Anthony Lane on TERMINATOR: SALVATION

"If you arrived late for TERMINATOR: SALVATION and missed the name of the director, at what moment would you realize you were not watching a Mike Leigh film? I would nominate the scene in which a rusty tow truck, armed with a wrecking ball, is pursued by a riderless robot motorbike, armed with automatic machine guns . . . The business of the film is not to tell a cogent story or earn the devotion of our sympathies but to analyze alternatives and, when in doubt, pick whichever is loudest . . . Take John Connor, played by Christian Bale as a scar-nicked warrior, consumed by a messianic belief that he can save the world by shouting. After the opening battle, he answers his radio with yelps of "Here!" and "Connor!" as though introducing himself to a befuddled and very deaf grandmother . . . When, and on what possible ground, did someone decide that the Terminator franchise should be no fun to watch? It's surely not a good sign when time travel gives you a sense of deja vu. . . . The title is unfortunate, giving the impression—which is more than borne out by the film—that something must be done to save the franchise . . . With a brief cameo by a C.G.I. version of Arnold Schwarzenegger; or maybe this is him, and the virtual one is governing California."

Anthony Lane, The New Yorker, June 1 and June 8, 2009

FIELD OF DREAMS (USA, 1989, Robinson)

FIELD OF DREAMS (USA, 1989, Phil Alden Robinson, W.P. Kinsella novel)
Is this heaven?
It’s Iowa.
I coulda sworn it was heaven.

Late in my work-weary third decade, God sent a book that rekindled a vital spark that hadn't fired me up since my childhood. It would be going too far (a lot too far) to say He drew me back to my first love, but it was at least a childhood crush that got stirred up again, and it kindles my heart in a way that has sustained me through some very tough years.

I didn't find this inspirational classic in a religious bookstore. Even though it's done as much for my spirit and my soul as a shelf full of devotional literature, it wasn't recommended by my pastor, or even a therapist. My muse was a scratchy voiced radio announcer, who very clearly said to me – well, to me and however many other hundreds of thousands of CBC listeners had tuned in that afternoon – "If you read it, your life will be changed." (Well, not in so many words. But I know what I heard!)

I went straight to the used bookstore and got myself a copy of a book that began;

My father said he saw him years later playing in a tenth-rate commercial league in a textile town in Carolina, wearing shoes and an assumed name.
He'd put on fifty pounds and the spring was gone from his step in the outfield, but he could still hit. Oh, how that man could hit. No one has ever been able to hit like Shoeless Joe."

And I was hooked. I read Shoeless Joe three times through before I started devouring everything else W.P. Kinsella had written; The Thrill of the Grass, The Iowa Baseball Confederacy, and lots more as they issued forth from the pen of this prolific baseball prophet.

I'll be honest here: Kinsella would be appalled to be considered the mouthpiece of God. I don’t think he even likes Christians that much (apart from his red-headed wife Anne, with whom he is smitten, and who, interestingly enough, happens to be a devout Christian. Go figure....) and that dislike comes through in his books. But he understands calling, loves life and the "Behold it is good!" glory of the created world, and the way these simple earthly joys are caught up in spiritual mysteries as close to hand as a cornfield or a ballpark. If God can speak through donkeys, if rocks and stones can praise Him and the trees of the field can give Him a standing "O," surely we can hear from Him through a baseball writer, or find heaven in a blade of outfield grass.

When the film version came out, I was astonished. Even though they changed the title (yet another attempt to strike Shoeless Joe from the history books, I couldn’t help thinking) and plenty of other stuff, it worked. An amazing book became an amazing movie, using film language to do what written words did a different way. We lost the narrator's voice, so droll and beguiling and expressive, but we gained that amazing final shot, and lots of other gorgeous, evocative images. They moved things around, had to cut other things – but what we lost in J.D. Salinger, we gained in the amazing James Earl Jones. And the heart of the thing, the thrill of the grass and what it feels like to be called to fulfill an impossible, impractical, maybe-divinely-inspired dream, was all still there. I'm only one of many who watch this movie through tears (see, there is crying in baseball!).

It's a film about the price we pay for obedience – and the higher price we pay for its opposite. About the tough choices involved in discerning between enthusiasm and calling. It's about fathers and sons (what baseball movie isn't?), husbands and wives and daughters, restoration of the fallen and how it feels to get some good wood on the ball on a green field in a summer evening. And if you think this is just sentimental wish-fulfilment about playing ball instead of living life in the real world, don’t forget Moonlight Graham stepping across that white chalk line.

The story is so well known, I won't lay out the details. And anyway, if you're one of the lucky ones who can still go see it for the first time, I'm not going to be the guy who spoils even one of its wildly imaginative, deeply inspiring plot twists. Don't bother to find out more about it, don't talk to your friends, don't even read the back cover of the video – just rent it, and watch it.

