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The critic: Manohla Dargis on film criticism

Jim Emerson

I came across this interview, several years old, with New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis at senses of cinema. This was back when she was still writing for the LA Times, and I think she has some incisive things to say about the state of film criticism:

I wish there were more women –- as well as more black, Asian and other non-white male critics writing about film in this country –- not because of some “politically correct” imperative but because it makes the discussion more interesting. It’s unbelievably tedious how similar in voice and thought many American film writers are, no matter what clique, school of thought or dead film critic to which they adhere.

Frankly, I am pretty bored with most of the film criticism I read, to the point that I am beginning to think we need to start re-examining what it is and what it’s good for, if anything. Of course, most of what’s out there isn’t really criticism but a degraded form of reviewing – just thumbs up, thumbs down, with a heavy dose of plot synopsis. Even reviewers who are somewhat more ambitious than the average hack tend to write about movies as if they’re reviewing books. They pay very little if any attention to the specifics of the medium, to how a film makes meaning with images -– with framing, editing, mise en scène, with the way an actor moves his body in front of the camera. To read most film critics in the United States you wouldn’t know that film is a visual medium.

Red eye in the sky

Jim Emerson

My review of “Red Road” at RogerEbert.com:

Vertigo, they say, is not really a fear of falling; it’s a fear of jumping. The gap between the subject and the ground creates such strong psychological conflict in the afflicted that the temptation to eliminate it by leaping into the void is overpowering, and dizziness sets in.

A similar dynamic exists between the voyeur and the object of his or her scrutiny. In the chilling and dread-laden “Red Road,” Jackie (Kate Dickie), a closed-circuit television operator in Glasgow, sits before a bank of video screens connected to surveillance cameras across the city. Her job at “City Eye Control, Division E,” is to monitor the feeds for suspicious activities, and to report what she sees to the proper authorities. She scans some of the city’s worst neighborhoods for signs of trouble, with an eye toward averting it before the victims need to call for help.

From the very first scene, we feel an ambivalent tension between Jackie and the people on her screens. She can’t help empathizing with the overweight young woman who works as a night janitor, donning headphones and dancing to her MP3 player in an empty office building. Or the man who walks his old and ailing English bulldog. But Jackie remains at a distance. They have no idea she’s watching.

We immediately sense that Jackie is harboring a darkness and despair that isolates her from everyone else. She uses the wall of video images as a buffer between herself and the outside world — or between herself and her own life. Until she spots a red-haired man named Clyde (Tony Curran), and — feverishly, compulsively — penetrates the screen and, for reasons unknown, begins to insinuate herself into his life. It’s an excruciating process, but she seems driven to forge ahead, even when she feels she can’t go through with it.

Continued at RogerEbert.com…

Odienator’s time of the mumf

Jim Emerson

“The truth is, Black History Month was started by Dr. Carter G. Woodson, a Black historian fed up with the lack of historical representation of people of color. In 1926, he pioneered Negro History Week, putting it on the same week as Lincoln and Frederick Douglass’ birthdays. That’s how February became associated with Black History Month, not some attempt to play us cheap. So, my apologies to Dr. Woodson. Mea culpa to the Man as well, though as my Mom used to tell me after erroneously beating my ass for something I didn’t do, “you probably deserved this for something I didn’t catch.’ “

Odienator is back, and he’s beautiful! The self-described “bald, Black, half-blind kid” has returned to Big Media Vandalism for his second annual “It’s Black History Mumf, Odienator” Film Festival, aka “Odie 2: Electric Boogaloo.” (And he’s filing some of it from a business trip to Dublin, Internet willing!)

“Since Obama has made Black History every month until at least January 2013,” he writes, “I am now claiming February as my own.” Yes he does. So far you’ll find inimitably Odienesque personal essays on “Devil In a Blue Dress,” “Beat Street, “Baadasssss!,” “Eve’s Bayou,” “Cotton Comes to Harlem,”Something the Lord Made,” “Lady Sings the Blues,” “I’m Gonna Git You Sucka,” Scary Black Movies (including “Blacula,” “Abby” and “Candyman”) — and appreciations of “Sanford and Son,” actor Roscoe Lee Browne, and the late Bernie Mac, Isaac Hayes and Rudy Ray Moore, aka Dolemite. (Odiebama also makes a couple guest appearances.)

