1. "Cinema & Revulsion": Girish Shambu on the merits of horror cinema.
["I’d love to hear your thoughts on this subject. Are there certain films or filmmakers you will not watch because they gross you out or disturb you too much? Over the years, has your tolerance/threshold for graphic horror gone up or down? What, in your opinion, are the difficult-to-watch films that are nevertheless rewarding and valuable? And what has been the effect of time: do you approach or process horror films any differently now than you did when you were younger?"]
2. "Being kind": House contributor Dan Callahan pays tribute to Deborah Kerr for the 55th Sydney Film Festival.
["In a promotional short for Fred Zinnemann's leisurely The Sundowners (1960), set in Australia, Deborah Kerr amiably mugs for the camera while holding a baby kangaroo. She looks down and focuses all of her considerable attention on the little animal, and the baby tries to climb upside down into a pouch in the front of her dress. Kerr looks back at the camera helplessly, as if to say, "What can I do?" She also looks like she understands why the kangaroo wants to cling to her. Anyone who has seen Kerr in the movies will also understand the baby kangaroo's impulse. Basically composed and uncomplicated, Kerr was at her best on screen when she was listening to other's troubles and trying to help them. When she turned her compassion inward on herself, it seemed to have an almost neurotic effect, as if all that on-screen forbearance left her own nerves shot to pieces. She was at her most touching when asked to overcome these nerves, to conquer her extensive, ladylike inhibitions. Most of all, Kerr was good company; audience's knew they could trust her to stick it out, make the best of things and carry on."]
3. "It Isn’t Magic: Putin Opponents Vanish From TV": Freaky. And frightening.
["On a talk show last fall, a prominent political analyst named Mikhail G. Delyagin had some tart words about Vladimir V. Putin. When the program was later televised, Mr. Delyagin was not. Not only were his remarks cut — he was also digitally erased from the show, like a disgraced comrade airbrushed from an old Soviet photo. (The technicians may have worked a bit hastily, leaving his disembodied legs in one shot.) Mr. Delyagin, it turned out, has for some time resided on the so-called stop list, a roster of political opponents and other critics of the government who have been barred from TV news and political talk shows by the Kremlin. The stop list is, as Mr. Delyagin put it, “an excellent way to stifle dissent.”"]
4. "Dario Argento Clowns Himself": Jim Ridley has some words for Mother of Tears.
["A topsy-turvy Escherland exists where Dario Argento's The Mother of Tears is considered a twisted classic, and it is a magical place. Up is down, sour is sweet, sewer rat tastes like pumpkin pie, and Hitchcock never made a more ripping yarn than Jamaica Inn. A once-great director's near-worst work passes through its funhouse plumbing and emerges from the crapper as intentional mischief: self-sabotage explained away as mad genius."]
5. The new issue of Cineaste debuts. Much to read online, including David Greven's review of Eyal Peretz's Brian de Palma study, Richard Porton's interview with director Ramin Bahrani, and a memoriam to Cineaste Associate Editor Paul Arthur.
["Paul was in no small part aligned with the Angry Young Men, if only in spirit, “passion” thus the operative word when describing him. He brought that passion to his writing as well as his teaching—at Montclair State University since 1989 and at NYU, USC, Parsons School of Design, and Bard College before that. As a teacher, he worked on finding the very best way of reaching his students, always aware of their own level of understanding and never condescending—a rare quality among active and accomplished scholars who also find themselves in the classroom. He once referred to his introductory students, many of whom were never going to major in film, as the “most important students” to teach—they're the ones who will attend, rent, tune into, and talk about films with their friends and family, and Paul saw working with them as a great opportunity. Always a dynamic presence in the classroom, Paul was genuinely interested in what his students had to say."]
Quote of the Day: Michael Caine
Image of the Day (click to enlarge): R.I.P. Mel Ferrer
Clip of the Day: That I'm only now discovering movie re-enacter Brandon Hardesty is shameful. Here he does Fargo, Jurassic Park, and Pan's Labyrinth. More here.
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"Links for the Day": Each morning, the House editors post a series of weblinks that we think will spark discussion. Comments encouraged. Suggestions for links are also welcome. Please send to keithuhlich@gmail.com.
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Links for the Day (June 4th, 2008)
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5 comments:
Also: it's about time.
