Blonde Venus (1932)—Josef von Sternberg's preposterously mesmerizing tale of mother love—runs the gamut from the glamorous heights of fame and success to the dilapidated depths of despair and ruin. Yet another melodramatic narrative of what Juliet Clark calls "the woman's way" of upholding honor through dishonor, Magdalenian inferences still apply. One could even caption the portrait above as "Marlene as Magdalen"; it so resembles the saint's penitence in the wilderness. This would be a great double bill with Emilio Fernández's Víctimas del pecado (1951). What a mother won't do for her child, including another john. Again, I have to wonder how influenced "El Indio" was by Sternberg's melodramatics?
As Judy Bloch nails it in her capsule for PFA's ongoing Sternberg retrospective: "It's not surprising that the French Surrealists gave themselves over to Sternberg's films with Marlene Dietrich, who for them embodied the disruptive force. Marlene singing 'Hot Voodoo' in a gorilla suit brings the exotic home in Sternberg's only Dietrich film set in America. And when she peels off her gorilla hands (not to mention her head), she is Gilda gilded with a delicious element of the absurd. Strip off the animal, and what's underneath? More animal. Dietrich plays a cabaret performer with an ill husband (Herbert Marshall) and a very healthy protector (Cary Grant). She sets out with her son on a journey across Sternbergian America, leading an increasingly tattered existence as they move south to the Mexican border. Sternberg's picture of family life is one of looming depression, even while his forests, bordellos, and flophouses have an uncanny incandescence."
Uncanny is the film's far-fetched redemption. I mean, c'mon. Why in even God's good Heaven should Helen Faraday aka Helen Jones aka "Blonde Venus" (Dietrich) give up millionaire Nick Townsend (the dashing and dapper Cary Grant) for sulking down-and-out husband Ed aka Ned Faraday (Herbert Marshall)? Marshall's Faraday, along with Clive Brook's Doc in Shanghai Express, should team up as 1932's sourpuss team. Don't they recognize the beauty of a diva's sacrifice when they see it? Would they set aside their dignity to put on a gorilla suit for the one they love? Would they give up overnight Parisian success to settle for a five-floor walk-up? Unlikely. But, as Bloch observes, Dietrich can make even the domestic and plebian seem downright incandescent.
Cross-published on Twitch.
It takes more than one viewing of Josef von Sternberg's Shanghai Express (1932) to fully appreciate why Magdalen (Marlene Dietrich) changed her name to Shanghai Lily, the "notorious white flower of China." This is my third viewing and—as some say—therein lies the charm.
As Juliet Clark succinctly synopsizes in her capsule for Pacific Film Archive's ongoing von Sternberg retrospective: "In Sternberg's fantasy of China, 'the realism of place was given over to the loveliness of decor and the ambiguous iconography of the love goddess' (David Thomson). A train crossing this land of picturesque squalor becomes a political, moral, and romantic battleground where Shanghai Lily (Dietrich), 'notorious white flower of China,' faces a reckoning with her former lover Doc (Clive Brook). A revolutionary episode advances the plot, but for Sternberg, suspense is a matter of sexual rather than political tension. A hostage situation is a test of devotion, and honor is upheld through dishonor, the woman's way. Lee Garmes's chiaroscuro camera dwells incessantly on Dietrich, even when she's irrelevant to the scene; her body takes on a startling spiritual dimension as her manicured hands, framed in darkness, meet softly in prayer."
I appreciate how Clark understands it is "the woman's way" to uphold honor through dishonor in the von Sternberg films of this era and who else best exemplies this than the original alleged "harlot with a heart of gold": Mary Magdalen? Granting Dietrich her name is, perhaps, not as subtle as it seems at first glance, guised as it is underneath Travis Banton's exotic feathers and seductive veils.
What's of noted interest—and a reminder to dismissive critics of the patina acquired by a film over time—is how poorly Shanghai Express was reviewed by Variety back in 1932. Though Josef von Sternberg was given credit for making "this effort interesting through a definite command of the lens", that mention barely suffices to describe the lustrous and complex superimpositional textures of the film. Prayer has never been rendered as voluptuous as when Shanghai Lily prays for the safety of Doc while superimposed smoke plumes from the train's chimney stack lift her prayer heavenwards.
Variety opined "Dietrich's assignment is so void of movement as to force her to mild but consistent eye rolling" and claimed that Shanghai Express ran "much too close to old meller and serial themes to command real attention" and yet—if it weren't for online archives—what measure of attention would that Variety review now receive in the wake of the film's acquired cult following? A caution to all words that images rule.
Where Variety got it right was in giving credit to the thoroughly entertaining turns of Dietrich's supporting ensemble: Warner Oland—familiar to Charlie Chan fans—in yet another despicable gem of yellowface; Eugene Pallette—with his signature gruff voice—as an American gambler among the passengers; Louise Closser Hale as a prim boarding housekeeper overly-protective of her infantilized pup; Gustav von Seyffertitz as a dope smuggling invalid; Lawrence Grant as a fanatical missionary; and Emile Chautard as a disgraced French officer wearing his uniform without authority. But I'm stunned that not a single word was written to honor Anna May Wong's performance as Dietrich's traveling companion Hui Fei; a role so crucial to getting the Shanghai Express back on schedule that I can't believe their heedless omission; an oversight rectified by Margarita Landazuri's essay for Turner Classic Movies, which includes cinematographer Lee Garmes's intriguing anecdote that von Sternberg acted out all the roles and insisted the actors imitate him. "His impersonation of Anna May Wong had us all in stitches," Garmes recalled, "But we didn't dare show our amusement."
Cross-published on Twitch.
This entry is dedicated to Ave Montague, founder of the San Francisco Black Film Festival, who passed away late last month. Her contributions to Bay Area culture live on.
An atmosphere of trust pervaded the HBO West Coast premiere of The Black List: Volume Two co-presented by the San Francisco Black Film Festival at San Francisco's Cowell Theatre, Fort Mason; not only the trust the film's subjects placed in filmmakers Timothy Greenfield-Sanders and Elvis Mitchell (who—in turn—trusted that these individuals would speak to the diversity of the African American experience in the 21st Century); but, the trust of the film's first audience that their experience of the film would prove illuminating, challenging and inspiring. Said trust was well-invested all around.
The Black List: Volume Two—which debuts Thursday, February 26 (8:00-9:00PM ET/PT), exclusively on HBO—follows last year's acclaimed HBO special The Black List: Volume One by continuing to profile some of today's most fascinating African Americans. From the childhood inspirations that shaped their ambitions, to the evolving American landscape they helped define, to the importance of preserving a unique cultural identity for future generations, these prominent individuals offer a unique look into the zeitgeist of Black America, redefining the traditional pejorative notion of a blacklist.
The list of people featured in The Black List: Volume Two includes activist and artist Majora Carter; activist and academic Angela Davis; producer Suzanne de Passe; actor Laurence Fishburne; Anglican Bishop Barbara Harris; Massachusettes Governor Deval Patrick; pastor T.D. Jakes; physician and academic Valerie Montgomery-Rice, M.D.; filmmaker Tyler Perry; singer Charley Pride; fashion designer Patrick Robinson; actress Maya Rudolph; musician RZA; filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles; and artist Kara Walker.
