imdb widget updated

The widget label is self-explanatory; for the first 15 see here. A few brief comments on these films, most of which were good enough to make the other list if there had been room:

1. Ballad of a Soldier

An excellent companion to The Cranes are Flying from the other list. Let's all lobby Criterion to bring out more Russian stuff.

2. Cafe Lumiere

Hou Hsiao-Hsien in Japan. Nice.

3. Triad Election.

Hard-boiled HK mob film from Johnny To. This is actually the second one (the first one's just called Election) but it stands on its own. Might as well start with the first one, though, which is also good.

4. Offside

Sly social commentary, Iran-style. (And you thought they didn't allow such things over there.) Interesting interview with director Jafar Panahi on the DVD.

5. Black Book

Just missed the last cut. Carice van Houten is spellbinding as a Dutch resistance fighter in WWII. (I saw a lot of WWII films last year!)

6. Army of Shadows

Here's another one, from France this time. Very different tone though (as one might expect from Melville). Strange poster on the widget!

7. Stray Dog

This one's about a WWII veteran. Early Kurosawa, with Toshiro Mifune.

8. Leaves From Satan's Book

Dreyer's answer to Intolerance.

9. Aura

Falls down on a key plot point, but it's got a nice noirish mood and Ricardo Darin's incandescent star power.

10. The Science of Sleep

Gael Garcia Bernal as a shy nerd with an active fantasy life. Quirky and charming (but don't let that scare you off).

11. Volver

I never liked Almodovar's early films, but recently he's been very consistent. Someone at one of the local libraries likes Penelope Cruz a lot!

12. Tarnation

A son's video tribute to his dying mother. Some reviewers revile this film for its self-indulgent narcissism, but that's what the film is about: a self-indulgent narcissist's inability to keep from moving the subject back to himself, even when he's supposedly making a film about his mother. Very creative, if also fracked up.

13. The Fallen Idol

Possibly annoying if you let the kid get to you, but Ralph Richardson is great. Oblique spoiler: someone gets Gettiered but good.

14. Richard III

Olivier as the not-that-misshapen anti-hero. Some textual liberties are taken; I swear I heard Richard say something early on about "murd'rous Machiavel," which would be somewhat anachronistic (not to Shakespeare, but to Richard at least). Richardson's in this one too (stealing every scene he's in).

15. Rebels of the Neon God

Early Tsai Ming-Liang.

Postmodern captain

Recent visitors to this site will notice the lack of activity here, but I haven't been entirely absent from the 'sphere, as we have been having a rousing conversation about Philosophical Investigations §122, among other things, at other locales (see here, here, here, here, and here). In general, if you drop by here looking for me, if I'm not here I may be over at these or a few other places (virtually speaking). Still, even so, I am remiss in not contributing anything more substantive than a few comments from the virtual peanut gallery. We'll get to those things soon enough, I hope, but for now here's an interesting tidbit from a book I read recently which was made up (almost?) entirely of untruths.

Post Captain is the second book in Patrick O'Brian's series of naval historical novels set in the Napoleonic wars era (thanks to the Crooked Timber crew for the recommendation). Toward the end, Dr. Stephen Maturin is at the opera, but he finds it "poor thin pompous overblown stuff" and cannot enjoy it:

A charming harp came up through the strings, two harps running up and down, an amiable warbling. Signifying nothing, sure; but how pleasant to hear them. Pleasant, oh certainly it was pleasant [...]; so why was his heart oppressed, filled with an anxious foreboding, a dread of something imminent that he could not define? That arch girl posturing upon the stage had a sweet, true little voice; she was as pretty as God and art could make her; and he took no pleasure in it. His hands were sweating.

A foolish German had said that man thought in words. It was totally false; a pernicious doctrine; the thought flashed into being in a hundred simultaneous forms, with a thousand associations, and the speaking mind selected one, forming it grossly into the inadequate symbols of words, inadequate because common to disparate situations – admitted to be inadequate for vast regions of expression, since for them there were the parallel languages of music and painting. Words were not called for in many or indeed most forms of thought: Mozart certainly thought in terms of music. He himself at this moment was thinking in terms of scent.

[Suddenly, from his box Stephen espies, in the crowd below, the woman whom he has been chasing for more than four hundred pages, with little success – only just enough, in fact, to maximize his frustration.]

Stephen watched with no particular emotion but with extreme accuracy. He had noted the great leap of his heart at the first moment and the disorder in his breathing, and he noted too that this had no effect upon his powers of observation. He must in fact have been aware of her presence from the first: it was her scent that was running in his mind before the curtain fell; it was in connection with her that he had reflected upon these harps.

I find this (like a lot of things in good literature, now that I think of it) phenomenologically astute but philosophically naive. Certainly the idea of "thinking [only] in words" suggests a crude picture indeed, of the sort (rightly or wrongly) attributed to artificial intelligence types – and which provokes phenomenologically-motivated accusations of a "myth of the mental" (e.g. in Dreyfus) and calls for recognition of "non-conceptual [mental] content" (not, as I understand it, to be confused with "qualia" – but maybe I'm the one who is confused).

Surely, we feel, our minds – and our experiences – contain more than words. That our hearts leap and our breaths catch, or that our (verbal) thoughts are affected, subtly or otherwise, by bodily phenomena and multifarious subconscious associations cannot be denied. The faculty of language – the "speaking mind" – is only one of many contributors to the experiential makeup of our conscious selves. It is natural to reach, as we all do at times, for an image of trying, and often failing, to "put into words" something which must perforce exist "outside" language but which is still part of our experience. Still, I would resist the idea that there are "thoughts" antecedent to their linguistic manifestations, or that music and other arts are "parallel languages" which can communicate thoughts which (what we would have to call, now non-redundantly) "verbal language" cannot. (Or as my undergrad professor put it, when I spoke of the sort of experiences Stephen here discusses: "why do you want to call these things 'thoughts'"?)

