The Gus Van Sant Podcast No. 4: Lisa Purse on Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993)

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Lisa Purse on EVEN COWGIRLS GET THE BLUES (Gus Van Sant, 1993)

I was truly delighted when Lisa Purse agreed to talk to me about EVEN COWGIRLS GET THE BLUES. Lisa is a Professor of Film Studies at the University of Reading, one of the most brilliant scholars on action movies, and a nuanced thinker on questions of mediations, conflicts, identities. I wanted to have her on the podcast because I thought she might expand my thinking on EVEN COWGIRLS GET THE BLUES, and she did. In the podcast we discuss seeing the film when it was first released, seeing it now, and explore the hows and whys of changing responses. We note the context of ‘New Queer Cinema’ and the different kinds of experiments that were then taking place. EVEN COWGIRLS GET THE BLUES  is a film that refuses seriousness and we speculate that maybe neither of us was then in a place where we could recognise the value of that. We discuss how the film continues Van Sant’s interest in ‘The Road’, and discuss movement and flow, as rhythm, narrative device, formal strategy, and condensed ideation. Is it a film that’s trying to do too much? B. Ruby Rich wrote on how the film contains references to forms of collective action. Is it more of its time than we first realised? We discuss the film as a form of active allyship that is not to be sneezed at, and note the hostility of its initial reception, referencing B. Ruby Rich’s contention that with this film Van Sant fell into the category of a female director (at least for some) and therefore got treated as one.

 

The Podcast may be listened to here:

The podcast may also be listened to on: Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/show/2zWZ7Egdy6xPCwHPHlOOaT

and on itunes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/first-impressions-thinking-aloud-about-film/id1548559546

The Roseane Barr clip may be seen here:

The paper bag scene may be seen here:

 

 

Lisa Purse’s latest publication is:

 

 

 

José Arroyo

POFCRIT PODCAST 2024: Meg Tebbutt on Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness (Sam Raimi, 2022)

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This podcast delves into Sam Raimi’s return to Superhero Cinema: Marvel’s ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’. 

Combining the classic horror elements of Raimi’s 1981 cult favourite ‘The Evil Dead’ with his more modern Spiderman trilogy offering, this Marvel film follows Doctor Strange in his second solo movie as Strange tries to prevent the multiverse-shattering dark magic created by the vengeful Wanda Maximoff. We discuss the disjunctions present within the film produced by the Marvel/Raimi divide – how much of the film can be viewed as an auteur product separate from the Marvel franchise? 

 

The podcast may be listened to here:

The podcast may also be listened to on: Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/show/2zWZ7Egdy6xPCwHPHlOOaT

and on itunes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/first-impressions-thinking-aloud-about-film/id1548559546

 

 

Meg Tebbutt

 

POFCRIT Podcast 2024: Fiola Odusote on EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE (Daniel Scheinert, Daniel Kwan, 2022)

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The POFCRIT Podcast 2024 returns with Fiola Odusote on EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE (Daniel Scheinert, Daniel Kwan, 2022) . The action-filled dramedy follows a high-strung Chinese woman called Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh) who owns a struggling laundromat. When Evelyn is tasked with saving the multiverse she is quick to answer the call, not knowing the journey she’s about to embark on will cause her to reckon with her familial relationships and ultimately repair them. The film tackles the themes of family, immigration, choice and generational trauma, with the multiverse being used as a vehicle to explore these themes through a sci-fi lens. EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE, despite its absurdist elements, is grounded by the mother-daughter story at the heart of the film. The grounded story when mixed with the impeccable performances by the talented cast makes it easy to see why the film racked up so many awards. All this, and much more, is discussed in the podcast below:

The podcast may also be listened to on: Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/show/2zWZ7Egdy6xPCwHPHlOOaT

and on itunes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/first-impressions-thinking-aloud-about-film/id1548559546

 

