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STILL BREATHLESS

Lloydville — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:47:07 -0700

In honor of the fiftieth anniversary of its release, I just watched Breathless again, in the fine DVD version by Criterion.

I first saw it in the mid-Sixties, when I was teenager. I don't remember thinking of it as revolutionary, just fun. In retrospect, this seems odd, because the film was revolutionary in its transgression of the technical norms of telling a story on film. I was delighted when Belmondo's character addressed the camera at the beginning and said, "If you don't like the French countryside, then fuck you," but somehow it didn't take me out of the story, which worked as a drama and as a critique of the medium simultaneously.

What this must mean is that film lovers of my generation were already so steeped in cinematic convention that we were already self-conscious about it, at least on some level -- Godard's self-consciousness as a filmmaker resonated with our own perceptions of that convention, as something of a cliché. We didn't have to move towards Godard's radical vision -- he was moving towards ours.

The film seems much more revolutionary today than it did when it first came out -- because cinema has still not caught up with it. Visionary filmmakers like Charlie Kauffman and Quentin Tarrantino are still trying to wrench us out of our enchantment with studio-era conventions, without losing sight of their virtues, but they're using a sledgehammer to do it -- screaming about it.

Godard just did it, as though it was no big deal. Filmmakers appropriated his techniques, like the jump cut within scenes, but only as elements of a style, missing the depth and grace of Breathless as it pointed the way towards a future that we're still waiting for.

1955 CHEVY BEL AIR

Lloydville — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 01:06:16 -0700

I really want one of these. Don't you?

A MCGINNIS FOR TODAY

Lloydville — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:22:12 -0700

Robert McGinnis did a lot of wonderful paperback covers and some classic posters for James Bond films, but also a fine series of Old-West paintings. A great gift for creating drama through spatial composition.

[From Golden Age Comic Book Stories -- the wonder site.]

MICRO MOVIE ESSAY: SHALLOW FOCUS

Lloydville — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 00:01:21 -0700

Kendra Elliot returns in the stunning sequel to Deep Focus . . .

Micro Movie Essay #2 -- Shallow Focus:

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Prescription for the future of cinema -- go back to the beginning and rethink everything.

VISIONS OF THE JOAN-GIRL

Lloydville — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 11:14:22 -0700

The writings of Paul Zahl (of The Zahl File) about Jack Kerouac are among the most insightful I know on the subject of this very complex and often misunderstood writer. Recently he came across an extraordinary letter from Kerouac to Neal Cassady -- of which this is the beginning:

Jan. 9, 1951

[Richmond Hill, N.Y.]

Dear Neal,

To continue. A new experience has touched the foundation of my soul since I wrote you the last words last night . . .

I came into the Cathedral not only to get out of the bitter cold, but because, moments before, I had stood in Grand Central Station looking around with a futile sorrow for a place to sit and think. All there was -- marble floor, rushing crowds, dime lockers, bleak seatless spaces and bright vast corners. What a thing men have let themselves in for, in this New York! . . .

I hurried out in the cold and cut up 5th Avenue, past the (yes) Yale Club and past Harcourt Brace (yes) and swore and cursed; and cut right by the Doubleday Book store without deigning to go in and see if they had my book on display . . .

As you know, St. Patrick's is a Gothic cathedral, copied after Rheims or Chartres or whichever, with a rectory in the back, and a big department store across the street on 50th street. I . . . ducked . . . into the side entrance of the church.

At first I sneered as all the commonplace "renegade Catholic" thoughts came to me in regimental order but soon I was lost in real sweet contemplation of what was going on . . .

I put away all my worries of where to get a job, how to get to California next month, what to do about my poor wife whom I had been torturing in my subtle way lately, and just merely sat thinking in church. . . so that you see . . . my first thoughts were superficial, or let's just say "aesthetic."

Frankly, Neal, I don't know when it happened; when it was I began crying . . .

The letter then records a series of powerful epiphanies, which set Paul off on an extended meditation about Kerouac and women, about the visionary roots of Kerouac's method, about the meaning of tears in church and tears in general, about the power of images to expose buried emotions, about a certain episode of The X-Files. If you have a place in your heart for Kerouac, you need to read it -- here:

Visions Of the Joan-Girl (which includes the rest of the letter and Paul's comments on it . . .)

