my time in the East Village. It was wear the Indie movie theaters were and cheap eats could be had.

I remember the first time I went out in the Village. I was at a place called the Sullivan room which was an underground club that played techno music. I was trying to reach out to other influences that weren't to be found in Binghamton, Upstate where I was from. The music was loud and new. Certainly different from anything in Binghamton. I ended up really drunk on the F train back to Queens. When I left the club there were people all over the Village. To my surprise it had been the Gay Pride day in New York. It was quite an experience. One that I'll never forget.

That first semester of Grad school I almost didn't make it to the next semester. I had misplace a paper and received an incomplete as a grade. Luckily the department allowed me to resubmit the paper and I got an A. Also that first semester I lost it in front a professor and was almost thrown out of school. I had failed out of Law School and I had a lot of baggage from that experience. I was so crazy with the idea that I had to get a perfect GPA and become a professor that it drove with over the edge. Eventually I found my way into a counselor and extensive psychological counseling to deal with the stress of Grad school and my past which I just couldn't come to terms with. I graduated with honors and moved onto a degree in teaching which didn't work out for me. Now I'm studying screenwriting something that I've always wanted to do.

I feel I found my way to some degree. I'm getting a degree in writing which is what I've always wanted to do. From my earliest childhood memories I wanted to be a writer. Yet, I get so stressed that it won't work out. I fear I'll be homeless or bankrupt or unemployed all those years at university wasted with big debts. I think of going back to New York. But it's so expensive. And my father is older. He will turn 70 this year. I don't know what I'll do. It seems everyone I know has gotten on well, except me. It seems that everything I do is a failure. What have I done? Why go to school? Is it really necessary? I can't stand thinking all of this. Yet I can't get away from it.

Thoughts on 5 to 7

This was  a kitchy French romance that turned out to be not that bad in the end. The story was an interesting one, but I couldn't help but think this is what the French government wants us to watch. An Aristocrat's wife has a deleance wiht an aspiring young writer. Yet she gives him the slip when he tries to get serious. Leaving the ruling class to their wealth and privilege and the writer to a career as a writer with a middle class family that he seems a little too content with. I was taken aback at how the aristocrats use and discard people who serve their sexual needs but refuse to allow their emotions and their bank accounts get drawn into sordid affairs. It's hypocrisy that allows the elite of France to do as they please while taxing the populace. I've been reading Michel Houellebecq, so I'm sure his criticism of Liberal French society have influenced my views.

In my view the film simply promotes the status quo in France. It is fine to have sexual affairs without reprimand. That's just how they do it in France. Which is acceptable if you are French, but as would have it the French in this film want everyone to bend to their needs. And when their needs are met they can discard you like the trash. The lead actress in this film fits the description of what I've said. She makes promises to the young writer, then when it comes time to decide she can't leave her life of wealth and privilege to runaway with the young writer. She chooses her family, but more importantly her wealthy husband. It wasn't so obvious what she would do. That I liked about the film. It kept me guessing as to how it turn out. Yet all along I had the impression that she was not leaving here diplomat husband. I thought right as she doesn't leave.

I thought the last scene was despicable. Here is the writer, balding, looking like Mr. Rogers from Sesame street, greeted by his mistress and her husband who haven't changed a bit. I thought to myself that it is further hypocrisy. They should have at least aged a bit. Perhaps they should have split up. But again, as is so often the case in French culture, the elite win. They have perfect lives that are completely bourgeois. I've seen it in Madame Bovery. And it happens in Les Mis. The status quo is preserved and nothing changes.

Thoughts on Ten Thousand Saints

I saw this film as part of the Indie Film Night at the Art House theater near where I live in upstate New York. I really liked it. The characters had depth and nuance and the story was interesting. Although it was geared towards more of an adolescent audience it still ruminated with me. I really identified with the teen characters and the struggles they had to deal with in the film.

I really like the teenage girl. She was very heartfelt and stole the show from her male teen counterpart and even from the star Ethan Hawke. The problems she had to deal with were hard. She was pregnant, addicted to drugs, and without a father. She also had an overbearing mother who wanted to control her in every way. I really think she showed the troubles that many young teen girls go through during that tough period between childhood and adulthood. Her male counterparts also revealed how difficult teen years can be. Fed up with school, willing to do anything for a release from the troubled times they endure, they couldn't find peace. And their lives end up as disjointed as their parents lives.

I liked this film because it shows teen issues frankly. The characters in this story are everyday people. A hippie mom, a derilect dad, some teens into punk, they are real. You can think of someone you know or even yourself to find a common identity with these characters. So much in film you find characters who aren't real. I was particularly taken with the characters and will be discussing it in my next screenwriting group.

