Film Journal, early 1990s

I have kept a “Film Journal” for many years. Often, it’s just a running list of films, which started because I used to freeze at “what have you seen lately.” I don’t freeze anymore, but I also have a lengthy list just in case. I watch a lot of movies. Here’s a rough list of what I watched in the early to mid-1990s. More, “what have you seen, a long time ago?”

• Chappaqua (Robert Frank)

• Pull My Daisy (Robert Frank)

• Filmmaker (George Lucas)

• Passion (Godard)

• Allemagne 1990 (Godard)

• Pinocchio (Coppola)

• The Night Before (aka One Night Stand) (Talia Shire)

• Theremin (Steven Martin)

• Synthetic Pleasures (Iara Lee)

• Carried Away (Bruno Baretto)

• Swingers – Doug Liman For a film about a pathetic guy trying to get over a relationship, it was pretty entertaining and amusing. Great characters (although, had the first phone machine routing not been handled as cleverly, or not been as thematic to the plot, it would have felt exposed as patently expositional), unpredictable sequences. Straight-faced Sinatra talk from contemporary kids was so ingongruous. “Babies,” “You’re the bomb,” “You’re money.” Captured what it’s like to drive around L.A.and go to parties.

• Couch in New York (Divan a New York) – Chantal Akerman with William Hurt and Juliette Binoche. Mistaken identity. Lubitsch-like, Sturges-style mistaken identity romance, with psychoanalysis (the couch) as the setting. Reminds how classic screwballs operated with Freudean subtexts. Great acting.

• Diva – Production designed to the hilt. Primary colors, lots of blue. Interesting, suggestive  objects (Nagras, motobyclettes, jigsaw puzzle, H13 Citroens, wave maker) in stark atmospheric warehouse spaces. Some just standard instrument fetishism- close ups of mechanical and electrical displays in action – with peak meters (insert altimiters in ConAir, speedometers at LeMans, spectrum analyzers in Contact) activity measuring the narrative tension as well as the VUs (or altitude, or miles per hour or kHz). Elegant decadence: d d (French phrase was alliterative, I forget). Pre-Crash (the movie, anyway) eroticism around junked cars (the Corniche and the Asian slut). Reminded me of the Fast Forward garage (broken glass warehouse housing expensive cars, home to invention of TV), and Gary (Citroen) Rashid’s encounter with the man hanging from the rafters in the middle of the night. At least two blatant film references: Seven Year Itch (Marilyn’s skirt over the grate – and then down below the grate at the seedy men looking up!) and Lady from Shanghai (reflections of antagonist and protagonist in funhouse-arcade mirrors/windows). Also, of course, a general mood of Harry Caul permeates with the Nagra, the secret recordings that have hidden meanings, the emptiness of the recordist’s personal life, the warehouse lofts with metal caging.

• Making Babies – Discovery Channel. Great 3 part series (1 hr. each) on emerging fertility methods and their social impact. In Vitro, Gestational Surrogates, Adoption and the implications of each for the families, their budgets, the budgets of the industry behind it, the ethics. Great profiles with broad range of characters crisply rendered.

• Harvey – with Jimmy Stewart

• The Little Shop Around the Corner – Ernst Lubitsch with Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullivan.

• ????? – Joel Shumacher with Lily Tomlin, Charles Grodin. Soft focus, hazy view of 70s loud colors and advertising. Precursor to “Honey I Shrunk the Kids.”

• When We Were Kings –

• Vertigo – Alfred Hitchcock with Jimmy Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes.

• Contact – Robert Zemeckis with Jodie Foster and James Woods and Tom Skerrit and John Hurt.

• Mother – Albert Brooks with Debbie Reynolds

• Alaska –  IMAX theater; key to the viewer’s sense of immersion is not only the scale but also the heavy use of super-wide angle lenses, which create, for instance, the feeling that the mountain is passing underneath the airplane in frequent aerial shots. Makes part of the show the spectacle of the apparatus: 23 speakers (spotlit!), the perforated screen (like any other, but w/lights behind it), the futuristic headset mic on the host. Gives it “ride” quality.

