Awards at Berlin, 2010

The awards for the 60th Berlin International Film Festival were delivered this afternoon (Sunday in Germany), with the most-talked about award going to Roman Polanski, who claimed a Silver Bear award for Best Director for The Ghost Writer. Like Polanski's Academy Award win, this seems incredibly suspect, something of a lifetime achievement meets "Sorry for all your legal troubles" accolade. I'll still end up watching it, though my faith in his abilities isn't strong these days (I am, however, one of the few who likes Death and the Maiden; however, both Jim Beluschi and Kim Cattrall make it hard to get too amped about this one). The Golden Bear went to Turkish director and playwright Semih Kaplanoğlu's Bal [Honey], the third part of a trilogy entitled Yusuf Üçlemesi, or Yusef's Trilogy, which began with Süt [Milk] and Yumurta [Egg]. Claudia Llosa's La teta asustada [The Milk of Sorrow], now up for the Oscar for Best Foreign Film, was last year's top winner. The awards are listed below, including the main jury prizes, as well as those of the Ecumenical Jury, FIPRESCI and the Teddy Jury (given to queer films):

Golden Bear: Bal [Honey], d. Semih Kaplanoğlu, Turkey/Germany
Silver Bear, Jury Grand Prix: Eu când vreau să fluier, fluier [If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle], d. Florin Şerban, Romania
Silver Bear, Best Director: Roman Pokanski, The Ghost Writer
Silver Bear, Best Actress: Shinobu Terajima, Caterpillar
Silver Bear, Best Actor: (tie) Grigori Dobrygin, Sergei Puskepalis, How I Ended This Summer
Silver Bear, Outstanding Artistic Achievement: Pavel Kostomarov, cinematographer, How I Ended This Summer
Silver Bear, Screenplay: Wang Quan'an, Na Jin, Apart Together
Alfred Bauer Prize (given to a work of particular innovation): Eu când vreau să fluier, fluier [If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle], d. Florin Şerban
Best First Feature: Sebbe, d. Babak Najafi, Sweden


FIPRESCI Prizes


- Competition: En familie [A Family], d. Pernille Fischer Christensen, Denmark
- Panorama: Parade, d. Isao Yukisada, Japan
- Forum: El vuelco del cangrejo [Crab Trap], d. Oscar Ruiz Navia, Colombia/France


Prizes of the Ecumenical Jury


- Competition: Bal [Honey], d. Semih Kaplanoğlu
- Panorama: Kawasakiho růže [Kawasaki's Rose], d. Jan Hřebejk, Czech Republic
- Forum: Aisheen (Still Alive in Gaza), d. Nicolas Wadimoff, Switzerland/Quatar


Teddy Awards


- Best Feature Film: The Kids Are All Right, d. Lisa Cholodenko, USA
- Best Documentary: La bocca del lupo [The Mouth of the Wolf], d. Pietro Marcello, Italy
- Best Short Film: The Feast of Stephen, d. James Franco, USA
- Jury Award: Open, d. Jake Yuzna, USA

First Round of Titles for the '10 Berlinale, Including Polanski and Scorsese

Five of the twenty-six titles to be competing in the 2010 Berlinale (and two out-of-competition) were announced today, including two high-profile premieres of the latest from Martin Scorsese and Roman Polanski. The other major title included is the latest from Jasmila Žbanić, whose Grbavica won the Golden Bear in 2006.

In Competition

- Bal [Honey], d. Semih Kaplanoğlu [Yumurta], Turkey/Germany
- The Ghost Writer, d. Roman Polanski, France/Germany/UK, w. Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Kim Cattrall, Olivier Williams, Tom Wilkinson
- The Hunter, d. Rafi Pitts [It's Winter], Germany/Iran
- Na putu [On the Path], d. Jasmila Žbanić, Bosnia and Herzegovina/Austria/Germany/Croatia
- Der Räuber [The Robber], d. Benjamin Heisenberg (Milchwald), Austria/Germany

Out of Competition

- My Name Is Khan, d. Karan Johar [Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham...], India
- Shutter Island, d. Martin Scorsese, USA, w. Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams, Patricia Clarkson, Max von Sydow