Fiola Odusote

POFCRIT PODCAST 2024: Rowan Abbott on EO (Jerzy Skolimowski, 2022)

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In this podcast, we talk about the 2022 Jerzy Skolimowski film, EO. The film is a sweeping picaresque narrative following the tumultuous life of a former circus donkey named EO, who is set free into rural Poland, a place that can’t seem to decide what purpose a donkey still has for humans. This wholly unique film is a landmark in animal representation on screen, being one of the most successful fiction films to feature an animal protagonist that isn’t anthropomorphized. We talk about the implications of this form of animal representation, and how the film achieves its goal of putting us in the shoes – or hooves – of a donkey.

The podcast may be listened to below:

The podcast may also be listened to on: Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/show/2zWZ7Egdy6xPCwHPHlOOaT

and on itunes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/first-impressions-thinking-aloud-about-film/id1548559546

 

Rowan Abbott

On the Giornate del Cinema Muto 43 Pordenone Silent Film Festival

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Richard and I were unable to attend the Pordenone Silent Film Festival in person this year. Luckily for us, they provided an online daily programme for the duration of the festival. In the podcast we discuss each of the main daily selections,  the various thematic strands, what was available to us and what we missed.

The podcast may be listened to here:

The podcast may also be listened to on: Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/show/2zWZ7Egdy6xPCwHPHlOOaT

and on itunes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/first-impressions-thinking-aloud-about-film/id1548559546

 

Paul Cuff has provided a superb, more in-depth account on each of the programs:

Pordenone from afar (2024, Day 1)

Pordenone from afar (2024, Day 2)

Pordenone from afar (2024, Day 3)

Pordenone from afar (2024, Day 4)

Pordenone from afar (2024, Day 5)

Pordenone from afar (2024, Day 6)

Pordenone from afar (2024, Day 7)

Pordenone from afar (2024, Day 8)

Pam Hutchinson also provided an excellent account from the festival itself and her posts may be found here: Silent London

 

Elif Kaynakci has kindly added links to films ‘Sin Nomine’, to be identified, and provided links were they may be seen here:

Mike Gebert has  reported directly on Nitrateville.

Paul Joyce’s daily posts may be found here

Alison Strauss’ report may be found here.

José Arroyo

POFCRIT PODCAST 2024: Jack Hulbert on The Batman (Matt Reeves, 2022)

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The most recent entry in the 58 year long canon of Batman films, Matt Reeves’ 2022 film, The Batman, represents a stark departure from every iteration before it. It takes the core aspects of Batman, its characters and its world, and presents them as grimmer; more beaten down. It warps the franchise’s trend towards realism into a gothic, brooding, detective noir. This episode delves into the varied history of the Batman film franchise, discovering how and why the series has evolved and morphed in the way it has. We look at film and societal changes that could have affected the franchise, and explore the breadths of such changes. Asking the question: how could a franchise surrounding one character go from being bright, colourful and campy in 1966, to something akin to David Fincher’s Seven in 2022.

The podcast may be listened to here:

The Gus Van Sant Podcast 5A: To Die For (1995)

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The first of two podcasts on Gus Van Sant’s TO DIE FOR (1995), this one with Matt Hays, journalist, co-editor with Tom Waugh of McGill-Queen’s Press’ QUEER FILM CLASSICS series, and a professor of film at Concordia University and Marianopolis College. Matt’s reviewed Criterion’s recent edition of the film for the current CINEASTE and I wanted to pick up on some of the excellent points he raises there: how is the film a turning point in Van Sant’s career? What is this shifting of gears between Van Sant’s more commercial and more esoteric works? Was the film prescient? What does it tell us about celebrity culture, the media and politics? What is the film’s view of heterosexual relations? Is there a ‘gay gaze’ on the male bodies? What does it tell us about race in America? What are the formal tensions running through the film? It’s structure has been compared to that of CITIZEN KANE and RASHOMON. How so? We agree that Kidman gives one of her greatest performances but have Matt Dillon and Joaquim Phoenix been overlooked? All this and much more can be heard here:

 

The podcast may also be listened to on: Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/show/2zWZ7Egdy6xPCwHPHlOOaT

and on itunes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/first-impressions-thinking-aloud-about-film/id1548559546

 

Matt’s article and the list of questions that arose from it:

José Arroyo

Homophobia and Homophilia in unexpected places

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I’m watching Don Siegel’s RIOT IN CELL BLOCK 11 (1954) for the first time, thinking how great it is, how the issues regarding prisons have hardly changed since it was first released, how superb it looks….and then you come to the inevitable homophobic moment and the heart sinks. According to the film, gay men should be separated from ‘normal’ prisoners and placed with the ‘nuts’ and ‘looneys’ into a separate psycho ward, bringing to mind Trin T Min-ha’s phrase that there’s a ‘third world in every first world and vice versa’. I do think the scene reflects the times and some reference to homosexuality is probably inevitable in a prison film. But I think that it is also a mark against the film.

CONVOY (Sam Peckinpah, 1978) surprised me. I’d avoided it upon its first release thinking it a sub SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT rip-off but was encouraged to see it recently when Dîna Iordanova described it as being about civil disobedience and protest, which it is. And unlike the experience with RIOT IN CELL BLOCK 11, I was delighted by this bit, a joke I suppose, but one countering some of the dominant stereotypes of its time, at least outside gay porn.

Eavesdropping at the Movies: 429 – Joker: Folie à Deux

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2019’s Joker, which gave the iconic supervillain an all-purpose mental health disorder, a tragic origin story, and a name – Arthur Fleck – was never meant to have a sequel. But it made a billion dollars, so Joker: Folie à Deux is here. And, being a jukebox musical based primarily on show tunes from the mid-20th century canon, we ask who it’s for. The first film took risks in eschewing so many trappings of the comic book genre; did the filmmakers hope that their audience would respond similarly to further experimentation? Or is it a means of punishing an audience they attracted but loathe?

If the film hates its audience… well, so does Mike, which might explain why he got on with it. José, on the other hand, liked the first film, and is happy to see more of Joaquin Phoenix and hear those classic songs. Joker: Folie à Deux is far from a great film, not that close to a good film, and doesn’t have much of interest or intelligence to say about its themes – but it’s fascinating that it exists.

Listen on the players below, Apple Podcasts, Audible, Spotify, or YouTube Music.

 

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.

POFCRIT PODCAST 2024: Harry Molloy on Superman (Richard Donner, 1978)

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‘You’ll believe a man can fly?’  was the tagline of Superman the Movie (1978) the use of the word ‘can’ rather than ascribing a quality to the film creates a world of possibilities for the feature.  Superman as a film represents a dream-like possibility of a perfect man who can defy gravity, lift anything, and run at incredible speeds, and the film revels in the utopian idea of this man who has everything. This edition of the Film Criticism podcast will discuss how the film expresses these themes and how they differ from the modern discourse of the superhero genre. Further, we discuss the issues with the concept of the utopian man and the pure optimism presented within the film. 

The podcast may be listened to below:

The podcast may also be listened to on: Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/show/2zWZ7Egdy6xPCwHPHlOOaT

and on itunes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/first-impressions-thinking-aloud-about-film/id1548559546

Harry Molloy

POFCRIT PODCAST 2024: Liberty Boyd-White on Funny Games (Michael Haneke, 2007)

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A highly unforgiving work, Michael Haneke’s horror cult-classic Funny Games (2007) stands as a profound critique of modern media consumption and the spectator’s complicit relationship with the spectacle of violence often provided by American cinema. This podcast delves into the personal reflections on ideology, morality, genre and cinema as a whole, prompted by the unique viewing experience of Haneke’s film. From an analysis of the abstract form (Emphasised best by its many meta-textual elements.), it’s commitment to sound design, as well as an investigation into the film’s dismissal of  spectator ‘enjoyment’ – this episode hopes to emphasise the pervasive genius of Haneke’s U.S remake through a conversational analysis of Funny Games as an outlier within contemporary film, thanks to its unflinching hostility towards the spectator typically depended on by cinema.

