Amazon.com is currently offering THE BOOK OF LISTS: HORROR at the attractive presale price of $10.17.

A matter of minutes ago, I finally managed to track down Act III of the fabulous 'Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog'. This little bit of internet viewing nevana is created by the one and only Joss 'Buffy' Whedon, and the official site can be found at http://www.drhorrible.com/, but I missed i when I could watch Acts II and III for free and had to youtube it. I guess the closest thing of Whedon's other work that it can be compared to is that fantastic musical episode of Buffy. The one where they all suddenly break into dances and heartfelt musical numbers, as if you could get such a thing mixed up with another episode. It's a rather tongue-in-cheek tale of a wannabe evil genius (Horrible), fawning over a sweet innocent girl of a love interest (Penny), and his campaign against his arch-nemesis, Captain Hammer.

I love how Whedon portrays geeks (although Dr. Horrible isn't quite as much as a nerd as Jonathan, Warren and...that other one), and he should really think about doing more musicals in such a tone, they're so much fun!

In today's film news, Guillermo del Toro has signed up with Universal to make them 4 films (all based on novels). After he's all done with a little film called The Hobbit, mind you, which looks set to take up the next 4 years or so. But all the same, GDT is GDT, and two of the films he's set to direct are Frankenstien and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. How cool is that?! It's perfect GDT territory, and I'm sure he'd be able to do so a fantastic job on both.

The other two is an adaption of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, which I haven't read, but is some sort of WWII/Sci-fi thing...I'm intrieged... and the other is a book by Dan Simmons that has yet to be released named 'Drood' about the last, dark days of Charles Dickens, that mixes fact and fiction together. 

I really love del Toro. If you haven't watched Pan's Labyrinth, go do it now.

Why are you still here? GO!

And for everyone that has seen it, well done, you are worthy. And this completes today's film-related geek out.

BP moves to settle Russia dispute

The row has focused attention on the rights of foreign investors in Russia.

BP has signed an agreement aimed at solving a festering dispute over control of its Russian venture TNK-BP.

The boss of TNK-BP, Robert Dudley, will step down as part of the deal with the Russian billionaires that control half of the business.

Three independent directors will also be appointed to TNK-BP's board.

Mr Dudley's departure had been central to the power struggle between BP and the Russian investors in the venture, which accounts for 25% of BP's profits.

The memorandum of understanding, signed on Thursday, also includes the option to list up to 20% of the venture on international markets.

TNK-BP's Russian partners had long called for Mr Dudley's departure and Mr Dudley left Russia in July in the face of what he said was "sustained harassment".

This is a positive signal for the Russian market Igor Sechin, Russian deputy prime minister

BP said it had agreed to offer a Russian-speaking candidate for the post, with extensive Russian business experience.

The Russian shareholders had accused BP of running TNK-BP like a subsidiary and Mr Dudley of favoring the British shareholder.

BP chairman Peter Sutherland said that the agreement, to be finalised over coming months, would relieve recent tensions between the two sides.

"It will create a stable base from which to grow the joint venture to the benefit of everyone involved, including the Russian state," Mr Sutherland said

He said that Mr Dudley had been an outstanding chief executive and would be hard to replace.

'Positive signal'

BP owns 50% of the venture while the Russian shareholding is made up of a number of Russian billionaires who control a consortium known as Alfa Access Renova (AAR).

Russia welcomed the compromise between AAR and BP.

"We are pleased that this situation has been resolved and the shareholders have come to an agreement without the involvement of third parties, including the state," said Igor Sechin, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation.

"This is a positive signal for the Russian market. We support the development of TNK-BP and believe that this company has excellent long-term prospects."

Viktor Vekselberg, chairman of Renova, said the agreement was the result of difficult negotiations.

"Most importantly, emotions were not allowed to prevail over common sense and both sides found the solution that best meets the interests of TNK-BP," he said.

(These notes are from an evening class at Cornerhouse, Manchester January-February 2008)

Sembène Ousmane was a 'self-taught' man who was born a fisherman's son in Southern Senegal but who took manual jobs until he was recruited by the French Army of West Africa. On his discharge in 1946 he became a railway worker and experienced a major strike. In 1947 he moved to France and up until 1960 worked in the Marseilles docks. Sembène became a trade unionist and then joined the French Communist Party. An accident forced him into lighter work and in his free time he educated himself through public libraries and became a committed political activist. He also began to write – poetry, essays and, in 1956, his first novel Le docker noir. On his return to Senegal (after a tour of other African states) soon after independence in 1961, he decided that he wanted to make films and took the opportunity of a scholarship to train at the Gorky Studios in Moscow.

He returned at the end of 1962 with an old Russian camera and a desire to put 'ordinary Africans' onto the screen. Over the next forty years his output of both literature and films would eventually come to a total of five novels, five collections of short stories, four short films, ten features, and four documentaries. Next to the output of some long-lived Western filmmakers and novelists, this sounds like a relatively meagre list, but two important aspects of Sembène's work should be borne in mind. First, the practical difficulties associated with film production in Africa are immense and second, Sembène spent a great deal of time attending festivals, giving interviews and working on the distribution and exhibition of his films to African audiences.

Here is an interesting tribute to Sembène that gives a flavour of his work and why he was so revered:

Influences and themes
Sembène's early films show the clear influence of Italian neo-realism, and in particular of Bicycle Thieves (Italy 1947). There is no surprise in this. The basic idea of neo-realism – taking stories from the everyday lives of the local community and shooting films inexpensively on location with non-actors – was taken up by filmmakers all over the developing world throughout the 1950s and early 1960s. Sembène would have seen many of the films in France and also encountered them amongst the films discussed during his Russian experience.

The training in Russia marked out Sembène from some of the other West African filmmakers of the 1960s and 1970s who were trained in France. The Russian experience was something Sembène shared with some Cuban filmmakers as well as the Malian Souleymane Cissé and some other later African filmmakers such as Abderrahmane Sissako from Mauritania. But he would eventually work with French cultural agencies (though not without conflicts). From the outset, Sembène's aims were pursued as part of a cultural politics, examining Africa's history and attempting to influence its future.

The early films

Borom Sarret (1963)
Often cited as the first film from 'Sub-Saharan Africa' (this has been disputed, but the film's significance has not), Borom Sarret remains an important and still very watchable film despite its complete lack of production budget of any kind. The title refers to a local name for a cart driver. The central character of this 20 minute short has a bad day when he foolishly spends the little money he has on a storyteller and then proceeds to carry passengers who can't or won't pay for his services. Finally he is induced to carry goods into the middle-class part of town which is barred to cart drivers. He is arrested and fined, losing his cart. In what will become a familiar Sembène trope, it is his wife who will have to find money for the evening meal. The idea of the film is very similar to that of Bicycle Thieves. The central character is an ex-soldier and in one ‘Eisenstein' moment the boot of a policeman comes down on the military service medal dropped by the cart driver. The film was made on 16mm black and white stock without synch sound but with voiceover narration post-dubbed.

La noire de . . . (Black Girl) (1966)
Based on a French newspaper article which Sembène first used in a novel during the colonial period, this film draws on Sembène's Marseilles experience. The film updates the story to the post-colonial period (Senegal gained independence in 1960). It concerns a young woman who seeks work in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, from a French expatriate couple. She enjoys being a nanny to the French children and dreams of visiting France, so when the couple return to the Riviera for a long vacation, the girl is happy to move with them. However, in France, the couple seem less wealthy. There are no other servants and the girl finds herself washing and cooking. She quickly becomes disillusioned and the story has a tragic ending. This film is again in black and white, but Vieyra (1987) suggests that there were five minutes of colour in a 65 minute version. These were cut to allow the film to meet French funding conditions as a short.

The film was shot in sequence and again post-dubbed, the French actors dubbing themselves with the girl dubbed by a Haitian actor. In narrative terms, the film is more sophisticated in utilising a flashback to show the girl's romance in Dakar and her eagerness to visit France. The original French title conveys the sense of a young black woman who might come from anywhere – such was the treatment of African workers in France, Sembène seems to be saying.