Online Viewing @ TheAuteurs

If Polanski: Unauthorized wasn't all you'd hoped and dreamed it'd be, you can go ahead and check out the director's first feature film (Polanski, not Damian Chapa, ha!), Knife in the Water [Nóż w wodzie], for free at The Auteurs, courtesy of Criterion's free monthly series on the site. Currently, the focus is on directors' first films. Check out one of my very favorite films, Lynne Ramsay's Ratcatcher, if you haven't already. The other films in this series: Jane Campion's wonderful Sweetie, Agnès Varda's La pointe-courte, Sam Fuller's I Shot Jesse James and Marco Bellocchio's Fists in the Pocket [I pugni in tasca] (the latter not being one of my favorites by any means, but hey, if you've already seen the other five...)

Bio-Hazard

Within the past few years, we've gotten varied cinematic portraits of famous people: Édith Piaf, Séraphine de Senlis, Françoise Sagan, Uschi Obermaier, Che Guevara, Coco Chanel, Harvey Milk, Jacques Mesrine, Diane Arbus, George W. Bush, Charles Bronson (the prisoner), Idi Amin, Edie Sedgwick, Charles Darwin, Gustav Klimt, the Bouvier Beales, the Notorious B.I.G., Amelia Earhart, Ian Curtis, Queen Victoria and Jean-Dominique Bauby. Now you can add a few more to add to the list, for better or worse; and I'm sure there are plenty more in the works.

Without anything useful to say about Roman Polanski’s imprisonment in Switzerland, a friend of mine directed me to an unofficial Polanski biopic that was released this year. Already available on DVD, the film, now called Polanski: Unauthorized, is co-written, directed and starring some guy named Damian Chapa, who you may recognize from a small role in Under Seige or as “Ken” in that awful Street Fighter movie (the one that had Kylie Minogue and Jean-Claude Van Damme, not the other awful one). Polanski: Unauthorized looks like a disaster and surprisingly was made and released before all the new developments, though likely capitalizing on the newfound interest in Polanski’s exile after the documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired came out. Based on the trailer, it appears to cover the director’s life from the taking of his parents to Nazi concentration camps to the infamous court case, likely in flashbacks but I’m only inferring here. The actress playing Sharon Tate looks especially appalling; just listen to her tell Roman over the phone that she’s pregnant. As the cast list includes actors playing both Mia Farrow and Anton LaVey (ha!), the filming of Rosemary’s Baby probably takes up a good portion of the film. If anyone’s actually seen this, let me know… Variety’s review, by Todd McCarthy sounds amazing:

“Roman Polanski won't lose any sleep over Polanski Unauthorized, a basement tape-quality slum through the most famously traumatic episodes in a sensation-riddled life. Straight-to-DVD auteur Damian Chapa invested little money, and less talent, in depicting the subject's escape from the Nazis, flirtation with devil worship on "Rosemary's Baby," relationship with Sharon Tate and arrest for raping a 13-year-old girl, moments from all of which are shuffled together almost at random. With production values no better than homemade porn -- most scenes are played in front of drapes -- and dialogue that makes you feel sorry for the actors, this Friday the 13th Los Angeles vanity release isn't even fun in a bad-movie way. Paying customers will feel gypped.”

Like Coco Chanel, Romy Schneider, for whom Chanel designed numerous articles of clothing, is the subject of two competing biopics at the moment (though technically Chanel had three released within a year of one another). The first of the two, entitled Romy, will be airing on German television 11 November, followed by the DVD release the next day. Actress Jessica Schwarz (Kammerfilmmern) will play Schneider; the rest of the cast includes Thomas Kretschmann (The Pianist, King Kong, Queen Margot) as her first husband Harry Meyen and Guillaume Delorme as Alain Delon, a good friend and frequent co-star of the actress. The bigger of the two biopics, tentatively titled Eine Frau wie Romy [A Woman Like Romy], was scheduled to have begun shooting in summer 2008, but there isn’t a whole lot of information following that. Directed by Josef Rusnak (The Thirteenth Floor, Quiet Days in Hollywood), Eine Frau wie Romy has actress Yvonne Catterfeld as Schneider (no, not Beyoncé, unfortunately), and the IMDb lists Michel Piccoli, one of Schneider’s close friends, in the cast, as well as Jean-Hughes Anglade and Tchéky Karyo. I’ll let you know if I hear anything further about either version.

