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Nearly forgot! The cinetrix also covets a book on a related topic from MIT Press and Alphabet City Media: Subtitles: On the Foreignness of Film, edited by Atom Egoyan and Ian Balfour. Look how pretty!

"Every film is a foreign film," Atom Egoyan and Ian Balfour tell us in their introduction to Subtitles. How, then, to translate the experience of film -- which, as Egoyan says, makes us "feel outside and inside at the same time"? Taking subtitles as their point of departure, the thirty-two contributors to this unique collection consider translation, foreignness, and otherness in film culture. Their discussions range from the mechanics and aesthetics of subtitles themselves to the xenophobic reaction to translation to subtitles as a metaphor for the distance and intimacy of film.

The essays, interviews, and visuals include a collaboration by Russell Banks and Atom Egoyan, which uses quotations from Banks's novel The Sweet Hereafter as subtitles for publicity stills from Egoyan's film of the book; three early film reviews by Jorge Luis Borges; an interview with filmmaker Claire Denis about a scene in her film Friday Night that should not have been subtitled; and Eric Cazdyn's reading of the running subtitles on CNN's post-9/11 newscasts as a representation of new global realities. Several writers deal with translating cultural experience for an international audience, including Frederic Jameson on Balkan cinema, John Mowitt on the history of the "foreign film" category in the Academy Awards, and Ruby Rich on the marketing of foreign films and their foreign languages -- "Somehow, I'd like to think it's harder to kill people when you hear their voices," she writes. And Slavoj Zizek considers the "foreign gaze" (seen in films by Hitchcock, Lynch, and others), the misperception that sees too much.

Plus, it's presented in a 1.66:1 aspect ratio!

"Now is the time for gastric lavage"

Back in the stateside heyday of Hong Kong action flicks, folks I know used to quote this particularly tin-earred subtitle constantly. [It comes from the one about lesbian fighters--Holy Weapon maybe--and the scene itself takes place in a dark kitchen, I think.] The cinetrix shares this charming phrase and its backstory as a roundabout way of saying goddamn do I covet this new book: Cinema Babel: Translating Global Cinema. What a genius idea. Here's the synopsis on the publisher's page:

Uncovering the vital role of interpreters, dubbers, and subtitlers in the global traffic of film.

The original foreign film—its sights and sounds—is available to all, but the viewer is utterly dependent on a translator and an untold number of technicians who produce the graphic text or disconnected speech through which we must approach the foreign film. A bad translation can ruin a film’s beauty, muddy its plot, and turn any joke sour.

In this wide-ranging work, Abé Mark Nornes examines the relationships between moving-image media and translation and contends that film was a globalized medium from its beginning and that its transnational traffic has been greatly influenced by interpreters. He discusses the translation of film theory, interpretation at festivals and for coproductions, silent era practice, “talkies,” subtitling, and dubbing.

Murky Margot

According to Glenn Kenny, Margot at the Wedding "has an extremely apt perpetually-overcast look* (it was shot by Harris Savides)." I wouldn't know. Earlier this week, the cinetrix found herself on one of those flights that offer seat-back screens promising an array of visual and audio entertainments. To my delight, Noah Baumbach's latest--which I hadn't caught up with yet--was among the free flicks available. So, I pressed play and... "watched" it would be stretching it. Listened, yes. Enjoyed the tree coming down, sure. Otherwise, it was all straining and peering to little avail. Even with the shades down, the low-key natural lighting Baumbach and Savides et al. opted for frequently reduced the image to a dark smear from which Nicole Kidman's Margot's voice could occasionally be heard, saying something wounding.

Obviously, I'm going to have to watch it again, under conditions where I can, you know, see it. But it made me wonder, with the multiplying modalities that have David Denby tut-tutting about kids today, whether any of you have had similar miserable experiences trying to watch movies on smaller screens.

*GK: A hyphen? Really? For an "-ly" adverbial adjective? Dude.

R.I.P. Tim Haslett

I first met Tim when we had abutting shows on a college radio station--not the one you'd think--almost twenty years ago now. We ran into each other off and on in the intervening years, meeting mostly in the context of mutual friends or at Other Music's short-lived store in Cambridge.

Tim was found in his apartment on Friday, dead from an accidental prescription meds overdose. Already a natural teacher, he was a doctoral candidate in African American and African Studies at Michigan State, but even saying that only skims the surface of this gentle, sardonic, complex, and passionate soul. In his own words:

“Anything I say here will sound tired, lame and cliched: I’m a loving, caring, empathic person trying to survive in a culture dominated by free market, neo-liberal values, white supremacy, patriarchy and the loathsome cult of individualism. My ‘academic’ work is *never* unconnected to my passions, desires, and ambitions for radical social justice. Black Studies is a calling to me, as strong as some folks’ religious fervour, and without music, my life would be a mistake.” - Tim Haslett

You would have liked Tim. And you can meet him still, through the people and passions that filled his life. The cinetrix encourages you to visit a few links and download some of the music that has been put up in his memory. You could do worse than start with one of Tim's Hard Wired shows on WZBC, digitized and hosted here. Those in the Boston area have a few more options:

• Tune in: ZBC is hosting tribute programming all weekend, stretching into Monday night during Tim's old slot.

• Go out: Beat Research :: Tribute to Tim Haslett

Join Flack & I & Brian Coleman & friends as we pay tribute to the too too soon departed local music man, Tim Haslett, “one of the unsung heroes of the Boston scene,” former buyer for Other Music’s Hahvid Sq branch, Twisted Villager, true champion of underground music, rap-techno-electro lover (oh and house too), and black cultural nationalist. An intellectual and a gentle man.  Who’s gonna be missed.

