Weekend Shorts.
"The night view is very beautiful, a spill of endless jewels glittering in limpid air; chains and towers of light that stretch as far as one can see. This is the mad, rich woman America; with the courage of her convictions, her rich madness."
That's
John Fowles, writing in March 1964 in Los Angeles. He's there because
William Wyler is adapting his book,
The Collector. Things did not turn out well for the movie, but for the journals, due out in the UK in early October and excerpted in the
Guardian, they turn out splendidly. On
Terence Stamp: "Terry has created a sort of dream life-style for himself. He says whatever comes into his head, does what he likes, lives like a sort of Hamlet without neurosis, eternally white-shirted, open-throated, thrusting, on the crest of the wave." On
Samantha Eggar:
I took Sam out this evening, to hear Segovia and to try to get to the bottom of the mystery of her nothingness. I felt like Seneca locked up with Poppaea... or something. A pretty corrupt Seneca, as I have done my best to get her [in] the sack these last days; and like everyone else have indulged wholeheartedly in the favourite sport on the Columbia lot - making fun of her behind her back.
And so on. Read it now or save it for dessert. Also in the
Guardian:
The fascinating story of how Andrei Tarkovsky came to direct Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov in 1983, as told by Stuart Jeffries.
"Perhaps the Bennifer mania really is a form of celluloid fundamentalism, a fully realised faith, its form of communion transpiring in the darkness of the theatre, not a cathedral, but transubstantiating nonetheless." Heavens, B. Ruby Rich.
Andrew Pulver on the making of My Summer of Love, Pawel Pawlikowski's "follow-up to Last Resort, one of the most influential and acclaimed British films of the last decade."
You may remember this summer's hullabaloo about the relevance of film theory. Well, that's my excuse for pointing to this extract from Terry Eagleton's After Theory. Don't let the title fool you: "If 'theory' means a reasonably systematic reflection on our guiding assumptions, it remains as indispensable as ever."
Another extract: Emily W. Leider's Dark Lover: The Life and Death of Rudolph Valentino.
Geoffrey Macnab on Sergio Leone.
On a related note, Sam Delaney meets Robert Rodriguez.
Suzie Mackenzie interviews Tilda Swinton.
Take the Young Love quiz. (My worst score yet: 6 out of 10.)
And finally, a Guardian article that's two years old. Because, as whoever it is behind Persistence of Vision writes, Gary Susman's piece on Hollywood accounting "is a vertiable master class. Yes, a slew of bloated-budget movies have come and gone since it was written, but really, nothing's changed." This entire POV entry is a wonderful rant, by the way. Do follow all the links, but particularly those to the infuriating Respect Copyrights campaign and to Ken Womack's open letter to Hollywood.
Ian Whitney, who's just filed his Toronto report at Duell Lens, points to a profile of Takeshi Kitano in Time Asia and adds:
[O]ver and over again, Kitano's films are catagorized as "ultra-violent", which is just a simple way Westerners (and apparently Time Asia) use to pigeonhole him. As we near the release of Kill Bill and any number of Japanese and/or Hong Kong "inspired" films, complete with pumpin' sound and 20-minute wire fights, I find it weird that Kitano's films, in which characters spend more time staring at the waves than they do fighting, are continually called "ultra-violent." Of course, the films that do get wide release in the US - Violent Cop, Fireworks and (hopefully) Zatoichi - are the violent ones; while the quiet films - Scene at the Sea, Kids Return, Kikujiro, Dolls - are given the smallest releases possible, if they get a theatrical release at all. Perhaps describing Kitano's films as violent says more about us than it does about him.
Speaking of violence. The 20th anniversary of Brian De Palma's remake of Howard Hawks's Scarface (1932), with Al Pacino reinventing the role created by Paul Muni, has the Washington Times's Scott Galupo musing that the 1983 version "is still a touchstone for gangsta subculture, in ways both superficial and substantive." The Chicago Sun-Times runs an excerpt from Roger Ebert's original "**** review" and tells us to look forward to a reassessment next Sunday. Both via Movie City News. The DVD, by the way, is out on September 30.
David Caute reviews Peter Conrad's Orson Welles: The Stories of His Life for the Spectator.
Didn't I just write, "the argument over Mel Gibson's The Passion is entering a new phase. The shouting is dying down," etc? Well, Frank Rich doesn't exactly come out shouting, but he's certainly not eager to put this to rest. Also in the New York Times:
Stephen Holden on "Film's Hottest Composer," Stephen Trask.
Alexander Stille: "Inexpensive modern media, like the audio- or videotape, have helped level the playing field between small rebellions and large established states."
"In any given week, you can easily watch 24 hours of Law and Order product, an entire day's worth, and in some weeks the total reaches 30 hours or more." Charles McGrath explains how that's happened.
Noam Scheiber asks FCC Chairman Michael Powell what he watches. Just about everything, turns out.
Maybe he should turn to Salon's Heather Havrilesky for advice on which sitcoms to catch this fall and which to avoid.
Robert Duvall finally has his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
"It's a very participatory thing - the filmmakers and cast have been great, coming to the shows and judging costume contests, doing give-aways, performing music from the film," Wet Hot American Summer producer Howard Bernstein tells indieWIRE's Wendy Mitchell about the recent "Rocky Horror-like midnight screenings" in New York. Mitchell's got more newsy bits, too, on November's AFI FEST, San Diego's fest, wrapping this weekend, Slamdance Screenplay Competition winners, and a brief chat with Chloë Sevigny about demonlover: "It's pretty hardcore. I was shocked."
Also in indieWIRE:
Howard Feinstein on Nicolas Philibert and To Be and To Have - a rerun, I believe, but relevant to the current release. He also talks with Michael Winterbottom about In This World.
Brian Brooks looks ahead to the London Film Festival (October 22 to November 6) and Slamdance (January 17 - 24).
The October issue of Sight & Sound is up and onliners get Edward Buscombe on Once upon a Time in Mexico and Paul Merton on Charlie Chaplin. In the print edition, there are evidently more contributors to the magazine's Chaplin package, but Merton is more than fine:
Charlie's own favourite among his films was The Gold Rush... I took my wife Sarah to see the film at the Royal Festival Hall a couple of years ago. She couldn't believe a film could be so funny. For the seven minutes that the cabin teeters on the brink of the precipice, the audience couldn't stop laughing. And there's nothing that compares to being engulfed by waves of beautiful laughter.
Debra McCorkle in AlterNet: "For the mere price of nine months in jail, [Tommy Chong] can spend the rest of his life as a hero for libertarian ideals. He doesn't have to kiss John Ashcroft's ass." Let's hope Chong feels the same way.
Peter Debruge interviews Underworld director Len Wiseman for Film Threat.
Online viewing tip. Well, I want to point to a couple of silly things, neither of them particularly new, either, so let me preface with: If you're looking for a good meaty read this weekend, take a ride beneath the "Empire's Shadow" with Susan Willis in the New Left Review.
Now then. Awful Plastic Surgery. Stealth Disco.
Posted by dwhudson at September 20, 2003 9:48 AM
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