Category Archives: film

Volker Schlöndorff @70

Volker Schlöndorff @70

Young Törless (Der Junge Törless, 1966)

Young Törless

Volker Schlöndorff (born in Wiesbaden, Germany on March 31 1939) is a German filmmaker generally categorized in the New German Cinema movement.

New German cinema is a period in German cinema which lasted from the late 1960s into the 1980s. It saw the emergence of a new generation of directors. Working with low budgets, and influenced by the French New Wave, such directors as Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog, Alexander Kluge, Volker Schlöndorff, Margarethe von Trotta, Hans-Jürgen Syberberg and Wim Wenders made names for themselves and produced a number of “small” motion pictures that caught the attention of the art house audiences.

Schlöndorff is best-known for The Tin Drum (1979), the film version of the novel by Günter Grass. Of his filmography, I am most eager to see Young Törless (1966).

Young Törless (German: Der junge Törless) is a 1966 German film directed by Volker Schlöndorff, adapted from the autobiographical novel The Confusions of Young Törless by Robert Musil. The film examens the origins of fascism by focusing on the sadistic and homo-erotic bullying in a boys military academy at the beginning of the 20th century. As an added bonus, the film stars British scream queen Barbara Steele.

RIP Maurice Jarre (1924 – 2009)

RIP Maurice Jarre (1924 – 2009)

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuarP-wUHCw&]

Eyes Without a Face

Maurice Jarre (born in Lyon, France, September 13, 1924 – March 29, 2009) was a French composer and conductor, father of Jean-Michel Jarre. To the mainstream, he is best known for his film scores, particularly those of David Lean: Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Doctor Zhivago (1965), and A Passage to India (1984). In my canon he is best-known for his scores for the films of Georges Franju: the splendid horrorish flicks Eyes Without a Face[1] (1960) and Judex[2] (1963).

Clyde Barrow @100

Clyde Barrow @100

Clyde Barrow by you.

Mug shot of Clyde

Bonnie Parker (October 1, 1910 – May 23, 1934) and Clyde Barrow (March 24, 1909 – May 23, 1934) were notorious outlaws, robbers and criminals who travelled the Central United States during the Great Depression. Their exploits were known nationwide. They captivated the attention of the American press and its readership during what is sometimes referred to as the “public enemy era” between 1931 and 1935.

Bonnie and Clyde (1967) is a film about their lives. It is regarded as the first film of the New Hollywood era, in that it broke many taboos and was popular with the younger generation.The film was controversial on its original release for its supposed glorificaton of murderers, and for its level of graphic violence and gore, which was unprecedented at the time. Bosley Crowther of the New York Times was so appalled that he began to campaign against the increasing brutality of American films, although one has to add to that Crowther was very puritan about sensationalization.

RIP Pierre Bourgeade (1927 – 2009)

RIP Pierre Bourgeade

RIP Pierre Bourgeade (1927 - 2009) by you.

Yaba Yayınları published Ölümsüz Bakireler, presumably a Turkish translation of Les Immortelles. –Sholem Stein

Pierre Bourgeade (November 8, 1927 – March 12, 2009) was a French writer, novelist, dramatist, poet, screenwriter, journalist, literary critic and writer. Rita Renoir met with her first critical success in the theatrical piece Les Immortelles by Bourgeade.

More on his importance to my universe in the coming hours.

Update: He wrote for French film magazines Positif and L’Écran français.

He is known to write in the category black comedy.

He participated in Peter Weibel‘s project Phantom of Desire.

He was a member of the jury of the Prix Sade.

He wrote prefaces for such authors as Stéphen Lévy-Kuentz and most recently Medi Holtrop.

Fred Katz @90

Fred Katz @90

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrFE1NMtgAs&]

Katz  on cello on gay anthem jazz standard “My Funny Valentine” by the Chico Hamilton band.

Fred Katz (born February 25, 1919) is an American composer, songwriter, conductor, cellist, and professor, perhaps best-known as the composer and lyricist of “Satan Wears a Satin Gown“[1].