Maybe all you'll get out of it is an enjoyable evening at the movies. Or maybe you'll hear another voice, whispering to you in the middle of a cornfield. I know I did. A voice that came in a weary time, giving me back not only baseball – abandoned since my childhood, a blessed release from the pressures of day-to-day responsibility – but even more, a deepened certainty that my sometimes pointless and seemingly inescapable day-to-day toil is actually a God-breathed calling. And that He can use it to ease people's pain. My own included. That what we're building here may be a field of dreams, a little corner of the kingdom of God.

THE ROOKIE, BANG THE DRUM SLOWLY, BULL DURHAM

Available at Videomatica

Bahrani vs Dardennes

My second contribution to Filmwell is now up. Notes on the Dardenne retrospective at Lincoln Centre, NYC, with lots of links to things Dardennian. Best part is an interview excerpt from Cineaste magazine, where Ramin Bahrani (MAN PUSH CART, CHOP SHOP, GOODBYE SOLO) takes issue with L'ENFANT - the bum! - and we consider the fine line between moral and moralistic.

While you're over there, you might also want to check out a nice essay by fellow Filmweller Alissa Wilkson - "Goodbye Solo, This American Life, and Ramin Bahrani" - which niftily connects my favourite radio show ("This American Life") with Bahrani's small-scale cinematic realism. And she points to an exceptionally fine A.O Scott piece on Neo-Neo Realism that references everybody from Bahrani and the Dardennes to Roberto Rossellini, Satyajit Ray and WENDY & LUCY.

"What if, at least some of the time, we feel an urge to escape from escapism? For most of the past decade, magical thinking has been elevated from a diversion to an ideological principle. The benign faith that dreams will come true can be hard to distinguish from the more sinister seduction of believing in lies. To counter the tyranny of fantasy entrenched on Wall Street and in Washington as well as in Hollywood, it seems possible that engagement with the world as it is might reassert itself as an aesthetic strategy. Perhaps it would be worth considering that what we need from movies, in the face of a dismaying and confusing real world, is realism."

A.O. Scott, Neo-Neo Realism, New York Times, March 17 2009

Most Dardenne and Bahrani films cited here are available at Videomatica

L'Argent (1983, France, Robert Bresson)

"There is much to savor in The Late Film, a BAM series of movies made toward the close—or the climax—of their directors’ careers. Of all the works selected, none could be less autumnal than Robert Bresson’s L'ARGENT (1983), which screens on May 10. Adapted from a tale by Tolstoy, it is as swift and wintry as a sudden frost. As often with Bresson, the actors are mostly nonprofessionals, and they move through the series of terrible events like stoics and sleepwalkers, lacking the will to fight fate. A schoolboy pays for a picture frame with a forged note, which enters the social system as if it were a virus, and leads in the end to a feverish killing spree, in which not even the saintly are spared. Yet Bresson—who was eighty-two years old when the film came out, and clearly in no mood for mellowing—frames the acts of wickedness, both great and small, with a terrifying calm. Prepare to be haunted by his closeups of objects: a wallet, a ladle, a bowl of hot coffee, an axe. They might almost be guilty themselves."
Anthony Lane, The New Yorker, May 11, 2009

Available at Videomatica

Leon Morin, Priest (1961, France, Jean-Pierre Melville)

"Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1961 drama, based on a novel by Béatrix Beck, is a strange hybrid and one of the most peculiarly mutilated films ever. Set in a small French town, it spans the years of the Second World War and the Occupation and carries over into the postwar period. The story is centered on a young widow, Barny (Emmanuelle Riva), a Communist whose late husband was Jewish and who struggles to spare their two young children from being deported to a concentration camp. Melville’s depiction of wartime France is peerless: the brazenness of collaborators, the casual anti-Semitism, the presence of the swastika and of German street signs, the arrests and disappearances are presented with a harrowing simplicity. But the film’s main drama concerns Barny’s relationship with the handsome, brave, vigorous, and intellectual priest of the title (played with virility and verbal aplomb by Jean-Paul Belmondo), who seduces women’s souls—and Barny’s above all. Melville presents their relationship without irony, avoids any trace of satire, and, to make it the heart of his film, cut out (against the producers’ wishes) an hour of footage about the Occupation. Melville films wartime with barely restrained passion, he films religious dialectics with remarkable but dispassionate skill, and he uses the story of Barny and Morin to skew the postwar political context—to reinforce the role of Catholics in the newly founded Fifth Republic and suppress that of Communists. In French, English, and German."

