Links for the Day (November 7th, 2008)

1. Two passings of note: Writers John Leonard and Michael Crichton. Links above take you to their GreenCine entries, rounding up the remembrances.

["With sadness we learn of the passing of John Leonard, incomparable critic and mentor to many, supporter of books and writers new and not so new, long time New York Times Book Review editor and critic, and a founding member of the National Book Critics Circle. "]

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2. "Divide and Conquer": Adrian Martin on "a world of possibilities in the unstudied field of DVD chaptering."

["There is a complete disconnect between the practice of chaptering and its theory—partly because that theory, as it was developed and practiced throughout the 1960s and ’70s under the title of “segmentation,” has been largely forgotten today. From Christian Metz to Raymond Bellour, and with much tweaking all over the world by such expert narratologists as Brian Henderson, films were minutely carved up into their constituent units—and all the divisions required elaborate (sometimes laborious) metacritical justifications. What is the difference between a scene and a sequence, as the collocation of several scenes? How do we tabulate passages built out of the alternation between two or more scenes? What about the force and meaning of classic transitional devices—an overlap or superimposing dissolve, as opposed to a stark fade-to-black? At stake, finally, was an entire conceptualization of narrative and its material, cinematic articulation. Bellour spent several years, in seminars, carving up Vincente Minnelli's Gigi (1958) in this way: from its largest-scale sections to its smallest-scale instants, he used this process as a way to notice and explore a film’s formal shapes, its insistent repetitions and meaningful transformations. But we can only dream of a new DVD edition of Gigi from Warner Bros. that would apply Bellour’s painstaking segmentation to its chapter breakdown."]

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3. "Inauguration Day 2009: My ‘Godfather’ fantasy": Marshall Fine imagines...

["Yes, I know – Barack Obama’s election is a fresh start for the country, a time to put old bitterness and recriminations behind us and focus on the future, rather than the past. Still … Like so many people, I am incredibly bitter about what’s been done to my country for the past eight years. And the fact that so many of these power abusers and profiteers will probably walk away scot-free on Jan. 20 really rankles. So, as I walked upstairs last night after listening to Obama’s victory speech, I took a moment to indulge a fantasy of extreme rendition. In my mind, it played out a lot like the closing montage of “The Godfather,” except without the gunfire."]

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4. "Have Hope! Women Create Peace in Liberia": Elisabeth Donnelly interviews director Gini Reticker about her documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell.

["If it wasn't for a softball game in the Westchester suburbs, the stirring documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell—the inspiring story of a group of Liberian women who brought peace to their war-torn country—may not have taken shape. But producer Abigail E. Disney and Oscar-nominated director Gini Reticker reconnected while watching their daughters at bat, and soon after, both women were traveling to Liberia to put this story on film. The result is a moving testament to the power of peacework in the most horrifying of times, as the country was led by a violent dictator (Charles Taylor) and vulnerable to the savagery and terror of rebel warlords and their child soliders. A sensation at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival, the film won the prize for the Best Documentary Feature. In a recent phone interview with Tribeca, Reticker, who was due to travel to Brazil for the San Paolo Film Festival the next day, talked candidly about the struggle of making this film, its reception, the strength of these women, and what you can do to help."]

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5. "An Alphabet of Favorite Films": Consider this a tagging of all Links for the Day readers. Follow Ed Howard's example, originally via Blog Cabins, and take cinephilia alphabetical. I'll start below.

["The Film Doctor has asked me to contribute to a meme started by Blog Cabins: a list consisting of one film for each letter of the alphabet. It's a surprisingly tough task, resulting in something very different from what I might pick if simply asked for favorite films without such restrictions. So here it is..."]

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Quote of the Day: Lillian Eichler Watson

"Don't reserve your best behavior for special occasions. You can't have two sets of manners, two social codes—one for those you admire and want to impress, another for those whom you consider unimportant. You must be the same to all people."

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Image of the Day (click to enlarge): "The last remnants of the old republic have been swept away."



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Clip of the Day: "We're V.I.P.'s."

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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.