My friend Jim is absolutely dead-on about Mother Of Tears. I walked out on the film after about 45 minutes in Toronto, not because it wasn't a hoot and a holler, but because it pained me to laugh at the fevered ineptitude of a director I used to adore. The smattering of raves it received at the festival baffled and saddened me, because I don't think Argento ever meant to play the clown and the film's supporters are mistaking it for brilliant camp. Since Argento has never, ever gone for camp in his entire career-- and since even his best work has some of the awkwardness on display in Mother Of Tears-- I take the film to be a debacle. (And yes, I watched the whole thing last week in preparation for my own review.)
Hmm. So what does it say that I really dig Mother of Tears from a non-camp perspective. I do describe the ending in my Toronto review as a "joke," but I don't mean that disingenuously, nose-upturned.
I've been going around of late saying that this is Argento's They Live -- essentially the Gary B. Kibbe years of the John Carpenter filmography, which still doesn't detract from the overall awesomeness. I think there's clear intent and, behind the jests, a seriousness to the whole thing. I gather I'm more and more alone on that.
#1. I would say that I approach horror film differently today, but only because I can appreciate it on an entirely different, more referential, level. The Descent would not have been one of my favorite films had I not known what Neil Marshall was borrowing from (or homaging if you will). The same goes for my unabashed love for all things Italian horror. I can look at those now and watch skin melt, eyes popping out, spiders eat faces, etc. and not be grossed out like I once was because it is all done in such a nonsensical and inane way that it makes it funny. In fact most of my blog is dedicated to how wonderful Italian horror cinema is. What I cannot watch now is the torture porn stuff, because unlike the Italians, it takes itself way too seriously. Where directors like Fulci, Soavi, and Argento work within the realm of the supernatural or fantasy, hacks like Roth and Aja try to base their films in realism, which causes them to feel cold and nihilistic in an unrewarding way (unlike good nihilistic films like No Country For Old Men and Zodiac). The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is another film that I have a hard time with. I can appreciate it for its ingenuity and influence on the genre, but the set up bores the hell out of me now, and when the terror gets cranked up to 11 by the end, it's done in such a balls-out hyperealistic way, that it's too much for me to view multiple times. Conversely, and perhaps contradictory, I can re-visit one of the great, albeit unconventional, horror films every year in Cries and Whispers. I think the difference is the aim of the machine-gun like 'terror' you are witnessing and especially the technique involved in making the film create two different atmospheres. TCM, I would argue cannot really be appreciated on an aesthetic level like Cries and Whispers, or for that matter even more conventional (and gory) horror films like The Beyond, Tenebre, Suspiria, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Alien, The Descent, etc. It is that aesthetic value that trumps the blood and guts and terror of the latter films. TCM (although it has very little blood and its ideas were influential to the genre), Hostel, Saw, etc. just do not hold any aesthetic value for me. Therefore it's hard to come back to (or initially view) those types of films.
#4. As I stated above, I love all things Italian horror, so I am eager to see Argetno's latest. However, his last few films, especially The Card Player, have been nothing short of Umberto Lenzi terrible.
Re: Image of the day. I am sad to hear Mel Ferrer died, but what a career he left behind. I recently wrote about him and the film Nightmare City on my blog. His work in the Italian horror and cannibal cinema of the late 70's and 80's is wonderfully cheesy.
I think you and I were on the same wavelength, Keith, re MOTHER OF TEARS. To call it self-sabotage is to play the revisionist about the last two *decades* of Argento's career. At the very least, it's hella refreshing in the wake of SLEEPLESS, THE CARD PLAYER, et al. As Tim Lucas wrote: "...the return to alchemical themes alone gives the film an edge that Argento's work hasn't had in decades."
I think it probably works better as a quasi-sequel to STENDHAL than it does as a Mother movie, but in the context of the Belated Comeback film that has become the new trend (Romero's new DEAD flicks, RAMBO, LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD, CRYSTAL SKULL), I'd call MOTHER OF TEARS one of the least threatening to its series' legacy.
For what it's worth, I guffawed so loudly at that TIFF screening that people moved away from me, but I was laughing because I was giddy over its lawlessness (and in retrospect, I felt kind of ashamed), not because I found it inept or campy. Cheeky, maybe--but since when has a sense of mischief been a bad thing in Euro horror? And while it has the taint of Argento's newer work (which is missing what Walter Chaw called "his savant-like spark"), it's also Dada enough to honour its predecessors in the abstract.
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