Rose Hobart
I’m gathering that Francis Bacon more or less came up with the scientific method, and that for three hundred years afterwards the rationalists and the empiricists reasoned or measured their way to the truth, or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof. I know that linear stories depend on effects being directly and measurably linked to causes, and that commercial movies depend on a whole array of clear and allegedly verisimilar narrative assumptions. Then there’s Rose Hobart. One little lark of a film, one antic little assemblage, and it suddenly feels like all the bets are off. It even feels like the writing is on the wall.
Rose Hobart makes you think that Cornell was, among other things, an eccentric pack rat. You also suspect that he was just kind of enamoured of this woman. And actually, the film does work as a devotée’s erotical scrapbook. But the resonances! For instance: who needs story? Or, story is much more associative, subjective, ambiguous and dreamlike than we’ve allowed. Whether Cornell meant it this way or not, his film represents a really important shift. It shows that the viewer can have as much say in the meaning, even in the making of the film as the seeming filmmakers do. Rose Hobart makes the act and manner of perception the actual subject, the actual point of the film. Why stop here, you wonder? Couldn't this be true of any film? People got the power!
All that is good, but all that might not have been what was in Cornell's mind. Here's another, simpler way to look at the film. He salvaged this print of a Hollywood picture, then made that print into what he wanted, into his own property. And he was an artist. He was celebrated for his surprising-then-apt juxtapositions. Just as important was the texture of his work, the presence and palpability of all of those objects. So, similarly, this is a satisfyingly sensuous (sense appealing, sense enabling) film. All the tints and discontinuities, the sumptuously clothed characters in exotic locales, all that hip-swiveling music, are really cool.
Also. It is obscene, I think. Not in a vacuum, perhaps. Nothing operates that way. Unseemly communications have their roots and reasons, and they're worth considering. You can imagine the author’s childhood and youth, doubtless surrounded by incomprehension, unkindness and hyperbolic masculinity. You can see why he and his might be drawn to this sort of antic masquerade. Around the margins of the frame and of the erstwhile story you have lots of lipstick and cross-dressing and flaccidity. Just the thing to upset the oppressor, and counter a very particular kind of oppression. All valid. “Wild camp and subtle polemic,” someone said about it. (Lost the reference. Blogs don't need footnotes!) But a condemnation of hyperbolic masculinity in the form of an agonizingly long, allegedly comical rape sequence? Groundbreaking, I guess, but does this ground need to be broken?
Of course, Jack Smith wouldn't expect me to approve of this film. Might not even have wanted me to. I'm not a constituent, though I might inadvertently do the constituents a favour. There's a crafty little snare that gets sprung in situations like this. It's not always premeditated or calculated. It's very effective, and it has its uses. Here's how it works, I think. The squares catch wind of what sound like unseemly goings on. They get up in arms. They get protest-y, even prosecutorial. They probably don't do any of that very elegantly, or artfully. They probably haven't even read, or seen the thing that they're upset about. There goes their court case. Squares have their rights and their reasons, but their fears and deep convictions push them into error. Sometimes they even put on the jackboots.
What to do? Pretty simple. Bring up Thoreau and Twain, James Joyce and DH Lawrence. Bring up JK Rowling and Philip Pullman. Maurice Sendak, even. See? Only fascists, or ignoramuses, or ignoramus fascists burn books. Type in "banned books," and notice how uniformly, how universally the sites that come up celebrate the brave written word, and abominate the censors.
Well that's all good, at least in part. But it's also incomplete, and maybe unfair, in a number of important ways. Notice the smug, self-satisfied attitudes on those websites. They not only abominate the censor, they also, at least implicitly, deride the censorious, which includes, sometimes, plain befuddled and frightened folks. You don't hear much about the possibility that there might be another side to this coin.
I think there is. Being offended, or offendable, isn't always a sign of intolerant stupidity. I can also mean that there are things that you hold sacred. In a collective sense, it means that there are community standards that have sense and substance, that need defending, or protecting. Here's The Oxford English Dictionary, defining obscenity: "Offensively or grossly indecent, lewd; (Law) (of a publication) tending to deprave and corrupt those who are likely to read, see, or hear the contents." It's not just what is said, but the effect that saying is likely to have. (Cf. the complicated relationship between free speech and hate speech...)