• Austin Powers – Mike Myers

• Sense & Sensibility – Ang Lee.

• While You Were Sleeping – with Sandra Bullock and Bill Pullman.

• French Kiss – Lawrence Kasdan with Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline

• I Am Cuba – The first thing that hit me was the layers of language and culture going on simultaneously. A Russian-dubbed, Spanish speaking, English sub-titled movie from 60s Cuba critiquing American capitalism. It was like listening to three different radio stations all describing the same thing. The play between the Soviet Russian voiceover and the Spanish-speaking cast gave a great taste of commie flavor. Just as a Walter Cronkite broadcast about the Bay of Pigs would to them now if it were unveiled 35 years from its native airdate? A time capsule gift from the “other side” of the iron curtain. Visually the thing that hit me first was the (Photographer _________ Jerry Garcia video). The contrast of the foliage, and the jetblack water in the opening fly-in looked surreal, as though it were shot on infrared (ultra-red!) film stock, on which trees come out white. And the audacity of the shot from the balcony to the swimming pool made me laugh out loud. How much further over the top can you get–I kept asking as it kept exceeding my capacity to imagine. Unbelievable choreography, all handheld. Supercedes Touch of Evil, Absolute Beginners, and all the other long-opening-shot fetishes. There were many other great, long shots in the film, but none so well designed. The walking handheld shot that does not end becomes oppressive by the end, as the peasant is hacking through the cane fields. Extreme wide-angle. Like a bug in grass. The ugly American capitalists in the bar were a real study in the other side’s view during a propaganda war. And they didn’t have it all wrong. Godfather II goes to Havana is more intimate, behind the scenes, but it’s not much more appealing. What a great vignette to illustrate the way money devalues people – the pig offers her money for her jewel, she won’t sell it, he steals it from her, and leaves her money. Cyrillic titles

• Broken Arrow – John Woo

• Independence Day – Roland Emmerich

• Schizopolis – Steven Soderbergh

• Waiting for Guffman – Christopher Guest

• Straight to Hell – Alex Cox

• Lady and the Tramp

• Breakdown – Nicely done low budget (?) genre bit which predictably obeyed the conventions, but was a fun ride if the expectation wasn’t a break-through. Precursors: Frantic, Deliverance, Vanishing, Red Rock West.

• Looking for Richard – Al Pacino with Kevin Spacey and Alec Baldwin. Smug sarcasm, “The pictures, that’s what I like about Shakespeare. Walking the line between high culture elitism and great work for the masses. Indulging in Winona’s breasts. Looked like Loren Kantor with backwards hat and ponytail.

• Some Call it a Sling Blade – Hickenlooper. Precursor to the smash hit. Darker. Interesting.

• Dumbo – Walt Disney

• Circus Action, staging. Silhouettes of clowns behind tent.

• Tracks – Henry Jaglom with Dennis Hopper and the Sitting Ducks again. Bad audio technique excused here by hallucinatory cutting; forgiven as intentional.

• Sitting Ducks – Henry Jaglom with James B. Lowenthal. Great cutting with sound – silent movie effect under car horn stuck on; not cutting to car (to place sound) until third shot. The site of two uptight bald men arguing with each other, sitting in the bathtub together arguing, always so pathetic and comical and raw. Jump cut sound from bickering to ducks honking quacking squonking. Technically raw, rough-cut sound quality. Could hear the camera often; poorly mixed to conceal inconsistent room b.g. No “room tone” technique, probably minimal multitrack capability for low budget independent at the time–was just a miracle to have handheld panaflex for the back seat.

• Fifth Element – Luc Besson w/Bruce Willis

• She’s Gotta Have It – Spike Lee
• Peeping Tom – Michael Powell

• Light, camera = story.

