Euphoria #3

MUSIC IS A VIRUS FROM OUTER SPACE

This is the third installment of our highly scientific experiment to identify and catalogue those little bits of film which produce detectable satori-like states in the viewer. (Publication delayed by problems with MeTube.)

Regular reader, and blogger extraordinaire, David Ehrenstein, writes:

“I’d love to see “Isn’t It Romantic?” from “Love Me Tonight,” and “Pass That Peace Pipe” from “Good News” (1947)”

I’ve never seen GOOD NEWS but it’s now on my list to see, it sounds amazing. If anybody has a copy spare, let me know. Can never have too much bliss.

But LOVE ME TONIGHT has long been a favourite. I got into Rouben Mamoulian’s work by way of his wild DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE of 1932 and then of course I wanted all his films to be as crazy and experimental. Only LOVE ME TONIGHT achieves that (in fact, it’s even CRAZIER) although the rest are generally very good films, and a few are hailed as classics.

This scene shows a complete synthesis of all the elements of film-making, with song and narrative leading the way and everything else in support. It’s hard to imagine this film beginning on the page since so much of it can only be appreciated in its final form on the screen. I guess somebody must have trusted Mamoulian’s vision, and the screenwriters, songwriters and director must have shared a total understanding of what they were about. That rarely happens nowadays.

Here we see a song spreading through Paris and out into the countryside like a virus, or like one of Richard Dawkins’ idea-organisms which he calls memes.  Some of the verses are priceless, as when a songwriter sings about what a nice tune it is, and how he’d like to write it down and give it lyrics, and he then sings the musical notes it’s composed of. The way the song spreads across the nation is quickly hilarious, and all the variations are both amusing and musically delightful.

To dip a toe into the dubious waters of hyperbole, I once heard Tarantino say of a scene in John Woo’s THE KILLER, “You could watch twenty years of American movies and not see something so imaginative!” That’s kind of what I feel about this scene (and nearly all the other scenes in this movie) — you could string Tarantino and Woo’s entire back catalogues together, and throw in Rodriguez for good measure, and not even hope to come up with anything that could hold a candle to this. And that’s not even a knock (I will get around to knocking those guys sometime): there are very few filmmakers who could ever come close to this for wit and innovation, and probably none who could sustain it for more than a few films.

Of course, Maurice Chevalier is an unusual entertainer and some find him hard to take. A glance at his newsreel appearance, apologising for his wartime antics (entertaining the troops is OK, but German troops?) is enough to make one see how his nudge-nudge manner can slip over into something sinister and oleaginous. But there’s something else there: an improbable charm and a colossal, irrepressable musical-comedy talent. 

I was surprised and pleased to discover recently, showing this film, and some Lubitsch, to students, that they seemed to quickly warm to him and enjoy his slightly grotesque, tongue-in-cheek, ebullient cheek (Which reminds me, I’ve been meaning to blog all about the role of CHEEK in cinema). He’s a small bundle of lumpy French manhood crammed to bulging with bonhomie and badinage and there certainly ought to be a place for this in our hearts and on our iPods. I have “Girls Girls Girls” from THE MERRY WIDOW on my MP3 Player and it only takes one verse to put a spring in my step as I am suffused with M. Chevalier’s appalling gallic miasma. Let’s spread the word and make 2008 the Year of the Boulevardier!

Euphoria #5

 

Progress report: have uploaded David E’s ciné-bliss excerpt to YouTube, but it hasn’t appeared yet. Probably the system is overloaded with patriotic Brits downloading the Queen’s Speech (we must start calling it OneTube). Am just uploading Craig K’s example of movie-jubilation in the B.G. as I type this.

But if, like the population of HOGMANAY CITY, where I reside, you have a woken this morning with a sair heid and a pocket full of sticky pennies, you will undoubtedly be needing a fresh fix of soothing cinematic satori, this time suggested by regular reader Levi Stahl.

IT’S ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER should sooth those troubled brows.

 ”My euphoric moment would probably also be a musical number: Gene Kelly’s dance on roller skates in It’s Always Fair Weather. For a cinematic depiction of floating two feet off the ground because of love, you can’t do much better.”

For me, it’s not just the song, it’s not even the dancing per se, it’s the GLIDING (which is part of the dance, OK). And also the WIDE SIDEWALKS. Nothing mean about these streets. Not only is Kelly happy (and the lyrics do a great job of conveying the surprise of happiness to those not used to the sensation) but, as in so many of the best musical numbers, the world redesigns itself around him to allow the emotion to be expressed through the media of song and dance, the crowds miraculously part and thin to allow him to move with total freedom. Kelly is in tune with the universe, and my belief that the true nature of cinema is expressionistic gets a boost.

Best wishes for 2008 from Shadowplay.

The Twinkler

When top cinematographer Henri Alekan came to the Edinburgh Film Festival, I think I was the first person in the audience to shoot my hand up with a question (helpful hint: there’s usually a lull before anybody volunteers, so if you have a question ready, jump in there).

I asked about Jean Marais’ first appearance in Cocteau’s LA BELLE ET LA BETE. As “The Beast” steps briskly into view, sideways, his eyes appear to FLASH. I asked if this was deliberate, and if so, how was it achieved?

Well, I should’ve known better. The Great Cameraman affixed me with his bright gaze.

“It was deliberate,” he replied, through his interpreter. But either the second (non-dumb-ass) part of the question hadn’t been translated, or old Henri preferred to be enigmatic on the subject, because he never answered it.

And then everybody else in the audience took their cue from me and asked a lot of questions about whether the colour in WINGS OF DESIRE “was deliberate”, or whether the beautiful lighting of Audrey Hepburn in ROMAN HOLIDAY “was deliberate”. Embarrassing.

Anyhow, freezing the image, or going thru it in Still-Advance seems to provide an answer: the eyes have probably been retouched somehow, either with an optical or with neg-scratching. I didn’t want to believe this because I like the way low-tech FX work predominates in LA BELLE and Cocteau’s other films. The effects literally harken back to the days of Melies, and we don’t have to spend any time “wondering how they did it” — we KNOW at first glance how they did it, and so we get over that and just accept it as magic.

Of course, it’s just possible that Marais has little pieces of mirror affixed to his eyelids and is blinking as he emerges in order to sharply reflect the strong light that’s hitting his upper face…

I love that effect, quite unreal, where somebody has particularly bright light on their upper face. Of course such lighting CAN happen in real life, but in movies it can and should happen MUCH MORE OFTEN.

Alekan shot Jules Dassin’s continental caper TOPKAPI using a lot of lurid opticals, filters and gels, to create a kaleidoscopic, quintessentially silly ’sixties vibe. I love it, but seemingly not everybody agrees. One film archivist I met, who was given the job of scanning the movie for location shots of Istanbul (dunno why) said it gave him a headache for a week. This miracle advance in Neurological Cinema is only possible when you have fine artists like Alekan and Dassin who are willing to lay aside all the good taste they’ve cultivated over the years and just wallow in glorious photochemical kitsch:

This last image features another favourite thing of mine: an obviously fake set!

Mmmmmm…