Mandabi (The Money Order) (Senegal 1968)
Mandabi was Sembène's first film in colour and the first to use one of Senegal's local languages Wolof. It was also the first to be produced by a Senegalese production company, Films Domireew. Vieyra states that two versions were made in colour, one in French and one in Wolof, with the same actors used in each. The story again has a ‘French connection'. The title refers to a money order sent from Paris by a young man from Dakar to his uncle back home. The nephew asks his uncle to cash the order for 25,000 CFA francs and to give some to the boy's mother, to take a small sum himself and to keep the remainder safe until the boy comes home. The uncle is unemployed and illiterate, although he maintains a house and two wives. He requires an ID card to cash the order, but he doesn't have one, so he needs his birth certificate and two photographs, but these too he finds difficult to acquire. Gradually he will be caught between swindlers and cheats and incompetent or corrupt officials on the one hand and relatives and friends begging from him on the other.

Mandabi again draws on neo-realism and it also moves towards the kinds of social satire that were beginning to appear in the 1960s in Cuba and some East European Cinemas when individuals find themselves entrapped by bureaucracies.

Here is the opening of the film, showing the attention of detail in the ordinary lives of people in Dakar and setting up the 'narrative disruption' signalled by the arrival of the postman with the money order. I'm not sure where this print comes from, but it is also the source for the news report extract at the head of the blog, so perhaps it appeared on Senegalese TV? Details of the US DVD with English subtitles at the end of this blog entry.

After Mandabi, Sembène made some short films for European television and in Senegal a short fiction feature based on his own short story Taaw (he'd earlier adapted another story Niaye for a short before he made La Noire de . . .).

In 1971, Sembène made Emitai, his third feature. Again made in Senegal, this has long been unavailable in the UK. It's importance is that it is an historical film – an attempt to explore an incident in 1941 when villagers in Senegal refused to provide rice demanded by the French colonial government as a contribution to the war effort. Their non-cooperation is also because the Army has been stealing/press-ganging the young men of the village. Case (1996) suggests that this is a key film in which the collective power of the village women becomes important. The male elders of the village are weak and place importance on traditional divinities that cannot help them stand up to the French. Clearly, this film was a turning point for Sembène, more directly referencing the political stance of his 1960 novel, God's Little Bits of Wood. It also sounds like an earlier mixture of the same elements that can be found in Moolaadé. This makes it very unfortunate that we can't currently see the film. Instead, we must turn to Xala, the film that perhaps first introduced Sembène to a wider public, gaining much better international distribution and a popular audience in Africa (although it was censored and had distribution problems in Senegal).

Xala
By 1974, Films Domireew were able to finance a longer film in colour with more ambitious scenes. (Diawara argues that Sembène's insistence on 35mm film and colour restricted the number of films he could make because of the expense). Xala turns its attention to the new ‘neo-colonialist' bourgeoisie in Senegal – the French-speaking, westernised Africans. In a long pre-credit sequence we see the French leave and the new Ministers take over and proceed to employ the French as ‘advisers'. The central character is one of the new Ministers, deeply corrupt and attempting to line his own pockets. He is also marrying a (third) young wife. His first is ‘traditional' and his second ‘modern', but both are disdainful of the third marriage. The central plot device is the xala or curse which makes the husband impotent and which appears to be a form of revenge by the people he has trodden on to get to the top. This new class of ‘neo-colonialists' is as the new bride's mother puts it "neither fish nor fowl, neither a black man or a white man".

In the clips below, several aspects of the film are highlighted. The first with the opening credits shows modern Dakar with its traffic, amongst which is the new car which is the main wedding present. We see the new bourgeoisie arriving for the wedding reception and the open corruption that the members of the business elite practice. We see the 'president' arrive and lastly the groom with his first wife (in traditional dress – the second wife wears western dress). At the reception, the Star Band, then the most popular in Senegal, are playing. Music was always important in Sembène's films. In the final extract we get a glimpse of the 'forgotten people' on whose behalf the curse has been laid.

Xala is a much more sophisticated film than the earlier two films extracted in this session. It marks a shift away from the form of social realism that Sembène initially developed on the Italian neo-realist model. Manthia Diawara and Férid Boughedir have both offered classifications of the different types of African films and we can locate Sembène's work in relation to these categories. We'll take Diawara's ideas first because they are more general categories:

a) Social realist narratives - "thematising current sociocultural issues". These are often concerned with conflicts between tradition and modernity, agrarian and urban industrial societies, oral and written culture and subsistence economies and cash economies. The heroes of such films are often marginalised characters who suffer in this transition period. The films are presented in ‘realist' style (e.g. via neo-realist principles) but also utilise satire, melodrama and comedy. Such films have a real potential to please popular African audiences.

[We noted in Week 1 that African popular audiences have been exposed mainly to cheap imports of American, French, Indian and Hong Kong ‘exploitation' films, mainly action and melodrama. This was the case in the 1950s and it still is today. Middle-class audiences in Francophone Africa would have had more access to quality French films (the audience would be French-speaking, unlike the popular audience). Sembène's decision to make films in local languages was crucial to his attempts to reach the popular audience.]

b) Colonial confrontation – films dealing with the colonial era. These may be historical reconstructions of the early conflicts between Africans and Europeans or more recent conflicts, particularly around twentieth century wars in which Africans fought for the French, experiencing racism and rejection.

c) ‘Return to source' films – narratives in which Europeans are not present and which attempt to explore African culture in African terms. The key film here is Souleymane Cissé's Yeelen (Mali 1987) in which a son seeks his uncle's help to fight his sorcerer father in a mythical past. Diawara suggests that some filmmakers have turned to this kind of film for various reasons, including a desire to avoid censorship, to seek for ideas in pre-colonial culture which might help with contemporary problems and also to seek a new ‘African' aesthetic for filmmaking.

Diawara makes the point that although Africans are proud of their filmmakers, the films themselves have to go abroad and win prizes at festivals to gain a profile.

To some extent, these three categories developed over time, so that social realism was appropriate in the 1960s and the ‘return to source' films couldn't really develop until filmmakers and audiences felt confident enough about their own post-colonial identities to ‘return' to African culture. It is also important to recognise that filmmakers were trained in particular approaches which they themselves developed over time. (It's difficult to judge the extent to which local audiences might also ‘outgrow' their pleasure at seeing themselves onscreen in the realist dramas.)

Sembène is still operating largely through social realism in Xala, but more elements of African culture are starting to come through. Emitai sounds as if it fits category two as well as broaching aspects of category three. In the film that follows Xala, Ceddo (1977), Sembène plays with the linear concept of history and creates a story in which different aspects of Senegal's cultural and political/social history appear to exist simultaneously. Although this film too is unavailable, we do have access to some short clips. It demonstrates that Sembène was able to change his approach and to match the modernist and later postmodernist ideas of other African filmmakers. It combines category two with elements of category three.

When we come to Moolaadé, we find a very sophisticated production which includes elements from all the earlier approaches. It takes place in an almost 'timeless' world, but is also absolutely about the present, creating a kind of modern category three film. The later films, especially Camp de Thiaroye and Moolaadé, benefit from the relative freedom of not relying on French co-funding. The approach in the earlier films will always have had to take into account the possible restrictions that French involvement might demand.

Sembène's films (for a complete list see Petty 1996)):

Borom Sarret (short) (1963)
Niaye (1964) (short)
La noire de . . . (1966)
Mandabi (1968)
Tauw (short) (1970)
Emitai (1971)
Xala (1974)
Ceddo (1977)
Camp de Thiaroye (1988) (with Thierno Faty Sow)
Guelwaar (1992)
Faat Kiné (2000)
Moolaadé (2004)

References and further reading
Frederick Ivor Case (1996) 'Ontological discourse in Ousmane Sembène's cinema' in Petty (ed) op cit.
Manthia Diawara (1992) African Cinema: Politics and Culture, Bloomington: Indiana University Press
Françoise Pfaff (ed) (2004) Focus on African Films, Bloomington: Indiana University Press
Noureddine Ghali (1987) ‘An interview with Sembène Ousmane' in John D. H. Dowling (ed) Film and Politics in the Third World, New York: Autonomedia
Sheila Petty (1996), A Call to Action: The Films of Ousmane Sembène, Trowbridge: Flicks Books
Paulin Soumanou Vieyra (1987) ‘Five Major Films by Sembène Ousmane' in John D. H. Dowling (ed) op cit

<www.newsreel.org/articles/OusmaneSembene.htm>

This interesting comment on Xala comes from an African-American writer:
<http://www.kintespace.com/rasx39.html>

It is quite shocking that of all Sembène's films, only Moolaadé is currently in UK distribution on 35mm or DVD. Fortunately, there are at least two American DVDs easily available Borom Sarret and Black Girl (two short films on one DVD) and Mandabi. Other films have previously been available in the UK (though not all of them) and VHS videos of Xala may be available secondhand. Xala is also available on a Region 1 DVD. Camp de Thiaroye is scheduled for a US DVD release in October. Six Sembène films are available in a French Region 2 box set (but without English subs).

