Not on DVD

[Maaik]

I think cbs hails from Vancouver.

oops, just saw the letters thread, it's Edmonton.

I dunno, I know there's cliffs and forests and wild animals involved.

[auto-da-fey]

every so often something comes up the internet pike that justifies all the time I squander online. this is one of those moments. I doubt I will ever see this film, since it appears lost to the ravages of time, but holy fucking shit, the sheer fact that it once existed--and from the guy who made Blood Freak!--soothes my very soul:




seriously. what is not to marvel at here? I love every single thing about this poster, from the putrid yellow backdrop to the even-more-putridly unbuttoned shirt to the very dubious untrademarked R rating to the name "Ed Trostle." this is what the materialization of my dreams would look like.

(I rehosted the pic because I've never fully learned the ethics of cribbing and linking images, but it comes from the endlessly fascinating "Endangered List" series at the allmighty Temple of Schlock).

[elpollodiablo]

Holy fuckin shit

[G.C.R]

I was going to say I wish I could see that film, but the dreams conjoured by the poster mean it could never live up to them.

[auto-da-fey]

I was going to say I wish I could see that film, but the dreams conjoured by the poster mean it could never live up to them.

This is true; I suppose we're all better off simply imagining what the spirit of Mark Twain would do at a Miss Nude World Pageant, since it would presumably be more interesting than just ogling the contestants and maybe--if we're lucky--making Pudd'nhead Wilson jokes.


On a vastly different note, went to another Joyce Wieland screening tonight. I feel terrible for the people who organized this; they brought in prints from NYC, L.A., and Toronto, and after a mere eight attended Wednesday's screening, it was down to two tonight, me and some other dude. The poor presenter who had a nice short scholarly introduction prepared was like "well, I don't need the microphone, do I," and he sounded rather sad about it. So goes the game, I guess.

I still can't say I'm that into Wieland. Solidarity was ten minutes of people's feet at a 1973 labor strike, with the title superimposed in the center of the screen for the duration. Well, okay then. I did enjoy Birds at Sunrise more, which was ten minutes of . . . you guessed it (and okay, I enjoyed it less upon reading the program notes and learning that "the suffering of the birds became, in a sense, symbolic of the Jews and their survival through suffering," a good reminder that artists should perhaps not interpret their work for us; I liked it better when it was nice pretty shots of birds {and they didn't seem suffering to me, they seemed rather chipper!}).

The main attraction was her one narrative feature film, The Far Shore, which apparently flopped in 1976 and mostly ended her film career. The programmers wisely tempted us (or not so wisely, "us" being all two of us) with this screencap



but the film is far less passionate (or sexxifyin') than it would have you think. Quebec, 1919, a marriage sours under a controlling husband, etc. I kept hoping for the dancing hotdogs of her mid-60s Patriotism 1, because the film is too stiff and full of Masterpiece-Theater medium shots for its own good; there's some gorgeous nature scenery, but even then it's a little too reverential--after the umpteenth shot of glimmering waters and roving fields, I stopped thinking of the awesome beauty of nature and began remembering Judy Collins album covers.

All of which sounds kind of harsh. Look, the film was made by a politically engaged female director who used her one shot at the big time to call out patriarchy, and I respect and value that; without the 1970s feminism that seems so stodgy and humorless today we wouldn't have Susie Bright and Bikini Kill and Feminist Porn Awards. But making it a period piece drains the life out of it, and telegraphing its Big Themes across every scene doesn't help either (I kept thinking back to Wieland's La Raison Avant La Passion, figuring she might as well superimpose a few "reason over passion"s here too just in case anyone missed the idea). It works alright as a manifesto, but as a film it never comes alive until the very end, only to end with an abrupt, jarring scene that again sacrifices organic emotional investment to didacticism (though there is one curious little touch in the final scene that I really appreciated, a strange ambiguity that almost immediately gives way to blunt declaration; not sure why I'm not just spoilering away because no one is ever going to see this, but such are my ethics). Still, I'm glad I saw it, and it adds a little chunk of knowledge to my understanding of cultural genealogy, because there's no doubt in my mind Jane Campion saw this at some point before making The Piano.

So, that was my Joyce Wieland experience. Canadians, I think you're safe sticking with your Maddins and Egoyans for now, but I'd still be interested in other people's takes on her, if anyone ever watches her stuff.

[bethany_m]

Aren't there only two LPTJCanadians?

I've been wondering this for a few days so I'm interested in an actual answer.

I mean, its been freaking me out a lot.

I hope to join the ranks of the lptj canadians.  Put in a good word with the immigration folks, would you?

[Ashley]

Depends on what kind of canadian become.  (as in, where).

[auto-da-fey]

I was out drinking with some people on Friday, one of whom turned out to be a Mark Twain scholar. A few beers in, I got all excited and told her about the poster I posted above, for Never the Twain. She was interested, so I emailed it to her yesterday, and now she's sending it to these Twain listservs and forwarding me responses--some apparently big-name Twain scholars are writing back to her with things like "I thought I knew everything about Twain-related films, but I have never heard of this. I don't understand the connection to the Miss Nude World Pageant, though."