In fact this story starts out as the story of the teen boy. He finds his father in the greenhouse after he has just been found out as a cheating husband. Then the arc of the story follows the young teen guy and his friend who huff some air conditioner liquid, at least I think that's what it was, and his best friend freezes to death. At this point we are still on the teen boy.

It is only with the revelation of Eliza's pregnancy that the story switches over her and she become the driving character in the film. She moves the story forward. Finally, she has the baby and the teen boy is willing to support her.

For whatever reason I was reminded of John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath at the end of the film. It is one of my favorite books. I was watching the film and the end of the novel came to me. It is where the old man is given the woman's breast to suck on for nourishment. It seems that the end of Saints is similar. Humans will find themselves in difficult situations. To survive they must compromise and above all help each other. It is the only way we can survive and move forward without depression or worse.

Thoughts on The Last Metro by Truffaut

This film was interesting. I liked the acting. Denueve and Depardieu make it watchable. The ending is just. No one gets violently murdered like I was expecting. I was expecting the husband to get found out. Yet, there was no big scene where he is found by the Gestapo and turned over to a concentration camp. I thought he might, but, since I haven't watched many Truffaut films, I didn't expect that everyone gets away from a violent death at the end of the film. Even the Nazi critic who threatens to take away the theater from Deneuve gets off without a violent death. Paris is liberated and the theater exists freely.

The film follows a structure. The first act sets up the conflict between the hiding theater director and the Nazis who are threatening to discover him. It transitions nicely with a subplot of a lesbian affair that adds some sex appeal to the film. The show goes on and the Nazi critic gives it a bad review which causes quite a stir. Depardiue responds in the beginning of the third act by beating up the Nazi critic. I thought at that point that Depardiue would be taken into custody. But the film does not end there. The climax occurs when the Gestapo comes for the husband. In a mad dash Denueve and Depardiue save the husband and stave off Nazi oppression.

In the end the husband survives and returns to the theater. And Depardieu and Deneuve end up having a brief tryst which I was expecting from the start. When I saw both of them onscreen I thought that something would happen between them. And finally it does.

This film was good but not great. Certainly nothing like the 400 Blows. But why should i compare it to a film from another decade. And reasonably from another era. The costumes and set designs were great. I really felt I was in 40's Paris. The women's hairstyles were tres chic and totally 40's. Of course they had their hair done in bobbs.

The film portrays Nazi aggression as too passive. The Nazis were evil. Yet the French were not innocent in their collaboration with the Nazis. Truffaut, in the biography I'm reading about him, says that there was no unified front against the Nazis in Paris or France. It, like the film in some ways, goes against the myth that all of France were active in the resistance and fought like hell to save the Jews and others from the camps. This film only gently touches that issue. When I watched the film and was thinking about the Nazi occupation of Paris I remembered Casablanca. The classic film about resistance fighters united against Nazis. Perhaps that film has mythical status. All of the French united against the Nazis and going to the limit to free a Jewish scientist, it shows that there are cracks in the myth of French unity against the Nazis. Even Jacques Chirac publicly admitted to some French being complicit in the Nazi occupation.

I should do more research in this area. I don't know all of the specifics. I wonder how many French people aided the Nazis and to what extent. I have read a book about the Nazi plundering of French art museums, galleries and private collections and it seems that there is some dispute about who was bold enough to confront the Nazis.  I should hope that I would stand in such a situation.

Thoughts on Ivan's Childhood

The beginning and end of this film were great. The in between was slow and drab. There is little action that occurs in between the end and beginning. And by the end of the film I just kept thinking to myself that it was approved by the Communist party of Russia. It falls in line with the usual declarations of the Soviet Union about the glorious war won against the Nazis. The ending jumps a little too quickly to the bunker where the Nazi leadership committed suicide. I thought that the plot should have made more of what happened to the soldiers.

Yet the films jumping from reality to dream to memory were very good. And the young boy Soviet spy dying in the end was unnerving. Still I think the film veers more into propaganda with some art sequences thrown in for entertainment. I can't imagine what Tarkovsky had to deal with in getting the film produced and screened in the Soviet Union. Censorship must have been heavy.

It is Tarkovsky's first film. I have also watched Andrei Rublov which is set in Medieval Russia. I didn't find that film all that great. I liked this film better. And I'm interested to see what Tarkovsky's other films are like that don't have the heavy hand of Soviet censorship weighing on it.

Russia is a great county. Yet merely ignoring the nuances of it's past don't yield art, it yields propaganda. And I disagree with Orwell's statement that all art is propaganda. Art is something more than propaganda. Ivan's Childhood is part art and part propaganda. I'm interested to see more Tarkovsky films and how they are produced under the auspices of the Russian censors.