Tomorrow begins a great month of viewing for classic film novices and aficionados alike, despite the fact that for the first time in memory the channel is not honoring Greta Garbo’s birthday on September 18th.  Instead, we get “the wavishing Kay Fwancis”, who is Star of the Month.  However, other than the fact that they’re not airing Politics (1931) with Marie Dressler, TCM’s lineup – which includes a look at “American Politics in the Movies” – is terrific, starting with tomorrow’s unannounced tribute to great courtroom dramas, Tuesday’s re-airing of Richard Schickel’s The Men Who Made the Movies series, Wednesday’s annual daytime lineup of football movies (to kick off the new season) and two rarely if ever shown gems on Thursday:  The Dark Horse (1932) at 4:45 AM EDT and the original Raffles (1930)!

No, I don’t dislike Kay Francis; I’ve even written about one of her best performances previously here.  Another of the best movies she made appears twice in September (this Thursday and as one of “Bob’s Picks” on the 22nd):  One Way Passage (1932) with William Powell, which was remade as ‘Til We Meet Again (1940) with Merle Oberon and George Brent.  I’d also recommend her in Ernst Lubitsch’s Trouble in Paradise (1932) on September 11th (sometimes you have to acknowledge the programmer’s ironic humor) and The House on 56th Street (1933), a slightly above average pre-code drama.

One Way Passage (1932) is a delightful romantic comedy-drama about two ‘doomed’ people who meet and then fall in love on a cruise ship traveling from Hong Kong to San Francisco.  Powell plays a prisoner being taken to San Quentin by a police officer per a murder charge and Francis, who is being attended to by a doctor, is terminally ill and not expected to live much longer; each of them keeps their ‘secret’ from the other.  Much beloved character actors Frank McHugh and Aline MacMahon play cons from Powell’s past that are coincidentally on the same cruise (e.g. to scam passengers); both decide to facilitate their friend’s escape.  Robert Lord’s original story won an Academy Award.

Trouble in Paradise (1932) is an essential romantic comedy that was added to the National Film Registry in 1991. It stars Miriam Hopkins and Herbert Marshall as thieves who are ‘two peas in a pod’, romantic soul mates who meet while trying to con others, and each other; Lily and La Valle, respectively.  The notorious La Valle finds employment as a live-in assistant to Madame Mariette Colet (Francis).  While he courts and cons her, later involving Lily in the scheme, his partner-in-crime becomes unsure of his real attraction to the wealthy woman, who’s also being romantically pursued by others from her caste:  the Major (Charles Ruggles) and François Filiba (Edward Everett Horton), who are also very protective of her.  The film demonstrates (as well as any) the ‘Lubitsch’ touch, the director’s unique style that includes Art Direction, Cinematography, and overall feel.

The More The Merrier (1943), which airs on 9/16, is another classic comedy to be found on the month’s schedule.  Produced and directed by George Stevens, it stars Jean Arthur (giving her only Academy Award nominated performance) as a woman living alone in wartime crowded Washington, D.C.; she sublets her apartment to a wealthy businessman (Charles Coburn, in his Oscar winning Supporting role) who becomes a matchmaker for the young working girl and Joel McCrea, an Army aviation expert.  Though she had intended on leasing to another young woman, as part of her patriotic duty, Arthur's character is charmed by the elderly, "won't take no for an answer" ("Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead!") gentleman. However, being a busybody and disapproving of her boring government employee fiancé, Coburn’s character finds the perfect opportunity to rectify the situation when he meets McCrea’s, who's also looking for accommodations in the "filled to capacity" city. So, he sublets half of his room to the attractive young man, unbeknownst to Arthur's character, who then reluctantly accepts the arrangement.  The film contains several unforgettable scenes including an hilarious restaurant scene and another (sexy) one between Arthur and McCrea.  Stevens picked up Oscar noms for Best Picture and Director as did the film's Original Story and its Screenplay.  If the story sounds familiar to you, it may be because it was later remade as Walk Don't Run (1966), notable for being Cary Grant's last film. In that one, Grant plays the matchmaker character – in Tokyo during the Olympics – for Samantha Eggar and Jim Hutton.

Speaking of politics, there are an abundance of classics being shown next month but two dates stand out for me:  back-to-back Wednesdays, the 17th (which is Citizenship Day, according to my Page-A-Day calendar) and the 24th.  Not only do I heartily recommend Raymond Massey’s only Academy Award nominated performance as Abe Lincoln in Illiinois (1940) – if you haven’t seen classic Hollywood’s rendition of the Senator’s “House Divided” speech, delivered in a debate against Stephen Douglas (Gene Lockhart) in Springfield, you owe it to yourself to see it – but you’ll have a chance to see a most unusual drama titled Gabriel Over the White House (1933), starring Walter Huston as a divinely inspired POTUS.  On the 24th, don’t miss The Great McGinty (1940) or The Glass Key (1942).  I can’t remember when (if ever) these were shown on the channel.  The former was the great Preston Sturges’ directorial debut and he earned his only Oscar for writing its priceless repartee; he was its producer as well.  It stars Brian Donlevy as a bum that is manipulated by a corrupt political machine all the way up the line to Governor of a state.  The latter also features Donlevy in an equally compelling and nefarious role but is perhaps best known as the follow-up picture to This Gun for Hire (1942) for the beautiful, peck-a-boo hair styled Veronica Lake and Alan Ladd, perhaps more widely known today from Stevens’ classic Western Shane (1953).

Two more highlights on TCM’s September schedule:  Paul Muni’s birthday tribute on September 22nd – check out Angel on my Shoulder (1946) with Anne Baxter and Claude Rains or The Last Angry Man (1959), the actor’s sixth Oscar nominated performance and his final film role – and Disney’s original The Parent Trap (1961) on 9/28 with Brian Keith, Maureen O’Hara and the adorable Hayley Mills.

Currently, Prince-Bythewood is directing her adaptation of the best-selling novel, “The Secret Life of Bees” with Dakota Fanning and Queen Latifah for Fox Searchlight. It will be released this fall.

Gina Prince Bythewood

Prince-Bythewood obtained her first feature film producer credit in 2003 on “Biker Boyz,” a Dreamworks film which was co-written and directed by her husband, Reggie Rock Bythewood.

Prince-Bythewood studied at UCLA Film School, where she received the Gene Reynolds Scholarship for Directing and the Ray Stark Memorial Scholarship for Outstanding Undergraduate. Upon her graduation in 1991, she was immediately hired as a writer on the television series “A Different World.” She continued to write and produce for network television on series such as “Felicity,” “South Central,” “Courthouse” and “Sweet Justice” before making the transition to directing.

Her television directorial debut was the CBS Schoolbreak Special “What About Your Friends,” which won Prince-Bythewood an NACCP Image Award for Best Children’s Special and two Emmy nominations for writing and directing. She has also directed episodes of the hit television comedies “Everybody Hates Chris” and “Girlfriends.”

Prince-Bythewood currently resides in Southern California with her husband Reggie and their sons Cassius and Toussaint.

READ BELOW her interview with REEL Ladies!

_________________________________________________________
RL: HOW OLD WERE YOU WHEN YOU DECIDED TO PURSUE FILM?

GPB: When I was in high school, my career goal was to write for a soap opera. I watched four a day and was convinced that was what I wanted to do. Despite wanting to play college basketball, I went to UCLA (where I was not offered a scholarship) because of their film program. I started hanging out at the film school and agreed to help out on a student film. That first day on set was one of those light bulb moments. I remember the intense feeling that came over me as I realized suddenly what I wanted to do was direct.

RL: YOU LANDED A JOB STRAIGHT FROM COLLEGE ON THE POPULAR SITCOM “A DIFFERENT WORLD”. HOW DID THAT COME ABOUT? WHAT STEPS DID YOU HAVE TO TAKE?

GPB: First let me say, I was extremely lucky to start my career at “A Different World”. It was my favorite show and it was run by black women. It was an incredibly nurturing environment.
I met Bill Cosby at a track meet (I ran track my sophomore year) and I told him about my ambitions. He introduced me to Yvette Lee Bowser, who was a producer on the show, and she got me a meeting for the open writer’s apprentice position. It was the worst interview of my life. I was completely ill prepared and shy and gave monosyllabic answers to their questions. I was 22, and in the room with my heroes who were TV veterans and I choked. It was heartbreaking. But miraculously the they hired did not take the job seriously and they called me up a couple months later and asked me to come aboard.

