Repulsion

Roman Polanski's first English-language film was this 1965 study of a young woman's slide into schizophrenia. Written by Polanski and Gerard Brach. Photographed by Gilbert Taylor (Dr. Strangelove, A Hard Day's Night, Frenzy, The Omen, and Star Wars: A New Hope). Catherine Deneuve as Carole, the young schizophrenic woman.

Over the last two decades (or so) I've had many friends and acquaintances dealing with schizophrenia. In my experience, Repulsion is one of the best representations of this illness I've seen. Minus the appalling homicides. The vast majority of schizophrenics are not at all prone to violence. The movie is billed as a horror film, or thriller, or some such, and at the time of its release the general public had little to no understanding of the disease of schizophrenia. And for an era with so much widespread ignorance Polanski & co. make a remarkably competent study of the disease. They get so much right. Deneuve's Carole is the right age for a first psychotic episode. Most schizophrenics are diagnosed in their late teens to early twenties. They get right the social withdrawal, magical thinking, paranoia, delusional thinking, aural & visual hallucinations, indifference to environment (temperature, bad smells), repetitive activity, etc. Which is not to say that Repulsion is a perfect representation of the illness. Deneuve's body language doesn't display the distinctive mannerisms of the schizophrenic, except for two instances where she really nails it. There's a scene where she takes a couple of swipe at her nose, like she's batting away a fly, and she could have been any of a number of folks I've known. In another scene she pointlessly irons a blouse with an unplugged iron.

Imperial Bedrooms

This excellent cover was designed by Chip Kidd.

 

Imperial Bedrooms begins with a display of pyrotechnic postmodernism. Ellis conflates several layers of artifice: the novel Less Than Zero, the film of the same name, the current novel, and the faux-reality, the artifice, in which these exist. I found it hugely satisfying, even goose-bump raising.

But the thing I remember most about that screening in October twenty years ago was the moment Julian grasped my hand that had gone numb on the armrest separating our seats. He did this because in the book Julian Wells lived but in the movie's new scenario he had to die. He had to be punished for all of his sins. That's what the movie demanded. (Later, as a screenwriter, I learned it's what all movies demanded.) When the scene occurred, in the last ten minutes, Julian looked at me in the darkness, stunned. "I died," he whispered. "They killed me off." I waited a beat before sighing, "But you're still here." Julian turned back to the screen and soon the movie ended, the credits rolling over the palm trees as I (improbably) take Blair back to my college while Roy Orbison wails a song about how life fades away.

The real Julian Wells didn't die in a cherry-red convertible, overdosing on a highway in Joshua Tree while a choir soared over the soundtrack. The real Julian Wells was murdered over twenty years later, his body dumped behind an abandoned apartment building in Los Feliz after he had been tortured to death at another location. -- pp 8-9

How Julian's body winds up behind that apartment building, stabbed 159 times, is one of the chief concerns of Imperial Bedrooms, a L.A. noir as byzantine and inscrutable as Howard Hawks' screen adaptation of  Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep. And just as pleasurable. I thought I was done with Bret Easton Ellis. I'd read Less Than Zero, The Rules of Attraction, and American Psycho, in my early 20s, and thought I'd gone as far with him as I was willing to go, that I got "it." But then a Facebook friend (I can't recall who) posted that after reading Imperial Bedrooms she felt the need to "scrub my brain." Well, that is for me a strong recommendation. One of the things I've learned as a consumer of art is that there are artists who essentially mine the same vein over and over again, and if the results are entertaining, stimulating, thought-provoking, than it's a fine, good thing. Ellis is, I think, this kind of artist. But I can understand why some folks don't want to go where he wants to take them. The world he renders is a dark, dreary, violent, casually cruel place. One that I don't doubt for a minute actually exists. I find his characters utterly convincing. And the dialogue sharp and perfect. I read a few of the reviews of Imperial Bedrooms and I was struck by how unforgiving they were, and obtuse. Both Denis Johnson and Thomas Pynchon have produced noirs as their most recent efforts, but they didn't get shit about it. And, while Johnson's Nobody Move is hugely entertaining it's a very slight novel in comparison to Imperial Bedrooms.  Anyways, thank you anonymous Facebook friend for the unintended recommendation.


