Blue Velvet & The Duchess of Langeais (Lynch/Rivette Retrospective #1)

This is the first entry in a series covering the Lynch/Rivette retrospective at Lincoln Center, running from December 10 - 22. I attended a double feature of Blue Velvet (1986) and The Duchess of Langeais (2007) on the evening of Friday, December 11.

In spite of many memorable images, the work of David Lynch and Jacques Rivette is often defined by what we can't see: whispered conspiracies and chimerical secret societies, supernatural pathways that might exist only in the characters' heads, or buried links and splits establishing two characters as one or one character as two. Almost always, these hidden clues connect different worlds or people, speaking to these characters' hunger as they blindly grope their way toward deeper connection, spiritual or collective (a process envisioned literally in a rehearsal scene from Rivette's 1971 magnum opus Out 1). In Lynch's Blue Velvet and Rivette's The Duchess of Langeais (based on Honore de Balzac's History of the Thirteen) this impulse appears in its most basic form: the longing of one human being for another. Despite this simplicity, both films illustrate how ugly and cruel that longing can become, how easily a desire for the whole becomes enmeshed in abusive power plays. Few other double features will depict this desire as being so hopelessly futile, so destructive and dangerous.

The Favorites - The River (#77)

The Favorites is a series briefly exploring films I love, to find out what makes them - and me - tick. The River (1951/UK/dir. Jean Renoir) appeared at #77 on my original list.

What it is • To call the "plot" of The River episodic would almost be an exaggeration - better to call it anecdotal, so slight are the moments it collects together like beads on a string. "Where would the world be without string?" one character asks another, defending his jute-processing business - and in this film the string is the narration by Harriet (Patricia Walters, but the voiceover is by June Hillman). A gangly redheaded adolescent onscreen, she is adult and wise on the soundtrack, offering a many-years-later reflection that carries all those brief moments along, linking them together like the titular river carries and links the boats. But boats, beads, whichever metaphor you like, those individual moments are the real stuff this film is made of and Jean Renoir's first experiments with color ensure that they glisten like pearls. A girl in white and gold dancing for her lover turned blue Krishna...a tangled green jungle through which three teenage girls tread, under a bright blue sky...the orange robes and orange flames of the Diwali ceremony set off by a glorious cacophony of reds, greens, and blacks...the overwhelming, intoxicating burst of spring: green, pink, orange, blue, punctuated by the explosion of red powder on a character's amused face. However, the film is not just visual spectacle. Despite its deceptively languorous and casual air, The River delves into war, death, grief, spirituality, heartache, displacement, the experiences and emotions big and small that define life. And at its best, the reassuring narration fades away, leaving us with images that both speak for themselves and don't begin to tell us what to think as Harriet comes of age, competing with her friends Valerie (Adrienne Corri) and Melanie (Radha) for the attention of the war-wounded Capt. John (Thomas E. Breen).

Why I like it •

Lured in by Lynch & Rivette: a retrospective at Lincoln Center (+ status update for the coming weeks)

Over the coming two weeks, I will be reviewing every double feature in the Lynch/Rivette retrospective at Lincoln Center. Reviews will be going up as soon as I am able to write them, alongside my usual Monday-Wednesday-Friday at 7am routine. To kick off the retrospective, I am sharing the intro & a link to an essay I wrote for Fandor Keyframe (where my videos will resume in the new year). By coincidence, Fandor's head video essayist, Kevin B. Lee, also produced a new video related to the retrospective which premiered tonight at Lincoln Center, alongside a talk by Dennis Lim, who programmed the series with Dan Sullivan, and Melissa Anderson.

In addition to my pieces on each Lynch/Rivette screening, the coming weeks will feature interviews with two authors of recent Lynch/Twin Peaks literature: Dennis Lim - who, in addition to programming the retrospective, also just published David Lynch: The Man From Another Place - and Andreas Halskov, whose new book TV Peaks covers the influence, innovation, and fan culture of Twin Peaks. And before I give way to the Fandor piece, I also want to point you to James Cooray Smith's thoughtful, nuanced article on the Star Wars prequels for the New Statesman (despite the provocative title, his perspective is more exploratory than polemical). Not only is it a great read, he very generously shouted out my Journey Through Twin Peaks videos!

Ok, on with the show...

