UPU2?

SOUTHLAND TALES felt like just the kind of film I should be defending here, before I watched it. I fairly loved DONNIE DARKO, Richard Kelly’s debut feature, and although DOMINO, which he scripted, gave me a bad vibe and I didn’t see it, SOUTHLAND sounded weird and funny and crammed with STUFF, which is often the way I like my movies. Plus it’s had a chequered history and a lot of critical savaging, much of it fairly crass.

TV’s Mark Kermode, in particular, should be struck off the critic’s list for mindlessly panning the thing on The Culture Show. “It’s terrible,” he said, “Really terrible. Look, here’s a clip. See how terrible it is?” A twenty second clip aired, and charming but light-weight co-presenter Lauren Laverne nodded. “I see what you mean.” Absolutely no critical analysis was offered whatsoever. And it’s a film which certainly warrants a bit of analysis.

The task is complicated by the fact that the version of SOUTHLAND TALES released is not the original director’s cut — Kelly was forced to alter his vision in order to get it screened at all, after the initial very bad response. What I mainly found myself wondering as I watched was what was part of the original conception and what had been added or subtracted to try and streamline the film and make it, what? Commercial, appealing, comprehensible?

The re-edit certainly fails on all three scores, at least on first viewing. The confusing narrative is surprising because there’s so much exposition — for the first third the movie is ALL EXPOSITION. Most of it is provided by a voice-over, and that’s part of the problem. Without a dramatic situation to engage us, the V.O. seems to wash over, bypassing comprehension. It’s telling us exactly what’s going on, but it’s hard to focus, in part because it’s impossible to see how the narrator, a character in the “story”, knows what he’s telling us. Since he’s not involved in most of the action, his narration blurs the story rather than clarifying it.

I was reminded of David Lynch’s DUNE, with it’s many internal monologues by many characters, seemingly pasted in out of a desperate urge to make us understand. My favourite is when the hero’s mum comes in a door, sees that her son is alive, looks relieved, and then her V.O. helpfully states, “My son — lives!” The redundancy is sort of comical and almost Lynchian. Kelly’s narration-stream isn’t as goofy as that, probably because it’s been added in an attempt to normalise a very weird film.

While Justin Timberlake delivers the verbal afterhthoughts with more gusto than Harrison Ford did in BLADE RUNNER, the result is more like the plot-summary that comes towards the end of LADY FROM SHANGHAI. As Orson Welles wanders the Crazy House, he muses on What Has Gone Before, and we pretty much miss everything he’s saying because it has nothing much to do with the imagery, which is far more interesting. Only when the words “…and I was the fall guy!” land on the image of Welles falling over are we able to register what’s being said at all. It’s not Welles’ fault, it’s the bone-heads at Columbia who forced him to add explanations at inapposite moments, just as R. Kelly has had to do.

Once the SOUTHLAND V.O. thins out and the plot, whatever it is, actually gets in motion, it starts to feel like we’re getting somewhere. Generally the bits with music feel like a movie, rather than a tape-slide presentation or a very long “Previously on Lost” montage, and I started to feel like the film could be an enjoyable experience even without my fully understanding it. I like lots of films I don’t understand. As the proceedings got more fun, I started to yearn for the original version. All the attempts at clarification seemed to make for a more boring experience.

The casting is the high point for me. I always rejoice in the gurning visage of Wallace Shawn, and it was cool to see POLTERGEIST’s Zelda Rubinstein, still looking like she’s been compressed in a car crusher. Bai Ling attempts to inject sultriness into every line reading or movement, Sarah Michelle Gellar does some good porn star acting, the Rock makes his eyes go beady and does weird nervous finger movements, and Justin Timberlake is rather good. Miranda Richardson seems to have been cast for her face rather than her acting, which is quaint as she’s a magnificent actress, one of the real power-houses. But since her costume screams “Villainess!” and that’s all her character is, she really has very little she can add.