Timothy Greenfield-Sanders and Elvis Mitchell conceptualized what would become "The Black List Project" in May 2006, discussing the idea of collaborating on a book on Black culture, which led to the documentary. They wanted "The Black List Project" to be not just an enumeration of obstacles overcome, but also a unique source of insights that would emphasize the elegance and determination of its subjects. A 2008 Sundance Film Festival selection, The Black List: Volume One debuted on HBO last August.
My heartfelt thanks to Suzanne Baum, HBO's regional publicist, who invited me to sit down with Timothy Greenfield-Sanders and Elvis Mitchell earlier in the afternoon to discuss the project. Greenfield-Sanders and I kicked off our conversation while awaiting Elvis Mitchell's arrival. Photographs courtesy of Timothy Greenfield-Sanders.
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Michael Guillén: Timothy, I'm quite fond of your photography, which I knew first through Vanity Fair magazine, and then—I have to admit—I was attracted to your portraits in XXX.
Timothy Greenfield-Sanders: My volume on porn stars! We showed that at the John Berggruen Gallery here in San Francisco. They represent me here in the Bay Area and that particular show was very popular.
Guillén: But the series that has intrigued me recently is of your portraits of injured soldiers from the war in Iraq. I would love to see that exhibit.
Greenfield-Sanders: I would like to show that here in San Francisco. It's a powerful show. It's currently at the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center in Vermont. It was up during Thanksgiving so the exhibition was tied into giving our thanks and appreciation to all these people. It's a strong show.
Guillén: Can we speak of your signature style? I love portraiture and I'm delighted that you and Elvis have collaborated on this project, combining the forces of your individual portraiture skill sets; Elvis with his communicative and conversational style and you with your elegant visuals.
Greenfield-Sanders: The Black List was very much a combination of my portrait style and Elvis's portrait style. His is certainly a way of bringing out the inner person; bringing out something that's new or that they haven't exposed before and—for me—the same in a way. I always try to find that side of someone that they secretly see; how he or she sees themselves. When you look in the mirror you can kind of turn a certain way and you go, "Yeah, I look pretty good today." I'm really good at finding that.
Guillén: As I was reviewing your photography today, I was reminded of one of my favorite descriptions of mythologist Joe Campbell when he spoke about how an image can be "transparent to transcendence." There is a transparency to your portraiture. Your subjects are accessible and their individuality opens up into something much larger. I don't quite know how to express it….
Greenfield-Sanders: I will take it the way you just said it. That's very well-said. People always ask me how do I do it and the truth is I don't know how I do it; but, I know how to be with someone. I'm capable of sensing somebody's insecurities and where they're coming from. I can put myself in their shoes in a sense. I'm good at that and I think it shows in the pictures. The idea with The Black List was also to translate my portrait style into film—to take that simple, clean backdrop that I use, one light, the sense that it's about the subject, not me the photographer, and move that into video, into film—that's what I wanted to do. I've always believed that—if you can look at a picture or a photograph and it's interesting to you—it's certainly going to be interesting when someone's talking and what they're saying is well-edited and compelling. You can watch that for an hour and a half. People say The Black List is just talking heads; but, it's not. It's so much more.
Guillén: Reviewing footage from the first volume of The Black List, I was impressed with—as you say—it's simple, clean look. I admired its grey aesthetic. Can you talk a bit about that?
Greenfield-Sanders: Absolutely. The Black List is deceptively simple. What I mean by that is that it's a film that—when you look at it—it looks so simple in the sense that, "Oh, it's just one light, it's a clean backdrop, the people are looking at the camera, and what's the big deal?" The big deal is that all of those decisions were critical. One wrong step and it wouldn't have worked. The idea of having that clean backdrop, the simplicity of it, and looking right at the camera rather than looking over the shoulder or cutting away to Elvis nodding or something like 60 Minutes, we didn't use any of that. What we did was deliberate and, I think, much more powerful.
Guillén: To secure the continuity of that visual aesthetic, however, when you approached your potential subjects, did you tell them how the film was going to look?
Greenfield-Sanders: I'll tell you, the first person we interviewed was Thelma Golden. In that interview—and you don't see it in the final film because we fixed it—but, in that interview I shot the first half against black velvet and then I thought, "Let's change to grey." So I wasn't sure yet. Her interview was really a test. I told her, "We don't really know how it's going to look yet so you'll be a guinea pig. Elvis will interview you and I'm going to play around with the look of it." So we started with the black velvet and in the middle of it I said, "Let's stop. Let's change the background to grey." The grey was instantly it; so obvious to me. The skin tones worked against the grey. All the elements fell right into place. There was one line that she had—"People thought that I worked for Thelma Golden; not that I was Thelma Golden"—that was shot against the black and so we had to rotoscope it, get the black out, and drop in the grey.
[At this juncture Elvis Mitchell arrived. Suzanne Baum introduced us.]
Elvis Mitchell: What a pleasure!
Greenfield-Sanders: [To Elvis, referencing me] I can already tell he's smart.
Guillén: Elvis and I "met" over the phone promoting Under the Influence for Turner Classic Movies. If you recall, Elvis, one of the questions I asked you was about the follow-up interview and so here I am actually getting to do a follow-up interview with you!
Mitchell: It's such a pleasure to meet you. I'm such a fan of your stuff and it's great to see you.
Guillén: Thank you. I appreciate that. Timothy and I were just discussing the grey aesthetic of The Black List.
Greenfield-Sanders: The grey backdrop.
Guillén: Not only the grey backdrop but the wardrobing. I was impressed with this beautiful, somewhat monochromatic continuity in the documentary's visual look. Was that ultimately your decision, Timothy?
Greenfield-Sanders: Certainly the translation of the still portraiture to film was taking my 30 years of portrait photography and moving it to film; but, we would sit with the subjects, they would come in with their outfits, and we'd try to say, "Bring something else." So Charley Pride, for example, had another coat and it looked better. We tried to think what would work best. I tend to not tell people what to wear. I hope they wear something decent; but, I ask them to bring something else in case it's a disaster.
Guillén: You didn't tell them to wear grey?
Greenfield-Sanders: No. I think we asked them to keep it simple. When people come for a portrait, I always say, "Don't wear horizontal stripes." If it's a black and white portrait, I ask them to avoid wearing something white because white is too bright. If you look at a portrait, your eye will go right to the white shirt, instead of the face. Those are little tricks.
Guillén: The two volumes of The Black List are the centerpiece, I understand, of a much larger project?
Mitchell: That's the hope.
Guillén: Can you talk about how the two of you developed the project? And with you particularly, Elvis, we've already touched upon why you decided to remove yourself from the interviews but I remain interested in the presence of your writing, how you set it up with your subjects. Did they know the questions you were going to ask?
Mitchell: No, I've never done anything like that. I feel that—when people know the questions—they come with an answer or sometimes it puts a pressure on them because they're thinking ahead to the questions you haven't asked yet. My feeling about interviews has always been to make them as much like conversations as possible, which is to not sit with a list of questions. They will think of it as an "interview" if they see you with a stack of cards or a clipboard; but, if it's eye contact, it makes it that much easier to just talk. I do as much research as possible so I can classify if something can be thrown away. If I hear the interview going in a certain way and I haven't come across that material, then I know that's the direction to follow. In the first volume of The Black List, we were inventing this as we were going along and it was really easy. We didn't yet have The Black List: Volume One that we had completed or that people had seen. So it was inchoate, finding itself, growing and coming into flower each time we conducted an interview. That's really a fun thing to do: to build something from the ground up and have it become a whole different thing than you first imagined. You do the interviews, they're for about an hour, and then you edit them down, you try to get the essence of somebody that makes a real statement too and a statement that many of these people have never made publicly before. To get that was all I really wanted to do.
