VIEWINGS: NOVEMBER 2019

CHRISTMAS U.S.A. (Gregory Markopoulos, 1949) [11/30/19, YouTube]

Remarkable, but I’m not sure if I have anything particularly coherent to say after a first viewing: like a dream, it moves through its series of gorgeously evocative sequences and images that accumulate and deliquesce, ebb and flow–a beautiful way to convey communication difficulties, one of the topics the film is clearly grappling with. While not as explicitly (homo)sexual as Anger’s Fireworks, one still senses how the frisson of sexual difference gives the images an extra charge, which all culminate in a private and highly symbolic encounter that might be a religious experience or maybe a sexual rendezvous–or perhaps both? Michael Koresky’s entry on the film in his essential Queer and Now series, is, well, essential reading, and makes me excited to return to it again ASAP.

A CANTERBURY TALE (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1944) [11/29/19, Criterion Channel]
Second viewing. I’ve been meaning to revisit for years and years–not only did I have a very compromised first experience (a barely watchable VHS dupe, as I recall), but had literally forgotten all details about its plot. And yet traces of it clearly stuck with me, and over the years shivers of memories of its final scene would surface whenever I found myself in grand spaces intended to inspire and awe, and cathedrals in particular. Upon this return I admit it doesn’t exactly work for me, but recognize the qualities that provoke such strong reactions in others–this is very much the type of film that can cast a spell of enchantment, superseding what is actually going on on the screen and alighting upon something almost ineffable. In their film debuts Sheila Sim (a theater actress) and John Sweet (a non-professional American soldier) are both absolutely wonderful, bringing an unaffected quality to their performances as outsiders finding themselves stranded in a tiny rural English town due to the war, and instead of plot Powell and Pressburger focus on the type of evocative details that vividly capture an entire way of life in the process of disappearing forever. Lightly impressed upon this tale of the everyday is Chaucer’s immortal Canterbury Tales, allowing for the delicate interplay of history with the imperiled present–Peter von Bagh describes it as “mythical neorealism,” which is just perfect)–which all finally crescendos in the famous climactic sequence in nearby Canterbury Cathedral. Okay, as I’ve been writing about it now I feel like I’m convincing myself I actually liked it much more than I initially thought I did. Perhaps it’s the type of film that comes most alive while in the memory…

THE ILLUSTRATED AUSCHWITZ (Jackie Farkas, 1992) [11/27/19, Vimeo]
The concept–playing the oral testimony of Auschwitz survivor Zsuzsi Weinstock over a series of brightly colored, random-seeming images shot on flickering Super 8 film–at first seems much to flimsy to support a discussion of such emotional and historical enormity as the Holocaust. But the lack of imagery that has now become so closely associated with the Holocaust (deportation trains, camps, emaciated bodies) quickly has the effect of jolting the viewer out of preconceived notions of how to process the information we are experiencing, allowing us receive the full shock of the testimony. Then, in an utterly unexpected move, the quivering images begin focusing on something familiar: the face of young Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz, a film also deeply aware of complexities of longing for a lost home and an unrecoupable past self. The familiar, iconic images of Oz are made strange through Farkas’s manipulation of the image, and Weinstock’s words immediately begin to draw upon the intense emotional inflections of the beloved film and its musical score, and suddenly the film bursts in uncontrollable emotional affect. A tremendous achievement, and all in under thirteen minutes. I can’t believe I’ve only just heard of it (via Deb Verhoeven’s ballot for BBC’s [meh] poll of the 100 Greatest Films Directed by Women).

Farkas has generously made the film available on her Vimeo account.

ATLANTICS (Mati Diop, 2019) [11/26/19, Movie Theater]

I knew only of the buzz coming out of Cannes (where it won the Grand Prix) + my admiration of Diop’s stoic performance in Claire Denis’ 35 Shots of Rum and I’m glad I didn’t know anything more, because this just completely knocked me out. Just several minutes in I fell under its hypnotic spell almost immediately, a bravura long shot establishing a palpable sense of tension and feeling of despair that permeates everything that follows. Centered around Ada, a young woman torn between the wealthy man she is engaged to and the working class man she is attracted to,the film quietly follows as she copes with the news that the latter left one night without a word, deciding to try his chances at stealing away to Spain by boat and try to build a better life for himself. Ada’s world is turned upside down and the film itself is similarly upended, beginning to turn inside out and then transforming into a whole new film. I hesitate to say much more, but the effect startled me and then left me exhilarated. No new release I’ve seen this year has come close to touching what Diop miraculously pulls of here; more than just an excellent film, I left the theater with a renewed excitement for the possibilities of contemporary cinema.

