Une Femme est Une Femme

[BJ]

originally posted by Eden Mylunsch:
Who needs Corman when you've got Antonioni showing stuff getting all blowed up?

-Eden (I walked past the location of the old Corman studio lot the other day and it's now the site of a bunch of condos)

Goddam, that's fantastic, I've never seen that before. Very Antinoini. The Pink Floyd (???) really puts it over the top. In Netflix queue #1...

But then again, there's...

 

[Levi Dalton]

Brad L.: Antonioni, Fellini, Bertolucci, Pasolini, Rossellini, Bergman, Tarkovsky, Eisenstein, Godard in the '80s, Godard in the '90s, Godard now, Rohmer, Resnais, Rivette, Truffaut, Varda, Cocteau, Demy, Carne, Renoir, Fassbinder, Herzog, Wenders, Lang, Hitchcock, Reed, Kubrick, Ray, Preminger, Scorsese, Sirk, Malick, Jarmusch, Kurosawa, Ozu, Angelopoulos, Kieslowski, Kirostami, others. Whoever you want to talk about. You call the ball.

I basically dropped out of school and watched movies for a few years, about a decade ago. And I tried for Godard's record at one point.

 

[Carl Steefel]

What do you think about Herzog's Aguirre Wrath of God (as long as the discussion seems to be broadening out)? I ask because I forced my brother-in-law and nephew to watch this over Christmas. I still think it is a great movie after about 4 viewings, but then Aguirre and I are perhaps kindred spirits...

 

[Sharon Bowman]

originally posted by Levi Dalton:

originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
I hate w/r/t "Bande part"!

You have never wanted to run through the Louvre? Or have wild animals next door? Take a boat across the lake to school each day? Strap into a convertible and light out for the territory? Really? None of that?

Don't tell me Sharon Bowman never flirted with young dudes in foreign language class. I simply won't buy it.

What I find irksome in both "Bande part" and "Tirez sur le pianiste" is a problem with pacing. And humor that doesn't work. These things have some great stuff to work with (not least a Jim Thompson novel for the latter, Godard's pure creative fire for the former) and end up being boring and, dare I say it, drab.

My favorite three Godards are "Une femme est une femme," "Pierrot le fou" and "Contempt" (Le Mpris). With a nod to "Le Petit soldat" (fake detective with kafkaesque overtones, so much more successful, plus beginnings of poking and prodding into the Anna Karina/eternal woman/wife material).

I should also add, getting back to him, that Truffaut is maybe the most uneven director ever. Half of everything sucks completely ("2 Englishwomen and the Continent"? "The Man Who Loved Women"? "Domicile Conjugal"?) and some are pure if frivolous gems ("Stolen Kisses," "Small Change," "Vivement Dimanche," not to mention the more classically appreciable "400 Blows").

originally posted by Levi Dalton:
Brad L.: Antonioni, Fellini, Bertolucci, Pasolini, Rossellini, Bergman, Tarkovsky, Eisenstein, Godard in the '80s, Godard in the '90s, Godard now, Rohmer, Resnais, Rivette, Truffaut, Varda, Cocteau, Demy, Carne, Renoir, Fassbinder, Herzog, Wenders, Lang, Hitchcock, Reed, Kubrick, Ray, Preminger, Scorsese, Sirk, Malick, Jarmusch, Kurosawa, Ozu, Angelopoulos, Kieslowski, Kirostami, others. Whoever you want to talk about. You call the ball.

What about Duvivier?

A total mixed bag - do you like all of those directors?

Brad,

The cool thing about living in Paris is that you can see so many older films in the theater. A few weeks ago, I went to see "L'Eclisse," a ten-minute walk from my home.

Love that one. (Though "L'Avventura" leaves me cold & bored.)

 

[Levi Dalton]

I had the opportunity to meet Werner Herzog recently. It was a big moment for me. It happened at the restaurant, and literally no one else knew who he was. Talking about movies can be like that as well. There are only so many people you can talk with.

I personally agree with Herzog, who said that the scene when Aguirre intones that the very birds would fall dead from the sky if he commanded it, is one of the great moments of New German Cinema (he said in all of film, but maybe I wouldn't take it that far). It is the tone in which he says it. Herzog said he shot the scene many, many times, trying to exhaust Kinski, trying to make him not overact the line.

And there is the part where the monkies take over. That's for the ages.

But the early scene with the guys trapped on the raft in the whirpool, it looks like film school level shooting. Whatever. We aren't talking about a studio production here.

Mostly what moves me about Herzog is what he said in his Tokyo-Ga cameo: that he would go to the very moon, to Mars, if he had to to find authentic images, that the image based society we live in has exhausted the meaning of images, and that nothing authentic seems any longer to live. I used to feel that way sometimes.

