J.F. Otten, Amerikaansche Filmkunst [American Cinema]

Simon Koster, Duitse Filmkunst [Coastal German Cinema] P.S. Does anyone (besides Thomas Elsaesser) know anything about coastal German cinema? If you do, please share. (“Ooh ooh ooh I know!” –Thomas Elsaesser)

Constant van Wessem, De Komische Film [The Comedy Film]

C.J. Graadt van Roggen, Het Linnen Venster [The Linen Window] I am curious about the subject of this one. Anyone out there know? (Please put your hand down, Thomas Elsaesser.)

J.L.J. Jordaan, Dertig Jaar Film [Thirty Years Film]

People: THIS IS A MOVIE ABOUT A WOMAN WHO GOES ON VACATION. Go on vacation yourself. Or plan a staycation and eat some Neapolitan pizza. Do not go see this move.

Those who know me probably can picture my face at this moment. But for those who can’t, here you go:

Don’t I look ready for a “vacation” at the insane asylum? Doctor, If I wrap myself in a celluloid, will it go away?

My reaction to the trailer was similar to my response to the advertising campaigns for It’s Complicated and The Ugly Truth,
which — even though I never set foot into a movie theater to see these puppies — made me physically recoil upon looking at them. The posters in particular made me feel so sad for Meryl Streep and wish the oh-so-boring Katherine Heigl would stick to the middling Grey’s Anatomy and JUST STOP doing bad chick flicks that made me avoid fuschia at all costs. Manohla felt my pain too.

I generally have little to no tolerance for these demographically-determined commercial movies, and choose not to see them. (And to those who will criticize me because I obviously haven’t subjected myself to the torture of actually watching the film: you don’t need no weatherman.) But I wondered what the point of detesting them so virulently was, until I came across this quote from the inimitable Andrew O’Hagan:

“Maybe I’m too young in the head and haven’t spent enough time in Los Angeles or psychoanalysis, but I think it’s quite important sometimes to hate things, not to be amused by them, or loftily tolerant of them, but to want to cut off their oxygen supply and mash them into the ground, thereafter to plant something lovely in their place. Maybe a bad novel is just quieter, a bad gallery hanging almost private, while terrible movies starring Russell Crowe seem to come bounding towards you from every space in culture, leaving you no choice but to reach quickly for the elephant gun and fire…” (From his essay “Two Years in the Dark”)

That’s it exactly — bad movies are simply inescapable in our current media environment. You can’t not know about The Proposal or Julie & Julia or [fill in any movie with an aggressive advertising campaign here] even if you avoid all television, as I do. I’ve come to the crotchety conclusion that I find this noise offensive. But this also poses a significant challenge for good films without publicity machines behind them: how do they break through the awful and incessant blathering that these films make? That was once the critic’s role — to convince audiences that taking a risk on art could reap rewards far beyond Oprah-isms applied like a salve to society’s wounds. But can anyone really escape the jaws of Eat Pray Love, and America’s sweetheart’s teeth? Maybe the answer is to fight fire with fire, and mash it up into oblivion. Here’s a parody starring a Tibetan monk for the road. Let’s hope there’s more where that came from.

In the United States, movie studios for the most part produced anonymous posters to promote films. In France, however, recognized poster designers were hired to advertise the films they distributed. Rene Peron was one of the leading figures of French film poster design, and over the course of his career, designed more than two thousand posters. King Kong premiered in America on March 3, 1933 and in France on March 16th, 1933. Peron illustrates the iconic scene where Kong is being attacked by airplanes on top of the Empire State Building. Peron’s graphic approach appears relatively straightforward, but look more closely for wonderful touches of Art Deco stylization and lovely use of an airbrush. And oh man, those colors! Pomegranate red, mustard yellow and celadon green have never looked so groovy together. You can just hear M. Kong singing: I’m an apeman, I’m a King Kong man, I’m a voodoo man… (Distributed by La Compagnie Universelle Cinématographique; printed by Presses Universitaires de France, Paris.)

Kate is that great, and those who delight in the golden era of 3D will be knocked out by Film Forum’s pristine dual projection. Moreover, cinephiles who are sickened by the success of the behemoth Avatard and the bumper crop of unnecessary 3D titles that it has spawned will get a much better sense of the untapped potential of “depthies,” then and now.

First things first: all filmmaking is three-dimensional in the sense that motion pictures provide many depth cues that we also use on a daily basis to perceive the visual world. However, stereoscopic cinema maintains the illusion of extending into the space of the audience, going boldly where no movie had gone before.

One could make the argument that three-dimensional cinema is inherently more realistic, because it locates objects in space, rather than on a flat, two-dimensional plane. And it certainly expands the visual field, bringing the spectator seemingly closer to the image. However, it is more accurate to say that three-dimensional is hyper-realistic, or radically exhibitionist, because instead of the spectator’s vision directed “inward” towards the screen, the image is literally directed “outward” towards the spectator. The 3D film, in essence, does the work of perception for the spectator—it commands us to focus on this character or that part of the mise-en-scène, simply by the jutting out of certain pictorial elements over others.

