pullquote

The Wound in the Face

...in a brief period of delirium, there was a startling vogue of black lipstick and red eyeshadow. For a little while we were painting ourselves up just as arbitrarily as Larionov did before the Revolution. Dada in the boudoir! What a witty parody of the whole theory of cosmetics!

...those manic and desperate styles -- leapt on and exploited instantly by desperate manufacturers -- seemed to be about to break the ground for a whole new aesthetic of appearance, which would have nothing to do with the conformist ideology of "beauty" at all. Might -- ah, might -- it be possible to use cosmetics to free women from the burden of having to look beautiful altogether?

Because black lipstick and red eyeshadow never "beautified" anybody. They were the cosmetic equivalent of Duchamp's moustache on the Mona Lisa. They were cosmetics used as satire on cosmetics, on the arbitrary convention that puts blue on eyelids and pink on lips. Why not the other way round? The best part of the joke was that the look itself was utterly monstrous. It instantly converted the most beautiful women into outrageous grotesques; every face a work of anti-art.

I enjoyed it very, very much.

However, it takes a helluva lot of guts to maintain oneself in a perpetual state of visual offensiveness. Most women could not resist keeping open a treacherous little corner on sex appeal. Besides, the joke went a little too near the bone. To do up your eyes so that they look like self-inflicted wounds is to wear on your face the evidence of the violence your environment inflicts on you.

Status update

One of the occupational hazards of indulging overmuch in Facebook is succumbing to the inclination to distill one's experiences to a series of simple declaratives. To wit: upon reading the lede of Dave Kehr's most recent post--"With no new Rob Marshall film due until Christmas, 2009, The Criterion Collection has kindly decided to help us through by releasing four films by Kenji Mizoguchi on its budget Eclipse label"--my well-nigh overwhelming impulse is  to announce "The cinetrix loves it when Dave Kehr gets snippy."

Mrow! Which is to say, "Go Maroons!"

13 Most Beautiful

Warhol's screentests are being released on DVD in early '09 with a Dean and Britta score. [via]

Five mangosteens

The cinetrix emerges from her self-imposed exile! So much to say about so many things. While I get my thoughts together, some entertainments for a wet Friday afternoon.

• A.S. Hamrah on Manny Farber in Undercurrent:

...By the mid-1970s Farber knew what he wanted from audiences. He wanted them to be Farber. "The audience," he said, "should be fantastically dialectical, involved in a continuing discussion of every movie." He wanted the same from filmmakers: "The person making the movie should be held responsible for everything that's said and shown, and so should the audience seeing it." If this seems a long way from the pure pleasure Kael-ite critics accuse him of deriving from "underground" movies by directors like Hawks, Walsh, or Aldrich, it's not. It's just that Farber feels those directors were aware of a certain kind of responsibility. Ours is a cinematic age of auteurism without responsibility. Every film is A Film By and no director is ever held accountable for making bad movies and no audience is ever ridiculed for liking them. Farber's direction for audiences and filmmakers makes more sense than ever, even as it becomes less possible for working film critics and film directors to follow it.

For the American film critics of the past we still read today, writing film criticism was not a lifelong profession. Today it has become a sinecure for certain writers. It traps them and forces us to witness their long, long, long slides into irrelevance. Because he could paint, and because for him painting and writing film criticism were inextricably linked, Farber escaped this fate. He did not write film criticism his whole life nor did he make it his 9-5 job, but it was something woven into both. When he said "I can't imagine a more perfect art form, a more perfect career, than criticism," the word "career" must have had a different meaning for Farber in 1977 than it does for us today. His definition of "underground" in movies — "it is as though the film has a life of its own that goes on beneath the story action" — applies to his career as well, which sometimes seems as mysterious as Edgar Ulmer's....

• Videogum revisits the Chris Eigeman oeuvre, calling him the Chuck Bass of the 90s.

• Finally, the Guardian film blog Clip Joint recently treated the cinetrix's favorite subject: the use of songs in films:

Maybe it's because you just can't say it all – sometimes dialogue falters, surroundings seem 2D, and it's time to climb to a higher, more emotional plane. Songs used to be the CGI set-pieces of their day, Golden-Age musicals texturing them just as carefully as Yoda's earlobes; now they're fired off with a killer soundtrack swagger, pop cultural bullets to the head.

Roger that

Right now, the cinetrix doesn't care what you think about Roger Ebert. The man is all right in my book forever after yesterday's deft trashing of a "little" "indie" "movie" called Tru Loved, which I had the grave misfortune of seeing far too much of at a film series selection meeting this past spring.

Oh my God, what a reeking, sanctimonious piece of shit. Ostensibly a pro-gay fable, what I saw of Tru was so poorly done and smug as to be downright irresponsible. I'll happily provide my homophilic bona fides to anyone who questions my cred, but I needn't. It should be enough that I've seen a movie or two. This flick fails as a movie. That said, an out member of the committee also took exception to this stinker, but the well-meaning cinema philistines had the majority and opted to provide a platform for this poorly done, platitude-riddled pic. Grrrr... Just thinking about it makes my blood boil all over again.