As far as banned books go, Flaming Creatures isn't at all like Thoreau or Twain. Should I anticipate an impending, quite valid objection? It's not like Whitman either, or Forster. In a free society (Locke, Paine, etc.) the speaker does indeed deserve consideration. In a safe society (Hobbes, etc.) the vulnerable over/hearer deserves the same consideration.
The movie, as a movie? If we are to criticize, let alone condemn, we had better be informed. Well, it's interesting. There is a great deal of remarkably bad framing. There’s some interesting sound collage. There’s a long, Boschian series of overhead shots—composed strikingly—of what appears to be a play orgy. The straights may well be cruel, and disrespectful of legitimate difference. But this is worse than an orgy, or a picture of pitiable degradation—it’s a play orgy, which turns out to be a cynical and ugly thing indeed. Irreversible! (A film I haven't seen, by the way.) A third section carries us toward the film's conclusion. It features those two men again, in a number of unseemly situations. Shots appear to be partly designed so that we look down their fronts. We conclude with a series of tableaux in which the players lounge languidly. It’s a bit painterly, for a minute. Then, more slop.
8 ½? What about Visconti’s The Damned, or late Pasolini?
Utter corruption, utterly contemptible, even more for all those dollops
of sentimental hogwash. That is to say
that yes, this is a pretty searing bit of self-criticism, but it’s also a
(rotten) version of Golddiggers of 1933. They’re saucy, but aren’t show people
great? Well, no. It wasn’t Xanadu;
this must be why the musical
died. The breakdown of the studio system
and the codes of cinematic conduct allowed all that incipient narcissism—and
all that omni-gendered promiscuity—to come out of the id and swamp the whole
organism, the whole soul. Not just
musicals, mind you. This is a lot like Network, too. You're tempted to call plagues on both their
houses. Also, I like the overcutting and
zoominess. The "On Broadway" number is
quite exciting. Scheider looks good, and
certainly gives himself to the role. The
Gwen Verdon role is pretty poignant, and the plain, ethnic beauty of the actor
does counter some of the nonsense. The
pornographic number is quite amazing.
It’s plot implausible, and even silly.
I guess that’s the power of sexual impulse for you, leaving shambles in
its wake. The kid is cute. Reinking has some set of gams. The number they stage for daddy makes you want
to barf, but it is a bit connected to poignant reality. What are dads to daughters? Maybe I should make my own movie.
My gosh! Christopher Reeve is a fine actor, and a
beautiful specimen. That big mute bad guy
ends up being pretty funny, and there are some happy Richard Lester type
gags. (The ice cream cone.) Other than that, disaster. Wim Wenders’ angels come down for all sorts of
profound reasons, and having characters make mistakes and repent of sins is
completely valid. Scorcese/Schrader are
reckless but insightful when they consider the subject on a divine scale. But coming down off of the cross, or
abandoning your salvific responsibilities for this? Ms. Kidder is in an impossible position, but boy
does she not bear the weight! Your
mother was right there, telling you not to!
Those two matched dining scenes could actually be effective, except that they
reduce things to displays of strength, which is to say beating people up. Boo!
Gentlemen Broncos
US, 1936
by Joseph Cornell
by Joseph Cornell
I’m gathering that Francis Bacon more or less came up with the scientific method, and that for three hundred years afterwards the rationalists and the empiricists reasoned or measured their way to the truth, or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof. I know that linear stories depend on effects being directly and measurably linked to causes, and that commercial movies depend on a whole array of clear and allegedly verisimilar narrative assumptions. Then there’s Rose Hobart. One little lark of a film, one antic little assemblage, and it suddenly feels like all the bets are off. It even feels like the writing is on the wall.