• • •

David & Jacques Go Boating:

The Lynch/Rivette Dual Retrospective at Lincoln Center

by Joel Bocko

For thirteen days in December, the Film Society of Lincoln Center will trade its screening room for a rabbit hole. American auteur David Lynch and French filmmaker Jacques Rivette are the subjects of a fifteen-film retrospective marked by split narratives, double characters, and entangled locations. The surrealist directors are themselves defined by duality, with some viewers celebrating them as truthtellers while others dismiss (or appreciate) them as tricksters. Their films thrive on this uncertainty, projecting an aura of dreamlike mystery punctuated by playful interludes and violent epiphanies.

It isn’t hard to see why Dan Sullivan and Dennis Lim, author of the brand new Lynch book The Man From Another Place, programmed Lynch and Rivette side by side in a series of double features (although tickets are available for each film individually, the heart of the retrospective’s approach is in these pairings). The program notes feature many convergences between the cowboy and the Frenchman: “secrets, conspiracies, and paranoia; women in trouble; the supernatural manifesting itself within the everyday; the nature of performance and the stage as an arena for transformation; the uncanny sense of narrative as a puzzle without a solution, a force with a life of its own.”

Rivette evokes that uncanny sensation by mixing casual fly-on-the-wall photography with heightened theatricality, while Lynch prefers to decorate his cinematic canvases with subverted Hollywood fantasies. Both directors discover the bizarre in the everyday, but Rivette tends toward mesmeric daydream whereas Lynch creates more convulsive nightmares. Indeed, the Lynch/Rivette retrospective is defined by harmony and dissonance, with each similarity exposing a subtle difference. The dance orchestrated by Sullivan and Lim may be a tense tango rather than a smooth waltz.

Rivette has praised Lynch’s work, declaring Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992) “the craziest film in the history of cinema. I have no idea what happened, I have no idea what I saw, all I know is that I left the theater floating six feet above the ground.” Lynch’s thoughts on Rivette are unknown (perhaps he’s never been asked). Did Rivette’s Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974) influence Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (2001)? Or do great minds simply think alike? Perhaps these directors share the same wavelength but operate on different frequencies.

Unscrambling these signals, Sullivan and Lim have posed pairings both obvious and inventive, relying on character, chronology, theme, or something more intangible to concoct these double features. “I was particularly interested in performance in their films,” Lim has noted, “and the way both filmmakers work with narrative.”

FRIDAY, December 11

Rivette’s The Duchess of Langeais (2007), 137 minutes, at 3:30pm & 9:00pm

Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986), 120 minutes, at 8:30pm (followed by reception for ticket-holders)

Narrative provides the glue for the opening selection, pairing Lynch’s groundbreaking Blue Velvet with Rivette’s late work The Duchess of Langeais (based on Balzac’s History of the Thirteen). The first exists in an all-American small town mixing fifties sunshine with eighties anxiety, while the second encloses itself in the ornate drawing rooms and boudoirs of Restoration France. Both center on enigmatic woman who bewitch a young man, Blue Velvet’s Dorothy (Isabella Rossellini) seducing Jeffrey (Kyle MacLachlan) through violence and sexuality, Balzac’s titular Duchess (Jeanne Balibar) preferring coquetry to fornication as she toys with a youthful general (Guillaume Depardieu).

Corruption and conspiracy (most notably via Dennis Hopper’s terrifying Frank Booth) characterize the communities surrounding these private psychodramas, social spheres determined to impose order in the wake of unrest. The tension in Rivette’s film may arise in the contradiction of the director’s own freewheeling sensibilities with Balzac’s royalist sympathies, whereas the tension in Lynch’s film arises from within himself. The much-protested, much-celebrated American subversive was also an avid supporter of Ronald Reagan at the time, fascinated in equal measure by picket fences and the dirt underneath.

SATURDAY, December 12

Rivette’s Joan the Maid: The Battles (1994), 160 minutes, at 2:00pm

Rivette’s Joan the Maid: The Prisons (1994), 176 minutes, at 5:30pm

Lynch’s Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), 134 minutes, at 9:15pm

The next double feature (or, technically, triple feature) focuses on single characters: Joan of Arc (Sandrine Bonnaire), whom Rivette depicted in Joan the Maid: The Battles and Joan the Maid: The Prisons and Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), whom Lynch invented as a murder victim on the mystery show Twin Peaks (1990-91) before finally granting her onscreen life in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. Gifted and damned young woman, inclined toward spiritual insight while tormented by powerful, worldly men, both were more familiar to audiences as myths than flesh-and-blood human beings.