RL: YOUR FIRST DAY, WERE YOU NERVOUS?

GPB: Petrified. I don’t think I pitched a joke for the first two weeks. The room was tough and they would cut you down in a second if the joke you pitched sucked. But after getting a couple laughs, my confidence grew.

RL: WERE YOU CONFIDENT IN YOUR SKILLS YET AS A WRITER? OR WERE YOU DOUBTFUL?

GPB: I knew I had a lot to bring to the table given the show was about college and I had just graduated. The great thing about the job was that they had the apprentices write select scenes from the episodes they were working on and then they would critique us. After a while, my stuff was being put into the actual episodes and that helped my confidence tremendously.

RL: HOW DID YOU LAND THE CBS SCHOOLBREAK SPECIAL AS A DIRECTOR?

GPB: Because I had written it, I pitched myself as the one person who knew the story of these girls better than anybody. They took a big chance on me and I am grateful for that.

RL: HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR DIRECTING STYLE THEN?
WHAT HAS CHANGED IN YOUR STYLE FROM THEN TO NOW?

GPB: I cannot define my visual style because I change it up with each new film. But I am much better at working with actors. My goal is to make them as comfortable as possible so they can give me all of themselves. It is all about building a trust and that is what I work on from the moment I meet them.

RL: HOW LONG DID IT TAKE YOU TO WRITE THE SCRIPT FOR LOVE & BASKETBALL?

GPB: A year and a half.

RL: WHAT WAS THE EXPERIENCE LIKE FOR YOU TO SHOP IT AROUND?

GPB: Soul-crushing. Every single studio passed, from major to minor. I thought I was dead in the water, that I had just wasted a year and a half of my life. Then miraculously, the Sundance Program called me. They had heard about my script, and wanted to meet. From that meeting I was invited to attend their writer’s workshop. It was an amazing experience.

RL:HOW DID YOU TEAM UP WITH SPIKE?

GPB: Sundance put on a staged reading of my script and invited industry folks. Sam Kitt from Spike’s company came and loved it.

RL: THIS WAS YOUR FEATURE FILM DIRECTORIAL DEBUT, AND YOU HAD SOME GREAT NAMES ATTACHED! THIS FILM PUT SANAA LATHAN ON THE MAP. HOW WAS IT WORKING WITH HER?

GPB: Sanaa is great, and we click as director/actor. She sold me during the audition process. She worked with a basketball coach for three months with no guarantee of a part to prove she could play ball. A director dreams of having an actor with that kind of work ethic. We laugh about it now, but we didn’t become friends until after the film. She says I was really hard on her. But I was just incredibly focused. This was my first film and I had to make sure everything was right. And that meant pushing her hard so that her performance was always believable. Her chemistry with Omar was off the chain. I was blessed with that.

RL: BEING THE WRITER AND DIRECTOR, HOW FREQUENTLY DO YOU LET THE ACTORS IMPROV?

GPB: Improv happens in rehearsal, and sometimes I will incorporate things that come out of that. But by the time we get to set the script is pretty locked.

RL: YOUR NEXT FILM DISAPPEARING ACTS, STARRED SANAA LATHAN AS WELL. WAS THAT YOUR DOING?

GPB: Yes. Sanaa is a great actress and we worked well together so I wanted to work with her again. But I made her audition because the part was so different from Monica. She was pissed about that. But she ripped the audition and earned the part. And she was great in the film.

RL: WAS THAT THE FIRST TIME YOU WERE DIRECTING SOMEONE ELSE’S SCRIPT OTHER THAN YOUR OWN? IS EASIER OR HARDER FOR YOU?

GPB: Yes, it was the first time and it was a little more difficult. When I direct what I have written it is 100% my vision, but here I was trying to marry my vision with another writer’s. But I loved the book so much that it ended up working out.

RL: YOU WERE DOING PROJECTS BACK TO BACK IT SEEMS LIKE. WORKING WITH SOME GREAT ACTORS, WRITERS, AND PRODUCERS. BUT I KNOW IT WASN’T ALL JUST A PIECE OF CAKE. WERE THERE ANY OBSTACLES THAT YOU WERE FACING AT THE TIME? OR ANY PROJECT THAT WAS DIFFICULT FOR YOU?

GPB: I did “Disappearing Acts” right after “Love and Basketball” and I will never do that again. Making a film is emotionally and physically draining, even when it goes well, and I was just burnt out. You need time to refuel in between projects to give your best because it is all consuming.
The toughest obstacle I ever faced was working with an actor who was an incredible jerk. He showed up to set late every day, sometimes hung over. He was rude to the cast and the crew….Just unprofessional and mean. But I still had to get a performance out of him. It was emotionally draining and really discouraging.

RL: HOW DID YOU GET PAST THAT?

GPB: I had to put my ego aside because at the end of the day folks coming to see the movie have no idea what happened on set. They just care if the performances are good. It was tough. But it made me very choosey about who I work with now. You understand why some directors work with the same people over and over. There is a comfort in working with people you like, and where there is a mutual respect.

RL: YOU, LIKE MANY OF US, PUT ON YOUR PRODUCER HAT AS WELL FOR “BIKER BOYZ.” WHICH DO YOU PREFER; WRITING, DIRECTING, OR PRODUCING?

GPB: Directing by far. Writing is tough and lonely. Directing is giving life to the words. It’s exciting. Producing is just not my forte. I don’t like not having the final say.

RL: HOW DO YOU JUGGLE YOUR FILM CAREER AND YOUR FAMILY?

GPB: Honestly I am still trying to figure it out. Directing is all consuming and I miss my family terribly. And it takes a toll on everybody. The positive thing is that most of the time I am home writing. It is just when I am making a film that everything is crazy.

RL: WHAT PROJECTS ARE YOU WORKING ON NOW?

GPB: I just directed my adaptation of the best-selling novel “The Secret Life of Bees.” It comes out Oct. 17th. I am very excited about it. It stars Dakota Fanning, Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson, Sophie Okonedo, Alicia keys and Paul Bettany. They are all phenomenal.

RL: WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO WOMEN IN FILM OUT THERE?

GPB: Always remember that talent has no gender. There is zero reason for this fallacy that men are inherently better suited to direct than women. You will be tested and challenged on set but if you show them what you got that first day, that b.s. will go away real quick. And write. The best way to direct is to attach yourself to your own good material. That will always be your ace.

Here are a few items of interest brought to you mostly by readers of this blog. How exciting!

• First of all, in light of high gas prices and our waning summer, check out this economic road-trip mix care of Britt.
• Second, my good friend Kevin turned me on to this 45-minute documentary regarding famed director Stanley Kubrick (2001, Clockwork Orange, Eyes Wide Shut, Dr. Strangelove). His eccentricities are well known to movie fans and this film does well shedding a bit of light on his reclusive and obsessive behavior as much as it adds another layer of intrigue to his legend.
• Third, in this season of high stakes political theater, keep your head level and feed your cynicism by watching The Daily Show at Hulu.com (or on cable). Last week's episodes from the DNC were great and I can't wait to see what they do when they role into Saint Paul this week for the RNC. Satire at its best, there is a reason this show keeps winning Emmy awards year after year. (Hopefully they don't skewer Minnesota too badly, but we deserve it as much as any I guess.)
• Finally, ride the nostalgia wave provided by the clip below. (Watch six times for maximum funny: one time for each panel!)

I will never forget the first time I saw Amores Perros. It was really hard hitting. Few of my friends couldn't see this movie in one sitting. Personally, I think whenever it comes to capturing the raw human emotions - anger, lust, love, anguish and the reality of life - crowded streets, gutters, blood, fights, accidents - there is nobody as good as Alejandro González Iñárritu!! His moving camera always keeps us on the edge of the seat. Seeing his films I never felt, even for a millisecond, that I am seeing a movie. He just captures life in his camera and you feel that you are God, watching over the messed up lives of humanity!

"Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another's speech." - Genesis 11:7

Another masterpiece from Alejandro González Iñárritu. I think nobody has ever been so successful in interpreting this ancient text with such relevance to modern times. It is really interesting to watch how Alejandro combines different stories of different people belonging to different time zones! In his commentary, he says that he started out on a very pessimistic note on humanity. But when he completed the project, he felt very positive feelings about humanity. No matter which race, caste, culture or religion we belong to - at the end of the day we only have ourselves for each other!