BATHTUBS OVER BROADWAY (Dava Whisenant, 2018) [11/18/19, Netflix]
I love watching documentaries solely focused on a person’s esoteric interests and hobbies. Such docs are rarely more than functional in regard to form–and that is the case here–but it is riveting to watch one man (longtime Late Show with David Letterman writer Steve Young) expound on his indefatigable passion for, of all things, obscure industrial musicals, the mostly forgotten genre of original entertainment revues specifically made for the employees and stakeholders of corporations from the 50’s into the early 80’s. A nice introduction to a fascinatingly niche historical phenomenon.

JUDEX (Georges Franju, 1963) [11/05/19, Criterion Channel]
Second viewing. And with just two viewings, Franju’s magisterial distillation of the Feuillade classic (which unfortunately I still have not seen) has established itself as one of my all-time favorite films. Teaming with Feuillade’s own grandson, screenwriter Jacques Chapreux, Franju pares down the original five hour serial to a series of vivid set pieces tenuously strung together by the most delicate dream logic; the elisions in narrative actually allows for a extravagantly languorous and unhurried wander through what Raymond Durgnat perceptively describes as a world “tenderly aware of its own unreality.” The director is clearly more invested in the seductive glamour of villainy than the meting out of moral justice, for even as stoic and handsome Channing Pollack traipses his way through the film with physical grace, he is often (and sometimes literally) sidelined by Francine Bergé, who dons the respectable uniforms of governess and nun before stripping down to an Irma Vep-esque black catsuit to lithely slink across rooftops and through windows. It takes two other female characters clothed in white—ethereal Edith Scob in gauzy flounces and Sylva Koscina in a tight acrobat’s leotard—to counterbalance the heady pleasure of witnessing Bergé’s insatiable and erotically-charged appetite for treachery.

That said, what elevates this film from “mere” clever pastiche or affectionate homage to something legitimately great on its own terms is the exquisite integration of actors into the overall mise-en-scène. The manner in which bodies are choreographed within the frame or almost surrealistically posed and arranged create some of the most unforgettable images to be found in all of cinema: the incredible bird masks at the engagement ball, black-clad bodies improbably scaling walls, guard dogs noiselessly rescuing their imperiled mistress, a fabulously over-the-top nun’s contrasted against the blank expanses of the French countryside, the eerie reflections of a surveillance mirror, a rooftop wrestling match, etc. The luminous black and white cinematography, compliments of Marcel Fradetal, conjures up a heightened, slightly uncanny state that feels like a waking dream. And what is cinema, after all, than some kind of waking dream?

VIEWINGS: SEPTEMBER 2019

NOVICIAT (Noël Burch, 1965) [09/26/19, Online Streaming]
The renowned film theorist’s first foray into filmmaking; deeply kinky, and rather unusual in its placement of its (straight male) “hero,” a peeping tom, as the masochistic recipient of increasingly escalating degradation at the hands of a glamorous leader of a women’s self defense class (Frédérique Franchini). And then Annette Michelson, one of the original grande dames of film writing, shows as an imperious dominatrix in leather boots and gloves to match (seen above)–to what extent are we supposed to read this as an intertext between film world colleague peers? This film, however, helped clarify what makes me so uneasy about Robbe-Grillet’s later films, which compels the viewer to align with the gaze of the director-as-sadist; it’s much more fascinating to be offered–and decide to accept, even if tentatively–a masochistic viewing position instead.

LA CARTOMANCIENNE (Jerome Hill, 1932) [09/26/19, YouTube]
Had been hoping cartomancy was a more prominent aspect of this short, silent art film, but it’s used more as a shorthand plot mechanism and means to evoke a dreamy, trance-like mood. What’s most notable is how it feels closer to nineteenth century photography tradition of the tableaux vivant than anything having to do with Great Depression America. I do wish there was just a little something more to it beyond the beauty of its visual and conceptual esotericism.

