2006 SFSFF—Bucking Broadway

First thing Saturday morning John Ford's Bucking Broadway with Harry Carey, Sr. was introduced by Joseph McBride, the author of many notable books on film history, including Searching For John Ford: A Life and Whatever Happened to Orson Welles? (due out this October).

McBride expressed his delight in having Harry Carey, Jr. present as a living emissary of the John Ford stock company and as the representative of a family that spans the entire history of American films. His father Harry Carey, Sr., the star of Bucking Broadway, was originally a D.W. Griffith actor, as was his mother, the wonderful Olive Carey. Harry Carey, Sr. was a big star in the silent era and he was John Ford's mentor and tutor in the early years; Ford learned an awful lot from him. Astoundingly, Bucking Broadway was made when John Ford was only 23 years old. He made nine films in 1917—the first year he directed—and Bucking Broadway was one of them. A lot of the early Ford-Carey westerns were lost and a few of them have gradually been rediscovered over the years so, for McBride, it was a treat to see one of them intact on 35mm. The print of Bucking Broadway was accidentally discovered in a French archive six years ago where it had been misfiled. Thus, McBride considered it "a real treasure." McBride claimed that—those unfamiliar with Harry Carey, Sr.—would be astounded by how natural an actor he is, way before the modern acting style had developed. He was just very easygoing, very natural. John Wayne modeled himself after Harry Carey, Sr. and said he was the greatest of all western actors.

I wasn't wild about Bucking Broadway, was expecting more, though I could appreciate its historicity. I was bothered by its portrayal of women as weak-minded and weak-willed, and its racist portrayal of Blacks. In one scene Cheyenne Harry (Harry Carey, Sr.) wants to impress his beau Helen (Molly Malone) and shops for a new suit. He tries on a series of suits that don't fit, either the sleeves are too long, or they're too short, but, finally he settles on one. He steps outside feeling the dandy and then discovers that there's a Black man wearing an identical suit bought at the same store. I could have accepted the broad humor of this had it been another cowboy wearing the same suit but for it to be a Black man indicated to me that it was so far beneath Cheyenne Harry to wear what a Black man would wear, such an insult, that he had to go back into the store and throw the suit in the proprieter's face.

After the screening of Bucking Broadway Harry Carey, Jr. joined Joseph McBride on stage. Carey had difficulty maneuvering the stairs and required assistance. When he finally sat down, he quipped, "That was about the worst entrance I've ever made." His humility immediately endeared him to his audience.

Highly recommending Harry Carey, Jr.'s book, Company of Heroes, McBride stated the chapter on Three Godfathers was so "hysterically funny" that he almost fell on the floor laughing. Further, he stated it was the best account of John Ford at work, and a clear, complex and intimate portrait suffused with deep understanding. McBride pointed out that Harry Carey, Jr. had been in nine John Ford films, including some of his greatest (such as The Searchers).

Harry Carey, Jr. conceded he had been in three really great westerns. "I guess I was just very very lucky," he said humbly. One was a non-Ford—Howard Hawks' Red River—and then She Wore A Yellow Ribbon and The Searchers. Three "pretty good" westerns.

It was strange for him to see his dad so young in Bucking Broadway. The film had been made in 1917, four years before his birth. For him it was amazing how much his grandson Alec resembles his dad. "He's a great looking guy, wasn't he?" Harry Carey said proudly of his father, initiating a round of applause.

Harry Carey, Sr. and John Ford were a great team. According to his mom—who was a great bright tough lady—the young John Ford and his father—who was about 18 or 19 years older than Ford—had a real fine relationship but, because of gossip between other actors, his dad and Jack Ford parted ways. The break wasn't that serious as far as friendship went; they still saw each other three or four times a year even after they stopped making movies together. Perhaps they could have gone on making even more films together but they made 20-some. Irritated, Harry Carey, Jr. claimed it was "so typical of Universal" not to take care of those Ford-Carey films, letting them rot away in a vault somewhere. Of the 26 movies that John Ford and Harry Carey, Sr. made together, only about 3-4 of the features and parts of several others have survived.

"What's amazing to me," McBride asserted, "is that it's a small fraction of what they made together but they're all completely different in terms of their storyline, their tone, they're not formula pictures at all even though they have genre elements, and they're very low-budget. I love the unpretentious quality of these films, they're just very easygoing and relaxed. You see Ford's great eye for composition in the very beginning of his career with those beautiful long shots and the depth of compositions, don't you?"

"Yeah, that's marvelous," Harry Carey, Jr. agreed, pointing out that Ford also loved his "action stuff." Watching the fight scene at the end of Bucking Broadway reminded Harry Carey, Jr. that Ford used to just let his actors go during those fight sequences. He didn't want to routine it, or block it out or rehearse it. He would say, "Fight" and that was it. Frequently on set you would walk up to somebody and they'd have a bloody nose or cut eye. Carey broke three ribs in one film and suspects it was Jack Ford who broke them while providing instructions. The way Ford staged his fights was to encourage a big free-for-all.

Ford was 21 years old when he directed Bucking Broadway which Carey considered a "terrific movie and a terrific western." He used to sit at the breakfast table with his father and a man named Joe Harris, who was in a lot of the old pictures. Joe ended up staying with the Careys at their ranch for years and years as a kind of foreman and gave up motion pictures. Harris was Harry Carey, Sr.'s closest friend. Over breakfast Harry Carey, Jr. would hear their stories about John Ford and the making of those westerns in the silent days. "I grew up listening to those stories so it's always a pleasure to see one of them."

"What did your father say about John Ford? What kind of memories did he have?" McBride asked. Harry Carey, Jr. responded that he would "start at the end and then go backwards." Because about a year before his father passed away, about 1946, Carey, Jr. said, "Pop, how come you don't work for Jack Ford anymore?" He thought his father would say, "Oh, I don't want to go through all that again and blah blah" but he didn't. He just said, "He won't ask me." That's all he said, "He won't ask me." He paused for a minute and then he predicted, "…but you will." He qualified, "Not til I croak"—that was the expression he used—"After I croak, you will." Of course, the day after his father passed away, Jack Ford cast him in Three Godfathers. "He knew him pretty good," Carey, Jr. praised his father and admitted, "If I had told that story to John Ford I would never have worked for him again." Three Godfathers begins with an affectionate dedication to Harry Carey, Sr: "To Harry Carey—Bright Star of the Early Western Sky."

Ford kept telling Carey, Jr. before they started shooting Three Godfathers, "You're going to hate me when the picture's over; but you're going to give a good performance." He kept saying, "You're going to hate me when the movie's over but you're going to give a good performance." "I didn't hate him after the film was over," Carey, Jr. emphasized, "I hated him after the first day! [Laughter.] It was a horrible experience! [More laughter.] If it wasn't for Duke—John Wayne—I would have gone home. I said, 'He doesn't like what I'm doing. I'm going to go home.' Duke said, 'No, he loves what you're doing.' To which Carey, Jr. responded, 'Well, how can he act like that and like what I'm doing?' And Duke insisted, 'He's doing it for a reason.' " Three Godfathers was his roughest role and, even though he went on to make nine or ten more films with Ford after that, Three Godfathers was his roughest, toughest experience.

McBride mentioned that his current favorite Ford film is Wagonmaster, a "perfect movie" in which Carey, Jr. had a part. "It's like those early films with your dad, it's very low budget, it's just a bunch of friends out in the beautiful wide open spaces." McBride wanted to know if Wagonmaster was a fun film to shoot?

"It was the most fun of all!" Carey, Jr. affirmed. Working for Jack Ford was like a vacation. Wagonmaster was the first film in Moab, Utah, a tiny town since grown big. They'd never had a movie location there. Wagonmaster was the first one. It only cost Ford about a half a million dollars to make the pic (which even for those days was a cheap-budget). But it was a charming little picture and one of John Ford's favorites, something he said all the time. In fact, he said it was his favorite a few times. But Ford made so many great films that it's hard to pick one out that is really better than any other. Wagonmaster had the distinction, however, of being the most fun Carey, Jr. had on a Ford set.