• Close Encounters – Steven Spielberg

• The Fifth Element – Luc Besson

• Medium Cool – Haskell Wexler

• 84 Charing Cross Road – Anthony Hopkins, Anne Bancroft

• Liar Liar – Jim Carrey

• That Obscure Object of Desire – Luis Bunuel

• Bad Lieutenant – Abel Ferrara w/Harvey Keitel

• Naked – Michael Leigh

• The Godfather – Francis Coppola

• Hannah and Her Sisters – Woody Allen

• Shine – Helfgodt

• Captain Eo –

• The Battle Over Citizen Kane

• Mars Attacks -Tim Burton w/Jack Nicholson, Danny DeVito, Sarah Jessica Parker

• Vertigo – Alfred Hitchcock

• Ruby

• The Fan – Scott

• Pride & Prejudice
• Persuasion

• Kansas City – Robert Altman

• Mexican Highway Patrol – Alex Cox
• Return of the Jedi

• The Empire Strikes Back

• Star Wars

• Nobody’s Fool – Paul Newman.

• The Lion King –

• Target – Peter Bogdonavich

• The Flintstones

• The Abyss

• Dirty Rotten Scoundrels- w/Steve Martin, Michael Caine 1988
  Gotta see Brando original.

• The Last Temptation of Christ- Martin Scorsese 1988

• Straight No Chaser- Exec Prod: Clint Eastwood 1989
  Straight ahead doc, no pretensions.  Fine intro to Monk, and probably definitive film bio, given dearth of footage.

• Carnival of Souls- Harold “Herk” Harvey w/Candice Hilligoss 1962
  Didn’t anybody catch the Psycho ripoff– she driving at night alone, getting drowsy, the bathtub water, the voyeur through a hole in the wall, the car being pulled from the creek….

• Back to the Future II- Robert Zemeckis w/ Michael J. Fox 1989
  Give me a hoverboard for Christmas.  Not as celebratory of suburban white culture as it could have been.  But with toxic dumps and neighborhood warzones standard jokes of today, that’s not saying much.  Was the meanie based on Bob Stupak, or what?

• Crimes and Misdemeanors- Woody Allen w/ Martin Landau, A. Huston1989
  Able to end a film about the making of right from might with a note of hope… was it false?

• Knife in the Water- Roman Polanski 196-

• Great Christ references, but to what end?  How did hitchhiker’s comparison to Jesus (walking on water, crucified with halo, Christina boat name, resurrection from death, etc.) fit into critique of bourgeois ineptitude and distance from “real life?”  Proletariat savior? b

• Key Largo- John Huston 194, w/Bogart, Bacall, Edward G. Robinson

• Manchurian Candidate-  John Frankenheimer, 1962, w- George Axelrod, w/Frank Sinatra, Angela Lansbury, Laurence Harvey

• Bagdad Cafe- 1988,

• We’re No Angels- Hal Liston, w: David Mamet 1989, w/Sean Penn, Robert DeNiro, Demi Moore, Hoyt Axton
  All stops pulled escape scene, effective with variety of bright light sources: bullets spark on grating, steam blasts into face of guard, into the snow. Several rollercoaster references, too. Gratuitous erect nipple shots of Demi.  Penn’s speech came from the blue, it having been so painstaking before to see him try to worm out of tight jams, hard questions.  But then, he was usually the one over DeNiro to talk (Hebrews citation, grace, etc.), and it would offer a divinely inspired explanation of his conversion to the order, allowing DeNiro to bond heterosexually over the border.  Homosexual style in church and prison alluded to constantly, but never overt.  Plot contrived: references to Bobby were forced, making his return so predictable, but never about the two priests that were expected all along, a la Danny Kay’s Inspector General?  The Mission allusion, with Madonna (!) and DeNiro going down the water fall was funny, if inside, joke. How solipsistic can I get?