Folk Songs for Far Out Folk by Fred Katz

Folk Songs for Far Out Folk (1958)

Katz was classically trained at the cello and piano and began his career in a number of classical and swing orchestras. In the early 1950s, Katz accompanied singers such as Lena Horne, Tony Bennett and Frankie Laine. From 1955 through 1958, he was a member of the Chico Hamilton Quintet. He also recorded several solo albums such as Folk Songs for Far Out Folk[2] labels including Pacific Jazz, Warner Bros., and Decca Records.

In the late 1950s and 1960s, Katz scored a number of films for Roger Corman, including A Bucket of Blood, The Wasp Woman, Creature from the Haunted Sea and The Little Shop of Horrors. He also composed a number of pieces of classical music. Katz went on to become a professor of cultural anthropology at the University of San Fernando, specializing in ethnic music.

His cello can also be heard on Ken Nordine‘s Word Jazz projects, on Dorothy Ashby‘s The Rubaiyat of Dorothy Ashby, and Billy Bean‘s Makin’ It.

Jack Palance @90

Jack Palance would have turned 90 had he not died 3 years ago.

Like so many American actors — some of them had fallen on hard times, though I do not know if this is the case for Palance — they had a second life in European cinema, see for example the recently featured European career of American sex kitten Carroll Baker[1].

My father was nuts for Shane, and I’m sure he alerted me and my brother of that movie and had us see it, but my first conscious experience of Palance was in the cinematic fable Bagdad Café.

Back to the European career of Palance.

Palance starred in Godard‘s Contempt and Breathless, Jess Franco‘s Marquis de Sade: Justine, as well as in the poliziottesco Mister Scarface.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHFK2mTDd3M]

I leave you with a scene from Bagdad Café, I loved that film when it came out, not in the least because of the brilliant loungy Jevetta Steele track, “Calling You.”

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyU1R50_Nc8]

Alejandro Jodorowsky @70

Alejandro Jodorowsky (born 1929), Chilean artist and countercultural icon turns 70 today.

El Topo (1970) – Alexandro Jodorowsky [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Alejandro Jodorowsky (born 1929), Chilean artist and countercultural icon turns 70 today.

Like so many of us, we were first acquainted with Jodorowsky via a midnight screening of his psychedelic Western El Topo. In my case that must have been either at the Filmhuis Theater or at Cartoon’s. In fact, the film practically jumpstarted the genre of the midnight movie:

“In December 1970, Jonas Mekas was organizing one of his periodic festivals of avant-garde films at the Elgin, a rundown six hundred seat theater, not unlike the Charles, on Eighth Avenue just north of Greenwich Village. Although the program was laden with major avant-garde figures, the most widely attended screenings were those on the three nights devoted to the films of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. The Elgin management took advantage of the hippie crowds to announce an added feature-Alexandro Jodorowsky’s El Topo to be shown at midnight because, as the first ad announced, it was “a film too heavy to be shown any other way.”” —Midnight Movies (1983)

El Topo[1]

El Topo (The Mole) is a 1970 Mexican allegorical, cult western movie and underground film, directed by and starring Alejandro Jodorowsky. Characterized by its bizarre characters and occurrences, use of maimed and dwarf performers, and heavy doses of Christian symbolism and Eastern philosophy, the film is about the eponymous character – a violent, black-clad gunfighter – and his quest for enlightenment.

El Topo was World cinema classic #28

Panic Movement

Researching Jodorowsky in the internet era, brought up the Panic Movement link.

The Panic Movement (Fr:Mouvement panique) was a collective formed in Paris in 1962 by Fernando Arrabal, Alejandro Jodorowsky and Roland Topor after casual meetings at the Parisian Café de la Paix. Inspired by and named after the god Pan, and influenced by Luis Buñuel and Antonin Artaud‘s Theatre of Cruelty, the group concentrated on chaotic performance art and surreal imagery.

In February 1962 Arrabal, Jodorowsky and Topor settle on the word panique. In September 1962, the word panique is printed for the first time: Arrabal publishes five récits “paniques” in André Breton’s periodical La Brèche.