Robert Downey, Jr. as Julian in the film Less Than Zero

Tiny Cities by Sun Kil Moon

In 2004 I received Modest Mouse's Good News for People Who Like Bad News from a CD club. After listening to it I imagined I was a Modest Mouse fan. It's a great record. In 2005, Sun Kil Moon (Mark Kozelek) released a disc of Modest Mouse covers, Tiny Cities. It's become one of my all-time favorite albums. The videos above represent the entire album in the same order as the CD tracks. But, oddly, after collecting most of Modest Mouse's CDs I have to confess I'm not much of Modest Mouse fan after all. If Sun Kil Moon covered all their music I'd be a happy camper. Except, of course, for Good News.


Because it so needed to be said!

Period Piece

That's a sausage. (Snausage?)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Period Piece (2006) is an aggressively ugly work of art.  Behind it, though, is a keen moral intelligence. Directed, written, edited, scored, and produced by Giuseppe Andrews (actor Joey Andrews). The film is a (very) loosely connected collection of stories (think Short Cuts on meth) about thwarted desire. In the place of sexual connection with other humans we get sex with teddy bears, an octogenarian who pantomimes sex with an imaginary girl (whose voice we hear), Barbie dolls erotically posed, a fetishized dead pig, a father and son who gaze at porn together fantasizing about women and the possibility of sex, and a hooker whose clothes never come off. Half the cast seem to be mentally ill homeless men. But I have no idea where Andrews recruits his actors or what incentives he offers them to expose themselves (both physically & psychologically). One gets a strong whiff of Fellini from Period Piece, especially Casanova (where the title character's sexual dalliances end with soulless sex with an automaton). The best parts of the film are the interludes with the badly stop-motion animated tater tots. I honestly don't know what they're doing in this movie, but they are weirdly hilarious.

On Seeing The General at Atlanta's Historic Fox Theatre

Atlanta's Fox Theatre

The General is a 1927 silent film co-directed by Buster Keaton (with Clyde Bruckman), and starring Keaton. It is, essentially, a comedy chase film with trains (the General is a train) and a damsel-in-distress. And, by the way, a pro-South Civil War movie. The good guys are the Confederates.

In 1861, train engineer Johnnie Gray (Buster Keaton) is in Marietta, Georgia to see one of the two loves of his life, his fiancee Annabelle Lee (the other being his locomotive, the "General"), when the American Civil War breaks out. He hurries to be first in line to sign up with the Confederate Army, but is rejected (without explanation) because he is too valuable to the Confederacy in his present job. On leaving, he comes across Annabelle's father and brother, who beckon to him to join them in line, but he sadly walks away, giving them the impression that he does not want to enlist. Annabelle coldly informs Johnnie that she will not speak to him again until he is in uniform.

A year passes, and Annabelle receives word that her father has been wounded. She travels north on the General to see him, but still wants nothing to do with Johnnie. When the train makes a stop, the passengers disembark for a quick meal. As planned, Union spies led by Captain Anderson (Glen Cavender) use the opportunity to steal the train. Annabelle becomes an inadvertent prisoner. Johnnie gives chase, first on foot, then by handcar and penny farthing bicycle, before reaching a station in Chattanooga. He alerts the army detachment there, which boards another train to give chase, with Johnnie manning the locomotive, the "Texas". However, the carriages are not hooked up to the engine, and the troops are left behind. By the time Johnnie realizes he is alone, it is too late to turn back.

The Union agents try a variety of methods to shake their dogged pursuer (convinced he is accompanied by Confederate soldiers), including disconnecting their trailing car and dropping railroad ties/sleepers on the tracks. As the unusual duel continues ever northward, the Confederate Army of Tennessee is ordered to retreat and the Northern army advances in its wake. Johnnie finally notices he is surrounded by Union soldiers and the hijackers see that Johnnie is by himself. Johnnie stops his locomotive and runs into the forest to hide.

At nightfall, Johnnie stumbles upon the Northern army encampment. Hungry, he climbs through a window to steal some food, but has to hide underneath the table when enemy officers enter. He overhears them discussing their plan to launch a surprise attack, securing the Rock River Bridge for their essential supply trains. Gray then sees Annabelle brought in; she is taken to a room under guard while they decide what to do with her. After the meeting ends, Gray manages to knock out one of the guards and free Annabelle. They escape into the woods in the pouring rain. Annabelle tells him how brave he was for risking his life to save her, unaware that he had no idea she was on the train.