When we first started doing this, there was no venue for this. There was no destination. It hadn't gone to HBO yet. It wasn't a finished film yet. People were saying it was a bad idea. People said, "Nobody's going to sit for this. Nobody wants to see these interviews one right after the other or you have to intercut them; you can't just have one conversation go from beginning to end." But, these were all things I knew would work. People are always saying the public is stupid; but the public isn't stupid.
Guillén: No. Well, some of them are but not all of them.
Mitchell: Thanks for looking at me when you say that!
Guillén: [Laughs.]
Greenfield-Sanders: The Black List was radical in the sense that we went against certain notions of filmmaking—you have to cut away; you have to have lots of music; you have to have action—all those things that you got to have. We just didn't believe you had to have them. We thought the story would hold. You should understand that when they're talking to Elvis, they're seeing him on something like a teleprompter. We have a special camera that has two lenses in it and is actually a kind of teleprompter so they're looking at Elvis's face when they're talking to Elvis.
Guillén: Similar to Errol Morris's approach?
Greenfield-Sanders: Morris does a similar thing. I'm not quite sure how he does it. I think he's right there screaming the questions. [Chuckles.]
Mitchell: Well, he's there but there's no microphone. There have been times in his films when you can actually hear his voice.
Guillén: Both of you are masters of elicitation, all the more remarkable because—if I understand this correctly—you didn't have a through line when you were filming the interviews?
Mitchell: Let me ask you a question, though. How often do you have a through line when you do an interview? We talked about this. You do the preparation. You try to follow it through, understanding that the best interviews have a life of their own. You don't want to control that. That's what we brought to The Black List.
Guillén: I definitely prefer to come prepared and then whatever happens, happens.
Greenfield-Sanders: Even with the photographs, all that I'm keeping in mind is that, "Well, I might have done this already twice so I've got to find something else with the body that I can do that's going to make the pictures look a little different." Because otherwise I'd have 25 pictures of people standing the same way. As a photographer, in the back of your mind you have to always say, "Well, this person holds his hands in a way that's comfortable for him."
Guillén: Justin Chang in his Variety review of The Black List: Volume One inferred it was prescient on the part of HBO to strategize the project in volumes. Clearly it can continue on and on because there are so many African American personalities the two of you could approach. I'm interested in how the two of you decided upon the initial selection. You both had a rolodex. How did you decide who to include?
Greenfield-Sanders: We sat down—what was it, three and a half years ago now, Elvis?—in a Thai restaurant in the East Village….
Mitchell: Timothy started talking about it as a photography project and then he said, "This might make a movie. There's a movie in this." Then we started working together. There was a voluminous list….
Greenfield-Sanders: A wish list.
Mitchell: There were so many great people. That's when we decided we could almost make this ad infinitum. What probably really helped was that we had the Sundance deadline. Having a deadline that we had to hit meant that we only had so much time. Otherwise, we'd still be working on it.
Guillén: Interestingly, having made your initial selection of who to profile, it allows the audience to fantasize, "Oh well, why didn't they speak to so-and-so? Or I wonder if they're going to speak to so-and-so? When are they going to speak to so-and-so?" Which is nice. It's a good feeling of anticipation. Personally, I like the mix of being turned on to personalities I'm unfamiliar with in combination with people I do know. It's a great mixture the two of you have accomplished. With regard to The Black List being a potentially ongoing project, would you ever venture outside of the United States to profile non-American personalities?
Mitchell: No, because The Black List is about the African American experience. It's the only experience I can think of where it's a culture built on taking the detritus and building it into something that surpasses what anybody expected. It's a slave culture. When we talk to someone like Colin Powell, who comes from the Caribbean, he still comes from a national cultural tradition that has been passed down that wasn't invented a little more than 300 years ago. I mean, this is a polyglot society that African Americans have built out of remains. My grandmother used to have a saying—that I'm sure is not specific to her—but, when you're poor you use every part of the pig but the oink. That's what Black culture's been about, using all these things to triumph over debasement and devaluation of Black people as a culture. I think that's specific to African Americans.
Guillén: You also deploy a strategy which—as a Chicano involved in Chicano cultural politics and a gay man in Queer cultural politics—words which have been aimed as pejoratives get flipped around and recontextualized with a new valence and invested pride. Claiming the word "queer" is a specific example. Can you speak to your decision to name the documentary The Black List?
Greenfield-Sanders: That was Elvis's idea from the very beginning. After a meeting—I think we were having tea at my house—he said, "I want to call it The Black List." We had some pushback from a couple of people—we tested it with one or two people—and they said, "Well, it should have a subtitle. You can't just have The Black List. It needs to be something else…."
Guillén: Because of the negative connotations of blacklisting?
Greenfield-Sanders: Yeah. And I think Elvis was absolutely right. It's since become a very positive thing to be on The Black List.
Mitchell: I just feel it to be timely, really. It's that thing you're saying about taking something that's derogatory and an insult and making something positive out of it. So much of Black culture has been about that anyways. I felt like, "This is the 21st Century. Let's start out by making a blacklist be something people want to be on."
Guillén: Now that being on The Black List has become such a positive experience, have you had people approach you as to why they weren't included in the first and second volumes?
Greenfield-Sanders: Second volume, yes. With the first volume, nobody really knew what it was until all of a sudden HBO bought it and then it became "a thing."
Guillén: The first volume did well at Sundance….
Greenfield-Sanders: It did fabulously at Sundance. The word-of-mouth has become so strong. People who have seen it haven't seen it once; they've seen it five times. Everyone I talk to, they watch it over and over again.
Guillén: Myself, I love hearing people talk about their life experience. Especially about how they have come to a certain station in their lives, which is just one of the reasons I have thoroughly enjoyed Under the Influence. I love hearing people say, "This is what I do because I was influenced by what this person did." That continuity in shaping biography is one of my favorite themes.
Even though—as you say—you didn't really have a through line for The Black List in preconception, can you discern a through line in the project now?
Mitchell: Well, yeah. For me it's about the African American experience in the 21st Century. That's a fairly vague through line, I'll grant you that, but it's also a through line that includes so many different permutations. It's not just one thing. What we wanted to do with The Black List was eliminate reductive thinking about the Black experience in this country. That through line gives us the ability to let many people speak to that and methodically—one person after the other—erases one archetype, one stereotype, one after the next.
Guillén: I was intrigued when reading the press notes for this volume that—inspired by The Black List: Volume One—HBO launched a "Who's on Your Black List?" contest, asking viewers to submit a video of themselves, a relative, a friend, a co-worker, a neighbor or anyone else who has a story to tell about his or her experience of what it's like to be Black in America today. The four winning videos were selected by a distinguished panel of judges and general viewers and the winners visited New York, where they were interviewed and photographed by you two. [Select clips from these interviews will be showcased on various HBO platforms throughout February.] Can you speak about that?
Greenfield-Sanders: It was fantastic!