 |
| Box (Cornell's other/actual specialty) |
Rose Hobart makes you think that Cornell was, among other things, an eccentric pack rat. You also suspect that he was just kind of enamoured of this woman. And actually, the film does work as a devotée’s erotical scrapbook. But the resonances! For instance: who needs story? Or, story is much more associative, subjective, ambiguous and dreamlike than we’ve allowed. Whether Cornell meant it this way or not, his film represents a really important shift. It shows that the viewer can have as much say in the meaning, even in the making of the film as the seeming filmmakers do. Rose Hobart makes the act and manner of perception the actual subject, the actual point of the film. Why stop here, you wonder? Couldn't this be true of any film? People got the power!
 |
| Rose Hobart made him jealous |
All that is good, but all that might not have been what was in Cornell's mind. Here's another, simpler way to look at the film. He salvaged this print of a Hollywood picture, then made that print into what he wanted, into his own property. And he was an artist. He was celebrated for his surprising-then-apt juxtapositions. Just as important was the texture of his work, the presence and palpability of all of those objects. So, similarly, this is a satisfyingly sensuous (sense appealing, sense enabling) film. All the tints and discontinuities, the sumptuously clothed characters in exotic locales, all that hip-swiveling music, are really cool.
Fireworks
US, 1947
by Kenneth Anger
by Kenneth Anger
An amazing film for a
20-year old kid to make, especially on this subject at this time. A perusal of the biographical data, and of the filmography besides, suggests that the author will grow up to be a provocative, controversial character. Scurrilous, if you want. Seeing the film confirms that he is also a major
artist from the get-go, with something to say and a way to say it. His imagery is really superbly rendered, with
a plasticity that’s practically palpable.
The pictures are sophisticated, at the same time that the idea informing them is really simple. That is tough to pull off!
Fireworks is a powerful evocation of dream states, a striking enactment of a stereotypical fantasy/fear, a straightforward document of a young gay person’s hopes and fearful expectations: lonely solitude, besotted admiration of the ideal, rejection thereby. Here come the sailors!
The film's violence is really remarkable—that nostril shot!—and of course there’s a sado-masochistic charge to the beating and the murder that follows upon the young man’s presumption. Anger's symbols are pretty obvious, which is at least partly excusable—he’s young, and this is of surpassing importance to him. He's making a point, protesting too much, feeling to shock and punish people like me. All of that informs and leads to the milky liquid, for instance. But beneath the provocation there is pain, and a devotional impulse too. The pieta! Sacreligious, presumption and even blasphemy, given this sinful setting? Or, this is Passion, with homosexuality as the cross to bear, and gay people the community for whom you’d give your life? I might not choose to make a film like this. I might end up deciding not to see it, and with alacrity. But I can't quite dismiss the life and struggle, the art and love that's behind it.
Here's what seems to be a very nice Kenneth Anger film, made nearly fifty years after this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAYplGF-wo0
Fireworks is a powerful evocation of dream states, a striking enactment of a stereotypical fantasy/fear, a straightforward document of a young gay person’s hopes and fearful expectations: lonely solitude, besotted admiration of the ideal, rejection thereby. Here come the sailors!
 |
| This won't end well |
The film's violence is really remarkable—that nostril shot!—and of course there’s a sado-masochistic charge to the beating and the murder that follows upon the young man’s presumption. Anger's symbols are pretty obvious, which is at least partly excusable—he’s young, and this is of surpassing importance to him. He's making a point, protesting too much, feeling to shock and punish people like me. All of that informs and leads to the milky liquid, for instance. But beneath the provocation there is pain, and a devotional impulse too. The pieta! Sacreligious, presumption and even blasphemy, given this sinful setting? Or, this is Passion, with homosexuality as the cross to bear, and gay people the community for whom you’d give your life? I might not choose to make a film like this. I might end up deciding not to see it, and with alacrity. But I can't quite dismiss the life and struggle, the art and love that's behind it.