Let's look first at the idea that words are (language is) "inadequate because common to disparate situations." This has been a common refrain in philosophy from the Greeks through Derrida. Here's another German on the matter, writing some seventy years after Stephen's night at the opera, but one hundred years before the real-life author of Stephen's ruminations:

Every word immediately becomes a concept, inasmuch as it is not intended to serve as a reminder of the unique and wholly individualized original experience to which it owes its birth, but must at the same time fit innumerable, more or less similar cases—which means, strictly speaking, never equal—in other words, a lot of unequal cases. Every concept originates in our equating what is unequal. No leaf every wholly equals another, and the concept "leaf" is formed through an arbitrary abstraction from these individual differences, through forgetting the distinctions; and now it gives rise to the idea that in nature there might be something besides the leaves which would be "leaf"—some kind of original form after which all leaves have been woven, marked, copied, colored, curled, and painted, but by unskilled hands, so that no copy turned out to be a correct, reliable, and faithful image of the original form. ("On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense", The Portable Nietzsche, p. 46)

Nietzsche scholars like Clark hurry to point out that Nietzsche later abandoned his youthful skepticism about truth (the oft-quoted subsequent paragraph in "Truth and Lie" tells us that "truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are"), reminding us that this essay was a) published only posthumously, and b) written some 15 years earlier than his most mature writings (an eternity in Nietzsche-time). Still, even here the point is not to accept but to reject the idea that the origin of our concepts means that there is some more perfect reality which (due to their humble origins) they necessarily fail to capture. This is an anti-skeptical point, one which Nietzsche retained throughout his career.

But let's turn back to the properly skeptical point with which this anti-skeptical point is easily conflated (one which later Nietzsche does reject). Even if the Platonic Leaf is an illusion, what about those "unique and wholly individualized original experiences" from which our concept of "leaf" is abstracted? If our concepts necessarily fail to capture (not the pure abstraction, but instead) these individual differences, then it seems that here too our language is inadequate. Yet it is only so if one has a distorted conception of what it is that language is supposed to do, which is not to duplicate individual experiences but instead to express beliefs (and other "mental states" like emotions) and communicate truths about the world (often, which may be the source of some of the confusion here, both at once). Even when the problem is not that language fails (in its necessary finitude) to achieve pure generality, but the seemingly opposite point that it fails (in its necessary generality) to achieve pure specificity, the result is a fatal temptation toward Platonic (or Cartesian) abstraction and reification, and a corresponding anxiety (or conviction!) that language necessarily conceals rather than reveals (or communicates).

Here's a leaf. Is it not a leaf? We just agreed that it is. So "this is a leaf" is true, and not an "illusion." But this other leaf is also a leaf; so "this is a leaf" fails to capture the specific "leafiness" of either of them. True enough, much has been left out. But so what? (What should we say, "this is a leaf, but it's an illusion to believe that it is"? Hogwash.) So say more: this particular leaf is green, small, smooth, wet. These too are merely words, generalized from many greens and smalls and wets. Even the precise hue (say, 7CFC00), the size in microns, the precise amount of water on its surface, everything I can possibly "put into words," will not get us across that metaphysical gap (once so construed) between universal predicates and irreducibly individual thing. You cannot describe to me – language cannot capture – the leaf-in-itself.

Okay, but this wasn't really our problem. Your concern in speaking to me was not after all with a posited leaf-beyond-experience (whether an ideal Platonic Leaf or a specific Cartesian leaf-in-itself) but instead your own experience, communication of which need not require such fictions as leaves-in-themselves. Here too, though, the same problem seems to arise. You had some experience which you want to communicate to me. Of course I can't be you, so I can't have your experience. Yet it still can seem as if even though I cannot be you, there is some thing, a (specific) "experience" of yours (distinct from you, that you are "having", such that that identical experiencer – you – then go on to "have" another such, etc.) which your words necessarily (alas) fail to communicate to me. That such things cannot be transferred whole from your inner theater to mine isn't the fault of language. Even if you handed me the very leaf in question, to look at and touch for myself, I still wouldn't have your experience, even the one I did have was thereby very much more "like yours" than the one I had merely listening to you describe it. This "failure" just doesn't have the philosophical significance it can seem to have: that there is, like the leaf-in-itself, an experience-in-itself which can be conceptually detached from your having it, and which I may thereby "fail" to have due to imperfections in the medium of transmission. In my view, once we've established that I can't be you (or, again, that words aren't "the same as" the things which they denote or describe), that turns out to be the only metaphysically relevant consideration – which as a triviality cannot support the philosophical weight put on it by the sort of realism which results in the sort of skepticism in question, which sees language as "cutting us off from reality" (or each other) rather than opening it up to us.

It is of course true (another triviality) that music or painting can evoke experiences which language cannot – that there are qualitative differences which, as subjects, we automatically project back onto their "objects" qua experience. We naturally speak here too of "expression"; yet there is no reason to think of these arts as "parallel languages," or languages at all. I liked Garry Hagberg's book Art as Language, which goes into these matters very clearly indeed (as the Amazon reviewer rightly notes), so I won't go into them here. I would just suggest that "expression" (whether artistic or linguistic) has connotations not simply of communication, but also of manifestation or even creation, which can help suppress the urge to posit some distinct entity which it can fail to copy adequately – while yet leaving in place the triviality that there are plenty of ways in which an "expression" (of something) can indeed fail (and corresponding locutions, such as Mozart's musical "thought").

For more on the idea of "thinking in terms of scent," I imagine there would be a lot about that in this book, the movie version of which I just saw last week. Interestingly, while I imagine some people reacted to the story's move, toward the end, from highly implausible (even in cinematic terms) to completely impossible, with an annoyed "oh, come on," I found that the move actually relieved that pressure rather than increasing it to intolerable levels – as now it became easier to see the story as purely allegorical fantasy (which of course it always was) rather than an attempt to make (still fanciful) sense on the literal level. (I speak abstractly in order to avoid spoilage.) The film (by Tom Tykwer of Lola rennt fame) renders the experience of scent in visual terms very well (although there were a few too many shots of sniffing noses), and I imagine the book's appeal depends on its success in the corresponding rendering in verbal terms.

