Passages

[hearthesilence]

Margaret Menegoz, who led iconic French film company Les Films du Losange for close to 50 years, producing the films of Éric Rohmer, Michael Haneke and Wim Wenders among others, has died at the age of 83.

[andyli]

Film director Corey Yuen Kwai.

[Mr Sausage]

Oh no. One of the great Hong Kong action directors. Yes, Madame is a marvel of 80s action comedy, helped kick off an entire subgenre, Girls with Guns, and made a star of Michelle Yeoh while launching Cynthia Rothrock's career. But his filmography is filled with good stuff: Righting Wrongs, She Shoots Straight, Ninja in the Dragon’s Den, My Father is a Hero, Fong Sai Yuk I & II. An estimable body of work.

[yoloswegmaster]

He was also a co-director on Dragons Forever, as well as a producer on Eastern Condors. Not to mention he was part of the stunt and martial arts team for other great films like Drunken Master, Pedicab Driver, and Zu: The Warriors from the Magic Mountain. One of the undersung greats to come out of Hong Kong.

[colinr0380]

The opening credits for Ninja in the Dragon's Den are wonderful, and the two Fong Sai-Yuk films really cemented Jet Li's stardom along with the Once Upon A China films. And whilst for some reason I have not as yet managed to sit down and watch the sequels, I love the first Transporter film which he co-directed, that for a couple of years there made the professional criminal lifestyle seem like quite the desireable one, if just because it meant getting to live in such a beautiful house!

[dwk]

Seems Corey Yuen actually passed away two years ago and the family didn't want it made public. From a tweet from Dylan Cheung:

Director Corey Yuen's death has been confirmed by Tin Kai-man, spokesperson for the Federation of Hong Kong Filmmakers: 'Around two years, ago, [he] passed away from Covid, but this was not made public per his family's wishes.'

[Mr Sausage]

Worth noting that Corey Yuen was one of the Seven Little Fortunes, the Peking Opera troupe that produced Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao, and Yuen Wah (the reason so many are named Yuen is they adopted their teacher's family name). Unlike his brothers, Corey Yuen opted for a role primarily behind the camera as director and choreographer, tho' he did have the occasional acting role. He's a major supporting character in Tsui Hark and Ching Siu-Tung's The Raid for example. He was also Jet Li's choreographer of choice for Li's American career, choreographing (and for all I know doing second unit direction for) all Li's American fight scenes in the 90s - 2000s. Yuen's work directing the action scenes in The Transporter was extensive enough that they credited him as co-director alongside Louis Letterier. He was downgraded to second-unit director/fight choreographer in the second even tho' his work is the only reason anyone's going to see the movie. They're not especially good movies, but they're probably Jason Statham's best action work. And I believe Yuen did the choreography for the first X-Men movie, which explains all the acrobatic kicking done by Rebecca Romijn.

[andyli]

(the reason so many are named Yuen is they adopted their teacher's family name).

Yes, except that Yuen is not the family name of their teacher (or, more precisely, master) Yu Jim-Yuen, but the last part of his given name, usually more attached to the individual rather than the ancestors in Chinese culture and often used for forming nicknames. Slightly deviating from the 'normal' practice of inheriting the master's family name, this seems to confer an extra layer of intimacy on the already close master-disciple relationship.

Another interesting point is that these names are usually pronounced in the mandarin fashion (probably to honor Master Yu's Beijing origin), even though they mainly worked in a Cantonese-speaking industry. For example, Corey Yuen Kwai's name was called among his peers as "Kwai", the Mandarin sound, instead of "Fui", the Cantonese sound.

[Mr Sausage]

Thanks for the correction!

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

Rachael Lillis - voice actor who I knew of from one of my favorite anime ever Utena (as Utena) but apparently her work on Pokemon (as Misty and Jessie) was her most visible credit.

[Matt]

Gena Rowlands

[hearthesilence]

Looking through her filmography, I'm reminded that she was in Terence Davies's adaptation of The Neon Bible, a criminally underappreciated and neglected film. (When BAM showed it years ago, they had to screen a standard-def video copy, probably Fox Lorber's poor-quality DVD - I think they originally planned on showing a 16mm print, but when that fell through at the last minute, they made it a free screening. Even under such conditions, you could tell this was a beautiful-looking film.) Wonderful in Night on Earth but it's really a shame she was so underutilized, even after two Oscar nominations for two great lead performances - her legacy really does rest on the incredible work she did with her husband.