At this juncture McBride noted that Harry Carey, Jr. was called "Dobe" by his friends because his father named him that the day he was born. "Dobe" explained: "I had this bright red hair when I was born and my dad thought it was like that red adobe clay that was there on the ranch and we lay around in a house built out of adobe. He'd never say it was an adobe house, he'd say, 'It's a 'dobe house.' So he nicknamed me Dobe and I've been Dobe ever since. I thought about using Dobe as my regular motion picture name and people have always thought that it was Warner Brothers Studios that made me use Harry, Jr., but, actually it was my dad. When I got a part at Warner Brothers, the first part I had was in a picture called Pursuit with a very young Robert Mitchum. Dobe was 25 and Mitchum 27 or 28. He asked his dad whether to use Dobe or Harry, Jr. for his stage name and his father said, "I'd like you to use Harry, Jr. and carry on the name." Since that was his father's request, that's what he did, though his Mom was resentful of the choice. She wanted him to use the name Dobe. "Too bad, Mom," he apologized, "that's the way it is." Whenever John Ford introduced Dobe, he always referred to him as Harry Carey, Jr.

John Ford was present when Dobe was born. Ford and Dobe's father were getting drunk that day, May 16, 1921. "The same birthday as Henry Fonda and the same birthday as Liberace," Dobe stated to much laughter. "Yeah, that's quite a combo." Increased laughter.

From the audience Jim Kitses, author of Western History: Horizons West, asked if John Wayne was consciously emulating Harry Carey, Sr.'s gesture of holding his left bicep with his right hand at the end of The Searchers. It was a gesture that his dad did a lot in real life. He would stand and talk like that with his one arm crossed over his chest. "Duke was shooting the tag of The Searchers," Dobe answered, "and he looked to camera left or right—I can't remember which—and he saw my mother was right in his eyeline and that's what made him do that. He just went like that as a tribute to my dad. Every time I see that it really knocks me for a loop. It's a beautiful moment."

McBride quoted Ford as saying that Harry Carey, Sr. was a thinking actor and that you could see clear into his soul. His characteristic gesture was pensive.

"John Wayne was a terrific actor to work with," Dobe recalled. "When you're doing a scene with him, he'd give it everything. You could play off of him so well because he's a very honest actor and a very sincere actor, no phoniness, or making faces or stuff like that for Duke Wayne. He was always great doing scenes with. I remember—I think one of the last shows I did with John Wayne was called Big Jake and I played an older—I was only in my 40s at the time and I played an old man, a mean old guy with brown teeth and great big beard. I thought that he would object to my playing that role. And he [didn't], he was very supportive and it was something that I enjoyed doing very much. I was like 43-44 and played a guy in my 60s. So all the way to the end he was great to work with, all the way to the end."

McBride clarified that as Dobe became middle-aged, Ford continued casting him as a young guy. Yeah, Dobe smiled, "I'm 85 and I think he'd have me playing a guy 20 years old." He was always a kid to Jack Ford. One of the last great visits between John Ford and his father was out at John Ford home—a beautiful estate he bought for the guys in his outfit. There were 18 of the boys in his outfit who were killed in action and so it was a shrine to all of their memory. He dragged his father out there to go horseback riding and Ford showed up. He and his father sat beneath a tree and talked continuously for four hours, catching up on each other's lives. "It was wonderful to see," Dobe recalled, "It was not too long before my father passed away."

Harry Carey, Jr. was asked what the working relationship between John Wayne and Montgomery Clift was like in Red River?

"Not so hot," Carey, Jr. responded. Apparently, Wayne wasn't too fond of Monty Clift. Of course, Carey, Jr. didn't know that when he was working on Red River. Partly because he only worked on the film for three weeks and was only in a couple of scenes, though one really good scene with Wayne. "I would have been on that show for twelve weeks had I been cast in the beginning of it," he explained, "But what happened was we were up in a place called Elgin, Arizona, right outside of Tuscon, they were shooting there and the young man who was playing the part of Dan Latimer said that he was sick and couldn't work on this particular day so Hawks said, 'Well, send him to the doctor and we'll shoot something else.' That night when Hawks was in the town of Tuscon, he saw this young actor in there partying and having a good time and realized that he wasn't sick at all so he fired him. Evidently, the story was that he mentioned to Duke Wayne, 'I don't know who to get to play this part of Dan Latimer. I fired this kid and I can't think of a young actor to do it.' And Wayne said, 'Well, I don't know if he can act or not but Dobe Carey looks a lot like the part' and Hawks said, 'That's a great idea!' So I should have given him 10% of my salary; he got me a part."

Montgomery Clift and John Wayne didn't have a lot in common even though Clift made a tremendous hit in Red River because he brought a style to the screen that had never been seen before. "A lot of people attribute Marlon Brando for bringing that style of acting and actually it was Monty Clift that first did that mumble stuff. I admire Monty Clift. I admire Marlon Brando a great deal. I admire both of them. He and Wayne were not too compatible. They were just great on the screen."

Peter Nellhaus continues his coverage of the 2006 SFSFF at Coffee, Coffee & More Coffee, including his take on Bucking Broadway.

MONSTER HOUSE

Kathleen Turner arrived on the cinematic scene lusciously embodied and a few degrees warmer than any other dangerous femme fatale I'd ever seen in a movie. Her performance as Matty Walker in Body Heat seared my consciousness. Her shift into comedy as Joan Wilder in Romancing the Stone, and its sequel Jewel of the Nile, revealed an unexpected but welcome range. Her stint as host of the Oscars demonstrated charismatic professionalism. And her voice as Jessica Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? provided one of the best lines ever: "I'm not bad. I'm just drawn that way." That voice—which time has Tallulahed—is back, this time as "house wife" Constance in Gil Kenan's Monster House, and there's no doubt she's not only bad, she's monstrous, and purposely drawn that way. More accurately, she's motion-captured that way.

Motion-capture animation, you might recall, created a successful stir with The Polar Express, graduated to the creation of Gollum and King Kong in the Peter Jackson franchises, and has now been ratcheted up one notch further with Monster House where, unlike The Polar Express, the characters are more expressive for being less tethered to the realistic. I won't say the movie is an instant classic, but, I will say the technical wizardy remains fun and appealing to kids. Which kids, however, remains the question.


I'm delighted with Kathleen Turner's participation in the project and, in my estimation, she's one of the main reasons for enjoying this Halloween-themed scary movie thrill ride. Turner became involved through Robert Zemeckis who'd cast her voice as Jessica Rabbit. Knowing of her interest in new developments, Zemeckis phoned her up and said, "Would you be interested in a new technique? You played the sexiest animated character in Roger Rabbit, now you can play the ugliest!" How could she refuse? Joining a choice ensemble of voices—Steve Buscemi, Nick Cannon, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Kevin James, Jason Lee, Catherine O'Hara, Jon Heder and Fred Willard—and introducing the perfectly-cast talents of newcomers Mitchel Musso (DJ), Sam Lerner (Chowder) and Spencer Locke (Jenny), Monster House is an impressive first feature by Kenan, plucked straight out of UCLA film school with the ink barely dry on his diploma. Monster House could probably have benefited from a little restraint—too many rides at the carnival can be exhausting after all—but no harm no foul. My eye's going to be on this guy to see how he perfects his craft in years to come. It's good to know that the Spielberg-Zemeckis tradition of feel good adventure flicks to be enjoyed at a summer matinee has found its protégé.


What kid hasn't been fascinated by a scary looking house in the neighborhood? And what adult hasn't recalled those scary remembrances of childhood? For me it was the house next door with the terrifying Foster Sisters who would charge out of their house threatening us with a broom for eating their crabapples. Monster House captures that feel perfectly because the kids really seem like kids in this movie, they talk like kids, they act like kids, even though placed in fantastic improbable situations. Or, at least, I should qualify, they're kids as adults remember themselves. Granted, all the adults in this story are ineffectual caricatures that only serve to heighten the heroic subjectivities of the three kids who—realizing the house across the street is eating people (mainly adults, and perhaps rightfully so)—bravely set out to take care of the problem armed with bottles of cough syrup, squirt guns and a few sticks of dynamite. It isn't just their imagination that transforms the barren branches of trees into grasping claws, windows into eyes, the front door into a gaping mouth, the chandelier in the front foyer into an uvula, and a Persian runner rug into a frog-like tongue. This house has a grudge and has no issues lifting itself right off its foundation to chase the kids down the street. Location, location, location, indeed! But this is perhaps the main failing of Monster House. Who is its true audience? Rated PG, perhaps more accurately PG-13, is this movie for kids, teens, or adults chaperoning them? Crude potty humor, mixed signals about inappropriate behavior, and a thematic obsession with the uncomfortable shift from childhood into puberty make it questionable that this movie is really for kids. It's probably more for grown-up kids recalling their own latch-key resiliencies.