If you want to understand the American high school shooting episodes, this is one movie that shouldn't miss your list. Gus Van Sant captures the intensity behind such horrific tales with such simplicity and tranquillity. In his commentary, he says that though he believes in a solid script, he places huge importance on improvisation even if things go a little hay wire! Brilliant movie made by a brilliant director

After seeing '13 Tzameti' I had only one question in my mind - How on earth could someone come up with such a weird storyline and yet make you feel so thrilled? This is from Gela Babluani and he is one of the most promising directors in the international scene. When asked about the storyline, he says that his roots are in Georgia and he had witnessed a lot of civil disobedience movements in his teenage years - all of which helped him to make this movie of such exuberance with minimalist styling and budget. It is a must watch!!

Nobody understands women better than Pedro Almodóvar. With a deep understanding of his characters along with judicious creative control backed by a strong personal style of filming - Pedro's films are brilliant case studies! He pays a tribute to womanhood through his movie 'All about my mother' and ends the film with this dedication: "To all actresses who have played actresses. To all women who act. To men who act and become women. To all the people who want to be mothers. To my mother." His 1984 film, 'What have I done to desreve this', of a struggling housewife trying to keep her abnormal family together vividly captures the strength (both physical and mental) and weaknesses of a woman.  Though the abrupt ending of 'Talk to her' leaves us with a sense of incompleteness, it once again triumphs in the portrayal of diverse characters woven together by equally diverse circumstances.

While it is interesting to know that most of his movies are based in Spain, his characters are remain universal and can easily connect a chord with every movie buff! An applause for Pedro.

Pedro's 'Volver' remains special to me as I've never seen the portrayal of two generations of women captured with such simplicity and passion. It shattered my perception of Penélope Cruz as I always thought that she had limited acting capabilities. This film is an ode to the spirit of resilience shown by women in their daily lives. It is also  one of the few films which doesn't have a male lead.

Alfonso Cuarón directs with such detail and expertise that it finally grows into a film that captures greater issues other than a mere roadtrip and adolescent sexuality. It is special to me because above everything it is still a film about love and friendship. Great film with a great cast!

We all have our own views on reality, life and the various struggles that accompanies it. But never once do we think about the others' point of view. This Arabic film directed by Hany Abu-Assad is a living example of the same. Based on the age old Palestine-Isreali conflict, this film beautifully captures the soul behind such traumatic episodes maligning human history. In its commentary Abu-Assad says that, "The film is an artistic point of view of the political issue. The politicians want to see it as black and white, good and evil, and art wants to see it as a human thing". A must watch!

This Iranian film is one of the sweetest films I have ever seen! The acting capabilities of the two little stars are brilliant. And so is the story - simple and heart warming. Majid Majidi is a truly a visionary director!

This is a great German film for those interested in contemporary history. It beautifully captures the struggle of a family amidst highly instable political background. It educates us about the various struggles of both the younger and older generation when it comes to dealing with their own nationality - which forms the basis of one's identity. Great film by Wolfgang Becker.

8 DONNE E UN MISTERO (in scena il 7 e 8 ottobre), è ispirato alla commedia musicale dello scrittore francese Robert Thomas, resa celebre dal film di François Ozon "8 femme". Nella reinterpretazione a cura di Roberto Perruccio e Letizia Bracciali Magnini, le otto donne diventano protagoniste di un musical corale che ricorda la schiera delle amiche/nemiche delle “Donne” di Cuckor. Ciascuna forgiata su un idealtipo femminile, si rivelano tutte affascinanti, intelligenti e pericolose: una di loro potrebbe essere la colpevole del delitto che fa da sfondo alla vicenda e che scatena un vero e proprio gioco al massacro, costellato da dialoghi serrati e graffianti e da canzoni divertenti e piene di brio.

IL PIANETA PROIBITO (in scena dal 10 ottobre al 12 ottobre), si rifà all’omonimo musical portato in scena a metà degli anni ottanta da Bob Carlton, una rilettura del celebre film di fantascienza degli anni 50 “Forbidden Planet” ispirato da “La Tempesta” di Shakepeare. Dalla riscrittura di Roberto Perruccio emerge una forte enfasi nella caratterizzazione dei personaggi, resi volutamente surreali e “cartooneschi” e il desiderio di ricreare un’atmosfera fanta-tecnologica volutamente naif. L’accento sul contrasto e sull’esagerazione che sfocia nel surreale è evidenziato anche dalla colonna sonora (rigorosamente live) che attinge a piene mani dal rock’n roll anni ’60 (Jerry Lee Lewis, Beatles, i Beach Boys), dai classici della
musica leggera italiana (Rita Pavone, Caterina Caselli e Fred Buongusto) e dai soundtracks di serie televisive di successo come “The Muppet’s Show” e “Road Runner”.

Per informazioni:
Florence City Musical
tel. +39 3391996000
press@florencecitymusical.com
www.florencecitymusical.com

http://www.toscanasempre.com

]]> http://chopthisstick.wordpress.com/?p=71 Thu, 28 Aug 2008 22:02:46 +0000 mukmukmuk http://chopthisstick.wordpress.com/?p=71 Perdiendo mi tiempo en inet encontre algo lo bastante interesante como para hacer otro post acerca la pelicula que se esta haciendo de the watchmen . Y es que la gente de la revista Empire ha publicado en su revista online una serie de imagenes en las que comparan las imagenes del comic con las de la pelicula de Zack Snyder, un poco dejando claro que Snyder no esta aportando mucho a la pelicula y que sencillamente se ha limitado a mostrar en imagen real lo que ya esta plasmado en el comic (esto puede ser bueno o malo, depende de tu gusto , en lo personal prefiero ver la pelicula antes de emitir juicio alguno).

Ademas de eso han publicado una guia basica the watchmen para novatos , es decir, si no tienes ni idea de que va la historia de uno de las mejores (por no decir que la mejor) novelas graficas que han existido y te quieres lucir un poco o al menos tratar de ponerte al nivel de tus amigos geeks pues esta es la oportunidad.

QUE THE WATCHMEN NO TE AGARRE DESPREVENIDO :)

Guia basica para entender The Watchmen

Imagenes que comparan el comic con la version de Zack Snyder.

salut

m.

Pitt and Clooney at Venice debut

Clooney and Pitt were on the red carpet for the premiere

The Venice Film Festival has opened with the premiere of the Coen brothers' dark comedy Burn After Reading.

The film, starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt, is showing out of the competition at the annual event.

Before the screening, the stars posed good-naturedly for pictures and signed autograph books for fans lining up along the red carpet.

There are 21 movies competing for the coveted Golden Lion this year, with entries from Ethiopia and Turkey.

The festival continues with a fly-on -the-wall film about fashion designer Valentino Garavani - billed as a glimpse into a world of bygone glamor.

The movie was directed and produced by special correspondent for Vanity Fair magazine, Matt Tyrnauer.

Conspiracy

Pitt and Clooney are joined by British actress Tilda Swinton in Ethan and Joel Coen's latest offering.

Clooney plays a paranoid federal marshal who gets mixed up in a conspiracy involving a former CIA analyst's missing memoirs.

Also involved are the analyst's adulterous wife, played by Swinton, and a couple of gormless gym instructors played by Pitt and Frances McDormand.

Before the premiere, Pitt picked up an award that he won in Venice last year - the best actor's prize for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.

"You can run but you can't hide," Pitt joked as he accepted the award.

"It was an honor to receive this last year and it remains an honour to accept this this year."

Among the favorites for the Golden Lion are Japanese directors Takeshi Kitano, with Achilles and the Tortoise, and Hayao Miyasaki, for the animated feature Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea.

The prize will be awarded on 6 September.

Other strong contenders include US director Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler, starring Mickey Rourke, and French film-maker Barbet Schroeder's thriller L'Inju: la Bete dans l'Ombre, or The Beast in the Shadows.

There's something about Frank Borzage movies. While Hollywood in the studio era was awash in films that seemed to glorify love, physical beauty and, (before the code at least), regarded sexual union as the epitome of the human experience, the old town couldn't quite turn the Borzage "product" into the standard issue pop culture version of "love". Love, Hollywood-style was often a strange amalgam of Victorian lace, conjugal bliss and forbidden fruit, laced with a large dose of voyeurism. The obstinate, almost mystical belief of this film pioneer in the invisible ties that bind and the movies he made fascinate me, even if his hard-to-find films are sometimes difficult to find. Borzage, who grew up in Salt Lake City as one of fourteen children in a hardworking family of Swiss-Italian immigrants, became an actor who eventually began directing movies under the aegis of Thomas Ince in the teens. Creating the original version of Humoresque from Fannie Hurst's story in 1920, he went on to create many still powerful silent films, (only a portion of the which still exist), and was awarded the first Academy Award for Direction for Seventh Heaven (1927), as well as one for the Depression era story of Bad Girl (1931). While he could not have known it at the time, in a sense, Man's Castle marked the beginning of Borzage's journeyman stage in his career, when, wandering from Columbia, where he arranged to produce this film independently, he would work at Universal, Warner Brothers, M.G.M. and Paramount throughout the rest of his career, with varying degrees of artistic success.