ALL YOU CAN EAT (Michael Brynntrup, 1993) [09/26/19, Online Streaming]
A “mock pornographic film”* consisting of faces spliced together from vintage gay porn: out of context, it is so difficult to discern between pain, pleasure, and pure performance (ie faking it for the camera). The rapturous upturned face of Bernini’s statue of Saint Teresa of Avila came to mind frequently: ecstasy is ecstasy, whatever the source.

*Alice A. Kuzniar, The Queer German Cinema (2000)

HUSTLERS (Lorene Scafaria, 2019) [09/21/19, Theatrical Screening]
Hugely enjoyable, and makes me wish glossy, glamorous, female-driven star vehicles were still a Hollywood staple and not some kind of anomaly whose very existence is notable in and of itself. While its riffing on Scorsese-esque crime caper tropes has received the majority of commentary what I most responded to is its depiction of bonds between women and female solidarity; one early scene set in an overcrowded strip club dressing room reminded me of some of my favorite moments in Stage Door (Gregory La Cava, 1937), of women being able to be alone together, laughing and offering their frank appraisals of the male-focused sex and dating rituals they are forced to participate in. Jennifer Lopez, Constance Wu, Keke Palmer, and Lili Reinhart are an electric quartet and their interactions are among the highlights of the film, but the focus that has been put on Lopez’s performance in particular is more than deserved: it’s been forever since we’ve had such a dazzling star turn. The film briefly loses its sure footing during the third act when the hustling scheme has clearly started crossing certain lines and the audience is receiving such mixed signals that it’s not sure how to react, but luckily it pulled itself together by the end. A thoroughly enjoyable crowdpleaser; now we just need more!

THE ADVENTURES OF PRISCILLA, QUEEN OF THE DESERT (Stephan Elliott, 1994) [09/20/19, Amazon Prime]
A long overdue viewing; I had somehow never seen this queer classic before. It’s fascinating to register just how much of its sensibility has managed to permeate into the contemporary queer consciousness, primarily via RuPaul’s Drag Race, of course (the now-immortal proclamation “ladies, start your engines!” for a start). Somehow it’s a smaller film than I expected, smaller in scope too (did the grandiosity of the title give me a vague impression otherwise?), but that’s also a great part of its charm. It’s also very… chaotic too, even frantic, but that has its own charm too, even if I was left more than a bit exhausted by the end. But it’s carried the whole way through by the uniformly excellent three lead performances, and its irrepressible sweetness and optimism in light of any hurdles prejudice and homophobia throws its ways.

THE TROUBLE WITH ANGELS (Ida Lupino, 1966) [08/14-15/29, Criterion Channel]
Lupino’s last time directing a feature film; after its completion Hollywood’s only female director during the 1950’s would spend the remainder of her landmark career working (and succeeding) in television. A comedy set at an all-girl Catholic boarding school intended as a star vehicle to help transition Haley Mills out of juvenile roles, it’s certainly pleasant enough on those terms, and Rosalind Russell is great fun as a kind of Auntie Mame in a nun’s habit. But the real interest is in Lupino’s deceptively modest directorial style, which has a brisk efficiency that undercuts sentimentality at every turn; for a film aimed toward children, there’s remarkably little of the cloying hijinks typical of this genre (and films involving nuns generally). The rather beautiful spareness and careful orchestration of the filmmaking is counterbalanced by the complex representation of female relationships and camaraderie, which is handled with delicacy, sensitivity, and great warmth.

BOOKSMART (Olivia Wilde, 2019) [09/09/19, Amazon Video]
Almost inevitably destined to become a classic of a kind. And it deserves to be–it’s that good. Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever pull off the rare feat of making it feel like their friendship has a genuine history the predates the moment we first see them on the screen. While structured as a buddy movie, what makes the film truly sing is the harmoniousness of the ensemble work: perhaps making a comparison to Robert Altman risks overstatement, but it’s been a long, long time since I’ve encountered a film so densely populated with minor characters I would have been more than happy to follow down alternative narrative trajectories (but never begrudging the paths the film actually does). It’s a testament to Wilde’s graceful direction that the frequent cameos by familiar faces never overshadow the work of the young unknowns. Also, Billie Lourd needs to be recognized as the major talent she is immediately, and given starring roles accordingly.