Here's what seems to be a very nice Kenneth Anger film, made nearly fifty years after this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAYplGF-wo0
Flaming Creatures
US, 1963
By Jack Smith
By Jack Smith
You've heard of this infamous film's infamous history, maybe. Prosecuted and banned. Pornographic, deviant. That's not the only take, of course. From the first there was also advocacy, and the film had its champions. Camp, Alienation effect, sophistication. A courageous defense of difference. Susan Sontag, J. Hoberman. Either way, and in any case, Flaming Creatures is interesting, emblematic, important. The 1st amendment and all.
 |
| Fans (though maybe not Sarris) |
Also. It is obscene, I think. Not in a vacuum, perhaps. Nothing operates that way. Unseemly communications have their roots and reasons, and they're worth considering. You can imagine the author’s childhood and youth, doubtless surrounded by incomprehension, unkindness and hyperbolic masculinity. You can see why he and his might be drawn to this sort of antic masquerade. Around the margins of the frame and of the erstwhile story you have lots of lipstick and cross-dressing and flaccidity. Just the thing to upset the oppressor, and counter a very particular kind of oppression. All valid. “Wild camp and subtle polemic,” someone said about it. (Lost the reference. Blogs don't need footnotes!) But a condemnation of hyperbolic masculinity in the form of an agonizingly long, allegedly comical rape sequence? Groundbreaking, I guess, but does this ground need to be broken?
Of course, Jack Smith wouldn't expect me to approve of this film. Might not even have wanted me to. I'm not a constituent, though I might inadvertently do the constituents a favour. There's a crafty little snare that gets sprung in situations like this. It's not always premeditated or calculated. It's very effective, and it has its uses. Here's how it works, I think. The squares catch wind of what sound like unseemly goings on. They get up in arms. They get protest-y, even prosecutorial. They probably don't do any of that very elegantly, or artfully. They probably haven't even read, or seen the thing that they're upset about. There goes their court case. Squares have their rights and their reasons, but their fears and deep convictions push them into error. Sometimes they even put on the jackboots.
What to do? Pretty simple. Bring up Thoreau and Twain, James Joyce and DH Lawrence. Bring up JK Rowling and Philip Pullman. Maurice Sendak, even. See? Only fascists, or ignoramuses, or ignoramus fascists burn books. Type in "banned books," and notice how uniformly, how universally the sites that come up celebrate the brave written word, and abominate the censors.
 |
| Truffaut et al., Fahrenheit 451, 1966 |
Well that's all good, at least in part. But it's also incomplete, and maybe unfair, in a number of important ways. Notice the smug, self-satisfied attitudes on those websites. They not only abominate the censor, they also, at least implicitly, deride the censorious, which includes, sometimes, plain befuddled and frightened folks. You don't hear much about the possibility that there might be another side to this coin.
I think there is. Being offended, or offendable, isn't always a sign of intolerant stupidity. I can also mean that there are things that you hold sacred. In a collective sense, it means that there are community standards that have sense and substance, that need defending, or protecting. Here's The Oxford English Dictionary, defining obscenity: "Offensively or grossly indecent, lewd; (Law) (of a publication) tending to deprave and corrupt those who are likely to read, see, or hear the contents." It's not just what is said, but the effect that saying is likely to have. (Cf. the complicated relationship between free speech and hate speech...)
As far as banned books go, Flaming Creatures isn't at all like Thoreau or Twain. Should I anticipate an impending, quite valid objection? It's not like Whitman either, or Forster. In a free society (Locke, Paine, etc.) the speaker does indeed deserve consideration. In a safe society (Hobbes, etc.) the vulnerable over/hearer deserves the same consideration.
 |
| Leviathan |
The movie, as a movie? If we are to criticize, let alone condemn, we had better be informed. Well, it's interesting. There is a great deal of remarkably bad framing. There’s some interesting sound collage. There’s a long, Boschian series of overhead shots—composed strikingly—of what appears to be a play orgy. The straights may well be cruel, and disrespectful of legitimate difference. But this is worse than an orgy, or a picture of pitiable degradation—it’s a play orgy, which turns out to be a cynical and ugly thing indeed. Irreversible! (A film I haven't seen, by the way.) A third section carries us toward the film's conclusion. It features those two men again, in a number of unseemly situations. Shots appear to be partly designed so that we look down their fronts. We conclude with a series of tableaux in which the players lounge languidly. It’s a bit painterly, for a minute. Then, more slop.