Guillén: I bring it up because—though I thoroughly commend how the two of you have created these portraits of African Americans who have achieved so much—I wonder if that doesn't leave the "average Joe" feeling that they can't quite compare? I truly admire that the "Who's on Your Black List?" contest opened the project up to the "average Joe" to express their experience as well. This is important for me in the work that I do. For every "celebrity" I interview, I try to balance it by talking to someone unknown or just starting out. I believe it's important for people to realize that the demographic of film culture is diverse and that a print trafficker is as important as a movie star, albeit less celebrated.
It reminds me of an episode in the life of the diarist Anaïs Nin when in her later years on college tour some young student in one of her audiences stood up and protested that it wasn't fair because Anaïs knew all these famous people like Henry Miller and Lawrence Durrell. Anaïs responded firmly that these people were not famous when she knew them. That was a revelatory comment for me about the authenticity of the creative impulse and the vicissitudes of celebrity and fame requiring a necessary balance between both.
Mitchell: That's a dream come true to be compared to Anaïs Nin so thank you! [Laughs.] I've been looking for that my entire life.
Guillén: As I said before, the two of you are masters of elicitation and the value of the portrait artist is the ability to elicit the spirit of the time through the individual. That's why I admire so much your series on the wounded Iraq vets, Timothy, it speaks not only to their individual lives but the life of our country at this particular time. Can we speak about that? Your focus on groups of people? You've photographed porno stars, wounded vets, members of the art world, political figures, The Black List, what motivates that?
Greenfield-Sanders: I always like to work with themes like that. I like to shoot a group of people and sometimes I'm more obsessive with one group than others. The art world series I've worked on for 20 years and eventually exhibited 700 portraits at one time in one show. I've probably shot 75-100 musicians at this point. Dozens of politicians. The Black List has involved 40 portraits so far.
Guillén: Did Elvis approach you with the idea of photographing African Americans?
Mitchell: No, it started with Timothy.
Greenfield-Sanders: It was an idea that I had mulling around as a new project to do. I thought there was something about the African American experience—I wasn't sure what it was—but, several people in The Black List: Volume One were friends of mine, Elvis was a friend of mine and a neighbor, and we just sat down and had lunch. I had just done XXX. I had just done a movie, a book, and a traveling show so I thought that was a working formula for whatever I would do next. Elvis and I just got excited about it.
Guillén: Talk to me about the larger project. What are you hoping for with The Black List Project?
Greenfield-Sanders: Well, let's take Hispanics for an example because it's an interesting question. The Hispanic community is very different from the African American community in the sense that Mexicans and Puerto Ricans and Dominicans don't see each other in any way connected, other than that they speak Spanish. Am I right?
Guillén: That's a fair assessment.
Greenfield-Sanders: You could take all the different Hispanic groups in America and what is their commonality? What is it? I'm not sure.
Guillén: We've all been seriously messed up by Catholicism.
Greenfield-Sanders: [Laughs.] That's actually a great idea.
Guillén: Coincidentally, I'm actually preoccupied with these concerns of late because—as you probably already know, Elvis—Turner Classic Movies will be featuring the representation of Chicanos and Latinos for this year's upcoming edition of Race and Hollywood. I'm arranging interviews with Robert Osborne's co-host Chon Noriega, among others, to get a head start on that. Myself, I am an asimilado, an assimilated fair-skinned Chicano, which has caused so many problems for me, even as it has introduced wondrous opportunities for ethnic disguise.
Greenfield-Sanders: Would you do The Hispanic List in Spanish? I think not. I think it would be done in English.
Guillén: Probably it would be in Spanglish.
Greenfield-Sanders: Though not every successful Hispanic person speaks Spanish anymore, shockingly.
Guillén: But returning to the larger Black List Project, what constitutes its educational arm? Because there is a strong community outreach attached to the Project.
Mitchell: I think of it like a Smithsonian project, like the Lomax project, just going out and finding people who tell their stories. It becomes education by virtue of that. You talked about the "average Joe" and I'll venture that—going back to the example of Anaïs Nin—at some point everyone involved in The Black List was, in effect, an "average Joe"; they weren't famous or celebrated; but, they had a mission. More importantly, they all had a story to tell. Everybody has a story to tell. Why not get those stories? Why not archive them? And in a way that doesn't feel like cultural anthropology where the people who are being interviewed are being talked down to? In fact, absenting the interviewer from that and letting the people tell their own stories? In the continuance of this, I see that as a way that The Black List Project will play itself out.
Greenfield-Sanders: I'm certainly excited for you to see "Who's On Your Black List" because we took the formula and did it with "average Joes"—if you will—and it's fascinating. Elvis and I talked about this the other day that these interviewees could fit into The Black List: Volume Two; they're so interesting. They may not be highly-accomplished famous people; but, their stories are fascinating.
Guillén: Here in San Francisco, there is a perfect story on this theme. Last year around this time I received an email from Barry Jenkins. Do you know Barry, Elvis?
Mitchell: I'm interviewing him tomorrow for my radio show!
Greenfield-Sanders: Who is he?
Mitchell: He has a film called Medicine for Melancholy, which is a Black art film.
Guillén: He approached me tentatively, unsure if it was proper protocol to do so, and advised that he had a film premiering at the SXSW Film Festival and would I be interested in taking a look at it? I told him I'm always interested in looking at independent films as long as—if I didn't like it—I didn't have to say anything about it. He sent me a screener and I did one of the first write-ups on the film. It was a bit indelicate….
Mitchell: Because you jumped the premiere date?
Guillén: Yes, but notwithstanding, Matt Dentler at SXSW picked up the review on the festival blog and Barry has expressed to me that he felt it helped generate interest in the film. Since then to now, Barry's arc has been thrilling to watch. I very much enjoyed the film and I'm so happy it's earned the accolades it deserves, including a front cover spread on Filmmaker, and three nominations for Independent Spirit Awards including Best First Feature, Best Cinematography and the "Someone to Watch" Award. I'm proud and happy that I championed the film early on. I felt it had an important social statement to make about dwindling ethnicities in San Francisco, which is another reason why I'm delighted that The Black List: Volume Two is premiering here in San Francisco in association with the San Francisco Black Film Festival. Speaking of Volume Two, are there intentions to go on with volumes three, four?
Greenfield-Sanders: If you were to write that HBO would be remiss not to commission Volume Three, we would love to hear that.
Guillén: Wasn't it HBO's idea to present The Black List in volumes?
Greenfield-Sanders: You know how it actually came about? There was a discussion about how we would say to people that these are not the only people….
Mitchell: They were worried about it and I was always ready to defend this because—as you were saying—people would ask, "Why isn't this person in it or that person?" I would say, "There's no way this can be definitive." Then there was some talk about whether we should call it a work in progress and, obviously, if you call it a work in progress, it sounds like it's not finished. So I said, "Let's just call it Volume One." The great thing about calling it Volume One is everyone thinks, "Well, where's Volume Two?" I didn't know that when I said that.
Greenfield-Sanders: We were happy for them to add the Volume One to the title because it created the need for Volume Two.
Guillén: Did you film many of the personalities that are in Volume Two at the same time as Volume One?
Greenfield-Sanders: No.
Guillén: So filming Volume Two was a distinct trajectory altogether?
