Patreon update #14: A Man Escaped (+ Top 15 Twin Peaks music, political podcasts, narrators of Citizen Kane & more) and preview of "Fire Walk With Me in season 3"

Several months ago, my patron and friend Max suggested a classic film about the French Resistance from a director who had experience in the Resistance himself. This month, he suggested another such film and so at the end of my discussion of A Man Escaped (based on the memoir of an escapee and informed by director Robert Bresson's own experience as a prisoner of war in Occupied France), I draw the comparison to Army of Shadows. I also incorporate the philosophy of Jansenism and reflect on Bresson's unique filmmaking style - especially when it comes to performance. Apologies for the strange, somewhat hollow sound of this segment; in retrospect I think the headphones/recorder I usually use wasn't properly plugged in and the phone itself was what was picking up my voice. Hopefully it's still listenable.

Elsewhere I take one last lap around the "random" "Twin Peaks Reflections" track before we move onto the rewatch buildup next week. Taking a cue from Twin Peaks Unwrapped and Scott Ryan of the Red Room Podcast I decided to list my 15 favorite Twin Peaks musical tracks, with samples from each selection accompanied by a few reflections. This should be a lot of fun for any Peaks fan to listen to - what our your own picks? I also offer my monthly round-up of podcast recommendations, with a lot of in-depth political discussions, and detail the variations of the different narrators/flashback sequences in Citizen Kane as part of my "Opening the Archive" segment.

Outside of the podcast, I lowered the biweekly preview reward to $5/month (which includes opening up previous previews) and offered my first one of April, an exploration of how the Fire Walk With Me concepts of "Electricity" and "The Blue Rose" mutate and evolve in the third season of Twin Peaks. And finally, does anyone have suggestions for a good third-tier reward? Right now, it's still in limbo so let me know what you think below.

Reward for the 3rd Tier? (what should it be?) - public post

Fire Walk With Me influences in season 3 (April "See the Future" Preview #1 - 2nd tier reward)

Episode 14: A Man Escaped (+ Top 15 Twin Peaks music, political podcasts, narrators of Citizen Kane & more)

Line-up for Episode 14

INTRO

WEEKLY UPDATE/recent posts: Mad Men viewing diary

WEEKLY UPDATE/Patreon: 2nd Tier Biweekly Preview - "Fire Walk With Me influences in season 3"

WEEKLY UPDATE/works in progress: character series - 30 runners-up including Pianist's true identity (Count Smokula), Twin Peaks Unwrapped pilot discussion, almost done w/ Mad Men season 1, High & Low visual tribute

FILM IN FOCUS: A Man Escaped

TWIN PEAKS REFLECTIONS: Rewatch reminder, Top 15 Twin Peaks music (+ bonus track)

OTHER TOPICS: Podcast recommendations

OPENING THE ARCHIVE: "Long Goodbyes" (November - December 2011), this week's highlight (Citizen Kane)

BECOME A PATRON

Melodrama & minimalism: Au Hasard Balthazar & Pyaasa (video essay for Fandor Keyframe)

I've been pretty busy lately (just not online), and didn't realize that my most recent Fandor video essay had actually gone up back in June. I submitted it a few months ago, inspired partly by having recently rewatched two of my favorite movies, and partly by a minor controversy surrounding Kevin B. Lee's video "Inside the Rooms of NO HOME MOVIE" which altered the soundtrack of clips from a Chantal Akerman film. What difference does sound make in our emotional perception of a scene? What is the common ground between melodramatic and minimalist uses of sound?

I addressed these questions in the above video, as well as in the accompanying text (which you can read in full on Fandor Keyframe (the Fandor video and page no longer exist although this is available on my own channel). Here is the intro to that text:

The Favorites - Au Hasard Balthazar (#65)

The Favorites is a series briefly exploring films I love, to find out what makes them - and me - tick. Au Hasard Balthazar (1966/France/dir. Robert Bresson) appeared at #65 on my original list.