Sam Lerner as Chowder especially rings true as the chubby sidekick who overcomes his cluelessness with sheer bumbling bravado. His facial expressions alone are worth the price of admission. His facial expressions and Kathleen Turner's voice.

What more could a grown-up kid want? Except to maybe watch it one more time in 3-D.

Cross-posted at Twitch.

2006 SFSFF—Seventh Heaven

This is the year I've had to admit that I know very little about film; but—rather than that being distressing news—I see it as a welcome opportunity to learn and to fill in the gaps of my knowledge, film by film, auteur by auteur, genre by genre.

This weekend it's silent film at San Francisco's 11th Annual Silent Film Festival, venued at the Castro Theatre. Artistic Director Stephen Samuels was kind enough to provide me a press pass for which I am deeply grateful. I'm also informationally indebted to Jonathan Marlow for his erudite overview for The Greencine Daily, Johnny Ray Huston's recommendations for the San Francisco Bay Guardian, and—though David Jeffers of SIFFBlog admits it's a daunting task writing about silent classics that have been the subject of books, college courses and even organized fan clubs—he nonetheless provides insightful spins on Seventh Heaven, Sparrows, Pandora's Box, The Unholy Three, and Show People (with more to follow, no doubt). Anne M. Hockens is helping him out over at SIFFBlog with her own takes on why silent film matters and Seventh Heaven. And—as if that isn't enough to chew on—the program guide for the festival is a rich collection of well-written essays by David Kiehn, Margarita Landazuri, Aimee Pavy, Laura Horak, Christel Schmidt, Shari Kizirian, Stacey Wisnia, Anna Avrekh, Richard Hildreth, and Scott Brogan. So there's really not much need for me to comment on the films themselves other than for shooting from the hip emotionally and I'll focus instead on the on-stage appearances, of which the festival programmers have provided plenty.

Friday's opening night feature was a brand new print of Frank Borzage's Seventh Heaven with Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell. Clark Wilson provided dynamic accompaniment on the Castro's Mighty Wurlitzer and Janet Gaynor's son, Robin Adrian, delivered a heartfelt centenary tribute to his mother.

"Its syrupy melodrama and creaking sentimentality can still bring tears to your eyes," Jonathan Marlow cautions and that's exactly what happened. I found myself crying—not for anything necessarily sad on the screen—but for the hopefulness of love and the dream that it can even exist in a world too cynical to grant it credence or—as David Jeffers phrases it—the film's "rapturous and poetic fulfillment of young love." Gaynor—who, incidentally, was once an usherette at the Castro Theatre—won the very first Best Actress Oscar for her heartwrenching portrayal of Diane, and Charles Farrell as Chico was so damn handsome you could completely understand why audiences used to go to movies to dream. "What makes the film great," Anne Hockens pinpoints, "is the change wrought in Diane by the redemptive power of love." She adds, "Isn't it amazing that a love story created about 80 years ago can still profoundly move a modern audience?" That's exactly what I felt. I guess, when all is said and done, we still go to movies to dream and are enraptured when movies are so finely crafted that they allow us to dream.

Margarita Landazuri, writing for the program guide, identifies Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell as "one of the great romantic teams in movie history" whose first film together "is the transcendent film romance of the silent era, and is also the first of three films starring Gaynor and Farrell directed by Frank Borzage. It established him as a director whose films focused on love as a spiritual force tested by hardship, and the transformative power of faith—which critic Andrew Sarris called 'a genuine concern with the wondrous inner life of lovers in the midst of adversity.' "

"Co-workers claimed that Borzage would weep while directing a sad scene," Landazuri continues, "and in a 1933 interview he talked about directing the actors to draw the audience into their emotions: 'Make the audience sentimental instead of the player. Make the audience act.' " That is the achievement I felt watching Seventh Heaven Friday night at the Castro. Emotion poured out of me into the screen. I wasn't passive in the slightest and neither was anyone else around me. We were all collectively participating in emotions summoned up from within us and, as Hockens noted, many were sobbing while applauding.

Gaynor's son, Robin Adrian, thanked the festival for inviting him. "As I'm sure you know," he said, "I was not born until after the end of her silent movie career and really her talkie career so all I can say are a few words about what she was like as a mother and it's kind of hard for me to believe that it's been a hundred years since her birth.


"She didn't really consider herself a celebrity even though she and my father—the designer Adrian—were considered celebrities. Both of them were extremely down-to-earth people and, as an example, I didn't even grow up in Beverly Hills. I grew up way out in the San Fernando Valley which is now all housing tracts. But at the time it was really the country. We had nothing north of us. It was all hills and three ranches went in about 1947 and we thought it was getting crowded. The town of Northridge, just as an example, was a block and a half long and all of its stores were on one side of the street. Certainly not a celebrity type of atmosphere.

"My mother finished her career when she married my father. She'd always been very hungry for knowledge and she felt like she had done her acting career, when it was over it was over and she went on to other things. My father being an artist, he exposed her to the art world. She got interested in painting, started that as a second career, and she said that one of her proudest moments was when she was featured in an article in American Artists magazine. She said at last she was considered a true artist, not a celebrity who painted, so she was very proud of that.

"When you see her in these movies you think of her as this poor little waif or this helpless little creature. She was not that way at all. She was actually quite a brave person. She and my father went to Africa in the late '40s. She drank blood and cow's milk with the Masai. They got out of there just before the Mau Mau uprisings where there were a lot of murders that took place. She had quite a few adventures. Then they moved down to Brazil in the middle-'50s, bought a coffee farm down there and the only way they could get there was either by flying in or by dirt road. So she certainly wasn't a pampered creature.

"My father had a rather early and untimely death and she ended up a few years later marrying a Broadway producer, Paul Gregory. They had a fantastic life together. They lived in an old refurbished farm house out there in Palm Springs. They had a great life together.

"As many of you know she was involved in a horrendous car accident right here in San Francisco. She never really fully recovered from that but, I'll tell you, she was a good sport and very upbeat until the end. The rest of it has to speak for itself. I can just tell you the Janet Gaynor who I knew as a mother and I was proud to have her as a mother."

Just before he sat down at the Wurlitzer, Clark Wilson addressed his audience to advise that the score he was going to perform would be a compiled score, utilizing the original 1927 love theme written by Erno Rapee for the film with additional light classic themes and various things that he hoped would fit this tremendous movie. He admitted that when he first saw Seventh Heaven he was bowled over by the beautiful love story on the screen between Gaynor and Farrell. He wanted to strive to get his music to fit under that. "I feel very small in trying to do this," he confessed, "but we'll do the best we can. Good Lord, it's a fabulous picture. So, as always, settle back in the perfumed twilight of this wonderful old electric pleasure dome and enjoy the feature you're about to see, the timeless and ageless Seventh Heaven."

07/19/06 ADDENDUM: Peter Nellhaus has added his perceptions to the screening of Seventh Heaven at Coffee, Coffee & More Coffee.

NEGLECTED HORROR—Eye of the Cat

After last week's Four Flies on Grey Velvet, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts continued its month-long tribute to "neglected horror" with David Lowell Rich's ailurophobic Eye of the Cat, whose direction—Variety noted—"often misleads" though "he does manage to get actors to speak bad lines with straight faces." Those bad lines were penned by Joseph Stefano who—to his credit—wrote the screenplay for Psycho and produced the original Outer Limits. YBCA's screening room was nearly full to capacity with a San Franciscan crowd appreciative of the kitschy allure Eye of the Cat has acquired over the decades, from its Edith Head mini-suits to its Sausalito smoke-in (which reminded me of the party skits from Rowan & Martin's Laugh-in—"I told my mother I was a latent homosexual and she said, 'Better latent than never.' "—Ka-THUMP!). I fully expected Judy Carne—that sock it to me girl—to be gyrating with flowers painted all over her body; the movie is just that mod. Can you dig it?