How do you say "Hidledy-ho, neighborino?" in French?

First movie seen in 2008: The Simpsons Movie
Second movie: Flanders

Now that's synchronicity! (BTW, the first one is funnier.)

Another semi-cool widget

You will notice a new widget I have added in the sidebar, between the archives and the blogroll. It's kind of cool, but it'll get boring if it doesn't get updated for a long time (I'll try not to let that happen). I have started it off with a list of 15 fine films I saw this year. (I didn't limit it to 2007 releases because I didn't see, well, even 15 of them at all, let alone 15 worth mentioning.) 2004 seems to have been a reasonably good year, with four entries out of 15.

On a film's individual page at imdb, the title is always listed in the original language (which means that sometimes you can't recognize it: did you know that #57 on the imdb top 250 list, as voted by you the viewers, is Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi?); but even on this list the title can be misleading. For instance ... oh heck, I'll just list them again here, as I don't have to link to them again, and I have a few comments anyway. This post will be far away down the page soon enough, I imagine. Click on the plus sign next to each title (in the widget) for more info! (Tell your browser to allow popups for this page in order to go to the corresponding imdb page.)

1. The Lives of Others

This is that East German movie about the Stasi. Sebastian Koch is excellent as the dissident playwright caught up in tragic circumstances, but the film really belongs to Ulrich Mühe as the Stasi agent with wavering loyalties. Koch is also good in Black Book, which just missed the cut (maybe later).

2. Kill!

Awesome samurai flick. Tatsuya Nakadai is the man. 'nuff said.

3. Downfall

Bruno Ganz was a fixture in German cinema during the 70's and 80's (e.g. Wings of Desire, Messer im Kopf, etc.) Here he plays Hitler. This film is monumental and I can't imagine what it must have been like to see it if you lived in Germany during those terrible days (kind of like The Lives of Others in that respect, but more so). I can't judge the accuracy of Ganz's Hitler impression, but he's totally convincing in any case. Fun fact: if you saw The Ninth Day, you'll remember Ulrich Matthes as the heroic priest; well, here he plays Goebbels. Yikes!

4. Together

This is a hilarious and moving film from Sweden (I laughed, I ... well, I was moved) about communal living (hey, the 70's happened in Sweden too, y'know) – portrayed with all its lumps, but lovingly all the same. Great comment at the imdb page ("the aesthetics of porridge").

5. Head-On

This starts out as what I guess is a culture-clash comedy, about Germans of Turkish descent, but then veers into deeper waters, with surprising impact (thus the title?). It takes a while to get where it's going, but it's definitely different. I don't know what else to say here so I'll leave it at that.

6. Sansho the Bailiff

I don't know how they get The Bailiff out of "Sansho dayu", but there it is. At least the DVD cover gets it right. This is a classic of Japanese cinema, newly out on DVD (thank you Criterion!!). More melodramatic than I expected (and the director himself was apparently a bit dismissive of it later on), but still jawdropping (e.g. the abduction scene – whew!).

7. The Taste of Tea

One of those quirky Japanese films about a quirky family. Yeah, sounds boring, but give it a chance and its weird rhythms will beguile you.

8. House of Fools

Another film that works better than its description: a lunatic asylum in Chechnya caught up in the madness of war. Look out for the bizarre, gutsy cameo by Bryan Adams the rock star.

9. F for Fake

That's what it says on the box; not sure where the listed title comes from (and the imdb page has "Verités et mensonges"). Orson Welles giving us a lesson in art fakery. This one is totally out there.

10. 49th Parallel

Again, that's what it says on the box (in huge letters). Much better title than "The Invaders." One of the lesser-known Powell & Pressburger efforts, but if you like them (or if you are Canadian) you will definitely enjoy this unusual yet very entertaining film (w/Anton Walbrook!). Look out for Laurence Olivier in what is, well, not his best-known role. Another clutch Criterion release (so was Kill!, btw).

11. Mysterious Skin

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is riveting in this Gregg Araki film (warning: hard to watch at times). The big revelation is no surprise, but that doesn't matter as much as you'd think. Great cameo: Mary Lynn Rajskub (Chloe on 24) as ... what Chloe on 24 would be like if she were a UFO abductee instead of a CTU agent.

12. Pan's Labyrinth

Never got to it in the theater, but I finally caught up with it on DVD. Eye-popping fantasy (set during the Spanish Civil War this time) from Guillermo del Toro (director of Hellboy).

13. Prince of the City

Cop corruption drama in the Serpico vein, from ... the director of Serpico. The big breakthrough – and AFAICT the only big role – for Treat Williams, who is in virtually every scene. Cool time capsule.

14. Take My Eyes

Surprisingly involving Spanish drama about an abusive relationship.

15. The Cranes Are Flying

Just saw this one last night (thanks are once again due to Criterion for a marvelous transfer). Wow. Yet another war movie, this time from the Soviet angle. And once again, I cannot imagine what a Soviet audience must have thought, not only having lived through that time themselves, but also seeing it so freely portrayed on the screen (thanks to the "thaw" after Stalin's death). There's a scene in which two bright-eyed factory girls are about to regale the young hero's father with the customary patriotic bromides and he just cuts them off with a mocking laugh – the audience must just have gasped. Breathtaking cinematography throughout. See this one first.

All in all a good year at this end. Check back in 2009 for some 2007 releases!

Death must be a cinephile

Edward Yang wasn't enough for him, so he comes back and picks up Bergman and Antonioni on the same day. What, are they having a film festival up there? These things come in threes, I hope. Otherwise Wim Wenders better start looking over his shoulder.

Naturally most of the memorial fuss has been made over Bergman (though Yang's passing did not go unnoticed in spots). Antonioni was uneven in a way that Bergman was not. I haven't seen Red Desert, but Zabriskie Point is a mere curiosity. Blow-up and The Passenger are fine films, but for me they leave a lingering aftertaste of self-conscious artiness. (I should say "left," as I haven't seen them for a while; maybe I'll give them another chance.) Il Grido is an early one which I recommend.

