Category Archives: film

Streetcar through the eyes of Stella

Streetcar

Kim Hunter (Stella) takes Stanley (Marlon Brando) back.

A Streetcar Named Desire is a 1947 play written by Tennessee Williams. It was both a critical and box office success. The story concerns a sexual triangle of Blanche DuBois—a pretentious, fading beauty; macho alpha male Stanley Kowalski, a rising member of the industrial, inner-city immigrant class; and Stella Kowalski, the submissive sister of Blanche.

Stella is a victim of domestic violence and often finds herself taking refuge at her neighbour Eunice’s home, only to return to Stanley when he cries for her to take him back. Blanche, who has arrived for a “visit”, is horrified by her sister’s situation and tries to convince Stella to divorce Stanley, but Stella refuses, bound to Stanley by sexual attraction and her pregnancy with his child.

The night Stella is having their baby, Stanley drunkenly happens upon Blanche and rapes her. This sends Blanche completely over the edge into a nervous breakdown, and Stanley forces Stella to send her off to a mental institution.

In some versions of A Streetcar Named Desire, Stella leaves Stanley after she finds out about the rape.

Milyunanochesco

Il Fiore delle mille e una notte/Arabian Nights (1974) – Pier Paolo Pasolini [Amazon.com]

Comparing Antoine Galland‘s and Richard Burton‘s translations of The Book of One Thousand and One Nights, Jorge Luis Borges wrote:

“Another fact is undeniable. The most famous and eloquent encomiums of The Thousand and One Nights – by Coleridge, Thomas de Quincey, Stendhal, Tennyson, Edgar Allan Poe, Newman – are from readers of Galland’s translation. Two hundred years and ten better translations have passed, but the man in Europe or the Americas who thinks of the Thousand and One Nights thinks, invariably of this first translation. The Spanish adjective milyunanochesco [thousand-and-one-nights-esque] … has nothing to do with the erudite obscenities of Burton or Mardrus, and everything to do with Antoine Galland’s bijoux and sorceries.” –Jorge Luis Borges, “The Translators of The Thousand and One Nights“

The image above is from the 1974 film adaptation by Pasolini. It laterally depicts a nude man and woman facing each other. The woman sits, legs apart; the man kneels in front of her and points a bow to her genital area. The tip of the arrow has a phallus attached.

The near-encounter as plot device

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxBrMrLjnAM&]

The Edge of Heaven (2007) Fatih Akın

The near-encounter is a plot device I first spotted in the French film L’Auberge Espagnole but I had already seen elements of it in the romantic comedy Serendipity. The Edge of Heaven, the latest film by Gegen die Wand director Fatih Akın is constructed around this plot device.

The premise of the near-encounter is simple: Two people, who are supposed to meet according to the plot, cross each other without noticing. The audience is aware of the near-encounter, the fictional characters are not. An example from the film L’Auberge Espagnole: a protagonist is tying his shoelaces while another protagonist walks by. Due to the shoe lacing, the “shoe lacer” cannot see the other, and the other cannot see the “shoe lacer” because of his bended position.

The Edge of Heaven is highly recommended.

Gratuitous nudity #4

The Eroticist

Fulci, The Eroticist

The Eroticist (Image sourced here)

The Eroticist is a 1972 Italian film by Lucio Fulci about a government official who suffers from frotteurism. Lucio Fulci (1927 – 1996) was an Italian film director, screenwriter, and actor. He is best known for his directorial work on some of the goriest horror films ever made, although he made films in genres as diverse as erotic films, giallo, western, and comedy. He is also known for his use of enigmatic titles such as Don’t Torture a Duckling.

Previous entries in this series.

Headlessness, armlessness and dismemberment

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kmb34upfAro]

A Night to Dismember is a film by Doris Wishman. The story is about a woman from a “cursed” family who is released from a mental facility, and soon dismembered corpses start turning up.