Breaking Glass Pictures, a new studio launched by former heads of TLA Releasing Richard Wolff and Richard Ross, has acquired the rights to An Englishman in New York, a sequel-of-sorts to The Naked Civil Servant from 1975, based on the autobiography of Quentin Crisp. John Hurt reprises his role as Crisp and is joined by Cynthia Nixon, Denis O’Hare, Jonathan Tucker and Swoosie Kurtz in the film, which earned Hurt a special Teddy Award from the Berlin International Film Festival for his performance. Breaking Glass will release the film sometime in 2010.

And finally, nothing looks to have changed about the Serge Gainsbourg biopic, Vie héroïque; it’s still set for a French release on 20 January.

Great Moments in Bad Cover Artwork

Inspired by the hideousness that is Lionsgate's cover for John Huston's The Dead, I've been tempted to possibly start a new feature on the blog which will highlight some of the worst DVD covers to surface in the twelve or so years the format has existed. Anyone who has ever worked at a video store or a movie theatre (as I have) could probably spot off at least five awful clichés that plague the world of poster and DVD artwork ("Floating Heads" being the most pervasive, irritating offender). If this does turn into a regular thing on my blog, expect themed posts, such as "Good Films, Bad Covers," "Did you hire your brother to put this together on Microsoft Paint?," "Ethnic Girl Shrugging Her Shoulders," "Offensive Photoshopping," "From Asia, With Love," "Just Because Julia Roberts' Head on a Model's Body Worked on the Poster for Pretty Woman Doesn't Mean It Does Here," as well as a few tributes to the studios who've consistently released ugly covers (Lionsgate, Sony, Koch Lorber, The Weinstein Company/Miramax) and to the gay direct-to-DVD market, who've never ceased to amaze me with their contributions to bad package art. So here are 10 dreadful examples of DVD cover "magic."

1. Repulsion, d. Roman Polanski, Koch Vision, as part of their "Cinema Sirens" Collection, 2001

Probably the most notorious of Koch's "Cinema Sirens" series, which also includes some former public domain flicks starring Sophia Loren, Claudia Cardinale, Ava Gardner, Jayne Mansfield, Elizabeth Taylor and Brigitte Bardot. With a simple cut and paste, Koch rendered Roman Polanski's terrifying, claustrophobic nightmare into a bargain-bin clunker. One of the worst parts about this cover is that they obviously recognized that what they were releasing was a quality motion picture ("Roman Polanski's psychological masterpiece"), but unfortunately the best way to sell it was with Catherine Deneuve's head on a blurry, purple with polka-dot bikini with matching towel(?) and high heels. Remember that great scene on the beach in Repulsion? Neither do I, but as any fashionable woman knows, never break out the bathing suit without your matching heels.

2. Beatific Vision, d. Sountru, Ariztical Entertainment, 2009

Oh boy! Keep in mind that Ariztical, who specialize in no-budget, nudity-filled gay flicks with the exception of the unfortunately popular Eating Out series and a pair of exceptional films from Tennessee-based filmmaker Morgan Jon Fox, has released Beatific Vision with two different covers: "Mainstream Art" (for Blockbuster, I'd assume) and "Alternative Art" (for the online buyers). What you see above is the "Mainstream Art" (the "Alternative Art" has a pair of male lovers locked in embrace with a sliver of an ass crack), and it is certainly the preferable of the two. The floating image is featured on both covers, but this version really caters to a tamer crowd, who enjoy wearing scarves that match Catherine Deneuve's bathing suit and dressing their pug in leather harnesses. If you were wondering what sort of people were still keeping Blockbuster in business, look no further.