Mitchell: There were people that we wanted for the first volume that—for scheduling reasons—just weren't available and they're in the second volume. But it's not like we had leftovers. There's no cutting room floor material in Volume Two. As they say on cable: "All new!"
Guillén: In having done the second volume, did you approach it differently having learned from the first volume? Is there anything you feel is significantly different about Volume Two than Volume One?
Mitchell: There were different expectations for Volume Two because Volume One existed. Again, the first time around—to quote a poet—we were in "the undiscovered country." We hadn't done this before. They didn't know what it was. We didn't know what it was. We didn't have any final product to show anybody.
Greenfield-Sanders: We were, in effect, nobody other than who we are in our own right.
Guillén: Which sometimes gets in the way?
Greenfield-Sanders: Yeah.
Mitchell: No, I think it didn't. It was so exciting to be doing something like this. It was finding itself. Nobody knew what it was going to be—including us—and now having this book and the movie, people know what it is. Sometimes people come in ready to be on The Black List. That's a flattering thing and a little daunting because we want people to come into it fresh and open themselves up to it.
Guillén: I'm still intrigued by your writing credit for this. You say you filmed each of your interviewees for an hour and then distilled it down to four-minute portraits?
Greenfield-Sanders: We took the best of that hour's worth of footage and cut it down to 15 minutes of really good things where we couldn't get rid of a single word. Then we cut that down. We tried to find an arc—a story—there and that's what they are; they're little stories.
Guillén: Is it in that shaping and editing that you feel your writing credit comes into play?
Mitchell: Well, shaping the interviews as well.
Greenfield-Sanders: Sometimes I'd say to Elvis, "God, that was amazing. They talked about this or that!" And he'd say, "Yeah, but they talked about that in 1997 in the So-and-So Weekly", or something like that." It was always this effort to find things that were new and to tell that story at the same time.
Mitchell: Again, it was like Under The Influence in that respect because nobody's coming in with an agenda, an axe to grind or a product to sell, which creates an entirely different kind of interview situation.
Guillén: What are your respective hopes for The Black List?
Greenfield-Sanders: It's happened, really. I hope more and more people see it. But everything we hoped would happen has come true. We made a film when just to make a film these days is so difficult. And it got on television and there's a book and a traveling show and potentially an educational project. The DVD's at Target. All of these things.
Guillén: The traveling show are your photographs in exhibition?
Greenfield-Sanders: Yes, that show is currently at the Brooklyn Museum and I'm hoping it will come here to San Francisco. What do you think, Elvis? What do you hope will happen?
Mitchell: I just hoped it would get made because the thing I said from the outset is that I knew Black people would respond to it.
Guillén: And have they?
Mitchell: Oh yes. I just knew there was a hunger for this because nothing like this had been done before. Even when African Americans hear about The Black List and what it's about, they think they know what it's going to be. They think it's going to be a pro forma interviewer on camera—all the things you talked about before—and it's none of those things. There's this excitement of the filmmaking and there's this engagement with the subjects talking and telling their stories and you just want to hear them. It's just people telling their own stories and what's more entertaining than that?
Greenfield-Sanders: I also want to say that it's enormously rewarding to me and I'm sure to Elvis to sense the way the film has affected people. When we go around and show this film, you can tell that it has changed people's lives in some ways, or made them feel better about themselves.
Mitchell: Michael, for a long time if you were different you were told you were a bad person. People explaining themselves was the next step after that, which is finally where the great story is: people explaining themselves and discovering that they're not bad people for being different. It's those differences that force value judgments that—with any luck—are no longer being made because people are different. Again, look at the President of the United States!
Guillén: Speaking of the President of the United States, I know that you have photographed him, Timothy, but will he be in one of the future Black List volumes?
Mitchell: I don't know. What do you know? Would you make a call because we're ready to go to work!
Greenfield-Sanders: We would love it. We started this film before people even knew who Barack Obama was. Some people knew he was a senator but not everybody. As he became bigger and bigger, he became harder and harder for us to get to because an hour of his time was fundraising. We couldn't really get him to sit for us. Now, we would be thrilled to have him, of course.
Guillén: You might have to wait until he cleans up the mess he's inherited.
Greenfield-Sanders: We'd be happy to have Michelle.
Guillén: As I was reviewing your website this morning, Timothy, I was moved by your portraits of both Odetta and Eartha Kitt. I appreciated that you were focusing on your portraits in memoriam. Are there any African Americans that have passed that you wish you could have incorporated into this project? Any that come immediately to mind?
Greenfield-Sanders: So many. James Brown.
Mitchell: When I was doing an event in Detroit last summer, it was the week that Isaac Hayes and Bernie Mac had died. I had the chance to talk to Isaac Hayes. I had always wondered when I first heard "Walk On By" if he had been influenced by any of Enrico Morricone's scores; specifically, Once Upon A Time In the West. He said absolutely. You can hear the guitars, the way the strings are used and the chorale voices. I had always thought he had been influenced by Morricone and to hear him admit it reminded me that there are inspirations taking place that you would never think. To have Isaac Hayes tell that story about bringing that into his music, which led him to composing the music for Shaft…. The week he died the scratch score for Shaft had finally been released on CD, which he scored for the music and which is really different from the soundtrack; it's really minimal. That finally came out and I would have loved to had the chance to talk to him about that. By the way, that version of "Walk On By" was recorded in Detroit.
Greenfield-Sanders: When somebody dies, it's always a loss but—as an artist—it's a double loss because you wonder how you would have interpreted that person; how you would have photographed him or interviewed him. That's what I feel the minute I read the paper and so-and-so's died; I feel like, "I wish I'd had my chance to shoot that person's portrait and see her or him the way I see them." I'm sure Elvis feels that way as an interviewer. It's a double loss for us.
Guillén: What is the creative impulse behind creating portraiture? Elvis achieves this through interviews; you achieve it through your photographs. I know that for myself I finally reached this odd juncture where—after years and years of writing about myself in my diaries and journals—I just became exhausted with myself. Suddenly to talk to other people and hear what they had to say became my self-fulfillment.
Mitchell: How so?
Guillén: I think it was always supposed to be about the dialogue, not the monologue. I think I was always meant to be a listener, and an eliciter, trying to pull stories out of others; to be not only a storyteller but a listener for storytellers. I was frustrated when the focus was only on myself. But how about yourself? Where does the impulse come for you to create portraits?
Mitchell: I've always been curious about how other people think. One of the great aspects of The Black List is that—as you look at these people—you wonder what's going on in their heads. Is that repose? Is that anger? Is that contemplation? What's so funny? All these questions that you have when you see a great portrait. I guess I've always thought that a great portrait makes you ask as many questions as it answers. You're left wanting to know more. I think of myself as being something of a way station.
Guillén: Yourself, Timothy?
Greenfield-Sanders: I've never really thought about it, but I've sometimes been frustrated by the limits of still photography; that when you take a portrait, how do you say more than one pose? One expression? In a way, this project is a way of doing that. It opens up my portraiture to another level.
Guillén: If film does, indeed, show thought—as has often been said—then, I have to say your film is rich with thought. When I was looking at the footage of Toni Morrison, for example, to experience her humor was delightful. I know she's a deep, beautiful writer; but, I appreciated seeing this other funny side of her. And I loved the counterpoint of Vernon Jordan wanting to date her and getting nowhere with her. I loved that quality of the portraits speaking across to each other.