Spam spam spam spam

Jim Emerson

It has come to my attention that the ol’ spam filter has been a little hyperactive recently. I just went back over a couple hundred spam comments and released about a dozen legit ones from the Limbo of Spamitude. In the future, if your comment doesn’t show up (and you didn’t do anything bad in it, like make ad hominem attacks on somebody, that aren’t worth anyone else’s time to read), then please let me know at the e-mail link above. Now I want to write some responses to some of the thoughtful comments that have unjustly done time in purgatory…

’50 Lost Movie Classics’

Jim Emerson

From the opening shot of “Cutter’s Way” — my favorite movie of the 1980s.

… and speaking of critical “best of” movie lists, here’s a swell one called “50 Lost Movie Classics,” from The Guardian. I might quibble with the terms “lost” (how “lost” can they be, when so many of them are available on DVD?) or “classics” (a “masterpiece” can be lost or overlooked, but can a “classic”?). But it is what it is. A group of British critics and filmmakers chose 50 movies (I have no quibbles with either of those terms) that… well, allow Philip French to explain:

This isn’t just another list of great movies. It’s a rallying cry for films that for a variety of reasons — fashion, perhaps, or the absence of an influential advocate, or just pure bad luck — have been unduly neglected and should be more widely available. You know that feeling when someone hasn’t heard of a film you’ve always loved and you want to show it to them? Or, in a different way, when you get annoyed because a picture hasn’t been accorded the position you think it deserves in cultural history or the cinematic canon? That’s the sort of film we have included on this list.And now, please permit me to add my own huzzahs for a few of the selections, several of which have also been featured on my personal “ten-best” lists over the years — or would have been, in the event that I had made one that year. (And some were released before I was born, OK?) Several of these have already been discussed here at Scanners. Here are just a few of the choices I’d particularly like to second:

“Petulia” (Richard Lester, 1968) — use the link to read about the opening shot.”The State of Things” (Wim Wenders, 1982) — one of the best movies about movies ever. And “Stranger Than Paradise” was made using the leftover b&w stock.”Newsfront” (Phillip Noyce, 1979) — charming account of Aussie newsreelers.”Fat City” (John Huston, 1972) — best boxing movie ever (and, yes, I include “Raging Bull” and “Rocky”).”Ace In the Hole” aka “The Big Carnival” (Billy Wilder, 1951) — no excuse for this to still be unavailable on DVD.”3 Women” (Robert Altman, 1977) — just watched it again the night Altman’s death was announced and was thrilled to find it as mesmerizing as ever…”Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me” (David Lynch, 1992) — although I think the series is by far the best work Lynch has ever done, I didn’t “get” this one when it came out. Now I think it’s genius (and should be double-billed with “Mulholland Drive”).”Safe” (Todd Haynes, 1995) — my choice for best movie of 1995.”Housekeeping” (Bill Forsyth, 1987) — my choice for best movie of 1987.”The Parallax View” (Alan J. Pakula, 1974) — NOT “Alan J. Parker” as The Guardian has it, fer cripes sake!!! Gripping paranoid thriller — with a fight atop my beloved Space Needle!”Dreamchild” (Gavin Millar, 1985) — nice double-bill with “Pan’s Labyrinth,” I think.”The Ninth Configuration” (William Peter Blatty, 1980) — I see a big moon risin’…”Cutter’s Way” (Ivan Passer, 1981) — my choice for the best movie of the 1980s.”Wise Blood” (John Huston, 1979) — I don’t think I’ve ever fully recovered from the scars this one left on me.”Two-Lane Blacktop” (Monte Hellman, 1971) — this does qualify as a cult classic.”‘Round Midnight” (Bertrand Tavernier, 1986) — Dexter Gordon as a version of Dexter Gordon, in gorgeous widescreen. One of the best evocations of cinema as jazz, and vice-versa.”Grace of My Heart” (Allison Anders, 1996) — pop music history mix-and-match (not unlike “Velvet Goldmine” in that respect) with terrific songs co-authored by Brill Building vets and contemporary artists. I watch this one over and over. Made me fall in love with Illeana Douglas.