3. Don Juan, d. Jacques Weber, Koch Lorber, 2005

It would seem a difficult task to make an aesthetically displeasing cover when you have Penélope Cruz and Emmanuelle Béart in period attire to work with, but leave it to Koch Lorber to prove me wrong. There's a storm brewing on the beach as Don Juan, played by the director, rides his horse across the tide, but as we all know, Ms. Cruz's beauty can part the most treacherous of cloud formations for the sun to shine upon her. Sadly, Ms. Béart's looks do not have the same powers. Both actresses' eyes are drawn outside of the frame, which would make sense as there's nothing striking going on inside of it, but I get the feeling Cruz's disheveled dress is revealing a little more than just her bare shoulders. Just look at the way Béart gazes downward, lips pouted and hair tussled. As if we needed any indication that what we want to be looking at can't be found in this cover.

4. Federal Protection, d. Anthony Hickox, Lions Gate, 2002

Hello, sexy! Glamourous girls with guns has always been an eye-catcher, but none have gotten my attention as strikingly as the headless, diamond-neckless-wearing lady in Federal Protection. Was this cocktail dress a part of Alexander McQueen's fall collection? I would die and go to fashion heaven if I ever saw Victoria Beckham in this number. With his lips puckered just a little bit and his hair slicked back, Armand Assante's face will be the wave of haute couture fashion, mark my words.

5. Poker in Bed [La signora gioca bene a scopa?], d. Giuliano Carnimeo, Televista, 2009

While one can find plenty of reasons to bitch about Televista, a company who issues unauthorized, VHS-to-bootleg-quality versions of Euro flicks, their cover artwork is especially noteworthy. While I typically wouldn't be the person to ask about which of Edwige Fenech's erotic farces are the best, I'd be silly not to at least mention Poker in Bed, which, if we're going by the cover, features a naughty scene in which Fenech wins the game with her Royal-Flush-from-between-the-legs trick. I also had no idea the Algerian-born actress was blessed with upside-down heart-shaped nipples, and that alone makes Poker in Bed a must-have!

6. Spooky House, d. William Sachs, Studio Works, 2003

Another possible theme for bad covers: Slumming Actors. Featuring not one, but two Oscar winners (Ben Kingsley and Mercedes Ruehl), Spooky House could never be mistaken for simply a bad DVD cover; it is refreshingly honest about everything you need to know about the film. Check out VideoDetective to see the official trailer and marvel at the accuracy in which the cover flaunts its state-of-the-art visual effects. If The Pagemaster was too animated for all you Ben Kingsley fans, Spooky House is the film for you. Side note: Someone needs to teach me how to rip scenes from movies off DVDs, because I searched far and wide, with no avail, for a clip of the theme song that was composed for this gem's title sequence.

7. Partner(s), d. Dave Diamond, Lions Gate, 2005

There's not much more to say about the cover for Partner(s). Just look at that photoshopping! Do you think Michael Ian Black is playing a homosexual? If a picture tells a thousand words, this one lays out the entire screenplay. Why would you even need to rent it? Is it just a coincidence that the film sort of shares a title with one of Hollywood's most notoriously homophobic ventures, which also has winning package art?

8. The Lost Steps [Los pasos perdidos], d. Manane Rodríguez, Agua Verde Audio Visual/TLA Releasing

This might be acceptable for the cover for a slideshow your cousin made for his parents' 50th anniversary, but not for anything else. In fact, I may even compliment your cousin if his skills had advanced to this level, but for a movie studio of any level, this shouldn't even suffice for the cover sheet of a press kit.

9. Five, d. Arch Oboler, Sony Pictures, as part of their Martini Movies, 2009

Thanks a lot Seven for making every film with a number that could maybe pass as a letter in the title the standard. While every single one of Sony's "Martini Movies" are the victims of heinous packaging, 5ive is my favorite offender. You've got a Mount Rushmore line-up of the actors, a screaming baby in one corner and a skeleton's face appearing in some sort of mushroom cloud explosion in the other. Mad props!