Smith ends by playing Be Bop a Lula on the soundtrack, which kind of puts things into perspective. After all, you have to grant that this offensive mess of a thing does invite a reassessment, and a set of redefinitions. What does “she” mean, or “baby,” or even “my”? Let alone “be” and “bop” and “lula.” In ways it intends, and in way it doesn’t, here’s a study of what extreme bohemianism means, leads to, is. Not a pretty picture. There for you to see, if you want.
More thoughts on profanity/obscenity: http://dunfam.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/film-review-profanityobscenity.html
We are robots, but we can still be in love. Beyond the campy excess and the bargain basement compromises, this is a pretty simple, pretty straightforward, pretty undeniable plea for tolerance, for the right of the different to pursue their difference. Does this just open the doors for gay people (whether or not Mike and George were thinking in that direction)? Well, yes, and what of it? It’s like the AIDS ribbons of yore, isn’t it? We may be afraid that we’re being conscripted into a cause in which we don’t believe. But there’s a bigger cause beneath the apparent cause. People are suffering! We all want to find a cure, don’t we?
But what of perversion? Well, at this point at least, there really isn’t any. Yes, there’s some frat boy toga wearing, as well as some kind of purposeful massaging. (The latter is more of the Jack Smith variety, though; you have to be pretty susceptible, pretty oblivious not to see the joins.) There is clearly a slippery slope with regard to this kind of material, and the Kuchars would soon slip all the way down it. But there’s really nothing wrong here—we have an acknowledgment of the sensual, we have an acknowledgment or a demonstration of how funny the over-vaunted, over-idealized sensual can be, and we have a fleshapoid climax that is pretty tender and sweet. Craziness aside, there’s plenty of decorum here. Plus Bob Cowan’s football helmet. Good one.
An unofficial adaptation of the Who's "Pictures of Lily"? Knocked Up, without the gloss and character closure? This film is saucy to the point of being completely unchecked, and maybe, probably it’s not very helpful to vulnerable populations. (Is that all of us?) But it is also honest and true. It is poignant in its treatment of sexual frustration, and of a deeper yearning that goes beyond mere physical appetite.
After those really cool, flashy titles, we find George Kuchar himself directing a couple in an ardent embrace. He’s exploiting, but he’s also aspiring, and both in poignant cluelessness. “The mysticism of the stained glass window and the profanity of that brassiere do not go well together.” (Note that superbly executed, simultaneously ironical and heartfelt forty-five second tracking shot that follows immediately hereafter. The director is walking beatifically through the park, accompanied by sentimental music, coming upon a sweetly chirping fake bird. It’s antic, but its also in earnest; a man in harmony with both nature and culture.) Funny, and very sincere. This is no mere pornographer.
Of course—and it’s acknowledged to the film’s credit—it wouldn’t look that way to everyone. The disgruntled actor has her say: “I am sick and tired of being naked in almost every scene. I’m not going to do this picture any more!” That perception is as true and important as the author’s take. There are different validities, the general and the personal, the reality, and the person trying to come to terms with it. This is partly a film about the contrast between the filmmaker’s perceptions and what’s really, actually going on. He’s calling these attractive people to be in his film. They’re not answering, and he’s imagining them, swinging to pop music. (Frankie and the Four Seasons!) Pretty cool. But for him, it’s pretty sacred. There's a reason that the final, Godfather-like intellectual montage sequence with the imagined enraptured couple in their shower, and the solitary female-garment-clad protagonist in his, is set to music from an oratorio.