Excuse the lack of coherence in this post. I wanted to show you the trailer above (which is undoubtedly for a bad film) and shine the light on a Chinese contemporary artist I discovered by way of Lemateurdart. The artist is Liu Jianhua and he makes armless and headless porcelain female bodies in suggestive poses such as this one, this one, and this one. His work reminds of china by Luigi Colani such as this, and the bas relief hors-d’oeuvre plates produced in the seventies (no photo as of yet, check Designing Tomorrow in Car Styling 23, chief editor Akira Fujimoto, published September 1978).

Esotika wants your help

Esotika, the most adventurous film blog on the web, is self-consciously taking the nobrow route [1] :

“I’ve been throwing myself into contemporary critical theory … one of my main goals is to translate the idea of no-brow culture into criticism. What I mean by this is that I want to talk about and discuss the films that I’m writing about in a manner that isn’t obtuse and utterly academic, but I also don’t want to ignore the “academic” elements in the films reviewed, as for me that is part of their major fun.

…

By “academic” I mean to imply the elements of these films that are ostensibly more “intellectual” than a reductive cinema incorporates. Take, for example, the films of Alain Robbe-Grillet. Traditionally there have been two opposing ways to read his films (and very rarely do these readings overlap). The first way is to ignore the “intellectual” elements of the film and focus on the genre elements; vampirism, eroticism, le fantastique. The second method seems to ignore or pay little attention to the genre elements and their contextual implications, choosing rather to focus solely on ideas of critical theory; narratology, structuralist construction, montage. Alain Robbe-Grillet is probably the most blatant example of this cross-pollination of readings, but obviously there are many other films and directors that fall into this divide.

…

My goal, which has hopefully become clear, is to read the films from BOTH perspectives, allowing the “low-brow” and “high-brow” readings to play off each other in order to create a much stronger way to think about the film. “

World cinema classics #24

Steve + Sky

Steve + Sky (2004) – Felix van Groeningen

Steve+Sky (2004) is a Flemish film by director and screenwriter Felix van Groeningen (Dagen zonder lief). To the right of the screen capture is Titus De Voogdt, to the left the Delfine Bafort, the Belgian model/actress who recently starred in Looking for Alfred by Johan Grimonprez. The film was produced by Dirk Impens, best known for Daens, currently working on an adaptation of Dimitri Verhulst’s novel De Helaasheid der Dingen.

The film is situated in a Ghent “route nationale” red light district (locally and euphemistically known as “De Warme Landen”, literally the “warm countries”), and beautifully photographed by Ruben Impens who treats this Belgian vernacular architecture with a gloss of 1980s nostalgia.

The petty criminal Steve (Titus De Voogdt) is released from jail and looks up his ex cell mate Jean-Claude (Johan Heldenbergh) in the latter’s strip club. There he meets the intriguing Sky (Delfine Bafort). They start a passionate but impossible love affair in a story reminiscent of Betty Blue and the American production Buffalo ’66.

The soundtrack was compiled by Soulwax who chose “De meeste dromen zijn bedrog” by Marco Borsato, the cult hit “Putain Putain” by TC Matic, Reese‘s “To the Rock (to the Beat)” and “Beats of love” by Nacht und Nebel for the clubbish post-punk/New Beat atmosphere of the film.

The film editor is Nico Leunen, who learned the trade from Ludo Troch.

The film is noted for its naturalism with dialogues such as “A hole is a hole and a dick has no eyes.” (Jean-Claude) and a hilarious dispute between Jean-Claude and his pubescent daughter in which she asks him for money. When she gets the money he says: “Thank you, daddy!” and she replies “Thank you, asshole!”

Jan Sulmont at Kutsite.com has a fine review.

Previous “World Cinema Classics” and in the Wiki format here.

Internet archeology #1

Soledad in Akasava

Der Teufel kam aus Akasava

Before Miranda, there was Soledad Miranda. Soledad was a Spanish actress best known for her films with Jess Franco. She died young in a car accident.

Via my recent purchase of Necronomicon: book three by Andy Black comes the Soledad photograph above, which I had hitherto only seen in its censored version, without showing the torso, from a screen capture or set photograph from Der Teufel kam aus Akasava.

Below are the better known online versions which I listed at Jahsonic.com as photocredit unidentified:

Soledad Miranda, photo unidentifed

photocredit unidentified

Case solved.