The Prisoner - "It's Your Funeral"

Welcome to my viewing diary for The Prisoner. Every Wednesday I will review another episode. This is my first watch-through of the 1967 British cult TV show so there will be NO spoilers for upcoming episodes. But I will be watching the series in this order so if you are watching along with me, keep that in mind.

The Prisoner is something of a high-wire act. Its parameters seem so clear, the risks so high, that at any given moment you expect it to fail spectacularly. "It's Your Funeral" is a perfect example of this. After the previous nine episodes, it seems increasingly difficult to imagine where the show could go next without either repeating or overextending itself. At first, the episode seems to tread on the latter territory. Despite the creativity of focusing on the authorities' point of view - something we've humored before but never to this extent (we even get a glimpse of the daily mechanisms of the Village bureaucracy)  - at a certain point this maneuver feels a bit forced. We watch Number Two (Derren Nesbitt), this time a somewhat prissy and smug blonde youth, manipulate Number Six into thinking there's a plot against him (meaning against Number Two). Initially clever, within a few scenes this device seems a little tired. We've already viewed these officials toy with Six so many times that it feels like finally the show may have fallen a bit flat in its conceits. Ho hum, so Two will convince Six there's an assassination conspiracy, and then convince him that he's crazy for thinking this and oh, who cares really? But then the episode reveals its ace in the hole: on the day Two is to be assassinated, Six goes to visit Two to warn him again - only to be told that he's a "jammer," someone who creates so many false-flag rebellions against the governing class that he's considered a boy who cried wolf. So far, so predictable: their goal is to mess with Six's mind, right? Well, no. Over half an hour into "It's Your Funeral" we discover the twist: the actual Number Two, the one who is at risk of being killed is someone completely different, an older man (Andre van Gyseghem) who is actually passing the official role on to the Two we met earlier. Six, at this point, is little more than a pawn in their game - with the new Two's goal to execute the old Two. Why? Well, we don't really know. Perhaps because, as Six archly puts it, "they're trying save a pension."

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 Favorites - Satantango (#68)

The Favorites is a series briefly exploring films I love, to find out what makes them - and me - tick. Satantango (1994/Hungary/dir. Bela Tarr) appeared at #68 on my original list.

What it is • To describe Satantango as the tale of villagers grieving the loss (by neglect) of one of their members, deceived into leaving their decrepit homestead by a devious, messianic con man would, in a sense, be accurate. But it would also be highly misleading, like describing the history of humanity in terms of biological evolution. Sure, the process traces an overall shape but the essence of the experience is captured in fleeting yet all-enveloping individual perceptions. Over the course of seven hours the aforementioned events occur, but the real gravity of the film lies in its moments, all of which Tarr stretches out to a point that bypasses tedium and achieves transcendence. Attempting to verbalize the film's sequences doesn't do them justice. A group of villagers dance endlessly to almost comically repetitive music. A little girl, ignored by everyone around her, focuses her own diabolical attention on a pet cat. A cruel conniver, initially far from home, returns to this hamlet that feels like some sort of distant planet, at once a microcosm and an idiosyncrasy. Even detailing how Tarr shoots the scenes, through relentless long takes employing glacial movement and frequently ridiculous behavior, makes the film sound like some sort of perverse intellectual exerecise when in fact it's anything but. By some sort of alchemy, Satantango's grimy, deeply textured surfaces immerse us in a sensation that escapes words, that escapes even camera movements or compositions.

Why I like it •

The Prisoner - "Many Happy Returns"

Welcome to my viewing diary for The Prisoner. Every Wednesday I will review another episode. This is my first watch-through of the 1967 British cult TV show so there will be NO spoilers for upcoming episodes. But I will be watching the series in this order so if you are watching along with me, keep that in mind.

