Film Forno

What a cool, crazy film. As the saying goes after you make a hit, you can make anything you want. Antonioni scored with BLOW UP so he got to make this non-commercial meditation on America, Death, Existence, Time, Humanity. The opening scne is a campus meeting of Radical Students and representatives of Black Power, talking about shutting down the campus, a common occurrence back in 1969.

The way the people talk and dress is so real, they’re not actors, Antonioni used real people that he felt were right for the part. Amazing Imagery, amazing music, Pink Floyd, Jerry Garcia jamming out to images of a Love In in the desert. Roy Orbison singing about Zabriskie Point.

The desert imagery was definetly an influence on Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill, where The Bride goes out to Bud’s trailer and where she walks through the desert, even the music of that sequence seems influenced by Zabriskie Point. Here’s the Bootleg Trailer I cut with Quentin for Kill Bill , the opening music is the music I’m talking about.

Another thing, ZP ends with a big explosion, a similar ending , actually a very similar ending occurs in Robert Downey Sr.s GREASERS PALACE, a huge explosion and a very long shot of a sunset. In Zabriskie, Antonioni is playing with persistence of vision, the shot of the sunset is on the screen unchanging for a long time, then it suddenly cuts to black, this creates an afterimage on your retina, very cool, very painterly, kind of a Rothko type trick. Super Cool. Check it out for yourself. It’s a comment on how the message is getting through to us, Persistence of Vision is how movie work, or rather why they work.

Anyway I’m going to drive out to Zabriskie Point one of these days and check it out for myself.

What a cool movie! I just saw it on YouTube. A great story that unfolds like a mystery, simple, compelling, intriguing. Geraldine Chaplin is wonderful as a crazy, obsessed waif who can kill you. Nobody messes with this tiny beauty and gets away with it. Ans as you watch the film you realize she is sort of a female Charlie Chaplin, she looks a lot like him, she is such a wonderful actress, in this film and the Carlos Saura films she did, I am a true fan of her talent.

Anthony Perkins is excellent too, so is Moses Gunn and a super skinny nerdy Jeff Goldblum. The way Geraldine plays all these people is amazing, it’s like she’s a ghost that can just walk into their lives, they don’t see her unless she wants them to. She actually is a kind of ghost from Tony Perkin’s past, and the way she causes Moses Gunn to fall for her is wonderful, a tough manager of an L.A. flophouse, he’s heard it all and seen it all. Nobody can break through his hard exterior except her, Emily. She has the guy loaning her money and doing chores for her in no time flat. And she is beautiful with her hair tied up in a classic style, transformed by buying a nice dress at a classy shop. this movie is kind of a paen to dedication, single minded attacking a problem, not letting anything stop you, and what a person can accomplish.

Another interesting highlight is the score, which consists of songs by the great Alberta Hunter, she was recently (when this film was made) re-discovered and made some amazing music in her later days. Another factor you’d never see in a movie today.And the movie was produced by the late great Robert Altman, a real American maverick. I had the distinct pleasure of meeting him once at an early screening of The Player. I had an idea for a cut so I told Altman’s publicist, and lo and behold he liked it and implemented it. It’s fitting that he produced this film,  Alan Rudolph worked with Altman on some of his films as Assistant Director, Nahville, California Split, and The Long Goodbye.

Alan Rudolph- Super Genius
This film falls into one of Quentin Tarantino’s favorite genres, female revenge movies. It is one of the most powerful types of film story out there, so compelling by it’s essence.  To me this film is the true extension of Film Noir, like Altman’s Long Goodbye, PostModern Film Noir. Future filmmakers, be inspired by this film! It shows you what a great story, excellent acting, and great storytelling technique can do, make an entertaining, thought provoking film, without special effects or zombies. Check this out.

What a cool movie! Dripping with atmosphere and featuring some powerful performances especially from Steve Cochran and Peter Lorre.

Lorre is one of my favorite all time film actors, check out Friz Lang’s M if you haven’t seen it. Cochran has one of the most distinct physical presences in films, his nastiness  just shoots off the screen in a way like no other actor. He’s just a bad dude.

Bob Cummings is the perfect American everyman, sort of innocent, shocked by what he saw in WWII, messed up but a good egg. He brings to mind a comment Quentin Tarantino made to me about Joseph Cotten, “I love Joseph Cotten, he’s so weak.” Cummings is kind of in that category, but Cotten always had that down at his heels ex-Southern gentleman thing going on, Cummings is just from small town nowheresville.

This film is a kind of confluence of many strange and wonderful things. Based on a book by noir maestro Cornell Woolrich called The Black Path Of Fear, (I ordered a copy) it’s film noir pedigree could not be higher, I believe Woolrich had more novels made into film noirs than anyone else,( I include Val Lewtons The Leopard Man, and Truffaut’s Bride wore Black and Mississippi Mermaid).