In Joan the Maid and Fire Walk With Me, these heroines are resurrected through intense, committed performances by two brilliant actresses. Rather than relegating them to passive martyrdom, both Laura and Joan are characterized as defiant in the face of death, strong, resilient, and also deeply human. Laura’s spiritual victory may not be obvious as Joan’s, but it is there for those who want to look. Both Joan and Fire depict the fiery humanist heart concealed behind Lynch’s and Rivette’s playful public personas.

SUNDAY, December 13

Rivette’s L’Amour Fou (1969), 250 minutes, at 3:00pm

Lynch’s Wild at Heart (1990), 124 minutes, at 8:15pm

The first weekend of the series concludes with back-to-back romances characterized as much by violence as sex; their very titles proclaim that love leads to madness (or vice-versa). Rivette’s L’Amour Fou (1969), depicting the breakup/breakdown of a marriage between an actress (Bulle Ogier) and director (Jean-Pierre Kalfon), and Lynch’s Wild at Heart (1990), coupling Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern as tender-hearted fugitives from a bizarre criminal empire, are fueled by the passionate energy of two different freedom-loving zeitgeists, and both represent major turning points in their directors’ careers.

Shot during the social tumult unleashed by May ’68, Rivette’s four-hour intimate epic introduced improvisation-based narrative to his work, paving the way for the thirteen-hour experiment Out 1 (1971). Produced at the end of the Cold War, Lynch’s road movie ignited a new impressionistic style for the director, pushing him toward his increasingly avant-garde episodes of Twin Peaks. Acclaim greeted both films (Wild at Heart won the Palme d’Or at Cannes) but they remain controversial, alternately described as audacious or self-indulgent.

TUESDAY, December 15

Rivette’s Paris Belongs to Us (1961), 140 minutes, at 6:30pm

Lynch’s Eraserhead (1977), 89 minutes, at 9:15pm

The retrospective resumes, following a one-day break, with Lynch’s first feature Eraserhead (1979) and Rivette’s directorial debut Paris Belongs to Us (1961). Both breakthroughs took years to produce, held together only by the young directors’ visions and the passion of their collaborators despite long pauses and funding crises. Conveying apocalyptic energies through paranoid protagonists and hilarious (if unnerving) communication breakdowns, Eraserhead and Paris Belong to Us trace a similar path…and yet these may be the two most different films that the retrospective placed together.

No Lynch film exists more purely within an imaginary headspace than Eraserhead, confronting Henry (Jack Nance) with bizarre characters like his mutant baby, his animalistic in-laws, and the Lady and the Radiator. Few Rivette works are as explicit as Paris Belongs to Us about links to current or recent events, with Anne (Betty Schneider) uncovering the possibility of a worldwide fascist plot behind her friend’s apparent suicide. Eraserhead is solitary and fantastical, while Paris Belongs to Us is communitarian and worldly. This yin/yang dynamic clearly establishes where the Venn diagram of Lynch and Rivette aligns…and where it diverges.

FRIDAY, December 18

Lynch’s Lost Highway (1997), 134 minutes, at 6:30pm

Rivette’s Duelle (1976), 120 minutes, at 9:15pm

Following several solo screenings throughout the week (listed at the end of this article), the double features return with these two moody, mythic noirs. Fond of cryptic puzzles and pulpish allusions, Lynch’s Lost Highway(1997) and Rivette’s Duelle (1976) stretch their makers’ reality-bending tendencies beyond their previous limits and watch them snap. These brazenly supernatural stories defy physics while embracing an intuitive logic drawn from the collective unconscious.

Rivette’s low-fi sci-fi fantasy features a literal battle between goddesses of sun (Bulle Ogier) and moon (Juliet Berto). Lynch’s fever-dream juxtaposes a jealous husband-turned-innocent patsy (Bill Pullman, Balthazar Getty) and a meek wife-turned-femme fatale (Patricia Arquette) against the sunny suburbia of the Valley and the nightmarish darkness of Los Angeles. This match-up promises to be among the most invigorating double features on display this week, plunging us into metropolitan mindscapes that gleam with the cold, dazzling allure of Duelle’s diamond.