A surprisingly amusing blend between the psychologically perverse Alfred Hitchcock and the melodramatically perverse Douglas Sirk, this 1969 thriller starts right off with an impressive split-screen montage (eat your heart out 24!) scored by Lalo Schifrin that introduces wealthy befurred Aunt Danny (Eleanor Parker) on her way to the beauty parlor with diamond bracelets on her wrist and oxygen tank in hand. Aunt Danny suffers from debilitating emphysema which does not deter her from allowing dozens of cats to take dominion of her Pacific Heights mansion. One of them sneaks into her limousine and goes with her to the beauty parlor where, underneath the hair dryer, Aunt Danny nearly dies of a coughing attack (possibly because her hairdresser is Mark Herron, Judy Garland's fourth husband; don't blink or you'll miss his cameo). Aunt Danny's delicate condition inspires her beautician Kassia (Gayle Hunnicutt)—to whom Aunt Danny has confided one too many biographical details—to conjure up a plan on how to secure Aunt Danny's fortune when she dies. It's either that or all that money will be left to those yowling cats. Aware that Aunt Danny is pining over her missing nephew Wiley (Michael Sarrazin)—for whom she incestuously longs and for whom she would gladly change her will if Wiley would only come and sit at her bedside—Kassia tracks Wiley down and engages his cooperation in plotting Aunt Danny's demise in exchange for a split of the profits. Sarrazin, the star (you might recall) of They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (another 1969 vehicle) makes you question if they shouldn't actually shoot actors to put audiences out of their misery.

By contrast, Tim Henry—in his screen debut as Wiley's younger brother Luke—steals the show with an erotically underplayed performance. At the time of the film's release Henry was the only one who got anything close to a decent review, probably because with his shirt off and his back shiny with sweat he came thrillingly close to being indecent. It's a pity that in his prime his career didn't quite take off and that he ended up in the Battleship Galactica mini-series and, most recently, the fourth installment of Scary Movie. I won't hold it against him. We'll always have San Francisco in 1969 with Luke bare-chested in the conservatory.


I commend YBCA on securing a pristine print of Eye of the Cat. Not a single scratch (no pun intended) and only about two pops. Amazing. It made me wonder if its pristine condition is commensurate with how many times the film was actually shown? Comparisons to Hitchcock and Sirk are apt, not only as mentioned before because of Stefano's association with Psycho, but as interestingly pointed out by an IMDb member: "The cinematographer on the film was Russell Metty who photographed lots of Douglas Sirk movies and you can certainly see his style. The main set of the movie, the foyer of a large home with a winding staircase, is very much like the main set in Sirk's Written on the Wind and Metty uses the foyer's mirror and a vase of flowers in the same way as the earlier film. And even though ...Cat is set in 1969, it has that distinctive, slick, Alexander Golitzen/Universal Studios look."

Eleanor Parker—like Bette Davis/Joan Crawford in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and Olivia de Havilland in Lady In A Cage—rolls up in her wheelchair far behind in Eye of the Cat, not decrepit enough to be amusing, and just plain silly in her affections for Wylie whose thigh she suggestively slaps with splayed eager fingers when he finally does come to sit at her bedside.

But all these years later it doesn't really matter, does it? The gorgeous San Francisco locations around Lafayette Park, the sojourn across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito, the big hair, the cats, and the bitchy cat fights provided for an evening's fun. I'm really glad I got to see this "highly entertaining obscurity."

Cross-posted on Twitch.

THE QUIET—The Evening Class Interview With Elisha Cuthbert

Elisha Cuthbert's room at San Francisco's Ritz Carlton had a western exposure so we sat down in late afternoon warmth to have a chat. Her beauty was unnerving, all the more so for being so natural. I couldn't stop thinking about how Elisha has the dubious honor of teaching Paris Hilton how to drink whiskey.

* * *

Michael Guillén: Elisha, a few years back every Sunday night I used to sit down and watch my favorite t.v. show, which was 24, and I would just yell . . . .

Elisha Cuthbert: At me?

MG: . . . at your character Kim Bauer for making such horrible decisions.

Elisha: [Smiling.] Right.

MG: So I'm happy that in real life you've been making great decisions with your career, the movies that you've been choosing—The Girl Next Door, the remake of The House of Wax, and now Jamie Babbit's The Quiet. The Quiet is some of your finest acting to date and the camera loves you. [She laughs.] Congratulations!

EC: Thank you!

MG: Could you describe your character Nina Deer in The Quiet?

EC: Where to begin? Well, she's 17, and Nina is going through not only adolescence during this film but also some really difficult times in her life, dealing with her father and him sexually abusing her. It's a very deep and intricate role that requires her to be one way with her friends and one way at home and to find a balance between them. She's dealing with some rough things in her life. Not just adolescence. Adolescence is rough and this is tenfold. So that alone is quite a lot. But then at the end Nina sort of discovers herself, luckily through the character of Dot [Camilla Belle] who comes to live with her. Nina thinks that she can talk to Dot and I don't think Nina would ever have that opportunity with anyone else. So Dot helps facilitate the transformation and change in my character, which is so great.

MG: I know you don't like to play roles where you're a victim. Do you consider your character in The Quiet to be a victim?

EC: Yeah, I do. But at the same time I don't think she's aware of it, which is the beauty; but, I think she's aware that it's wrong but still isn't quite sure and still is very much in love with her father and I think from a young age was just brought up that way and in this environment and doesn't know any different. But you know that she's ashamed of it because she goes to school and she hides the fact. That all makes sense for the typical situation. Nina had to be vulnerable at times, which was hard for me, that's why this has been the most difficult film for me to date because I just had such a hard time doing that. Everything about Nina was wrong to me. I think that's why I took on the role. I wanted the challenge and anything that scares me is appealing. I went for it but at the same time there were moments on the set—one moment in particular where I was filming with Martin Donovan and we were shooting some of the bedroom scene stuff—I just had to take off and go into the set bathroom to cry and bawl, because I wanted to punch him. I wanted to be sick, ill really, because that's so not me and—of course I'm playing a character—but you can't help but get emotionally involved sometimes and this was the first instance where it really affected me beyond the action/cut that was hard.

MG: How did you become involved with this project? I know that—not only are you an actor—but you're also an associate producer; how did you become involved?


EC: I had gotten the script through my agents very early on in the process. They said, "They don't have any financing for this film but we read it and we think you might respond to it." Originally they thought of me for Dot. I got the script and I thought, "Wow! What a great movie! What a great story! It's so dark and so different from everything I've done except there's a triumph at the end, which makes it all worth it to me." I went in and I met with Jamie and I said, "Dot's great and she's dark and I can cut my hair and do it dark and get that sort of introvertedness …" and she looked at me and she said, "You're talking and you're oozing Nina to me." And I thought, "The cheerleader?!! The pretty one?! I don't want to do that. Can't you see that I'm so much more than that?" She said, "Just go back and re-read it with Nina in mind and I promise you, you're going to see, it's good." I went back and I read it, I read Nina, and I thought, "You know what? She's actually more complicated than Dot is and hiding this secret life that is so painful and then also to be experiencing teenagehood." I went back to Jamie and I said, "You're right. We've got to get this movie made." We ended up getting financing in Austin through the school and filmed it in Austin. I also was involved in the casting process and things like that. A little bit more involved.

MG: Did you enjoy that?

EC: I loved it! I loved it because I think I've done enough films and worked enough and long enough to know how it all works now. When you get a little bit, you want more, you want more, you want more. It's important to stay motivated and to stay interested. I think I've got a lot more going for me than just going out and being the actor in the movie. Especially on films like this that I feel connected to. That I feel needs to be made. If I can do that, that would be great.

MG: It was Burnt Orange who produced it?

EC: Burnt Orange Productions, which was an Austin-based company that was affiliated with the University of Texas. They had a lot of money to spend and they decided to spend it on making a series of nine different independent films that would help facilitate internships for their film program.

MG: You were working with the students directly? How was that for you?

EC: They were amazing and blew me away actually. They were just as excited to be on a movie set as we were. Because this was a real movie. This wasn't mock-up or pretend or imagine we're in this situation. This was the real deal. If we mess up, we mess up and we lose money. They were amazing and so consistent and ready to put in the hours. We shot this in four weeks and we didn't have a lot of time or a lot of money, but, they made it happen, which is great.

MG: You were talking about the complex nature of the role of Nina. Between Nina and Dot, I felt the two of you carried the dark seriousness of the film, but the film is also comic and that seems to be Jamie's trademark, that blend between the comic and the dark. What was it like working with her?

EC: Great! And to have a female—I hate to say whether male, female, whatever!—but for me, it made me a lot more comfortable. The content of this character and the things she's going through are so personal and so intense and to be able to go to Jamie and say, "I need a minute to deal with this and then I'll be right back." She helped me with that. She also kept reminding me, "You're 17, you're 17, you're 17" because I do, I think, in my real life exude a certain confidence and maturity and I always had to keep reminding myself that she's 17, she's 17, she doesn't talk like that, she talks like this, and Jamie kept me focused on that too, which was great. She never got overwhelmed. She was just always very consistent. And that's what you need. You need someone that knows what they're doing. She was great.