MICRO MOVIE ESSAY: DEEP FOCUS

Lloydville — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 07:47:31 -0800

In a stunning departure which has left the film world breathless, Majestic Micro Movies launches a new series -- miniature essays on cinema by Jae Song and friends, dedicated with much love to J-L G. First up:

Micro Movie Essay #1 -- Deep Focus:

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Prescription for the future of cinema -- go back to the beginning and rethink everything.

INTO THE MYSTIC

Lloydville — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:01:20 -0800

A few days ago I was driving with my friends Mary and Paul Zahl from Kayenta, Arizona, to Moab, Utah. We were going up to Moab to track down the locations where John Ford shot parts of Wagon Master (and other films.)

On the way, Paul suggested we make a detour to see the fabled Valley Of the Gods, a large basin surrounded by mesas and dotted with odd rock towers. My instinct was to proceed directly to Moab, but Paul's instinct was stronger so we set off on a dirt road into the valley.

It was a good road, of red clay -- or would have been a good road if it hadn't been raining recently. The rain had turned it into glass. My big Navigator, in four-wheel-drive, kept losing traction on it, threatening to slide over the embankments on sharp turns. It was a little scary, but the car handled it all very well.

Then, at the end of the road, we found ourselves driving straight towards the nearly sheer face of a tall mesa. There was, improbably, a road leading up the side of the mesa in a series of hair-raising switchbacks. The maps we had said the road was paved, and it was, but only in parts. The other parts were wet dirt -- something we discovered too late.

I started up the road, which is called the Moki Dugway -- seen above in better weather conditions than we faced -- and we all soon realized that we had made a big mistake. But I also realized that trying to turn the car around on such a road would probably be more dangerous than proceeding up it.

So we proceeded up it, at a snail's pace, with our hearts in our throats. I hugged the side of the mesa on the sharp curves, honking and hoping we wouldn't meet any oncoming traffic. There were no shoulders to speak of for most of the way, only terrifying drop-offs. If the Navigator's tires ever lost traction on the slippery dirt sections, it would have meant a certain flaming fiery death for all of us.

Below is a picture Mary took with her iPhone during the ascent. She took it upside down, as it happened -- the condition of our stomachs at the time.

For a while it seemed as though the road would never end, but it finally did, on top of the mesa, where we were presented with . . . a winter wonderland. An endless plateau covered in snow, dotted with cedars, new snow falling gently on it all.

It was like a vision of peace and grace, granted to us after our ordeal.

I couldn't get this extraordinary experience out of my mind. The next morning I had what felt like a revelation -- I felt we had been led supernaturally to the Moki Dugway, where we reenacted, in a sense, the climactic scenes of Wagon Master, when the Mormons take their wagons up the side of a precipitous cliff, where wagons were not meant to go, in order to reach their promised land.

I became convinced that John Ford himself had been riding with us on our climb up the mesa, having decided that we would not just have a leisurely meander up to Moab to gawk at his sublime locations for Wagon Master, but drive right into the heart of the movie. Mystical as it may sound, I think that's exactly what we did.

THERE'S ALWAYS ANOTHER BAR

Lloydville — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:01:50 -0800

. . . at the dark end of the street.

Hugh McCarten stars in the newest Noir Bars: New York offering from Majestic Micro Movies -- a series of extremely short tales of lost souls in desolate bars on the boulevard of broken dreams . . . now playing on a computer or portable device near you:

Noir Bar #8

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Watch all the films in the series as they roll out, then order a stiff drink and try to forget them.

AVATAR

Lloydville — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:04:55 -0800

Watching Avatar in Imax 3-D was very instructive. For about the first two hours I was in a state of childlike wonder. I thought, "This is what it must have been like when the first cave paintings were shown to the first unsuspecting viewers."

I bought everything up to that point -- the dialogue, which was pretty good, the story, which was pretty good, the imagined new world and its imagery, which were enchanting, often sublime.

And then the story went to hell and I started looking at my watch and wondering how much more of this "experience" I had to endure. All my goodwill and excitement were leached away by the clumsy and trivial evocations of new-age spirituality, by the kick-ass, over-the-top battle scenes in which the noble insurgents became indistinguishable from their corporate oppressors.