Some of the choices I haven’t seen: “Ride Lonesome,” “Jeremy,” “Under the Skin,” “I Wanna Hold Your Hand,” “Let’s Scare Jessica to Death,” “The Low Down,” “Quiemada!,” “The Hired Hand,” “Le Petomane,” “Bill Douglas Trilogy,” “Babylon,” “Day Night Day Night” (just missed it in Toronto!), “The Day the Earth Caught Fire,” “The Mad Monkey,” “Terence Davies Trilogy” (not sure what individual titles they mean to include, but “The Long Day Closes” was my best movie of 1992 — or was it 1993 in the US?). And there are others the list reminds me to revisit (like Monte Hellman’s “Cockfighter”) because it’s simply been too long.

Take a peek and let us know which ones you treasure (or don’t) — and maybe suggest some additional titles for such a list…

Kubrick defends himself

Jim Emerson

“We were born of risen apes, not fallen angels, and the apes were armed killers besides…. The miracle of man is not how far he has sunk but how magnificently he has risen. We are known among the stars for our poems, not our corpses.”

That’s right. Either from beyond the grave (“Anything that says there’s anything after death is ultimately an optimistic story,” Kubrick said of “The Shining”), or from within it, Stanley Kubrick responds to a critic who accuses him and his films of nihilism:

Is this, I wonder, because he couldn’t actually find any internal evidence to support his trend-spotting? If not, then it is extraordinary that so serious a charge should be made against [my film] (and myself) inside so fuzzy and unfocussed a piece of alarmist journalism.The accuser is Fred M. Hechinger in the New York Times, the movie in question is “A Clockwork Orange,” and the date is February 27, 1972. “A Clockwork Orange” was the subject of red-hot debate all over the place, celebrated as a masterpiece and condemned as everything from “fascistic” to “anarchistic” to “nihilistic.”

(Oh, and If you haven’t already, be sure to “bone up” on the spirited discussion of Kubrick below. Is he just a big ol’ human-hater?)

I’d never read this letter before today, when I found it while searching through the New York Times archive. Naturally, one should always trust the art and not (just) the artist, but Kubrick has to much to say here about about his view of humankind, and this is so revealing of the vision expressed in his films, that I’m going to quote him at length:

Hechinger is probably quite sincere in what he feels. But what the witness feels, as the judge said, is not evidence — the more so when the charge is one of purveying “the essence of fascism.”

“Is this an uncharitable reading of the film’s thesis?” Mr. Hechinger asks himself with unwonted, if momentary, doubt. I would reply that it is an irrelevant reading of the thesis, in fact an insensitive and inverted reading of the thesis, which, so far from advocating that fascism be given a second chance, warns against the new psychedelic fascism — the eye-popping, multimedia, quadrasonic, drug-orienting conditioning of human beings by other beings — which many believe will usher in the forfeiture of human citizenship and the beginning of zombiedom.

Make what you will of Kubrick’s stated intentions, but note the value he places on humanity and free will. He continues:It is quite true that my film’s view of man is less flattering than the one Rousseau entertained in a similarly allegorical narrative [“Emile”] — but, in order to avoid fascism, does one have to view man as a noble savage, rather than an ignoble one? Being a pessimist is not yet enough to qualify one as a tyrant (I hope)…. [Times film critic Vincent Canby] classified “A Clockwork Orange” as “a superlative example” of the kind of movies that “seriously attempt to analyze the meaning of violence and the social climate that tolerates it.” He certainly did not denounce me as a fascist, no more than any well-balanced commentator who read “A Modest Proposal” would have accused Dean Swift of being a cannibal. […]Kubrick continues…

The Mystery of the Missing Mandy

Jim Emerson

View image: Harvey Keitel as a prison priest on the set of “It’s Pat” with Gene and Dean Ween. Unfortunately, this framing device got cut!