The next day, Gray and Annabelle creep out of the woods and find themselves near a railway station, where Union soldiers, guns, trains and equipment are being organized for the attack. Seeing the General in the midst of it all, Johnnie devises a plan to warn the South. After sneaking Annabelle, hidden inside a sack, onto a boxcar behind the General, Johnnie steals his engine back. Two other trains, including the Texas, set out after the pair, while the Northern attack is immediately set in motion. In a reversal of the first chase, Johnnie has to fend off his pursuers. Finally, he starts a fire behind the General in the center of the Rock River Bridge.
Reaching friendly lines, Johnnie informs the local army commander of the impending attack. Confederate forces rush to defend the bridge. Meanwhile, Annabelle is reunited with her convalescing father. The Texas is driven onto the burning bridge, but it collapses, in what would later come to be recognized as the most expensive stunt of the silent era. Union soldiers try to ford the river, but Confederate artillery and infantrymen open fire on them, eventually driving them back in disarray.

As a reward for his bravery, Johnnie is enlisted in the army as a lieutenant. In the final scene, Johnnie tries to kiss his girlfriend, but is obliged to return the salutes of passing infantrymen. Gray finally uses one hand to embrace his girlfriend while using his other to blindly salute the men as they walk by. -- Wikipedia

 The screening was sponsored by the American Theatre Organ Society and Turner Classic Movies as part of the Coca-Cola Summer Film at the Fox Theatre. On hand was Clark Wilson, an organist and creator of scores for silent movies. He played the Fox's antique theatre organ, Mighty "Mo." The film was introduced by Ben Mankiewicz.

Now, don't get me wrong, The General is a blast. A lot of silent film and Golden Age Hollywood films leave me cold. They just don't speak to me. You won't be reading here about Bette Davis or Miss Barbara Stanwyk, the charms of Shirley Temple, or that one-note Cary Grant. But The General is very, very funny. And why shouldn't it be? Keaton helped define the parameters of film comedy. Wilson played the organ admirably, stirringly. Of course, he played about fifty variations of "Dixie." I've heard all of "Dixie" I ever need to hear. Ever.

I left the theatre feeling a little dirty. A pro-South Civil War movie, in Atlanta, to the accompaniment of Dixie, a clearly stirred & happy all-white audience, at a theatre where all the senior staff is white and the black employees are decked out in uncomfortable-looking period usher uniforms. One has to wonder, why of all the possible silent films, even Buster Keaton films, this one? It seemed, whether by conscious design or simply unthinking regional preferences, a night to bask in the light of the Old South.  

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie

This morning I watched the original cut of John Cassavetes' 1976 gangster flick, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. It runs, for me, an excruciating 135 minutes. The film did miserable box-office and two years later was re-released in a tighter 109 minute edit. But I lack the Cassavetes gene. Not even intellectual curiosity will make me seek out another viewing of a Cassavetes-directed film. At least not a for a long while. I've seen a few of his notable films: Faces, A Woman Under the Influence, Gloria. What's frustrating is that I can't really pinpoint anything I find objectionable. It comes done to the vicissitudes of taste. Chinese Bookie was a hard slog because one of its chief settings was a club with an all female erotic revue. Snore. Where is the gay Cassavetes? At any rate, while watching this movie my mind wandered first to other Cassavetes films, in particular the unintentionally hilarious Gloria. Gena Rowlands, not a bad actress, never stops looking & sounding as if she's playing a childhood game of cops 'n' robbers. Thinking of Rowlands in Gloria got me thinking about other smart, sophisticated actresses who have taken a stab at playing dumb, unsophisticated women. Susan Sarandon in White Palace, playing an uneducated waitress at a White Castle-type burger joint, opposite James Spader as her younger lover. Sarandon is too calculating an actress to ever make one believe she's not the smartest person in the room. But my absolute favorite example of a smart actress playing dumb is Jodi Foster in her own written/directed Little Man Tate. For some bizarre reason Foster wrote all her dialogue as if she were in a 1940s gangster flick. No one else in the movie talks the way she does. It's two scripts like Rachel's (Friends) two recipes for trifle. Little Man Tate is half an English trifle and half a shepherd's pie.



I wanted to embed the YouTube video of the  Friends vid, but embedding has been disabled, but it's a classic bit and worth the bother if you want to see (or see it again): Rachel's Trifle.