Well, I think at this point I should leave you be. Thank you both so much.
Mitchell: What a pleasure to meet you.
Guillén: Absolutely. You know I spotted you across the lobby last Fall at the Toronto International Film Festival and I wanted to introduce myself.
Mitchell: Why didn't you?
Guillén: I was in a long line trying to get into a movie.
Mitchell: Oh, you're one of those! [Laughter.]
Cross-published on Twitch.
Recently, Jeffrey Katzenberg, the CEO of DreamWorks Animation, came through San Francisco and delivered an insightful presentation regarding the 3D technology supporting the upcoming DreamWorks release Monsters vs. Aliens.
"To place this into context," Katzenberg began, "when I think of the history of film and what have been the revolutionary changes in film, there really have been two. The first occurred in the 1920s when silent movies became talkies. The second came in the 1930s with the introduction of color. Now, seven decades later, I believe we are about to enter what will be the third great revolution in film: the introduction of this new platform, this new generation of 3D. The first two—sound and color—were actually about bringing a better experience out to the audience. This one [3D technology]—as I hope you will see today—is actually about bringing the audience into the film experience itself."
Donning a pair of anaglyph 3D glasses with red and blue cellophane lenses, Katzenberg specified, "It's important to note that—when I talk about 3D—I am not talking about my father's 3D. These beautiful things are quite remarkable in that anyone would imagine you could look through them and it would look like anything other than grey, which is in fact what happens. These were a cheap exploitation gimmick. The technology was primitive and the film was blurry. People got headaches and some people even got nauseous. I have to say that I have yet to think of a successful business that makes its customers throw up," Katzenberg joked, "except maybe beer."
"In the last few years," Katzenberg continued, "all of this has changed. Now the glasses use state-of-the-art polarized lenses. They're very comfortable. When you put them on you will very quickly forget you are wearing them. 3D projection used to require side-by-side projectors but now there is a projector that delivers a crisp, clean and very bright image in perfect alignment between right eye and left eye and it's flicker free. When you think about what has happened to bring 3D into the 21st century, it all revolves around one word: digital. Digital technology has quite dramatically altered special effects, allowing audiences to feel as though they were sailing on the Titanic or leaping buildings with Spiderman or coming face-to-face with King Kong. So, too, is it now about to transform the 3D experience into something that can replicate what I think is the most remarkable of all the human senses: the sense of sight. To appreciate the magnitude of this accomplishment, we can look to what has happened in terms of the innovations that have occurred with the sense of hearing. In just a few decades we've gone from vinyl records to 8-tracks to cassette to CD and now to digital. Today we can capture, score and replay audio with near-perfect fidelity for the human ear. Current 2D movies are the equivalent of the vinyl era. Many of them are amazing movies, works of art, but they don't capture the sense of 'being there' as 3D does.
"3D represents an opportunity to re-energize audiences worldwide about the film experience, about what it means to come into a movie theater. When I think about the last decade—the rate of innovation that has occurred in the home experience with flat screen TVs, HD, Blu-Ray, stereo sound, is quite extraordinary—yet, what we do in the movie theater hasn't changed that much at all. 3D is a chance for the theater experience to take a quantum leap over anything that can be done in the home. Not only is it an opportunity to offer a premium experience to people who love to go to the movies, but it's a way to get people back into the movie theaters that have stopped going because there really isn't enough of a difference for them when trading off the home vs. theater experience.
"At DreamWorks Animation we believe strongly enough in this that we have retooled our entire operation and—in order to be able to produce in 3D—beginning with Monsters vs. Aliens this year, every film that we're making from the first storyboards to the final print is being authored in 3D, using new proprietary technology that we call InTru3D. This is something we have developed with our partners at Intel and HP. We have created a set of authoring tools that really take full advantage of all the immersive storytelling possibilities of stereoscopic 3D. These tools allow us to approach filmmaking in a whole new way. Until now almost all of the 3D films that people have experienced—the vast majority of them, particularly the animated movies—are films that were actually made in 2D and then post-produced into 3D. Again, using a new set of digital tools, so it's a significant qualitative step to what people used to see in this medium; but, it doesn't touch what happens when you actually author, design and create in 3D. It's a bit analogous to taking a movie that's been shot in black and white and colorizing it. You can do it; but, it doesn't really take advantage of the technique.
"We have started to enter a new creative world. The way we think of filmmaking and the filmmaking process is going to change in a dramatic way. If we go back to an example, D.W. Griffith started the panning shot, which has now become an amazing tool for filmmakers with its ability to track across the screen—most notably in a film like Lawrence of Arabia—to suggest the vastness of the desert. Now, for the first time, filmmakers can use a pan shot to move into the world that they have created and designed. This is much more than just a camera move because it's about storytelling; it's a storytelling device. It's why we talk about the "D" in 3D being—not just about physical dimensionality—but, more importantly, about emotional dimensionality. Bob Zemeckis, Jim Cameron, Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, George Lucas, they're all working in 3D today and I think we can agree that the collective innovation of these five filmmakers over the last 30 years has pretty much put them on the leading edge. They all see 3D as the next great frontier in storytelling. I can't wait to see what they do working with these new tools. I hope it's not—and I don't think it is—an exaggeration when I say this is the beginning of the next great revolution in the history of cinema.
"Again, as I said, for us it all starts with our March release of Monsters vs. Aliens. Let me tell you just a little bit about the story. As the film begins, our planet Earth is about to be attacked from outer space by an alien who definitely isn't coming in peace. All of our weapons, everything that we try to defeat it, nothing is effective, nothing works against it. So the U.S. government has no choice but to tap into the most highly super top-secret program in its arsenal. I know it's very hard for any of us to believe that our government does something that we don't know about; but—unbeknownst to all of us—for the past 50 years they have rounded up all of the monsters and locked them up in a super maximum security prison.
"These monsters represent Earth's only and last chance for survival so I think it's important that I introduce them to you. The smartest of the bunch is the brilliant scientist Dr. Cockroach, Ph.D. played by the brilliant Hugh Laurie. Next is B.O.B.—voiced by the hilarious Seth Rogen—who's an indestructible gelatinous blob that will eat anything and everything. Next is Insectosaurus, a gigantic power who speaks in an unintelligible roar that can only be understood by his best friend The Missing Link (Will Arnett). It's hard to classify The Missing Link. As his name suggests, he is the missing link between man and our undersea ancestors. The newest addition to the team is Susan Murphy, played by Academy Award winner Reese Witherspoon. Susan was about to have the happiest day of her life, her wedding day, when—in a completely unanticipated and inexplicable event—she gets hit by a meteor. The impact covers her in some mysterious space goop that causes her to grow to be almost 50 feet tall in a matter of minutes. Over the years, there has been only one man tough enough to track down this team of misfit monsters to lock them away: General W.R. Monger (Kiefer Sutherland). General Monger's position is so important and so sensitive that he reports directly to the President of the United States (Stephen Colbert). As our story begins, this alien force has sent a gigantic 350-foot-tall robotic probe to Earth. The President of the United States has decided that he—and only he—should personally go out to greet it. This probe lands in Modesto, California and is actually—dare I say?—making its way to San Francisco. Some of this footage is going to be very disturbing to some of you; that's your advisory warning. General Monger has rounded up this group of monsters and he has shipped them from Area 52 to San Francisco where they come together as a team on the Golden Gate Bridge."