In my review of “You, Me and Dupree,” (which, to meet Sun-Times deadlines I had to write immediately after seeing the movie Monday night), I mentioned several indications that the movie had undergone some drastic cutting and revisions. I wrote:

Even more perplexing are the laborious set-ups for gags that are missing their payoffs — the most notable being an entire character (Mandy, the love of Dupree’s life for a few scenes) who never actually shows her face onscreen. We keep waiting for the punchline, but there isn’t one. It seems she has simply been cut out of the movie (wait for the DVD, kids!). Perhaps, at one time, she was Annie, the fifth-or sixth-billed character supposedly played by Amanda Detmer, whom I do not recall ever showing up for work.Since writing those words, I have Googled, I have investigated, and I can’t find any reports on what happened. It’s unusual to see somebody with such prominent billing and so little screen time (though, undoubtedly, other examples exist). Usually, somebody who has been cut out of the movie would also be removed from the credits — though still get paid. (That’s what happened when we had to cut Harvey Keitel’s priest scenes out of “It’s Pat,” although he was great in ’em.)

I asked Anne Thompson and she said she had no idea what had happened. I asked David Poland and he said he’d spotted Amanda Detmer (a favorite of his) in the opening wedding scenes, but didn’t know why she went away. It’s clear from the way “Mandy’s” scenes are shot, that her face is deliberately being shielded from view. But why? I’m throwing it out there to all you knowledgable cinephiles and voracious readers out there. Anybody know what the deal is?

Two Python lines:

Jim Emerson

1) “My brain hurts.”

2) “I’m feeling much better.”

What’s your game, baby? Cinephile or cinemaniac?

Jim Emerson

David Bordwell examines the crucial distinguishing characteristics of cinephiles and cinemaniacs, and catalogs the shared habits and competitive strategies of the former, in “Games cinephiles play.”

Which are you? (Not that you have to be one or the other.) DB will help you resolve any cine-related identity crisis from which you may be suffering.

He writes:

… I do see differences. For one thing, most cinemaniacs like only certain sorts of movies–usually American, often silent, sometimes foreign, seldom documentaries. Do cinemaniacs line up for Brakhage or Frederick Wiseman? My sense is not.

Cinephiles by contrast tend to be ecumenical. Indeed, many take pride in the intergalactic breadth of their tastes. Look at any smart critic’s ten-best lists. You’ll usually see an eclectic mix of arthouse, pop, and experimental, including one or two titles you have never heard of. Obscurity is important; a cinephile is a connoisseur.

Patrick McGoohan escapes (1928-2009)

Jim Emerson

Actor director writer producer Patrick McGoohan has died at the age of 80. (News story here.) In fond remembrance, I resurrect this essay — the only one I’ve done with voiceover — about the opening of his most ambitious project, the 1960s television series “The Prisoner.” The show is currently being remade for AMC, with James Caviezel in McGoohan’s role as Number Six and Ian McKellen as Number Two.

Why Brad Pitt should win the Oscar

Jim Emerson

Here’s a wonderful video essay written by Dipnot.tv film critic, Far-Flung Correspondent, House Next Door contributor, longtime Scanners commenter and International Man of Mystery Ali Arikan, and edited by writer/photographer and Press Play producer Ken Cancelosi. As far as I’m concerned, it makes the case — and does so even without including my personal favorite scene from “Moneyball”! (I think he should have been nominated for supporting actor in “The Tree of Life,” too.)

Ali writes:

There is real mystery to Pitt’s take on Billy Beane. He loves the game, but knows the game is changing. He knows he has to get wins in order to keep his job, and is more than willing to modernize for that reason. But he also knows there is something you can’t calculate about the game of baseball. The scenes of Pitt driving to work or sitting in the locker room show a man who is constantly trying to figure out the odds and knowing deep down that there are some things you can’t figure out.

… He brings to the role an assured quality on overzealous, yet understated, lust for ultimate success that was forged in the fires of years and years of failure. He’s charming and cheeky and funny, and very good looking (despite the hideous early naughties’ haircut and lumbering fashion sense). Pitt brings a subtle comedic take to what could have been a rather boring central role; his various dealings with other managers, his scouts and players, betray genius-level timing and mimicry.