THE MAFU CAGE (Karen Arthur, 1978) [09/08/19, DL]
Very much one of those “woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown” psychological thrillers very much in vogue during this period, but every individual aspect of the setting and plot is exceedingly–and I truly can’t emphasize this enough–weird. WEIRD. But in the very best way. Independently financed it takes up the familiar tropes of the exploitation genre, and every possible taboo is at least hinted at if not fully manifested in some aspect of the story. Yet somehow it never feels tacky or unnecessarily salacious, which clearly must be credited to Arthur’s beautifully modulated direction of Don Chastain’s unabashedly perverse script, an adaptation of a French play. Together they manage to conjure up a truly vivid sense of languorous decay and barely-contained menace–the emphasis is clearly more on atmosphere and mood than narrative coherence (which frankly is my horror film preference).  Lee Grant is appropriately brittle but the off-kilter energy Carol Kane brings to this performance is both deeply memorably and genuinely unsettling.

8 FEMMES (François Ozon, 2002) [09/07/19, DL]

Second viewing. Surely a taste for kitsch, artificiality, and pastiche is something a requirement, but I find few films as consistently delightful and deeply amusing.

DAYBREAK EXPRESS (D.A. Pennebaker, 1953) [09/04/19, Criterion Channel]
The way it captures color and a particular type of early morning light is rather extraordinary. And has had off-screen ramifications: every morning, waiting for the 29 bus, I now make sure to pause and take a good look at the sunrise unfolding before me, and noting what type of light is beginning my day.

REGAN (RAIN) (Joris Ivens & Mannus Franken, 1929) [09/04/19, YouTube]
A city symphony with an aqueous twist, a portrait of how the first drops of rain cause the urban landscape to stir and then dispassionately transform itself: without missing a beat coat collars are turned up, windows fastened, sidewalks cleared, umbrellas unfurled. And then, upon the completion of the , the city now glories in its newly cleansed, shimmering state. But the rain also provokes a subtle mutation of the city symphony genre as well: whereas Vertov, Ruttmann, Strand et al. tend to emphasize a vision of aggressive technological sleekness and glittering industrial modernity, the rain gives Ivens and Franken’s film a softness and quiet lyricism as every surface suddenly becomes reflective, and every raindrop causes the world to shiver and ripple like a mirage. A beautiful visual evocation of the transience and mutability that lurks just behind ostensible urban permanence.

CANDLESHOE (Norman Tokar, 1977) [09/02/19, Amazon]
Hadn’t seen this since childhood, but have always regarded it as my favorite of this era’s live action Disney films (aside from the formative Parent Trap, which is in a category all its own). Was rather thrilled to discover it holds up quite well when viewed through adult eyes. A great deal of this be attributed to young Jodie Foster, a brash, street-smart American girl unexpectedly transplanted deep into the English nobility; she gives a very nuanced and sophisticated performance that never seems labored or overthought. Of course there’s the manic slapstick antics and accelerated plotting expected of a kid’s film, but for adults there is the pleasure of seeing so many familiar faces–David Niven, Vivian Pickles, Leo McKern, and Helen Hayes, in her last film role–mugging affably for the cameras, clearly having a good time on the way to picking up a paycheck.

GOLDEN GATE GIRLS: ESTHER ENG, A PIONEERING ASIAN-AMERICAN FILMMAKER (S. Louisa Wei, 2013) [09/02/19, Kanopy]
A stunning reminder that there is so much film history that has simply been forgotten and is in desperate need of rediscovery. Born in San Francisco’s Chinatown, Eng (1914 – 1970) is now recognized as the first female director of a Chinese-language film in America, directing in total four feature films here and five in Hong Kong. Considering the depressing treatment of both women and people of color throughout Hollywood’s history, Eng’s accomplishments are inherently notable in and of themselves, but what is even more remarkable is that she was as open about her lesbian identity as her era allowed, donning the type of aggressively masculine haircut and sartorial style of her contemporary Dorothy Arzner. Wei’s film is first and foremost a recovery project, literally structured around her search for even the most basic information about Eng’s life and career. Sadly the early films that made Eng’s reputation are currently considered lost (only Golden Gate Girls from 1941 and a co-directing effort from 1961 have survived), and she is never able to track down any footage or audio depicting Eng to include in the documentry. Instead those few left who knew her speak of her in admiring tones, and several notable film scholars attest to the deep implications the rediscovery of her career holds to the longstanding narratives of film history. Here’s hoping this (admittedly unexceptional) documentary isn’t the final word on Eng and her many impressive achievements, but just a necessary starting point.