Richard Brody, The New Yorker, April 20, 2009

*

"Here’s the thing about LEON MORIN, PRIEST, Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1961 adaptation of the novel by Béatrix Beck, opening today in revival at Film Forum. Melville praised Beck’s depiction of the Occupation, and his film, too, is a remarkable representation of it—but when German soldiers carry out the deportation of Jews, the events take place at a distance and reflected in the glass pane of a storefront; the soldiers’ faces aren’t seen, except for that of one, silent and immobile, who is standing guard beside the window. But, later in the film, two German soldiers are seen in action—one, aware that he’s about to be sent to the Russian front, tenderly approaches a French child and gives her his bracelet to wear; another, guarding a railroad crossing, warns a French woman that she is forbidden to cross the tracks, but, when she ignores him and continues on her way, he benignly lets her go. Melville’s skew of things doesn’t look like an accident: in the early sixties, the president of France, Charles de Gaulle, was actively working on achieving reconciliation with (West) Germany; by suppressing the faces of German soldiers arresting Jews and instead showing only the most humane of German soldiers speaking and acting in close-up, Melville was contributing to that cause."

"Similarly, in his approach to the story about a Communist woman who falls under the influence of a priest and converts to Catholicism, he doesn’t just make the woman’s Communism vanish, he makes all the Communists in the early part of the story vanish. Melville’s depiction of the Occupation is superbly textured and detailed, but his vision of the way he wanted postwar France to be then took precedence over his power to depict it as it was. (I know that in France in 1961 films with political content were subject to stringent censorship; but there’s no evidence that Melville struggled with it, or rather, against it.)

"P.S.: Here’s Melville speaking about the film in the indispensable book of interviews with him by Rui Nogueira (long out-of-print, in translation in Viking’s great Cinema One series, readily available in the original French): “I didn’t shoot the scene where Christine describes the terrible death of a child who is killed by an Italian soldier. I like Italians, and I didn’t want to show them in an unsympathetic light.”

Richard Brody, The Front Row Blog, The New Yorker, April 17, 2009

VHS may be available at Videomatica - check with staff

NOW PLAYING: Big Screens

A few things that may have some Soul Food content...

FIERCE LIGHT: WHEN SPIRIT MEETS ACTION is at the Fifth Avenue, filmmaker Velcrow Ripper a one-time Vancouverite.

Atom Egoyan's ADORATION continues at the Granville 7.

Soul Food pal Luci has been at the movies lately, and recommends THE SOLOIST (Tinseltown, Esplanade, Fifth Avenue) and IS ANYBODY THERE? (Tinseltown). The latter makes me think of SUNSHINE CLEANING, which I liked (Granville 7). Saw the former Saturday evening: mostly avoided the "two men changing each other's lives forever" sentimentality I dreaded; good looking pic, doorways / archways, and note the cinematic hat tips to Robert Downey's other journo movie, ZODIAC (wonder how many tributes to newspaper people we'll see in the near future); nicely realized scripting about us well-intentioned "homed" people getting involved with street people and figuring we'll be their saviours - our inclination to play god; pity, though, they had to caricature the Christian character, the fault was in the performance/directing not the script, which had room for a more nuanced, complex reading; last word, I'll watch anything with Downey or Catherine Keener.

And if you want to get charged up, U23D continues three-dimensionally at the IMAX Theatre, Canada Place.

Filmwell: Loose Canon

Last week I told you about Filmwell, a new film site involving Jeffrey Overstreet and some other of my favourite film/faith writers. This week I can tell you, I'm one of them! Jeff invited me to become a contributor, and I posted my first article yesterday morning. (Looks like I'm The Wednesday Man.)

"Loose Canon" talks about my recent list-making binges (tabulating the five editions of 1001 Films You Must See Before You Die, and comparing those to several other Greatest Films Of All Time lists), announces a summer project to catch up on the films that made all seven of those lists, and chats up THE APARTMENT - first on that list, an amazing film.

By the way, in 34 Films I DO Want To See Before I Die, I listed all the movies that had shown up on six interesting "Great Films" lists. Since that time I blended in The New York Times Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made (Second Edition), which shrunk the list to 30 titles. The four flicks dissed by the NYT are BLADE RUNNER (1982, Ridley Scott), CITY LIGHTS (1932, Charles Chaplin), METROPOLIS (1927, Fritz Lang) and SUNRISE: A SONG OF TWO HUMANS (1927, Fritz Lang). So I reckon I'll have myself a little Fritz Fest once I've watched my way through the rest of The Sevens (having already seen Chuck and Ridley's pix), then on to the Six Flicks!

Summertime, and the livin' is movie...

Scenes From A Parish (and Filmwell)

Soul Food Movies friend Jeffrey Overstreet called to let me know about Filmwell, a movie site featuring writers Mike Hertenstein (Flickerings/Cornerstone), Mike Leary (film-think), Jason Morehead (opus), Jeffrey Overstreet (Looking Closer) and Alissa Wilkinson (Curator)). My first visit yields this tip from the artist formerly known as (M)Leary: currently in earliest stages of release, playing around Boston, but now we know to watch for it. The trailer shows that somebody behind a camera had a good eye...


(My favourite quote from the trailer: "I had a grandmother that, she came from Canada. And she could hardly speak English. But she made herself understood." I'm inspired: time to get over to the community centre and re-enroll in that American as a Second Language night class...)

