SFMOMA: Portrait of Jason, with short: Behind Every Good Man
I've much to say re. "that good woman" (--Jonas Mekas) Shirley Clarke's key entry in the 60's cinéma-vérité canon. You may read a good portion of this in my current sfmoma OPEN SPACE blog here. I know nothing about the short other than it's similarly themed, was made a couple years earlier, and is quite short indeed, so if it doesn't prove marvelous, should pose no harm to your enjoyment. It's also quite rare -- let that be a selling point.
Also plays Sat. @3p.m.
Castro: Golden Boy & Only Angels Have Wings
Golden's yet another Mamoulian I haven't seen except in pieces on the telly. Certainly William Holden, Barbara Stanwyck, Lee J. Cobb, Joseph Calleia, and ol' uncle Adolphe Menjou exert their profound attractions, tho I seem to remember John Garfield originating the Holden role in Clifford Odets' terrific play on stage, and he seems many times more appropriate. Holden's "goldenness" was too naturally, easily accrued. Garfield woulda been fan-frickin'-tastic in the role of an up and coming "ethnic-type" boxer. For shame, Harry Cohn! What'd ya have against a nice Jewish boy like Julie? Just noticed it was photographed by the team of Karl Freund and Nicholas Musuraca... Wow! I believe there're some local heavy-hitters who agree with me that Howard Hawks's Only Angels is the best Hollywood film of '39 (which, of course, makes it one of the best films ever made...). Cary both at his toughest and most charming, Rita at her b+w loveliest, Jean at her most Arthurian (she plays something of a female Percival), Thomas Mitchell at his humanist (which says a lot), and Richard Barthelmess at his most comeback-ian, collectively, with Hawks & Co. make the case for the glories possible on the studio sound-stage. Presenting a crash-course in aerial-existentialism, Only Angels is an intuitively communist work: we are only the work we do, and its benefits to the collective -- nothing else matters, and when our time is up -- Game Over, that's it, we are to be forgotten. There's of course much tough-guy Zen in this, for this is indeed ultimately all our fates. And in some distant post-Recs future, when someone asks "Where's Recs?", having seen this Hawks masterpiece, you'll know the correct answer is: "Recs who?"
Looks like Rita's doin' double-duty, or two-timin' us -- not sure which -- for at and in
Stanford: Cover Girl
is also playing, and while by no means giving Angels a run for its money, certainly a color Rita is to be considered. Some weeks ago I wrote the following, which still applies: "...and after a brief pause to catch my breath, I return to the fore, and Vidor (this time Charles, not King, who's been deposed for the interim), and his interesting and lovely film, which I don't remember in great detail, aside from bits about Gene Kelly's consuming jealousy regarding the lives of his dancers (he's an up-an-coming choreographer/producer specializing in luscious gams), and especially one Miss Rita Hayworth, whom I seem to remember something about to the effect of her being "easy on the eyes", tho often this strikes me as an ill-conceived formulation, since so often it refers to creatures who produce something more akin to the "eye-popping" effect you sometimes hear tell of, and it's in beautiful Technicolor, and I'd love to see it again, and in the interests of showing just how concise (if not precise) I can be, I think I'll leave it at that!" Right.
PFA: The Man Who Left His Will on Film & Dear Summer Sister
Haven't seen Summer Sister since '85, the week I also first saw Sun's Burial, Cruel Story of Youth, and Night and Fog in Japan, all the latter of which blew me away. My response to Summer Sister, the only non-Shochiku Grandscope film of the bunch was "Huh?" My reading since then, has led me to believe this is a typical reaction, but it would be nice to see with 24 years of added wisdom, or at least furrows... Man Who, on the other hand, is one of the Oshima's with which I'm obsessed. With a narrative possibly derived from Ambrose Bierce, this haunting, sexy, gorgeous 1.37 b+w chiliast fantasy/nightmare circa '70 is perhaps THE work to express the young cinephile/aspiring filmmaker's obsessive netherworld. A repeated image features the hand of a (dead?) young man grasping a Bolex, the rest of his street-splayed body out of view. Also in the shot are the black low-top Converse-encased feet of another young man. His hand comes into view, reaching in to pry the camera away... Nothing more can be said -- it's a complete encapsulation of a certain reality... Man Who is a strange, oblique masterpiece. If you have time to see Jason Sat, than see Oshima's until recently super-rare film tonight. Expect to be confounded -- if not, demand your money back. You've seen the wrong film...