[Deep breath.]

Here's just some of what Mr. Your Movie Sucks had to say:

"Tru Loved" as a movie is on about the same level as a not especially good high school play. Student directors could learn from it. I'm sure its heart is in the right place, but it fails at fundamentals we take for granted when we go to the movies. By lacking them, it illustrates what the minimum requirements are for a competent film. Yes, you can clearly see and hear them, especially when they're missing.

1. Line readings. That's what they sound like, readings. Classroom readings. The actors lack the knack of making their dialogue sound spontaneous and realistic. They sound like bright English students who have memorized their lines but find themselves onstage without having had much experience or training.

2. Body language. One of the first things an actor learns is not to gesture as a way of emphasizing lines unless the lines really call for it. Insecure actors often seem to punch up dialogue physically as a sort of insurance policy.

3. Framing. When you have five characters at a picnic table, you don't (necessarily) want to block those on the other side with the bodies of those on this side. There are ways to do that or fudge it. Or forget it. But don't have those on Side A separated so we can see those on Side B centered between persons 1 and 2, and 2 and 3, and then in the reverse shot, separate those on Side B so we can see those on Side A.

Testify! And he hasn't even gotten to the part about Bruce Vilanch yet, whose appearance in the movie caused an audible "You've got to be fucking kidding me!" to escape my lips that grim, grim day.

You can, and should, read the rest of Ebert's dead-on indictment here. Then head over to his blog for a little background. As a tease, I'll tell you only that his post includes the following sentence: "My editor, a wise and expert woman who has saved my ass many times over more than 20 years, was horrified."

Electoral college

Forgive me, but the cinetrix has the election fever something fierce. To that end, I decided to get thematic with this semester's documentary unit. Which is how I ended up programming two films I first saw at Full Frames past that have since been gathered under the whydemocracy.org umbrella: Please Vote for Me a week ago Monday and Taxi to the Dark Side this past Monday.

Before we go any further, yes, I know that Saint Sheila Nevins of the true HBO cross has scheduled Taxi to air like crazy before next month's election, but the cinetrix can't afford premium cable and was willing to hazard that most of her students can't either. Not and put gas in the tank. Or if they can, there's no way they'd voluntarily opt to watch this title over, say, "The Hills."

With good reason. For those of you who haven't seen it yet [you should], Gibney's Taxi is brutal in its examination of U.S. torture policy, and it carries with it a definite agenda. I was nervous about how the students might react. But one of the greatest aspects of teaching undergraduates is that there isn't any demographic cohort more finely attuned to issues of justice and fairness than late adolescents, so in the end I decided to risk it.

Damn am I glad I did. To provide a little context, I assigned the students some articles detailing the doc's bumpy road through promotion, distribution, and theatrical and cable television exhibition. I also asked them to write two-page response papers after the screening, suspecting that it might help them digest the dense, intense array of data the film marshals. Reading the results last night, I can safely say that I've never had a prouder pedogogical moment. Their passion, outrage, disgust, and shock truly gave me hope. Some of the papers made me cry. And one broke my heart.

...In all honesty, this film just made me want to quit being an American and just go to Switzerland where I could just be neutral. It was just humiliating and wrong on so many levels that crossed the lines of all morality, which really made me question what are we doing over there. Is this really what this "war on terrorism" has come to? How could we let this happen, and why has no one realized that something was wrong?

...What happened to that country that was built on the values and perceptions that each man has certain unalienable rights that no man can take away? Where is the America of Washington and Jefferson? Whatever happened to the belief of justice and equality, or do these rights only belong to those living on the shores of this "great" land we call home?

I have no answers for her. But I wanted to let you know that the kids, they are all right.

Thank you, Alex Gibney.

Koch rocks the vote

This week, Hizzoner casts his vote for Team Guy...

RocknRolla
This film, written and directed by Guy Ritchie, contains more violence than a Sam Peckinpah movie. More violence, frankly, than anyone can appreciate, including me. Nevertheless, the London setting is interesting,and the English gang members are fascinating.

The plot revolves around a stolen painting belonging to a Russian mobster, Uri (Karel Roden). Other key figures include the leader of a British gang, Lenny (Tom Wilkinson), Lenny's drug addict son, Johnny, and the Russian gang's accountant, Stella (Thandie Newton). Flashbacks are used, which help the audience figure out who is who. There are no sex scenes, but references are made to them, both heterosexual and homosexual.

Mr. Ritchie is a very talented filmmaker. His picture, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, which introduced him to the American audience, was less complicated and vastly better than RocknRolla. Nevertheless, it is worth seeing. You will have to pay close attention to follow what is going on and to understand the accents. Subtitles would have been helpful.

and against Connor, while H.S. drops some fiddy-cent words and frank language.

