Portrait of Shirley
Wey-hey! My Clarkicle is up now at Moving Image Source. All that viewing of Shirley Clarke’s stuff at the Edinburgh Film Festival has paid off not just (just? JUST???!) in pleasure and edification, but in COLD HARD BANDWIDTH.
Thanks to Dennis at MIS and Niall and Diane at the Film Fest for the opportunity to get Clarke some more exposure.
Now to get to work again on my next piece, on Shadowplay favourite Joseph Losey…
July 15, 2008 at 1:40 pm
really enjoyed the shirley clarke article. Wish I’d been in better shape to see more over the festival.
Am waiting with baited breath for your Mamma Mia ! review….
July 15, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Thanks, and:
I suppose I COULD subject myself to Mama Mia! in the interests of Wilful Eccentricity, but instead I’ll just point you here:
http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2008/07/some-notes-on-m.html
I think that says enough. But maybe I can be prevailed upon to be indiscrete and reveal what Seamus McGarvey told me about why he didn’t end up shooting the film…
July 15, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Very good piece on Shirley. Her first dance film clearly parallels Maya Deren’s A Study in Choreography For Camera with Tally Beatty doing the dancing, which was made around the same time.
July 15, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Meryl Streep is NOT demented. She’s just very high-spirited and funny.
July 15, 2008 at 7:51 pm
Yes, Deren and Clarke have definite affinities.
I haven’t seen the Streep, but the deal is, she refused to allow Seamus McGarvey to hoot Mama Mia! because she didn’t like how she looked in The Hours. He was slightly hurt (although he ended up getting paid quite well for NOT shooting Mama Mia!) because of course he CAN make actresses look glamorous, it’s part of his skill-set, but it was a deliberate decision to make those parts of The Hours look quite harsh. To make her look slightly better amid the harshness (because she was VERY unhappy) he invented the “Streep Light”, which would be lowered on a pulley to make her look more glamorous while his assistants sand “Streep Light / Streep Light…” But she still wouldn’t let him shoot her again.
I suggested “I guess she knows how Nestor Almendros made her look…”
He suggested “Yes, but that was 25 years ago…”
July 15, 2008 at 10:26 pm
And Nestor wasn’t available having died of AIDS.
Don’t you just hate when that happens?
July 15, 2008 at 10:43 pm
I do, I really do.
Seamus’ problem reminds me of the Doris Day story. Producer: “She thinks she doesn’t get old. She noticed she didn’t look so good in her last film. She thought the cameraman was getting old. She wanted me to fire him.”
July 16, 2008 at 1:08 pm
I enjoyed Mama Mia ! so much I’m going to see it AGAIN tomorrow ! and looking forward to not playing London prices - £9 in Camden to see it… and the clear and present danger of Amy being present…. the price is too high.
July 16, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Well, enjoy! Rather you than me. I like the tunes, but I’m not sure I want to hear them sung by that cast…
July 17, 2008 at 5:17 am
Streep is lovely (especially when she sings “The Winner Takes it All”), but the film as a whole is no I Love Melvin.
Meanwhile. . .
Shirley would have adored Taylor Greeson.
July 17, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Sounds like it! I’ll watch out for this one.
July 17, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Nice article on Clarke. I’d lost interest after a 16mm screening of “Portrait of Jason”. You write “Deprived of any distractions, we have to think about Holliday and decide for ourselves why his story matters.” - but I wasn’t sure why his story mattered because the sound was blown-out and I could only catch every other word he said. If you can’t even try to follow the story, it’s an achingly boring film. Would love to see the Ornette Coleman doc or “Cool World” sometime.
July 17, 2008 at 6:05 pm
The Coleman doc can be ordered in the US, and there’s a good quality disc of Jason from Second Sight in the UK. Yes, it certainly would be pretty alienating if you can’t hear what he’s saying.
Cool World is quite unique and terribly impressive, but we have to wait for producer Frederick Wiseman to permit a DVD release, or die. Or for somebody to strike prints and get cinema screenings.