• Blaze- the guy that did Bull Durham, 1989, w/ Paul Newman, Lolita Davidovich
  Based – loosely, I presume – on the relationship between Huey’s (not Howie the Raider’s) brother, Earl’s relationship with Blaze Starr, the stripper.  It was her story, starting with her leaving home, her mother, the Appalachia.  Within minutes of screen time, but ten real years, she becomes street wise in New Orleans, and savvy enough to hook the honorable governor.  Interesting when comparing hooking to politicking, but disjointed enough to never show that it knew what it was talking about.  Too many strands woven in, including the nigger question, the public image question, and the animal rights question.  Undermined constantly by the gratuitous (again) strip sequence.  At first it seemed like the uncomfortable stance of the first one might make a point.  But when repeated ad nauseum, you realize it was just plain uncomfortably unquestioning to watch.  No new ground since the Gypsy Rose Lee story with Natalie Wood.  Gave the sense that it covered the autobiographical bases, but proved that an accurate account doesn’t make for narrative pull.  Hearing a radio review, I was astounded to learn that it only covered a year of his life.  It seemed like much more, coming from her point of view.  Newman pulled it off, if anyone did, wirey hair, weird eyes, and gravelly voice.  She would have been a lot better had I not seen her weird tête à tête with Gene Shalit on Today.  It was heavily edited to leave out her embarrassing moments, and it still didn’t work.  The reverse shots were worse than 60 Minutes for continuity.  The fawning page long article in Vanity Faire didn’t help after the movie, either.  And what about Herb Caen’s report that instead of getting married, Cranston saw Blaze, and laughed heartily throughout.

• The Room- Robert Altman, w:Harold Pinter,1987 w/ Annie Lennox, Donald Pleasance
  On the one hand I wonder why more of these types of things aren’t rented on video, on the other hand, I don’t.  What was this?  How shallow am I?  I just didn’t get it, get anything.  I fell asleep, which isn’t unusual, but this was only 48 minutes long. Why?  I’d like to read the Pinter story, and see what went wrong, or if I just don’t constitute an audience for it.  The trailer for the Dumb Waiter looked worse, with John Travolta feigning an English accent.  Wasn’t there another, much better, version?  Please?

• Annie Hall- Woody Allen, 1975?, Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Jeff Goldblum
  I saw it in 8th grade with Lilly and remembered every point we thought was funny then. Different parts evoked out-loud laughs now.  It’s surprising that it’s over ten years old.  Interesting and not-so-interesting anti-mimetic devices employed: direct address, cartoon, split screen, old characters visiting remembered scene, subtitle, voice over.  Where would Moonlighting be without it.  But then, what did Moonlighting do with it?  They used it, but what did they do with it? Appeal to a bunch of shallow baby boomers, maybe?

• Charade- 196 , Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, George Kennedy,
  “Style for it’s own sake,” the blurb says.

• Enemies, A Love Story- Paul Mazursky, 1989, Ron Silver, Anjelica Huston,

• Mystery Train- Jim Jarmusch, 1989, Rockets Redglare

• Forbidden City, USA-

• Gypsy- Rosalind Russell, Natalie Wood

• Waller’s Last Trip- D, 1988

• Land of Fathers, Land of Sons- D,1988

• Citizen Kane- Orson Welles, 1941, Orson Welles, Erskine Sampson, Agnes Moorehead

• Sullivan’s Travels- Preston Sturges, 1941,  Veronica Lake,

• Body Heat- Lawrence Kasdan, 1981, Kathleen Turner, William Hurt, Ted Danson

• The Accused- 1989, Jodie Foster,

• Triumph of the Will- Leni Refinstahl, D, 193,

• Eraserhead- David Lynch, 1976,

• Intolerance-David Wark Griffith, 1916,
  Print of premiere version, not Griffith’s “own,” unrushed, reworked version.  Still frames with Library of Congress staple holes in them debatable- between pedants and film lovers.  Blue tint means night, red means sexy, green means violent, yellow means golden rich.  Amazing arms and legs effort on mighty Wurlitzer for four hours. Took six months to make the film.

• Broken Blossoms-David Wark Griffith, 1919,

• Mon Oncle- Jacques Tati, F, 1957,
• Playtime,- Jacques Tati, F, 1968,

• Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex- Woody Allen, 197

• The Postman Always Rings Twice- ,194, Lana Turner, John Gardner

• Stranger in the House- Wes Craven, 197, Linda Blair,

• Speaking Parts-  Atom Egoyan, 1989, E.P.-Don Ravaud,
  Everyone only remembers through video, soon they only act and relate through it.  On every level. Video rentals-mundane edge, video mausoleum-fantasy edge, teleconferencing, scripting reality, changing it for talkshow. I guess, like, we all have our speaking parts, but they remain parts in a wieldy apparatus far beyond our control, our utterance.