The Producer Seymour Nebenzal produced Lang’s M, which Lorre starred in, the director , Arthur Ripley,was an old hand that got started in the silent days and would go on to direct Robert Mitchum’s Thunder Road and found the UCLA film school. Michele Morgan, the blond femme fatale, is still alive and living in France. A friend of mine (Duke Haney)reminded me that she was having her home built while this movie was being made,  A kind of French Chalet that would go down in infamy some years later, 10050 Cielo Drive, scene of the grisly Manson murders of Sharon Tate, Abigail Folger, Voychek Frykowski, Jay Sebring and Steven Parent.

Michele Morgan at her Cielo Drive home

The camerman was the amazing Franz Planer, a Vienese transplant who emigrated to escape the Nazis. Planer also shot the beautiful, atmospheric noir Criss Cross for Robert Siodmak. His photography is nothing short of amazing. There is a wonderful sequence of a black limousine racing a locomotive at night , it’s a tour de force of miniatures, rear projection, great low angle shots of Lorre driving, shot through the steering wheel.

The film is in the public domain now, you can watch it on Youtube, but I just learned it was restored by UCLA and screened recently, unfortunately I missed it. Hopefully they will screen it again soon or at a noir festival.

Finally thanks to Youtube I had a chance to see Youth Runs Wild, the Val Lewton produced RKO film that’s eluded me for a long time. Was it worth the wait? Well, yes and no. An interesting premiss, youngsters running wild due to lack of parental supervision, owing to the fact that most parents were either overseas or working in WWII related industries.

A LOOK Magazine story about a teenaged girl that started a Youth Club was the impetus for this project but once Lewton got involved he transformed it from a puff piece about wholesome Timmy and Jennie playing skittles in the church basement to a searing indictment of child neglect, abuse, and exploitation. This didn’t sit well with the brass at RKO, the State Department or even LOOK magazine so drastic re-editing was called for and Lewton disgusted at the end result asked that his name be taken off the project.  What remains holds clues to what might have been, Lawrence Tierney’s performance as a corrupter of youth, garage owner. Fencing stolen tires, in big demand due to War rationing. Tierney claimed in an interview that his character sold drugs to kids as well in the original version.

Dickie Moore in Out Of The Past
Dickie Moore, one time Little Rascal and the deaf mute sidekick to Robert Mitchum in Out Of The Past appears and is often complaining about the treatment he gets from his father, in Lewton’s cut little Dickie offs his abusing psycho padre with a rifle.

Dickie with chicks in Youth Runs Wild
The ending really comes from out of nowhere, hacked on by a studio hatchet man, a bizarre montage about the teenaged girl that started her Youth Club, trying to shuck and grin the film back to pure propaganda niceness.  A few other noteworthy items, John Fante is credited as screenwriter, the author of the wonderous Ask The Dust, one of Bukowski’s (and mine) favorite L.A. novels. Fante knew his way around abusive, alcoholic parents, check out some of his other novels.  YRW was directed by Mark Robson, Lewton’s pet director, elevated from the editing room to the director’s chair by Lewton on The Seventh Victim after cutting several films for Lewton including Cat P_eople, The Leopard Man, and the incomparable I walked With A Zombie. Robson later repaid Lewton for his help by cutting him out of an independent production company deal and having his agent deliver the bad news.  Vanessa Brown plays an overworked, abused teenager lured into prostitution by an older wiser babe and in one scene she sports a flowery coif that I am pretty sure inspired Beth Short, the Black Dahlia to imitate.

Vanessa Brown with RKO stalwart Kent Smith

Life Imitates Art

 Short probably related to the character Brown played. Brunette, sexy beyond her young years, struggling to make ends meet, hustling drinks in Hollywood Wartime nightclubs. Fascinating stuff. But anyway you too can watch via Youtube and judge for yourself. Too bad no copy of Lewton’s original cut remains. The trims and outs were probably burned to reclaim the 20 cents worth of silver in the emulsion, just like the missing parts of Orson Wells Magnificent Ambersons.

WatchYouth Runs Wild  for yourself  on Youtube!

What a Cool Double Bill!

This is a supercool mashup of a movie. First it’s kind of an airplane drama, a group of characters on a doomed flight, a genre I like. Then it switches gears to an Alien UFO scifi story,including Alien Blob creature that speaks! Then it morphs into a Vampire/Zombie situation.

This culminates in a depressing end of the world Nihilist tale. There’s something unique about films that show the end of life on Earth, like 5, On The Beach, The World, The Flesh and the Devil, The Noah, even Target Earth and in a way the end of The Incredible Shrinking Man. A depressing spin on the mortality of humanity, something they don’t deal with in films anymore. Anyway Goke is pretty out there, the model plane work was inspirational to Quentin Tarantino and he referenced it in Kill Bill, a plane flying against a red sky. We even had some cockpit scenes just like Goke but they got cut out of the film.