Fierce Light opens this week in Vancouver

Off the top of my head, Velcrow Ripper is a Vancouver filmmaker who travels the world making documentaries about spiritual stuff. SCARED SACRED played the VIFF a few years ago, and this one opens in Vancouver this week. I don't know if it comes from the WHAT THE BLEEP DO WE KNOW end of the spectrum, or the Sojourners end of the spectrum, so let the popcorn buyer beware...

"Fueled by the belief that another world is possible, acclaimed filmmaker Velcrow Ripper takes us on inspiring journey into what Martin Luther King called Love in Action, and Gandhi called Soul Force; what Ripper is calling Fierce Light. Illustrated by interviews with spiritual luminaries Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Thich Nhat Hanh; and activists including Alice Walker, and Julia Butterfly Hill - FIERCE LIGHT is a spiritual experience in itself, about the impact and the necessity of spiritual action in today's world." IMDb

"Is Anybody There?" opens this week

I've not seen this, but judging from the descriptions, it's maybe a thematic companion piece to SUNSHINE CLEANING?

"Set in 1980s seaside England, this is the story of Edward, an unusual ten year old boy growing up in an old people's home run by his parents. Whilst his mother struggles to keep the family business afloat, and his father copes with the onset of mid-life crisis, Edward is busy tape-recording the elderly residents to try and discover what happens when they die. Increasingly obsessed with ghosts and the afterlife, Edward's is a rather lonely existence until he meets Clarence, the latest recruit to the home, a retired magician with a liberating streak of anarchy...." IMDb

Opens this week in Vancouver

WISE BLOOD (1979, USA, John Huston)

WISE BLOOD (1979, USA, John Huston, Benedict & Michael Fitzgerald from Flannery O'Connor novel)
"That belief in Christ is to some a matter of life and death has been a stumbling block for readers who would prefer to think it a matter of no great consequence. For them Hazel Motes' integrity lies in his trying with such vigor to get rid of the ragged figure who moves from tree to tree in the back of his mind. For the author Hazel's integrity lies in his not being able to." Flannery O'Connor

Critic Jonathan Rosenbaum writes that this is conceivably John Huston's best film, certainly his finest adaptation. While not widely seen, it was widely celebrated by critics for its unfailing faithfulness to what might seem an unfilmable novel – the screenwriter (see also Mel Gibson's Passion) and producer are sons of Robert and Sally Fitzgerald: Dad was O'Connor's literary executor, Mom the editor of the collected letters. Virtually all the dialogue is lifted directly from the page, and it plays well, at times authentic or bizarre, evocative and poetic, or downright funny. Motes swaps his faith in Jesus for faith in an absurdly broken-down car, and confidently proclaims "Nobody with a good car needs to be justified" as the radiator water pours straight through the rusted shell and onto the ground.

A strikingly boyish Brad Dourif is perfection in the central role, bringing an unadorned naivete that combines with a rat-like nastiness to create an unsentimental, multi-layered performance utterly suited to one of O'Connor's most uncompromising, confounding creations. (Intriguing to learn that Dourif ends up as Grima Wormtongue in Jackson's Lord Of The Rings trilogy, and – this is trivia, now – the baddie in Myst III, a groundbreaking computer game). Where another actor might have "played crazy," his work is uncluttered and direct, an earnest drivenness that will not be deterred – ideal in a film that is essentially about a man on the run from his divine calling. In Mystery And Manners the novelist writes "while the South is hardly Christ-centered, it is most certainly Christ-haunted," and Hazel Motes is the ultimate embodiment of that. Even a charlatan of a blind street evangelist can smell it on him: "Some preacher's left his mark on you. Did you follow me for me to take it off or to give you another one?"

John Huston himself plays Hazel's hellfire and brimstone grandfather in lurid flashbacks, and there are other strong performances in the key roles as well as in a number of the peripheral parts. I usually find that non-professional actors detract from the believability of the scene by their self-consciousness, the constant awareness that they are acting. Here that's simply not so: the amateurs are almost without exception both authentic and believable, and add an almost documentary quality that echoes some of the photography, such as the unforgettable opening montage of billboards, gravestones and even Dairy Queen signs that proclaim sin and redemption.

These elements all remain strong decades after the film was made. Others have aged poorly. One wishes Huston had retained the 1940s setting: late-Seventies details jar, and the musical soundtrack – unremarked on in its day, as far as I can tell – is a problem. While humour is essential to O'Connor's voice – she remarks that her tongue is always in her cheek – there are times when the wacky soundtrack is more suited to Green Acres or Hee Haw than a film where the comic turns need a certain ironic, sometimes tragic bite. She's playing for keeps, but too often this music is playing for laughs: imagine the sequence where Hazel's car drives down the hill in silence instead of to the accompaniment of "ain't this cute" banjoes for a sense of the impact such scenes could have had.