The podcast may be listened to here:

The podcast may also be listened to on: Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/show/2zWZ7Egdy6xPCwHPHlOOaT

and on itunes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/first-impressions-thinking-aloud-about-film/id1548559546

Liberty Boyd-White

 

 

Eavesdropping at the Movies: 428 – Megalopolis

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Francis Ford Coppola’s long-awaited passion project, Megalopolis, self-funded to the tune of $120m, has finally arrived. We love it. It’s wild, imaginative, earnest, and beautiful. We discuss and decry some of the criticisms of it we’ve already seen while coming up with some of our own – how could we have known that an octogenarian might hold rather traditional views? – in between breathlessly enthusing about what captivated us.

Megalopolis is hardly a perfect film but it’s a visual treat and a fantastic cinematic experience. Don’t let the naysayers’ sniping turn you off. Indulge!

The podcast may be listened to below:

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.

 

The Gus Van Sant Podcast 3: My Own Private Idaho (1991)

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We discuss one of the films that very much marked me, the image above was the image on my letterhead in the time we still used snail mail. In the accompanying podcast we discuss the film’s historical significance. Was it a ‘film that (made) history’? We discuss its relationship to ‘New Queer Cinema’. We speculate on whether the film queers Shakespeare and discuss the film in relation to Welles’ Chimes at Midnight. We comment on the significance of the casting, the contributions of River Phoenix, Keanu Reeves, Udo Kier and others and what their contributions to the film might be. We also discuss in detail particular scenes, the one where the magazine covers come to life; the rhyming musical/ hustler interludes, the great campfire scene. …and much more.

The podcast may be listened to here:

The podcast may also be listened to on: Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/show/2zWZ7Egdy6xPCwHPHlOOaT

and on itunes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/first-impressions-thinking-aloud-about-film/id1548559546

The Criterion blog on Shakespeare in relation to Private Idaho + Jarman’s Tempest etc that Richard mentions in the podcast may be found here:

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/8551-my-own-private-idaho-s-outsider-twist-on-shakespeare

 

More info, clips, examples, a bibliography below:

magazine sequence:

Campfire Sequence:

Time lapse:

Incest and Super8:

Still sex straight and gay:

Funerals and Endings:

I’d never seen Chimes at Midnight until now and found it a film of many pleasures: Gielgud’s speaking of the verse; Welles performance as Falstaff, surprisingly subtle in places; the compositions and look which still feel arresting; the opportunity of seeing Fernando Rey interact with Gielgud, Welles with Margaret Rutherford; and on another note: I hadn’t realised the walls of my birthplace played such a role in this film. The film is also very instructive in that Keith Baxter’s performance as Prince Hal is nowhere as effective as Keanu Reeves’ in MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO, no matter how he speaks the language. Cinema is about conveying particular kinds of embodiment and Reeves is so much more effective at conveying a patrician demeanor, a rebellious disposition, the pranking and the power. Baxter, no matter how he says what he says, looks callow and inconsequential.

In Bed in Chimes and Idaho:

Camp in Chimes and Idaho:

Vandals in Chimes and Idaho

Repudiation Scene in Chimes and Idaho:

 

Aping heterosexuality:

The Brixton Ritzy, October 3, 2024

 

 

Adieu l’ami/ Farewell Friend/ Honour Among Thieves (Jean Vautrin aka Jean Herman, 1968)

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The first teaming of Charles Bronson and Alain Delon, a huge success in France with a two-year run in some cinemas in Paris; and one in a series of films that helped Bronson become an international star. Both have their shirts off for a large chunk of the film. One look better shirtless; the other with his clothes on. Guess which?