10. Thunderpants, d. Peter Hewitt, The Weinstein Company, 2007

Speechless.

DVD Update, 1 July, Plus Maybe The African Queen After All?

Some DVD release updates, ordered by release date:

- Sin nombre, 2009, d. Cary Fukunaga, Sony, 1 September
- Camille, 2007, d. Gregory Mackenzie, National Entertainment/E1, also on Blu-ray, 15 September, w. Sienna Miller, James Franco, David Carradine
- Easy Virtue, 2008, d. Stephan Elliott, Sony, also on Blu-ray, 15 September, w. Colin Firth, Kristin Scott Thomas, Jessica Biel
- Grace, 2009, d. Paul Solet, Anchor Bay, also on Blu-ray, 15 September, w. Jordan Ladd
- Lymelife, 2008, d. Derick Martini, Screen Media, also on Blu-ray, 22 September, w. Alec Baldwin, Timothy Hutton, Cynthia Nixon
- O' Horten, 2007, d. Bent Hamer, Sony, 22 September
- Nightmare, 2005, d. Dylan Bank, IFC Films, 29 September
- The Skeptic, 2009, d. Tennyson Bardwell, IFC Films, 6 October, w. Tim Daly, Tom Arnold, Zoe Saldana
- American Violet, 2008, d. Tim Disney, Image, also on Blu-ray, 13 October, w. Will Patton, Alfre Woodard, Tim Blake Nelson
- Chinatown, 1974, d. Roman Polanski, Paramount, Centennial Collection, 13 October
- Gnaw, 2008, d. Gregory Mandry, Dark Sky Films, 13 October
- Sorry, Wrong Number, 1948, d. Anatole Litvak, Paramount, Centennial Collection, 13 October, w. Barbara Stanwyck, Burt Lancaster
- The Stepfather, 1987, d. Joseph Ruben, Shout! Factory, 13 October, w. Terry O'Quinn
- The Butcher, 2007, d. Kim Jin-Won, Palisades Tartan, 27 October
- Night of Death! [La nuit de la mort], 1980, d. Raphaël Delpard, Synapse, 27 October, w. Charlotte de Turckheim

Also look for Stop Making Sense on Blu-ray from Palm on 13 October and the 1951 version of A Christmas Carol on Blu-ray on 3 November. And, maybe, The African Queen will really come out on 13 October as part of Paramount's Centennial Collection.

Claire Denis + Cinema Guild; Repulsion + Criterion

Via IndieWire, Claire Denis' 35 Shots of Rum [35 rhums] has found a US distributor in Cinema Guild, who just started their own DVD label after New Yorker Films closed up shop. In other Cinema Guild news, they have teamed up with Project X, who previously brought us a bunch of amazing Peter Watkins films. Their first release together will be Christian Petzold's The State I Am In [Die Innere Sicherheit] in July, followed by Watkins' 14-hour doc The Journey [Resan] sometime later this year.

Criterion announced their July titles this afternoon. Roman Polanski's Repulsion, previously only available in a wretched bargain bin disc, will be out on both DVD and Blu-ray on 28 July. Masaki Kobayashi's The Human Condition is set for the 14th, as well as a Blu-ray of For All Mankind. And Godard's Made in U.S.A. is the other release, though Eric pointed out that spine number 482 has yet to be announced. He suspects it may be Godard's 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her [2 ou 3 choses que je sais d'elle] (though Polanski's Cul-de-sac is another possibility). I suspect it may be Revolutionary Road (if Criterion's release of Benjamin Button is any indication). Let's hope he's right.

2009 Notebook: Vol 5

Expect an expanded version of the 2009 Notebook later this week! Who'd have guessed... three films with Rose McGowan and two with Traci Lords?