Every lesson Cameron might have learned from Seven Samurai about how to stage an epic battle between asymmetrical forces was conspicuously ignored. The character of each side in the battle was blurred in an orgy of swarming CGI "elements", an attempt to overwhelm the eye instead of dazzle the imagination, rouse the spirit.

Cameron became just another Hollywood hack, hauling out the usual action formulas based on the principle of the roller-coaster.

The result was paradoxical. A critique of the corporate mentality became an example of it. What might have been a modern myth became just one more exercise in marketing.

When a storyteller loses the thread of his tale, no amount of pandering to the senses can fill up the vacuum that results. I can honestly say that I walked out of Avatar heartbroken. I had seen the future of filmmaking, and I had seen the future of filmmaking betrayed, all in the space of two hours and forty-two minutes.

IN RETROSPECT

Lloydville — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:59:30 -0800

You know what that means . . .

The latest offering in the Noir Bars: New York series from Majestic Micro Movies -- extremely short tales of lost souls in dark bars on dead-end streets . . . now playing on a computer or portable device near you:

Noir Bar #7

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Watch all the films in the series as they roll out, then order a stiff drink and try to forget them.

A DARKER SHADE OF NOIR

Lloydville — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:34:05 -0800

A new offering in the Noir Bars: New York series from Majestic Micro Movies -- extremely short tales of lost souls in dark bars on dead-end streets . . . this one featuring Kristy Jordan, who is not guilty, baby . . . now playing on a computer or portable device near you:

Noir Bar #6

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Watch all the films in the series as they roll out, then order a stiff drink and try to forget them.

DUBAI BLUES

Lloydville — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:32:32 -0800

A new offering in the Noir Bars: New York series from Majestic Micro Movies -- extremely short tales of lost souls in dark bars on dead-end streets . . . this one featuring Matt Barry and now playing on a computer or portable device near you:

Noir Bar #5

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Watch all the films in the series as they roll out, then order a stiff drink and try to forget them.

THE PREACHER FROM THE BLACK LAGOON

Lloydville — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:09:10 -0800

It occurs to me that many people who have been following Paul Zahl's posts for this site (collected in The Zahl File) may not know that he is a world-famous preacher, or have had a chance to hear one of his sermons.

Well, here's your chance:

What Is Love?

This sermon was preached at All Saints Episcopal Church in Chevy Chase, Maryland on a Sunday in 2009. I doubt if you've ever heard a sermon quite like it before. More than a few mainstream Christians have reacted to sermons of Paul's like this the way the human figures are reacting to the Creature in the poster above. They just seem to miss the point.

NOIR BARS #4

Lloydville — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 00:19:09 -0800

The fourth movie in the Noir Bars: New York series from Majestic Micro Movies -- extremely short tales of lost souls in desolate bars on dead-end streets. Now playing on a computer or portable device near you -- a report from girlworld:

Noir Bar #4

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Watch all the films in the series as they roll out, then order a stiff drink and try to forget them.

ORSON WELLES ON THE AIR: THE HEART OF DARKNESS/LIFE WITH FATHER

Lloydville — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 04:07:35 -0800

Gather the household around, dim the lights, click here -- then sit back and enjoy the radio theater of Orson Welles.

This week . . . "The Heart of Darkness" and "Life With Father".

This is a Mercury Theater On the Air double-bill broadcast -- the odd pairing of dramatizations of Joseph Conrad's grim short story "The Heart Of Darkness" and Clarence Day's lighthearted book Life With Father.

Welles would later attempt to film "The Heart Of Darkness" as his first production for RKO in Hollywood. Budgetary concerns and creative problems caused it to be postponed in favor of Citizen Kane and eventually abandoned.

Life With Father was made into a successful Broadway play a year after this 1938 broadcast, then into a movie in 1947 (above) and eventually turned up as a television series in the 1950s.

The show will only be on the site for a limited period, so download it if you can't listen to it right away -- and tune in next time for the nineteenth offering from the Mercury Theater On the Air, "A Passenger To Bali".

[You can get more information on Welles's radio work and listen to or download many of his broadcasts here -- The Mercury Theater On the Air. Many more broadcasts can be downloaded at this resource page on Wellesnet. If you get hooked, you can buy a remarkable collection of almost all of Welles' radio work, as both actor and director, in MP3 format on 7 CDs at OTRCat -- which also offers the discs separately.]