SATURDAY, December 19

Rivette’s Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974), 192 minutes, at 4:45pm

Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (2001), 147 minutes, at 9:00pm

MONDAY, December 21

Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (2001), 147 minutes, at 4:00pm

Rivette’s Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974), 192 minutes, at 7:00pm

Not only are Mulholland Drive and Celine and Julie Go Boating among the most closely-linked films of the two directors, they also became the signature creations of each. Mulholland’s Hollywood tone poem – the story of a naïve young actress (Naomi Watts) befriending a mysterious amnesiac (Laura Elena Harring) (or so it begins) – now ranks as the most acclaimed American film of the century. Celine and Julie – in which the title characters (Juliet Berto and Dominique Labourier) stumble across a haunted house/enchanted movie set/alternate-reality wormhole – remains Rivette’s most celebrated work by a long shot (even making an Entertainment Weekly all-time top 100 list).

Despite the dark themes of Mulholland Drive in particular, these are also among the most fun works in the Lynch-Rivette canon, mixing glamor, humor, and even action with a sense of endless possibility and experimentation. Each film unfolds in the cross-section of two very different narrative worlds, occasionally offering very alternate viewpoints of what appears to be the same fundamental story. In Mulholland Drive, these narratives occur back-to-back. Even more radically, Celine and Julie views them side-by-side. If you venture into Lynchland or Rivettropolis only once in December, this is probably the trip you will want to take.

SUNDAY, December 20

Lynch’s Inland Empire (2006), 180 minutes, at 5:00pm

Rivette’s Story of Marie and Julien (2003), 151 minutes, at 9:00pm

For the most adventurous spirits, however, the best is yet to come. The final double feature (aside from the Mulholland/Celine Monday repeat) joins two of the directors’ later works, proving that they did not become more timid with age. Shot when Rivette was in his seventies, Story of Marie and Julien, starring Emmanuelle Beart and Jerzy Radziwilowicz, ends the retrospective where it began, with an erotic love story involving intrigue and deception. This time, however, the romance unfolds not within a realistic historical context but against an increasingly supernatural, irrational backdrop.

Lynch’s hallucinatory video experiment Inland Empire moves with the logic of channel-or-web surfing, mixing the digital world of the twenty-first century with a fascination with cinema’s – and particularly Hollywood’s – past. Loosely organized around the experience of an actress (Laura Dern) whose reality becomes entangled with the part she is playing, Inland Empire remains Lynch’s most radical work. Inland Empire and Story of Marie and Julien jumble together psychic synchronicity, ghost stories, and a quantum-infused timestamp. They open up new doors for the directors, but they also look back upon long, storied careers, referencing and reflecting the early works of Lynch and Rivette.

No less than Celine and Julie, Betty and Rita, Sailor and Lula, or Marie and Julien, the duo of Lynch and Rivette are as exciting as they are dangerous. Lincoln Center will briefly serve as a portal into their overlapping wonderlands, but unlike the Lynch/Rivette characters – who access these dream worlds via hard candies, blue boxes, magical diamonds, or ominous rings – we require only ordinary tickets. I have mine, and will be reporting on the retrospective while it unfolds (on Lost in the Movies [http://thedancingimage.blogspot.com]). Will it be real, or some strange and twisted dream? There’s only one way to find out. See you on the other side.

Additional screenings

TUESDAY, December 15: Lynch’s Wild at Heart (1990), 124 minutes, at 4:00pm

WEDNESDAY, December 16: Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986), 120 minutes, at 2:30pm

THURSDAY, December 17: Rivette’s L’Amour Fou (1969), 250 minutes, at 2:00pm

FRIDAY, December 18: Rivette’s Paris Belongs to Us (1961), 140 minutes, at 3:30pm

SUNDAY, December 20: Lynch’s Lost Highway (1997), 134 minutes, at 2:00pm

TUESDAY, December 22: Rivette’s Story of Marie and Julien (2003), 151 minutes, at 4:00pm

The Prisoner viewing diary begins...

The Prisoner aired on British television in 1967 - 68 and became a hugely influential cult classic. It stars and was created by Patrick McGoohan and is known for its twists and wild experimentation, especially in the final episode (in which someone sings "Dem Bones" unless I've just mixed it up with The Singing Detective, or was that scene a tribute to The Prisoner?). It takes place in some sort of prison colony, a futuristic prison colony...I think?

Don't tell me because for now, that's all I know about it.

When I announced these Wednesday viewing diaries back in April, I said that I would have seen these shows ahead of time and written all the entries before the first one went up. Well, that isn't the case here - despite having the episodes at hand for months I haven't begun The Prisoner yet even as the viewing diary officially begins with this intro today (the pilot is scheduled to be reviewed next week). Should be a wild ride and I look forward to being surprised along the way!