The New Favorites

Salomè - dir. Carmelo Bene - 1972 - Italy - N/A - with Carmelo Bene, Donyale Luna, Lydia Mancinelli, Alfiero Vincenti, Veruschka

The Good

Frozen River - dir. Courtney Hunt - 2008 - USA - Sony Pictures Classics - with Melissa Leo, Misty Upham, Charlie McDermott, Michael O'Keefe, Mark Boone Junior

Middle of the Road (though perhaps better than expected)

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist - dir. Peter Sollett - 2008 - USA - Sony Pictures - with Michael Cera, Kat Dennings, Ari Graynor, Aaron Yoo, Rafi Gavron, Alexis Dziena, Jonathan B. Wright, Jay Baruchel, John Cho, Zahcary Booth, Bishop Allen

Shitfests

The Reader - dir. Stephen Daldry - 2008 - USA/Germany - Weinstein Company - with Kate Winslett, David Kross, Ralph Fiennes, Bruno Ganz, Lena Olin, Susanne Lothar, Alexandra Maria Lara

Revisited: The Old Favorites

Death Proof - dir. Quentin Tarantino - 2007 - USA - Weinstein Company - with Kurt Russell, Zoë Bell, Rosario Dawson, Vanessa Ferlito, Tracie Thoms, Sydney Poitier, Jordan Ladd, Rose McGowan, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Quentin Tarantino, Eli Roth, Marcy Harriell, Omar Doom

The Devils - dir. Ken Russell - 1971 - UK - Warner - with Vanessa Redgrave, Oliver Reed, Dudley Sutton, Max Adrian, Gemma Jones, Michael Gothard, Murray Melvin, Georgina Hale, Christopher Logue, Graham Armitage

The Doom Generation - dir. Gregg Araki - 1995 - France/USA - Lionsgate - with Rose McGowan, James Duval, Johnathon Schaech, Nicky Katt, Parker Posey, Margaret Cho, Perry Farrell, Heidi Fleiss, Dewey Weber, Amanda Bearse, Skinny Puppy, Dustin Nguyen, Lauren Tewes, Johanna Went

Nowhere - dir. Gregg Araki - 1997 - France/USA - Fine Line Features - with James Duval, Rachel True, Nathan Bexton, Kathleen Robertson, Christina Applegate, Jordan Ladd, Scott Caan, Guillermo Diaz, Jeremy Jordan, Sarah Lassez, Ryan Phillippe, Heather Graham, Joshua Gibran Mayweather, Alan Boyce, Debi Mazar, Chiara Mastroianni, Mena Suvari, Jaason Simmons, Thyme Lewis, Beverly D'Angelo, John Ritter, Charlotte Rae, Traci Lords, Rose McGowan, Shannen Doherty, Denise Richards, Teresa Hill, Kevin Light, Christopher Knight, Eve Plumb, Lauren Tewes, David Leisure, Gibby Haynes

Rosemary's Baby - dir. Roman Polanski - 1968 - USA - Paramount - with Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon, Sidney Blackmer

Revisited: Les Autres

Serial Mom - dir. John Waters - 1994 - USA - Savoy/Focus Features - with Kathleen Turner, Sam Waterson, Ricki Lake, Matthew Lillard, Scott Morgan, Patricia Dunnock, Justin Whalin, Mink Stole, Mary Jo Catlett, Walt MacPherson, Traci Lords, Suzanne Somers

¿Qué?

Severin in the UK is set to release Roman Polanski's elusive What?, or Diary of Forbidden Dreams as it is sometimes known. The film stars Marcello Mastroianni and Sydne Rome. The disc streets on 20 October.

...People Fucking

Here are a few DVD announcements. Picture This! Entertainment will release the film 7 Virgins [7 vírgenes], starring Juan José Ballesta (El Bola) on 30 September. They will also release The Good Boy, or in Spanish Segundo asalto, starring Darío Grandinetti (Talk to Her), on the 16th.

Strand will release two films in September: Jacques Nolot's (Porn Theatre) Before I Forget [Avant que j'oublie] and Ferzan Ozpetek's (Steam: The Turkish Bath, Facing Windows) Saturn in Opposition [Saturno contro], starring Stefano Accorsi and Margherita Buy.

ThinkFilm is releasing Stuart Gordon's bloody comedy (?) Stuck, starring Mena Suvari and Stephen Rea, on 7 October. They will also have out the Canadian film YPF, or Young People Fucking as it was known at festivals, on the 14th. You may know Young People Fucking as being amid the Canadian government censorship case. Google it.

