Lost in the Movies: March 2020

Side by Side: The Big Chill vs. Return of the Secaucus Seven (video)



This narrated video essay, a resumption of my Side by Side series, has been a long time in the making - and what an appropriate time this is for its debut. More on that shortly. Comparing two similar stories and then picking them apart to see what they reveal about different writer-directors, different classes, and different eras (the Carter seventies and the Reagan eighties), this video essay looks at the films in three particular contexts: cultural, philosophical, and political. In each case, we have the characters' sixties pasts, alluded to directly and indirectly, as guideposts to their present orientation. For me at least, it was fascinating to examine these films not just in relation to each other but in relation to those historical mythologies they evoke - as well as the then-unknown future evolution to follow: both the boomers' (from stereotypes of hippies to stereotypes of Trumpsters), and the generations, particularly millennials, who would live in their shadow. I try to address the latter very briefly at video's end but I'll also discuss it further here because I can't help myself. While I like to keep these cross-posts short (after all, the video is the point), this case - especially given this moment - calls for more.

SOME THOUGHTS ON THIS SUBJECT IN 2012/2016/2020
(AND LATE FEBRUARY/MID-MARCH/LATE MARCH)

Cinepoem: What the Soul Desires (+ The Full Cinepoem) (videos)



Easily the simplest entry in my Cinepoem series, and perhaps my favorite, "What the Soul Desires" selects excerpts from Augusta Theodosia Drane's poem (which, a century later, was adapted as a Donovan song) and plays with black-and-white, color, and widescreen clips to represent the spiritual yearning and rapture it describes. This also allowed me the perfect opportunity to end where I began, setting up the similarly-themed words of Alfred, Lord Tennyson and his Grail quest.

After all, these videos all connect to one another, each picking up directly where the other left off in a kind of stream-of-consciousness form of creation. I made these ties explicit by compiling all five videos into a single running which ends with a loop back to the beginning. For now I am just posting it to Vimeo, but in a couple days I will also add this "Full Cinepoem" to YouTube:


Few poems took longer to choose than this one; for a while I thought I would follow my Rimbaud Cinepoem with something by Baudelaire but when I thumbed through Flowers of Evil, I couldn't find anything that struck a particularly visual chord - to my surprise. So I spent months, off and on, scrolling through poetry archives online until I came across the work of the Tractarians, "High Anglican" poets, writers, scholars, and theologians who were part of the Oxford Movement in nineteenth-century Britain. Led by John Henry Newman, many of them eventually abandoned the Church of England altogether and converted to Catholicism, frequently becoming priests, monks, or nuns. I became fascinated with this relatively obscure history; something about members of a modern society radically leaping into a more traditional, disciplined practice felt resonant and compelling. These 1840s Englishmen and women, sacrificing the familiar comforts of bourgeois Protestantism for the both foreign and ancient call of Catholicism, reminded me of 1960s student radicals whose revolutionary fervor led them into the American Weather Underground, the Italian Red Brigades, the German Red Army Faction/Baader-Meinhof Gang, or the Japanese United Red Army. Of course, Newman and Drane didn't set off any bombs - and were essentially heading in the opposite ideological direction.

Drane's work in particular stuck out to me - both the poem that I ended up using, after considering many other authors and works, and her memoir which you can read online (it is written under the name Mother Francis Raphael, which she adopted after taking vows). This too makes for vivid reading, immersing us in both the emotional quality of her slow conversion and the day-to-day world of Victorian England. None of this bears directly on the video itself but I like the way her own journey rhymes with some of the more transporting visions of cinema, vulgar as the old nun may herself find that comparison! (She didn't even appreciate her own poetry, and hoped it and her autobiography would be burned upon her death.)

I discussed my obsession with the Oxford Movement and other related phenomena in a couple Patreon podcasts, here and here.

also on Vimeo:



images from ALL FILMS featured in the full Cinepoem
(in the order they are featured)

Cinepoem: Verses From War (video)



Fair warning for those looking for light viewing and/or distractions in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic: this video, whose coincidental premiere was planned months in advance (the video itself was created back in late 2018), illustrates a Walt Whitman poem about illness and death in a crowded hospital.

Usually, the videos in my Cinepoem series are relatively short; until now only the first was longer than three minutes. In this case, however, the Cinepoem runs past five minutes and incorporates two different poems; excerpts from Walt Whitman's 1865 "A March in the Ranks, Hard-Prest, and the Road Unknown" (read by Denise Burns for the National Endowment for the Arts' "Poetry Out Loud") are sandwiched between the beginning and end of Herman Melville's 1866 "The Apparition" (read by Andrew Doig for LibriVox whose - no pun intended - voice I took the liberty of manipulating for effect). As the dates indicate, these are poems inspired by and dwelling on the Civil War. Melville's work abstracts the phenomenon, describing through metaphor the overwhelming sensation of a historical force tearing the country apart. Whitman's work goes in the other direction, delving into the nitty-gritty of stinking, dimly-lit medical quarters.