Flannery O'Connor is a literary and spiritual force the twentieth century had to reckon with, and her enthusiasts – there are many – should make the effort to seek out this rare film. They won't need to be warned that it's odd, grotesque, eccentric, perhaps even unsatisfying. Lauded by critics and avoided by movie-goers on its initial release, that's just how Ms O'Connor would probably have wanted it. As she herself wrote, "Art never responds to the wish to make it democratic; it is not for everybody; it is only for those who are willing to undergo the effort needed to understand it."

THE APOSTLE


Released May 2009 on Criterion
Coming soon to Videomatica

May 6-10: TROUBLE THE WATER at Cinematheque

haven't time to dig into it right now, but wanted you to know about TROUBLE THE WATER before it's gone. seems to me there's a god angle on this one...

TROUBLE THE WATER
Pacific Cinematheque
Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - 7:30pm
Thursday, May 7, 2009 - 9:15pm
Friday, May 8, 2009 - 7:30pm
Saturday, May 9, 2009 - 7:30pm
Saturday, May 9, 2009 - 9:20pm
Sunday, May 10, 2009 - 9:15pm

Named Best Documentary at Sundance, nominated for the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature, and picked as one of the ten best films of 2008 by critics at The New Yorker, Entertainment Weekly and Politico.com, the extraordinary Trouble the Water offers a unique first-person, from-the-floodwaters account of heroism and hopelessness during the Katrina disaster.

"What divine inspiration moved Kimberly Rivers Roberts, an aspiring rap artist [as Black Kold Madina] and toweringly self-possessed woman from New Orleans’ Ninth Ward, to grab her Hi8 camcorder and document the onslaught of Hurricane Katrina as it smashed up her neighborhood? And what grace brought Roberts to the attention of Tia Lessin and Carl Deal, filmmakers who, like so many others, went to Louisiana after the levees broke? Whatever the cosmic luck, the result, Trouble the Water, is essential, unique viewing: a stunning experience of the hurricane and its aftermath, rooted in immediate personal response and emotions that encapsulate the full national catastrophe" (Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly).

Time’s Richard Corliss included Roberts on his list of top ten movie performances of 2008, calling her "a real-life heroine...the star, and in a way the director, of this soul-roiling nonfiction film...Just look at the good she did, the person she is, in this movie. Amazing."

"The year’s most riveting documentary film...It is also a stirring rebuttal of the ‘objectivity’ mandate in news reporting" (Rob Nelson, Minneapolis Star Tribune). Colour, 35mm. 93 mins.

"Superb...One of the best American documentaries in recent memory."
New York Times

"Extraordinary...Has a desperate urgency that surpasses any other news and doc footage I have seen."
Chicago Sun Times

"Starkly surreal...A first-person disaster movie...An eyewitness epic of history in miniature."
Village Voice

May 8: Egoyan's ADORATION opens in Vancouver

A PSA From E1 Entertainment Canada 

ADORATION opens May 8: Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal

Winner of the Ecumenical Jury Prize at the 2008 Cannes International Film Festival, ADORATION is Atom Egoyan’s twelfth feature film and furthers the themes of his 25 extraordinary years of filmmaking. ADORATION speaks to our connections---with each other, with our family history, with technology and with the modern world.

When Sabine (Arsinée Khanjian), a high school French teacher, gives her class a translation exercise based on a real news story about a terrorist who plants a bomb in the airline luggage of his pregnant girlfriend, the assignment has a profound effect on one student, Simon (Devon Bostick). Years ago, Simon's father Sami (Noam Jenkins) crashed the family car, killing both himself and his wife, Rachel (Blanchard), leaving Simon to be raised by his well-meaning uncle (Scott Speedman). In the course of translating, Simon re-imagines that the news item is his own family's story and casts himself as the son of the terrorist standing in for his father. His resulting claims about the deaths of his father and mother stir up a storm that splashes over the edges of his own life and into communities both local and virtual.

Atom Egoyan is an Oscar-nominated, internationally renowned filmmaker. He was born in Cairo and raised in Victoria, British Columbia. He studied international relations and classical guitar at the University of Toronto. In addition to filmmaking, he has created works for the theatre and for interdisciplinary art installations, including his piece Auroras, which was part of the 2007 Luminato Festival in Toronto. His films, many of which have received several of the cinema's most prestigious awards, include Next of Kin (1984), Family Viewing (1987), Speaking Parts (1989), The Adjuster (1991), Calendar (1993), Exotica (1994), The Sweet Hereafter (1997), Felicia's Journey (1999), Krapp's Last Tape (2000), Ararat(2002) and Where the Truth Lies (2005). He recently wrapped production on the erotic thriller Chloe starring Liam Neeson, Julianne Moore and Amanda Seyfried.