More thoughts on profanity/obscenity: http://dunfam.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/film-review-profanityobscenity.html
Sins of the Fleshapoids
US, 1965
Directed by Mike Kuchar
US, 1965
Directed by Mike Kuchar
We are robots, but we can still be in love. Beyond the campy excess and the bargain basement compromises, this is a pretty simple, pretty straightforward, pretty undeniable plea for tolerance, for the right of the different to pursue their difference. Does this just open the doors for gay people (whether or not Mike and George were thinking in that direction)? Well, yes, and what of it? It’s like the AIDS ribbons of yore, isn’t it? We may be afraid that we’re being conscripted into a cause in which we don’t believe. But there’s a bigger cause beneath the apparent cause. People are suffering! We all want to find a cure, don’t we?
 |
| The lads; I wish my brother George was here... |
 |
| Mr. Cowan, after the new decorator has been. |
But what of perversion? Well, at this point at least, there really isn’t any. Yes, there’s some frat boy toga wearing, as well as some kind of purposeful massaging. (The latter is more of the Jack Smith variety, though; you have to be pretty susceptible, pretty oblivious not to see the joins.) There is clearly a slippery slope with regard to this kind of material, and the Kuchars would soon slip all the way down it. But there’s really nothing wrong here—we have an acknowledgment of the sensual, we have an acknowledgment or a demonstration of how funny the over-vaunted, over-idealized sensual can be, and we have a fleshapoid climax that is pretty tender and sweet. Craziness aside, there’s plenty of decorum here. Plus Bob Cowan’s football helmet. Good one.
Hold Me While I’m Naked
US, 1966
Directed by George Kucar
US, 1966
Directed by George Kucar
An unofficial adaptation of the Who's "Pictures of Lily"? Knocked Up, without the gloss and character closure? This film is saucy to the point of being completely unchecked, and maybe, probably it’s not very helpful to vulnerable populations. (Is that all of us?) But it is also honest and true. It is poignant in its treatment of sexual frustration, and of a deeper yearning that goes beyond mere physical appetite.
After those really cool, flashy titles, we find George Kuchar himself directing a couple in an ardent embrace. He’s exploiting, but he’s also aspiring, and both in poignant cluelessness. “The mysticism of the stained glass window and the profanity of that brassiere do not go well together.” (Note that superbly executed, simultaneously ironical and heartfelt forty-five second tracking shot that follows immediately hereafter. The director is walking beatifically through the park, accompanied by sentimental music, coming upon a sweetly chirping fake bird. It’s antic, but its also in earnest; a man in harmony with both nature and culture.) Funny, and very sincere. This is no mere pornographer.
 |
| Director. Star. Future film professor. |
Of course—and it’s acknowledged to the film’s credit—it wouldn’t look that way to everyone. The disgruntled actor has her say: “I am sick and tired of being naked in almost every scene. I’m not going to do this picture any more!” That perception is as true and important as the author’s take. There are different validities, the general and the personal, the reality, and the person trying to come to terms with it. This is partly a film about the contrast between the filmmaker’s perceptions and what’s really, actually going on. He’s calling these attractive people to be in his film. They’re not answering, and he’s imagining them, swinging to pop music. (Frankie and the Four Seasons!) Pretty cool. But for him, it’s pretty sacred. There's a reason that the final, Godfather-like intellectual montage sequence with the imagined enraptured couple in their shower, and the solitary female-garment-clad protagonist in his, is set to music from an oratorio.
There’s something even bigger
going on here. Here is the Diane Arbus
equivalent of documentary film’s great cultural raison d’etre. Privilege
never considers some situations or populations.
Or, if it does so, it does so in a derisive or condescending
manner. So we need Robert Flaherty, or
George Stoney, Challenge for Change, and eventually an actual wild misfit. We need George Kuchar. He still has his own reasons, and his own
beauty. The film's conclusion, with its mighty last line, is no joke. “There’s a lot of things in life
worth living for. Ain’t there?”
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
US, 1978
Directed by Michael Schultz
Directed by Michael Schultz
Worse than Xanadu? These are the questions that make academic film study necessary. Both films say more than they know about the dire state of popular culture at the time. Subconscious subtexts galore, both dangerous and poignant. Sgt. Pepper's... is probably not quite as jaw droppingly bad as Xanadu is. It’s a bit jaw dropping, though: Frampton’s insufferable cuteness, the unpleasant, ill-advised bits of raunch, how impending evil is signaled by the advent of litter and black people, Steve Martin’s unutterably unfunny Maxwell’s Silver Hammer. Is this where John Hughes (what on earth, ’09 Oscars?) and Chris Columbus got that reaction shot aesthetic of theirs? The poor brothers Gibb, left all on their own to mug and moon in that increasingly embarrassing way. Frankie Howerd is even more unfunny. Other howlers? Strawberry’s really long vision when she gets off that bus. What is Alice Cooper doing? Fight scenes that defy description in their terribleness. Plot. Tommy-like grotesqueries. The entire movie.