• Solaris- Andrei Tarkosvky, USSR, 1972
  Star looks like Michael Silverman…. memory is an island; intelligence in a film may not be entertaining, but it can stay with you after the film, gestating, growing on/in you.

• Jewel of the Nile- Lewis Teague, 198, Kathleen Turner, Michael Douglas

• Local Hero- 198, Jon Ritter

• Seconds- John Frankenheimer, 1966, Rock Hudson, John Randolph
  Santa Barbara grape crushing wine orgy dates the film embarrassingly.  Great slow speed rich blacks, shallow focus, in your pores, film stock.  Same conspiratorial thrust as Manchurian Candidate.  Great use of Rock Hudson’s visage, and his star status, as his face is described by another character, who then jokes, it would fit any one. Surgery scenes, distorted mirror blade shots, scary, wicked. Stayed with me, emerging as a dream that night. I was donor in painful operation, and come out with a plastic nose. It was much scarier than that. Constricting, trapping, relentless.

• Something Wild-  Jonathan Demme, 1988, Jeff Daniels, Melanie Griffith
  Important that he, too, is bluffing, and has no wife.  Allows him to pursue the relationship to resolution.

• Near Death- Frederick Wiseman, 1989
  Time moves slowly but relentlessly in the ICU, as Doctors coach families and patients toward the thing the are there to prevent, death. It leads to a lot of discomfort and euphemism and humanity.

• Drugstore Cowyboy- , 1989, Matt Dillon, William Burroughs

• While The City Sleeps- Fritz Lang, 1956, Dana Andrews, Imogene Cunningham
  Momma’s boy goes on lipstick binge.  Hilarious rupture at site of son’s room- mom enters, and can’t see son’s excess, his hysteria.  The other men just use women to get ahead in work, like they’re supposed to.

• Tremors – 1989, E.P.- Gale Ann Hurd, w/Kevin Bacon
  Anal compulsion gone mad.  Slicing through isolated microcosm with the anal edge of a desire knife.  Characters are constipated from leaving town, their release is effected, their constraints loosened, only when the last stinking, log-like giant brown worm goes pushing through the ground,piercing a hole in the earth’s skin to go flying downward to a certain splash on the camera below.  Not to mention the unblocking of Bacon’s muted desire for the female object.  Before the painful expulsion, our two buddies drink beer in the junkyard from a toiletbowl cooler.  They also get shit on by a septic system.

• Punchline- 1988, Tom Hanks, Sally Fields, John Goodman

• Mildred Pierce- Michael Curtiz, 1945, Joan Crawford, Ann Blyth
• The impotence of the unemployed man; loss of man”power.”  Great Music.

• La Fille de Quinze Ans- F, 1988
  Relentless seduction/molestation fantasy as imagined and then realized on film by an uninteresting French director as the star pére.

• Bad Influence- 1990, Rob Lowe, James Spader

• Black Rainbow- Michael Hodges, GB, 1990, Rosanna Arquette, Jason Robards
  Possibly great except for gratuitous fuck scene.

• Where the Heart Is- John Boorman, 1990, Uma Thurman
  Trompe l’oiel.  Woiew.

• The Entertainer- Tony Richardson, GB. 196 , Lawrence Olivier, Alan Bates

• Shock to the System- 1990, Michael Caine
• Central Park- Frederic Wiseman, 1985

• Twin Peaks- David Lynch, 1990, Kyle McClachan

• The Big Picture- 1989, Christopher Guest

• Our Hospitality- 1923, Buster Keaton

• Bill Jersey Salute- Faces of the Enemy, Children of Violence, Time for Burning, etc.

• Red Desert- Michelangelo Antonioni, 1964,  Monica Vitti

• The Giant Woman and the Lightning Man- Peter Haas, 1989 (Terri Dewhurst, asst. ed.)

• The Herdsmen of the Sun- Werner Herzog, 1989
  Wodaabe men adorn themselves to win women.