The episodes were not produced to be viewed in a particular order (except for the premiere, the finale, and perhaps a few others in between) so they've been shuffled around like crazy on the air and on multiple video and DVD releases. Many fans have their own preferences, and I've decided to go on the recommendation of Prisoner fan Christopher Yohn and watch them in the order listed below. Afterwards, I will publish my discussions of the series with him as well as two other commentators.

Here is the lineup:

Arrival

Dance of the Dead

Free For All

Checkmate

The Chimes of Big Ben

The Schizoid Man

The General

A., B., and C.

Many Happy Returns

It’s Your Funeral

Living in Harmony

A Change of Mind

Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling

Hammer into Anvil

The Girl Who Was Death

Once Upon a Time

Fall Out

Twin Peaks Unwrapped: discussing the Killer's Reveal

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.

Last week, Twin Peaks Unwrapped hosted me again, this time to talk about the big reveal of Laura's killer. They had already covered the episodes in which this reveal takes place, so this time the discussion was entirely focused on the implications, the build-up, and various interpretations of the revelation. Ben has watched the show for years, for Bryon it was the first time. It goes without saying, but don't listen to this episode unless you've watched Twin Peaks (at least up to episode 16).

The Favorites - Late Spring (#78)

The Favorites is a series briefly exploring films I love, to find out what makes them - and me - tick. Late Spring (1949/Japan/dir. Yasujiro Ozu) appeared at #78 on my original list.

What it is • In postwar Japan, 27-year-old Noriko lives in a cozy arrangement with her father, situated perfectly between the travails of the past and the uncertainties of the future. Life is a series of pleasant household chores, refreshing excursions to a Tokyo museum or the beach (whose looming Coca-Cola sign, along with Noriko's slacks and sweater, stand as a modern/Westernized contrast to the traditionally-dressed tea ceremony that opens the film), and playful, bantering conversations with old friends and relatives. The film deceptively thrusts us into this particular moment in Noriko's life, lulling us into believing that this is how it has always been, and always could be. But in fact the situation is tenuous and fleeting. Noriko has only just recovered from an illness incurred during the harsh years of the war and she is expected to marry. She has no skills that she could apply outside of the home (her friend, an independent divorcee working as a stenographer, chides her wanting a job of her own). But Noriko doesn't want to marry and her father, at least until he is pressured, does not seem especially eager to lose her either. They have a close bond and we sense that all the unspoken tragedies of the past - her mother's death, the harshness of the war years, the poverty and humiliation of occupation - have only forged their desire to remain within a comfortable cocoon. Miraculously, as with much of Yasujiro Ozu's work, the placid, soothing surface of what we see both conceals and suggests the storm offscreen. The film is as deeply wise as it is seemingly simple, and with that wisdom comes both sadness and acceptance. The arrival of the late spring is little comfort for those who enjoyed their hibernation.

Why I like it •

Neon Genesis Evangelion: the complete episode guide

A complete guide to every episode of Neon Genesis Evangelion, the follow-up film The End of Evangelion, and the three Rebuild films

My second viewing diary featured the second-most-covered series on my site (after the episode entries, I've linked up other pieces featuring Evangelion as well). Each episode review is followed by a conversation with critic and anime enthusiast Bob Clark; eventually we were joined for many entries by the Japanese film and cultural commentator Murderous Ink.

Cinepoem: Emily Dickinson's After Great Pain (video)

Update 1/3: The video is finally up!!

After a very long delay I have finally found the time to assemble my newest Cinepoem video, joining Emily Dickinson's "After great pain, a formal feeling comes..." with mostly empty shots from Yasujiro Ozu's Late Spring. The first minute of the video is taken up by a free-form montage/collage whose frenetic pace offsets the contemplative mood of the second half. It's also partly inspired by a dream I had about six weeks ago. The Vimeo upload follows, and the YouTube embed appears after the jump.

The Favorites - The Wizard of Oz (#79)

The Favorites is a series briefly exploring films I love, to find out what makes them - and me - tick. The Wizard of Oz (1939/USA/dir. Victor Fleming & King Vidor) appeared at #79 on my original list.