PFA: Eureka & Phantom of the Paradise
The first and last time I saw Nic Roeg's last major work in 35mm was roughly a month or so after I saw Summer Sister, so it's been a long time, but I've supplemented my experience of the real thing with several screenings via the dreaded medium. Tho not without flaws, Gene Hackman, Theresa Russell, Rutger Hauer, Mickey Rourke and Joe Pesci in Roeg's largest-budget production, featuring the Klondike, voodoo, cabala, an Alaskan whore-house, a tropical island, much Russell/Hauer sex, gangsters, rollers of high-finance, tattoos, murder, a fragmented and time-fractured style, and outer and inner gold, lives up to all the expectations of the demanding Roeg-ian, comme moi. This is one of the last major works of world cinema -- by '82 the death throes had begun (thank you, Reagan, and your "ism"). Interestingly, like some other key works of the time, such as Excalibur (also photographed by the superb Alex Thomson), and One from the Heart, it features some overtly theatrical elements in its stylistic make-up. What this says concerning activity in the collective unconscious during that period I haven't quite figured out, tho I've done quite a bit of figuring... Phantom, a bizarre and excellent De Palma I've only seen once (but recently) is a movie I'd love to see for reals on that big PFA screen. Paul Williams as Satan! But it follows Eureka, and that ain't gonna fly, or at least play. What to do? I gotta get my rare Roeg fix in pure, uncut form, De Palma and 'lil Satan be damned...
Stanford: Dinner at Eight & The Philadelphia Story
These two magnificent George Cukor films represent 2 of the highlights of the studio system. Cukor was free to use its resources and star-power to create some of the most delightful and profound cinema to ever be lensed (esp. Philadelphia), and gives a multi-layered view of class (and classless) society in the process. Both films have unbelievably stellar casts -- of Eight's, I'll mention that it includes a distant cousin of my daughter's, who back in the day was considered a real Champ, and Philadelphia? There you got Cary, Jimmy Stewart, and Katherine Hepburn for leads, and of course they're surrounded appropriately. To summarily conclude, I'll mention in this capital "M"'s first few seconds, Cary demonstrates all you need to know about how to treat a lady...
Plays thru Mon.
Paramount: Creature from the Black Lagoon in 3-D
Never seen Jack Arnold's super-scary creation all the way thru, and the lure of the incredibly beautiful and gigantic Paramount beckons. If the thought of the rubbery creature doesn't lure me, the imagined picture of Julie Adams, in a (hopefully) skimpy one-piece bathing suit playing under-water tag with him does. The cinematic impact of this film, in this environment, may put your eyes out, so let caution be your guide...
SFMOMA: Portrait of Jason, with short: Behind Every Good Man @3p.m.
What?! You haven't yet read my sfmoma OPEN SPACE blog on this incredibly key 60's work by Shirley Clarke?!! Back of the class with you -- you'll find an appropriately-sized dunce cap. Don, find a stool and lap-top and read. After all, I wrote it just for you... And THIS is the treatment I've spent all these years working for... (sigh, slow shake of head)
Castro: San Francisco Silent Film Festival presents Underworld @5p.m, The Wind & Aelita, Queen of Mars
What a wild ride this would be, if I could attend, which I won't. I shall, however, attempt to guide you with a brief survey: Underworld was the first proof-positive that Josef von Sternberg was the compleat master of all cinema's mechanisms. From deep within his psyche emerges one of his earliest, and most affecting surrogate emotional slaves. A psychological system is erected as complex and involved as the apparatus created by Duchamp in The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even, and is arguably many times more profound. This fantastically crafted work is both one of the first gangster films, and one of the genre's Ultimates.
Re. The Wind, I recently wrote: "I'd managed somehow to avoid virtually the entire catalog of Victor Sjöström's work until the PFA retro of a few years ago -- and with my religious attendance of almost every screening, I suddenly found myself an "expert"... I have to admit, however, in the case of this by all accounts capital "M" masterpiece featuring the very great Lillian Gish, I finked out. The thing was, instead of the usual accompaniment by the incomparable Judith Rosenberg, there was some electro-syntho stuff I just wasn't in the mood for (mind you, I'm not opposed to this stuff in general), and I boogied. The ten or so minutes of the film I saw, tho, were phenomenal, and I've been waiting on tenterhooks for a make-up screening. This could be the time..." Alas, again it ain't. Besides, if I understand things correctly, this screening features yet another version of the "electro-syntho stuff" I'd still as soon avoid. Who knows, tho -- could be great...
Hmm... Aelita. All I know about this early Soviet production is pretty much summed-up by the calendar description, available by clicking on the film's title on our famous Bay Area Film Calendar. As far as I've been able to gather, the reputation of this film is quite good, and that lusty Queen sounds worth the trip to Mars. I wonder if the Russians will expand their space-tourism program out towards that region anytime soon?
PFA: Pleasures of the Flesh & Empire of Passion
That damned Jason Sanders! Once again I check out his PFA notes to bone up on a film I haven't seen, but of which I've been aware for many a year, and his description (of in this case, Pleasures) just floors me! Please consult. What am I gonna do after that, I ask you! For those who refuse to click, I summarize: Wild and wacky color/Shochiku Grandscope comedy showering us with a fountain of floozies and assorted petty (and not so) criminal types. A young post-college goofball serves as male audience member stand-in for all those who never lose their infantile lust for yet another trollop, just as the baby can't refuse the chance to imbibe nipple-nectar... "Comparable to...Masumura". Sat night I'll know whether my fantasy's been fulfilled, or if I must search out the ever-retiring Jason for revenge. This guy really knows how to stick a chain thru my nose ring, and lead me around like a cow in heat. Passion I saw some years ago via what from now on shall be referred to as "TDM" (The Dreaded Medium). Seemed very much of a piece with Realm of the Senses without all the fun + passion stuff. There's no way I'd miss it in 35 -- gotta know whether my youthful impression still holds, and after all it's Oshima we're talkin' 'bout here, and with the exception of Dear Summer Sister, I haven't seen a film of his on the big screen that didn't then help to define for me what the cinema's all about (OK, maybe not Town of Love and Hope, but that's still quite a picture...).