Monday night, March 24, 9pm-1am, music in the spirit of Tim.

If you’re a local DJ type who knew him, come on out and bring a few rekkids Tim woulda liked.

Beat Research
Mondays at the Enormous Room with residents DJ Flack and Wayne and Wax
567 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA
9pm to 1am, 21 plus, Free

As the man himself would say, it'll be a scorcher.

After all, we're not murderers, in spite of what this undertaker thinks.

Oh, Tony. Really?

The exceptions have mainly been examples of the backward-looking, second-generation tradition, films like the “Godfather” cycle, an ambivalent epic of an Italian family’s incomplete Americanization....

Promised land

It's beginning to become a thing. Yet again this past weekend, the 'Fesser and the cinetrix hit up the local two-buck theater to see an Oscar winner that'd come out on DVD earlier in the week. Two bucks, big screen equals cheaper and larger than watching a movie at home, so why not?

Our feature presentation was No Country for Old Men, which had somehow eluded us. OK, to be honest, I'd developed a total block about this film and kept weaseling out of chances to watch it. See, the cinetrix still hasn't recovered from the psychic scarring left by the final act of Blood Simple ages ago, and she was dreading feeling that tense twist of suspense ratcheting ever tighter in her gut.

Which it did, leaving me as limp and spent as a wet dishrag. Fuckin' Coen brothers.

Woody Harrelson must be cutting his pot with Botox--brother looks younger than he did on Cheers.

Listen up

More multimedia fun this morning, courtesy of the Bat Segundo Show: an interview with Stephen Chow about his latest flick, CJ7. Here's an excerpt:

Correspondent: But I wanted to ask why the poverty in this had vibrant, bright colors, as opposed to any kind of grit. Is this the kind of limitations of the family film? Or did you just want to keep the look of it right? And also, did you two go to various slums or impoverished areas to kind of get a sense of what it was to live like that? Or was this a case where the look of the house, which is all in pieces, and also has the signal that changes from night to day as well — that that location, the set itself — that you felt that that was enough to get the sense of impoverishment? Maybe you can elaborate on this, both of you.

Chow: (via translator) The first thing about poverty is — and the aesthetics that you mention — he really wanted to — I mean he says that’s not obviously a reflection of what poverty really is. And for him, he wants to adjust it so that it’s acceptable to audiences. Because it’s not a documentary. You can’t really show the kind of poverty that’s out there. So he needed to create this fantastical environment.

Correspondent: That’s interesting. Because I’m wondering. Why dwell on poverty if you can’t present it absolutely in the form of a family film? I’m curious about that.

Chow: (via translator) Well, for him, his film is really for family. And it has a lot of fantastical and fairy tale-like aspects to it. So he’s not really trying to reflect poverty as it really is. Because he understands that there’s real poverty out there. But for him, this movie isn’t in a place to do that. And he also doesn’t feel like his audiences will really accept that.

[Interjection from Chow]

Chow: (via translator) But he wants to add that it is based on a lot of his realities. Because he grew up poor. And the whole not having toys to play with, or hitting the cockroaches as sport or entertainment, that was really his childhood. So even though it’s not a reflection of what most people know as poverty, it’s a real poverty for him and for a lot of people he knows. So although it’s not 100 percent, it’s at a very high percentage.

Listen to [or download] the whole bilingual podcast here.

Like moths around a flame

Good morning! What better way to start your work week than with a little Klaus Nomi?

The clip is just a transparent excuse to recommend you watch this NYT slide show: Nan Goldin's portraits of Tilda Swinton, Charlotte Gainsbourg, freakin' Veruschka, and other angular sylphs modeling haute couture to a Klaus Nomi soundtrack. Hell, yeah.

[Oh, OK. Here's Dietrich for you purists.]

As sure as the sun will shine

Over at The Criterion Contraption, Matthew Dessum has put up a truly staggering post about The Harder They Come, which begins by sharing this cool personal twist:

In August of 1973, my father and mother moved into a strange little house on Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge, where my father was starting law school. The house belonged to an elderly woman who promised her husband before his death that she wouldn't sell the home they'd shared. So while the rest of their neighborhood was bulldozed and turned into office space and retail, her house just sat there. And as Google Maps reveals, it's sitting there today, defying the architecture around it.

My parents had the front of the second floor, which didn't have enough room for a full-sized bed. But like many old houses, this one came with a window seat (pictured) and a terrible curse (not pictured). The curse worked like this: the house was right across the street from the Orson Welles theater. So at least once a week, some moviegoer would park in front of the driveway, blocking everyone in. And that August, the movie that inspired such careless parking was The Harder They Come, which began an unprecedented seven-year run at the theater that summer. My parents have always said that The Paper Chase—opened that October, set at Harvard Law—was sort of their theme movie for the year, but it seems to me that The Harder They Come had a more direct impact on them, in the sense that they kept having to call tow trucks because of it. So full disclosure requires me to point out that this film caused my family actual, measurable harm. But it's impossible to stay angry at a movie with this much low-rent charm.

Please do read the whole post here. Also, Dessem's a systems engineer for New Line in L.A., which means the brother's about to be out of a job. Help him find another if you can, won't you, so we can keep him in [out-of-print] Criterions?

Red band trailer

From semester to semester, I tend to switch up the documentary we watch in the intro class. It keeps me interested and engaged and, let's face it, there are so many approaches to the form to consider that, hey, why not? This semester's selection, Kirby Dick's This Film Is Not Yet Rated, worked out well for a variety of reasons [although I had forgotten about the explicit puppet sex] and helped me segue nicely into a discussion of the Hays Code this week.

Seems it made an impression on the impressionable, too. One of my students posted this clip on Facebook. Enjoy!