In some ways, the Melville poem was easier to illustrate because the abstracted imagery of the poem fueled abstraction of various clips I was using (which range from Andrei Tarkovsky epics to Mickey Mouse cartoons). With Whitman, I needed to strike a balance between departing too far from the very specific descriptions and, on the other hand, getting too literal - although I include hospital pictures from Ken Burns' Civil War documentary, for the most part I am not using Civil War films, and some aren't even war films at all. I really like the balance I struck, both within my treatment of that poem and between the two very different but similary-focused poems as well. The musical accompaniment varies between a slowed-down version of "11 Map Ref 41 Degrees N 93 W" by the post-punk band Wire, and Symphony No. 3/"Symphony of Sorrowful Songs" composed by Henryk Gorecki, which itself thematically overlaps with the poems and films.

The Cinepoem cycle will conclude (and renew) in a couple days with the final chapter picking up where this one began, as they all do...

This video is uploaded to Vimeo as well:

The 3 1/2 Minute Review: The Wind in the Willows (+ More thoughts on The Wind in the Willows) (videos)




My 3 1/2 Minute Review series was one of the few YouTube series I introduced in 2015 to make it to four entries before I shut it down in 2016. This, then, is the only entry I'm premiering this spring - the fifth and last to focus on a fantasy/sci-fi topic (previous entries included Neon Genesis Evangelion, The End of Evangelion, Revenge of the Sith, and The Dark Crystal). The Wind in the Willows - both book and adaptations - remains one of my most-covered subjects on this site, perhaps the most covered next to Twin Peaks. In fact, I had so much to say about it that I ended up breaking the "3 1/2 minute" format by creating a bonus video, "More thoughts on The Wind in the Willows." The first video follows the usual format of the series, discussing a single film - in this case the 1987 Rankin-Bass adaptation of the Kenneth Grahame novel; the second video expands to include clips from numerous other adaptations and also addresses the Disney World ride (and its replacement), the VHS tape on which my family recorded an airing of this film in the eighties (including some memorable kids' commercials), my own experimental film incorporating clips from Willows, and glimpses of all the famous voice actors in other roles. This follow-up concludes with an excerpt from my most extensive coverage of Willows, in which I lay out the "psychogeography" of the story, now illustrated by moving images of the various elements (like the River Bank, the Wild Wood, and the Wide World). I had a lot of fun putting this together, and hopefully you have fun watching it.

For more on The Wind in the Willows, check out my Wind in the Willows series exploring different themes of the book, my written review of the Rankin-Bass film, and my aforementioned experimental film What a Long Strange Trip It's Been. To browse these and several other Willows posts, explore my "Wind in the Willows" label.

Watch both Willows video essays combined into a single video on Vimeo:

Montage: Come On Over, Veronique (video)



My Montage series, which resumed last week with a pairing of Federico Fellini and Tim Buckley, concludes with my first "one-film" montage. Usually I feature at least a couple movies in these videos, whether from a similar genre (Haxan and the Hellraiser series), director (Out 1 and Duelle; La Strada, Nights of Cabiria, and La Dolce Vita), or other association (Malcolm X and Opening Night to honor the Honorary Oscar winners). This time, however, the clips I cut to Amy Winehouse's "Valerie ('68 Version)" are all from The Double Life of Veronique. Yet the pattern persists because the film is, of course, a dual narrative following two characters named Veronica (or variations thereof) from Poland and France. In a way, this video provided an opportunity to restructure their stories, in time to the verses of the song, and to put a new visual spin on their run-ins.

I discussed The Double Life of Veronique in my September Patreon podcast, as part of my "Twin Peaks Cinema" series, comparing it to the use of doubles in Twin Peaks and Laura's story in Fire Walk With Me.

Update 3/17: the video is now available on Vimeo as well...

Montage: Far Away Music (video)



After three years, I am finally beginning to publish video essays again. As outlined in yesterday's announcement, a new video will be cross-posted here every Monday and Wednesday morning, concluding the series I began back in 2015 with five entries each. First up is the Montage series, with a tribute to one of my favorite directors: images from Federico Fellini's work - La Strada (1954), Nights of Cabiria (1957), and La Dolce Vita (1960) - paired with a stirring version of "Song to the Siren." Each film is matched with a different verse, and I love the way the films are able to echo both the images and themes of one another, as well as the spirit of the song.

Update 3/17: the video is now available on Vimeo as well...

Announcement: new Journey Through Twin Peaks and other video essays coming soon (including video)



Update 3/10: finally uploaded the video!