MG: Another one of her themes that she uses a lot is popularity as a mask or defense mechanism. You didn't want to play the cheerleader, but as the popular cheerleader it was a moving role because it was a conflicted and confining persona …

EC: Exactly.

MG: … and you knew all this other stuff was going on underneath.

EC: I think she dealt with that in her first film too where there's a cheerleader but she's dealing with a lot of stuff that maybe people don't see on the surface. Most people in the world have one way they want to be perceived and then also are dealing with things in their own life. Nina is a really big example of that. And I think Jamie is fascinated by that. Jamie is very interested in topics that have to do with being uncomfortable but shouldn't be uncomfortable and putting those out there on the table. It's easier to watch these sorts of topics in a film and see it resolve than to maybe deal with it in real life.

MG: What' s your take on The Quiet's final scene where Nina and Dot are shown wading through a creek in the moonlight? What does that mean for you?


EC: Not only was it beautiful—and romantic!—but it was about her finally discovering that, "You know what? We're going to be okay" and that, as much as Nina maybe had been upset about what Dot had taken revenge on, I think she discovers at that moment, right after they bury everything and put it away, she goes, "Why did you do it?" Nina wasn't talking about her own father. Nina was asking her about Dot's father. I think at that moment she realizes that what has just happened is a good thing. Because right away you don't really sense that from Nina. I think that is a moment of clarity and the calm after the storm.

MG: I agree it's a beautiful scene. Your ensemble of co-actors, do you have anything you'd like to say? About Edie Falco…?

EC: She was very quiet making the movie. In the movie she's spacey and sometimes I thought, "Wow, that's an interesting choice" or "Oooooh, that's interesting" but the way it came across on screen just blew me away. Things I never even noticed because I was doing Nina. I was into Nina and all of a sudden I'm watching it on the screen and I cut to Edie and her eyes are rolling in the back of her head. I never saw that when we were filming. Those subtleties are so poignant in the film. I was just blown away by her. I thought she was great. Martin and I didn't do a lot of talking because, obviously, it was a little bit awkward. Camilla, and Katy Mixon who plays Michelle….

MG: Very funny.

EC: Blast! And it was her first film so I was walking her through a lot of it. I said, "Don't be worried about it. Don't get nervous. Don't freak out. Go in there and just do what you imagined and what you read the first time you opened the script and just go for it." She'd go, "Yeah, yeah, okay, okay, I got it, I got it." And then she'd go out and nail it. And I'd be like, "You nailed it! That' great!" Just crack it up. We had a good time making it.

MG: I anticipate that the film is going to do well so congratulations and thank you for your time.

EC: Thank you for your compliments. I appreciate it.

MG: You bet!

* * *

Sony Pictures Classics will be releasing The Quiet come late August. Elisha's next film—Captivity, directed by Roland Jaffe—is in post-production. In Captivity she plays Jennifer, a woman who—along with her husband—awakes to find herself held captive in a cellar. Following that thriller, you will next hear Elisha as the voice of Cleo in Cat Tale, which is currently in pre-production.

Photos courtesy of WireImage.

Cross-posted on Twitch, where Kurt has likewise posted the trailer for The Quiet.

CHICANO—Film/Video Series at the M.H. deYoung Museum

From July 22, 2006 to October 22, 2006, San Francisco's Mexican Museum in collaboration with the Fine Arts Museums presents Chicano—two distinct but related exhibitions of Chicano/a culture and painting as they have emerged in the wake of the Chicano movement for political and social change during the 1960s and 1970s. The exhibitions come to the M.H. deYoung Museum as part of a national, 15-city tour. San Francisco's Rene Yañez was the Curator of the Chicano Visions exhibition and consultant for Chicano Now.

Chicano Visions: American Painters on the Verge as Collected by Cheech Marin is largely based on the comedian and actor's private collection, reflecting those aspects of Chicano culture and the artists that most interest him. The exhibition brings together 26 Chicano/a artists from across the Southwest, including Californians Carlos Almaraz, Chaz Bojorquez, Diane Gamboa, Margaret Garcia, Rupert Garcia, Gronk, Carmen Lomas Garza, Ester Hernandez, Frank Romero, and Patssi Valdez.

Chicano Now: American Expressions was conceived as a way to immerse viewers in the creative ambience of Chicano urban experience. It is a multifaceted series of interactive installations by comedians, writers, video documentarians, filmmakers, painters, graphic designers, performance artists, musicians, and scholars of Mexican descent.

The de Young will also be exhibiting Chicano Encounters: Local Places and Global Communities, organized in cooperation with the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts in San Francisco. This exhibition supplements Chicano Visions and Chicano Now by giving special attention to the contributions of Bay Area artists. The exhibition features 55 prints and posters that place Chicano/a history in a global and local context through an engagement with other Latino cultures, hybrid identities, and international struggles that unite to form the culture and history of San Francisco's Mission District.

Starting Saturday, July 22, docent-led tours of Chicano Visions, Chicano Now and Chicano Encounters will begin at 1:30pm, Tuesday-Sunday. These tours are free for deYoung and Mexican Museum members and no reservation is required.

Of special note is that the deYoung will be open free of charge from 9:30 am to 5:00 pm. on opening day with a party beginning at noon, featuring the live music of Dr. Loco's Rockin' Jalapeño Band, La Familia Peña-Govea, the John Santos Quintet, and the high-energy dancers and percussionists of Loco Bloco. A formal program featuring Cheech Marin and local dignitaries, and an interactive mural project are just some of the other exciting activities at this special opening event. All are welcome!

There's no reason why any of you should know this, but I have a notable collection of Chicano and Latino art, including works by Patssi Valdez, Tony DeCarlo, Mario Romero, Viva Paredes, Evelyn Orantes, Joaquin Newman, Yolanda Lopez, Artemio Rodriguez, Calixto Robles and several others. My collection—which I nickname Rojo—was essentially kickstarted by Cheech Marin's example and so I am especially delighted to have the opportunity to savor his impressive collection more fully.

Long-time friend and collaborator, Tere Romo, curator with The Mexican Museum, has pulled together a film/video series to complement the exhibitions. Structured as three thematic Friday evenings over the course of the exhibitions, each program begins at 6:30 in the deYoung auditorium and is free after museum admission.

Friday, August 4, 6:30 p.m.
BEGINNINGS—The 1960s and 1970s (70 min.)

Yo Soy Chicano—Jesús Treviño, 1972, 60 min.
This is the first nationally broadcast documentary about Chicanos. Music, art, interviews and sepia-toned historical re-creations are interwoven to chart the Chicano experience from the pre-Columbian era to the civil rights activities of the 1960s and 1970s.

Remember Los Siete—Veronica Majano, work in progress, 10 min.
A preview of Majano's short experimental documentary about the seven Central American young men from the Mission District in San Francisco falsely accused of killing a white undercover police officer in 1969, which galvanized the Chicano movement in the Bay Area.

Question & Answer with Jesús Treviño (LA) and Veronica Majano (SF).

Friday, September 1, 6:30 p.m.
[MEDIA]TING THE MIRROR (81 min)

When You Think of Mexico: Images of Mexican in the Mass Media—Yolanda Lopez, with Carl Heyward, 1986, 28 min.
This video offers an artist's view of how the entertainment industry, food manufacturers, and other corporate interests create mythic Mexicans. It presents an analysis of the "good" (picturesque) Mexican and the "bad" (illegal) Mexican; and shows how symbols deliver their meaning both overtly and in a more subtle manner through an unspoken cultural context.

Cronica de un ser (Chronicle of a Being)—S.M. Peña, 1990, 7 min.
This video "samples" Licking the Greasers (1915) with contemporary video footage in its exploration of colonialism, media stereotypes and gender issues and their impact on Latino identity.

Asco—Juan Garza, 1994, 13 min.
This segment from PBS Heritage (KLRN, San Antonio) "Latino Artists: Pushing the Edge," describes the development of the 1970's Los Angeles visual arts/performance group of that name (Spanish for nausea) through interviews with its four members: Harry Gamboa, Patssi Valdez, Gronk and Willie Herrón.