HOMECOMING: A FILM BY BEYONCÉ (Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, 2019) [09/01/19, Netflix)
All hail the Virgo queen upon her birthday season. It’s not the formidable artistic achievement in the way Lemonade is, but that’s not exactly a fair standard to hold it to anyway. I wasn’t always convinced by some of the stylistic choices–it feels indebted to Instagram aesthetics rather than setting them, as Bey has capably done on multiple occasions–but what it absolutely succeeds at is showcasing the vision and thoughtfulness behind not just her iconic, history-making 2018 Coachella performances, but the extreme effort and dedication that brought it to fruition. I have no time for people (usually white males, of course), who refuse to acknowledge Knowles-Carter as one of contemporary music’s great visionaries, insisting she’s not a “real musician” but merely a voice and pop culture image. This self-portrait should be more than enough to convince anymore who needs to be convinced otherwise.

GENTE DEL PO (PEOPLE OF THE PO VALLEY) (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1947) [09/01/19, Criterion Channel]
Thoughtful, soberly mounted short documentary, and already of interest just to see the director negotiating working class subjects instead of the bourgeois milieus by which he later made his name. With retrospective knowledge of the career yet to come, it’s the several shots of lone figures crossing empty, De Chirico-esque town squares that immediately caught my eye: it feels like glimpse into a revolutionary cinematic vision just beginning to germinate.

COMBAT DE BOX (Charles Dekeukeleire, 1927) [09/01/19, YouTube]
WITTE VLAM (Charles Dekeukeleire, 1927) [09/01/19, YouTube]
Visually interesting but undeniably minor run-ups to Dekeukeleire’s masterpiece, Impatience (reviewed 08/20).

VIEWINGS: AUGUST 2019

IMPATIENCE (Charles Dekeukeleire, 1928) [08/29/19, YouTube]
In her pioneering (and as far as I can tell still-definitive) essay on the Belgian director, Kristin Thompson describes this 35 minute experimental film a “remarkable work,” and I’m inclined to agree. I can’t hope to match her meticulous description of its intricate structure and form, which is grueling even by the standards of the non-narrative avant-garde. But I quickly found its rigid, repetitious editing style hypnotic–it brought to mind Cubism, of trying to “get” at something by presenting it from as many angles as possible. There is also, as Thompson notes, an undeniable, underlying eroticism to the film; I’d go even further and posit the pulsating, fetishistic charge is only barely constrained by the strict form. Enigmatic and intriguing.

THE OLD DARK HOUSE (James Whale, 1932) [08/25/19, Kanopy]
Second viewing, and while its odd fusion of horror and camp humor still doesn’t quite gel for me, it sure is a pleasurably frenzied 70 minutes. Whale is such a master at orchestrating slyly suggestive gestures and visual cues (fragmented mirrors, shadowplay, knife wielding, double meanings, fluttering hand gestures, removed shoes, gender ambiguity, etc), and the decrepit mansion of the title is a wonderfully queer space in all senses of the term: non-normative, liminal, unapologetically nonsensical. Seeming to operate by the spatial logic of M.C. Escher, literally anything seems possible from one moment to the next at the Femm Manor, and one by one each member of the family is revealed to be much less, err, straightforward than they initially seem. And seeing the film today, there is the undeniable thrill in seeing Gloria Stuart–so iconic to my generation as old Rose in Titanic–in the full bloom of youth.

THE MOTHER AND THE WHORE (Jean Eustache, 1973) [08/23/19, Pacific Film Archive]
Second viewing. I first saw this exactly fifteen years ago in London, during my undergrad semester abroad. Frankly, the details of the screening–a morning start time, and what felt like three of us in a cavernous screening room–has lingered longer than anything about the film itself, and I’ve been long wanting to revisit as I’ve suspected that having more life experience under my belt would make the film more resonant. It did.

