Good Night, and Good Luck
George Clooney’s look at the legendary CBS broadcaster, Edward R. Murrow and his 1950’s cold war of words with Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Filmed in black and white and cinéma-vérité style, this chamber piece almost feels better suited for the stage than the screen. Still, a compelling portrait of truth and power that is strangely intimate and sterile.
The Celluloid Closet
An excellent documentary on the evolution of how Hollywood has depicted gay people since the 1920’s. From the “Sissy,” the effeminate male stock character who’s always the butt of someone’s joke, to Hitchcock’s gay villains, to the suicidal, self-loathing “fags” of the 70’s, to Tom Hanks stricken with AIDS in “Philadelphia,” it’s painfully clear that in Hollywood’s eyes to be gay is to be anything but happy.
My Voyage to Italy
Martin Scorcese’s incredibly long (246 minutes!) documentary of Italian films that influenced his life and career. I like how he balances the warhorses such as “8 1/2” and “La Dolce Vita” with lesser-known gems from De Sica, Antonioni, and Visconti. It’s an impassioned look at cinema, Italian culture, and life itself from arguably the greatest living American director. A must-see for anyone who loves film.
Saturday, November 26, 2005
Saturday, October 08, 2005
Three Times
Some friends dragged me to a showing of “Three Times” at the New York Film Festival the other night. I say ‘dragged’ because it was a weeknight (and I’m a big baby about foreign language films that clock in at well over 2 hrs. and start at 9 p.m. and are three subway trains away from my apartment--insert your own crybaby sound here) and because I’m unfamiliar with Hou Hsiao-hsien’s earlier films.
“Three Times” is three love stories in three time periods in twentieth-century Taiwan. The film opens in 1966 where two young people, a billiard hall hostess and a patron, strike up a romance with hardly a word uttered between them. This is the sweetest, most sentimental vignette in the trilogy and the direction is gorgeous. The camera floats around the pool players, the roll and bump of brightly colored balls, and the connections between chance, fate, and love are dreamily clear.
It is both a strength and a weakness that the same actors, Shu Qi and Chang Chen, play the roles of the lovers in each time period. Though their performances are excellent, reinforcing the timelessness of the characters' struggles in this way feels a bit hokey. Fortunately, I think the film’s overall visual subtlety overcomes this stridency.
The second vignette is set in a 1911 brothel where Qi is a courtesan and Chen her wealthy lover. Communication in these shadowy scenes is abundant but we’re never allowed to hear their voices as the dialogue is displayed--literally written out--on 1920’s film style intertitles. It’s an effective way of depriving these people of their “voices,” and rendering them powerless. Ironically, their passions too in this setting are held in check by the revolutionary politics of the outside world (for him) and the politics of sexual servitude (for her).
The film concludes with a tedious story set in rocking modern day Taipei between Chen, now a photographer, and his present obsession, Qi, a bisexual epileptic chanteuse. You get the picture.
Variations on a theme, yes, and often visually beautiful—but that’s about it. I’m not any more enlightened about love or life or Taiwan now than before; I’ve just seen a few pretty pictures. My friends feel that this is not Hou's best work and recommend I see “Flowers of Shanghai” and “Millennium Mambo,” which they say are twice as good as "Three Times."
“Three Times” is three love stories in three time periods in twentieth-century Taiwan. The film opens in 1966 where two young people, a billiard hall hostess and a patron, strike up a romance with hardly a word uttered between them. This is the sweetest, most sentimental vignette in the trilogy and the direction is gorgeous. The camera floats around the pool players, the roll and bump of brightly colored balls, and the connections between chance, fate, and love are dreamily clear.
It is both a strength and a weakness that the same actors, Shu Qi and Chang Chen, play the roles of the lovers in each time period. Though their performances are excellent, reinforcing the timelessness of the characters' struggles in this way feels a bit hokey. Fortunately, I think the film’s overall visual subtlety overcomes this stridency.
The second vignette is set in a 1911 brothel where Qi is a courtesan and Chen her wealthy lover. Communication in these shadowy scenes is abundant but we’re never allowed to hear their voices as the dialogue is displayed--literally written out--on 1920’s film style intertitles. It’s an effective way of depriving these people of their “voices,” and rendering them powerless. Ironically, their passions too in this setting are held in check by the revolutionary politics of the outside world (for him) and the politics of sexual servitude (for her).
The film concludes with a tedious story set in rocking modern day Taipei between Chen, now a photographer, and his present obsession, Qi, a bisexual epileptic chanteuse. You get the picture.
Variations on a theme, yes, and often visually beautiful—but that’s about it. I’m not any more enlightened about love or life or Taiwan now than before; I’ve just seen a few pretty pictures. My friends feel that this is not Hou's best work and recommend I see “Flowers of Shanghai” and “Millennium Mambo,” which they say are twice as good as "Three Times."
