My belated log for the last couple of weeks of this project.
An Actor's Revenge (Ichikawa): Our own ryannichols7 lent me this and the next title. This was my first time seeing an Ichikawa feature. It's ravishing to look at and I found its intense exploration of the traditions of acting in Japan more effective than its actual revenge narrative. Kazuo Hasegawa was striking to watch but I may need a second viewing to fully appreciate the nuances of the story here.
The Big City (Ray): This on the other hand could not be more the definition of what I look for in films and what I love about them. More urban and modernist and humorous than
Pather Panchali but just as moving, it is for all its cultural specificity a universal chronicle of a typical working class scenario -- just trying to get the rent paid, basically -- while also capturing so beautifully the sense of identity and purpose and even worldliness that can come from finding a life outside the home. The confidence that gradually dawns upon Madhabi Mukherjee during the course of the film is a joy to behold, and I think a lesser story would have the wedge it starts to drive between her and her generally loving family as the focus of the climax.
Instead, Arati's gaining of self-assurance actually contributes to her loss of the very job that brought it to her, but this too permits that beautiful scene in which her husband recognizes his own need to move beyond traditionalism and toward the mutual respect that must background any marriage, which is captured here as winningly as in any modern film I can think of.
First of all, why is this so difficult to track down? I bookmarked an illegitimate link from my usual source but it disappeared so I ended up finding a VHS rip on a porn site! This is a micro-budget story cast with amateurs, showing an underprivileged fifteen year-old in NYC who's desperate to secure a handgun in order to reassert his gang's prominence in the neighborhood. The cast of characters includes junkies, wandering losers, sad strung-out femmes fatales and pseudo-gangsters, and the film is less dated than it would be otherwise because it resists imposing a moral standing on all this. It has a classic drive-by-cinema feeling that in practice reminded me more of film noir than of something like
Shadows, which is the most obvious reference point.
Muriel (Resnais): I like Resnais' films but find them taxing -- as much as I love
Last Year at Marienbad, each time I see it I do feel very ready for it to end once an hour or so passes, which is probably more a flaw in my own patience than anything. I had a similar experience with this insofar as I appreciated everything -- the aesthetics, the colors, the fragmented dialogue, the vague but familiar characterizations -- but found it all rather exhausting after a time. Given its reputation and my admiration for his other work, it's most likely just a "not yet" for me.
Shock Corridor (Fuller): I've gone through Fuller's major works mostly chronologically and this is the first time I've been less than enamored, although of course you can't mistake it by any means for pure exploitation cinema -- it's much too thoughtful and artful and probing for that -- and I suppose my major problem was the disconnect between the seriousness of the themes it ends up exploring, like racism and mental illness, plus the intrigue of the story itself (it's a nifty premise!) with the outrageousness of the performances which felt pitched to a different kind of movie altogether.
Black Peter (Forman): The movie this most readily called up for me was
Welcome to the Dollhouse -- that combination of adorable recognition of ruthless second-hand embarrassment that come from an arduous recreation of adolescent foibles. It's so different from the films that made Forman a mainstream Hollywood director years later but it has a lot of perceptive charm about it.
Bay of Angels (Demy): With the admission that I am decades overdue on revisiting
Umbrellas of Cherbourg, of Demy's films I've seen this is by far the most successful and engrossing. It's the first depiction of a gambling problem I've seen in which I felt I completely understood the addiction, the draw and the pull of it. As good as Jeanne Moreau is I keep mentally circling back to Claude Mann's performance, such a haunting example of "negative acting."
Scorpio Rising (Anger): I watched this just barely knowing what to expect and got quite a visceral thrill out of it: it's a spectacular burst of youthful, irresponsible energy with a glorious soundtrack. And thanks to its focus on the erotic and innate pleasures of the flesh, it feels no less vital for being tied -- rivetingly -- to its period. And Anger does more with color than most big-time directors whose films I watched from this year.
Blonde Cobra (Jacobs): This is a provocation, a rather harrowing portrayal of what looks to be a breakdown -- with audiovisual aids -- by underground queer icon Jack Smith, who rants and raves and mugs for over half an hour. Not here to deny the major status this attained in the circles of experimental New York filmmaking but I found it tiresome and more than a little grating to actually watch.
If it wasn't clear already, I really really thank swo and the board in general for keeping this year-by-year thing going. I'm getting such a kick out of it.