His more recent picture about a search for the Loch Ness Monster is hilarious. Giggles and giggles hilarious.

 

[Carl Steefel]

originally posted by Levi Dalton:


I personally agree with Herzog, who said that the scene when Aguirre intones that the very birds would fall dead from the sky if he commanded it, is one of the great moments of New German Cinema (he said in all of film, but maybe I wouldn't take it that far). It is the tone in which he says it. Herzog said he shot the scene many, many times, trying to exhaust Kinski, trying to make him not overact the line.

And there is the part where the monkies take over. That's for the ages.

This is where you really get the payoff for all that slow action as the raft drifts down the river. You find out finally what the movie is really all about. Brilliant ending...

And I was struck again by the scene you mentioned where the raft is caught in the whirlpool. I looked and I looked and I could see no simple way that Herzog could have done this without filming the real scene--no Hollywood or computer tricks here...

 

[Carl Steefel]

originally posted by Sharon Bowman:

I should also add, getting back to him, that Truffaut is maybe the most uneven director ever. Half of everything sucks completely ("2 Englishwomen and the Continent"? "The Man Who Loved Women"? "Domicile Conjugal"?) and some are pure if frivolous gems ("Stolen Kisses," "Small Change," "Vivement Dimanche," not to mention the more classically appreciable "400 Blows").

Stolen Kisses and 400 Blows were my two favorites. The school in 400 Blows looked just like the one I went to (back in 1962), although I was considerably better behaved than Antoine Doinel...

 

[Levi Dalton]

originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
I should also add, getting back to him, that Truffaut is maybe the most uneven director ever. Half of everything sucks completely ("2 Englishwomen and the Continent"? "The Man Who Loved Women"? "Domicile Conjugal"?) and some are pure if frivolous gems ("Stolen Kisses," "Small Change," "Vivement Dimanche," not to mention the more classically appreciable "400 Blows").

Actually, Truffaut mostly sucks. Everything he did in color basically sucks. Total suckage. But there were those few films in the beginning that make his material worth wading through.

The 400 Blows, Jules and Jim, The Soft Skin, and yes, Shoot the Piano Player.

My idea of a bad film is Day for Night. Or The Story of Adele H. Or Mississippi Mermaid. Or...lots of other Truffaut junk.

You, Sharon, are certainly entitled to your own likes and dislikes. But personally I don't understand the objection to the pacing of Band of Outsiders. I find the pacing of that film quite invigorating and I think it can whip you along with it, in fact. Except where violence with actual guns is involved. Always a bit of a sticking point with Godard.

Do I like something in all of the directors I mentioned? Yes. Directors I personally like, I mean deep-deep down? Simple: Godard, Tarkovsky, Rohmer and that is the show. If you want to include the next tier, then Bergman for Persona and a couple of others, early Wenders, and Antonioni, although who can really love Antonioni? I mean LOVE. It is hard to love the abscence of love. I hate the guy in Blow Up so much I could shake him. But that is also true for the dude from The Collector Girl.

 

[Levi Dalton]

originally posted by Carl Steefel:
And I was struck again by the scene you mentioned where the raft is caught in the whirlpool. I looked and I looked and I could see no simple way that Herzog could have done this without filming the real scene--no Hollywood or computer tricks here...

It would have been better if he had shot it from the top. From over the shoulders of the lost. Not at ground level, like he did.

 

[Sharon Bowman]

Levi, I see we agree and disagree. (I hate "Jules and Jim"! Makes me want to tear out my own eyes. Though "The Soft Skin" - cruel and pretty good, though it's not Renoir's "La Chienne" (now that is a goddamn masterpiece).) And aside from the "good" Truffauts I mentioned earlier, yeah, one can chuck his production (why do people also like "The Wild Child"?).

I think I should see "Bande part" again so I can talk more usefully about it; it's been a long time.

For the different directors, I guess it's the '50s American ones who gave me pause (and later Wenders... ugh).

Curious about "Blow Up." It's not Cortzar, but I love it anyway. Also, "La Notte" is pretty exhilarating, in a deflating kind of way.

 

[Carl Steefel]

originally posted by Levi Dalton:

originally posted by Carl Steefel:
And I was struck again by the scene you mentioned where the raft is caught in the whirlpool. I looked and I looked and I could see no simple way that Herzog could have done this without filming the real scene--no Hollywood or computer tricks here...

It would have been better if he had shot it from the top. From over the shoulders of the lost. Not at ground level, like he did.

I thought there was one scene like this, but maybe just at the end when they find the guys on the raft have been killed during the night...