The levitating ice-cream van at the end made me think of the flying car in Alex Cox’s REPO MAN, and it seemed clear at that point that the earlier visionary punk sci-fi masterpiece (which anticipates everything from THE X FILES to Grant Morrison’s comic book The Invisibles) was a definite influence. Interestingly, Repo Man now has a comic book sequel, just like SOUTHLAND TALES.

I also thought of the movie Guido’s making in Fellini’s EIGHT AND A HALF. “Do you like movies in which nothing happens?” The idea of a film which tries to include EVERYTHING is a perversely appealing one, even if it’s doomed to fail. In a way, all films fail — they always disappoint their makers. Kelly seems to have gone into this one believing he might never be given another job, so he had to make this film stand in for an entire filmography. Ironically, it’s such a high-profile catastrophe he’s almost certain to be offered more work by the kind of producers who like to present themselves as taming unruly talents.

“The name’s Rock. Rock Rock.”

Biting the hand

One of the few things Sergio Leone didn’t pinch from Kurosawa’s YOJIMBO when he unofficially remade it as A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS, was this cheeky moment:

As man-with-no-name wandering ronin Toshiro Mifune slouches up the main street of the film’s no-horse town, an intent dog hurries past, jaws clamped jealously down on a tasty morsel salvaged from some recent street-fight.

I guess cowboy films weren’t using imagery like this in the early sixties, plus in a genre dominated by gunplay rather than swordplay, the lopped limb would raise unanswerable questions. Too bad.

But Italy hadn’t finished with the right-handed dog. He makes another appearance in scene one of Lucio Fulci’s nauseatingly effective NEW YORK RIPPER, emerging from a bush to startle his walker with a tidbit retrieved from the bushes.

NYR is indeed an extremely offensive film, with the typical giallo misanthropy and misogyny turned up to eleven. When it was submitted to the British Board of Film Classification (not Censorship, no no!), director James Ferman not only banned it outright, he personally escorted the print back to the airport to make sure it left the country without corrupting and depraving anybody en route.

While director Lucio Fulci’s previous employment as a DOCTOR may explain his extremely high tolerance for scenes of gore and suffering, it does make me worry slightly for his patients. They’d be better off with seeing nice Dr. Miller down the corridor.

The dog wasn’t through yet. He pads his way out of a bank in David Lynch’s WILD AT HEART, another gory forelimb clenched triumphantly in his canines, pay-off to a gruesome and somewhat dislikeable joke that kind of mars the film, arguably Lynch’s most cynical and unpleasant. (Lynch, as always, finds real sympathy for his protagonists, but it’s offset by a callous treatment of the film’s little people, of which the dog incident is a strong example.) It IS, however, proof that Lynch does watch movies and draw inspiration from them. It’s easy to see the director as a complete original, or somebody more influenced by the other arts than by film history, which may be somewhat true, but he also picks up moments from a wide range of movies and recycles them in an interesting way. I was struck by a moment in Michael Tolkin’s THE NEW AGE where Peter Weller meets a strange monk-like man in black at a party. The basics of the scene undeniably form the basis for Robert Blake’s terrifying entrance into LOST HIGHWAY.

Taking the mutt full circle, Philip Kaufman quotes the Kurosawa scene directly as part of a karaoke scene in RISING SUN, based on Michael Crichton’s anti-Japanese crime thriller. The fact that karaoke machines don’t usually screen extracts from classic Japanese cinema tells you everything you need to know about the accuracy of this strident warning about the dangers of Japanese cultural influence. My friend Kiyo expressed an interest in the film at the time saying that he wondered if Sean Connery’s character would speak Japanese with an Osaka accent, “Because people in Osaka shpeak like thish.” But when he saw it, his only reaction was, “Sean Connery’s Japanese fucking crap!”

It’s tempting to come up with more roles for man’s right-hand dog. At the start of Polanski’s MACBETH, the three witches bury a severed arm on a beach. I’d like to think our doggy pal (I’m going to name him MURDO) is lurking just outside the frame of Gilbert Taylor’s Panavision lens, waiting to trot over and dig up his evening’s meal.