Katzenberg then previewed three mind-popping scenes from Monsters vs. Aliens. Believe me, this is unlike anything I have ever seen in 3D in a moviehouse. Simply astounding! The final scene on the Golden Gate Bridge especially is a wondrous cataclysm of destruction. Katzenberg apologized afterwards for those of us who might have trouble getting home with the bridge out.
In the five years that he has been working on Monsters vs. Aliens, Katzenberg claimed it to be the most exciting development that has come along in his career and he opened his presentation up to questions from his enthusiastic audience.
Asked if the proprietary InTru3D software would eventually become public, Katzenberg asserted that DreamWorks Animation is not in the software ownership business. Their collaborator Intel will be commoditizing the software into a suite of products that will make its way out to the Web, where they see a tremendous future for 3D imagemaking. They envision 3D video on the web down the line. Intel will be bringing these tools to the marketplace at some point down the road.
Asked to describe the projection equipment necessary to project DreamWorks Animation's 3D slate, Katzenberg replied these new 3D projectors are specifically for digital, not 35mm. To convert a theater to 3D by putting in a digital projector and 3D equipment on top of that, costs on an average $80-$100,000 per theater. If you take the 43,000-44,000 theaters in the U.S. today, about 5,000 have digital equipment in place. By the time Monsters vs. Aliens comes out in late March, somewhere between 2,200-2,400 of those theaters will be equipped with 3D projection capability. The rollout is slower internationally; they're about a year or two behind. By the time the fourth chapter of Shrek arrives in Summer 2010, DreamWorks anticipates there will be about 7,500 screens for that movie. To accommodate those theaters not yet 3D-ready, DreamWorks will be releasing both a standard version of the movie and a 3D version. The 3D version will have an incremental charge of around $5 or so. So the choice is there. If people want a premium 3D experience, they can; but, the standard one-movie theater-next-door is available as well.
With regard to authoring in 2D in contrast to 3D, Katzenberg relayed that—interestingly enough—if you author in 2D it's not a great experience and does not take advantage of the full opportunity of what is possible today. In fact, that's an understatement. In 2D you can only access a fraction of what's possible. Inversely, if you take a film authored in 3D and convert it to standard, it looks great. DreamWorks anticipated there might be necessary editorial adjustments in order to insure that audiences didn't experience eye strain; but, in fact, there weren't. Because filmmakers now have to think about every single shot within the dimension aspect of it, the standard version ends up being even more cinematic.
As to why Katzenberg and DreamWorks Animation decided to commit themselves to 3-D authored fare, Katzenberg admitted his "eureka!" moment occurred when he saw Polar Express in IMAX 3D. Even though Polar Express had been authored in 2D and post-produced in 3D, Bob Zemackis—who Katzenberg considers one of the finest, most innovative filmmakers around—designed the film for the 3D experience. Katzenberg worked with Zemackis nearly 20 years ago on Who Framed Roger Rabbit? After watching Polar Express, Katzenberg was so excited by his experience of the film, something he'd never experienced before in a theater, that he walked out of the theater, picked up the phone and called his team to say, "I think this is our future. We need to understand what's coming and how to put ourselves in a position to take advantage of it for our movies." That started DreamWorks' 3D journey. The rate of innovations of the tools in just a few years' time has been downright amazing.
Asked whether the story of Monsters vs. Aliens was based on a comic named Rex Havoc and the Ass-Kickers of the Fantastic, Katzenberg confirmed that DreamWorks optioned Rex Havoc many years ago and that its storyline does, indeed, include a monster hunter at its core. But filmmakers Conrad Vernon and Rob Letterman ended up creating the storyline for Monsters vs. Aliens from scratch. The similarities between Rex Havoc and Monsters vs. Aliens are fairly distant.
Responding to a query regarding how many dimensions DreamWorks is intending to pursue to make their films realistic, Katzenberg stressed that DreamWorks is not interested in making films "realistic"; they're interested in pursuing what they call "realism"; the difference being that to try to create something "realistic" or "photorealistic" through animation is not only inefficient but costly. Their movies on an average cost $150,000,000 apiece to make; a 3D movie is $165,000,000. For an 80-minute length feature that's about $1.6 million a minute. Striving to achieve the photorealistic in animation misses the point that animation exaggerates; it's bigger than life.
Katzenberg confirmed that the current economy has definitely impacted the transition of theaters to 3D. The financing for what would be billions of dollars to convert theaters to 3D exhibition capability has slowed down. Last year DreamWorks projected 4,000-4,500 screens would be available for Monsters vs. Aliens, as opposed to the 2,200-2,500 screens that ended up being available; a direct effect of the inability to secure financing. It's coming but, without question, the last six months have dramatically slowed it down.
One fellow—aware that 3D moreorless got its start in live-action features before shifting to animation—wondered if the new 3D technology would continue past animation and return to live-action features? Katzenberg replied it's already being done. Though Monsters vs. Aliens starts the year of this next platform, this 3D generation, the year will end with James Cameron's live-action 3D film Avatar. Katzenberg has had a chance to catch a few minutes of it and says it's "brilliant." In the way that Monsters vs. Aliens will hopefully raise the bar about what it means to go see an animated movie in a movie theater, Katzenberg is convinced Avatar will do the same for live action.
People ask Katzenberg all the time what kind of movies will be made in 3D. He answers, "All." The reason he says that—even though he's aware it will be a long time before we actually get to that place—is because he has to look back at the other times when there have been these transformations, these revolutions. With the introduction of sound, within five years silent films were all but obsolete. Within a decade or so of the introduction of Technicolor, black-and-white films pretty much went away and—over a slightly longer period of time—were almost gone. People see in 3D. It is absolutely natural for the human animal. It's how we take in information; i.e., emotions, storytelling. Engaging the emotions of the audience is what DreamWorks tries to do when they make a movie. The tools for doing this, along with narrative, is sound and sight. Every time the bar is raised on those tools, that experience can be made greater: more immersive, more emotional. There are 12 movies being authored in 3D this year alone and it will be double that next year. In the same way that DreamWorks has invested nearly $30,000,000 a year in 3D authoring tools, Disney has likewise invested a tremendous amount of money in improving the tools of converting 2D to 3D. They already have a giant library and they're going to start by bringing the two Toy Story films out in 3D.
The 3D glasses came under discussion. Everyone, Katzenberg joked, wants to know when we'll be able to do 3D without glasses. That's actually called autostereo and is a science that is already known. It works with very small things, like in posters. It's still a good decade or two away before autostereo will be fully maximized in the moviegoing experience; but—in the meantime—DreamWorks has entered negotiations with Luxottica Group, the largest eyeglass company in the world. More than half of the eyeglasses in the world come from Luxottica Group, many different brands, some of which they own, and some of which they make for other companies. Katzenberg approached Luxottica a couple of years back to initiate development of eyeglasses which they hope to have ready by the end of this year that will serve as sunglasses when outside and transition to 3D glasses when in the movie theater. They'll be privately-owned glasses. Very quickly—for people who are regular movie goers watching 3D movies—personalized glasses will become preferable to the existing recyclable glasses.