OK, I really wouldn’t mind seeing Gary Oldman win for “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” either — but this was Pitt’s year.

Stepin Fetchit to Denzel Washington (Part I)

Jim Emerson

View image Denzel Washington in “American Gangster” (2007).

Richard Corliss at Time presents his choices for “The 25 Most Important Films on Race. “The films span nine decades, and reveal a legacy that was tragic before it was triumphant.” More about the list after the jump, but the following passage from RC’s intro struck a chord with me:

We need to examine the history of blacks in film to appreciate their deep roots. [Sidney] Poitier, [Will] Smith and Denzel Washington, all radiating a manly cine-magnetism, are the sons of Paul Robeson, who was the first great black movie star — or would have been, if Hollywood and America hadn’t been steeped in racism. Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy, the top comedy stars of the 80s, have a strange, subversive ancestor in Stepin Fetchit, America’s first black millionaire actor.Both Corliss and Odie Henderson (aka Odienator) take personal approaches to examining black film history, and so far (Odie is on his 11th consecutive day of a month-long “Black History Mumf” series) they haven’t even overlapped much. Odienator has written, analytically and often nostalgically, about the Hudlin Bros.’ Kid ‘n’ Play comedy “House Party” (1990), “football players-turned-actors, “Schoolhouse Rock,” actress Diana Sands,” Eddie Murphy’s “Coming to America” (1988), Joseph Mankiewicz’s “No Way Out,” (1950) with Sidney Poitier and Richard Widmark, the opening credits of Spike Lee’s “Crooklyn” (1994), “Sparkle” (1976), “The Jeffersons” and “Good Times” and the one with my favorite headline: One Drop of Black Cinema: Joel Schumacher. That’s just the beginning.

Odienator has been concentrating on films that aren’t necessarily in the traditional African-American Canon, but neither he nor Corliss have (so far) written about certain titles some might consider the obvious or officially sanctioned landmarks/classics: “Showboat” (1936), “Cabin in the Sky” (1942), “Porgy and Bess” (1959), “A Raisin in the Sun” (1961), “Lilies of the Field” (1963), “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” (1967), “Putney Swope” (1969), “Shaft” (1971), “Sounder” (1972), “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman” (TV, 1974), “The Color Purple” (1985), “New Jack City” (1991), “Malcolm X” (1992), “Crash” (2005)…

The fine art of magical thinking

Jim Emerson

A tangential follow-up to the recent discussion, “Rehearsing your own prejudices,” from the Institute for the Destruction of Tooth Fairy Science, via Hell’s News Stand (which also has the R-rated version).

A drop of diluted background (from Wikipedia) on homeopathy — a little dab’ll do ya:

… Homeopathic remedies are usually diluted to the point where there are no molecules from the original solution left in a dose of the final remedy. Since even the longest-lived noncovalent structures in liquid water at room temperature are only stable for a few picoseconds, critics have concluded that any effect that might have been present from the original substance can no longer exist. No evidence of stable clusters of water molecules was found when homeopathic remedies were studied using NMR.

Furthermore, since water will have been in contact with millions of different substances throughout its history, critics point out that any glass of water is therefore an extreme dilution of almost any conceivable substance, and so by drinking water one would, according to homeopathic principles, receive treatment for every imaginable condition.

P.S. As we all know, homeopathy only works when making dry martinis. You allow one ray of light to shine through the bottle of vermouth into the bottle of gin before pouring the latter.

(tip: Tim Lloyd)

“The Sopranos”: Closing the door

Jim Emerson

“One” is the loneliest number.

“I’m afraid I’m going to lose my family. Like I lost the ducks.”

— Tony Soprano, Episode 1, January 10, 1999

” _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _”

— Tony Sproano, Episode 86, June 10, 2007 (TBA)

“The Sopranos” didn’t look terribly promising to me back in 1999 when I saw the first promos. Another Italian-American mob show? What could be more of a cliché? Of course, I was hooked after the first episode (the ducks, the shrink’s office), and it continued to astound me week after week with how smart and savvy and rich it was. It took the pop gangster mythology of “The Godfather” and “GoodFellas” (and “Miller’s Crossing,” though I don’t recall any characters specifically referencing it) and turned them inside out.

