The Q Word

"Travis seems confused. He is so much part of his own world, he fails to comprehend another's world."

- Paul Schrader, TAXI DRIVER

Do you remember that scene in TAXI DRIVER where Travis Bickle finally lands a date with the woman of his sick fantasies and decides that taking her to a Swedish porno film in Times Square is just the ticket to win her over? When Betsy balks, all Travis can do is scratch his head in befuddlement. "These are the kind that couples go to," he protests. "Honest. I've seen them."

That was an unsettling little scene, right? Well what if Travis Bickle were painted by Schrader/Scorsese/DeNiro as just a loveable, misunderstood galoot? And what if Betsy just rolled her eyes, shrugged her shoulders, and said "here we go again!" or something and accompanied Bickle into the theater?

I Have A Way

"Bresson is a rarity among filmmakers: he apparently knows exactly what he does and why he does it... any study of Bresson must take into account his astute self-criticism."

 - Paul Schrader, Transcendental Style In Film

"A MAN ESCAPED would seem of all Bresson's films the most plot-oriented; it is about a prison break. But the title dispenses with any possibility of suspense - UN CONDAMNE A MORT S'EST ECHAPPE (a man condemned to death has escaped)."

- Paul Schrader, ibid. 

“‘Fear Eats the Soul’... there’s more truth in that title than most whole films.” 

 - Jennie (Naomie Harris) in TRISTRAM SHANDY: A COCK AND BULL STORY

* * *

Last year, I participated in The Skuriels, a joint effort between the Skandies and Muriels to come up with the twenty greatest films ever made (released in conjunction with Sight and Sound's decennial list). When considering my own ballot, my "short list" of around 150 films was weighed heavily toward certain directors: Scorsese, Lynch, Hitchcock, Welles, Tourneur, Dreyer, etc. etc. Of all the repeat filmmakers, Robert Bresson probably had the most impressive track record; six of the eight films of his I'd seen were contenders for my top ten.

Whose God Is Their Belly

[Note: all of the frame grabs below (save one) have been taken from the 2002 DVD edition of PURPLE NOON and not the new Criterion Bluray that debuted on December 4th. The previous DVD version was essentially a rip of the 1996 VHS version which corresponded with the Martin Scorsese-led revival of NOON. The new restoration, as you can see from DVD Beaver's coverage, is a major improvement. At the bottom of the post, I've included an image comparison.]

Rene Clement's PURPLE NOON is a 1960 adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's dark psychological crime novel, The Talented Mister Ripley. Most people are probably familiar with the 1999 version directed by Anthony Minghella and starring Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, and a pre-overexposure Jude Law.

Brother To Him That Destroys

As a warm-up for tomorrow's Criterion Bluray release of PURPLE NOON (1960) - Rene Clement's vibrant adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mister Ripley - I thought I'd check out GERVAISE (1956), Clement's ultra-bleak adaptation of Emile Zola's novel, L'Assommoir. I'd seen Clement's FORBIDDEN GAMES ages ago and found it tedious but I loved NOON so I figured GERVAISE - which came out a few years ago on the Essential Art House Criterion sublabel - might serve as a Clement tie-breaker.

“What a rotten film, all we meet are crazy people.”

“A critic once asked why there was so much blood in Pierrot. That’s not blood, answered Godard, but red. Equally, his films are not stories photographed, but a record of actors playing parts. The focus of his films is the distance between camera and actors and between screen and audience.”

  

- David Thomson, The New Biographical Dictionary of Film (2004 Edition)

“This is not a Hollywood movie. In a Hollywood movie, after the movie is over, there’s nothing more. There is no relationship between the screen and the spectator. There’s just duration. If you don’t like it, you go to sleep, the way I do. But in other movies, you can’t forget about it. You have to talk about it afterward.”

- Jean-Luc Godard, Rolling Stone interview, June 14, 1969 (excerpted in the liner notes for Criterion's recent Bluray edition of WEEKEND)

* * *

As much as I hate to lead with a David Thomson quote¹, I think the first bit sums up everything I dislike about the motion picture exercises of Jean-Luc Godard. The second quote speaks to everything I admire about Godard (in theory) and what keeps me coming back to his films, however infuriating I find them.

Mod's Lonely Man

“If he had been a dog in a city, a policeman would have shot him and sent his head to a laboratory, to see if he had rabies.” – Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Slaughterhouse Five

The above quote occurs to me more often than I'd care to admit. There's a certain kind of character -- in movies and in real life -- that always calls it to mind: the guy who is outraged when he's given the due punishment for (or reaping the natural consequences of) his bullshit behavior. The kind of guy who cuts you off in traffic and then flips YOU off. Or, in the case of Jimmy (Phil Daniels), the type of bloke who runs roughshod over vacationing families on Brighton Beach, tosses bricks through windows, smashes cars, burglarizes pharmacies, etc. etc. and then gets all bent out of shape when he gets tossed out of his parents' house (or nabbed by the police). Jimmy and his ilk are often labeled "antiheroes" but -- as they slamdance their way back and forth across the line between anarchy and nihilism -- they’re perhaps closer to the spirit of Antichrist.

Extremely Benign

Aki Kaurismäki seems unable to make a film that isn’t described by critics as “deadpan.” Even the back of the DVD for Kaurismäki’s latest, Le Havre (out recently from the redoubtable Criterion Collection), can’t resist calling it a “charming, deadpan delight.” But I think that the D-word – which usually suggests a detached, unemotional humor (cf. the work of Kaurismaki’s friend and contemporary, Jim Jarmusch) – isn’t exactly apt in the case of Le Havre. Barely concealed under its poker face is a wistful utopian dream.