Wherever he worked, the movies of director Borzage, who reveled in a deeply felt romanticism that celebrated the ability of the connections between human beings to transcend the temporal world, Hollywood had an original. Working over five decades in countless films, he didn't always succeed in translating his vision to the screen perfectly, but, though in many cases I reject the auteurist theory, his movies do have an individual stamp.

This coming Sunday, Aug. 31st, TCM will be broadcasting one of the rarest films of the sound era, Man's Castle (1933). As part of the Summer Under the Stars day devoted to the work of Spencer Tracy, this movie was directed by the gifted Borzage, whose work has begun to be appreciated once again, in recent years. It is one of those films--long out of circulation, except in rarely shown prints at film archives and museums, whose storied obscurity might make us expect more than we should when encountering the movie. If you have an opportunity to catch this broadcast, I hope that you might give it a chance--even if, as several friends have expressed to me, you initially find yourself rejecting Man's Castle (1933). Give it time, the film may grow on you.

A simple story of a "bindle-stiff", (bum to you and me) played by a young Spencer Tracy. In a nice irony, we first meet Tracy attired in white tie and tails with a cane and top hat. Tracy, who bore a resemblance to the director and who became a close friend of Borzage soon after his arrival in LA, had been promised a star-making role by the appreciative director. His gruff character, feeding pigeons in Central Park, spots a hungry-eyed Loretta Young at the other end of a park bench, and in his briskly efficient fashion, picks up the girl, who says that she hasn't eaten in days and hasn't had work in a year. Promising her a meal, he takes her to the fanciest restaurant in town, and, then brashly confesses to the manager that he doesn't have a dime, but, he goes on getting louder all the time, a big restaurant like this can certainly afford to feed a few people for free when 12 million people are jobless. His bluff pays off, and, to the censors' chagrin, Bill (Tracy) and Trina (Young) are soon sharing a hovel in a shantytown on the banks of the East River ("...with all the water you want for free", Bill rhapsodizes). Treating the sensitive Trina with an off-handed callousness that belies his growing attachment to her gentle spirit, as well as her ability to create a home out of a lean-to, he chafes under the air of domesticity, calling Trina "stupid", telling her she's too skinny to make a woman, and chasing after an easy lay in Glenda Farrell, even while he surprises Trina with a longed-for stove. To our 21st century ears, we might be tempted to cringe when witnessing these sequences, but if you stay with the film, you'll see how much Loretta Young's character, whose frank love for her protector is continually expressed as acceptance of his quirks eventually emerges, not as a victim, but as the beat of Tracy's heart, a reason to live for someone outside himself, and, as such, a strong, vibrant force to be feared by the tough guy, who sees attachment to anyone or anything outside himself as a sign of weakness. Tracy's character, who constantly gazes out at the patch of blue sky seen through the small skylight that is rigged over their bed in the shanty, claims that "When you're alive, you wanna hang on your hunk o' blue. That's all everybody's got in the world." Only then does he begin to notice the seraphically beautiful "hunk o' blue" in her eyes--and in her.

The love-hate relationship that forms between Bill and Trina is reminiscent of Ferenc Molnár's Liliom (1930), which Borzage filmed with Charles Farrell and Rose Hobart, (and which would be filmed again by Fritz Lang in 1934.). As the story progresses, the character of Trina (Loretta Young) becomes the stronger of the two. While seemingly passive and compliant, as her love grows, she asks for neither fidelity nor material security, haunted only by the plaintive train whistle that calls to Bill, who tells her, "[d]on't get yourself in too deep. I'm liable to be all steam about you today and washed up tomorrow." Quietly telling Bill that she's pregnant, she calms him by explaining, in a matter-of-fact way that seems to surprise her a bit too, "I'm not afraid anymore. You can never leave me now, even if you go away, I've got you now. You're a prisoner inside of me." She buries her face in his shoulder, but the next shot we see is of Bill almost leaving her, about to hop a train to another spot. Hearing the train whistle at the same time as Trina, he pauses, gazes back, and jumps off the train to return to her. Eventually, the pair leave their cozy little shack, realizing that the only security they can have in this world is each other. Sentimental? Perhaps, but I think that the emotion is as real now as in that dark year of 1933.

In this film, Borzage, a director who is sometimes mistakenly seen as a "romanticist" without a political or social conscience, paints a very dark canvas in Man's Castle without ever mentioning the Depression by name. Throughout his career, the director told effective personal stories set against the background of real poverty, war and oppression. In Man's Castle he takes us on a tour of a shantytown, which looked like the real life "Hoovervilles" that sprang up around the country during the worst years of the Depression. We visit a re-creation of such a community on the banks of New York's East River, recreated on the soundstage by designer Stephen Goosson in miniature shacks made of sheet metal and planks to resemble sixty hovels, with children and dwarves occupying them to increase the effect of a vast, teeming wasteland. Cinematographer Joseph August used false perspectives , a miniaturized elevated train and Manhattan skyline in the background to recreate the desired effect on camera, which becomes, in the diffused light used and under the spell cast by the characters created by such fine character actors as Walter Connolly and Marjorie Rambeau, a tattered wonderland.) he introduces us to a brutal world of 12 million unemployed, where pigeons eat but people starve. Yet, instead of focusing his story in Man's Castle on any possible political solutions or understandable outrage, he tells the story of two individuals riding above the chaos of the world around them, creating a separate world within the squalor and meanness that almost envelops them. Borzage's film doesn't glorify their splendid solitude as a couple, encased in a smug love that excludes all others. He actually celebrates the tentative nature of their situation, and as the story progresses, they become more vulnerable and their experience, superficially becomes more transitory.

Man's Castle' has a power that sneaks up on you. Of the work of Borzage that I've seen, it reminded me most of the seemingly forgotten Little Man, What Now? (1934) the Margaret Sullavan-Douglass Montgomery film depicting the effect on a hapless young couple of the disintegration of post war Germany as the Weimar Republic fell apart. The delicate fabric of their relationship is constantly strained in a George Grosz world peopled by angry working class polemicists and grotesque authoritarian bullies. "Nothing very wrong happens to the peaceful man," is the hopeful, naive statement of the faun-like Douglass Montgomery in this film, and his belief is continuously proven hollow by the continued attempts of the world to intrude on the life he and Sullavan try to carve out of their small corner of a brutal society. Man's Castle is a small story, in remarkable contrast to an astounding blend of genres found in the wondrously romantic, but little seen History Is Made At Night (1937), which features Charles Boyer and Jean Arthur at their most appealing. The latter film is also enhanced by a remarkable penultimate performance from the tragic Colin Clive as a wealthy man whose insane, all-consuming love for Arthur is unrequited. Despite the lack of likability of Clive's character, the viewer is left feeling more compassion for this tormented villain than one might have felt for a stock figure in the hands of another director.

Man's Castle does share some of the haunting power of Strange Cargo (1940), which depicted a misguided attempt to escape from a Devil's Island by a motley crew that includes Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, a sad, manipulative Peter Lorr, e and an intriguing, Christ-like figure played by Ian Hunter. In one of the best pre-WWII films, the still effective synthesis of ideas, history and story in Borzage's The Mortal Storm (1940), a Borzagean couple, Margaret Sullavan (a great favorite of Borzage's in the '30s) and James Stewart find themselves sheltered within each other in Nazi Germany. The Mortal Storm (1940), which helped the Nazis decide to ban all American films after it premiered, shows how the rise of fascism affects one family (in an unnamed but obvious Germany), led by the father (Frank Morgan, in what may be his best dramatic performance), but also pauses to show how the victimizers, (Robert Young, in one his better roles as an eager Nazi who is consumed by the path he has chosen) are all dehumanized by their experience. Only the just dead escape completely from the nightmare. Yet, all the participants in the story are treated with remarkable compassion in this film, with several scenes of brutalization reserved to demonstrate the depths of degradation experienced in those who abandoned their humanity.

