Fragments of Cinephilia, Pt. V

If you're looking for further details on the Maya Deren video I just posted on YouTube, here is the blog post mentioned at the end.

Short thoughts on: Fists in the Pocket • Michael Medved • Goodbye, Mr. Chips • Russian Ark • My Night at Maud's • Claire's Knee • Paris Belongs to Us • 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her • Jean-Luc Godard • Europa '51

I've become a broken record on this subject, but I swear that within a few weeks I will have a huge backlog of Monday posts, more than I know what to do with - including a video that relates to the above picture. January is going to be very busy (although the work is mostly done, I'm waiting for other sites to cross-post). Unfortunately at this moment an interview, a guest post, at least four videos, and a podcast appearance are all waiting in the wings rather than in the bag. (That said, I did finally upload the "Cinepoem" video I blogged about back in November.) So I'm turning to one of my old standbys today, the archival of my old IMDb comments, where my online film commentary began. I've done this four times before, each time moving a bit further into the past. Some of these comments are actually almost a decade old, so be advised that they may no longer reflect my opinions (hell, I even left in some of the typos!). In many cases they represent my first engagement with the work in question, as a 23-year-old hungry for as many cinematic experiences as he could devour.

In fact 2006-07 was in many ways a peak viewing period for me; I was falling back into cinephilia after many years of caring more about music than movies. Most of the topics below relate to mid-century European films, particularly French filmmakers like Rohmer, Rivette, and Godard. Some of these films I loved, some I did not, but all of them seemed to me worthy of discussion - and still do. I would like to hear your thoughts as well, if you've seen these films (and if you haven't, I hope this serves as encouragement). Did Fists in the Pocket surprise you? Is Europa '51 too didactic? Does Goodbye Mr. Chips need a stronger narrative throughline? Is Rohmer subtly encouraging us to criticize the protagonist of Claire's Knee? Is Godard an incredibly consistent genius, an emperor with no clothes, or a hit-and-miss experimenter? Let me know what you think, and I'll let you know where I do and don't agree with the old me.

(I originally used a different image, culled from a Wonders in the Dark post several years earlier, but I replaced it with this one in 2017 when I cross-posted that Wonders piece on this site.)

Visions of Filmmaking: 2 quotes from Truffaut & Godard

 Overheard in the documentary Two in the Wave (2010)

Remembering the Movies, Dec. 10 - 16

Every Friday, we look back at films released 10-100 years ago this week.
Visit Remembering the Movies to further peruse the past

As the man above taught us, simplicity is a virtue. With this excuse in mind, there's no personal review this week, even though that's a feature I intend to continue down the line (truthfully, I was unexpectedly busy, and I did not have as much time as usual to prepare the post). As always, plenty of pictures, several videos, some quotes, and a wide variety of choices: everything from a saintly pacifist to a squadron of bloodthirsty teenagers - with room for a spinach-guzzling muscleman, an Israeli freedom fighter, and Cher. As for the biggest hit of this week's history - contra the man from Assisi, who probably would have said love meant humility and a recognition of simple virtues and submergence in the divine glow of God, Ryan O'Neal and Ali MacGraw tell us what love really means. (Cue the hankies and/or barf bags, though I'll diplomatically forswear both, never having seen Love Story...)

Stromboli

(Though already written before I was aware of the series, I am now submitting this as an entry in the For the Love of Films: Film Preservation Blog-a-Thon of Ferdy on Films & Self-Styled Siren. A full-fledged entry will be appearing on the Dancing Image on Sunday, the last day of the blog-a-thon. Stay tuned.)

Despite seeing many of his films, I've never really responded to Rossellini the way many cinephiles do. His holy simplicity has occasionally struck me as, well, just plain simple. Flowers of St. Francis (a blind buy on my part, and a satisfying one) is charming and Voyage in Italy compelling - though I wonder if Antonioni didn't eventually pick up Rossellini's ball and run further with it a few years later. Europa 51 I found embarrassing and remain rather mystified as to how its obviousness is supposed to be transcendent. Open City and Germany Year Zero are effective and absorbing but they're films I respected without being enthralled by. Neither one seemed to capture the lingering, simple, pure power of Bicycle Thieves (though both are overripe for revisiting, especially in the wake of the recent Criterion releases). Paisan was compelling in the abstract but I found its actuality too messy. Unlike Rossellini's acolytes (one recalls the zealous cineaste in Before the Revolution who admonishes the protagonist, "Remember, Rossellini is a god!") I was always unable to take the raggedness of his work in stride, to embrace it as not just a necessary evil but somehow fundamental to the work's appeal.

Three by Truffaut

In my introduction to "Reading the Movies," I noted the titles I was reading at the moment. Among the Kael, Sarris, and sundry I declined to mention The Films of My Life by François Truffaut, which I've been reading off and on since April. I already transcribed the marvellous introduction; as for the rest of the book, I'm cool on some of Truffaut's criticism. At times he becomes too absorbed by plot descriptions (which, possibly due to translation, become cumbersome and hard to follow), at others his epigrams seem too obscure (I know, I know, I'm one to talk...). But unlike Truffaut's films, which I can only enjoy from a distance like Moses viewing the promised land, there are passages in his writing which leap from the page and hit me where it hurts - in a good way. Following are three wonderful essays which I've reproduced here for your enjoyment. So making their online debut (to my knowledge):

"Citizen Kane: The Fragile Giant" - Fantastic tribute to one of the greatest movies of all time, not from a perspective of technical admiration but of zealous, totally enraptured enthusiasm (and with a focus on the characters and story, which is also how I first knew and loved Kane - and in some ways, still do).

"Muriel" - Slightly bewildered appreciation of the Resnais film, with a great Hitchcock anecdote. Hitch's punchline, Truffaut's closing paragraph, and the film in question are all somewhat mystifying though I like the first two more than the third.

"Roberto Rossellini Prefers Real Life" - Tip of the hat to a very unique filmmaker, a man Truffaut worked for (much of the essay is devoted to personal reminisces). Years later, he still seems to be astonished by Rossellini's distractible intensity; Truffaut's tone is simultaneously admiring and disbelieving.