Re: Fairfax Underground After Dark
Date: February 24, 2011 09:19PM
The Children of Fairfax Underground Wrote:
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> Mr. Misery Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Children, I just watched The Man Who Shot
> Liberty
> > Valance tonight. I thought is was a really good
> > movie. I enjoyed all the character actor's
> > performances in particular--the drunk newspaper
> > editor, Liberty Valance's lackeys (by the way,
> was
> > that Lee Van Cleef as the tall one who never
> > spoke? {I BELIEVE SO}), the town marshall (who I
> recognized as
> > the stagecoach driver from Stagecoach), and the
> > black guy, Pompey. Ford really had all those
> > western character types down. I used to hate
> > westerns, but I've really grown to appreciate
> them
> > recently.
>
> Well, geez. Here's a film generally considered a
> classic, and I'm a bit chagrined to say that I
> don't really like it. It just doesn't work for
> me.
>
> Where, say, The Searchers or My Darling Clementine
> have a convincing naturalistic feel (or at least
> the illusion thereof), Liberty Valance has the
> feel of a backlot. The cinematography and
> lighting are very flat (as distinguished from the
> outstanding camerawork in the two earlier
> pictures). Maybe those things shouldn't bug me,
> but they do. Perhaps a genuine appreciation of
> the film requires a sensibility more like yours
> than mine -- a sensibility that can appreciate a
> film like The Red Shoes? Dunno.
>
> While I have certain intellectual appreciation for
> the story, I've just never warmed up to this
> film.
>
>
> > The Red Shoes didn't really appeal to me at
> first
> > (I mean, it's about ballet, right?), but
> there's
> > just something about that film that I
> > enjoyed....it's really a statement on life as
> an
> > artist in the end, which I dug. One of those
> guys
> > who made it, either Pressburger or Powell, made
> a
> > really weird but interesting horror movie
> called
> > Peeping Tom. Ever seen it?
>
> I have seen Peeping Tom. That's a film that gets
> a fair amount of hype, from Martin Scorcese, among
> others. But it's yet another "classic" that
> leaves me completely cold. I just found the story
> hackneyed to the point where, whatever larger
> issues the filmmaker may have been trying to
> address didn't really matter to me, because the
> drama didn't work.
>
> Let me add -- I say "the drama didn't work"; I
> mean: it didn't work for me. There are enough
> people who dig this film that I readily admit that
> I might be missing something, though I don't think
> I am. Eh, who knows?
>
> Btb, I haven't been in years, but once upon a time
> I went through a brief balletomane phase.
> Alessandra Ferri doing Giselle is one of the great
> live performances I've ever seen - just
> awe-inspiring. And, as an added bonus, incredibly
> sexy.
>
>
> > about silent films, one of my favorites is The
> > Unknown by Tod Browning. That scene where Lon
> > Cheney (after having his arms amputated for the
> > girl he loves) realizes that she's in love with
> > someone else, is just perfect. You can see the
> > pain in his face. It's creepy and heartbreaking
> at
> > the same time.
>
> Yeah, The Unknown is very good. It's got those
> handful of scenes - like the one you mention -
> that are just so excruciatingly intense. Creepy
> and heartbreaking -- well-put. One little detail
> I particularly like is how we can see that the
> supposedly armless Chaney at the beginning is
> faking it. I think Chaney and Browning
> deliberately set up the audience to have them
> shaking their heads, to have them thinking, "Geez,
> Chaney is really doing a piss-poor job on his
> armless routine," and then pull the rug out from
> under them. (At least, that's how I reacted the
> first time I saw the film.)
>
>
> > you're right about everything in regard to
> Keaton.
> > Something about his performance really hits
> home
> > with me for some reason. Steamboat Bill Jr. is
> one
> > of those movies that I felt like was made just
> for
> > me. Brilliant stuff. I'd love to see it on a
> big
> > screen someday.
>
> You know, I grew up in the pre-dvd, pre-vhs era.
> As a child I had a regular 8mm (not Super 8!)
> print of Steamboat Bill on I guess 6 reels. I
> would play that film over and over again. I must
> have watched it 100 times. Much love for
> Steamboat Bill. But I sort of became focused on
> rather small details that particularly fascinated
> me, like the trick he does with sawing off his
> thumb, and the surreal sequence in the theater
> during the cyclone.