34 Films I DO Want To See Before i Die

After messing around with the new edition of Steven Jay Schneider's "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die," I started compiling a few other such lists, to see who agreed on what. The highest the brows got was the definitive 2002 Sight & Sound poll of critics' and directors' Top Ten Lists; the most populist, the IMDb Top 250 (as of April 23, 2009), which is open to anybody who feels like voting (but does pool the ratings of hundreds of thousands of viewers). In between, British film critic John Walker's 2002 volume "Halliwell's Top 1000: The Ultimate Movie Countdown" (because it's on my shelf), and the films Roger Ebert has so far included in his series "The Great Movies" (never intended as a definitive list, but a darn fine selection nevertheless). A new film friend also pointed me to "They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?", a director-oriented fan site that has compiled about a billion lists in an effort to come up with some sort of definitive canon - though I will say it contains as many eccentric choices as Walker's Anglo-centric thirties/forties valentine.


Thirty-four films appear on all six lists. Quite an accomplishment, given the widely varying nature of the sources. Here they are.

2001 - A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick / 1968 / UK)
The 400 Blows ("Les Quatre cents coups") (Francois Truffaut / 1959 / France)
8 1/2 (Federico Fellini / 1963 / Italy)
The Apartment (Billy Wilder / 1960 / USA)
Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola / 1979 / USA)
The Bicycle Thief ("Ladri di biciclette") (Vittorio De Sica / 1948 / Italy)
Blade Runner (Ridley Scott / 1982 / USA)
Casablanca (Michael Curtiz / 1942 / USA)
Chinatown (Roman Polanski / 1974 / USA)
Citizen Kane (Orson Welles / 1941 / USA)
City Lights (Charles Chaplin / 1931 / USA)
The Godfather Part II (Francis Ford Coppola / 1974 / USA)
The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola / 1972 / USA)
Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean / 1962 / UK)
M (Fritz Lang / 1931 / Germany)
Metropolis (Fritz Lang / 1927 / Germany)
On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan / 1954 / USA)
Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock / 1960 / USA)
Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese / 1980 / USA)
Ran (Akira Kurosawa / 1985 / Japan)
Rashomon (Akira Kurusawa / 1951 / Japan)
The Seven Samurai ("Shichinin no samurai") (Akira Kurosawa / 1954 / Japan)
The Seventh Seal ("Det sjunde inseglet") (Ingmar Bergman / 1957 / Sweden)
Singin' in the Rain (Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly / 1952 / USA)
Some Like It Hot (Billy Wilder / 1959 / USA)
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (F.W. Murnau / 1927 / USA)
Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder / 1950 / USA)
Sweet Smell of Success (Alexander Mackendrick / 1957 / USA)
Taxi Driver ( Martin Scorsese / 1976 / USA)
The Third Man (Carol Reed / 1949 / UK)
ATouch of Evil (Orson Welles / 1958 / USA)
The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre (John Huston / 1948 / USA)
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock / 1958 / USA)
The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming / 1939 / USA)

Nice list. A person could do worse.


I've seen just over half of them. And it just so happens I'm at a point right now where my Soul Food Movies book is on the back burner - well, on a back shelf of the fridge, to be more precise, or maybe somebody's even moved the darn thing to the freezer so it doesn't go bad - and I've got me a hankerin' to watch some just plain old good movies this summer, whether they're soul food candidates or not.

So I've reorganized my Videomatica queue and gettin' historical. I'll start with the Billy Wilders, since one of my movie buddies counts THE APARTMENT as his all-time fave. Then I'll hit the flicks that show up all the time on another list-making pal's quarterly Hot 100 list, beginning with RAN and RASHOMON. Then THE BICYCLE THIEF because it's high on my newest film friend's Top 100. And once I work my way through the rest of those six-out-of-sixers, I might even check out whatever catches my eye among the list 25 titles that crashed five of the six list-making parties...

Amarcord (Federico Fellini / 1973 / Italy)
L'Atalante (Jean Vigo / 1934 / France)
L'Avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni / 1960 / Italy)
Battleship Potemkin  (Sergei Eisenstein / 1925 / Russia)
Breathless ("A Bout de Souffle") (Jean-Luc Godard /1960 /France)
La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini / 1960 / Italy)
Les Enfants du Paradis ("Children of Paradise") (Marcel Carné / 1945 / France)
Fanny and Alexander (Ingmar Bergman / 1982 / Sweden)
Grand Illusion (Jean Renoir / 1937 / France)
Greed (Erich von Stroheim / 1924 / USA)
Jules and Jim (François Truffaut / 1962 / France)
Modern Times (Charles Chaplin / 1936 / USA)
Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone / 1968 / USA)
Ordet (Carl Theodor Dreyer / 1957 / Denmark)
Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer / 1928 / France)
Pather Panchali (The Apu Trilogy) (Satyajit Ray / 1955 / India)
Persona (Ingmar Bergman /1966 / Sweden)
Pickpocket (Robert Bresson / 1959 / France)
Rules of the Game  ("La Régle du jeu") (Jean Renoir / 1939 / France)
Sansho The Bailiff ("Sanshô Dayû") (Kenji Mizoguchi /1954 / Japan)
The Searchers (John Ford / 1956 / USA)
La Strada (Federico Fellini / 1954 / Italy)
Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu / 1953 / Japan)
Ugetsu ("Ugetsu Monogatari") (Kenji Mizoguchi / 1953 / Japan)
Wild Strawberries  (Ingmar Bergman / 1957 / Sweden)

My cinephile summer.