Euphoria #41: “I Am The Muffin.”

 

We are gathering together all the little moments of cinema that make you full of happiness the way John Travolta is full of puddings.

Writer, filmmaker and ghost tour guide Kristin Loeer sallies forth with this distinctive take on the subject. As we enter the low 40s, the Euphoria starts to darken, you see. This is noirphoria… 

“I realised that it’s hardly ever happy moments that seem to stick with me. It seems that the scenes that mean the most to me are those that make me recognise something about myself.

“Watching Twin Peaks Fire: Walk with Me was a great experience. The entire film sort of takes me back to my teens and growing up in a small town and facing so many new and scary things, suddenly growing up: sexuality, depression, dreams and fears.

“There are two particular scenes which remind me exactly of the feeling of being between the ages of 13 and 16 again. One is the nightclub scene. I am not saying that is what happened when I went out being about 14, but the general feeling of this scene is exactly the feeling I remember from that time. The raw sexuality, the characters and how they talk and seem to deeply understand each other when it is not making much sense. It is comforting somehow to recognise so much later that the first nights out are not necessarily experienced like the prom in Pretty in Pink, but more like this scene from Fire Walk with Me. It is not exactly a happy realisation or memory but makes you think that some people out there experienced it the same way you did. Which makes me feel better… even though I propably shouldn’t.

“The other is the one in which Laura is in bed at night and Bob comes through the window and crawls onto her bed and they make love and she realises it’s her father. I did not find the scene that disturbing compared to others. It just felt like that is just exactly what sexuality feels like to young girls between 13 and 16. –or is that just me?

“– well, even if it is just me, this scene makes me happy because it is not just me, Laura felt like that too — and no, you don’t have to be abused by your father for it!

“And then of course I remember that significant moment when I zapped through TV many years ago and suddenly saw that moment from Blue Velvet where Isabella Rossellini asks Kyle McLachlan to hit her. It was part of a very short trailer for the film which was going to be on that night. It made me feel very strange and I knew I had to watch this, what ever it was.

“It was one of those first moments I remember where I really thought to myself “Ohh, something is VERY WRONG with you.”

“But that’s all a bit… well, dodgy?” 

We don’t judge, here at Cinema Euphoria. 

(I repeat: Kris is a ghost tour guide. She leads people into Edinburgh’s most haunted catacombs and tells them stories. Come to Edinburgh and she’ll scare the crap out of you for money.)

Interestingly enough, the extract already on Youtube comes as part of a series of “Worst Movie Scenes,” which shows once again that it takes diff’rent stroke / all kinds, etc. But the reasoning behind the scene’s classification as a “worst” seems highly dubious to me, suggesting that maybe it DOESN’T take all kinds, just a magical combination of weirdballs and dumb-asses.

Even interestinger, the very reasons given by the YouTube people for worst-tagging this scene are part of the reason Kris likes it: the baffling dialogue. It’s not that it makes sense to her as such, but it makes sense for the dialogue to BE baffling.

As a sign of how under-regarded this movie was when it came out, the British distributor accidentally released a version without any subtitles for the roadhouse scene,  so this scene was even more puzzling than Lynch intended, since it’s very carefully mixed so you can’t hear quite what anybody is saying (which, as Kris observes, makes it the perfect evocation of the clubbing experience).

The little guy who talks backwards was unsubtitled too, which made things pretty tough.

Of all the stuff you guys have chosen for Euphoria, this clip maybe loses most, firstly because it’s too short, so you don’t get the full oppressive effect of Angelo Badalamenti’s music (which eventually fades out with the longest decay EVER) and secondly because there’s no way it’s going to sound like it should sound in a cinema. I mean, I know our little boxes here are far from adequate at the best of time, I just think this time the shortfall is more than usually destructive.