Today I find the general premise slightly queasy (“charmingly” chauvinistic Parisian male romantic hijinks), but this is quickly neutralized and then overpowered by the immensity of the project. The women quickly, mercifully crowd out Léaud. Lebrun is impressive but has the flashier role; what has continued to stick with me is the deserted Lafont putting on a record and lying on the bed, we then proceed to listen to the entirety of Piaf’s whirligig “Les Amants de Paris.” It feels like we watch her live a whole lifetime in just those several minutes. I’ve lived those types of minutes too.

THE HOUSE WITH NO STEPS (William Ungerer, 1979) [08/20/19, Kanopy]
Watched on a complete whim and with no foreknowledge of what it was (a rare experience for me), and though distributed through Canyon Cinema it’s less experimental than an independently produced drama made in an observational mode. As we’re introduced to a number of townspeople in rural Vermont it’s interesting for a while in the way something like Winesburg, Ohio is interesting, and it does indeed capture the type of social claustrophobia particular to small town life in rural America. But in the end all the interesting characters and plot points never seem to quite coalesce into anything beyond their individual elements.

THE QUEEN (Frank Simon, 1968) [08/19/19, DCP, Castro Theatre]
Second viewing. For such a towering monument of queer cinema, it’s a rather slight film–thought admittedly that’s a major source of its poignance and charm. Beautifully restored and becoming widely available at long last, the time for its ascension finally seems upon us.

THE VELVET VAMPIRE (Stephanie Rothman, 1971) [08/13/19, Amazon Prime]
An elegant art film masquerading as a salacious softcore skinflick; Daughters of Darkness (a great favorite of mine) is the most obvious comparison. Rothman cleverly frames the limitations of her actors as a kind of dreamy, Antonioni-esque ennui, everything seems trapped in a suspended state. The surname of Yarnall’s character, LeFanu, clearly connects the film to Sheridan LeFanu’s female-centric, diurnal vampire classic Carmilla, and similarly undermines genre expectations at every turn. Never given a chance to graduate from Roger Corman productions into mainstream productions–a tragedy–Rothman was later told by a studio that they had hired a neophyte director to make a vampire film “sort of like Velvet Vampire,” which turned out to be The Hunger by Tony Scott. The lineage is obvious.

MURIEL’S WEDDING (P.J. Hogan, 1994) [08/10/19, Home viewing screening]
A perfect example of a how a film doesn’t have to deal with anything obviously “queer” to be a queer film classic. The intense queer resonances are instead social, emotional, and the sense of being marked as different–and demanding happiness despite it. The breakneck character arcs, dialogue exchanges, and plot rhythms are the stuff of 1930’s screwball comedy, and as she gamely endures the endless little humiliations on her way to triumph, Toni Collette earns a place alongside the genre’s most iconic heroines.

SUNSET BLVD. (Billy Wilder, 1950) [08/10/19, Stanford Theatre)
Multiple viewings. Endlessly rewatchable, and indisputably one of Hollywood’s great achievements; I can never manage to muster up much affection for it, however, and have never regarded it as a favorite. For all its individual moments of humor–and the camp pleasure of Norma’s histrionics–it takes conscious effort to avoid getting swallowed up by its sadness, and it’s impossible not to walk away feeling more than a bit dirtied by the contact. With each subsequent viewing it sure is beginning to seem like von Stroheim is the actual center of the film, giving the tragedy moral weight.

MUR 19 (Mark Rappaport, 1966) [08/06/19, Kanopy]
The type of first film that seems to lay out all of a director’s specific cinematic preoccupations and concerns yet to come.

MOONSTRUCK (Norman Jewison, 1987) [08/03/19, Amazon Prime]
Made me realize how much I miss this type of unpretentious, cheerfully professional Hollywood filmmaking. For a while everything is good-natured ethnic cliché and slightly musty screwball comedy plot mechanisms, but quickly real people and emotions emerge out of the narrative contrivances. The sense of melancholy Cher gives brash Brooklynite Loretta Castorini is deeply touching, and she and Nicolas Cage–truly a most unexpected romantic pairing–are simply electric together.

