The House Next Door

1. "In Search of Lost Time," or "Who's Afraid of Hou Hsiao-hsien?": A Reverse Shot symposium on the great Taiwanese filmmaker. Link above takes you to the introduction by RS editors Michael Koresky and Jeff Reichert. Here is the main contents page. Among the House contributors involved: Andrew Chan on Cute Girl; Cheerful Wind; & The Green, Green Grass of Home (also The Sandwich Man); Kevin B. Lee on City of Sadness; and Travis Mackenzie Hoover on The Puppetmaster.

["In 1988 a group of international critics voted Hou “one of the three directors most crucial to the future of cinema,” and in another survey completed by Film Comment and the Village Voice at the end of the Nineties, he was named "director of the decade." It’s worth questioning, however, what his admittedly rarefied brand of art cinema means to filmmaking and film history—even history itself —if he's not selling tickets anywhere but on the festival circuit. Just how can we support such grand claims for his importance, when he’s preaching to a ready choir and largely empty pews? Easy: Wedding political filmmaking with a technique at once naturalistic and highly aestheticized, Hou has made films that wrestle, variously, and either directly or metaphorically, with personal and national histories, the struggles between Taiwan and Chinese nationalism, the encroachment of capital on an ever-evolving way of life, and, most recently, the legacy of cinema itself. “Essential viewing” couldn’t be more aptly applied to the works of any other living director, and even if Hou’s cascading histories may be consigned solely to posthumous recuperation, we’re happy to stand up now and plant a signpost along the way."]

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2. "NYFF46": The first of Jamie Stuart's New York Film Festival video essays is up at Filmmaker Magazine. In this first part of four, Jamie faces off with a razor-wielding assassin and attends press conferences with Laurent Cantet and Kelly Reichardt.

["This is what's going to happen."]

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3. "Ahmadinejad: 'American empire' nearing its end": From CNN.

["In a blistering speech before the United Nations General Assembly, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blamed "a few bullying powers" for creating the world's problems and said the "American empire in the world is reaching the end of its road." And while he insisted Iran's nuclear activities are peaceful, Ahmadinejad blamed the same powers for seeking to hinder it "by exerting political and economic pressures on Iran, and threatening and pressuring" the International Atomic Energy Agency. Those powers, meanwhile, are building or maintaining nuclear stockpiles themselves, unchecked by anyone, he said. As Ahmadinejad spoke, the only person at the United States table was a note-taker; no U.S. diplomat was present. When President Bush spoke earlier Tuesday, however, Ahmadinejad was in the room."]

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4. Dave Kehr on The Godfather restoration, at The Times and on his blog.

["Many of Francis Ford Coppola’s films, including the recent “Youth Without Youth,” have been haunted by the passing of time and an acute awareness of its destructive handiwork — the sense that once a treasured moment has been lost, nothing can be done to recover it. But now a piece of Mr. Coppola’s own youth, which also happens to be one of the greatest works in American film, has been recovered, and spectacularly so. On Tuesday Paramount Home Entertainment is issuing the three films that make up Mr. Coppola’s “Godfather” saga, miraculously rejuvenated by a team of digital restoration experts under the supervision of the film preservationist Robert A. Harris. Offered both in high-definition Blu-ray and standard DVD editions, Mr. Coppola’s three films seem to have reclaimed the golden glow of their original theatrical screenings — a glow that has been dimmed and all but extinguished over the years through a series of disappointing home video editions."]

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5. Two recent posts from filmjourney.org: Doug Cummings on the Lola Montès restoration and the documentary Proteus.

["In case you’ve only seen Max Ophüls’ last and only widescreen, color film on the abysmal Fox Lorber DVD that refuses to go away, you might check out this comparison I’ve made between a direct screengrab of the DVD versus a still courtesy of Rialto Pictures from the new restoration. I just saw the new print today, and I can vouch that it looks just as good–or even better–than the still provided here. Note that in addition to the fact that the DVD doesn’t include the full 2.55×1 early CinemaScope frame, it also horizontally compresses the image, which suffers from pink-faded colors, less contrast, less resolution, and a darker tone. In short, it’s unwatchable."]

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Quote of the Day: Edith Sitwell

"Eccentricity is not, as dull people would have us believe, a form of madness. It is often a kind of innocent pride, and the man of genius and the aristocrat are frequently regarded as eccentrics because genius and aristocrat are entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd."

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Image of the Day (click to enlarge): Clay Aiken: I'm a Gay Dad



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Clip of the Day: The Hamm boys and Shawn Johnson like tacos that pop! Directed by Robert Bresson. (Hattip: Ryland Walker Knight)

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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.