(Incidentally, Badalamenti came to the Edinburgh Film Festival a few years back and turned out to be THE FUNNIEST MAN ALIVE.)

I think this is a fine example of Cinema Euphoria, even if a lot of people might find it strange. Film is a mental connector, a bridge between minds, and sometimes that projector beam shines out just to find a single person, somewhere in the darkness, and make them glow.

Euphoria #20

My chum Nicola Hay suggests this delirious moment from KISS ME KATE. Fiona very nearly chose it as her first Cinema Euphoria entry, but Louis Prima as a cartoon orang-utan just pipped it on the Smilometer.

But who can truly measure such things? As Nicola says, Ann Miller always looked like she was really enjoying herself.

(I don’t have the DVD — damnit, why DON’T I? — so I can’t replace this rather fuzzy image found on Youtube with a sharper one.)

This movie also features Bob Fosse, previously featured in Cinema Euphoria in his role as director of SWEET CHARITY. Choreographer Hermes Pan (renowned for his work with Fred Astaire, though Fred is the prime mover there) encouraged Fosse to do his own choreography, since Fosse had a unique way of moving.

A lot of young Lynchians see Ann Miller in MULHOLLAND DRIVE and don’t realise what a wonderful artist they’re seeing. Lynch, who never auditions actors, probably saw Miller in a talk show or interview (he cast Mystery Man Robert Blake in LOST HIGHWAY after remembering his appearances on Johnny Carson). Miller gave great interviews, and she had quite a story to tell. Among other things, she believed she was the reincarnation of Queen Hathshepsut of Ancient Egypt, and her difficulties with men stemmed from the fact that in her previous life she could have them executed whenever they displeased her.

Well, I guess that would simplify things.

Ken Russell loves Busby Berkeley

And:

This isn’t a theory! Russell has talked often about his love of Busby Berkeley’s musical numbers (also: Fritz Lang’s METROPOLIS; THE WIZARD OF OZ; THE BLUE ANGEL) and specifically homaged them in THE BOYFRIEND, but with a little squinting you can see their influence all over his work. Mad Ken correctly perceives them as nightmarish hallucinations (dreamed up by Busby in the bath under the malign influence of the dry martini, coincidentally Bunuel’s favourite tipple) and uses their Vigorously Oneiric Qualities regularly in his own work. The skull that moves in on us during the credits of GOTHIC is an even closer match for Wini Shaw in GOLD DIGGERS OF 1935, whom I’ve always referred to as The Floating Head of Death. She freaks me out, drifting in on me like that! Only Arthur Frayn from ZARDOZ is allowed to pull a stunt like that in my household. And even then, only once a year, on his birthday.

Now I’m wondering if the Floating Head Woman against the star-scape at the end of THE ELEPHANT MAN (”Nothing will die”), who fades from view, morphs into Virginia Madsen (we LOVE Virginia Madsen!), slips on a ruff and comes back at the start of DUNE, is also a descendant of Wini Shaw?

Put another way: does David Lynch love Busby Berkeley?

He’d be CRAZY not to!

EUPHORIA 1

Regular reader B. Kite suggested I blog about euphoric scenes, little film moments that induce detectable amounts of happiness in the viewer. He nominates the clip below, and it’s a good one! The real bliss starts about four and a half minutes in.

“something abt this number just makes me incredibly happy. as well as a beautiful arrangement of a great song (the first!), it’s the FACES”

Reminds me of Kubrick’s nice line about the last shot of THE SHINING: “Every face around Jack is an archetype of the period.”

Boy, if we could actually reincarnate in a Fred Astaire movie, just by freezing to death in a maze, who among us would have the courage to resist? It’s a very real problem.

Mr. K goes on:

“If I were going to nominate the greatest moments in movies, this wdn’t be in my top choices, but if we’re talking abt little moments that just make one v. happy…”

I propose to run a SERIES of such posts, with scenes nominated by YOU, the Shadowplayers, all you wonderful people out there in the dark! Send me links or just describe the scene you have in mind and I’ll try to get ahold of it (and Chris, no porn).

