First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About Film

https://notesonfilm1.com/2023/05/11/thinking-aloud-about-film-stella-dallas-henry-king-usa-1925/

We discuss the latest in the series of magnificent Film Foundation Screenings, the 1925 version of STELLA DALLAS directed by Henry King and restored by MOMA. It’s a glorious experience to see a film now almost 100 years old, looking brand new, probably seeing it in a better condition than most audiences would have seen it upon first release, particularly if they didn’t live in major metropolitan centres. The quality of the image, the toning, the tinting: it’s a sensuous joy. We also praise the film itself. It’s a work that continues to move. We compare it to two later versions: King Vidor’s 1937 film with Barbara Stanwyck and John Erman’s 1990 version with Bette Midler. We discuss the treatment of class in all three films. José argues for the superiority of the 1937 version and praises Stanwyck and the extraordinary last shot of that film. That aside, we also discuss why we love this marvellous silent film, praised as a masterpiece when it first came out and then sidelined as a mere ‘woman’s film’ for many generations.

https://notesonfilm1.com/2023/05/06/thinking-aloud-about-film-water-drops-on-burning-rocks-francois-ozon-france-2000/

Today’s Fassbinder is a podcast on François Ozon’s adaptation of Fassbinder’s play, WATER DROPS LIKE BURNING ROCKS (France, 2000). This is the second of Ozon’s adaptations of a Fassbinder work, the other being the dreadful PETER VON KANT. We discuss the play, which remained unproduced in Fassbinder’s lifetime; how the theatrical is rendered cinematic in Ozon’s fine adaptation; how amazing it is that a 19 year-old can imagine and do such a fine job of dramatizing this roundelay of relationships (homosexual, bisexual, heterosexual, transexual) in 1964 Munich: lucid, clear-eyed, aware of interpersonal dynamics, of sexual power plays. We discuss the extent to which the play brings in elements we know of Fassbinder’s own biography; we relate it to Fassbinder’s other films (FOX AND HIS FRIENDS)…. and much more:

https://notesonfilm1.com/2023/04/29/thinking-aloud-about-film-the-bill-douglas-trilogy/

We discuss The Bill Douglas Trilogy. The first with it's echoes of Maxim Gorky must be one of the greatest films in the history of cinema, and a discovery. My Ain Folk, also medium length, we also claim is a great film. We hae greater doubts about the third film, My Own Way Home, the only one that really qualifies as feature length. We compare the films to Turkish films we've been seeing recently that describe a way of life that seems centuries old. We also compare the works to the novels of Douglas Stuart (Shuggie Bain; Young Mungo). Lastly, we wonder to what extent class bias affected Bill Douglas' career, a talent as is evident here with such a short filmography....

A film that frightened me when I first saw it as a teenager. Richard’s only now seen it. Does it hold up? Made at a time when there was a real dearth of representation, this is as queer as a film can be, on many levels. The problem is not homosexuality but bourgeois exploitation, including by gay men. Why hasn’t Fassbinder been canonised by all the young queer boys? We speculate on that and much more in the accompanying podcast.

https://notesonfilm1.com/2023/04/15/prisioneros-de-la-tierra-prisoners-of-the-earth-mario-soffici-argentina-1939/

Seen as part of The Film Foundation’s ‘Restoration Screening Room’: Prisioneros de la tierra/Prisoners of the Earth (Mario Soffici, Argentina, 1939) is a melodrama that vividly evokes emotions but channels them so the film also acts as a social critique of colonialism, exploitative employment practices, the treatment of indigenous peoples by foreign capital, class and ethnicity. A revelation that encourages revolution or at least warns of uprisings. A film that generally tops the charts of best films ever made in Argentina. We discuss all this and more in the accompanying podcast:

https://notesonfilm1.com/2023/04/09/thinking-aloud-about-film-beware-of-the-holy-whore-rainer-werner-fassbinder-west-germany-1971/

I’ve been watching all the Fassbinder films I can get my hands on in chronological order and find this the culmination of his early works, a great film about filmmaking to rank alongside Minnelli’s TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN (1962) Godard’s CONTEMPT (1963) or Truffaut’s DAY FOR NIGHT (1973). Richard hasn’t seen a Fassbinder film for two decades and finds it harder to get into. We discuss the structure, the marvellous visual and dramatic handling of a very large cast, the gorgeous glossy look –surprising in Fassbinder films to this point -- and snake-like long takes (Michael Ballhaus is the cinematographer), the psycho-sexual power dynamics in the narrative and we admire Hannah Schygulla. A main take-away from this conversation with Richard is how Fassbinder’s early work points to a type of cinema and a type of queer representation that the AIDS pandemic brought an end to and of which QUERELLE might be a nodal point. BEWARE OF THE WHOLY WHORE is ostensibly based on Fassbinder’s experience of filming WHITY (1971) but it is a difficult film to see at this point and that aspect has largely been left out of the discussion.

https://notesonfilm1.com/2023/04/03/thinking-aloud-about-film-de-cierta-manera-one-way-or-another-sara-gomez-cuba-1974/

Thinking Aloud About Film talks Sara Gomez’ debut feature, DE CIERTA MANERA/ ONE WAY OR ANOTHER, a model of Marxist dialectical filmmaking, mixing fiction and documentary; a dramatic auto-critique of class and race that puts gender at the centre: an extraordinary film, currently on MUBI.

https://notesonfilm1.com/2023/03/29/thinking-aloud-about-film-hippodrome-silent-film-festival-2023-boness/

Intrepid investigative journalist Richard Layne returns to the Hippodrome Silent Film Festival to report on the films and the glamour of Silent Cinema in Bo’Ness, a model of what place and event can do together: a site of scholarship, restoration, fandom and even the commission of aspects of production, bringing together a cultural intersection of the local and the international. An unmissable event that I unfortunately had to miss but luckily for us, Richard was there and leaves no stone unturned.

https://notesonfilm1.com/2023/03/22/thinking-aloud-about-film-el-imperio-de-la-fortuna-the-realm-of-fortune-arturo-ripstein-mexico-1986/

Dionisio (Ernesto Gómez Cruz) lives with his mother in a one-room hut, scraping a living as a town-cryer. He’s at cock-fight in a village fair and is given a bloodied rooster as a tip. Dionisio heals him and begins a career. The innocent naïve peasant is transformed into a leading gambler, marries a beautiful singer (Blanca Guerra), who brings him even more luck. But in his single-minded pursuit of money, he loses sight of everything else and ensures his own downfall. A synthesis of many elements we’ve seen in previous Ripstein films, a film which shows the influence of Italian neo-realism but also leaps into a more magical kind of story-telling. Dark and funny, with a great evocation of the sensual and criminal dimension of rural fairs. We discuss this and more in the podcast.

https://notesonfilm1.com/2023/03/15/thinking-aloud-about-film-cadena-perpetua-life-sentence-arturo-ripstein-mexico-1979/

A great noir, currently on MUBI, that brings to mind Crime & Punishment, Jean Valjean, Bresson's Pickpocket and I Was a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, among others. A petty thief and former pimp, now a banker, s forced back into a life of crime by the very police who are meant to uphold the law. The story is told in flashback, through voice-over; the setting is contemporary; the indictment of the culture in the final shot, brutal. Whilst a society of spectacle is obsessed with a football match our hero's odds against tomorrow are nil. There's no exit, he's got no way out. He's no good, but the structures of the culture are even worse. A great film.