Week by week, it's amusing to look back on where I thought future episodes might go. I certainly didn't expect "Many Happy Returns" to call the bluff of "The Chimes of Big Ben" or "A, B, and C" by all-out allowing Number Six to escape, allowing him to get all the way to London (!), and even to explain the Village to his superiors and launch an investigation into its whereabouts (!!). And this being a middle episode of The Prisoner (a category that I guess describes everything from 2 to 15), naturally that investigation leads right back to him being stranded on the island again - and we do at least learn this time that the Village is on an island. This is a great episode, maybe my favorite of the series so far. Not only is its narrative conceit bold - hilariously bold, even - it also has the courage to tell nearly half of its story without a single word of dialogue. It's sixteen minutes before we hear any speech at all. Twenty-two minutes in, Six speaks his first line of dialogue ("Where is this?"). Twenty-eight minutes through the episode (more than halfway) Six finally speaks to another person who understands him. As a result, we get pure visual storytelling for a substantial chunk of the episode; it's another feather in The Prisoner's cap as it finds new ways to expand on and play with its concept episode by episode.

Cinepoem: Rimbaud's "The Stolen Heart"

updated 2/23 - the video is up!

My third Cinepoem is up a couple weeks late, but I am now almost caught up with the video schedule I set months ago. Covering one of my favorite poets, Arthur Rimbaud, this video is one of the more formally complex and abstract that I've created so far. It uses (non-graphic) clips from Salo and Blue is the Warmest Color (as well as some stylized bloodshed from Patriotism - between that and Rimbaud's language, this probably isn't something you want to play at work). While it may seem slightly perverse to pair one of Rimbaud's hardest-hitting verses with clips from NC-17 films that don't feature extreme violence or sexuality I was more interested in suggesting the emotional aftereffect/byproduct of both desire and trauma. For the score, which might be one of my favorite aspects of this montage, I slowed down and combined tracks by Kendrick Lamarr and The Velvet Underground. And the photo zoomed in on for most of the video, providing one of its central disciplines, is of course Rimbaud himself.

Check out my previous Cinepoems each of which segues directly into the next: "Idylls of the King" and "After Great Pain". I created a new playlist to play all three in a row, and new ones will be added as they are uploaded in coming months.

Oh, and an embarrassing correction for something I should have double-checked in the credits: the translator is Wallace Fowlie, not Walter. Argh. Jim Morrison is spinning in his grave.

The Favorites - God's Country (#69)

The Favorites is a series briefly exploring films I love, to find out what makes them - and me - tick. God's Country (1986/France/dir. Louis Malle) appeared at #69 on my original list.

What it is • In 1979, Louis Malle was on the road, crossing the American Midwest with a PBS production crew. Apparently the original object of his documentary was going to be a Minneapolis shopping mall but the irritating Muzak of the location drove him out into the countryside, where he stumbled across a town fair in a small farming community, Glencoe, Minnesota. Taken with the down-home charm, friendly nature, and cultural idiosyncrasies of the town, Malle decided to stay, recording interviews with bankers, cops, lawyers, clerks, retirees, lots of farmers, and at least one cow inseminator. The job descriptions only go so far, because what Malle really captures is humanity in all its manifestations. Some of his conversations subtly hint at deep emotion beneath the cordial, colloquial surface while others go so deep that we almost forget what we're watching, the backdrop of the specific time and place falling away completely (the most obvious example is the young woman who speaks about love, loneliness, sexuality, hypocrisy - and whose expressive face conveys even more emotion than her frank words). Malle was never able to cut this footage together as originally planned and then in the mid-1980s he returned to Glencoe to follow up with these folks. The last half-hour of the documentary has a more depressed feel than the rest of the film (which also contains melancholy stretches), emphasizing that the Reagan administration, for all its talk of "Morning in America," is actually hastening the downfall of the heartland. But even here, Malle and his subjects find hope and comfort. I only wish we could return now, thirty years later, to see how everyone (who remains) is doing. In ninety minutes, God's Country makes you feel like you know these people and the town they live in, and at the same time it keeps them slightly mysterious (much as you can know your neighbors for years, only to discover you were barely scratching the surface). The film offers us a perspective that is both a peek and a revelation.