Some concern was expressed about exactly how recyclable these disposable 3D glasses are and whether or not they would start contributing to overburdened landfills. It was suggested that—rather than characterize the glasses as recyclable—perhaps it's best to think of them as collectible? Katzenberg conceded that it's certainly up to an audience member whether or not they prefer to collect their glasses or dispose of them and—in all honesty—he couldn't specify exactly how the glasses are "recyclable"; whether they're steam cleaned or spit polished and reused or what. He's confident that "recyclable" means more than simply cleaning the glasses and putting them in new plastic bags.
Yet another advantage of the new 3D technologies is that 90% of piracy—$6 billion a year—will become obsolete. Someone sitting in the audience with a camcorder will not be able to record what is on the screen. Without the appropriate 3D glasses, the screen will be blurry.
Wrapping up, Katzenberg wanted to make sure everyone understood that—with all the money that DreamWorks has invested in 3D technology—they have assembled the greatest talent in the art and technology of 3D. They've hired 150 people on top of their existing 1,600 employees at DreamWorks Animation. There's been a 10% increase in the size of their enterprise, specifically to make these 3D movies. With all that DreamWorks has done and all the amazing tools that have been created, the one thing it hasn't done yet is figure out how to make a bad movie good. If that would happen, DreamWorks would really be in great shape. Developing 3D movies is about creating something that's a truly terrific movie experience and then offering a premium presentation of it. It isn't going to take something that doesn't work and fool the audience into thinking it's something better than what it is. It will not do that.
Cross-published on Twitch.
As its theatrical poster infers, Veit Helmer's third feature Absurdistan (2008) is a buoyant and romantically ebullient fable, tempering the sexual politics of Aristophanes' Lysistrata with enchanting dollops of magical realism and insouciant humor. Since at least the Soviet perestroika, the term "absurdistan"—according to Wikipedia—has been in use to satirize "a country in which absurdity is the norm, especially in its public authorities and government."
Eschewing the term's potential political heft, however, Helmer adopted it to entitle his allegorical comedy centered on two childhood sweethearts—Aya (Kristyna Malérová) and Temelko (Max Mauff)—who seem destined for each other from the moment they're born. But when a water shortage threatens their village and the lazy indifference of the male villagers angers the women to go on a sex strike until the drought is resolved, Aya and Temelko's first night of love—predicted by a narrow astrological window—is jeopardized. Temelko must come up with a solution to the water shortage to satisfy all parties involved in order to win his beloved Aya. His efforts prove comic, poignant and … well … downright absurd.
According to the film's website, this idea came from a small newspaper article: In 2001, women in the Turkish village Sirt went on strike. As long as the men didn't repair the water pipes, they refused to have sex. Veit was fascinated by the comic and dramatic potential of the strike. Together with Gordan Mihic (Black Cat, White Cat) and Zaza Buadze he developed the script for a love story between two teenagers in the time of war between men and women.
Competing in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, Absurdistan was favorably reviewed by Variety's Dennis Harvey who anointed it as "delightful" and "too enjoyable to go unappreciated offshore", even as he admitted that "the market for this kind of parabolic former-Eastern-bloc whimsy isn't what it used to be." At Cinema Strikes Back, Charlie Prince insisted this "wacky" comedy was "hard not to like." Prince notes that one of the film's fascinating aspects is that it is told almost entirely via voiceover, and even then there is little dialogue. Relaying the director's post-screening commentary at Sundance, Helmer explained "that this strategy allowed him to be especially picky and to bring in the best acting talent from all over the world, since after all they wouldn't need to speak a common language. The result is that the characters speak mostly by acting and through facial expressions. In the end you have a modern slapstick comedy, and while there is of course a fully-engaged soundtrack, the acting is good enough that it probably would work just as well as a silent film." Harvey assesses Absurdistan similarly, stating that "[t]hough not strictly a silent film", it succeeds as a "delightful fable sans dialogue."
My thanks to Michael Hawley for alerting me to Nick Dawson's recent Filmmaker interview with Veit Helmer, wherein the same analogy is struck: "German writer-director Veit Helmer is a true oddity, a creative mind whose films might well have been unearthed from a time capsule buried during the era of silent comedy." Helmer, however, qualifies a bit defensively: "I like to take the best from silent filmmaking, as the visual language before sound came was much more elaborate than most of what we see nowadays in the cinema. Films were about visual storytelling at that time but I think I can combine the best of both because I like to work with sound. For me, sound has the same importance but I don't like to use sound just as dialogue and a little ambient sound and music in the background. Once you don't use dialogue, it means that you have an important task to fill that void with something which does not feel empty. I know how to cut the movie (anybody could cut my films), but to make the sound design is much more important so I feel misunderstood if people say it's a silent film just because there's no dialogue. I know you're not saying that, but people do say that and I always read it in festival catalogues. My sound designer is on the verge of getting a pump gun after working a year [on the film] and then reading that Veit Helmer made this silent movie."
Of further interest are Helmer's comments regarding shooting in the Muslim country of Azerbaijan, which I'm sorry to say I didn't even know existed until this film. My thanks to Veit Helmer for putting it on the map. Absurdistan opens theatrically at the Bay Area Landmark Theatres on February 20.
Cross-published on Twitch.
Blonde Venus (1932)—Josef von Sternberg's preposterously mesmerizing tale of mother love—runs the gamut from the glamorous heights of fame and success to the dilapidated depths of despair and ruin. Yet another melodramatic narrative of what Juliet Clark calls "the woman's way" of upholding honor through dishonor, Magdalenian inferences still apply. One could even caption the portrait above as "Marlene as Magdalen"; it so resembles the saint's penitence in the wilderness. This would be a great double bill with Emilio Fernández's Víctimas del pecado (1951). What a mother won't do for her child, including another john. Again, I have to wonder how influenced "El Indio" was by Sternberg's melodramatics?
As Judy Bloch nails it in her capsule for PFA's ongoing Sternberg retrospective: "It's not surprising that the French Surrealists gave themselves over to Sternberg's films with Marlene Dietrich, who for them embodied the disruptive force. Marlene singing 'Hot Voodoo' in a gorilla suit brings the exotic home in Sternberg's only Dietrich film set in America. And when she peels off her gorilla hands (not to mention her head), she is Gilda gilded with a delicious element of the absurd. Strip off the animal, and what's underneath? More animal. Dietrich plays a cabaret performer with an ill husband (Herbert Marshall) and a very healthy protector (Cary Grant). She sets out with her son on a journey across Sternbergian America, leading an increasingly tattered existence as they move south to the Mexican border. Sternberg's picture of family life is one of looming depression, even while his forests, bordellos, and flophouses have an uncanny incandescence."
Uncanny is the film's far-fetched redemption. I mean, c'mon. Why in even God's good Heaven should Helen Faraday aka Helen Jones aka "Blonde Venus" (Dietrich) give up millionaire Nick Townsend (the dashing and dapper Cary Grant) for sulking down-and-out husband Ed aka Ned Faraday (Herbert Marshall)? Marshall's Faraday, along with Clive Brook's Doc in Shanghai Express, should team up as 1932's sourpuss team. Don't they recognize the beauty of a diva's sacrifice when they see it? Would they set aside their dignity to put on a gorilla suit for the one they love? Would they give up overnight Parisian success to settle for a five-floor walk-up? Unlikely. But, as Bloch observes, Dietrich can make even the domestic and plebian seem downright incandescent.