Pretty Vacant—Jim Mendiola, 1996, 33 min.
The film tells the story of a Sex-Pistols-obsessed Chicana punk rocker who publishes a zine and struggles to investigate the Pistols' infamous gig at San Antonio redneck bar Randy's Rodeo. It's a sly take on adulation and identity.

Question & Answer with Yolanda Lopez (S.F.) and Jim Mendiola, LA.

Friday, October 6, 6:30 p.m.
RESISTANCE HUMOR (62 min)

Columbus on Trial—Lourdes Portillo, 1992, 18 min.
In this political satire featuring the comedy trio Culture Clash, sharp dialogue, physical comedy, and state of the art video techniques are used to dramatize a mock trial of Columbus in a present-day courtroom. With a "Spanish-by-way-of-Mexico" judge presiding, Columbus on Trial hits on the complexities of Latino identity in America while slicing into the kitschy consumer icons and buzzwords that stand for racial and ethnic identity in contemporary society.

Corn In The Front Yard—Al Lujan, 2001, 11 min.
A male nurse attends to a woman who had major plastic surgery paid for by her gay son. It also stars a hysterical Latino real estate queen who laments the loss of the neighborhood, as she herself becomes a mover and a shaker.

Why Cybraceros?—Alex Rivera, 1998, 5 min.
Why Cybraceros? is based on a promotional film produced in the late 1940's by the California Grower's Council, titled Why Braceros? Rivera uses footage from this old industrial to briefly lay out the history of the Bracero Program in the United States. At the half way point the piece takes a sharp turn as the narrator advocates a futuristic Bracero Program in which only the labor is imported to the United States.

Ozzy Goes to the Alamo—Jim Mendiola and Ruben Ortiz Torres, 2001, 5 min.
This duo claims this film to be "the world's first Chicano 3-D movie."

Lupe & JuanDi from the Block—Fulana Collective, 2003. 5:06 min.
Inspired by La Virgen de Guadalupe, San Juan Diego, and Nuestra Señora de J-Lo, this music video was created to answer burning questions, such as: What's up with these designer Virgen de Guadalupe jeans?, How come El Indio Juan Diego became a white man for his saintly Vatican image?, Is the Pope concerned about losing the Latino market?, and Are we fooled by the props G-Loop's got? Is she, is she, Lupe from the Block?

Larry Landia—Karim Scarlata, 2005, 17 min.
A wry and visually compelling story of a young Mission resident Chicano, Larry who fancies himself an eagle warrior as he grapples with love, the legacy of colonialism, the metaphysics of basketball, and the sacrifices one must make in life in order to make relationships work.

Question & Answer with Karim Scarlata, and Al Lujan (S.F.)

NEGLECTED HORROR—Dario Argento's Quattro mosche di velluto grigio (Four Flies on Grey Velvet)

A shout out to Brian Darr at Hell on Frisco Bay for his consummate reportage of Bay Area cinema. He helps me calendar and prioritize. His "Fear of the Dark" post alerted me to the rare screening of Dario Argento's Four Flies on Grey Velvet, the first entry in the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts "Neglected Horror" series. I'm a longtime Argento fan and—though Four Flies is admittedly not Argento's best venture—it was a screening I was not about to miss, and was not without reward.

The Terror Trap provides a serviceable plot synopsis.

Four Flies on Grey Velvet was Argento's third giallo, following L'Uccello dalle piume di cristallo (The Bird With the Crystal Plumage, 1970) and Il gatto a nove code (The Cat O' Nine Tails, 1971) (the so-called "Animal Trilogy"). One of the main components of the giallo—as pointed out by Xavier Mendek in his Senses of Cinema profile on Argento—concerns "the fate of amateur detectives who find themselves compromised by their involvement in crime and, as a result, are forced to go outside of the law to mount an unofficial investigation in order to prove their innocence." This is certainly the case with protagonist Roberto Tobias (Michael Brandon) who—angered that he is being stalked by someone in shades and overcoat—confronts his adversary in an abandoned theater and by way of scuffle inadvertently kills him. Or does he?

Howard Thompson of The New York Times was one of the first to review Four Flies. He was hardly enamored with the film, describing it as "farfetched", "banal", and "flabby." Further, he complained that "[i]n the guesswork department, Mr. Argento and his two writer colleagues simply aren't fair. All that circuitous teasing and those red herrings don't produce a shred of real evidence to nibble on. You're on your own, in pure hit-or-miss speculation."

Despite his complaints and reservations, however, Thompson had to concede that the film had its compelling, suspenseful moments, "Argento at his chilling best." Which says something about Argento's auteur proclivities, his unique sensibility, even in uneven projects. I was also struck by Thompson's exasperated query, "[W]here on earth are the police?" As if movies are tethered to practical reality, and not imaginative vision. It reminded me of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's comment following the SF International screening of Doppelganger some years back wherein Kurosawa reminded his audience that his movie was an alternate reality where there were no police and a doppelganger could get away with murder. Perhaps since 1972—when Thompson caught Four Flies in distribution—audiences and critics have acquired a better grasp on the aesthetic strengths of alterity? Because I would argue it is exactly Argento's artificiality that proves thrilling even when the plot proves silly. Who needs plot when you have beautifully-staged abstractions that grip you in heightened anxiety, if not sublime terror?

Roger Ebert also reviewed Four Flies upon its release and likewise found little to recommend it other than the presence of Mimsy Farmer, "who has the best mouth since Joey Heatherton", "looks a little like Jean Seberg, has a marvelously sculptured face and deserves to get some of those Mia Farrow roles." Like Thompson, Ebert protested Argento's purposeful obfuscations, stating Argento "cheats in another way: He throws in absolutely no clues, so that we're just as surprised at the ending as the hero is."

Ebert offered insight into Argento's playfulness. He wrote, "One of Hitchcock's favorite subjects has been the innocent man, wrongly accused. Four Flies on Grey Velvet does have a potentially interesting plot twist: the guilty man, wrongly accused." Finally, somewhat letting the cat out of the bag, Ebert complained, "There is only one fly in this movie." And that's true. In the opening sequence Roberto is being pestered by a mosquito, not a fly as it is usually described. (As an aside, I must mention that reading a review Ebert wrote nearly 30 years ago seems my way of wishing him well during his current health crisis.)

Ed Gonzales at Slant Magazine has, perhaps, the most insightful and appreciative commentary on Argento's body of work—Dario Argento's Dreams—which includes his synopsis of Four Flies and his astute conclusion that the film is "perhaps most remarkable for it's unusual spiritual underpinnings and Dario Argento's deft attention for sexual signifiers"; particularly the film's heightened "homocentric framework" which Gonzales skillfully explores.

In his Senses of Cinema essay, Xavier Mendik states Argento's "unconventional gender twists have repeatedly upset established definitions of cinematic taste." Author Maitland McDonagh (Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento) describes Argento's directorial perspective as "[a] remarkable view of the sexual world as some kind of nasty moebius strip."

I also strongly recommend Gary Needham's Kinoeye essay comparing Argento's Cat O' Nine Tails with Four Flies On Grey Velvet. He raises "central issues of gender dynamics and the Italian horror film's fixation with boundary transgression and breakdown" and provides salient psychological insights not only into this film, but the genre, and the director himself. Of special note is his discussion of "the perversity inherent in deviant and oppressive familial relations." The family, he writes, lies at the root of horror cinema.

It's interesting that Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader would describe Argento as "Rome's answer to William Castle." Depicting gender as "the dread of difference", and the family unit as the root of horror, Argento's Four Flies aligns with Hitchcock's Psycho and Castle's Homicidal.

Through his use of doll-like masks, both in Four Flies and his follow-up Deep Red, Argento references the seeming innocence of childhood, revealed by memory—in the grip of Freud—to be a hazardous terrain of influential harm.

With so much having been written about Argento and Four Flies On Grey Velvet, I wanted to merely tease out what appealed to me. My favorite scene is one where Roberto is in his apartment in the dark at night. Outside the window tall trees are rustling in the wind; an "aural clue." Later, Argento would openly admit that Deep Red was his version of Antonioni's Blow-up. Four Flies prefigured that creative intent. The sound of the wind in the trees outside Roberto's apartment reminded me of the sound of the wind in the trees in the park in Blow-up, which Jennifer Macmillan (Invisible Cinema) identified as her favorite "cinephiliac moment" in the commentary section of Girish Shambu's post on the theme. It certainly was my favorite "cinephiliac" moment in this film.