But that's the thing about Borzage. Noted for his romanticism, his movies aren't all sappy hearts and flowers. As a matter of fact, placing his heroes, heroines, the unloved and the unconscious in his movies in settings such as the sewers of Paris, a restaurant kitchen, a house of assignation, or a boat adrift on a stagnant sea, glamor is usually given short shrift in a Borzage film.

Each of the best of them try to give the viewer some sense of the internal life of their characters, and the way that a state of mind, especially if one loves, can transcend the world around them.

That is what Man's Castle offers us, along with a chance to be reminded of the gifts of two performers whose presence in movies, as familiar as they may seem, is perhaps more complex than we know.

It also gives us a chance to see two actors at their early peak, when their still emerging ability shone through the persona that they would later adopt, allowing both of them to achieve a lasting success in Hollywood. Yet, at this stage, both were quite interesting, undomesticated figures.

We think we know Spencer Tracy, the leonine, naturalistic actor who played so winningly opposite Katharine Hepburn in nine films and became an icon in such films as The Last Hurrah (1957) Inherit the Wind (1960), and Judgment at Nuremberg (1962). Yet, as often occurs to me when viewing this talented man's very early films, he was a fairly prickly character, who sometimes seemed inspired and other times quite lost in the movies of the early '30s as he honed his skills. Fortunately, as I've recently learned, the author of one of the best film biographies of the last 15 years, (James Whale: A New World of Gods and Monsters), James Curtis , is reportedly about to publish a major biography of Tracy. I hope that he will do justice to the evolution of this actor's work on film, most of which was in the future for him at the time of Man's Castle.

The characters he often played before he went to MGM were often confined to inarticulate, criminal or brutes, incapable of the disarming moments of sensitivity and brash, relaxed humor he brought to this film. He was then just hanging on at Fox films in a series of poorly made films, a married man, a father and an alcoholic (who sometimes took, according to his own assessment, "two week lunches"). Just before production of Man's Castle he had made what is another forgotten film that deserves to be seen, playing a titan of industry who destroys himself, in The Power and the Glory (1933), with an excellent script by Preston Sturges. A bit lost at this stage of his life, disappointed that he'd lost an earlier part in a Borzage movie to James Dunn in Bad Girl his unpredictable, brusque demeanor in many of his parts belied Tracy's gentle nature. His character of Bill, while superficially aloof, is, like the character that brought him his first great critical fame in Fritz Lang's Fury (1936), a man transformed into an avenging angel by life's hard knocks, even though he comes forward to make amends in a conclusion that never wholly rings true to me. Yet in the case of the redemptive Man's Castle, he is saved by someone whose soul is greater than his own.

Mention Loretta Young to others today and you might be met with comments about "a saccharine goody two-shoes" or "lovely, but...", all of which stem from her later Hollywood persona as a perfectly groomed woman with rather fixed ideas, a strong sense of her religion, (which sometimes earned her the tag of a "professional Catholic", despite her real charitable contributions), as well as the sad circumstances surrounding the birth of her and Clark Gable's daughter Judy in the mid-'30s, and her pose as the girl's adopted mother in an effort to save her career, (Young was a financial mainstay of her family), protect Gable's stardom, and to prevent the child from bearing the then real stigma of illegitimacy. This unfair evaluation of Young may have been cemented by the powerful impression left by such highly entertaining yet somewhat strait-laced films as The Bishop's Wife, Come to the Stable, and her successful long time television program in the '50s, featuring her in a succession of roles each week and all introduced by the beautifully dressed lady herself. Thanks to TCM, and Mick LaSalle, the author of Complicated Women (MacMillan), who brought to light the nuanced roles played by actresses in the period between the dawn of the talkies and the imposition of the Production Code in July, 1934 we have been able to learn to appreciate another, more human side of Loretta Young. As she demonstrated in the range of films made in around the same time as Man's Castle, in Taxi, Heroes For Sale, Employee's Entrance, Life Begins, Zoo in Budapest and Midnight Mary, she blended a luminous, otherworldly and fragile beauty with a strength of character that fills these films with a memorable, deeply feminine vitality that still jumps off the screen in her marvelous performances.

Offscreen, Loretta Young, who fortunately for us, lived long enough to have critics and audiences begin to rediscover her early films, gave slightly contradictory impressions about her work in Man's Castle. At one time she said of her part, which she played at twenty, "I played a little dodo." On other occasions, she was more generous, letting down her guard about this period of her life "That Frank Borzage had a way with actors. He made you believe your part and this intensity came over on the screen. The story was a trifle but we loved it. I proved I could really act with that one." Perhaps Young's mixed feelings about the role may have been understandable. As Jeanine Basinger points out in one of the more interesting chapters of her book The Star Machine, (Knopf), Young's abilities as an actress, producer, businesswoman and a groundbreaking individual have yet to receive their full due from the general public. Sadly for the young actress, during the production, the 33 year old Tracy and Young became deeply involved, which was complicated by the fact of Mr. Tracy's marriage and family, his post-production binge drinking, as well as the intense interest of the press in their relationship. On top of these pressures, both were practicing Roman Catholics. Unlike the ethereal pair in the movie, who discover their true home is in one another, Tracy and Young separated for good some time later.

While their off-set liaison is only a sidelight of the film, the intimate rapport that the two actors demonstrate throughout the film, with Tracy, after chiding her, shaking her head of curls gently with hand and laughing, and exchanges of smiling glances and the whispered comments that one leans into the other that exclude the viewer, reinforcing the sense of closeness between the leads, as they create their separate world apart from the degradation around them.

The film was subjected to numerous cuts from the production code over the years, though it was remarkably frank in its depiction of the out of wedlock loving arrangement arrived at by the leading characters, the Young character's pregnancy, as well as the depiction (very briefly) of nudity and, in a deft, unobjectionable moment that says volumes about their relationship, Loretta Young's character explains as she lovingly irons a shirt for him that Bill "is the cleanest man" she knows, adding that "he don't like anything touching his skin not to be clean". Still, in the late '30s, when Columbia reissued the film, the seventh reel wedding scene between Tracy and Young that took place after she became pregnant, was hamfistedly inserted near the beginning of the movie. Hopefully, the print that TCM has obtained will have as few cuts as possible and will be a good, if not pristine print.
_____________________

Sources:

Basinger, Jeanine, The Star Machine, Knopf, 2007.
Dumont, Hervé, Frank Borzage, McFarland, 2006.
James Curtis Website: http://www.jamescurtis.net/
La Salle, Mick, Complicated Women, Macmillan, 2001.
_____________________

Please Note:

Special thanks to Fernando in Chile and Christine in France, my farflung friends overseas, who have so generously shared their copies of Frank Borzage films with me, particularly Man's Castle (1933) and Little Man, What Now? (1934)

Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra: I’m still too new. I’ve worked with the most intelligent actors in this country like Amitabh Bachchan, Om Puri and Aamir Khan. Right now I feel very special because I’ve someone like Waheeda Rehman on the sets. She is too special. For me, to differentiate intelligence of all these wonderful actors would be presumptuous. My journey has been too short. After I put together a larger perspective, maybe I can comment better. They’re all super-accomplished. I’m not being diplomatic. I’m as nervous directing Abhishek Bachchan today in Delhi 6 as I was when I directed his father in Aks.

Sanjay Leela Bhansali: It would have to be Amitabh Bachchan. He brings decades of his experience on the table and yet he never allows it to show in his performances. When I was doing Black with him, on many occasions he would be able to understand a scene fully even before I had explained it. And then he’d take it much further than where I thought it would go. The hallmark of a truly intelligent actor is that he never allows the baggage of his wisdom and experience to weigh down his performance. Amitji can interpret a scene in a hundred ways. But finally he knows which is the best way to deal with a moment. The way he would show sudden fits of absolute forgetfulness as an Alzheimer patient in Black still gives me goose bumps. I’d give anything to work with him again.

Sudhir Mishra: It is very hard to single out any one actor. Anil Kapoor, Om Puri and Shabana Azmi are all highly intelligent. Kareena Kapoor has an instinctive intelligence. Shabana seeks out a context to every part. She understands a part cerebrally and then gets emotionally attached to it. Chitrangada Singh is stunning. On the first day of shooting (of Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi) I was talking to her like a child. On the last day I spoke to her as though she was Naseeruddin Shah. Naseer is the most fantastically intelligent actor I’ve worked with. And he doesn’t let the preparation show on screen. Naseer taught me there’s no generic rule for acting. There are so many super-intelligent actors. Amitabh Bachchan, Hrithik Roshan and Shah Rukh Khan know exactly what they’re doing.