Comparison of Cinematography; Chapman's Raging Bull and Storaro's Apocalypse Now

This was a difficult decision. Which is better the cinematography from Raging Bull or the camera work from Apocalypse Now. They are both great. The fighting scenes from Raging Bull are unrivaled. I've seen Rocky, all of them, and the recent Southpaw, and neither of them lives up to the shots from Raging Bull. The fight scenes are incredible. The blood goes everywhere, the punches hit hard and you feel every impact. It's too bad Chapman had to go up against Storaro and what he did in Apocalypse Now. I made a presentation about Storaro's cinematography in Now, Reds, and Emperor. All of which are excellent. In fact I was kind of an acolyte of Storaro. I thought he was the best. But Chapman is not to be outdone. I wonder what the vote count was like leading up to the awarding of the Cinematography Oscar that year. It must have close. At least I think it should have been.

I don't which is better Brando's head in the shadows or De Niro's vicious hooks to his opponents heads. The camera in Apocalypse is steadier. It stays in place and capture every movement in the silohette of Brando and Sheen. The camera in Bull is fluid; it moves around the ring, back and forth, punch after punch. I was thoroughly taken with the last shot in the ring. A boxing ring rope with blood slowly dripping onto the ground as the results of the fight of read out loud. You know La Motta lost, and you see the blood spilled in the ring. But he never went down.

I think Storaro's style was more classical. And Chapman's had a lot of contemporary influences. In documentaries I have watched about filmmaking Chapman talks about how he was influenced by the New Wave and directors like Godard with their handheld camera, on the go shooting style, and the use of real settings. So I guess I think Chapman should have won the Oscar instead of Storaro that year. Yet they were both great. I don't think anyone has rivaled either one. Both use human faces, human bodies as their subjects. They show humanity in a light that reveals emotion and adds to the plot.

Still even though I may side with Chapman, Storaro uses light and shadow in Apocalypse better than any other film I've seen. I return again and again to the shots of Brando's shaved head, dripping water over it, and moving from dark to light.

Maybe they should have given the award to both of them and declared it a tie.

Bedroom Scene from Breathless

When I told my fellow classmate from my screenwriting degree that sometimes I just watch scenes he said I should watch whole films instead. He's probably right. But I still watch scenes from films I like. Sometimes I just don't have the time or energy to watch a whole film for two or more hours. So, I decided to blog about one of my favorites scenes from a film I've watched numerous times. The film is Breathless by Godard and the scene is the bedroom scene. I usually pick it up from right when Jean Seberg walks into her apartment and catches Jean Paul Belmondo sleeping in her bed and avoiding the police.

I don't know why I like the scene so much. I guess it's because it's romantic, yet comical, yet dramatic. Bel Mondo is hiding from the police after killing a motorcycle cop. He is out of money and trying to track down some guy who owes him. The film is one of the longest film takes in cinema history. Shooting the film was done on a shoestring. The only ones in the room were Belmondo, Seberg, Godard, and his cinematographer Raoul Coutard. There were no lights or anything like that and the script girl had to stand outside until the shoot was done

The whole scene lasts about twenty four mintues a very long time for an art film like Breathless. Yet I find it watchable. Over and over again it still has resonance. The dialogue is fresh and poignant. Each scene within the scene is different and concerns a different aspect of the relationship between Poiccard and Patricia. Poiccard is insistent that they sleep together. Patricia resists. It goes on back and forth until they finally sleep together. I love the scene where Belmondo says that "this is franco-American reproachment." Makes me smile everytime.

The scene is also slow, much slow then the rest of the film. There are a few cuts, but it develops slowly as if they had all the time in the world. Too bad Seberg betrays Belmondo in the final scene. During the bedroom scene it seems that all is well with the world. Lovers in love, with no apprehensions about the future.

I get stuck in this scene. I lose track of time and space. It's like I'm in the bedroom with them. That's the best part of Cinema, losing yourself in it.

Thoughts about Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation

I think Tom Cruise must crazy. The scene with him hanging out of the airplane is very dangerous. It definately gets the blood rising. I saw the Mission Impossible where he hangs outside of skyscraper in Shanghai and I was thoroughly breathless during that scene. I heard somewhere that he didn't use cables or a safety net for the shot. Pure insanity!