The Kids Are All Right

Annette Bening (left) & Julianne Moore (right)

 

 

 

 

Clockwise from near left: Bening, Moore, Josh Hutcherson, Mia Wasikowska, & Mark Ruffalo

Ruffalo (left) & Hutcherson (right)

Bening

Moore

The Kids are All Right is director Lisa Cholodenko's third feature film. The critics have been kindly not mentioning the execrable direct-to-video adaptation of Dorothy Allison's Cavedweller. The other, better films are High Art (1998)  (featuring a grown-up Ally Sheedy and a breakthrough role for Patricia Clarkson) and Laurel Canyon (2002) (featuring Frances McDormand, Kate Beckinsale, & Christian Bale).

What I love about The Kids are All Right and, more so, Laurel Canyon: Cholodenko allows her characters to explore, push themselves out of their comfort zones, fuck up, without the typical Hollywood result of disaster, unmitigated regret/remorse, moral lashing. Not that there aren't consequences for daft, or selfish, actions, but those consequences are in proportion to the offense. A long time ago a friend said to me, "In the real world forgiveness is more important than justice." This is the feeling I get from a Cholodenko film.

Cholodenko films also advocate for the messy, uncategorizable  nature of human sexuality. In The Kids are All Right lesbian Moore has a fling with straight man Mark Ruffalo (sophomoric aside: he is hot! in this movie). In Laurel Canyon, Beckinsale fools around with her boyfriend's mother (McDormand). High Art deals with a young, ostensibly straight, female photographer (Sheedy) exploring her sexuality with a Fassbinder-esque actress (Clarkson). Oh, and my favorite narrative thread in The Kids are All Right is the erotica the "moms" use as an adjunct to sex: a gay male porn video.

But The Kids are All Right is clearly aimed at the straight marketplace (whether they go or not). A good litmus test for this is how sex is displayed. In a film that includes both gay and straight sex scenes is the straight scene more graphic or do both types get treated with equal excitement, joy, pleasure, skin? In The Kids are All Right the single sex scene between Moore and Bening is conducted under a blanket. While Ruffalo's sex scene with his female business partner is far more graphic (and more fun). I can't tell you how often I've seen this disparity in movies that are, ostensibly, about gay characters/themes.

Role Models

Some of John Waters' role models:




(Little Richard is Waters' role model, Pee Wee Herman is mine!)


(I agree with Waters, Van Houten's parole/release is long overdue.)


(Comme de Garcon, the fashion line from designer Rei Kawakubo.)






(Artistic team Fischli/Weiss)



In addition to the role models represented in the videos above Waters also has chapters to devoted to hometown (Baltimore - of course!) characters, Tennessee Williams, "outsider" pornographer Bobby Garcia who filmed his sex contacts with hundreds of military men, and discusses some of his favorite writers including Ivy Compton-Burnett & Denton Welch (In Youth is Pleasure, a fabulous book).

I met, or saw, John Waters only twice. When I was nineteen or twenty we were the only patrons sitting at the bar at The Atlantis, a gay strip club literally (not figuratively) in the shadow of the Maryland State Penitentiary. I didn't have the chutzpah to speak to him. The other occasion was a Friday night at Club Charles, a favorite Waters watering hole. On that occasion it was too loud and crowded to say more than a few bland things to him about my admiration. Sigh

Role Models was published in hardback a few months ago by Farrar, Straus, & Giroux. It is widely available from all the usual places.

 "How can anybody sit through the length of a film, especially a European film, and not have a cigarette?"

Zardoz

John Boorman's 1974 (cult) classic. It's a sci-fi mash-up. Echoes of 1984, Brave New World, The Wizard of Oz, Twilight Zone episode "Time Enough At Last," Kubrick's 2001, Harlan Ellison's "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream," Planet of the Apes. Shades of spaghetti westerns, Samuel Fuller & Sam Peckinpah. And who knows what else Boorman through in? (If you've seen it, by all means venture a guess.)

Whatever else it is, it is almost constantly visually mesmerizing. Director of photography Geoffrey Unsworth also shot Beckett, 2001, The Magic Christian, Cabaret, and Superman ('78).

Starring Sean Connery as Zed (the leader of the Brutals) and Charlotte Rampling as Consuella (an Eternal).

Zardoz's themes are Boorman favorites: the thin line between civilized and barbaric, the dangers of stepping out of one's own cultural comfort zone, nature as a malignant force, psychic duality. See: Deliverance, The Emerald Forest, Excalibur, Exorcist II: The Heretic (not nearly as awful as popular consensus would have it).