“The Sopranos” is about a small-time mob family in Jersey for whom “this thing of ours” is “trending downward,” and who long for the legendary status of movie gangsters. They’re shmucks, losers, the very definition of a dysfunctional family, and subconsciously they may even know it. But petty and corrupt as they are, they’re still clinging to the American Dream, right down to the characterless and strangely empty McMansion in the suburbs. In “The Sopranos,” the mob is a metaphor for contemporary capitalism and consumerism and those treasured illusions of “family” that seem like vestigal instincts. That’s why I think the final tableau of the first part of Season Six was one of the series’ most brilliant and haunting moments. All the trappings were there — the festive decorations, the lovely home, the extended clan gathered ’round the hearth — but we knew then that the greeting-card Christmas image was a sham. The tension was stomach-clenching because we (and perhaps they) could feel that this hollow moment was merely the calm before the storm of the final eight episodes. And now it’s all coming down.

Since the third season or so, “The Sopranos” may have lost much of its ability to astound, but that’s mainly because we now know anything is possible. Other shows kill off significant characters or rupture the storylines’ major arteries, too. By the time Adrianna was wacked, it didn’t seem so shocking. As with the best drama and comedy (and “The Sopranos” is an operatic tragicomedy), it seemed inevitable in retrospect. I hated losing her, but whaddaya gonna do?

“The Sopranos” made acclaimed shows like “The Wire” and “Deadwood” possible. I have friends who think “The Wire” is “better than” “The Sopranos,” but that seems like a silly and fruitless comparison to me because they exist in entirely different dimensions. “The Wire” is consistently brilliant and thrilling to watch, with its teeming cast of characters and long, tangled narrative threads. I love it. But “The Sopranos” is much bigger, more deceptively complex, because it can work a meta-metaphor, make a satirical observation about contemporary politics or history or popular culture, and keep you absolutely in the moment with these characters in this particular set of circumstances. It makes your heart race, your eyes water and your head explode. It lives up to the word “masterpiece.” And this single series has probably been more consistently excellent than all the rest of the American cinema over the last eight years. It hasn’t just made a subscription to HBO indispensible (and an unbelievable entertainment bargain for the money), it’s helped make watching television as essential as going to the movies.

I’m embarrassed to admit it, but there have been times when I didn’t want to watch the next episode, because I was too fearful for the characters. I feel incredibly apprehensive about Sunday night, because I’m afraid of what I’m going to see, and how I’ll feel about it. And I don’t want it to be over. Maybe I should just TiVo it and then, when I’m feeling a little less vulnerable… Well, that’s not going to happen. That’s part of what the show is about: Having to face things you’d rather were kept out of sight (like the stashes of cash and guns around the Soprano household), and having to know that everything comes at a price.

I wonder if to say I care deeply about these characters is to say I love them, when I feel I shouldn’t. I know how horrible they are. But I guess they’re like family. And as we know from Season One, that doesn’t guarantee love, either. (I’ll admit it: for all her avarice and denial, I’m probably in love with Edie Falco’s conflicted Carmella. Hey, one of the show’s consistent themes is that you can’t help who you fall in love with. And if I ever met James Gandolfini I would want to hug him — the actor, for creating such a tremendous character, not Tony.) I’m sure they deserve whatever’s coming to them. But series creator David Chase doesn’t necessarily think that way. As he says on page 163 of “The Sopranos: The Book” (which I haven’t even begun to read) in the article called “What We’ll Never Know”: “If you’re raised on a steady diet of Hollywood movies and network television, you start to think, Obviously there’s going to be some moral accounting here. That’s not the way the world works. It all comes down to why you’re watching….”

My 2008 best short-list

Jim Emerson

Before I do my proper “ten best” honors (in a form that is not a critics’ poll ballot), I just want to say that the best things I saw on any screen in 2008 were:

1) “Generation Kill” (seven-part HBO mini-series, adapted by Ed Burns and David Simon, the makers of “The Wire,” and Evan Walker Wright, a reporter embedded with the 1st Recon Marines in Iraq in 2003, based on Wright’s book). I don’t like the title. At some point in Episode Three I thought this was the funniest show on TV. About 15 minutes later, I still felt so, but I also felt something radically different. Susanna White is one hell of a director.