Argento frequently achieves abstraction through his strategic use of silence and a sound design which Xavier Mendek describes as "radical splits between sound and image tracks." Though somewhat forced, I was intrigued by the scene where Roberto meets and hires Arrosio (Jean-Pierre Marielle), the private detective. The sound of his car's engine "drives" Roberto up the steps and into Arrosio's office.

It is the stylization of Argento's cinematic murders that compensates horror with beauty. The reflection of victim Dalia (Francine Racette) in a plunging knife blade becomes a clear, death-dealing mirror. Her head bumping down the stairs is both hilarious and exciting, again for its sheer artificiality. Argento has a keen gift for mixing the comic with the horrific.

The link between Roberto's repeated fantasies of execution by decapitation connects with the actual outcome of the film's killer. Though Robert Firsching (The Amazing World of Cult Movies) opines Roberto's "recurring nightmares of a decapitation in an Arabian town-square … give the film a bit more uncomfortable currency than it really needs", I concur with John White (10,000 Bullets) who observes Roberto's nightmares "foreshadow how justice will be delivered."

That justice is delivered in what Needham terms "the most poetic and tragic fate of an Argento assassin", i.e., "simply breathtaking." Xavier Mendak emphasizes Argento's technically innovative approach to this final scene of decapitation. He used a technologically-advanced high-speed medical camera, identified by Needham as "the Pentazet, a German camera which consumes 30,000 frames per second but when run at normal theatrical speed shows the image in a wholly different temporal register. It is not slow motion, as the image doesn't drag or shudder, but flowing."

As Argento is fond of reminding us, death has never been more beautiful.

Cross-posted at Twitch.

2006 FRAMELINE XXX FOLLOW-UP—Meth / Rock Bottom: Gay Men and Meth

"Recovery is a dominant narrative in our culture," Kent Jones writes for the May/June 2006 issue of Film Comment (p. 34). Though taken out of its Altmanesque context, I felt Jones' comment appropriate to underscore the two Frameline documentary entries on the methamphetamine epidemic among gay males—Todd Ahlberg's Meth and Jay Corcoran's Rock Bottom: Gay Men and Meth.

Introducing Ahlberg's documentary, Frameline's Associate Director Steve Jenkins asserted that, rather than duplicative programming, the two documentaries engage in dialogue. I would agree. Though both are testimonial docs, their combination provides a broader sampling of voices and perspectives on this pressing health issue. As novelist William Goyen might put it: "Had I a hundred mouths, I would tell a hundred stories." Whatever spin you might put on it, or whatever ethical stance you might take on the subject, there's no question that when all is said and done hundreds of voices will be necessary to envoice this season of fire. I'm respectful of both directors' efforts to offer some of the first.

During her keynote address at Frameline's Persistent Vision Conference, B. Ruby Rich noted that—if festivals can be used to reflect the predominant themes of any given year—this year's theme might be gay males and methamphetamine use; a sad and unfortunate fact. It is still a divisive subject and, though some consensus has been reached about the havoc meth use has wreaked among individuals and—by extension—the community, what's do be done about it is still very much a personal issue and up for debate. It reminds me of the arguments around the closing of the bath houses during the AIDS pandemic. When Jenkins noted that the screening of Meth was co-presented by The Stonewall Project—which through its website tweaker.org advocates harm reduction strategies—the concept of harm reduction was applauded. This signals conflicted attitudes within the community about how to best resolve or ameliorate the volatile issues surrounding "tina" usage.

Of the two, I felt Rock Bottom more effectively chronicled the damage of meth on individual lives. By interviewing individuals in the hospital and individuals denying the gravity of their use shortly before their deaths, Corcoran effectively demonstrated the true danger of extended meth use. The talking heads in Meth, on the other hand, seemed to be stationed before that juncture, concerned more with whether or not to stop or ratchet down use. Whereas the self-denials evident in Rock Bottom proceeded towards deteriorating health and death, the self-denials in Meth came across as familiar and almost comical. The audience laughed whenever a user claimed he had his usage under control. This disturbed me and reminded me of an insight I gained when I saw the Jean Cocteau retrospective in Paris. One of the rooms of that exhibit was devoted to Cocteau's addiction to opium. The thrust of that display was to emphasize Cocteau's cycle of use and recovery, use and recovery, which pertains to how many men grapple with their meth use, and why harm reduction is in favor rather than complete withdrawal. A truth made all the more disturbing by anecdotes of men who go to recovery groups only to make sexual contacts and find new sources of speed.

Without question, from the benefit of distance, future historians will look back at this time—much as I look back at the '70s when it seemed there was a concerted effort to make gay males alcoholics—and recognize that when cultures marginalize individuals and damage their self-esteem, they create a breeding ground for substance abuse of one form or another. Meth has revealed the obvious. Despite decades of human rights and legislative advances, some wounds have yet to be healed.

2006 FRAMELINE XXX FOLLOW-UP—Wrestling With Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner

Good friend Emily Hoyer caught Frieda Lee Mock's Wrestling With Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner at its Frameline screening. I had seen the documentary at the press conference but, feeling that—due to its length—it teetered uncomfortably into hagiography, I didn't really have much to say about it. Fortunately, Emily did. "How can you go wrong with a subject like Tony Kushner?" Emily qualified, "but it still exceeded expectations." Emily has been kind enough to share her write-up with The Evening Class.

* * *

Wrestling is an extremely intimate movie—the camera is there at his wedding to Mark Harris, we see him with his bio family, we see him working with [his] composer, we see clips showing him as a flaming little sissy, we see his family's shul and his grandfather's business in Louisiana, etc. Then, of course, there are clips of his commencement address at Vassar, his speech at an anti-war protest, his appearances at a panel about the Wrestling with Zion book, his pep talk at a bank's LGBT group's meeting or Pride celebration, etc.

I have heard Kushner interviewed many times, and saw him speak at the Metropolitan Community Church once, and he always talks very articulately about his process, and what inspires him. But in the movie, you get to be there with him as he's inspired—e.g., when he is working on Brundibar with Maurice Sendak, you see clips from the Nazi propaganda film, and witness one of the few children in the film who was not murdered as she sees a performance of the Sendak-Kushner production. The movie brings you into his heart and conscience, not just his mind.

He mentions in one of his speeches "the ethical obligation not to despair" if you can possibly help it. Fortunately, instead of having Kushner talk at us about saving the world from all its woes, the movie connects us with what inspires him, and with the inspiring brilliance and conscience of his work, so we get as unmediated an experience as possible.

One other note, apropos of nothing: the movie was filmed between 09/11/01 and the November 2004 election. (One of the very last scenes is of him accompanying people in Miami as they try to vote, and helping resolve situations where people were unfairly turned away from polling places.) At the beginning of the film, Kushner was in the midst of working on Homebody / Kabul—and then all the sudden, the U.S. attacks Afghanistan. Toward the end of the film, you see Caroline, Or Change, and you see his childhood home in Louisiana, and what he used to think was the basement. The line, "nobody has a basement in Louisiana" (or something like that), is repeated many times. So watching the movie now, you see all these places and have to wonder if they still exist. Kushner must really have his finger on the pulse of something.

I am glad that this is going to be distributed in the fall, so I will get to see it again. Meanwhile, this makes me want to watch the HBO production of Angels in America again.

* * *

Though Wrestling With Angels was screened only once at Frameline, Bay Area audiences have another opportunity when it screens as part of the upcoming Jewish Film Festival at the Roda Theatre, Berkeley Repertory, on Thursday, August 3, 6:30 p.m. The documentary also won the Lena Sharpe (Audience Favorite) Award at the Seattle International.

Alternate views on the documentary include Sura Wood from The Hollywood Reporter who opines Wrestling With Angels "suffers from a crucial lack of perspective." She cautions that Mock—in getting too close to her subject—has lost her objectivity and reveals "a reluctance to cut her material." The documentary thus comes off "adulatory" and "could well have been titled Ode to Kushner." Notwithstanding, her bottom line is that Wrestling With Angels is an "entertaining doc about what it takes to be Tony Kushner."

"Because Mock is less selective," she writes, "the film drags in spots, despite the playwright's humor, conviction and abundant charm. If nothing else, this is an essay in charisma."

Variety's Robert Koehler states Mock has missed a golden opportunity to appropriately profile Kushner, providing instead "a mild, PBS-style pic more interested in Kushner's busy schedule and good citizenship than his writing."