Why I like it •

The Prisoner - "A, B, and C"

Welcome to my viewing diary for The Prisoner. Every Wednesday I will review another episode. This is my first watch-through of the 1967 British cult TV show so there will be NO spoilers for upcoming episodes. But I will be watching the series in this order so if you are watching along with me, keep that in mind.

"A, B, and C" is full of surprises and new directions. This in itself is - somewhat paradoxically - unsurprising, because I haven't encountered any "filler" episodes yet (and if I did, they were early enough in the order not to strike me as such). With every entry, The Prisoner seems to find a new way to twist its premise and discover new alcoves and corridors within its terrain, even as it uses elements introduced in other episodes. "The Chimes of Big Ben" cleverly allowed Number Six outside of the Village - to a point. "The Schizoid Man" forced Six to wrestle with his own identity, as the authorities manipulated his reality. "The General" used technology to dominate Six (and other Villagers), until his own ingenuity destroyed the power of the machine. "A, B, and C" incorporates all of these approaches, while also utilizing the "tell us why you defected" obsession of "Big Ben" and actually continuing with the same Number Two for the first time (Colin Gordon, who also appeared in last week's entry, "The General"). One twist is that Six isn't really outside of the Village, but simply experiencing computerized hallucinations in which Number Two and Number Fourteen (Sheila Allen) use avatars to prove that Two betrayed the Agency before resigning (or was planning to betray them afterwards?). Another twist is that Six is able to achieve his most dramatic, table-turning victory yet perhaps because escape is never even his goal, but also because Two is under such intense pressure to discover Six's secrets.

Meet Me at Sparkwood & 21

Every month, I will be offering at least one post on Twin Peaks...up until Showtime re-airs the original series. Then I will post extensive coverage of each episode (mixing new reactions with my many older pieces) immediately after they air. Stay tuned.

Two weeks ago I was graciously invited on the air by Em and Steve, of the incredibly thorough and engaging Twin Peaks podcast Sparkwood & 21 (if you haven't listened yet, check it out and if you think you've heard enough Twin Peaks podcasts, think again - this one is a keeper). One of their podcast's hallmarks is the lively back-and-forth between listeners and the hosts via "letters to the show." Having covered every episode, the film, and the major spin-off media, Steve and Em decided to interview all of their frequent feedbackers, including me. Stay tuned over the next few weeks for more in-depth discussions (I can't wait!). As is the case when they are covering the series, they left no stone unturned: in an epic three-hour conversation (you might want to split this over several listens) we discussed the making of my video essays, my thoughts on Twin Peaks, favorite books/movies/directors/comics, embarrassing beach experiences, and (why not?) Star Wars.

UPDATE 2025: Since Sparkwood & 21 episodes are no longer available on any platforms, I've re-uploaded the episode myself on my own feed. It is now divided into two parts with a couple quick intros; otherwise the content remains the same...

Jacques Rivette, 1928 - 2016

Although I haven't written any obituaries in a while, as soon as I looked at my blogroll and saw, via Catherine Grant, that Jacques Rivette had passed away, I knew I had to say something...not about his death, but about his life and work. If nothing else, a belated "Thank you" was in order. The director's rich body of work has provided me with as much material for contemplation, enjoyment, and engagement as that of any other artist in the past twelve months, save perhaps Hideaki Anno or David Lynch (with whom he was deeply tied for me in 2015). I created several videos honoring his work (including my first-ever collaboration), watched eight of his films on the big screen at Lincoln Center, and covered these and more in a dozen reviews or essays (at least one of which has yet to be published). Just a few days ago I even stumbled across an unexpected American blu-ray edition of his masterpiece Out 1 (including his Spectre cut, unseen by me) which I'm sure I will begin exploring tonight.