L'Avventura, however, was a real kick in the head. It's tough sledding (it got booed at Cannes), but it's a real milestone in cinema. 1960 must have been some year, with Breathless too. I find it very difficult to say what I got out of these films (there's a reason I'm not a film critic!), but it has something to do with close attention to the nature of time (and the experience of same). No doubt this reflects the influence of existentialism on the Continent.

As for Bergman, his consistency is remarkable. I just saw Smiles of a Summer Night a while back, one of his breakthrough films (1955), and Faithless (2000) was just as good (actually, Liv Ullmann directed this one, from Bergman's script). I look forward to seeing Saraband (2003); the library has it but I haven't gotten to it yet.

RIP to both; but Death better cut it out or all we'll have left is Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

Edward Yang RIP

I missed this; film director Edward Yang died on June 29. He was best known for Yi Yi [N.B.: the original DVD release is supposed to be subpar; go for the Criterion reissue instead]. I've also seen A Confucian Confusion (at the NYFF) and A Brighter Summer Day, neither of which, alas, seem to be on DVD. All three films are brilliant. Yang was only 59.

imdb's bio page here. Another blogger's eloquent remembrance here.

Decisions, decisions

Carlos Reygadas is a Mexican director whose first feature film, Japón, showed him a) to be a promising young (30 at the time) talent, who b) had seen about 15 too many Robert Bresson movies (which is not easy to do, believe me). I do approve of using non-professional actors, and I did like Japón, which was very Bresson/Tarkovsky/Kiarostami-in-rural-Mexico, but it was tough sledding in spots; I think I watched the DVD in three shifts. Some prominent Arvo Pärt on the soundtrack, if that tells you anything. Nice title, by the way ("Japan," a country in which, as I have already mentioned, the film is definitely not set). Some of you would like it a lot (you know who you are). On the other hand, if you're one of those people, you've probably already seen it twice.

Anywho, I recently saw a predictably uninformative trailer for his subsequent film, Batalla en el cielo, and I thought I'd go over to imdb to check it out before tracking down the DVD. Now there was some, um, unusual material in Japón; nothing to give you nightmares or anything, but enough to make one just a little wary. imdb has a relatively new feature on their recently redesigned page, which shows five (presumably) computer-generated recommendations: if you liked this film, you may also like these others.

So what does the imdb database recommend for those who enjoyed Batalla en el cielo, you ask?

1. Caligula
2. Ken Park
3. Intimacy
4. In the Realm of the Senses
5. Visitor Q

I've seen three of these films. I had heard that Caligula was really bad, but I love Malcolm McDowell, who is perfectly cast as Caligula: Alex the Droog as Roman Emperor, always up for a bit of the old ultra-violence. So I saw it. It was really bad. Oscar trivia: in 2007, one nominee for each of the Best Actress and Best Actor awards, including one winner, appeared in this film almost thirty years previously (Helen Mirren and Peter O'Toole). How about that?

I did like Intimacy (dir. Patrice Chéreau), which has some fine acting (Mark Rylance, Kerry Fox, the always great Timothy Spall) along with the apparently unsimulated (i.e., real) explicit sex. But you see where this is going (check out the Plot Keywords for this film at the imdb link: hel-lo!).

In the Realm of the Senses is Nagisa Oshima's legendary 1976 shocker of sexual obsession. Thumbs up on this one too (but you have to like that sort of thing – by which I mean that era of Japanese avant-garde cinema, you naughty boy).

I'd never heard of Ken Park, but it turns out to be a film by Larry Clark, director of Kids and other teen-sex-exposé-cum-exploitation numbers, of which I have seen zero to date. One imdb commenter on the film says: "Before watching 'Ken park' I was warned this was the uncensored version. If there really is a censored version, may be the one in theaters, it would probably miss around an hour out of the hour and a half the movie runs." Oooo-kay.

The last film is a film by Takashi Miike. I did not dislike Audition, but after reading reviews of Ichi the Killer I decided to pass on further visits to the twisted Miike psyche. Here's what another imdb commenter says about Visitor Q: "There are some truly disturbing things in Visitor Q that few people of sound mind and body will want to sit through. Fortunately, I am not of sound mind or body." Body? Yikes. Oh, and the page also lists (under Fun Stuff) a Continuity Goof: "At the start of the film when the girl is undressing to have sex with her Dad, she takes her socks off. However when we see her again a few seconds later, she still has them on. She then removes them (again)." Even though I thereby repeat myself, I say again: yikes.

So I guess I know something about Batalla en el cielo. Just not whether or not I want to see it.

Robert Altman RIP

From the Film Society of Lincoln Center website:

On the night of November 20th, the cinema lost one of its finest, a fiercely independent spirit who made movies that lived, breathed and inspired a unique devotion in movie lovers all around the world. Robert Altman’s camera eye was a remarkably delicate and sensitive instrument, seeking out and illuminating the most fleeting beauties and mysteries of being human. Altman gave us images and sounds and sensations we’d never experienced before – think of the sustained euphoria of California Split, the glorious interchanges between Sissy Spacek and Shelley Duvall in 3 Women, or the heartbreaking snowbound ending of McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Altman’s greatest films are uplifting in the best possible way: they open our eyes and ears to the wonders of everyday life.

Those in the NYC area can attend a tribute here (not sure what it involves except a showing of his last film, A Prairie Home Companion).