What role so much skin played in the film’s success in 1968 is open to question but clearly men’s bodies could be displayed for their ‘to-be-looked-at-ness’ without needing violence as an alibi before Brad Pitt made it modish. The film is beautifully designed, looks terrific and the direction is efficient without it ever being inspired.

A very watchable heist film. Bronson and Delon are legionnaires who arrive in Marseille from Algeria the same day, meet by chance and end up being pitted together to the point where they end up the patsies in a pre-planned heist. The last third of the film involves finding the real culprits. A generally enjoyable genre piece marred by a kind of misogyny which one suspects is unthinking but which I find excessive even for the time (see clip below).

The fight sequences once more raise questions about historicising violence. They’re very different than what we’re used to seeing now (see below) and feel unbelievable and unexciting. Are they just bad or have current styles, aesthetics and conventions affected how action from another time may or may not spark audience excitement today?

Bronson gets a stupid recurring bit of schtick gambling on whether dropping a coin in a glass will make the liquid overflow. One detects the influence of Hawks’ Scarface here but the business didn’t do for Bronson what it did for George Raft.

There’s some suggestion that there are homosexual currents in the way that the relationship between Bronson and Delon is depicted though it could just be sketchy writing where a degree of projection aids whatever holes one wants to fill.

José Arroyo

The Gus Van Sant Podcast No. 2: Drugstore Cowboy (1989)

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We found DRUGSTORE COWBOY, Gus Van Sant’s second feature, beautiful, imaginative and moving; a film that gets better with each viewing. We discuss Matt Dillon, so extraordinarily good looking and yet also so very believable as a ‘regular guy’. Tom Waits was the original casting and we talk about what Dillon brings to the role, his choices, and another possible connection to Van Sant, how he is also drawn to the marginal, the outsider; we talk about the experimental montages, clearly influenced by Anthony Balch’s Fires Open Fire (1963) which evoke a subjective state of mind, usually drug fuelled, but which also act as a structuring device and help make the film aesthetically cohesive. We discuss continuities: time-lapse photography, Super8 filming, the Pacific Northwest, subject matter of marginals, outsiders, small time crims, junkies. We both agree that we don’t like William Burroughs in the film, even though he was much praised upon its release. We discuss how Van Sant’s second feature is an announcement of a major American director with a distinctive voice, a very particular style, a visual vernacular, a contiguous world from film to film, peopled by recurring figures, a darkly comic tone

The podcast may be listened to here:

The podcast may also be listened to on: Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/show/2zWZ7Egdy6xPCwHPHlOOaT

and on itunes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/first-impressions-thinking-aloud-about-film/id1548559546

More info, clips, examples, a bibliography below:

Montages ostensibly influenced by Towers Open Fire (Anthony Balch, 1963) see below:

Images such as these do seem an inspiration for Drugstore Cowboy:

The film has two types of scenes that structure it: robberies of drugstores, it can be read as one long heist film; and the subjective montages, which evoke a subjective state of mind, usually drug fuelled, but which also act as a structuring device and make it aesthetically cohesive.

The first is from the beginning where he’s so eager to shoot up after the robbery that he does so in the car before even getting home.

The prank-on-cops montage

The ominous hat, ‘Hat on Bed!’; ‘I’ve now paid my debt to the hat)

Autumn leaves, childhood, hat montage at the burial; and time for change.

A scene that rhymes with the scene with the mother earlier on; bonds of affection, there, but over-ruled by drugs. ‘I wish I could win you back’. Very moving.

 

Fear of prison:

 

Beginning and end (accompanied by the use of Super 8 footage, which is beginning to seem a signature

 

Time montage and time-lapse

 

A junkie deals with the cops:

 

 

Initial Bigliography:

Cindy Fuchs, ‘Drugstore Cowboy’, Cineaste, Vol 18, Iss 1, (1990): 43-45

Nick James, ‘Intoxication’, Sight And Sound: A to Z of Cinema, Sight and Sound, February 1997, pp.26-28.