Saturday, September 10, 2005
2046
So, I’ve decided that blogging takes real commitment. Who has time for that?
It has been 2 weeks since I’ve been here, but I think the last film I saw, Wong Kar-wai’s “2046,” is the cause of my writer’s block. His earlier film, “In the Mood for Love,” is one of my all-time favorites and “2046,” coming as a kind of sequel to that, is as strangely beautiful as it is unsatisfying. Like Pedro Almodovar, Wong takes chances and he’s adored by critics for eschewing conventional narrative techniques (a beginning--a muddle--and an end) but that being said, one still has to sit through 129 minutes of images that, though beautiful, do not bear the weight of the film’s obsessive themes of personal loss and isolation.
Spanning three years in the mid 1960s, “2046” focuses on Chow, a roué and journalist whose real occupation (preoccupation?) is writing erotic fiction. Chow, with his slick backed hair and pencil-thin mustache, is played with reptilian precision by Tony Leung. One day, Chow meets an old flame that lives in the Oriental Hotel, in Room 2046. When Chow later returns to her hotel, he discovers that she has disappeared. He eventually moves into the adjacent room, 2047, where he meets the two women whose lives will intersect with his own. Ziyi Zhang is one of these women and her smoldering performance alone makes the film worthwhile-but it’s a slow go, even for a fan of Wong’s earlier films.
I’m sure I’m missing something (possibly everything), except the way Wong films his characters: gorgeously, like matinee idols from a time gone by. I’ll watch “2046” again (someday, on DVD) and I’ll see more and appreciate it more. But like the early stages of an acquired taste, I’m a long way from loving it.
It has been 2 weeks since I’ve been here, but I think the last film I saw, Wong Kar-wai’s “2046,” is the cause of my writer’s block. His earlier film, “In the Mood for Love,” is one of my all-time favorites and “2046,” coming as a kind of sequel to that, is as strangely beautiful as it is unsatisfying. Like Pedro Almodovar, Wong takes chances and he’s adored by critics for eschewing conventional narrative techniques (a beginning--a muddle--and an end) but that being said, one still has to sit through 129 minutes of images that, though beautiful, do not bear the weight of the film’s obsessive themes of personal loss and isolation.
Spanning three years in the mid 1960s, “2046” focuses on Chow, a roué and journalist whose real occupation (preoccupation?) is writing erotic fiction. Chow, with his slick backed hair and pencil-thin mustache, is played with reptilian precision by Tony Leung. One day, Chow meets an old flame that lives in the Oriental Hotel, in Room 2046. When Chow later returns to her hotel, he discovers that she has disappeared. He eventually moves into the adjacent room, 2047, where he meets the two women whose lives will intersect with his own. Ziyi Zhang is one of these women and her smoldering performance alone makes the film worthwhile-but it’s a slow go, even for a fan of Wong’s earlier films.
I’m sure I’m missing something (possibly everything), except the way Wong films his characters: gorgeously, like matinee idols from a time gone by. I’ll watch “2046” again (someday, on DVD) and I’ll see more and appreciate it more. But like the early stages of an acquired taste, I’m a long way from loving it.
Monday, August 29, 2005
The Memory of a Killer
Yesterday I saw "The Memory of a Killer," a Belgian film, at the Quad Cinema. It's an enjoyable action/thriller that's being compared to "Memento" because the lead character, an assassin, is suffering from Alzheimer's. (He also writes important information on his arm in black marker just as Guy Pearce made indelible marks on his own body in "Memento.") But there the similarities end. In "The Memory of a Killer," the assassin's failing memory is merely a plot complication (at one point late in the film he assembles his weapon, forgetting to include the firing pin...oops) and another corruption in a world where child prostitution, politics, and religion freely mingle. The aging assassin Ledda, played wonderfully by Jan Declair, is secretly hired to kill two people by a prominent Belgian baron. After snapping the neck of the first victim and confronting the second target, Ledda decides he is unable to finish the job, which puts his own life at stake. The predator becomes the prey as Ledda is chased by an idealistic police officer and Ledda's disappointed employers. Manohla Dargis in the "Times" says that "An amnesiac killer is an inherently rich conceit" and she's right. Like Tony Soprano staggering through an anxiety attack, Ledda demands our fascination for the horrible weakness of his tremendous power.
Day One
So I'm just giving this a shot, leading the way where so many others have gone before. Very soon I may ask my students to do this too--to write down their thoughts about the films they're going to see in "The Art of Film" and elsewhere. I'm just testing the waters, wondering which way the wind's blowing. Lettuce blog:
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