Cinematic travails [some spoilers; but come on, these aren't whodunits]

On Monday, which was Labor Day, I watched a DVD of Laurent Cantet's 1999 film Human Resources, which I had not selected specially, but which turned out to be very appropriate to the day. Young Jalil Lespert is hired as a management trainee at the factory where his father has worked for 30 years. (You can just see it coming, but trust me: there's nothing you can do.) Eager to please, he suggests (not a union-busting but more like) a union-outmaneuvering tactic to his superiors -- but alas, he has overestimated their moral scruples, and they use it to justify layoffs. (I didn't exactly understand this part -- something to do with the 35-hour work week, which was apparently a big deal in France at the time.) Naturally Papa is one of those laid off. This leads to some soul-searching and ultimately drastic measures. Toward the end there is an emotional confrontation during which some long-buried feelings are unearthed. Not an amusing scene, but I couldn't help noticing the characteristically Gallic subtlety of the emotions in question -- not just pride or shame, but the same at second- and third-order (possibly even fourth). For the pinnacle of work-related anxiety, check out Cantet's follow-up Time Out, loosely based on the book which was more faithfully rendered here (haven't seen this but the book is great).

Laborwise, I also saw (though not on the Day itself) the recent Criterion Collection release of Harlan County USA (1976), a documentary about striking coal miners in Kentucky. It's all very Which Side Are You On -- and in fact we hear that stirring number performed several times. The music is very much part of the film -- lots of Hazel Dickens, for example. Emotional confrontations abound here too, not surprising given the circumstances. No higher-order angst here though, just good old American stubbornness. Interesting also to see traces of the 1970's seeping into more traditional, isolated areas.

For comparison we have yet another look at industrial management, this one from Denmark. Arven (a.k.a. The Inheritance) stars Ulrich Thomsen (whom you may know from Festen a.k.a. The Celebration) as a refugee from the family steel business who is browbeaten by his domineering mother into returning and taking it over after his father kills himself according to time-honored Scandinavian custom. This leads to resentment on all sides, and downhill we go from there. A bit melodramatic at times, but Thomsen is excellent. Can his stoic resignation survive the long-simmering resentment and heartbreak? Yes and no, obviously, or there wouldn't be a movie; but this battle, as played out on Thomsen's furrowed brow, maintains our interest throughout. Nice score in a Biosphere + orchestra vein (not actual Biosphere though; for that see the original Insomnia).

Le rouge et le noir

Last night I saw Samuel Fuller's 1953 noir Pickup on South Street on a fine-looking Criterion Collection DVD (although this library copy was scratched, making me miss the part from 33:03 to 33:25; anybody know what happens just before she leaves the shack?). Richard Widmark is in fine form as a pickpocket (or "cannon") who picks the wrong purse (in the opinion of some), obtaining for himself some curious microfilm. What was funny about it was the infusion of Red Scare attitudes into the noir form; our characters may be hardscrabble denizens of the demimonde, but they ain't no filthy commies, see? (On the other hand, our man would be willing to shake said commies down for $25K rather than, say, turning them over to the police.) See it on a double bill with Bresson's Pickpocket.

Iconic moment: Widmark offers Jean Peters a smoke; he lights it with his own half-smoked one; then he jams that one in her mouth and starts smoking the new one himself. Also Thelma Ritter and her neckties.

Another pairing for PoSS would be Kiss of Death, Widmark's 1947 debut, in which he plays the psycho killer Tommy Udo (love that insane grin). We also see an impossibly young Karl Malden in a bit part. This film was remade in 1995 with Nicholas Cage in the Widmark role and starring David Caruso, who had just quit NYPD Blue after one season in order to be a big movie star. This movie bombed, prompting much humor about the aptness of its title re: Mr. Caruso's career ... and then he went on to make Jade, a movie for which the phrase "godawful crap" is particularly apt. He seems to have found his place though, back on TV as the unflappable Lt. Horatio Caine on CSI: Miami, so we shall not weep for him.

Ornithologists rejoice!

Tulse Luper! Ipson and Pulat Fallari! Catarese B! The Madras lemonade-glass! The Boulder Orchard! The theory of the responsibility of birds!!

Yes, according to the latest issue of Film Comment, Peter Greenaway's first (I think) feature film, The Falls (1980), has, at long last, come out on DVD! (There's already a region 2 release, The Early Films of Peter Greenaway 2, but this is the first region 1 disc.) As you may surmise, this is one of my favorite films. Greenaway is a grade-A nutcase, and when his perversity overwhelms his artistry (as in the vile 8 1/2 Women), the results aren't pretty. But The Falls is a classic exemplar of a certain arch yet curiously intense and deeply humane British aesthetic sensibility running from Tristram Shandy (of which there is a new movie "adaptation," believe it or not) through Monty Python, Tom Phillips (with whom Greenaway collaborated on A TV Dante), and Brian Eno's "idiot energy" phase (and there is a snippet or two of Eno in the soundtrack to this film, most of which is made up of perfectly apposite post-minimal ensemble workouts by Michael Nyman). The Falls concerns a post-apocalyptic (or, rather, post-VUE ("Violent Unknown Event")) world, in which there are a whole welter of spontaneous new languages, and "female woman" is not a redundancy, and ... oh, forget it. (And birds keep coming up for some reason.)

I first saw this film in 1984 or so, when Greenaway was a relative unknown (The Draughtsman's Contract, which I like a lot less, was his first film to get much distribution in the U.S., and I think I saw that one later on), so I was completely unprepared. I remember sitting there in amazement during the last half-hour as it messed with my head big time (the effect is cumulative, as the various motifs start interacting with each other more and more). Maybe it will have less impact on someone who has already seen, say, Drowning By Numbers, or Prospero's Books, which are bigger-budget and consequently better-looking features (this is important, as Greenaway started out as a painter, and his films are very visual – lord knows they're not dramatic!); and of course by now the faux-documentary form has passed beyond played-out cliche and into respectable subgenre. I guess Drowning, Prospero's Books and The Pillow Book are my favorite of his non-Falls films, so try those too (if the copious and gratuitous male nudity in the latter two doesn't creep you out). Less successful are, in order of ascending weirdness, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (which does look great, I admit), The Belly of an Architect, The Baby of Macon, and A Zed and Two Naughts. They're still watchable, though (yes, even ZOO), unlike 8 1/2 Women, which I hated intensely.

The Falls page at imdb includes a link to an official-looking Falls page with a lot of further info, some of it quite odd. They're all over the DVD release, but for a while there the page featured the cover of a non-actual Criterion Collection DVD release (which had me going for a minute, but a visit to the Criterion webpage set me straight).