Dale Kutzera, ‘Drugstore Cowboy: Set Against Bleak Landscape’. American Cinematographer

Lucy Neville, Drugstore Cowboy, Sight and Sound, November 2002, p. 63.

Michael O’Pray, Drugstore Cowboy, Monthly Film Bulletin, Dec. 1, 1999, 56, 671.

Phillippe Rouyer, ‘Ironie du sort (Drugstore Cowboy)

Steve Vineberg, ‘Drugstore Cowboy’.Film Quarterly, Vol 32. Iss 3, (Spring 1990):27

 

José Arroyo

José Arroyo in Conversation with Edmund Stenson on Blink (Daniel Roher, Edmund Stenson; 2024)

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I talk to Edmund Stenson, co-director with Daniel Rohar, of BLINK, a documentary which will be premiering at the London Film Festival with three screenings on October 13th  (Leicester Square), 14th and 19th (NFT). It will get a nationwide theatrical release on 150 screens across the United States with Disney/ National Geographic beginning next week on  October 4th. An extraordinary achievement for a documentary.

Leo, Colin, Laurent, Mia, Sebastien Pelletier, a local sherpa, and Edith Lemay take a brief rest while trekking to the Poon Hill viewpoint in Nepal. (Credit: MRC/Jean-Sébastien Francoeur)

The film tells the story of the Lemay-Pelletier family who discover that their eldest child Mia suffers from a rare genetic disease, retinitis pigmentosa, that will eventually end in blindness. To make matters worse, it turns out that three of their four children suffer from the same disease. What to do? A doctor suggests that they may want to build a memory bank of images their children can subsequently access once they go blind. They canvas their children for a bucket list of activities and they set out to make them come true by taking a year off and travelling to Africa, South Asia and Latin America. It’s a moving film, one that successfully avoids all the obvious traps — it’s not a travelogue, it’s not an infomercial on a disease, it’s not emotionally manipulative. It is however a very touching film,  beautiful to look at, about family, parenthood, childhood; and resilience in the face of the unavoidable.

The Pelletier family (from left): Mia, Sebastien, Colin, Edith Lemay, Laurent and Leo in Kuujjuaq, Canada. (Credit: National Geographic/Katie Orlinsky)

In the podcast I talk to Edmund Stenson about the making of the film, his working process with co-director Daniel Roher (of Navolny fame) what a documentary filmmaker does, how narrative is shaped in this form, the contributions of the film editors, the differences between the starting idea and what eventually comes out via filming and editing.

Ed is also a Warwick Film/TV graduate so from about the 33rd minute of the podcast I also ask him about process: how does a film/TV graduate end up as a director of documentaries, particularly as high profile a feature as this one.

 

The podcast may be listened to here:

 

The podcast may also be listened to on: Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/show/2zWZ7Egdy6xPCwHPHlOOaT

and on itunes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/first-impressions-thinking-aloud-about-film/id1548559546

José Arroyo

The Gus Van Sant Podcast 1: Mala Noche (1985)

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A new podcast to accompany a new mini-research project. Richard’s kindly humoured me and consented to help kickstart this podcast, but he’ll only co-host with me for the first three films so I shall be reaching out to some of you to talk to me about the rest – and certainly if you have a particular interest in any of Van Sant’s films and would like to podcast on them with me, do please get in touch. I’m hoping to build a resource here, not only with the podcasts but eventually with clips, images, a bibliography and more. It will be a process.