What it is • One of the most famous statements about Au Hasard Balthazar is attributed to Jean-Luc Godard, who went on to marry its leading lady (Anne Wiazemsky, at the time of Balthazar a completely inexperienced 18-year-old nonprofessional). Godard describes this deceptively simple, minimal, quiet film as "the world in an hour and a half." Virtually - maybe even actually - the entire film takes place in a village so provincial that the occasional car or transistor radio seems vaguely anachronistic. Yet this isolated hamlet truly does feel like a microcosm of the wider world, with characters who are starkly defined and delineated. They exist not only in isolated corners of the narrative but are also forced to interact with one another, creating clashes or attachments that illuminate both parties. The tapestry woven by this novelistic ensemble includes the intense, fiery cruelty of Gerard (Francois Lafarge), the miserly, lustful cynicism of the merchant (Pierre Klosowski), the belligerent but oddly impotent alcoholic rage of Arnold (Jean-Claude Guilbert), the infuriating, self-defeating pride of the schoolteacher turned farmer (Philippe Asalin), and especially the demure, despoiled innocence and growing self-awareness of the farmer's daughter Marie (Wiazemsky). The needle that weaves these threads together is the title character, Balthazar, a donkey suffering above and beyond the usual misery of a beast of burden. Over the course of the film he passes between a series of masters, frequently returning to and departing from the home of Marie, where he was baptized in the film's early minutes (some viewers perceive this act as giving him a soul, which heightens his awareness and "humanity" throughout the rest of the movie). We meet him before the film even begins, braying abrasively under the opening credits, and he is at the center of the first and final shots. The story is seen through his eyes even though there are many sequences in which he's not onscreen, in which characters discuss things that have nothing to do with him. This explains why the above description comes as something of a surprise to me even as I write it. The bustling, picaresque nature of that narrative is a far cry from the film's muted, spare storytelling. Even having seen the film numerous times, it's never really registered as a plot. There is character psychology at work; for example, Marie's complete submission to Gerard seems to be at least partly a response to (and perverse reflection of) her own father's harmful stubbornness. And there is a larger story unfolding, of a community that preys upon and breaks down its weakest members, of a child's fatal illness and an offscreen murder and a legal battle dividing longtime friends and a criminal conspiracy led by a choir boy gone astray. But the incidents occur mostly offscreen, and the relationships are implied rather than stated or even observed. The film's body is made up of acts, glances, and gestures of cruelty and occasional kindness that appear random to us, however deeply rooted they may be. Does the donkey's perspective strip this story of any relatable human context? Or does it reveal its emotional substance, free of distracting narration?

Why I like it •

Fragments of Cinephilia, Pt. VI

Short thoughts on: Stanley Kramer • Howard Hawks • Vivre sa vie • Anatomy of a Murder • John Ford • The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Mouchette • Young Mr. Lincoln • Ordet • Jules and Jim

Here we are with another collection of IMDb comments, my sixth in about as many years (albeit my second in two months, so maybe you can expect more in the near future). As we move back in time, here we reach the period where I was really posting on those board prolifically, watching many movies and eager to share my thoughts in the primary forum I used at the time. While the previous (or should I say, chronologically, next?) round-up featured a lot of European films, here I seem to be at least as much focused on American classics. What do you think of these movies? Do you agree/disagree with my judgments? Since this was almost a decade ago, I'm not sure how frequently I concur with my conclusions, but it is interesting to revisit these earlier opinions.

The Eyes Have It

A visual tribute to my favorite scene in Au Hasard, Balthazar (1966, dir. Robert Bresson), in 8 shots

Fragments of Cinephilia, Pt. III

Short thoughts on: The Honeymoon Killers • Forbidden Games • Tout Va Bien & Masculin Feminin • Moby Dick • Robert Bresson • Yasujiro Ozu and Early Spring • My Dinner with Andre • Stanley Kauffmann • Sweet Movie

As I prepare a batch of fresh posts for the fall (a dozen new reviews are already written, with dozens more on the way), here are some more oldies but goodies. These sporadic notes and musings were originally comments on IMDb. Many of these thoughts led to longer conversations, and you can click on the date to see the original thread. Some of the responses are pretty interesting; in fact under the final fragment, on the extremely controversial Yugoslavian film Sweet Movie, I actually included some samples of the ensuing discussion (most of which I didn't see until now). And if you've viewed the film in question, I'd be really interested in your own opinion on the matter.

(See here for Pt. I and Pt. II of this archival project.)

Remembering the Movies, Feb. 18 - 24

Every Friday, we look back at films released 10-100 years ago this week.

Visit Remembering the Movies to further peruse the past

The shark has pretty teeth, dear - and with the above image the "bad guy" theme continues for yet another week. I've cheated this week too: as happens occasionally, I overlooked a movie a few weeks ago when it would have been eligible. Usually I'm able to include a given film on the date of another premiere/wider release if I accidentally miss it on its very first screening date. In this case, however, there was nothing I could do. So for hopefully the last time, the 1951 film is actually several weeks old but has been included because it deserved a spot on February 7. Apologies to all the anal Remembering-the-Movie-watchers out there. I promise to get it right next time.