Facets is releasing the Bill Douglas trilogy, which consists of My Childhood, My Ain Folk and My Way Home, from 72-78, on 23 September. The set will also be released on 23 June from BFI in the UK. The Weinstein Company has Lou Reed's Berlin, a concert film directed by Julian Schnabel, on 16 September. It has to be better than any other concert film I've seen of Reed in the past.

Kino will be releasing a newly remastered version of the infamous RKO picture The Man on the Eiffel Tower, co-directed by Burgess Meredith, Irving Allen and Charles Laughton (though the latter two remained uncredited), on 16 September. The film was only previously available in a shitty transfer for cheap. BCI Eclipse will release another out-of-circulation film, Simon Heresa's A Day at the Beach, written by Roman Polanski on 9 September. The film stars Peter Sellers.

Water Bearer Films is releasing Philippe Vallois' (We Were One Man) notorious Johan, carnet intime homosexuel, or Johan, mon été 75, on 26 August. And finally, Venevision will release Antonio Chavarrías' Volverás, starring Tristan Ulloa and Unax Uglade, on 16 September.

And a Few Extracurricular Readings

Thanks to GreenCine, I got a belly laugh from Christopher Orr's review of The Happening. Thanks to him, I don't have to sit through it and got all the unintentional enjoyment without spending 10 bucks on it. I hope people stop giving that fuck money to make movies from now on.

Also, you might have caught Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired on HBO this past week, and if you didn't, I would highly recommend doing so, although I was a tad disappointed that I didn't get to see more Nastassja Kinski than just a photo or two. Regardless, Kim Masters discusses why there was an alteration from its Sundance and Cannes premieres and why that matters.

I guess not

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

I Should Know Better

Chinatown - dir. Roman Polanski - 1974 - USA

Please, if you haven’t seen Chinatown, don’t read this and run to your video store now (and to Josh, who rated the film 1 star on Netflix, try to win back my respect).

I really should know better. Instead of watching pieces of shit like Art School Confidential, I need to just revisit films that actually matter. No matter what your stance is on film versus video, one can’t deny the sizable appeal of home video. How else can one visit and revisit films like Chinatown whenever they want? You don’t have to pay to see the film repeatedly, nor do you have to wait for it to screen in your city. Chinatown, and other masterpieces, can be at your disposal whenever you want. I suppose everyone has films that can continuously amaze, astonish, and eventually break your heart. More than just a litmus test for whether I will like someone or not based on their opinion of Chinatown, Chinatown, for me, is the reason why I adore the cinema. The film, Polanski’s third film after the death of his pregnant wife Sharon Tate and his final American feature, works for me in a way other film noirs (especially the neo-noirs) do not. While I hold films like The Maltese Falcon, Pickup on South Street, and Double Indemnity in an extremely high regard, Chinatown has something that these films do not, and it’s something that’s difficult to pick up on a single viewing. Chinatown is, no doubt, a richly textured and layered film; in fact I find myself stumbling over words trying to explain the plot. Thankfully, plot details seldom matter in film noir (look at The Big Sleep if you really want to get lost). One can applaud L.A. Confidential or Brick on the grounds of cleverness and faithfulness, but can we give them praise for their dramatic achievements? I’d say no, though I would accept an argument for the Joseph Gordon-Levitt character as being a bit like Polanski himself. To prefer Chinatown to L.A. Confidential is not to declare one’s self a pessimist or an optimist; it runs deeper than that.