Admittedly I haven't seen every installment of the Mission Impossible series. Yet I found myself comparing it to the long list of Bond films that I have seen, some of them multiple times. I wondered is this lighter than the current Bond incarnation? How is it like Bond? Different? After I got over that I began to think about where the film would go. How would Tomcat find a way to complete the Mission Impossible? There were several missions that had to be completed and each was tense. Yet, I found there to be a lot of "techieness" to the film. When they are planning to dive into the centrifuge subsumed into water I got a little bored. The scene at the Opera house was compelling. The centrifuge scene does pick up. Especially when Tomcat loses the special cards and he is forced to use one that is not guaranteed to work. While that's happening he is gasping for air. It is only when he is saved by the double agent that we are released from tension.

The motorcycle sequence is very action packed. But, I noticed as screenwriter, that there was little dialogue. Then I thought that the end of the film would be some kind of collabortive effort to save the British Prime Minister, secure the data, and catch the leading bad guy. I had  a good general idea, but it lacked much of the detail that occurred. I didn't see the big face reveal with Cruise behind the mask and I didn't predict that the syndicate was a program founded by British intelligence. Those were plot developments which made the film worth staying for.

The film is a solid action film. The political wrangling and intrigue make watchable franchise edition. I read that they are already talking about the sixth edition. They could market it as MI6. Maybe the Bond franchise would sue?

Thoughts about Southpaw

I was watching Southpaw and I thought to myself that an alternate title to the film could be the downfall and ressurection of Billy Hope. The stasis moment comes after he has defended his title, living in a large house, with nice cars, a pool, etc. and he is giving a speech to raise money for orphans. Everything is perfect. Until Billy can't ignore an insult and is drawn into a fight which ends his wife's life, brings his boxing career to end, and eviscerates him completely. After he loses his title he is shown weeping in a shower with nothing but his boxing socks on. He looks pitiful. He later crashes his car and loses his daughter and mansion.

Here I thought Billy Hope is at his low. He has fallen from Olympus. Then I thought, how is the screenwriter going to get him back to the top of Olympus? What will Billy go through to regain his title and his daughter? I started to think of the redemptive hero. I drew a parallel to the story of Jesus coming back from the dead. Billy dies, then, with the help of Forest Whitaker, he comes back to life to take the title and get some kind of satisfaction for his wife's murder.

The final fight gives a "hollywood ending." There is both a knockout blow and a tension filled reading of judges scorecards. Finally Billy wins. His daughter cheers. All of the plot points are resolved.

I couldn't help thinking back to when my uncle Joe Pat used to order the "fights" on pay per view. I remember watching "Marvelous" Marvin Hagler vs. Sugar Ray Leonard. I had a VHS tape of it. I watched it at least once. I must have been eight or nine years old. I guess my uncle would follow boxing in the New York Post or Daily News. He used to read the city tabloids in his t-shirt and boxer shorts. His chair faced the TV. My great uncle would sit opposite him and my aunt would have a chair that looked askance at the TV.

Another aspect I noticed about the film is that all the dominos fell in a row. In screenwriting screenwriters talk about dominos falling in a row. In Southpaw all the dominos fall in a row, one after the other. It also follows the three act structure. The first act ends with Billy Crashing his car and ending up in police custody. The second act ends when he gets Whitaker to be his trainer for the big fight. The end of the movie show Billy with his daughter having won back the title.

As with all movies there are some glaring points of contension about the believability of the film. How could a white guy win a major title in boxing these days? etc. etc.

Southpaw is a solid story. Well written and not too predictable. Even though I knew Billy would win. I just didn't know how far he would fall.

Francois Truffaut's The 400 Blows

I've seen this film numerous times. And every time I watch it, I think of new things. It goes to show you that watching and re-watching films can lead to new perspectives about an old film. The 400 Blows isn't that old, yet it does have a definite New Wave sensibility which I suppsose is getting dated with the passage of decades.

Of course this film is about the horrible childhood Francios Truffaut endured living in Paris in meager circumstances. The film is decidely low tech. There are many tracking scenes which were done with cutting edge, at the time, cameras. Undeniably, this film's ending has endured for years with several, perhaps even more, filmmakers stealing the ending.

I particularly like the ending with it's stop motion shot. It captures the freedom and fragility that the main character feels at the time of the shot. His face is anguished, yet free. Youthful, but full of anxiety.

The film is great today as it was in it's release, winning the top prize at Cannes Film Festival. I've taken a vow to study more of Truffaut's films. Of course I had seen the 400 Blows, who hasn't? I think any serious student of World Cinema has seen the 400 Blows. It's a film which set of the tide of the New Wave and launched the careers of not only Truffaut, but also Jean Pierre Leaud.

Over the Summer, or what's left of it, I hope to watch more Truffaut films and blog about them. Blogging helps me to write my script. It stirs up ideas and emotions which are the lifeblood of screenplays and films. I'm looking forward to watching Day for Night which will be released on Criterion this Summer.