JAPANESE ANIMATION—Kihachirô Kawamoto

I was grateful that the East Bay Express asked Frako Loden to write up the Pacific Film Archive's two-day program of Kihachirô Kawamoto's puppet animation. With her firsthand knowledge of Japanese culture and a scholar's eye for detail, she succinctly previews the program's fare. Along with Jasper Sharp's Midnight Eye overview of Kawamoto's oeuvre and his interview with Kawamoto, as well as Miguel Romero's notes on his sabbatical encounter with Kawamoto, I felt informed and prepared.


Admittedly, I only caught the first evening of Kawamoto's animation but it was enough to recognize his genius and to appreciate the beauty of his craft. His first piece—Breaking of Branches is Forbidden (Hana-Ori, 1968)—lightheartedly moralizes about the "pleasures and punishments" of drinking sake. A temple's head monk orders his young acolyte to guard a beautiful cherry blossom tree while he goes out. A samurai warrior and his servant arrive at the temple and want to feast under the branches of the cherry tree. At first, the acolyte refuses, but when he smells the sake, he succumbs to their generosity. He ends up passed out drunk dressed in women's clothing and responsible for the cherry tree's broken branch. "Here Czech mentor Jiri Trnka's influence on the early Kawamoto is most evident," Frako writes but distinguishes "that the characters' faces originate in traditional Japanese theatrical forms like kyogen—an origin shared with, say, Gimme Gimme Octopus of 1970s children's TV animation." (For those interested in pursuing Frako's references, the Japan Arts Council has an excellent webpage on noh and kyogen and Film Threat has reviewed the dvd of Gimme Gimme Octopus (Kure Kure Takora). Further, I've discovered a sampling of the inanity, plus an MP3 for those who can't get enough.)

Returning to Kawamoto, he claims the worst year of his life was the one spent raising money for Breaking of Branches Is Forbidden. Without a distributor, Kawamoto solicited his audience and exhibited the film in a rented hall.

I love the acolyte's face and bald head in this piece, so foolish and cavalier, whimsical. One of Miguel Romero's most interesting observations—among many—is about Kawamoto's puppet heads. He writes, "The most distinguishing feature of [Kawamoto's] puppets is the heads. Although smaller than his fist, the heads convey an amazing degree of psychological subtlety and depth. In demonstrating how he makes the heads, he revealed his secret. He covers the papier maché heads with kidskin. This gives the puppet's skin an exceptional smoothness and translucent quality. Since most of his puppets feature articulated eyes and mouths, the total effect, while not necessarily realistic, is very lifelike in its total effect."














Frako points out how Demon (Oni, 1972) evokes "the mysterious transformational power of mothers, especially on the threshold between life and death" and notes the story is a Japanese medieval legend Konjaku-monogatari from the same 12th-century anthology as Rashomon. Jasper Sharp states Demon's "plain black backdrops and minimalist design seems more explicitly inspired by the traditional theatrical forms of Noh and Kabuki theatre, and bunraku doll dramas." Demon concerns two brothers, both hunters, who live with their elderly mother. One day, the brothers go to the mountains to set traps for deer. Suddenly, from the top of a tree, a demon's arm reaches out and grabs the younger brother. The older brother shoots an arrow, severing the demon's arm. When they examine the arm the brothers make their "grisly discovery"—that the arm resembles their mother's.


With A Poet's Life (Shinjin No Shogai, 1974), Kawamoto ventured into cut-out animation (kirigami), departing from his puppets, because he didn't think "the story was well-suited to puppet animation." But he wasn't sufficiently pleased with that venture to continue cut-out animation. After A Poet's Life, he decided not to do it anymore. "Puppets make their own story," Kawamoto explained to Midnight Eye's Jasper Sharp, "while with cut out animation the story is created by the animator."

Sharp writes: "A Poet's Life is based on a story by Kobo Abe (1924-1993), a number of whose works, such as Woman in the Dunes and The Face of Another were adapted for the screen by Hiroshi Teshigahara in the 1960s. Similar to Teshigahara's films, Kawamoto presents us with a fable which is as thought-provoking as it is incomprehensible, this time detailing an old woman working at a factory mass-producing clothing who one day mistakenly manages [to] fall asleep at the loom and weave herself into the fabric of a woolen jacket."

Winter has never been such a bitterly-cold snowflake as it is in A Poet's Life. I was moved by the film's ending: A mother rat scavenging to build a nest for her babies, inadvertently scratches the old woman's heart in the woolen jacket, which slowly becomes bloodstained with her death.


Kawamoto combined kirigami with his puppets for the surreal Travel (Tabi, 1973) wherein a young girl sets off on a physical journey, which is also an inner voyage through which she will learn all the pain and joy of life. The journey changes her completely but when she returns she is the only one who knows how she has changed. The poem in the film is by Su Tong-Po, a famous Chinese poet. Sharp found Travel's flat 2D collage style "reminiscent of Terry Gilliam's work for Monty Python, cross-referencing well-known works by surrealist artists such as Salvador Dali, Paul Delvaux and MC Escher in a deeply Freudian tale in which a young girl wanders lost through a cavernous museum space doubling as her subconscious."

But though conceding Travel was "beautiful, dreamlike work", Sharp had to ask Kawamoto directly what it meant. Kawamoto explained that in the Spring of 1968 the Soviet Union invaded Prague and killed a lot of Czech people. "The film is about the Life of Suffering," he said, "Buddha says that life is suffering and there are four basic sufferings: birth, disease, aging and dying. These are the four major sufferings in a person's life. There are a further four sufferings that Buddha spoke about. These are having to meet people you find annoying, being parted from a loved one, not getting the things you desire, and the sufferings of the mind and body. In order to get rid of those sufferings one must achieve a state of satori, or enlightenment. This is the theme of Travel. All of these elements of the eight sufferings are contained within that movie. The main character of the girl wonders if the Indian man she meets might be her lover from a former life. There's a scene where she drops the statue she is holding."


Whereas Sharp considers the 19-minute Dojoji Temple (1976) Kawamoto's most "traditionally inspired", Frako Loden describes it as a "harrowing" and "well-known tale of a girl who falls in love with a resistant pilgrim. Demonized by her unrequited feelings, she turns into a lethal serpent that encircles the huge temple bell he hides in and incinerates it, leaving him an ashy skeleton—another victim of earthly desire."

"Stylistically," Sharp furthers, "it resembles the yamato-e narrative picture scrolls of traditional Japanese art, with its watercolor backdrop of flattened compositions and non-converging parallels running to the horizon. With virtually nothing in the way of dialogue, it is one of the most lyrical and mesmeric of [Kawamoto's works]."


The evening's pièce de résistance, however, was The Book of the Dead [Person] (Shisha no sho, 2005), Kawamoto's second full-length feature and his magnum opus, which world premiered as part of a Special Retrospective Tribute to Kawamoto at the 40th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, an event which likewise commemorated Kawamoto's 80th birthday. The Book of the Dead is stunningly beautiful and complex. Just to watch the fabric on Kawamoto's puppets waver in the wind is enough to make you believe in magic all over again.

Kathy Gertiz's evocative synopsis suffices: "Set during the Nara period in the mid-eighth century, when Buddhism was introduced to Japan from China, this hauntingly beautiful puppet animation intertwines two poetic stories. The first is based on a true story of a young noblewoman, Iratsume, who studies Buddhism, meticulously making copies of the amida sutra. After seeing what she believes to be a vision of the Buddha, she journeys to a temple. There she learns the story of Prince Otsu, who was executed fifty years earlier. Obsessed by a vision of a young woman, an ancestor of Iratsume, who witnessed his death, Prince Otsu's ghost haunts the temple in the belief that Iratsume is the woman of his vision. The two battle through many nights, one longing for the material world, the other striving for the spiritual. Driven to make this film because 'the world is now confused and in panic, and there is war happening for no reason,' Kawamoto expresses the Japanese Buddhist concept that the souls of those who are killed must be consoled, saying, 'I am trying to heal those innocent people who have died in recent wars.' "

Frako embroiders the theme by stating, "The elemental force of earthly desire beyond the grave is the theme that takes Kawamoto's exquisite animation beyond the fairy tale and into the realm of spiritual transformation. It seems natural that his stories come from medieval tales and Noh plays, set as they are in the enchanted spirit world of Buddhism."

For those who want a sampling of the work, Twitch provides a lovely Japanese trailer. This entry is also cross-posted on Twitch.

05/16/07 UPDATE: Dean Bowman has written an informative essay on The Book of the Dead for Midnight Eye.