Cinetrix here [barely]. Still recovering from my stint at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival last weekend, which was bracketed on either side with documentary screenings closer to home. Filmmaker Michael Gitlin presented his downright Lynchian in parts look at amateur ornithologists and bird watchers in the odd and compelling The Birdpeople last week, and evangelical Ike-lover Eugene Jarecki breezed through yesterday with his outstanding doc Why We Fight, which blew me away precisely one year ago at Full Frame and should be playing soon at the proverbial theatre near you.
In time, I will post reviews a go-go, but for now I leave you with the following bits of chum to nibble:
BLVR: Rumor has it that you turned down the chance to direct Disney’s remake of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner because you felt they weren’t interested in really exploring racism.
HR: The way they wanted to do it didn’t have a lot to do with the colossal amount of pain and violence that swirls around racial injustice. It would’ve been like an episode of The Jeffersons. What’s the point? But who knows, maybe that’s as much as most people want. I can’t tell you how many people have told me, “When I go to the movies, I don’t want to think.”
BLVR: Does that offend you as a filmmaker?
HR: It offends me as a human being. Why wouldn’t you want to think? What does that mean? Why not just shoot yourself in the fucking head? Or people’ll say that they don’t want to see any negative emotions. They don’t want to see unpleasantness. I did a comedy with Al Franken about his character Stuart Smalley, which was really about alcoholism and addiction and codependency. It had some painful stuff in it. When we showed it to focus groups, some of them actually said, “If I want to see a dysfunctional family, I’ll stay home.”
Sexy [not]:
Practically asexual, A.O. Scott prefers the "most risqué" moment in a movie to be "ocular intercourse" that "stands in for the more vigorous variety, which is kept mainly off screen" (Casanova). If Scott had his druthers, sex scenes would be "mostly talk," because "there are still a few filmmakers who are capable of infusing the bodily expressions of erotic desire with dramatic force and psychological meaning." (Closer).
Cool:
I think that one very particular thing that a film critic can do — it's part of the task of writing — is description. But a very particular kind of description. I don't mean plot description. I think far too many film reviews have far too much plot synopsis in them. Which is boring. I mean, who wants to read five paragraphs of plot synopsis? If I want to see the plot I'll go see the film. I want the motor of that plot, I want something about the hook of that plot to get me interested. But, beyond that, I want something that is more a quality of what I think of as a sort of sensuous description of the film, of the rhythm of the film, the color of the film, of the mood itself, of the changing moods of the film. Something that gives you a feeling, a really experiential feeling of the film that you try to translate into your own language, whether it be on radio or in print or a television segment or whatever it might be.
Back soon. Save a seat for me.