2) “Liverpool” (Lisandro Alonso; seen at Toronto Film Festival)

3) “Four Nights with Anna” (Jerzy Skolimowski; seen at Toronto Film Festival)

4) “35 Rhums” (Claire Denis; seen at Toronto Film Festival)

5) “Mad Men” (AMC, Season Two)

6) “In Treatment” (HBO, Season One)

Just because they didn’t play for a week or more on US movie screens doesn’t mean they should go unacknowledged (any more than “The Dekalog” or “Fanny and Alexander” should), and I hope to have the opportunity to write about them in depth in 2009. (“Generation Kill” was just released on DVD December 16.)

Opening Shots: ‘Withnail and I’

Jim Emerson

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From Ali Arikan, Istanbul, Turkey:

The first shot of “Withnail and I” is deceptive in its simplicity. As the camera opens on the eponymous “I” of the title, obviously depressed and downtrodden, we see a 30-something-man at the end of his tether, drowning in angst; both literally and figuratively, trying to breathe. A desk lamp, the single light source, and the books and notepads scattered over a desk in front of him betray the possibility that he is a writer. The rest of the furniture has that all-too-familiar aura of the maudlin British middle class. All this, combined with the sluggish zoom of the camera and the melancholy use of the last ever King Curtis live performance of “A Whiter Shade of Pale” by Procol Harum, presents the audience with an irrevocable feeling of denoument. Almost as if this is the final shot of a film and not its first.

Wal-Mart and the Priory of Lyin’

Jim Emerson

“Wal-Mart? I’d like to order another copy of ‘The Da Vinci Code.'” Alfred Molina plays Cardinal Fang a bishop with a cell.

The protests against “The Da Vinci Code” are expected to reach their peak this opening weekend. And in reading some of the reactions to the movie and the book (see here), I noticed that much of the heat seems to center around whether people will mistake the book’s and movie’s fictions for historical realities. You’d think the general public would be smart enough to understand what a novel is, and that such books are different from scholarly works of nonfiction, even when they incorporate actual facts or events.

For example, one of my all-time favorite novels is Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22” and it is about a bomber squadron based on the Mediterranean island of Pianosa during World War II, but to my knowledge the titular rule has never been part of U.S. Air Force regulations, nor did Clevinger actually pilot a plane into a cloud and not come out the other side. In part, that is because Clevinger, like Robert Langdon (the hero of “The Da Vinci Code” and Dan Brown’s previous novel, “Angels and Demons”), is a fictional character. World War II and the U.S. Air Force and Pianosa, however, are real. And so is the Mediterranean.

Anyway, I was surprised to find that Wal-Mart is (still) selling “The Da Vinci Code” on its web site with this false and misleading description:

Burt-Man Begins; Black History Mumf

Jim Emerson

View image Burt Reynolds, Superstar.

The Burt-a-Thon (formally known as the Burt Reynolds-a-Thon) starts today over at Welcome to L.A.. The awesome Larry Aydlette, whom some of you may know from his blog-lives as That Little Round-Headed Boy and/or The Shamus, has set himself a truly daunting, awesomely ambitious task: For the entire month of February, he will… well, let Larry explain it himself:

Obviously, Burt Reynolds didn’t get the e-mail that he was supposed to go quietly away. But that’s not the Burt Reynolds way. In his autobiography, “My Life,” he begins with a quote from George Bernard Shaw: “I want to be thoroughly used up when I die. For the harder I work, the more I live.”

View image Cosmo centerfold Burt, 1972.

So, I’ve decided to honor that work ethic and use his birth month for 29 straight days of Burt Reynolds coverage. This isn’t a love-a-thon. In rewatching a lot of his movies, I’ve come to the conclusion that he didn’t necessarily deserve to win the Oscar for the films that he and many critics thought he should have won them for. And he was never nominated for what seems to me to be his one indisputable masterpiece (although I doubt many critics will agree with me). But there are quite a few of his films that are very, very good, and deserve reconsideration.