The Panic Movement performed theatrical events designed to be shocking, as a response to surrealism becoming petite bourgeoisie and to release destructive energies in search of peace and beauty. One four-hour performance known as Sacramental Melodrama was staged in May 24 1965 at the Paris Festival of Free Expression.

Jodorowsky dissolved the Panic Movement in 1973, after the release of Arrabal’s book Le panique.

Carl Theodor Dreyer @110

Carl Theodor Dreyer, Danish film director (1889 – 1968)

Vampyr (Carl Theodor Dreyer) by hipecac

Most iconic image of Dreyer’s career, from Vampyr

by nequest

Second most iconic image of Dreyer’s career, from Vampyr

Still from The Passion of Joan of Arc

Still from The Passion of Joan of Arc

Carl Theodor Dreyer (February 3, 1889 – March 20, 1968) was a Danish film director. He is regarded as one of the greatest directors in cinema. Although his career spanned the 1910s through the 1960s, his meticulousness, dictatorial methods, idiosyncratic shooting style, and stubborn devotion to his art ensured that his output remained low. In spite of this, he is an icon in the world of art film.

At the same time he produced work which is of interest to film lovers with sensational inclinations, which merits his placement in the nobrow canon.

Thus, we tend to remember best of his oeuvre films such as Vampyr (a vampire film) and The Passion of Joan of Arc (for its execution by burning scene).

The Passion of Joan of Arc

The Passion of Joan of Arc is a silent film produced in France in 1928. It is based on the trial records of Joan of Arc. The film stars Renée Jeanne Falconetti and Antonin Artaud.

Though made in the late 1920s (and therefore without the assistance of computer graphics), includes a relatively graphic and realistic treatment of Jeanne‘s execution by burning. The film stars Antonin Artaud. The film was banned in Britain for its portrayal of crude English soldiers who mock and torment Joan in scenes that mirror biblical accounts of Christ’s mocking at the hands of Roman soldiers.

Scenes from Passion appear in Jean-Luc Godard‘s Vivre sa Vie (1962), in which the protagonist Nana sees the film at a cinema and identifies with Joan. In Henry & June Henry Miller is shown watching the last scenes of the film and in voice-over narrates a letter to Anaïs Nin comparing her to Joan and himself to the “mad monk” character played by Antonin Artaud.

Vampyr

Vampyr is a French-German film released in 1932. An art film, it is short on dialogue and plot, and is admired today for its innovative use of light and shadow. Dreyer achieved some of these effects through using a fine gauze filter in front of the camera lens to make characters and objects appear hazy and indistinct, as though glimpsed in a dream.

The film, produced in 1930 but not released until 1932, was originally regarded as an artistic failure. It got shortened by distributors, who also added narration. This left Dreyer deeply depressed, and a decade passed before he able to direct another feature film, Day of Wrath.

Film critics have noted that the appearance of the vampire hunting professor in Roman Polanski‘s film The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967) is inspired by the Village doctor played in Vampyr. The plot is credited to J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s collection In a Glass Darkly, which includes the vampire novella Carmilla, although, as Timothy Sullivan has argued, its departures from the source are more striking than its similarities.

Vampyr shows the obvious influence of Symbolist imagery; parts of the film resemble tableau vivant re-creations of the early paintings of Edvard Munch.

Vampyr and The Passion of Joan of Arc are World Cinema Classics #83 and 84.

Happy birthday Sonny Chiba

Sonny Chiba, Japanese actor and martial artist celebrates his 70th birthday today.

Sonny Chiba was brought to the attention of mainstream international audiences by Quentin Tarantino. Before that, he was known to the martial arts film crowd for his film The Street Fighter.

I am fascinated by street fights, so were the Rolling Stones and the track “Street Fighting Man” is considered by many their most political track. I suppose in a Debordian way.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LYT4JC2dd4]

Opening credits of Karate Kiba

Sonny Chiba is connected to the pseudo-biblical passage “Ezekiel 25:17” by way of Pulp Fiction.

“The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who in the name of charity and goodwill shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.”

Tarantino had borrowed this text from Chiba’s Karate Kiba.

As to me, for martial artist I prefer Bruce Lee as I’ve seen him in The Tenant and my Chiba as “Cheeba Cheeba”.