What it is • In early 1939, it was MGM Production #1060, just another job for the many professional actors, technicians, and businessmen involved with its making. That August, released six days before the outbreak of World War II in Europe, it was a lavish family film, touched by vaudevillian comedy, screen-musical, and adventure/fantasy influences - an escapist treat for parents and children, whose half-cost and/or matinee tickets made it difficult for the studio to recoup its considerable investment. The following year, on Leap Day, the film's respectable nominations (including one for Best Picture) yielded two wins (both musical) plus a special award for Judy Garland. In 1949, when Frank Morgan - the wizard himself - passed away, this role was not mentioned in his filmography. Within a decade, broadcast in black-and-white on early television sets - so that even the candy-coated world of Oz took on the dusty shades of the Kansas sequence - the movie finally became the pop culture phenomenon it remains to this day. Since then, it has inspired in-depth psychoanalytic analyses, sync-ups with Pink Floyd records, and endless parodies and references and analogies from editorial cartoons to everyday speech. By sheer coincidence, as I wrote the previous sentence, another person in the room opened a backpack and discovered a Barnes & Noble bag featuring the curled-up feet of the Wicked Witch of the East with text from L. Frank Baum's book (and while the original story remains a classic, it's unlikely it would be remembered nearly so universally today if not for the film version which long ago supplanted the literary images and phrases). The Wizard of Oz is truly inescapable; quite likely it is the most referenced motion picture in history, and certainly it is one of the most viewed. Yet at its core is a simple story, presented straightforwardly for all of its resonance and associations. A young girl, lonely and frustrated in her native Kansas, is apparently transported by a twister to a faraway land, where she must defeat the Wicked Witch of the West, befriend the lovably incomplete Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion, and discover the truth about the fearsome Wizard in Emerald City before learning that "there's no place like home."

Why I like it •

Neon Genesis Evangelion - Evangelion 3.33

This series is an episode guide to the Japanese anime television show Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995 - 96) and the spin-off films. Unlike the previous essays, the Rebuild films will not be accompanied by chats with other bloggers.

And so my Neon Genesis Evangelion coverage finally comes to a close...for now. This is the only remaining Evangelion film or episode, at least until the release of Evangelion 4.0 (or 1.0 + 3.0, which is possibly going to be the title, whatever that means). This is also the first piece of Evangelion I have watched fresh for this series. In fact, by the time I tuned up 3.33 for this review I'd seen the the entire series run at least three or four times (some episodes five or six times), watched The End of Evangelion at least four times (three of them in the last few weeks), and watched the two earlier Rebuild films at least twice. Though I did not know much lore or history when I began this endeavor, this year I explored the world of Evangelion more deeply, learning about various theories, interpretations, and opinions. How exciting, then, to plunge into new (to me) Evangelion for the first time in four years! That's ultimately the pleasure and promise that the Rebuilds hold: the opportunity to experience this familiar world through new eyes. On that front, Evangelion 3.33 delivered more than any of the other Rebuilds, and I think it would be fair to call it my favorite of the three films.

Thoughts on Cooper, Windom, and Bob

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.

The following meta-analysis was originally posted on my Tumblr in October, and I thought it would be worth sharing here as well. Major spoilers for Twin Peaks follow the jump.

The Favorites - The Adventures of Robin Hood (#80)

The Favorites is a series briefly exploring films I love, to find out what makes them - and me - tick. The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938/USA/dir. Michael Curtiz & William Keighley) appeared at #80 on my original list.

What it is • Welcome to Sherwood Forest, cloaked in lush green and lit by brilliant sunlight. Through these trees parade Sir Robin of Locksley (Errol Flynn) and his merry men, fomenting unrest and having a jolly time of it. Many Robin Hood adaptations, especially today, look to darken the story or give it a more naturalistic texture, but Adventures revels in its heightened artifice and sense of fun, with the emphasis on swashbuckling, colorful costumes, and the cheerful romance between Robin and Marian (Flynn's frequent onscreen partner Olivia de Havilland, who is simply luminous here). Similarly, the structure is casually episodic, collecting famous moments from the Robin legend rather than forcing everything into a streamlined narrative structure. This is a proudly traditional take on the classic story, and as such it may be the most archetypal Robin Hood. However, the film does contain several elements that mark it as a film of its time, displaying a concern for social/historical context that even many of the more "realistic" latter-day interpretations avoid. The Adventures of Robin Hood very much emphasizes the importance of ethnic strife and state persecution, continually hammering home the idea that the aristocratic Normans are oppressing the common, salt-of-the-earth Saxons (Robin, himself a nobleman but also a Saxon, sides with clan over class). The film even offers Robin Hood a solemn refugee camp to run amidst all the derring-do! As such, it's hard not to see the looming war in Europe casting a shadow over the sunny swashbuckler of 1938.

Why I like it •