3D cinema, therefore does the finger-pointing for us — look at this here, right now! A 3D model of spetatorship is inherently anti-Bazinian because it rejects any notion of the interior life of the screen image — and infantilizes the spectator who prefers to let his eye roam over the image. I think this explains why die-hard cinephiles dismiss these films as passing novelties, films in which objects were hurled at the spectator and film art was nary a concern — the cinematic equivalent to a paintball game. However, a surprising number of prestigious and high-budget features were shot using 3-D (but not necessarily released that way). The list is impressive: it includes Kiss Me Kate, along with House of Wax, The Charge at Feather River, Miss Sadie Thompson, Creature from a Black Lagoon, and Dial M for Murder.

Dial M for Murder is a example of how three dimensional processes can be used to create effects that transcend mere gimmicks; Hitchcock shows admirable restraint and allows for the action of the film to dictate 3-D movement along the Z-axis. The film is based on a stage-play, and most of the action takes place in the living room of a London apartment. (As a director, Hitchcock had a definite techno-fetish, exploring rear-screen projection, matte, and other unconventional techniques. 3D was no exception, though Hitchcock was a late adopter, coming around to the process in 1954.) In Dial M for Murder, composition and movement are carefully controlled: the first half of the film is static and consists only of subtle maneuvering between lamps, chair arms, and other household items jutting out in front of the actors. Every shot was masterfully executed with proper camera movement and very precise convergence.

Dial M for Murder contains three outstanding examples of 3-D virtuosity. First are the tight, extreme close-ups on wristwatches; second, the suspenseful shot of a telephone dial as the murderer pokes his finger into the number six hole, the titular “M.” Both shots were faked using a giant prop technique, making it possible to manage extreme close-ups without inflicting eyestrain, and demonstrating Hitchcock’s ingeniousness for outwitting the limitations of 3D.

Hitchcock’s most obvious and effective three-dimensional moment comes during the murder itself: As the murderer attempts to strangle poor gorgeous Grace Kelly, she is forced back across her desk, and her grasping hand is thrust out at the audience as she reaches for scissors to stab the murderer. Even here Hitchcock demonstrates restraint, as the movement of the stabbing goes away from the camera rather than toward the camera and audience. I saw a 3D projection of Dial M for Murder a number of years ago and I’ve never forgotten this scene. It’s playing Aug 21 and 22 at Film Forum — don’t miss this!

MODERN TIMES: Chaplin must perform a song to a packed house. He forgets the words and makes up something that sounds vaguely Italian, complete with saucy gestures. Side-splittingly funny.

THE CIRCUS: A slew of monkeys make a late entrance and predictably steal the show.

CITY LIGHTS: The tramp and his rich tippler of a friend sit down to eat. Spaghetti, confetti, what’s the difference?

A KING IN NEW YORK: Chaplin’s son Michael proves he has the genes for comedy as a red-diapered, finger-wagging schoolboy.

THE GREAT DICTATOR: Chaplin as Der Phooey is full of hot air.

THE IDLE CLASS: This short contains one of my favorite Chaplin moments of all time (around 7:40, just after he reads the letter). And yes, you can watch this (along with a ton of other Chaplin films) on YouTube!

I purchased a striptease album featuring this saucy minx from a San Telmo antiques vendor, and now I’m dying to know everything about her. She’s labeled as “Penny Smith” aka “La Inglesita.” I posed the question to Jim, a connoisseur of old-fashioned smut.
Read his post at Vintage Sleaze to find out more (and to see much, much more of her. [cough *NSFW* ahem.]

Film Forum is doing a Bruce Conner retrospective in November, and I am eagerly anticipating seeing the short The White Rose up on the big screen. I’ve only viewed it via Tudou (which also has uploads of Conner’s seminal A Movie and Vivian).

The Beat artist Jay DeFeo spent many years of her life painting just one massive picture. Eleven feet tall, eight feet wide, and weighing almost a ton, it grew so heavy from the built-up layers of pigment that it had to be removed from her studio by cutting away the wall and lifting it out via crane. This process is memorialized by Conner (a close friend) with an almost clinical austerity, augmented by a melancholy Gil Evans soundtrack.

What happened to the painting after the film? It was rarely exhibited due to its size and precarious condition, and was put into storage and plastered over to keep slabs of pigment from breaking off the surface. It was eventually acquired by the Whitney and uncovered many years later. For most viewers, the primary means of encountering Defeo’s legendary painting was through Connor’s film. A protest as well as a lament, The White Rose is a singular testament to Defeo’s life work — a mammoth flower that rarely saw the light of day, but bloomed through the light of the projector.