This new release is actually available from Zeitgeist Video (you get 25% off for ordering online). It's called Greenaway: The Early Films, and includes another disc of shorts (or you can get either of the two discs separately). The shorts include H is for House and A Walk Through H, both of which are good, and some other stuff I haven't seen (or don't remember); I think it's the same as the UK disc The Early Films of Peter Greenaway 1. Also included on the Falls disc (as it is on the British version, so I guess what we have here is a straight reissue, although it looks like there's some new bonus material on ours) is Vertical Features Remake, which has some excellent Falls-related material (Tulse Luper, Gang Lion, etc.), as well as some prime Eno ("Inland Sea," if I'm not mistaken).

Hmm, it won't actually be available until April 11. Until then, how about a rousing chorus of the Bird List Song! All together now: Capercaillie, lammergeyer, cassowary...

A Stitch in time

Lest anyone get the silly idea that the only movies reviewed here (if that's what's happening) are artistically respectable ones, I should reveal that one recent viewing was of Stitch: The Movie, a straight-to-video number not to be confused with the forthcoming Lilo & Stitch 2, also s-t-v, I believe, which depicts events occurring after the first L&S, obviously, but before this earlier film. Not content simply to extend the franchise to video sequels, S:TM stoops to setting up the premise to the Lilo & Stitch TV show. (I know this, alas, because I have actually seen an episode of said TV show, which was, not surprisingly, not worth the time.) I liked the original movie a lot – Stitch (a.k.a. Experiment 626) is the most entertaining Disney character since, well, I don't really know Disney that well so never mind. Anyway, he's great. (I love it when he tries to speak English – and when he doesn't even try.)

The premise of this one, if you care, is that a previously unknown Evil Genius (Dr. Hämsterviel, who seems to be channeling John Cleese's abusive French knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which makes sense given the latter's taunt that "your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries," or was it the other way around) is determined to capture all 626 experiments for himself, and sends the put-upon Captain Gantu to Hawaii to track them down, with predictable and not particularly well-drawn results. Although Stitch's antics never really take off this time, there are a few laughs to be found among the film's 64 minutes: the clueless but game Pleakley (voiced by Kevin McDonald of Kids in the Hall fame) attempts to locate the kidnapped Jumba by whipping out a galactic phone directory and calling each planet, in alphabetical order ("Planet Aaaaaaa? Is Jumba there?" "Do you know what time it is??" "Sorry!" ... "Planet Aaaaaab? Is Jumba there?"), and it's still funny to hear the galactics regularly refer to our planet as "Eeyarth." Anyway, the other 625 (actually, 623) experiments get loose, and in the TV show each episode is concerned with recapturing a particular one of them, with even more predictable and even less well-drawn results. I'll probably watch L&S 2 too (sigh).

Feat of Clay

I had seen the blog 3 Quarks Daily listed on a blogroll or two, but I didn't go there until last month, when I discovered that it rocks, although it overwhelms one with material (more like 3 kazillion quarks per second if you ask me). A natural comparison is Arts & Letters Daily, rather than a proper blog, and more geared toward science and global culture than the latter site. Check it out!

I also discovered that it's run by a friend of mine from grad school whom I had lost touch with. How about that! In a post last month, Abbas tells us of his great admiration for Muhammad Ali (i.e., "The Greatest," as opposed to "the Great One," who is someone else entirely), and urges us to see the documentary film When We Were Kings, the story of the 1974 Ali-George Foreman fight known as "the Rumble in the Jungle" (the Zaïrean jungle, to be specific).

So I did that, and I was very impressed. I had forgotten the details – I was a mere lad at the time, and I have to confess that, although, or perhaps because, I was not a boxing fan then, I was rooting for Foreman, because I thought Ali was kind of a hot dog (true enough, but as they say, it ain't bragging if you can do it), and Foreman was the highly favored champion (which seems more like a reason to root against him, but there it is). The fight was promoter Don King's doing, and it was a big pan-African extravaganza, with lots of publicity and concerts and Ali mouthing off and Foreman glowering. The music footage is great, with James Brown in fine form, but the best part is Ali riffing on black pride and African unity and (on) stomping on Foreman's defeated body. And then, finally, the fight itself, with Norman Mailer and George Plimpton, of all people, giving their reminiscences (and there are some great stills with Plimpton and Don King). At the end there's an amazing sequence of photographs of Ali with everyone from Malcolm X to the Beatles.

I missed my favorite piece of historical footage though. In an interview which must have been after the first Liston fight, though I'm not sure, Ali is exultant, naturally, and yells: "I'm pretty! I'm a baaad maaan!" Classic Ali – I wonder why they left it out.

For all x, x ≠ love, you = Baby, I cannot give you x

Watching [name of movie revealed below] recently, I was reminded of my intemperate comments a while back about Bringing Up Baby, a movie which left me cold, so I went back just now and added a second thought or two, moderating the intemperance a bit (only a bit though).

So what movie was it that brought BuB to mind? Was it The Philadelphia Story, or maybe His Girl Friday? No and no (good guesses though). No, it was the only other movie I know of in which a character sings the song "I Can't Give You Anything but Love, Baby" – not as a musical performance but rather for some extra-musical reason. In BuB Kate and Cary sing it in order to pacify/retrieve Baby the leopard; here nightclub owner Cosmo Vitelli, away from the club on the desperate errand of the film's title, phones to check in on how his somewhat erratic troupe of entertainers is faring in his absence. Unfortunately the bartender to whom he is speaking is little help – he doesn't even know the songs they sing, even after seven years in Cosmo's employ – so Cosmo sings the song in question to remind him which number it is (it doesn't help).