>
> That's why seeing it in a theater, as I mentioned
> in a previous post, was such a pleasant surprise
> -- to see how tremendously effective the climax
> was, which I had kind of become blind to over the
> years. And to really, genuinely feel the thrill
> of the character's turnaround - when he finally
> does perfectly all the things he had screwed up
> before.
>
>
> > But Children...I've had a
> > dilemma...I've kinda wanted to see Birth of a
> > Nation for a while now, just because it's said
> to
> > be the cornerstone of modern filmmaking, but is
> it
> > worth the three plus hours? Is it a must see
> for
> > someone interested in film in general, but not
> > necessarily a 'film buff'?
>
>
> Oh, my. Here's my take on Birth. I had seen
> clips from it, and it never really did anything
> for me. Then - at least 10 years ago - I had the
> opportunity to see it in a movie theater. There
> was actually a small protest organized outside the
> theater, but I went in anyway.
>
> Well, it was a great print, with very nicely done
> blue monotint for night, and sepia for the daytime
> (as I understand it the original was tinted), and
> an excellent score.
>
> The opening shot of the film, as I recall, was a
> fairly tight medium shot of a slave half-kneeling,
> half-sitting in chains on a platform, being
> displayed for sale. It was a truly awesome shot
> -- it felt like someone had taken a movie camera
> back to 1825 or whenever, and photographed a slave
> auction. The shot was in semi-deep focus -- you
> could see layers of the crowd reaching back to the
> vanishing point, all these different perfect
> period-type faces peering and craning to get a
> look at the slave.
>
> And the expression on the slave's face -- this
> incredible sadness.
>
> Just an awesome shot. And I thought to myself,
> g--damnit, Griffith may have been a racist, but I
> never saw an image, other than actual documentary
> photos, that captured so powerfully and acutely
> the tragedy of slavery.
>
> Just that one shot made me think: Griffith is a
> great artist.
>
> But you know there are different versions of that
> film floating around, and when I went to look for
> that shot on Youtube, I couldn't find it. (The
> two full-length versions on Youtube begin with a
> full or long shot of the slave auction, rather
> than the tight medium shot I recall.)
>
> So I'm wondering if it was partly or entirely in
> my imagination? Do I remember it that way because
> I was sitting very close to the screen? I don't
> know.
>
> But watching the film that one night, in a movie
> theater showing an excellent print, I must say it
> was a powerful experience. The battle scenes were
> really thrilling. Parts of the film are extremely
> stagy and dated, and the bad negro, Gus iirc,
> played by a white man in black face, is so over
> the top as to be ridiculous. And as contrived and
> on some level ludicrous, and certainly racist, as
> the climax is, I was, God help me, truly caught up
> by the excitement and tension of it.
>
> That said, I don't think it's a must-see for
> someone interested in film in general. If you can
> get ahold of a state-of-the-art dvd (or blue-ray,
> which I don't have the tech for myself, but seeing
> frame comparisons on the web, it definitely
> appears to be visibly better than the dvd format),
> then I think it would be worth checking out. But
> if you're not digging it - the quality of the film
> is uneven from scene to scene - don't torture
> yourself by watching every frame. Just skip to
> the good parts -- the battle scenes, and the last
> 20-odd minutes, when the KKK saves the day (!).
>
> Griffith invented film grammar. It's been awhile
> since I've seen it, but I think everything you
> need to know about Griffith, just about, can be
> found in an excellent documentary called "D.W.
> Griffith: Father Of Film" by Kevin Brownlow and
> David Gill (who also did the excellent
> documentaries "Unknown Chaplin" and "Buster
> Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow").
>
> A film you might like, that is much more
> accessible than Birth, is Broken Blossoms. Dunno,
> but you might dig that.
>
> Footnote: the same week I saw Birth of A Nation, I
> happened to see Greed by von Stroheim, and seeing
> the two films almost back-to-back, I concluded
> that Griffith was the greater artist -- that his
> work, while fraught with melodrama and staginess,
> was at its best richer and deeper than Stroheim's.
> Moments and scenes of emotional intensity that
> you could see Stroheim *tried* to achieve, but
> didn't quite reach, Griffith actually pulled off.
> In my humble opinion, anyway.
WUT???