 

[Levi Dalton]

originally posted by Carl Steefel:

originally posted by Levi Dalton:

originally posted by Carl Steefel:
And I was struck again by the scene you mentioned where the raft is caught in the whirlpool. I looked and I looked and I could see no simple way that Herzog could have done this without filming the real scene--no Hollywood or computer tricks here...

It would have been better if he had shot it from the top. From over the shoulders of the lost. Not at ground level, like he did.

I thought there was one scene like this, but maybe just at the end when they find the guys on the raft have been killed during the night...

I'll watch it again and take a look.

 

[Levi Dalton]

originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
Levi, I see we agree and disagree. (I hate "Jules and Jim"! Makes me want to tear out my own eyes. Though "The Soft Skin" - cruel and pretty good, though it's not Renoir's "La Chienne" (now that is a goddamn masterpiece).) And aside from the "good" Truffauts I mentioned earlier, yeah, one can chuck his production (why do people also like "The Wild Child"?).

I think I should see "Bande part" again so I can talk more usefully about it; it's been a long time.

For the different directors, I guess it's the '50s American ones who gave me pause (and later Wenders... ugh).

Curious about "Blow Up." It's not Cortzar, but I love it anyway. Also, "La Notte" is pretty exhilarating, in a deflating kind of way.

Sirk? He was a big influence on Fassbinder, so I worked backwards to him. I liked Tarnished Angels. I liked Written on the Wind. He was a symbolist.

Or Ray? Who would have a problem with Ray? Not me. Certainly not me.

Preminger, I guess you mean. Well, he got some great scenes out of Stewart in Anatomy of a Murder. And he got some real despair from Sinatra in The Man with Golden Arm. And...and...he made a little film called Bonjour Tristesse that inspired a certain someone to lose his Breath.

Of course a couple of those dudes weren't actually Americans, but I think we are on the same page.

Not sure how I left Bresson (who is monumental for me) or Chris Marker off the list. That was just dumb. Nobody has hit me harder than Bresson. And nobody can even touch what Marker does, except for Wenders in that amazing little Tokyo one off.

The Antonioni film I am drawn to most, and think about often, is Il Grido. Which is also the one nobody ever, EVER, talks about.

 

[Sharon Bowman]

All three (well, except "Laura"). I think we part ways again.

Bresson! Zzz. Give me Louis Malle instead. (!!) (OK, just trying to provoke. Still.)

In any case, it's impossible to be exhaustive. I suspect you may like Clouzot or early Polanski (let me guess: "Knife in the Water"? "Repulsion"?), too. Not to mention Fritz Lang or Murnau.

I've never seen "Il Grido."

 

[Levi Dalton]

originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
All three (well, except "Laura"). I think we part ways again.

Bresson! Zzz. Give me Louis Malle instead. (!!) (OK, just trying to provoke. Still.)

In any case, it's impossible to be exhaustive. I suspect you may like Clouzot or early Polanski (let me guess: "Knife in the Water"? "Repulsion"?), too. Not to mention Fritz Lang or Murnau.

I've never seen "Il Grido."

To say Bresson, Zzz is like saying Beethoven, Zzz. It's just stupid.

You couldn't have seen the ending of Mouchette and say anything like this.

I have seen everything the man put to film, with one exception. Have you? There is also a little book he put together which is benchmark. And a couple of then unknowns that became actresses to all of our benefit. People he found, searched out.

Maybe you know Malle worked with Bresson? That anything Malle gleaned he gleaned from the master? I can't tell from your message. Anyway, Malle is plaster of paris, and Bresson is marble.

I liked Knife in the Water a great deal.

Lang made my earlier list. I've seen a large number of his films. Of course you know that Lang acts in Contempt, which I have already said was/is a huge film for me.

I saw one from Clouzot. It was less interesting to me as a film in and of itself, and more from the many interpretations that were drawn from it, pre and post-War. It was called The Raven.

 

[Sharon Bowman]

Part provocation, part question of taste. I wouldn't say Beethoven, zzz, but I would say Debussy, zzz, and people could shoot arrows at me.

And as for Malle, yes, that was also part of the provocation.

Oh, that said, I do love "Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne." But then, you have Bresson on a backdrop of Diderot and Cocteau, rather than the insipid Bernanos.

 

[Levi Dalton]

What are you objecting to about Diary of a Country Priest? Storyline or formal aspects?

To say you find the source insipid doesn't really mean much. Some of the best movies in history have been made from pap. Contempt, for one.

 

[Sharon Bowman]

"Mouchette" is Bernanos, too.

You don't like Moravia?!

 

[Levi Dalton]

Debussy and Bresson have about zero in common.

 

[Sharon Bowman]

Ah, but one shared trait is that I don't tend to like them - a useful filter if you're me.

(That said, I proved myself wrong with "Les Dames...")