More: John Perreault’s Artopia essay on “The Rose”

I am often asked which films turned me on to cinema. It’s hard to to determine the exact tipping point, but I think I became a die-hard cinephile, a true stickler-of-the-celluloid when I was taking an afternoon French class at the Alliance Francaise. They were doing a retrospective of Sacha Guitry films all summer and after class I would stick around the quartier waiting for the film to begin, perhaps going to Fauchon (which — dégueulasse! — no longer exists) or Central Park in between. I would then join the thirty-odd senior citizens and show my membership carte for free entry, and was subsequently sucked into his Guitry’s entire oeuvre. (Whether or not you *believe* in auteurism, there is nothing like the experience of finding an director that you truly appreciate to usher you into the art of cinema via his or her unique vision.) Guitry did it for me and I was hooked.

Jacqueline Delubac and Sacha Guitry in Quadrille.

What did I love about these films? I think it was a combination of the joy of being able to follow a good part of the French (for these actors, unlike their New Wave successors, had excellent elocution) and an overall playfulness with words that I regarded as the height of sophistication. I recognized Guitry’s films as mannered and artificial and I loved the stylization of reality — the wit, the unbelievable conceits, the unflappable comic arrogance of Mr. Guitry himself. I adored Jacqueline Delubac and Raimu and Fréhel, eccentric stars that to me could only thrive in French films. There is a scene in Les Perles de la Couronne in which Jacqueline Delubac is forbidden to speak in anything but adverbs because her husband suspects her of flirting with another man. Let’s just say his attempts to limit her communicative powers are in vain, and there isn’t a soul who has used a single part of speech more suggestively, ever. (Good grammar is sexy, folks. Well, at least to me.)

Heureusement, the new box set from Criterion includes four of the best Guitry films (though I do wish I could swap out Quadrille for Mon Père Avait Raison) and it is a glorious introduction to his substantial and overlooked contribution to cinema. The beginning of Le Roman d’un Tricheur is a tongue-in-cheek, behind-the-curtain peek at the stagecraft of cinema, and a good taste of Guitry’s irreverent, let’s-poke-fun-at-haute-culture approach. (Also, if you notice, Kind Hearts and Coronets is as indebted to Le Roman d’un Tricheur as Bladerunner is to Metropolis.) For better or for worse, these are the films that initiated my love affair with cinema.

First things first: outfit time! For my ensemble, I looked to the silent screen goddesses for inspiration, turning to Ms. Lillian Gish & Mary Pickford and a host of other nameless lovelies (Do a Google Image search for Vogue and 1920’s. DO IT NOW. By the way, when did Image search become so much more heart palpitatingly awesome?). My favorites, below:

Norma Shearer (top row center), Mary Pickford (middle row left) and Lillian Gish (bottom row left), three of my favorite silent stars.

Because I am obsessed with authentic vintage (not vintage-inspired, but The Real McCoy) I went to April’s edition of the Manhattan Vintage Clothing Show — a dangerous and wonderful extravaganza in which I am reduced to sobbing child who can’t have everything. After searching endlessly for a frock in good condition, I found a floaty 1920’s garden party number, along with some matching toe-tappers.

Vintage dress and shoes from Another Man’s Treasure. (This boutique is based in NJ, and the owners are wonderful people.) The bag looks like a tortoiseshell and the gloves are courtesy of Jennifer’s grandmother.

And now the party: In addition to the fantastic music, I had the pleasure of meeting some true clothing connoisseurs. Watch and learn, vintage fashionistas: Heidi is perhaps the best-dressed woman in the city, period. (pun intended.)

There was also a Bathing Beauties & Beaus Promenade, which took some guts to enter. But a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do (and truthfully this did not take much arm-twisting).

The Bathing Beauties and Beaus, en masse. And, oh hey, here’s a video of the whole shebang!

For participating in the promenade, I received a copy of Zelda, the magazine dedicated to vintage nouveau. Among other delightful treasures and tutorials — how to pin-curl your hair! — it features interviews with Robert Osborne of TCM and the last surviving Ziegfeld girl, Doris Eaton Travis. An interview with 1930’s starlet Marsha Hunt (who was quite the dish) really gets at why I go to such great lengths to recreate the past, and why we look to old movies for inspiration to create a better life:

I generally and genuinely thing the old was better, was more becoming…I’d carry it beyond clothing and into music and manners: how we treat each other…and so, if you have a love of given period, follow it. You can invent your own styles of living that are consistent with what was worn then.

Well said, Ms. Hunt. If this speaks to you and you think the past was better than the present, then it’s up to you to recreate it. This is partly why I think true cinephiles cherish old movies so much, which teach us a few things, among them how to dress, how to dance, how to act and how to live.

P.S. Start brushing up on your Charleston — there’s another Jazz Age Lawn Party in August! I’m already planning my outfit, which might involve sequins. Stay tuned.