Vipul Shah: I’ve worked with two major actors — Amitabh Bachchan and Akshay Kumar. No one has the creative intelligence of Mr Bachchan. He keeps things very simple while shooting. I’ll be the heart, you be the brain, he says on the sets. He takes instructions carefully, and then adds subtle tones to it.

But as for knowing what would work with the audience, there’s no one to beat Akshay. Big films that he said won’t work didn’t. Akshay knows when something is missing in a scene. He can actually see the audience reacting to a scene while shooting it.

Kunal Kohli: I’ve worked with some of the most intelligent actors in the industry — from Hrithik Roshan and Kareena Kapoor in Mujhse Dosti Karoge, Saif Ali Khan and Rani Mukerji in Hum Tum and Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic. It’s very difficult to apply any uniform yardstick of intelligence to all these wonderful actors. I’ve always been an Aamir fan even when I was a journalist. When I finally got a chance to direct him in Fanaa, I was able to bring him together with Kajol. They are supposed to be such different actors. It’s just a myth that Aamir likes to over-rehearse. He prefers to go with the first take. He makes a film’s quality superior with every passing moment.

Guillermo Del Toro strike back, la secuela de Hellboy; Hellboy II: The golden army es una película que sin llegar a ser una GRAN PELICULA, divierte muchísimo, la estética de la película no solo mantiene el nivel de la primera, sino que a mi parecer lo supera en muchos aspectos, esta vez nos encontramos con un hellboy mucho mas delgado – a pesar de que sigue siendo interpretado por Ron Perlman- (?) y un Abe mucho mas erguido –en una forma mucho mas humana , diría yo- y la película en general es evidencia de la evolución de Del Toro –quien definitivamente ya encontró su marca personal en el cine-

La película es una muestra mas del amor de Del Toro por la fantasía, en donde deja claro que el diseño de personajes fantásticos es casi su marca personal, Doug Jones se luce de sobremanera con la interpretación de tres personajes en la película (Abe Sapien, the chamberlain & the angel of death) en los últimos dos sus movimientos recuerdan a su interpretación de El fauno/Pale Man en “EL LABERINTO DEL FAUNO” del 2006, de hecho es imposible no recordar a Pale Man cuando aparece el angel de la muerte en escena.

No voy a hablar de la historia, porque me parece absurdo, quiero que Uds. vean la película y se diviertan como yo me divertí viéndola, no les arruinare el momento contándola aca.

Si son fans del comic pues la película no los decepcionara en lo absoluto, y si no lo son pues tal vez esta película los haga interesarse en leer a hellboy , y si no lo hace pues estoy seguro de que pasaran un buen rato viendola.

salut

m.

Dal 3 al 12 Ottobre al Teatro di Rifredi-Firenze

andrà in scena il Florence City Musical - 1° Festival del Musical Fiorentino,

Tre Musicals inediti, tutti con la Regia del bravissimo Riccardo Giannini

Ad aprire il Festival, il 3 4 e 5, Ottobre il Musical " Draculea nel sangue e nell'amore" , vincitore del Musical Day 2007 come Miglior Musical Inedito e del primo premio Nazionale al Festival Delle Arti 2007.

Prodotto dall'Associazione Culturale Musaico Immaginario

Testi di Diego Ribechini, Musiche di Tiziano Barbafiera

Sono particolarmente legata a questo Spettacolo essendo la Coreografa di questa nuova versione del Musical.

Spero che non vi perderete questo bellissimo Evento , perchè anche se sono "di parte" è veramente da vedere!

Seguiranno presto i Post sugli altri 2 favololosi Musicals del Festival!

Intanto vi do personalmente appuntamento dal 3 al 5 Ottobre

al Teatro di Rifredi per il Musical " Draculea nel sangue e nell'amore" !!! Vi aspetto!

Ecco il Trailer

(Ritengo doveroso precisare che le coreografie di questo trailer sono quelle della versione precedente)

WWW.FLORENCECITYMUSICAL.COM

Michael Tyburski - http://www.michaeltyburski.com

Romain Gavras - http://www.myspace.com/romaingavras

Ruben Fleischer - http://www.ruben.fm

Also, the new ANP Quarterly with the KAWS interview is a must read. I know you might not be able to get it cause of the limited release but try to. If you really desperately can't get it, email me with a sob story and I'll try to scan it in and send it to you. I scanned it and I uploaded. ANP Quarterly is awesome.

Cumbia callera will be screening at the World Film Festival in Montreal this week. It will show in the Cinema Latin Quarter from 28 to 30 August. Click here for details.

Aspiring young filmmaker Neto chances upon a beautiful young girl, Cori, window shopping, and is immediately smitten. He captures her and her boyfriend Guiripi shoplifting a pair of sneakers, and then he follows the girl to where she lives. Neto becomes obsessed with the girl; he stalks her. When Cori notices she's being followed she runs away and loses one of her sneakers. When Neto arrives to give it back she finally falls for him and a love affair starts between the two. But Guiripi fights back. He has a surprise. Cori must make a choice between the two men. Or could it be that sometimes making no choice is the best choice? Maybe a love triangle doesn't necessarily have to be an unhappy one?

The First Congress of Iberoamerican Culture will host a tribute to Brazilian filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira and Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel in Spain, 1 to 5 October this year. The tribute/conference will bring together more than 250 special guests from 22 representative nations to discuss film and take part in retrospectives on the work of the two honoured cineastas. Alejandro González Iñárritu, Alfonso Cuarón, and Guillermo del Toro will appear. First hosted in Mexico, the next meetings of the congress will take place in Brazil and Colombia, in 2009 and 2010 respectively. Read more

There has been little new news on Rudo y Cursi, but Cinematical reveals that production took place in "the small town of Cihuatlan, near a banana plantation that the Cuarón brothers visited as kids."

Finally, two English-language pieces on Iberolatinamerican cinema outside of the realm of the three amigos:

• "10 filmmakers who, through the quality and vision of their work, are expanding the definition of what it means to be a Latino filmmaker, in Hollywood and beyond." (HR)
• A review by Michael Sooriyakumaran of Carlos Reygadas' Stellet Licht here.

Who is he, this little frail man with a big nose and protruding ears, with always sad eyes and comically nervous gestures? It seems that he always plays himself. Is he a nebbish always tormenting himself and all of us with his never-ending heart-searching, an odd fallow, which has accustomed to exist among his like? What is the secret he has got?

The secret is that we believe that by some miracle after all his failures he will get happy because his love and yearning for happy, he calls into being. One more very strange and mysterious kind of this incredible talented actor, writer, film maker and clarinetist is ability to command sympathy in any situation he is. And though all his best films and roles are very much alike we have thanks to God that this odd, ridiculous, touching one is appeared with us here on the earth.

His irresistible charm is well known. Just as you begin to talk about this man a smiles appearance upon everybody's faces

Who is he, this little frail man with a big nose and protruding ears, with always sad eyes and comically nervous gestures? It seems that he always plays himself. Is he a nebbish always tormenting himself and all of us with his never-ending heart-searching, an odd fallow, which has accustomed to exist among his like? What is the secret he has got?

The secret is that we believe that by some miracle after all his failures he will get happy because his love and yearning for happy, he calls into being. One more very strange and mysterious kind of this incredible talented actor, writer, film maker and clarinetist is ability to command sympathy in any situation he is. And though all his nest films and roles are very much alike we have thanks to God that this odd, ridiculous, touching one is appeared with us here on the earth.

Best Movies
Small Time Crooks 2000 7
Sweet and Lowdown 1999 7
Celebrity 1998 7
Deconstructing Harry 1997 10
Everyone Says I Love You 1996 7
Mighty Aphrodite 1995 7
Bullets Over Broadway 1994
Manhattan Murder Mystery 1993
Husbands and Wives 1992
Shadows and Fog 1992
Alice 1990
Crimes and Misdemeanors 1989
Another Woman 1988
Radio Days 1987
September 1987
Hannah and Her Sisters 1986
Purple Rose of Cairo, The 1985
Broadway Danny Rose 1984
Zelig 1983 8
Manhattan 1979
Interior 1978 6
Annie Hall 1977
Love and Death 1975
Sleeper 1973
Play It Again, Sam 1972
Everything You always wanted to know about Sex (but were afraid to ask) 1972
Bananas 1971
Take the Money and Run 1969