If, as David Lynch believes, we could solve all the world’s problems by getting the square root of the Earth’s population to transcendentally meditate at the same time — “And bango!” — then imagine what we could achieve if all the readers of this blog, the many millions, clicked on Fred Astaire at the same time. Let’s unroll some euphoria!

I’ll go next, to keep the ball rolling, but please, EVERYBODY, give me your thoughts.

(Oh, the film clip is from DAMSEL IN DISTRESS, directed by George Stevens — whom BK still doesn’t accept as a Great American Filmmaker, despite loving Stevens’ Astaire films — and it’s based on a story by the sublime P.G. Wodehouse, and features Joan Fontaine and Burns and Allen.)

The Greatest Movies Never Made II

Some of these might not be the greatest, but they’re all at least intriguing.

MOLL FLANDERS – Ken Russell. Produced by Bob Guccione. To be made in the wake of Guccione’s disastrous soft/hard porn CALIGULA, this soon fell apart as Guccione shot acres of nude screen tests without actually casting anybody. Russell backed out, and suddenly everybody was suing everybody else. Russell fought a successful defence against “the Gooch” with the aid of a lawyer who was an aspiring pop singer, paying his legal fees by shooting a video for the rapping attorney… Be that as it may, a version of Defoe’s raunchy picaresque by the creator of THE DEVILS is an appealing prospect. To me, anyhow.

THE CINCINNATI KID — Sam Peckinpah. Bloody Sam began this movie but was fired by the studio, who claimed he was attempting to use their facilities to shoot hard porn on weekends. No proof exists, but Susan George’s accounts of Peckinpah’s behaviour making STRAW DOGS does lend some credence to the allegation…

STALINGRAD – Sergio Leone. With, I seem to recall, a $500 million budget, half raised from the Americans, half from the Russians, this was to be Leone’s biggest film yet. Robert DeNiro may have starred as an American newsreel photographer romancing a Russian woman during the siege of Stalingrad. She would learn of his death buy seeing his footage: the camera falls to the ground while shooting battle scenes. Leone himself died before the film was underway. When Alex Cox asked to see the script this colossal budget was raised for, he was told it didn’t exist.

BONNIE AND CLYDE — Jean-Luc Godard. The writers were very keen to get Godard on board, and he seemed interested. Until a Warners executive told Godard that he’s have to shoot at a certain time of year. Godard asked why. “Because that’s when the weather will be right in the mid-west, and the film has to be shot in the mid-west.”

“I can shoot this film in Viet Nam if I want to,” attested JLG.

The writers were seriously impressed. Warner Bros were not. Given the amount of trouble Arthur Penn had with Warners with his, relatively conservative, vision, perhaps it’s best for all concerned that this collaboration went no further.

RONNIE ROCKET — David Lynch. The earliest of various unfilmed Lynch projects, written immediately after ERASERHEAD. The story of a three-foot-high man with red  hair and “physical problems”, and the mysterious force of electricity. Other tantalising Lynch scripts include THE DREAM OF THE BOVINE and ONE SALIVA BUBBLE…

DON QUIXOTE — Orson Welles. The king of the unmade film spent decades on this labour of love. Footage is scattered across the world, only some of it turning up in Jesus Franco’s 1992 assembly. Welles had been shooting additional scenes just before his death in 1985. He once said he’d call the film “When Are You Going to Finish Don Quixote?” After his death, his partner Oja Kodar tried to find somebody to cut together the reels of unlabelled material, driving it around Europe until former Welles collaborator and Eurotrash schlockmeister Jesus Franco made her an offer too low to refuse…

 

NOSTROMO — David Lean. Joseph Conrad’s novel was all set to go, as Lean’s next production after A PASSAGE TO INDIA. Hugh Hudson was in place as back-up director should Lean become indisposed during shooting. All bases were covered.

And then Lean dropped dead. At the funeral, his producer was furious.