 

In this inaugural podcast we talk about Van Sant’s first feature, based on Walt Streeter’s autobiographical novel, self-financed for $20,000 and filmed on 16mm. We discuss what made us uncomfortable on first viewing, in my case when the film first came out: the power differentials between the characters; the racialised dimension to the casting; but we also discuss why it arguably remains a great film – and the troublesome aspects are part of its greatness. We discuss how the film is an announcement of a new voice in American cinema, with roots in a history of queer culture (John Rechy, Genet, Warhol, The Beats). We speculate on the film’s romanticism within a quite fluid representation of sexuality that distinguishes between acts, desire, feelings and identities; queer avant-la-lèttre. We talk about the film’s look, one partly dictated by the film’s budget, few lights available thus the choice of hard one-directional lighting; making for a noir look but with a beat, bohemian sensibility.

 

MALA NOCHE arrives in the context of new forms of finance, distribution and exhibition permitted by the developing video rental market. One could now produce low-budget films with heretofore challenging subect-matter and/or challenging forms and make money from niche markets. Van Sant appears alongside Jarmusch, Spike Lee and other indie filmmakers in the mid 80s. MALA NOCHE can be thought of as a the first of what may be considered a trilogy (alongside DRUGSTORE COWBOY and MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO), at least thematically: it’s North West setting, the marginal cultures, the bohemian romance of outsiderness, it’s avant-garde components, its daring. An exciting film to re-watch and talk about.

We discuss all of this and more in the podcast, which may be listened to here:

The podcast may also be listened to on: Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/show/2zWZ7Egdy6xPCwHPHlOOaT

and on itunes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/first-impressions-thinking-aloud-about-film/id1548559546

 

The clip Richard refers to in the podcast:

Images from the film, including examples of its colours Super8 imagery.

 

Mala Noche Bibliography (this will be added to in the course of time):

Peter Rainer, ‘Mala Noche’: First Flush of a Love for Film, Dec 1, 1989, pg. F6 ‘Mala_Noche’_First_Flush_of_a

Strat, Mala Noche, Variety, Wednesday March 5, 1986, 322; 6.Film_Reviews_Berlin_Festival_

 

 

 

Girl on a Motorcycle (Jack Cardiff, 1968)

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Alain Delon’s ‘Swinging London’ film, even though it was shot in France, Germany, Belgium and Switzerland. On one level, the whole film is about putting Marianne Faithful in and out of a leather catsuit, and fulfilling a sexual fantasy for a generation of young men. It must be why this quite bonkers work became one of the most popular film of the year in the UK in 1968. It was also the first movie to be awarded an X rating in the US and had to be re-edited to obtain an R rating. The film begins with a psychedelic dream in which Rebecca (Marianne Faithful) is sleeping next to her husband (Roger Mutton) but is dreaming of Daniel (Alain Delon) as circus ringmaster whipping the clothes off of her in a circus as she’s standing on a horse/ riding her Harley. Faithful is the film’s object of desire. Daniel (Delon) is Rebecca’s (Faithful).

The initial dream

GIRL ON A MOTORCYCLE is about Rebecca leaving her boring husband to be with the cruel but sexy University Professor (Delon, who wears glasses, like Streisand – also a professor discoursing on love – did in THE MIRROR HAS TWO FACES; though Delon also waves a pipe about). It is mainly a subjective account – Faithful in voice-over tells us why she’s on the road for him and how she met him – cueing a series of  flashbacks. It’s a certain type of masochistic discourse on free love: Delon wouldn’t marry her but gave her a Harley; she leaves her husband on the Harley, ditching respectability for sexual fulfilment. The dialogue is ludicrous. ‘Your body is like a violin in a velvet case’. ‘Skin me!’.  What was it about sex symbols in catsuits in this period (Yvonne Craig, Diana Rigg, Honor Blackman, Eartha Kitt); and for that matter sex symbols in Harleys, e.g. Brigitte Bardot? It’s a kind of psychedelic ‘Swinging London’ precursor to 50 SHADES OF GREY (‘Daniel allows me nothing, treats me like a slave…a Doctor of Pornography!’) One is tempted to laugh at much of it, and I certainly did, but there’s also a seriousness of intent that elicits a kind of a respect. It’s easy to laugh at but hard to dismiss. And certainly evokes a certain period’s ideas of sex, freedom, the road the bike, free love vs respectability, etc as well as any other film I can think of.