On the other hand, some of this is actually kinda likeable. Like, the Bee Gees, for instance. They are just great, is all there is to it. The brother harmonies, especially on the opening number, are thrilling. Robin’s Oh, Darling. Their backing on Because. Their general longsufferingness. Donald Pleasance is pretty good, too. He throws himself into it, and at least knows what to do with himself while the film generally, otherwise, remains undirected. When they find that dumb drum Mo and Barry have a very funny Bill and Ted moment. (“Fag!”) I like George Burns, doing Fixing a Hole. At Strawberry Fields’ funeral (so dumb!) there are two little reaction shots in which he, a professional and a real actor, looks devastated. This weather vane thing that happens at the very end is completely inexplicable, and stupid. The bad guys are turned into nuns and archbishops. Didn't Luis Buñuel do something sort of similar at the beginning of L'Age D'or? The quote may be inadvertent. Then again, Billy Preston! We have experienced it, anyway.
 |
| At least partly responsible |
On the other hand, some of this is actually kinda likeable. Like, the Bee Gees, for instance. They are just great, is all there is to it. The brother harmonies, especially on the opening number, are thrilling. Robin’s Oh, Darling. Their backing on Because. Their general longsufferingness. Donald Pleasance is pretty good, too. He throws himself into it, and at least knows what to do with himself while the film generally, otherwise, remains undirected. When they find that dumb drum Mo and Barry have a very funny Bill and Ted moment. (“Fag!”) I like George Burns, doing Fixing a Hole. At Strawberry Fields’ funeral (so dumb!) there are two little reaction shots in which he, a professional and a real actor, looks devastated. This weather vane thing that happens at the very end is completely inexplicable, and stupid. The bad guys are turned into nuns and archbishops. Didn't Luis Buñuel do something sort of similar at the beginning of L'Age D'or? The quote may be inadvertent. Then again, Billy Preston! We have experienced it, anyway.
All That Jazz
US, 1979
Directed by Bob Fosse
Directed by Bob Fosse
 |
| L'auteur |
Superman II
US, 1980
Directed by Richard Lester (& Richard Donner)
US, 1980
Directed by Richard Lester (& Richard Donner)
 |
| These guys |
Gentlemen Broncos
US, 2009
By Jared and Jerusha Hess
By Jared and Jerusha Hess
Except for that hilarious
stab of Irish-looped dialogue, the Lonnie/Steven Groo stuff is a big miscalculation,
and it pretty well scuppers the movie.
Still, on a second viewing, this craft mess/commercial disaster also has
the feel of the rawest dream matter that you can imagine. It is positively Buñuelian (or George
Kuchar-like) in its fearless, unabashed, dangerous authenticity. Yikes!
Cletus festival, eh? Tampons and hand lotion, eh? And that’s just the first seven minutes. Oh, and let’s not forget the python with
diarrhea.
Jemaine Clements is funny, but there’s
a strain there, like when someone doesn't manage to quite direct Robin Williams. It’s the Sam Rockwell parts that work utterly. That guy needs a genius grant. The yeast and fungus and flying on wires
part deserves to go down in film history.
Also, here’s how special effects, and synthesizers, should work. Admit they’re fake! Jennifer
Coolidge is a bit like Falconetti’s Joan, or maybe Lars von Trier’s martyred
female leads. Whatever the proper
comparison may be, she’s awfully game, awfully brave. I am going to choose to see dignity here, and
tenderness in these lunatics’ entire conception.
 |
| Look closely, and compare |
Notice that the writers’
guild registration is a very crafty, even classical conclusion. In the end—Rossellini on Chaplin, Rosenbaum
on J.L.—after all the things you might say, this is the work of a free pair of
married Mormons.