The Favorites - The Seventh Seal (#70)

The Favorites is a series briefly exploring films I love, to find out what makes them - and me - tick. The Seventh Seal (1957/Sweden/dir. Ingmar Bergman) appeared at #70 on my original list.

What it is • Like a greatest (or grisliest) hits album of medieval Europe, The Seventh Seal crosses dewy meadows, dirty village squares, isolated churches, overgrown woodlands, and dank castle walls to touch upon the Crusades, the bubonic plague, traveling minstrel shows, self-flagellating penitents, religious visions of the Virgin, witches burned at the stake and a personified figure of Death who seems to have stepped down off an allegorical church painting. At the same time, the film is very modern, gazing out at the postwar world with its existential crises of faith, Cold War tensions, and specter of atomic destruction, and recognizing a correspondence with the distress of the Middle Ages. Cutting a particularly contemporary figure is Jons (Gunnar Bjornstrand), squire to the pained Antonious Block (Max von Sydow, sixty years shy of Star Wars, yet already weathered and weary). Jons speaks with an atheistic frankness and worldly cynicism that at times makes him feel like the film's conscience. But Ingmar Bergman - crafting what may remain his most iconic feature after a lengthy, prolific career - is careful not to allow any character to simply become his mouthpiece. Not only is each intellectual, spiritual or (mostly) emotional perspective allowed expression and contradiction, there is also a sense of fluid uncertainty guiding the movie's course. Perhaps that's the most remarkable thing about this movie, that such a finely- and carefully-crafted piece of work can allow itself the freedom to test various points of view, to try on many different forms of human experience, high and low, pleasant and painful, and refuse to settle on one didactic argument about the vastness of life. Then again, perhaps the most remarkable thing about this movie is that it takes the vastness of life as its subject in the first place, and is able to do it justice by focusing on a small medieval microcosm.

Why I like it •

The Prisoner - "The General"

Welcome to my viewing diary for The Prisoner. Every Wednesday I will review another episode. This is my first watch-through of the 1967 British cult TV show so there will be NO spoilers for upcoming episodes. But I will be watching the series in this order so if you are watching along with me, keep that in mind.

I'm trying to avoid too many conversations about The Prisoner until I complete the series (at which point I'm planning to devote about a month to weekly chats with the show's fans). However, I did mention "The General" recently with Bob Clark, who will be one of the conversants. He said that this was one of his favorite episodes and then made an interesting observation: "I really like the ones that aren't really about him trying to escape, but him essentially righting a wrong in the Village. Makes a great use of the setting, turning it into a place where any kind of crazy spy thing can happen." This is, I think, a useful distinction. Of course every episode I've seen so far incorporates Number Six's desire to flee the Village alongside some effort to understand and/or subvert the Village's rules. Nevertheless, there are strong variations in the emphasis. "The Chimes of Big Ben," for example was very thoroughly escape-driven, taking an extended close look at the mechanics of Six's elaborate plan (and the even more elaborate plan to deceive him). "Free for All" on the other hand was far more concerned with how the Village functions than how Six could get away from it - although both "Free for All" and "The Schizoid Man" put Six in a mostly reactive rather than proactive position. "The General" may be the most active Six has been in an episode not devoted to his escape attempt.

Side by Side video: The Asphalt Jungle & The Killing

update 2/21: It's finally up!

I announced this video nearly a month ago but got distracted from it repeatedly. Then this weekend I finally dove in - and almost lost everything when my nearly-completed project wouldn't open Friday night. Thanks to the generous help of Nuno Baltazar, I was able to get it up and running again and so here today - finally - is my video comparison of these two classic films. The Vimeo upload and original intro (including a link to the essay that inspired the video) follows the jump. My previous entries in the Side by Side series were Twin Peaks & Neon Genesis Evangelion and Dial M For Murder & Rear Window. I've also made a YouTube playlist featuring all three videos.