• Hollywood Mavericks- AFI, 1990

• School Daze- Spike Lee, 1988

• Photophobia- Jim Webb, 1990

• El Diablo- John Lynch, 198-

• Intermission- Mike in Shipping, 1965

• Vile Cargo- George Kuchar, 1990

• Metropolitan- , 1990
  Disappointingly uncritical, self-reflexive take on debutante season in Manhattan.  The film was as perceptive (or shallow) as its protaganist, an annoying actor who looked too much like Lance James at 15 Kerwin.  Best thing about it was narrative progression of character relationships effected through accumulation of vignettes/ sound bites.  Produced on a sub- million budget, much was out of focus.

• Wild at Heart- David Lynch, 1990.  Nicolas Cage, Willem Defoe, Laura Dern, Her Mom, Crispin Glover, Isabella Rosselini.

• Exorcist III- William Peter Blatty (& w., from Legion), 1990.  George C. Scott, Harry Carey, Jr.  Barry DeVorzon (music), also, “Tubular Bells” by…?
  Laboring, tedious plodding.  Cool flanging/pitch modulation on devil’s voice.  Comical portrait of “deranged” ward with padded cells.  George C. a bit barking much.  Even the adrenaline-spiking shock scares preceded by a false scare and a long period of silence didn’t make me jump.  Maybe I was too tired; most everyone jumped and did the nervous laugh.

• GoodFellas- Martin Scorsese, 1990.  Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci, Ray Liotta

• Dolce Vita- Frederico Fellini, 196 . Marcello Mastriani

• Industrial Symphony Number 1- David Lynch, 1990.  Julee Cruise, Nicholas Cage, Laura Dern

• Miller’s Crossing- Coen Brothers, 1990.  Albert Finney,

• D.O.A.

• Kiss Me Deadly

• In a Lonely Place

• The Big Knife

• It’s a Wonderful Life

• Christmas in Connecticut

• Citizen Kane

• Holiday Inn

• Written on the Wind

• Love in the Afternoon

• Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

• Carny

• Russia House- , 1990.  Sean Connery Michelle Pfieffer.
  Awful.  Probably ruined the book.  Tried some cinematic/aural techniques at the beginning, but failed to weave it into content, or to carry it throughout film, which was dry and boring.  Dawn shots of Leningrad and Marsalis jazz (incongruent) kept me awake.

• The Bicycle Thief- Vittorio de Sica, 1948.

• Cinema Paradiso-  ,1990.

• Matador- Pedro Amoldovar, 198 .

• Edward Scissorhands- Tim Burton, 1990.  Johnny Depp, Winona Ryder, Alan Arkin, Dianne Wiest, Anthony Michael Hall.

• Dick Tracy- Warren Beatty, 1990.  Warren Beatty, Madonna, Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino,

• Awakenings- Penny Marshall, 1991.  Robert De Niro, Robin Williams, Penelope Anne Miller, Julie Kavner.

• Alice-  Woody Allen, 1991.  Mia Farrow, Joe Mantegna, Julie Kavner, William Hurt.

• The Grifters- Stephen Frears, 1991.  John Cusack, Annette B., Anjelica Huston

• Misery- Rob Reiner, 1990.  James Caan, Richard Farnsworth.

• Matthias Kneissel- Reinhart Hauf, 1971, D.  Hanna Scygulla, Rainer Fassbinder,

• Silence of the Lambs- Jonathon Demme, 1991.  Jody Foster, Anthony Hopkins.

• He Said, She Said-  ,1991.  Elizabeth Perkins, Kevin Bacon.

• The Grass is Greener-  196 .  Cary Grant, Robert Mitchum, Deborah Kerr.