Viewings: July 2019

OLD BOYFRIENDS (Joan Tewkesbury, 1979) [07/30/19, Kanopy]
The casual, improvisatory spirit of Tewkesbury’s directorial style (obviously influenced by her collaborations with Robert Altman) often feels directly at odds with the over-determined screenplay provided by Paul Schrader and his brother Leonard. I would have preferred much more of the former than the latter–one can sense Tewkesbury straining to cut her characters loose and abandon themselves to the ambiguities and unsettling absurdities of the contrived plot. Talia Shire is appropriately brittle but ultimately limited, unable to really convey the underlying emotional turmoil that would motivate a woman to seek out a string of disappointing paramours from her past; there is a certain disquieting quality to her blankness, however. Everyone else gives small but incredibly vivid performances: Keith Carradine is surprisingly affecting, and John Houseman’s slow revelation of his bitter contempt makes the hair on the neck stand on edge. It’s always an awful situation trying to grade a film on what it could have been rather than what it actually is, but it seems clear a superior film would have resulted if the director had been given more creative control over her project. When another opportunity never came she decamped to television and never looked back. Our loss.

SCOTTY & THE SECRET HISTORY OF HOLLYWOOD (Matt Tyrnauer, 2017) [07/20/19, Kanopy]
Perfunctory and somewhat aesthetically/ethically sloppy treatment of an endlessly compelling subject. I couldn’t help but wish there was a bit less emphasis on the thrill of name dropping and the “big reveal” of sexual secrets and more focus upon the mundane, everyday operations of male/male sex work in the pre-Stonewall era. (Perhaps Bowers’s controversial memoir does a better job of this?)

EDWARD HOPPER (Ron Peck, 1981) [07/16/19, Online download]
An elegantly handled hour-long essay film (though that doesn’t mean Peck demurs from broaching some of the more tangly aspects of Hopper’s personality and legacy). The closeups of details within the paintings themselves are cannily selected and often revelatory, and I appreciated the attention placed upon Hopper’s lifelong fascination with representing light, truly a most cinematic concern. Also wonderful is the connection, made just near the end, between Hopper’s silent scenes and the narrative distillation of Hollywood promotional film stills. In the last third or so biography and commentary mostly drop away, letting the art speak for itself.

EASY RIDER (Dennis Hopper, 1969) [07/15 – 16/19, Criterion Channel]
While acknowledging its importance as a “generational statement” (Hoberman), completely agree with Dennis Grunes‘ assessment that “today, it is a hollow antique” (though wouldn’t go nearly as far as his hyperbolic declaration it is one of the ten or twelve worst films ever made). Part of the problem is undoubtedly me: I find buddy movies numbingly dull, and was deeply bored within the first 15 minutes. There’s also something about this particular approach to social disavowal that seems vaguely distasteful—and rings hollow—during our particular historical moment of 2019. While the direction and editing is famously indebted to the French New Wave, it lacks that movement’s sense of joy in trying to turn the medium inside out. Was waiting the whole time for Karen Black and the spark her presence brings to any film, and she does indeed initiate the its most effective sequence—not just stylistically, but because it finally feels like it has hit upon something wild, primal, and genuinely terrifying.

GIRLFRIENDS (Claudia Weill, 1978) [07/10/19, Criterion Channel]
Genuinely revelatory in its understated way. Melanie Mayron is pitch-perfect as a young aspiring photographer attempting to find herself and a creative niche amid the cruel indifference of breakneck contemporary urban life. Weill has a keen understanding of the casual rhythms of the everyday, and there’s a sense of generosity–toward the characters, and also toward the viewer–that feels extremely special. Perhaps the best film I’ve seen so far this year.

BRUMES D’AUTOMNE (AUTUMN MIST) (Dimitri Kirsanoff, 1929) [07/08/19, YouTube]
The introductory title card announcing “un poème cinégraphique” is apt, as it does indeed function by a logic traditionally associated with poetry. The visual rhyming is extraordinary: raindrops/tears/falling leaves; mist/smoke/rippling water/vision blurred by tears, etc, and there are literal “turns” (via reflection on water, the camera literally spinning). Such linkages are far from novel, but possess incredible visual force nonetheless. And then there are Nadia Sibirskaïa’s wide, otherworldly eyes—truly one of the undersung glories of cinema.