If this somehow leads to someone unearthing a 35mm print from the employee breakroom of a drive-in in central Florida, I will consider myself something of a heroic figure in the field of film preservation. Not too likely, I'm afraid.

[auto-da-fey]

Okay, my film event of the year is coming up in Brooklyn, and for once, someone else around here might be interested (lcc, you around? T&P? van buren?):

Bill Gunn's Stop, at BAM, 2pm, Sunday, April 4. Gunn is the guy who made Ganja & Hess (there's a mini-retrospective of him around this screening), and this was his debut, which received an X rating in 1970, never got officially released, and has become a truly lost moment in the New Hollywood. I can't actually say it looks good, but it definitely looks interesting. To wit, for those not following the link:

An emotionally violent poet and his wife leave their snowy confines and head to San Juan, their marriage imploding. Filmed in languorous soft light, the images turn from dreamlike to hallucinogenic when another couple enters their orbit. One of the first studio films by an African-American director, yet unique by not focusing on race, having an experimental narrative and introducing a homosexual element new to the period. Perhaps all reasons it was never released.

I might come up on Saturday and crash with my ex in the Bronx, and maybe neighborhood-walk around Queens and Brooklyn on Sat or Sun afternoon, if anyone wants to show me around and give me inside scoops on their 'hoods.

[elpollodiablo]

Unfortunately we'll be out of town that weekend, or I'd definitely take you up on a walk around.

[auto-da-fey]

I'm always starting thematic film series and never finishing them, so it's pretty satisfying to report that I've now seen all seven Josef von Sternberg/Marlene Dietrich collaborations. I finally tracked down a VHS copy of Shanghai Express; what a glorious, loopy funhouse! More semi-plotless sheer-pleasure cinema, like a sleazier version of Grand Hotel on wheels, basically. Dietrich is totally upstaged by the awesome Anna May Wong--if I had more time right now, I would embark immediately on an Anna May Wong festival, without question--and the central romance is stiff and flat, but the wonderful thing about Sternberg is how little he cares, since that's just a framework on which to hinge all of his facial closeups and lightplay.

So then I thought I was done, but it turns out they also made a movie called Dishonored the year before, 1931. I'd never even heard of this one; reviews seemed somewhat nonplussed, and even the poster was rather tepid:



Found it at TLA Video--I'm back to renting at brick & mortar, doing what I can to keep it afloat--and was pleasantly surprised. It's probably the weakest of the bunch (I'm a defender of the much-maligned The Devil is a Woman), but still punchy: that pre-Code tawdriness, with Dietrich as a hooker-turned-Austrian-spy; a nice masked costume ball that serves as a good dry run for some of Sternberg's later, more extravagant returns to this spectacle; and a rather astonishing conclusion that just ratchets everything wonderful about these films--namely, their "glamor uber alles" lunacy--up a notch, with [spoilers] Dietrich facing a firing squad as she nonchalantly applies lipstick and fixes her garter belt.

I'm kind of curious now about Sternberg's later work--all I've seen is The Shanghai Gesture--but none of it sounds all that interesting except possibly Anatahan, which just sounds bizarre; I can live without seeing John Wayne in Jet Pilot, I think.

[auto-da-fey]

Okay, my film event of the year is coming up in Brooklyn, and for once, someone else around here might be interested (lcc, you around? T&P? van buren?):

Bill Gunn's Stop, at BAM, 2pm, Sunday, April 4. Gunn is the guy who made Ganja & Hess (there's a mini-retrospective of him around this screening), and this was his debut, which received an X rating in 1970, never got officially released, and has become a truly lost moment in the New Hollywood. I can't actually say it looks good, but it definitely looks interesting. To wit, for those not following the link:

An emotionally violent poet and his wife leave their snowy confines and head to San Juan, their marriage imploding. Filmed in languorous soft light, the images turn from dreamlike to hallucinogenic when another couple enters their orbit. One of the first studio films by an African-American director, yet unique by not focusing on race, having an experimental narrative and introducing a homosexual element new to the period. Perhaps all reasons it was never released.

so this turned out, indeed, to be less than good--basically, as if Radley Metzger tried to make an Antonioni film (or vice versa), all distance and coldness and then partner-swapping sex orgies and aphrodisiac/acid-laced orange milkshakes, with crazy wah'd-out guitar fuzz by none other than Ry Cooder. M was charitable in finding some redeeming elements in a few aspects, I was satisfied by its time-capsule value, and my long-ago ex hated it with a bitter passion. I was surprised by the modest turnout; despite it being Easter, this was apparently only its second public screening, and it was free. I thought Ganja & Hess had a more devoted cult following.

One of the actors was in the audience, and he got up for a Q&A afterward to deliver bizarre, rambling memories of the shoot--he was amusing at first in his recollection of drugged-out escapades, but some of that good old sexual-revolution-masculinism came through when he described the lead actress as "frigid" three times, apparently for declining to fuck him, and then he insinuated that Bill Gunn had slept with James Dean and Monty Cliff before doing a theatrical "oh, should I not have said that?"

