A word to the wise

Yes! I’ve finally managed to see Polanski’s J’ACCUSE with English subtitles, something our capitalist system has not chosen to make commercially available. Thanks to the subs I could recognise the faint allusion to CHINATOWN above.

J’ACCUSE is excellent — after the lacklustre D’APRES UNE HISTOIRE VRAI, a thriller without thrills, and the fair-to-middlebrow CARNAGE (Polanski has his middlebrow side), this one is really absorbing. As script collaborator, Robert Harris brings much of the same solid craft that made THE GHOST / THE GHOST WRITER a success (and here we again have a choice of titles, with the leaden AN OFFICER AND A SPY for those to whom Zola’s celebrated title means nothing; wasted effort since the film doesn’t seem to have screened in any anglophone territories).

It has only a few of the keen, imaginative flourishes I love in this filmmaker’s work, only a few things only his peculiar mind would think of — for instance, there’s no mysterious squeaking that resolves into a man cleaning a limo with chamois leather — but it finds its own way into the familiar story and takes you there and holds you.

I wasn’t hugely keen on the transitions into flashback, a little fancy and digital for such a classical piece of storytelling. But there are other things that are more powerful. Right after Polanski does a CGI-assisted zoom into a finger pointing out Devil’s Island on the globe, he shows Dreyfus being locked in his cell; looking out the window; his view; a reverse angle showing his prison; the same, from further away, showing the whole island; further again, the island diminished to a speck; further still more, the island vanished completely in the limitless blue.

Astute, precise, merciless.

The Situ

In bed to save on heating because it’s COLD. Momo will probably snuggle up later when he’s finished shouting. Fiona’s going out to meet a friend.

I’m going to listen to the rest of the Jovanovich testimony which is HOT STUFF. If you’re not following this, you should be — exciting viewing. It occurs to me that the Republican pols, those not entirely dead to all moral feeling, are in HELL and have been all through this presidency, having to make excuses for this guy who represents the opposite of the “values” they claim to espouse. Good. Their troubles may be about to end, just not in the way they would choose. But I make no predictions. I live by the tenet, “Things can always get worse.”

Still, life in the Shadowplayhouse is fairly pleasant, we went to see the film billed as THE IRISHMAN which, when you get in to see it, turns out to be called I HEARD YOU PAINT HOUSES. First switcheroo of that sort I’ve seen since Polanski’s THE GHOST (according to UK posters) had a fancy end creds sequence in which it announced its title as THE GHOST WRITER.

And I picked up this month’s Sight & Sound, which asides from boasting articles from pals Hannah McGill and Pamela Hutchinson, features two favourable mentions of yours truly on the same page: my video essay for THE BELLS OF ST MARY’S is, apparently, “highly engaging” and part of a “divine set of extras” while the one I did with Anne Billson for THE FATE OF LEE KHAN is “effervescently enthusiastic”. Stephen C. Horne edited both pieces.

I’ll say some nice things about the Scorsese next week. It is not to be missed.

All Of Them Witches

It always seemed strange that ROSEMARY’S BABY (1968) featured a character using the pseudonym Roman Castevet (anagram of his real name, Steven Marcato), and was directed by Roman Polanski and co-starred another director, John Cassavetes. Roman Roman Cassavetes Castevet. Also Marcato sounds like Mocata, the Crowleyesque leader of the Satanists in THE DEVIL RIDES OUT.

But it gets stranger. In TOO LATE BLUES (1961), directed by Cassavetes, Bobby Darin plays a musician called Ghost — and Polanski would later direct a film of the novel The Ghost, called THE GHOST WRITER in most countries but just THE GHOST in the UK, where it was assumed people would have read the book. In TOO LATE BLUES, Ghost’s romantic interest is played by Stella Stevens and her character is called Jess Polanski.

In ROSEMARY’S BABY, screenwriter/actress Ruth Gordon plays Minnie Castevet, and Cassavetes directed MINNIE AND MOSKOWITZ in which Gena Rowlands plays Minnie Moore.

TOO LATE BLUES has a supporting character called Skipper and ROSEMARY’S BABY has a character who is a ship’s skipper.

John Cassavetes’ OPENING NIGHT features Louise Lewis as a character called Kelly, whereas ROSEMARY’S BABY features a character called Laura-Louise played by Patsy Kelly.

Convinced yet? And of what?