[beamish14]

Gena Rowlands

I saw her about a decade ago at the Cinefamily in Los Angeles, which was screening A Woman Under the Influence. An unannounced Seymour Cassell was in the audience as well. She was unable to answer basic questions about her career and relationship with Cassavetes, and both of their daughters were flanking her at all times.

[hearthesilence]

This may have been her last public appearance in NYC, a Q&A at Metrograph for A Woman Under the Influence. This was back when it first opened, and for quite a while the sound was atrocious as the cinder block walls were uncovered and exposed - combined with the fact that it's just an iPhone recording and it's really difficult to make out any of her answers. Regardless, I still regret missing this.

FWIW, just found out The Neon Bible can be streamed for free from a dated but watchable HD master (albeit with commercial breaks) on Roku. Presumably this is the same master streaming on Amazon's rental service.

[hearthesilence]

Amusing to see so many newspaper headlines refer only to her work in The Notebook, followed by columns from clueless writers acknowledging that so many actors and film organizations seem to be focusing on her "other" performances. Carrie Coon's tweet gets to the point:

We lost Gena Rowlands—one of the greats—but also our dignity, as headlines trumpet: actress from “The Notebook”.

Reminds me of how the Oscars' memorial segment completely forgot about Ziggy Stardust, The Man Who Fell to Earth and Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, rejecting them in favor of a Zoolander clip for David Bowie.

[beamish14]

Amusing to see so many newspaper headlines refer only to her work in The Notebook, followed by columns from clueless writers acknowledging that so many actors and film organizations seem to be focusing on her "other" performances. Carrie Coon's tweet gets to the point:

We lost Gena Rowlands—one of the greats—but also our dignity, as headlines trumpet: actress from “The Notebook”.

Reminds me of how the Oscars' memorial segment completely forgot about Ziggy Stardust, The Man Who Fell to Earth and Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, rejecting them in favor of a Zoolander clip for David Bowie.

Well, at least The Notebook was directed by her son, so she probably would be pleased

I mentioned this in another thread, but my mother and her extended family saw her and Rock Hudson filming The Spiral Road in Dutch Guyana (now Suriname), which was used to stand in for Indonesia

I’m almost afraid to look at Ray Carney’s website for an update

[hearthesilence]

Unless I'm missing something, I don't think Carney's website has been updated in ages. I figured he stopped doing that even though last I checked, he was still teaching in some capacity at Boston University. Looking at his website now, I don't see anything that looks like a recent update.

And yes, I realize Nick Cassavetes directed it - that was actually tweeted back at Coon as well, but I have to agree with her point:

I know people love The Notebook; I know her son directed it; I’m glad a headline might invite fans into her work. But it is still an oft-lamented, (comical) actor’s fear that an obit headline will feature one’s most popular credit—not necessarily the most worthy.

[MichaelB]

Amusing to see so many newspaper headlines refer only to her work in The Notebook, followed by columns from clueless writers acknowledging that so many actors and film organizations seem to be focusing on her "other" performances.

When I wrote Miloš Forman's Sight & Sound obit, I'd already hit the 1,250-word mark of my first draft and he hadn't even left Czechoslovakia. Unfortunately, the final word count was a non-negotiable 1,500.

By then I'd read a fair number of obits that either ignored his Czechoslovak period altogether or glossed over it in a couple of sentences, so I was almost tempted to wrap it up with "and then he went to the US and made some more films" as a satirical inversion - but I felt that that might be a tad unprofessional so bit the bullet and cut what I'd written in two.

[Fred Holywell]

Gena Rowlands 1930-2024 | TCM Remembers

[agnamaracs]

Greg Kihn

[domino harvey]

Alain Delon discussion moved here

[hearthesilence]

Pioneering TV talk show host Phil Donahue.

[Matt]

I suspect many of you are too young to have watched his daily talk show, but he always brought a sensitivity and desire for understanding even to the most sensational subject. Oprah modeled herself after him. His bad-faith, dime store imitators (Sally Jessy Raphael, Maury Povich, Geraldo Rivera, Jenny Jones, and, most notoriously, Jerry Springer) acted more as ringleaders of an exploitative circus. I really think they were the beginning of our 21st century culture of oversharing and trauma-dumping and freak show cable channels. Oprah deserves her own criticism for foisting snake oil salesmen like Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil on the world. But Donahue was always a real one, a classic one-big-world liberal.

[colinr0380]

I must admit that I got him mixed up with notorious Shelley Duvall botherer Dr Phil for a moment there.

[Mr Sausage]

And until Matt's post, I was getting him mixed up with Morton Downey Jr.