Original introduction:

From now until I finish my new Journey Through Twin Peaks series (so through the spring and summer, maybe into the fall), I will be sharing just two types of entries on this site: aside from my usual monthly Patreon updates rounding up a couple new podcast episodes, all of my work will be in the form of video essays. It's been three years since I published my last new video essay (Not Just O.J., about the Oscar-winning O.J. Simpson documentary) but behind the scenes I've been slowly developing videos for at least two years to wrap up four series I launched on YouTube in 2015: "The 3 1/2 Minute Review," "Side by Side," "Cinepoem," and "Montage." The first of these will premiere on Wednesday morning and every week, between Sunday and midweek, I will upload two more videos - they will be cross-posted here on Monday and Wednesday at 8am, keeping to the schedule I maintained throughout the fall and winter. Then, hopefully on April 8 (the thirtieth anniversary of the Twin Peaks pilot,) I will reveal the first chapter of Part 5, the continuation of Journey which will look mostly at the years before season 3, including renewed focus on the work of David Lynch, Mark Frost, and their collaborators (hopefully on May 21, the third anniversary of the season three premiere). From that point on, I will publish Part 6 - an in-depth examination of different thematic/geographical areas of the narrative (Dougie in Vegas, Mr. C, the townspeople's vignettes, etc) - as the pieces are finished.

Also, you can now follow a new Twin Peaks-exclusive account on Twitter, @JourneyPeaks. See you there and elsewhere!

March 2020 Patreon podcasts: LOST IN TWIN PEAKS #14 - Season 2 Episode 6 and LOST IN THE MOVIES #65 - Twin Peaks Cinema: Storyville (+ The Big Chill, Twin Peaks Reflections: Jacques, Hank, Catherine, Black Lake Water Processing Plant, Jacoby's office, Who Shot Cooper?/Part 8 & more)


For the past several months, "Twin Peaks Cinema" has emphasized films by Twin Peaks creators themselves, from one-episode editor Mary Sweeney to various writers and directors to David Lynch himself. Now it's time to focus on the original series showrunner Mark Frost - whose work has just been explored through a brand-new interview book by David Bushman in early March (stay tuned for more of my thoughts on this treasure trove in the coming weeks and months). Frost's sole feature directorial venture - the thriller Storyville - is relevant not only to my upcoming video essay on Frost's oeuvre but also to the ongoing election season enveloping us right now. The current primary race also relates, obliquely or otherwise, to the climax of my "sixties reunion" reading series as it reaches the depoliticized generational politics of The Big Chill. Finally, my Lost in Twin Peaks episode-by-episode podcast stands on the cusp of the show's big reveal, diving into one of my favorite episodes of the entire series (it will be published in five days, but I wanted to get this cross-post up now so I can focus on video essays for the rest of the month).

And where do things stand with Journey Through Twin Peaks, which I hope to premiere within a few days? I'll address that right at the top of my main podcast episode. Thanks for your support, which helped this project come to fruition...

COMING SOON: Lost in Twin Peaks #14: S2E6 (Demons/"Episode 13")
this link will be active on Sunday, March 8 at 8am




Podcast Line-Ups for...

Mad Men - "Shut the Door. Have a Seat" (season 3, episode 13)


Welcome to my viewing diary for Mad Men. Every Monday I will review another episode of season three. Later seasons will be covered at another time. I have never seen this series before so there will be NO spoilers.

Story (aired on November 8, 2009/written by Matthew Weiner, Erin Levy; directed by Matthew Weiner): A chapter, perhaps an entire book, has finished. A new one is ready to begin - indeed, it already has begun, in style. Several relationships end emphatically in "Shut the Door. Have a Seat" while others nearly end, and still others begin or resume. And yes, as expected, one of those dissolving relationships belongs to the Drapers. Betty will marry Henry (when Don finds out about their romance, from Roger, he becomes temporarily threatening, only to back off by episode's end: "I want you to know I won't fight you on this," he calls to her from his new temporary office - and home). Don will move to the city - we see him carrying his bags into a new apartment building just before the credits roll - and...then what? He's landing on his feet more smoothly than he once suggested he would, but whether it's good or bad that the future is now completely wide open, wide open it is.

Don also "breaks up" with Connie, who matter-of-factly informs him that McCann Erickson is about to buy Putnam Powell & Lowe and he doesn't want to do business with them, so he and Don must sever their professional relationship, at least until they "try again sometime." Don, realizing he's been a "toy" for Connie to play around with and cut down to size, doesn't seem too eager and the imperious, egotistical Hilton scolds him for complaining that he wasn't able to do what Connie himself did. The meeting is beneficial to Don in several ways, informing him of the tumult to come and also sparking the entrepreneurial chutzpah that saves the core of the company even as the company itself goes over the cliff. Don, Roger, and Bert ask Lane to fire them so that they can be released from their contracts and move as many clients as possible to...Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Doesn't have the same ring to it, but I suppose "SCDP" will have to do going forward.

They bring with them - to a hotel room that will serve as temporary headquarters - Pete (for his visions of future markets), Harry (for his TV knowhow), Joan (for her organizational/resource expertise), and, after some initially brusque demanding and then some humble pleading, Peggy (for the sensitivity with which she understands the consumer's deep emotional needs - if Don once told her she wasn't an artist, he now seems to be taking it back). When the rest of the gang returns to the building on Monday and discovers the SCDP team's offices stripped clean, they are shocked; Paul's reaction to Peggy's absence is particularly pointed. Their loss is their colleagues' liberation. After a difficult year Don has broken free - of a marriage he didn't want to escape (even though he probably should have) and a working situation that he probably did (even if he couldn't articulate it). The times they are a'changin'.

My Response:

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