Choose Connor
Everything in this political drama is apparent from the very beginning. It contains no surprises and very little suspense.

At the opening of the film we meet 15-year-old Owen Norris (Alex Linz), a nerdy and friendless kid. Owen meets his local congressman, Lawrence Connor (Steven Weber), who is running for a U.S. Senate seat and is offered a campaign position.

It is soon apparent that the congressman is interested in more than Owen's knowledge of political issues. He is clearly sexually attracted to him. Later on we meet the congressman's adopted nephew, Caleb (Escher Holloway), who by conversation and action also conveys that he is attracted to Owen.  The film contains no explicit intimate scenes but does show Owen on one occasion observing Caleb and others in a sexual setting.

Choose Connor leaves every issue unresolved. I doubt that anyone in the theater came away richer in knowledge or felt that the film provided a pleasurable evening of entertainment.

HS said: "This movie was a disappointment. The story is simple: Brilliant and likeable, good looking but socially backward 15-year-old Owen is recruited by sellout closeted ephebophiliac Congressman Connor, running in a Senate primary. Boy accidentally discovers that candidate and henchmen do drugs and sex while they play with another teen, the Congressman's sister's adopted 16-year-old son, Caleb (as in East of Eden). He is a rich pothead, but has no friends. Owen is poor and also friendless. The two boys pal around, wrestle briefly but nothing more happens.

Owen makes speeches and is used as a poster boy by Connor, until the kid wises up to the candidate's perversion and venality. Owen then runs off, sadder but wiser. The director was there on opening night, inviting audience questions. One that he answered was what kind of film they used. To the others, he said that the film was subject to many interpretations, and he would not choose any. P.S. the film trashes politicians as whores. There is timeliness and partial accuracy in that judgment."

Negative race

Today the cinetrix learned about Work No. 850, the latest installation by 2001 Turner Prize winner Martin Creed, which is entering its final month at the Tate Britain. Here's how the BBC described the piece soon after it debuted in June:

Martin Creed's installation consists of a sprint through the site's neo-classical sculpture galleries every 30 seconds for the next four months.

The 50 runners will be paid £10 an hour to don their running gear and run through the Tate, avoiding visitors.

Denying his work was pretentious Mr Creed said: "This is something to look at, just like a painting."

<snip> 

Each 12-to-15-second run through the 282ft (86m) gallery is followed by an equivalent pause.

Mr Creed said: "The rest between each runner is the frame that lets you see the running."

Gee, you think Godard has been to see it? Or vecchio uomo Bertolucci? [via]

I won't dance. Don't ask me.

Now, the cinetrix is on the record as having "little patience for or interest in the pissing matches that can erupt in the blogosphere." But she can't resist drawing your attention to the prickly prose pas de deux being performed by critics Glenn Kenny and Karina Longworth of late, mostly because it reminded her of this song, and scene, from Shall We Dance.* Clearly, I'll take any excuse to invoke Fred, Ginger, and the Gershwins.

Things have come to a pretty pass,
Our romance is growing flat,
'Cause you like this and the other
While I go for this and that.
Goodness knows what the end will be;
Oh, I don't know where I'm at...
It's plain to see we two will never make one,
Something must be done.

*NB: I've since moved on to crooning Berlin's "I'm Putting All My Eggs in One Basket" from Follow the Fleet.

Marrying music

Just wanted to point you nice people in the direction of an extra bit of the Weekend Edition Sunday interview with Jonathan Demme.

Music to Get Married By      

Click here for more from Jonathan Demme

 

Elaine Heinzman, Assistant Producer

Last week, Liane spoke to Oscar-winning director Jonathan Demme, just before his new film opened around the country. Demme gave us The Silence of the Lambs, documentaries on Jimmy Carter and Neil Young, the remake of The Manchurian Candidate, and now Rachel Getting Married.

Liane and I saw Rachel Getting Married the afternoon before, and loved it, and were looking forward to talking to Demme about how he made this film. (How did one of the brains behind the creepy Hannibal Lecter we all know and fear make what initially seems like the ultimate chick flick?)

As you'll hear on the show, the idea of the film started with a phone call from one of Demme's heroes, director Sidney Lumet. What you'll hear only on Soapbox is Demme explaining the magic behind the film's music. As it turns out, if you want non-stop music at your wedding, try leaving out a few spare guitars, harmonicas, hammered dulcimers and violins, and then invite a bunch of musicians to the ceremony.

Inviting Sister Carol also helps, I hear.

It must've been in 1986 or 1988 that a much younger cinetrix read an article--probably either in the Blowen/Carr-era Boston Globe or else the pre-box-office-fixated Premiere--about Demme's music supervisor, Sharon Boyle, and thought, Man, now that's a job I'd like to have. Still would.