Lost in Criterion

Robert Altman adapts nine Raymond Carver short stories and a poem into a huge ensemble drama that, if about anything at all, seems to be a condemnation of toxic masculinity on par with Catherine Breillet's Fat Girl. It's got a lot going on, and Altman's decision to transport all the narratives to LA and interconnect them both helps and harms. Ultimately, fidelity to the source material isn't the point, and can't be -- as we discuss in regards to the portions based on "So Much Water So Close to Home" short stories are, by their nature, doing different things than film scenes -- but Carver's spirit still exists here. At least as far as we can tell, as neither Pat nor Adam have read any Carver.

After spending something like 12 hours on variations of the same material we finally finish the Fanny and Alexander boxset with The Making of Fanny and Alexander a behind the scenes film of Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander directed by Bergman himself. While we've peaked behind the Swede's curtain before with Sjoman's peak at Winter Light's creation in Ingmar Bergman Makes a Movie, this one seems more true to life, with a Bergman who knows what he wants but is still willing to trust his collaborators (sometimes) all while acting as a film-making grandfather in so many ways.

Technically released first, but planned second, the theatrical cut of Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander removes over 2 hours of material that, while perhaps non-essential, helps make the longer cut the better version. Three hours and eight minutes is still pretty h*ckin' long for a theatrical film, though it turns out there was a Swedish theatrical release of the full 312 minute "television cut" as one movie in 1983. I think that's probably a bad idea, too. Consume it as the four television episodes over the course of a few nights and you have a much more manageable and enjoyable experience.

This is part two of our discussion of Fanny and Alexander, following last week's discussion of the television cut.

Contrary to what Adam says toward the beginning of this week's episode, Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander was not first released in a 312 minute cut. The long cut was planned first, but the first release was the shorter 188 minute version in 1982, which we'll talk more about next week. Still this longer version was actually released to theaters in December of 1983 before being chopped into four episodes for Swedish television a bit later.

This is part one of our discussion, one because there's just too much Fanny and Alexander for one episode, an two because its impossible to talk about the shorter cut without talking about the longer, better cut. We'll see you next week for part two, which focuses more on the theatrical version of the film.

It's October so let's watch a classic horror film! (As if this was planned and not just a quirk in the randomness of the way the Criterion Collection presents films to us.)

Georges Franju was asked by producer Jules Borkon to make a British/American style horror film for a French audience, but one that didn't torture animals, have too much blood, or a mad scientist. So he made a film about a mad scientist who experiments on dogs and does a whole face transplant on screen.

Franju did so well emulating foreign horror that Eyes Without a Face was wholly disowned by the French film establishment. It's just that amazing.

Fat Girl is an unfortunately named coming of age story film that Catherine Breillat made in 2001 which led me to a greater understanding (though probably still not appreciation) of Liliana Cavani's The Night Porter which we discussed three and a half years ago. We're growing!

The film itself plays with similar, if much less Nazi-exploitative, themes to Cavani's work, speaking to the inherent violence of male-dominated sexual relationships. And it's ending! Oh goodness, the ending.

Robert Altman gets political again, but in a very different manner to last week's delightfully ranty satire. Instead we have a miniseries set against the 1988 Presidential race that may have been satirical in 1988, but we've gone through the looking glass as of late and instead it's just inside baseball. Which doesn't make it any less funny when it's funny, or poignant when it's poignant -- or exploitative when it's exploitative. Tanner '88, written by Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau, tells the story of a failed campaign in a ripped-from-the-headlines manner involving real political players interacting with Altman's fakes over the course of 11 episodes that are incredibly uneven individually, but pretty great as a whole.

A clearly disturbed and vile president rants about the conspiracies against him while contemplating suicide, and somehow is so full of pathos that we find ourselves feeling pity instead of anger.

There are...modern parallels? Robert Altman's Secret Honor's exploration of Nixon's psyche is a class of its own, due mostly to Philip Baker Hall's masterful performance. Still it does remind us of certain contemporary pieces, namely the first episode of Comedy Central's The President Show (particularly starting at about the 5 minute mark), and Aimee Mann's brilliantly tragic entry for 30 Days 30 Songs "Can't You Tell?".

We properly finish the Five Films box set with Charles Kiselyak's 2000 video eulogy to John Cassavettes. A Constant Forge finds Cassevettes' friends and creative squad telling anecdotes about the man and his process. The biggest lesson: we've been pronouncing Gena Rowlands' name wrong for the past month.

Gena Rowlands is on an absolute tour de force in this final film in the John Cassavetes: Five Films boxset. Well, technically there's a six we'll talk about next week, but you know. Opening Night (1977) is a psychological drama about a middle-aged actress having a nervous breakdown as she prepares for a show, and it borders on being a horror film the way it is shot and soundtracked.