Yes, I refer here to John Cassavetes's The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, with the inimitable Ben Gazzara in a tremendous performance. The Criterion Collection has several Cassavetes releases out, but this is the first one I've seen (I think the only other Cassavetes film I've seen at all is Gloria, which for some reason was remade recently with Sharon Stone, iirc). I will be checking the others out for sure, because KCB was really something. I'm not sure it's a great film, but wow, what a compelling time capsule. The CC release has two discs, one with the original 1976 version, which apparently bombed, and a 1978 reissue which is half an hour shorter. I watched the latter, and it's hard to imagine that the edit didn't improve the film substantially. It's bursting the seams of the narrative as it is – any more scenes with the performers, say, or his girlfriend's family (interesting as they were), would definitely overload it, resulting in the flabby mess the critics undoubtedly said the first one was. On the other hand, now I would like to go back and check the other one out (but it was due back at the library). Kudos to CC for giving us the different versions complete, rather than only the latter plus "deleted scenes."

Anyway, Gazzara is terrific as the reflective would-be big shot in over his head, who still manages, somehow, to hold his own (or so it seems ...). The atmosphere is pure '70's: besides the surreal dialogue (love those gangsters) and perversely ruminative pacing, there's lots of underlit scenes (in the nightclub and out), casual showgirl nudity, and intimate handheld shots. Of course if this is your idea of heaven, you're already way ahead of me. It's not mine, exactly, but I'm certainly looking forward to more. Although KCB is supposedly atypical (the blurb says that JC "engages film noir in his own inimitable style," which makes it sound like a one-off deal), I hear A Woman Under the Influence is pretty good.

Now that's acting

Olivier Gourmet (nice name) won the Best Actor award at Cannes in 2002 for his performance in the Dardennes' The Son, and having finished up viewing the film last night (I shouldn't watch movies in installments, and I'm sure this one lost a little impact because of it, but as it turned out there was plenty left), I can see why. He plays a carpentry instructor at a trade school, who for reasons I will not go into (we ourselves only find out half an hour in), is torn between two opposing emotions and corresponding courses of action, both compatible with what we actually see him do. In an interview included on the DVD, Gourmet (looking quite different) explains that it was very hard to play "I don't know" – a single motivation, even a complex one, can be signaled in any number of conventional ways, but how do you show one emotion "canceled out" (I would rather say "held in check") by another, so that neither is manifested overtly during the struggle? We find ourselves noticing any clue, however small – a tic, a frown, a snappy remark. Gourmet's control over his body is remarkable; check out his gait for example, or his brisk, efficient movements when washing his hands or doing carpentry. The camera, most if not all handheld, is in his face (or on the back of his neck) throughout – there's one shot where he sends a student to get something from across the room and the camera remains on Gourmet's staring face the whole time. There's also an amazing, apparently continuous shot where someone in the passenger seat of a car (shot from the back seat) steps into the back seat to lie down, which must have required some serious acrobatics by the cameraman (who of course ends up in the passenger seat). Very intense film. Now I have to see La Promesse (same actor, same directors, same Cannes result).

Cinema of war

The other night I watched a movie about a ragged but plucky band of comrades and their valiant resistance against the oppressive force occupying their country. I am of course perfectly capable of telling the difference between this and that; but I have to say it was a just a bit creepy being encouraged to cheer when our heroes carry out a roadside ambush against the occupying army's passing vehicles. The film was Roberto Rossellini's Roma, città aperta (a.k.a. Open City), made amazingly soon after the war (in 1945, in fact). It's a very effective example of its type (which of course was new at the time). Two things stood out for me: first, in the screen time she's allotted Anna Magnani is a force of nature (see her also, equally forceful if not more so, in Pasolini's Mamma Roma); and second, the gripping ending -- not only the final scene, but the scene before that, especially the spectacular shot of the tortured prisoner and the priest's reaction to it. You absolutely cannot get away with that kind of thing anymore, but in the days before our (in this sense) jaded age, it would have worked perfectly (exercise for the reader: how would Bresson have done it, or Renoir?). Oh, and another spectacular shot (of a different kind): when the Nazi soldier peers out the door and looks toward the camera, with a fleeing resistance fighter still visible, pausing, in the background behind him. Wow.

One problem, though: the subtitlers are frustratingly chary with their aid, sometimes rendering no more than every third line. Luckily my (operatic) Italian is serviceable, so I didn't miss too much, but be warned.

Abe and Aaron

Here's a neat line from Primer, a clever little no-budget film I saw recently, a line which shows exactly, and I do mean exactly, what sort of movie we have here:

Are you hungry? I haven't eaten since later this afternoon.

Yes, boys and girls (girls?), Primer is a time-travel movie. As experienced chronocinephiles know, there are two strategies for making a TTM. First, you can wink at the audience and say, no, it doesn't make sense, but at least it's a different kind of big-screen peril for our hero to get into – will he make it back to the future or get stuck in the past (or eaten by prehistoric monsters), will he "change the past" (with whatever consequences this is stipulated to have) or fail to do so, etc. Or you can make it as realistic as possible, tantalizing us with the idea that it might (be intended to) make sense after all. (Or there's the glorious La Jetée, which we've already discussed.)

Primer, the title of which I still have never heard pronounced (prymer or primmer?) is a TTM of the second kind, which I generally prefer (you may keep The Time Machine, which I haven't seen). The setup (act I) is very well done: they walk the line very carefully between too much explanation and not enough, and it has a great lo-tech hi-tech look, if you know what I mean. The continuation (act II) proceeds naturally out of what came before (so to speak), with a few subtle hints that not all is, or will be, what it seems. Particularly effective are the unnerving, half-understood suggestions of what might be about to have already gone wrong (oh, stop it). The concluding act is a little rushed, as if they were worried about making it too easy to follow (no danger here) and thus ruining the enigmatic mood they've built up (total running time = 77 minutes). I really don't think it would have hurt too much to make it a little clearer and drawn out the tension at the same time; but maybe the idea is for later viewings to make the right amount of sense. I certainly would like to take another look – maybe that will help tie up some of the loose beginnings. Check it out!

P.S. Here's a review from the above-linked page at imdb.com:

Did you like Pi? If so, go see this one.