Some images from the film. Faithful’s catsuit is by Lanvin and an erotic work of art in its own right

 

Scorpio (Michael Winner, 1973)

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A 1970s paranoid thriller, one of the lesser ones. It’s bombastically directed by Michael Winner who shows no understanding of people but does love his zoom, which he seems to think sufficient to generate urgency or suspense. Burt Lancaster is the old CIA operative who wants out. Paul Scofield is his Soviet counterpart, both friend and nemesis, united through their sufferings as ‘premature anti-fascists’. Alain Delon is the younger operative Lancaster’s trained, now paid to off his old mentor. It’s a film with an over-complicated plot not too well conveyed; the whole film seems an over-extended, un-remarkable if not unexciting action sequence. The main reason to see it is the actors. Lancaster is a savvy showman, acting his character but always with an eye towards the audience, gaging effect. He knows what to do in a close-up and can use his whole body – he was famous for rehearsing every bit of movement or business to evoke grace, fluidity or whatever was needed for the audience’s understanding or pleasure; and he keeps it simple, doing the minimum for maximum effect. Paul Scofield is very good too, though in a completely different way. He evokes real feeling in close-up, but his performance can seem over-elaborate in a longer shot, too full of changing inflections and bits of business.

Burt’s star entrance: grace in movement

A little hop from Burt

Scofield Busy Being Drunk

 

Delon comes off the worst here, acting mainly with his eyes, very effective in close-up but not evoking much in the longer shots, even though he does quite a few of his stunts. Good thing Winner keeps him fondling cats in scene after scene as without that he’d evoke no character at all.

 

Something to think about is a scene of Lancaster trying to escape the CIA by passing as a black man. It’s ‘blackface’ in 1973 but unusual in that it doesn’t ‘send-up’ race; it’s ostensibly just meant to be an effective disguise. However, there is a sense that the audience is meant to find funny the idea of Golden blond blue-eyed Burt passing as a black man, so in that sense not too different from traditional blackface; and I would be curious to knowwhat the discussions on the set, if any, were like, considering Burt was one of the liberal Hollywood stars who lead the March on Washington where Dr. King delivered the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.

 

The Concorde….Airport ’79 (David Lowell Rich, 1979)

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Alain Delon’s last attempt at American stardom. This film dashed any further hopes and, whilst it was at it, killed off one of the most successful franchises of the 70s: two birds with one stone. All the Airport films are ‘producer’ films,’ exercises in packaging stars and concept with an eye firmly on the box-office. Jennings Lang, the agent who was shot in the balls by Walter Wanger for having an affair with his wife, Joan Bennett, produced this sleazy, low-rent one, based on his own idea. It’s clearly an attempt to cash in on the Concorde trans-Atlantic flights which had recently started service. The plot is no sillier than that of any of the other Airport films but the cast is decidedly less stellar: an attempt to exploit Sylvia Krystel’s recent soft-core porn stardom in the Emmanuelle films, lots of names one was then mostly familiar with from television (Robert Wagner, Susan Blakely, Jimmy Walker, Charo, John Davidson, Eddie Albert), dressed up with a high prestige/ second division and no box-office selection (Bibi Anderson, Cicely Tyson, Mercedes McCambridge, Sybil Danning, David Warner). David Lowell Rich was known for directing Lana Turner in Madame X and lots of TV movies in this period. This is as visually inept but even less fun, with shoddy special effects and no flair for the funny. Sylvia Krystel complained of misogyny on the set. It’s evidenced in the film also. A tawdry and cheapening work, it was nonetheless a big hit, making 65 million on a 14 million budget. Yet it’s so bad it killed off the franchise anyway. Pourquoi Alain? Pourquoi?