Anyway, glad I attended, but perhaps not my film event of the year after all.

[auto-da-fey]

Wooden Shoe, the anarchist bookstore in South Philly, shows free films every Sunday--usually lefty agitprop stuff that I wholeheartedly endorse but feel little need to attend. This week, though, they threw a real curveball and went with Chantal Akerman's From the Other Side, her 2002 documentary about the U.S./Mexico border.

I was thrilled, so I pitched it to M and the couple she lives with, with due warnings that it would surely consist of lots of long, drawn-out shots and no overt political polemics or any other likely framing. They all agreed to come anyway, so we headed there last night, with a crowd of about 20.

I had predicted a fair amount of audience discomfort and some walk-outs, given that the context was lefty-doc and not Akermania, but it went even worse than I'd expected. People began leaving about twenty minutes in, until with the crowd down to about a dozen, a guy from the bookstore intervened to apologize and said "I hadn't actually watched this in advance, I thought it would have some, uh, content and politics. We can play something else instead." The whole small crowd, save for one other guy, nodded vigorously. Feeling the need to partake of the participatory public sphere the bookstore collective strives to cultivate, I interjected, "Well, actually, this film is by Chantal Akerman, and she's a widely admired French filmmaker known for her minimalist formalism. I think if you approach it from the angle of her body of work, you can definitely see that there is content here, and a politics. I really value this film, and I'd vote strongly to stick with it."

Everyone looked at me, no one said anything, a few people blinked, and then the bookstore guy was like, "Uhh, yeah. Well, we have some Noam Chomsky films . . ."

Fucking governing by consensus. I lost, decisively, so we left (M's roommate-couple was bored out of their minds and eager to bail) and the show went on with some other film.

On the upshot, he did tell me he might be able to hook me up with a burned DVD of the film, and I left my contact info, so I'm hoping anarchy will come through for me.

[Greg Nog]

Oh, wow; it's only 100 minutes long, too.  YOU HIPPIES COULDA SAT THROUGH THAT

[edison]

Man, that sounds depressing (people's reaction, that is). But it also made for a very entertaining story, I have to say, and I do admire your intervention!

Also, I believe Akerman is Belgian.

[auto-da-fey]

Also, I believe Akerman is Belgian.

oh word, whoops--total ugly-American moment there, thanks for the correction! (which I did know, not sure where that came from).

[elpollodiablo]

WHO'S THE BOOR NOW, STURB

[auto-da-fey]

for penance, I will now watch a double feature of Steal This Movie/Battle in Seattle, with Dutch subtitles on both.

[hannah]

This Friday, if anyone is uh in town, I am moderating a screening of Song of the South and possibly "Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs" and "Tin Pan Alley Cats," all on 16mm. You know you want to be there!

[Greg Nog]

Coal Black featured prominently in some film paper I did in college!  Man, if I were nearby, I would be super-interested in attending!

[coldforge]

for penance, I will now watch a double feature of Steal This Movie/Battle in Seattle, with Dutch subtitles on both.

Jesus Christ, it's Flemish, not Dutch. You just keep digging it deeper.

[G.C.R]

Hope it goes well, Hannah! I have not seen any of those films, and dang yes i know i want to be there. Greg: what was the paper?

[auto-da-fey]

not that it's going to have a material impact on this riveting conversation, but her films are generally in French, which was the source of my original error.

I stand humbled and think hannah's screening sounds rad. or aukartust äratav, as the Estonians apparently say.

[alex]

for penance, I will now watch a double feature of Steal This Movie/Battle in Seattle, with Dutch subtitles on both.

Jesus Christ, it's Flemish, not Dutch. You just keep digging it deeper.

If this was anyone else, I'd let this one slide, but I'd expect more linguistic accuracy from you, sir!

The language spoken in the Flemish part of Belgium is officially known as Dutch. The term Flemish is used to distinguish the dialect group of the region from the dominant dialects of the Netherlands in contexts where that matters, and is also preferred regardless of context by a certain subset of the Flemish population that is rather haughty with regional pride. It's far more commonly used to refer to spoken language than written language, where the differences between the languages used in the Netherlands and Belgium and are far more negligible. I've certainly never seen separate subtitle categories of Dutch and Flemish. Google informs me of some Disney DVD releases that include the language choice of "Nederlands" as well as "Vlaams", but even there, there is only one choice of Non-English subtitles: "Nederlands". Thus, the language of the subtitles on a-d-f's DVD would almost certainly be more correctly described as Dutch rather than Flemish.

[Greg Nog]

Greg: what was the paper?

Actually, now that I think of it, I don't know how much, if at all, Coal Black factored into it, but the paper was about American racist propaganda during WWII.  But Coal Black And De Sebben Dwarves was definitely on one of the VHS compilations of EXTREME TERRIBLE BANNED CARTOONS that I was using as primary sources.