Castro: San Francisco Silent Film Festival Presents: Erotikon, So's Your Old Man, The Fall of the House of Usher & Lady of the Pavements
I haven't seen any of these, so this is probably going to be short, sweet, and ignorant. Erotikon is the 1929 Gustav Machatý, not the 1920 Mauritz Stiller of the same title, and therefore promises thrills similar to the hearty yet sparkling filmmaking of the later (and sound) Ekstase, by which an innocent world had foisted upon its stage a nude beauty of astonishing charm: none other than the young Hedy Lamarr. Lamarr claimed in later years her orgasmic expression in Ekstase was produced by Machatý sticking a needle in her derriere as the camera rolled. Hopefully, thrills of this kind are in store for us with Erotikon... So's Your Old Man's an early W.C. Fields/Gregory La Cava work -- La Cava's been on the brain since I recently identified some of Jason's recited material in Clarke's Portrait as being Katherine Hepburn lines from La Cava's Stage Door. (How many straight guys of my generation could pull off that feat?!!) With Fields, there's sure to be some of that trademark improvisation La Cava's fans know and love, so we could be in for an (aesthetic) organic feast! Jean Epstein's 1928 film may be the first in a long line of cinematic Ushers, don't know for sure -- but I am fairly certain, if memory serves (for it has been quite some time), that Epstein is one of THE major experimental narrative silent film-makers of that (and therefore any other) age... Lady takes place in 19th Century Paris, stars Lupe Velez (whom I know mainly by way of Warhol) and is D. W. Giffith's last silent -- 3 factors which make this last silent more than good enough for me....
PFA: Letter from an Unknown Woman
is certainly amongst the extravagantly great Max Ophüls' 3 or 4 greatest works, and one of the key cinematic touchstones to the sensibility of turn-of the-century (that is, the one previous to our most recent) European Romanticism. A saga of love of the masochistic, unrequited variety so extreme the object of passion isn't even aware of his admirer's existence, Unknown Woman, more than any film I've ever seen, charts the territory of the lonely lover's vortex. A work of exquisite craft and precision, featuring marvelous examples of Ophüls' crane and dolly shot mastery (it was photographed by the terrific Franz Planer), and performaces by Joan Fontaine and Louis Jourdan which in their purity and deep feeling are more incarnations of archetypes than role-playing, Letter is its director's most profound Hollywood masterpiece, and therefore on the short-list of the greatest works of cinema's canon. You will do well by the Sacred Cause to see it...
PFA: A Boy and His Dog
How can I possibly summarize my feelings re. this film in capsule form? On an autumn evening in '79, I saw it and Dark Star each twice at the York (now Brava) theatre, then ran home. The full story of that night shall someday be told in all its excruciating detail (I'm choosing my words very carefully here), but for now, let me say that this film left its marks on me, some lasting to this very day. A delightful work, a nihilist vision, A Boy is the low-budget post-apocalyptic tale of a sweet lusty lad led by his super-intelligent dog (who communicates with him telepathically) in pursuit of a distorted anima figure riddled with slatternly ambition down a rabbit-hole into a netherworld of perfected Americana. A Boy is graced by the performance Don Johnson was born to deliver (if only for his sake it had been made a franchise!), and the shapely (and, as apropos, lascivious) Susanne Benton, as well as the greatest-ever animal performance by a dog who essays all the many nuances of a complex role (Blood, played by Tiger). Although I've heard the story of how this production came to be many times, just how character-actors L.Q. Jones (a Sam Peckinpah regular) and Alvy Moore (Dick Powell's sidekick in Frank Tashlin's Susan Slept Here, and "Hank Kimball" in probably every episode of Green Acres) came to collaborate as writer/director and producer of this adaptation of a novella by the much self-overated Harlan Ellison, and wound up with this minor masterpiece, is one of the great alchemical enigmas of cinema history. The presence of Jason Robards, in all his gravitas-lined glory, I'm sure has something to do with it, and I believe the Techniscope cinematography by unsung maestro John Arthur Morrill probably has a great deal more... This film does something unusual and precious in the manner of Alice Waters, say, in how it takes available and local ingredients to cook up a dish of tremendous individuality and flavor, if not to say delicacy. Those who know it will understand when I say this is the one PFA screening to ever make me consider sneaking in a bag of home-cooked and liberally butter-drenched popcorn. And maybe also a can of peaches...
Forgive all the repetition in this week's prose -- I plead too much to discuss, too little energy, and incipient old age (in fact, I write this from a lumpy cot in a dingy room buried deep within a "rest facility"... Nurse, can I get just a little more of those peaches, please?...)