Shorts, 8/30.

In Logos, Jonas Mekas remembers avant-garde and doc pioneer Alexander Hammid (more), who inadvertently introduced him to Maya Deren several years before they actually met. The journal is also running two pieces written by Hammid in the 30s, "Film and Music" and "The First Screening of Avant-Garde Films in Prague at the Kotva Cinema."

Then, though you may be sick of Fahrenheit 9/11 by now, Kurt Jacobsen's piece is a keeper.

Michael Moore actually pops up in Benjamin Noys's review in Film-Philosophy of Guy Debord: Complete Cinematic Works, translated and edited by Ken Knabb. Noys opens with an excellent and concise description of what Debord was after in his films, and actually, the example of Moore - and for that matter, of Godard, too - serves as a defining contrast. For more on - and of - the book, including Knabb's introduction, see the Bureau of Public Secrets.

Via Perlentaucher:

• In French: François Ozon tells Fabrice Pliskin about his new film, 5 x 2 in Le Nouvel Observateur.
• In Italian: Monica Maggi on erotic comedies, "an Italian specialty in the postwar era," as Perlentaucher puts it. Also in L'espresso, Eleonora Attolico on the Kals'art festival, through September 22 in Palermo.
• In German: Just before he packs up and heads to Guyana to shoot a film, Werner Herzog tells Literaturen what he's taking with him to read. The Second Punic War (he often reads Livius when he's shooting), a Compendium of Nahuatl Grammar, the Codex Florentinus (really, if you don't speak German, you're going to want to run this through Google; the explanations are solid and rich) and Karl Sabbagh's The Riemann Hypothesis. In the same issue: Manuela Reichart on Visconti's Death in Venice.
• Now then. More in German. Get this: Der Spiegel interviews André Heller, who'll be running the cultural program for the World Cup (soccer, you know) in 2006. He wants to work with Brian Eno, Sir Simon Rattle, etc., etc., on the program. And he says - right here - that Jean-Luc Godard wants to direct the live broadcast of a few of the games. Evidently, the idea is that on your usual channels, you'd see the games as you're used to seeing them, but you could also opt to switch to Arte and watch them through Godard's lens.
• And in English: Sanghamitra Chakraborty in Outlook India on that "one-man brand industry," Amitabh Bachchan, and Hal Foster in the London Review of Books on Ed Ruscha and the "Hollywood Sublime."

Besides the newsy angle on Roger Ebert's piece in the Sun Times about finally meeting Vincent Gallo in person and rehashing who said what when at Cannes, what comes across is Gallo's sincerity, his sheer likeableness even, and surprisingly to many, no doubt, his straightforward confidence in what he's about:

The Brown Bunny was my idea of what a good movie would be. I'm not a marginal person. I don't pretend to be a cult figure. I'm just making a movie and I think the film is beautiful and I think, wow, everybody's gonna see how beautiful it is, and when they don't agree with me, then in a sense I failed. I didn't fail myself because I made what I think is beautiful and I stand behind thinking that it's beautiful. I've only failed in this commercial way because I haven't entertained the crowd. If people don't like my movie, then I'm sorry they didn't like my movie. But I wasn't apologizing for it [at Cannes].

That's via Movie City News and so is another pointer to Anne Thompson's talk with Mira Nair in the Washington Post. As it happens, Vanity Fair makes the editorial page of the New York Times today. What Verlyn Klinkenborg seems to be saying here is that a cinematic adaptation isn't the heresy some English majors might take it for, since, after all, Thackeray drew pictures, too. There may be more to the piece than that; I hope so. At any rate, the New Yorker's Anthony Lane sniffles, "The novel will be with us forever, but the movie is a one-night stand."

Walter Salles, in a long, leisurely talk with Geoff Andrew: "I come from a country and also a continent whose identity is in the making. We're a very young culture, and I think that things are not yet crystallised. So the films that are made in our latitudes, I think, carry that sense of urgency." The Observer's Philip French reviews The Motorcycle Diaries.

Also in the Guardian: "It takes a lot to shock Courtney Love," observes Amy Raphael. What's done the trick isn't so much the doc Festival Express as the life of one of its stars, Janis Joplin. Oh, Piece of My Heart with Renée Zellweger is still on, evidently. And Helen Mirren will play the Queen in Stephen Frears's next film, reports Matt Wells.

Fimoculous is back. Among the many things on Rex's mind: "[H]ow much of a nano-celebrity [could you] be and have a fake blog made in your honor"?

Morgan Spurlock is seriously looking for copies of the letters McDonald's is sending to employees around the world filling them in on what to say when someone asks about "That Movie."

Online viewing tip. We don't raise the green flag around here all that often, but as the Republicans gather in New York, we are indeed pleased to be able to provide a bit of counter-programming in the form of the VOD premiere of Jon Marc Sandifer's 1600 MLK: The State of the Union.

Posted by dwhudson at August 30, 2004 9:47 AM