Chesterton, "Stage, Screen, and History"

"The second fact to remember is a certain privilege almost analogous to monopoly, which belongs of necessity to things like the theatre and cinema. In a sense more than the metaphorical, they fill the stage; they dominate the scene; they create the landscape. That is why one need not be Puritanical to insist on a somewhat stricter responsibility in all sorts of play-acting than in the looser and less graphic matter of literature. If a man is repelled by one book, he can shut it and open another; but he cannot shut up a theatre in which he finds a show repulsive, nor instantly order one of a thousand other theatres to suit his taste. There are a limited number of theatres; and even to cinemas there is some limit. Hence there is a real danger of historical falsehood being popularized through the film, because there is not the normal chance of one film being corrected by another film. When a book appears displaying a doubtful portrait of Queen Elizabeth, it will generally be found that about six other historical students are moved to publish about six other versions of Queen Elizabeth at the same moment. We can buy Mr. Belloc's book on Cromwell, and then Mr. Buchan's book on Cromwell; and pay our money and take our choice. But few of us are in a position to pay the money required to stage a complete and elaborately presented alternative film-version of Disraeli. The fiction on the film, the partisan version in the movie-play, will go uncontradicted and even uncriticized, in a way in which few provocative books can really go uncontradicted and uncriticized. There will be no opportunity of meeting it on its own large battlefield of expansive scenario and multitudinous repetition. And most of those who are affected by it will know or care very little about its being brought to book by other critics and critical methods. The very phrase I have casually used, `brought to book', illustrates the point. A false film might be refuted in a hundred books, without much affecting the million dupes who had never read the books but only seen the film."

Thanks to Peter Chattaway for that. And thanks to Rosie for the exact source;

As I Was Saying
By Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Published by Dodd, Mead, & Company, 1936
page 191

May 3 / Jun 6: animator Ken Priebe on faith & film

Ken is a local animator who also writes for Hollywood Jesus. Ken wrote the book on stop-motion animation - quite literally. Until I add contact info to this, if you might be interested in attending either event, email me or post a response here and i"ll pass it on to Ken.

I know it's short notice but just thought I'd let you know I'm giving the morning message at Cedar Park Church in Ladner this weekend, Sunday May 3 10:40am. It's on 'Faith & Film: Taking God's Detour' and centers around the Pixar movie CARS.

It's partly a kick-off for my upcoming animation festival, also at Cedar Park on Sat June 6. The festival will consist of workshops & family activities in the afternoon, a short film screening, then a BBQ and an evening presentation I'll be giving on 'Animation as an Act of Worship', talking about spiritual themes in movies like PINOCCHIO and THE IRON GIANT, etc.

Ken Priebe

55 Films You No Longer Need To See Before You Die

First Edition : 2003
Reprint : 2004

Bookstore the other day, saw the new edition of Steven Jay Schneider's "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die." Got to thinking, This is the fifth edition? Still only 1001 films I have to see before I snuff it? So which ones have been deemed less-than-obligatory since the first edition, five years ago?

Second Edition : 2005

Turns out there are 55 flicks that made it into one or more of the previous volumes, but which are no longer required viewing in advance of your funeral. (That's a load off my mind!) And because I feel obliged to inflict my opinions whenever possible, I'll boldface the titles that would have stayed in there had I been in charge...

THE CASUALTIES:

55 FILMS YOU NO LONGER NEED TO SEE BEFORE YOU DIE

À ma soeur! (2001)

A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001)

The Accidental Tourist (1988)

Adaptation (2002)

The Age of Innocence (1993)

Ali Zaoua, Prince of the Streets (2000)

Attack the Gas Station (1999)

The Aviator (2004)

Babel (2006)

The Barbarian Invasions (2003)

The Big Lebowski (1998)

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

Bus 174 (2002)

Caché (2005)

Candyman (1992)

The Captive (2000)

Chicago (2002)

Children of Men (2006)

Collateral (2004)

The Constant Gardener (2005)

Deconstructing Harry (1997)

Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

Far from Heaven (2002)

Fast, Cheap and Out of Control (1997)

Gangs of New York (2002)

Gohatto (1999)

Hero (2002)

The Idiots (1998)

Kundun (1997)

The Last King of Scotland (2006)

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)

Lost in Translation (2003)

Million Dollar Baby (2004)

Monsoon Wedding (2001)

Mother and Son (1997)

Mulholland Dr. (2001)

Nine Queens (2000)

O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)

The Piano Teacher (2001)

The Pillow Book (1996)

The Prestige (2006)

Rosetta (1999)

Russian Ark (2002)

Signs and Wonders (2000)

Sombre (1998)

The Son's Room (2001)

Strange Days (1995)

Tetsuo (1998)

Time Regained (1999)

United 93 (2006)

A Very Long Engagement (2004)

Volver (2006)

What Time Is It There? (2001)

The Wind Will Carry Us (1999)

Y Tu Mamá También (2001)

Third Edition : 2006

Curiously, there's also a handful of films that made it in at some point, then got cut, only to be reinstated. Lucky films! To those in bold I proffer my hearty shouts of assent.

