Undercurrent. 2.

You'll want to wander the Alexander Dovzhenko Virtual Exhibition first. It'll set the mood for the essay that opens the second issue of Undercurrent in which Marco Carynnyk, telling the story behind Earth, anchors all that the exhibition evokes: "Dovzhenko was more ambiguous, more nuanced, than his critics, either pro- or anti-Soviet, allowed. He was a party member for only three years. He never mastered Marx. He had little to say about Lenin, and even that was a measure of what the party demanded from every writer and filmmaker rather than of his own convictions."

Editor Chris Fujiwara revisits Madigan to show that Don Siegel was more than "a master of the mechanics of such generic setpieces as shootouts, standoffs, chases, and heists.... The acting in Madigan brings to life a dimension of meaning, conflict, and crisis that is implied, but not stated, in Polonsky's script, demonstrating that the formal complexity of Siegel's films is no less bold and exciting in their dialogue scenes than in their action highpoints."

The DVD release many are looking forward to most this year is Criterion's collection of Eric Rohmer's Six Moral Tales. As grateful as we'll be in August when it arrives, we'll still be awaiting a release of Conte d'automne (Autumn Tale). Until then, we have a fine piece from Jacob Leigh: "I do not want to overemphasize the parallels between Beaumarchais' Le Mariage de Figaro and Conte d'automne; there are many areas where the resemblance is superficial; nevertheless, the links that exist can help us to appreciate the achievement of Rohmer's film."

David Sterritt reminds us that "some aspects of [Terrence Malick's] personal and intellectual history... are atypical, to put it mildly, of the movie-directing crowd" and that "his intensely idiosyncratic pictures are philosophical to their bones, exploring an ambitious set of ideas in terms at once cinematically concrete and intellectually abstract. The New World is no exception."

"Lady Vengeance, the conclusion of a trio of films devoted to the subject of revenge, features less on-screen carnage than its two predecessors, Sympathy For Mr Vengeance and Oldboy, but has generated even more controversy." Steve Erickson looks into why that might be, and he's especially curious because, "In some respects, Sympathy for Mr Vengeance is so well done that it makes the remainder of Park [Chan-wook]'s trilogy pointless."

Miguel Marías on John Ford's 21-minute segment in How the West Was Won: "It breathes in a serene and beautiful way, unhurried but to the point, with an economy of trait and gesture that brings to mind Griffith and Chaplin, and now (we were not familiar with the Japanese master in 1962) seems curiously close to Ozu."

"I often have the feeling that we Argentineans tend to import theories and concepts rather than confront them," writes Lorena Cancela. "Is it everywhere like this? Are we condemned to be vampires in the shadows of the cinema?"

Posted by dwhudson at July 9, 2006 3:49 PM