What I'm Reading...

I had a lucky moment in my day doing errands...I noticed a local dvd rental shop was selling some second hand dvds so I went to check them out. I got a couple movies and as I was leaving I noticed some books. I asked if they were for sale...they seemed out of place...and the fellow says "you can have those". Um really? I took home three BFI publications and two other film crit books. I have a few of the BFI series, and they're great. These books were brand new, the owner of the dvd store said his girlfriend worked in publishing...and these were stuff kicking around. Yippee, lucky me! Forty Years after it first appeared, Singin' in the Rain remains one of the best loved films ever made. Yet despite dazzling success with the public, it never received its fair share of praise from the critics. Gene Kelly's genius as a performer is there for all to see. What is less acknowledged is his innovatory contribution as director. Peter Wollen has finally done justice to this landmark film. In a brilliant shot-by-shot analysis of the famous title number, illustrated by specially produced frame stills, he shows how skillfully Kelly binds the dance and musical elements into the narrative, and how he successfully combines two distinctive traditions within American Dance, tap and ballet.
Scriptwriters Betty Comden and Adolph Green, and indeed Kelly himself, were all under threat from the McCarthyism which menaced Hollywood at this time. The ethos in which the film was conceived could not long survive in the era of blacklisting. Wollen argues convincingly that Singin' in the Rain was the high point in the careers of those who worked on it.

I was excited for this one...many years ago, Mister Anchovy gave me one of the best books about horror film traditions called The Monster Show and this one seems to be as much fun. The terror film, with puzzling, disturbing, multivalent images, often leads us into regions that are strange, disorienting, yet somehow familiar; and for all the crude and melodramatic and morally questionable forms in which we so often encounter it, it does speak of something true and important, and offers us encounters with hidden aspects of ourselves and our world. So writes S. S. Prawer in his concise and penetrating study of the horror filmfrom The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Frankenstein, to Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Omen. After a brief history of the horror genre in film, Prawer offers detailed analyses of specific sequences from various films, such as Murnaus Nosferatu. He discusses continuities between literary and cinematic tales, and shows what happens when one is transformed into the other. Unpatronizing and scholarly, Prawer draws on a wide range of sources in order to better situate a genre that is both enormously popular with contemporary audiences and of increasing critical importance.

Rick Schmidt's Feature Filmmaking At Used Car Prices is a classic. I read the following manifesto by the Dogma guys out loud to Stagg...it's quite hilarious...Schmidt gives it as an example of how some independant filmmakers have tried to avoid falling into the trap of blatant commercialism:

"I swear to submit to the following set of rules drawn up and confirmed by DOGME 95:

1. Shooting must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in (if a particular prop is necessary for the story, a location must be chosen where this prop is to be found).
2. The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. (Music must not be used unless it occurs where the scene is being shot).
3. The camera must be hand-held. Any movement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted. (The film must not take place where the camera is standing; shooting must take place where the film takes place).
4. The film must be in colour. Special lighting is not acceptable. (If there is too little light for exposure the scene must be cut or a single lamp be attached to the camera).
5. Optical work and filters are forbidden.
6. The film must not contain superficial action. (Murders, weapons, etc. must not occur.)
7. Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden. (That is to say that the film takes place here and now.)
8. Genre movies are not acceptable.
9. The film format must be Academy 35 mm.
10. The director must not be credited.
Furthermore I swear as a director to refrain from personal taste! I am no longer an artist. I swear to refrain from creating a "work", as I regard the instant as more important than the whole. My supreme goal is to force the truth out of my characters and settings. I swear to do so by all the means available and at the cost of any good taste and any aesthetic considerations.
Thus I make my VOW OF CHASTITY."
Copenhagen, Monday 13 March 1995

On behalf of DOGME 95

Lars von Trier (Breaking The Waves, The Kingdom) Thomas Vinterberg (The Celebration, Dear Wendy)