Check this one out, you can see it on Hulu Plus, and Criterion has released it as part of a Japanese Horror Box Set.

A lot of fun and definitely different, go check it out. I edited it. Opens today!

Recently a new list of the 50 greatest films ever made was complied by experts. Usurping the past favorite Citizen Kane was a newly elected film, Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. Two undeniably great motion pictures that have something in common, both of them were scored by Bernard Herrmann! Herrmann had worked with Welles in Radio back in NYC and went to Hollywood with his Mercurey Theater compatriots.

His first film score was Citizen Kane, his last was Taxi Driver, he died right after the Christmas Eve scoring session. The Taxi Driver score is one of the all time greats and it seemed Herrmann was heading into new uncharted waters with this score, if he had lived who knows what he would have come up with. The use of the harp and snare drum is so cool. I wonder if the snare was influenced by Gene Palma’s presence in the film, he is the Drummer Man, a fixture on midtown streets back in the 70’s, he’d call out the name of a jazz drummer “Louis Belson” and hit a representative lick.”Buddy Rich”, “Gene Krupa” one day his snare drum was stolen, he just played on a mailbox. NYC was full of characters back then.

But here listen to Herrmann’s theme from VERTIGO.

And here is the theme fromTAXI DRIVER.

Chris Marker has died. I understand he was still making films and very active until the end. He was 91!Here is his ,masterpiece La Jetee. It shows what can be done with still images, sound, imagination and dedication. Au Revoir maitre!

Mario and Lucio Fulci
Here is a great documentary about the great Mario Bava. Parts are in Italian with no subtitles but a lot of it is in English(with Italian subtitles) but I really enjoyed it!  Plus they used super cool Italian film music from classic scores of the 60’s and 70’s.It’s wonderful, check it out below.

 

Here via Youtube you can watch a movie that scared me to bits as a young impressionable child, Mario Bava’s CALTIKI Il MOSTRO IMMORTALE. Bava took this project over from Riccardo Freda and did an excellent job. There is plenty of his ingenious in camera effect work to check out. And the use of a cows stomach as monster influenced many filmmakers, like David Lynch in ERASERHEAD. Check it out.

I watched this film last night and what can I say, I stayed awake till it was done and I didn’t turn it off, two big criteria in my home theater viewing habits, I enjoyed this film for several reasons. It’s a good story with excellent acting, nicely shot, most of it takes place in the Eternal City Roma, we get to see Italy only 15 years after WWII so it’s still pretty close to how it was. Most of the dialog is in Italian (even though the main titles are in French) so I can practice my comprehension. It’s a polyglot film, with people speaking Italian, English, Russian, Latin. A wartime film featuring occupying Nazis and escaped prisoners of war. A Russian, an Englishman, and an American to be precise. I like how the characters represent their respective cultures, sort of like the characters in The Third Man. The story kind of meanders along but in a very enjoyable way then suddenly veers into violence and death. I usually don’t like such an abrupt change of tone but Rossellini pulls it off, probably because he lived through that time of trauma and he brings that reality to it. This movie is a good example of what elevates a great director from just a journeyman, everything is well done in the film, the story is interesting, the acting good but there is some indescribable something that makes the film more enjoyable to watch than it should be, a “Lubitsch touch” as it were. It’s not the editing, the music, the setting,it’s everything, it’s the reflected talents of a man of taste and genius, Roberto Rossellini.

I have not seen enough of his films and this one inspires me to see more, how about a Major Retrospective of his work! Maybe they can get one of his other masterpieces, his daughter Isabella to emcee it. And this film is available on Netflix streaming.

Crazy title, huh. maybe it’s an homage to Charles Laughton’s masterpiece Night Of The Hunter, I would think so. Anyway this film is worth checking out, so full of the cinepoetics that only Jean Rollin could create. A lot of nudity, a lot of violence, and an underlying Romanticism in the face of Ultra Nihilism. Made for very little money, shot in a few locations, but full of ideas, images, imagination. The opening is a bit like Aldrich’s Kiss Me Deadly and the end is like nothing else. It’s sort of a modern Zombie movie sans brain eating. There is a sequence towards the end that is referencing the Holocaust, set in a train yard, a great location. Two guard/executioners consider a girl sent to them for extermination. ” This one’s still alive. I can’t do it.” “She’s as good as dead.” ” Let’s watch her and see what she does. “I am reminded in a way of the Japanese Pink Violence films. The producers said to the filmmakers, ” You can do anything as long as the film has so much nudity and violence. ” Rollin did the same, his nod to commercialism was the nudity and violence his films are full of. But I think he loved those elements as well. He truly dug his genre and he imbuded his creations with a wonderful, personal poetry. Jean Rollin it’s a shame you’re dead, I would write you a fan letter. It is amazing that  you got to make these atmospheric films for so many years, a triumph of the human spirit. Bravo! And it’s on Netflix Streaming!