Over at the Examiner

If there's any Bostonians out there (or perusers of random city's cultural scenes), here's a guide to the some of the movie goings-on for the next 7 days. This took way longer to assemble than I expected, and I didn't get a chance to compile much else, but there's some good stuff in store for the Examiner next week. I'll provide a preview on Sunday.

(The link is no longer active, but here are some of the films I mentioned:

Bicycle Thieves (1948)

One of the greatest movies ever made. In postwar Italy, director Vittorio De Sica and writer Cesare Zavattini abandoned the glamorous studio films of the Mussolini era, writing real stories about real people, casting non-actors to fill the roles and shooting in real locations to capture the desperate mood of the times. The story is one of their simplest yet most effective: a working man has his bicycle stolen; needing it to support his family he sets out through Rome with his son to find it. Despite - largely successful - attempts at realism, the film is also quite poetic, with wonderful black-and-white photography, highlighted in a brand new 35mm print.

Pickpocket (1959)

Another one of the greatest movies ever made, and this one's showing for free! French director Robert Bresson's minimalist masterpiece is austere, but it's also one of his most audience-pleasing works given the exhilirating shots in which he tracks skilled pickpockets hard at work - you'll walk out of the theater and into the subway with one hand on your wallet and renewed respect for those who want to take it. But the heart of the movie is in its character's moral and spiritual crisis, inspired by Crime & Punishment.

Wings of Desire (1987)

A free screening for a Harvard class, open to the public. A few years before it became a reality, German director Wim Wenders imagined bodies passing through the Berlin Wall - though in this case they were heavenly bodies, celestial vessels for angels who could watch over human interactions without being able to affect them in any way. Eventually one angel, played by Bruno Ganz, has had enough and decides to "plunge in", giving up his wings to be mortal, and yet to be alive. Features some of the most stunning cinematography in cinema history.

Severed Ways

An epic vision of "the New World" circa 1007, when Native Americans, Irish monks, and Vikings lay claim to the land nearly 500 years before Columbus approached its shores. Shipwrecked Vikings make their way through the rugged wilderness, in what Eric Hynes of indiewire.com has called this "a visionary work from one of the most promising new American narrative filmmakers in recent years.")

This post was originally published on The Sun's Not Yellow, based on a Boston Examiner round-up.

The Great Movies

Penned by William Bayer, an independent filmmaker and writer on cinema, this lavishly-illustrated, thought-provoking coffee table book, composed of sixty films divided into twelve categories, is by all accounts currently out of print, and long ago forgotten. Or rather, long ago forgotten by most people (if they ever even made its acquaintance), but not by me. Somehow this book, published ten years before my birth, came into my possession in early childhood (I believe my father purchased it before I, along with my cinephilia, came onto the scene). It has had an inordinate influence on how I look at movies to this day. I still own it and have reproduced many of its pages in this post, as a tribute to all those glorious but long-neglected celebrations of the movies - the books which served to engage our curiosity, to focus our eye, to sharpen our intellect, and most of all to fire our imagination so that sights unseen became holy grails. A follow-up post will examine the many books that served this purpose for me, and then I will pass the baton on to my readers, but for now...The Great Movies.

A Man Escaped

Appropriately enough, while reviewing the austere minimalist Robert Bresson, who abhorred waste, clutter, and distraction, I am about to embark on a digression. For the past couple weeks I've generally stuck to a film-per-day, with the exception of the introduction to my AUTEURS series. This has kept me writing, though occasionally below the level I would like, and gives me something concrete to focus on. Nonetheless, I expect to depart from this in the coming days. For several reasons, one of them named "Twin Peaks." I've been watching the entire series for the first time and in my desperation to (initially) find out who killed Laura Palmer and then (eventually) to see where the hell the series can go after that question has - apparently - been answered, I've converted all my Netflix queues to the show. Expect a review of Fire Walk With Me next week and possibly a review of the series this weekend. In the mean time, I could dip into my personal collection (which I spent the last few months watching anyway) but I won't be tackling many sights unseen.

Furthermore, there are a number of topics circulating the blogosphere which have piqued my interest, and oddly enough, they're all political. First, the upcoming W. by Oliver Stone...certain to be the most interesting release of the year even if it's not very good. Second, the political implications of The Dark Knight, which I already discussed in my review but which may possibly warrant further discussion. Thirdly, a dust-up over Jon Voight's extremely silly op-ed about Obama being a socialist unduly influenced by his childhood teachers (never mind that Obama first encountered said childhood teachers as an adult...). I'm not sure if I want to gallop off in these directions, but I thought I'd throw it out there. For now, though...A Man Escaped.