Nicholson detractors, be advised: this ranks with Antonioni’s The Passenger as one of the least “Here’s Jaaaaaack” Nicholson performances. This is likely because he was under the direction of respected foreign auteurs, but I might argue that this is one of Nicholson’s best performances, for the very reason stated above. Though this is not a criticism, watching Chinatown once doesn’t hold the impact of multiple viewings. The film is assuredly plot-heavy in its dealings with the water department and corruption; at times, one even forgets why Faye Dunaway’s Evelyn Mulwray is still in the picture. But without her, Chinatown wouldn’t work on the level that affects me the deepest. Chinatown is all about J.J. Gittes and Eveyln Mulwray. Upon initial viewing, we’re as distracted as Gittes is. What is Evelyn hiding and why? Is she stringing him along like Barbara Stanwyck? Is everything that comes out of her mouth a bold lie like Mary Astor? Our questioning eye, thanks to the incredible singular point-of-view of Gittes by Polanski and screenwriter Robert Townes, doesn’t give Evelyn the sympathy that she so deserves, and it allows us to stray. Since this is after the heyday of noir, Evelyn doesn’t need to function as the cold, conniving femme fatale. This may be her exterior, but beneath the front, she’s a tortured soul, far more sad than the label of “sick woman” her father, Noah Cross (John Huston), gives her. The passion in Chinatown is real, not a sexual guise to achieve the seedy greed and fortune these noir spiderwomen so desire, which is what separates it from the rest. One also cannot really appreciate Faye Dunaway’s brilliant performance on a single viewing. Her performance is wildly complex, and Polanski allows her no trickery. We might assume her to be calculating, but this is only because of our prior cinematic knowledge, and Polanski and Townes play off that. Her frightened shutters and glances scream of a woman damaged, a woman with a dreadful, nearly unspeakable secret. Dunaway allows for the misinterpretation of her nervousness, and this is why she works so amazingly. We see her as Jake does, a mysterious beauty with something to hide. Only upon knowing the secret (which most people know without even seeing the film) does our opinion change. Her “sister, daughter” scene is so ruthlessly powerful, most people find themselves laughing to cover up their violent discomfort. The “sister, daughter” scene ranks among some of the most famous scenes in film history, and it could have been a complete disaster in the hands of a lesser actress. You’re probably screaming something about wire hangers right now, but under the direction of Polanski, there’s nothing remotely amusing about Faye Dunaway here. In fact, I kind of look away every time I see that scene. I can’t imagine another actress pulling that off, even though both Ali MacGraw and Jane Fonda were rumored to have been sought for the role of Evelyn. It may be rather bold of me to say this, but I honestly don’t believe Chinatown would have worked without her.

To scrape away the plot is to find Chinatown, both the film and the place. For Gittes, Chinatown is a bad memory. Chinatown, the location, quite literally becomes a personification of his loss, his own personal damage, and a reminder of why he is the staunch, cold Sam Spade of the film. Chinatown also becomes a black abyss of confusion, lawlessness, and a loss of control. The famous final line, “Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown,” sends chills down your spine. You’ve lost, just like Gittes has. Townes has always said that Roman changed the original ending from a happy one to the one that stands now: a bleak, miserable, wholly pessimistic explosion of a conclusion. Seldom do films elicit a physical reaction from me, but the sound of that damned car horn will always make my stomach sink… deep. So deep that just thinking about it has gotten my mind far off track in writing this. Chinatown, the film, is all about the doomed, tragic love affair between Gittes and Evelyn. More than that, it’s about the fucked up way things return to you; it’s a lot like Vertigo if you think about it, only Jack Nicholson has his guard up. He’s a tortured man who’s been rendered cold; James Stewart is a desperate man who’s been rendered obsessive. In a way, Vertigo ends happily. Order is restored, and James Stewart can continue with his life. It’s typical Hitchcock. The world of Chinatown is ruled by chaos and by the untouchable power of the wealthy. Order is certainly not restored; disorder has swooped around, like karma, to destroy Gittes again. I say this about Gittes because, as a viewer, we are him. We’re not Evelyn; she is our lost second chance. You can call Polanski an asshole if you so desire, but you can’t say his tragedy isn’t insanely beautiful and painfully haunting (for another example, see Macbeth).

The moral if this story, kids, is to respect your elders. Never turn down the opportunity for a revisit of the films that move you, even if it’s a Farrelly brothers comedy. True understanding of a film, even one less complex and wonderful as Chinatown, cannot come from one viewing (and, something, never comes at all). But it’s all in the attempt, isn’t it?