• Paule Paulander- Reinhart Hauf, 1976.
  The convention of using the christian name in the title, as with Mathias.  About the pathway to patricide that this sixteen year old took.  I confess to dozing for the better part of the first reel, so I can’t offer too terribly a coherent summation.  But basically a reform school girl comes to small village and helps disrupt things at the same time things are disrupted by a farmer winning the Schutzenfest, shooting contest for marksmanship.  The dubious distinction bestowed upon the winner is the responsibility for paying the cost of the fest.  Sixteen year old farmboy becomes enamored of young, bony reform school girl on the run, gets used by her, and basically learns that he has to fight for himself, both against other men who are interested in her, and his father, who is using his labor in a scheme to regain some dwindling financial resources.  In a sense this girl is a productive instigator, a catalyst, a sparkplug, for this son.  In other ways, she’s a scoundrel who follows the meat like a vulture.  Just as the old men lust after her when she arrives in town, she lusts after the easy life, without work.  She doesn’t share the work ethic, which is shown so well in a church sermon, in which the pastor explains that farmers should not sell their land, because you can only sell something once, and you can only buy something from the profits once.  Farming offers sweat, blood, and the fruits of the earth year after year.  And true life, one take pig slaughter and vomit. Finally when they go out to another town’s more elaborate festival, she quickly gets whisked away by the promise of a swimming pool and a job in a boutique.  Paul is left again realizing he must fend for himself.  The startling conclusion occurs when he returns to his father’s farm to find it sealed by barbed wire and no trespassing signs.  He finds all the pigs in his father’s investment scheme in the dying throws of a bloody swine fever. Twitching piglets in blood bath.His father commands him to clean up this pile of dead pigs within one hour.  Paul pummels his father with a shovel, onto the pig pile.  The final shot of the film is Paul running down the road, screaming, “I’m going away, I’m going away.”  In this neorealist style, characters’s events are treated equally; Paul doesn’t really emerge as the central figure, until by end, when enough has accumulated, and an organic symbology has woven itself through the course of the film.  I’m not sure this accumulation has to do with the picking up of the action, and some key events happening (violence), or with a very studied way of story telling.  But it seems that no character is really valorized over another.  An interesting point to think of in terms of other films that work this way.  Vagabond?  Mathias Knessl, certainly. The professor, Hess, interrupted the film in the middle for discussion.  Heinous.  At worst an ugly power trip, at best a failed attempt to inform the second reel.  Disruptive, of at least my nap. Makes a reading of the film problematic, without at least mentioning the interruption.  Bad move, at least until third or later viewing.  And the talk is always focused on style micro matters.  What about history, culture, context. NATIONALISM.  What is a national cinema.  Bad projection, too: frameline, hair in the gate, looping problems, bad reel changes, focus constantly being readjusted, bad print.  Have my eyes been ruined by VCQC?  Perhaps there is liberation in a bad print: it’s ok that the pages of our text are underlined, highlighted, dogeared, faded.

• L.A. Story- , 1991. Steve Martin,  Victoria Tennant.

• Erika’s Passion-

• The Depraved Woman-

• Guilty by Suspicion, Irwin Winkler, 1991.  Robert DeNiro, Annette Benning, Martin Scorsese, Nancy

• Aguirre, the Wrath of God- Werner Herzog,

• New Jack City- Mario Van Peebles, 1991.  Ice T, Chris Rock,

• Lost Honor of Katrina Blum- Volker Schlondorff

• Movies on the Flood Building- various S.F. films projected outside at night

• Superstar- Chuck Workman, 1990.

• Roger & Me- Michael Moore, 1990. Bob Eubanks, Miss America, Anita Bryant

• Cafe & P.A.- Gretchen Somerfeld, 198?.  Plus i-view on cheesy talk show.

• Killing of a Chinese Bookie- John Cassavetes, 1976.

• Straight Outta Brooklyn- Matty Rich, 1991.

• Poison- Todd Haynes, 1990.  Barry Ellsworth, Christine Vachon.

• The Killing- Stanley Kubrick, 1963.  Sterling Hayden,

• Naked Gun 2 and a 1/2- Jerry Zucker, 1991.  Leslie Nielson

• Miracle of Morgan’s Creek- Preston Sturges, 194 . Betty Hutton,

• Shadows- John Cassavetes, 1958.

• Eating- Henry Jaglom, 1991.  Gag me.

• Terminator- James Cameron, 1986. Arnold Schwarznegger, Linda Hamilton.

• Face in the Crowd- Elia Kazan, 1958.

• Manson-

• The Hunger- Tony Scott, 198 .  David Bowie, Catherine Deneuve.

• Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf Mike Nichols, Haskell Wexler, Sam O’Steen.

• Terminator 2- James Cameron, 1991. Arnold Schwarznegger, Linda Hamilton