By the way, the attention to detail in the beginning is great. Often in thrillers with technical content, if you have a technical education you have consciously ignore all the stupid movie crud that they pull to make it into a good story. But this movie pulls off an incredibly believable technical story, with only a few distracting gaffs. That is, the tech jargon is good enough that you don't get distracted and can focus on the story line.

Final comment: Yes, it is very hard to follow the story line in this movie.

Obviously I'm not going to spoil it, but I think the following fact will help when the movie gets kind of hairy towards the end: Aaron is the dark-haired guy, Abe is the blond-haired guy.

I agree: that last fact is very important. And Pi is the natural comparison (only less techno on the soundtrack).

On the other hand, maybe I am simply a humorless clod

As you get older, there are more and more cultural phenomena that you are simply too old and out of it to understand. I'm not complaining, mind you; it's just a fact of life. So it was interesting to encounter one recently that I am apparently too young to understand. Here's how it happened. I've already mentioned here how impressed I've been with the work, especially w/r/t Wittgenstein, of Stanley Cavell. Cavell also writes on other things, of course, including cinema, and one of his books is about Hollywood comedies of a certain time, including Howard Hawks's Bringing Up Baby (1938), which features Cary Grant as a geeky paleontologist and Katharine Hepburn as what the back cover of the DVD calls "a scatterbrained heiress." Not only that, Dan at Doing Things With Words recently posted on this film (it's a paper on Kant, but his examples come from this film), so I thought I better check it out.

After having viewed the film, which btw ranks at #141 of imdb.com's viewer-selected top 250 films of all time, I am even more curious to know what Cavell (and Dan) have to say about it, seeing as I am utterly baffled as to how anyone could possibly have found it even remotely funny or charming. I know what they called "screwball comedies" are supposed to be silly and contrived, and this film certainly was that, but they're supposed to be funny too, and this film certainly was not. I smiled precisely once, when they're holding onto Baby (a leopard -- don't ask) by the tail to prevent him from escaping out the back seat of the car (I told you not to ask), and they burst into "I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby," because, as has already been established, he likes that song. The rest of it was painfully unfunny, annoying, and, yes, just stupid, worse than It Happened One Night (#119 at imdb). The scene in the jail is just excruciating (I keep telling you: don't ask). Of course there may still be interesting things to say about this film; but does this mean that the philosophers of the future will extract profound truths from 50 First Dates and Monster-in-Law?

[Update (9/3): In retrospect, I seem to have been a little harsh. The 50 First Dates line was uncalled for. However, to be honest, I must reluctantly stand by my recollection of this film as "painfully unfunny."]

Speaking of New Jersey

If you ever want to see an unrelenting barrage of stomach-churningly bad acting, here is what you must do: you must obtain (preferably from the library, so that none of your money finds its way into the wrong hands) the DVD of Star Wars: Episode 2 – Attack of the Clones; then sit down, load the disc, go to "Deleted Scenes," take a deep breath, exhale slowly, hit "Play All," and prepare for the ride of your life. Some of these scenes feature the young lovers, Anakin and Amidala (curse my neurons, that they retain this information!), so perhaps you are thinking "Ah yes, that Hayden Christensen, what a yo-yo, where did they get that guy?" -- but no! No, it is not he, but (shudder) Natalie Portman who will put the hurt on you big time. As I recall (the scenes have run together in my mind, into a single nexus of pain), they soften you up with a few cutesy-awkward flirtation scenes with the two of them, but then, when you're whimpering for mercy, they hit you with the killer: Amidala's speech to the Senate, which ... no, I cannot go on.

I'm not sure why they put those scenes on the disc, except perhaps to show that the movie, which was stunningly bad to begin with, was at one time worse still. It's the cumulative effect which is so powerful – I swear, I think she's in all of them. Anyway, that's not the point. You have to watch the deleted scenes because you don't notice it during the movie (even though they couldn't remove all of her scenes), but bad "professional" acting is actually more painful than bad non-professional acting. We've all seen movies with non-professional actors, and some of them, even the acting, is pretty good. When it works the effect is one you can't get with professional actors – it's like mistreating a musical instrument to get a unique sound. (Of course, bad non-professional acting is pretty hellacious too – there's a scene in George Washington, which is generally fine, with acting so bad I just cannot believe that was the best take they got.)

So I was leery of Garden State. There she is, right on the cover. Co-billing and everything. A reviewer says "Natalie Portman has never been better!", which did not exactly encourage me. But mirabile dictu, she's adorable here. The lead guy, one Zach Braff, is very likable (think Jewish Ray Romano), the support is good (Peter Sarsgaard, Ian Holm), and the soundtrack is very nice (second straight movie I've seen with Nick Drake in it). They go for a bit too much profundity and romance at the end, but it's too little too late for it to hurt much. A hesitant thumbs up -- uh, better make that "recommendation," lest we receive a cease-and-desist from you-know-who. Dear God, it says on the back that "this quirky coming-of-age comedy [...] has been hailed as 'the seminal film for today's generation' (USA Today)". Yikes. I take it back. Forget I said anything.

Two overlooked movies

I just saw a pretty good movie which I didn't hear much about, and that reminded me of another recent movie with a similar title (both 7-letter trochees beginning with S). The first is Stander, which is a true-crime number about a cop who pulls bank robberies, gets sent to prison, escapes, and pulls more bank robberies. This all happened in the early 80's, and the film does a good job of capturing the era, including the moody directorial style. There's a nicely done scene showing our hero at the Soweto riots (another enjoyable feature of the film is the Seth Efrican exints the characters have), and the relatively unknown Thomas Jane (Mr. Patricia Arquette, if I'm not mistaken) does a great job (including the exint). Check it out!

The other film was perhaps not so overlooked (maybe I just missed it): David Mamet's Spartan, with Val Kilmer as a tough guy/fixer shafted by his own people. The clipped Mamet dialogue is very effective, as is Kilmer's eerily blank affect. Kilmer's been in some clinkers, and he's not the most versatile of actors, but here he's just right. No Seth Efrican exint though. Check it out too!