RESURRECTIONS

Audition (1999)

City of God (2002) 

Kill Bill, Vol. 1 (2003)

The Passion of the Christ (2004) 

Talk to Her (2002)

Fourth Edition : 2007

But now the time has come to get down to it. Our main theme. Our magnificent obsession. Our raisin d'eater, at this, our soulfoodmovies blog. So here they are - the slightly more than 100

SOUL FOOD MOVIES

(more or less - "more" being determined by me, indicated by boldface)

that Mr Schneider figures

YOU OUGHT TO SEE, THIS SIDE OF ETERNITY....

Intolerance (1916)

Metropolis (1927)

Sunrise (1927)

La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc (1928)

The Awful Truth (1937)

Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)

Sergeant York (1941)

How Green Was My Valley (1941)

Cat People (1942)

I Walked with a Zombie (1943)

Roma, città aperta (1945)

Paisà (1946)

Black Narcissus (1946)

It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

Diary of a Country Priest (1951)

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

Ikiru (1952)

Voyage in Italy (1953)

Shane (1953)

On the Waterfront (1954)

La Strada (1954)

Pather Panchali (1955)

Ordet (1955)

The Night of the Hunter (1955)

The Wrong Man (1956)

The Ten Commandments (1956)

The Seventh Seal (1957)

Wild Strawberries (1957)

The Nights of Cabiria (1957)

Aparajito (1957)

Ben-Hur (1959)

Pickpocket (1959)

La Dolce Vita (1960)

Through a Glass Darkly (1961)

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Winter Light (1963)

The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964)

Au Hasard Balthazar (1966)

Cool Hand Luke (1967)

My Night at Maud's (1969)

Andrei Rublev (1969)

The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970)

The Sorrow and the Pity (1971)

Solaris (1972)

The Godfather (1972)

The Wicker Man (1973)

The Exorcist (1973)

Dersu Uzala (1974)

The Godfather Part II (1974)

Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)

The Last Wave (1977)

The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978)

Days of Heaven (1978)

Stalker (1979)

All That Jazz (1979)

Life of Brian (1979)

The Elephant Man (1980)

Chariots of Fire (1981)

Blade Runner (1982)

Gandhi (1982)

The Night of the Shooting Stars (1982)

Koyaanisqatsi (1983)

Amadeus (1984)

The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)

Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)

Wings of Desire (1987)

Babette's Feast (1987)

The Decalogue (1988)

Alice (1988)

Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)

The Killer (1989)

Jacob's Ladder (1990)

Close-Up (1990)

The Rapture (1991)

Unforgiven (1992)

Groundhog Day (1993)

Trois Couleurs: Bleu (1993)

Schindler's List (1993)

Trois Couleurs: Rouge (1994)

Forrest Gump (1994)

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Sátántangó (1994)

Clueless (1995)

Smoke (1995)

Breaking the Waves (1996)

Festen (1998)

Lola Rennt (1998)

Magnolia (1999)

Beau Travail (1999)

Fight Club (1999)

The Wind Will Carry Us (1999)

American Beauty (1999)

The Matrix (1999)

The Sixth Sense (1999)

The Gleaners and I (2000)

Kippur (2000)

O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)

Yi Yi (2000)

Dancer in the Dark (2000)

Le Fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain (2001)

The Lord of the Rings (2001, 2002 & 2003)

The Passion of the Christ (2004)

Apocalypto (2006)

Pan's Labyrinth (2006)

No Country for Old Men (2007)

Into the Wild (2007)

Atonement (2007)

Fifth Edition : 2008

This post is dedicated to Dave Smith. 

Who, as it turns out, is actually a Norman.

hunger

David Denby:

In HUNGER, the British video artist Steve McQueen has made an imposing feature-length movie that attempts to equal the discipline and fanaticism of his real-world subjects - IRA fighters who, incarcerated in Maze Prison in Northern Ireland, went on a hunger strike in 1981.... The movie's preoccupations are as much religious, even sacerdotal, as political.... For much of the movie, an intense silence reigns, interrupted by outbursts of furious brutality against the naked prisoners....

HUNGER moves inexorably to the last stage of this Passion play: Bobby Sands, starving himself for sixty-six days and slowly dying as he lies spread out naked on a bed. Earlier, in a powerfully written conversation, Father Dominic Moran, a tough Catholic priest, accuses Sands of not loving life, of having lost touch with the world or any rational political purpose. Father Moran is exactly right, but the movie takes the opposite view - that the men are sacred in their anguish.

In the end...I was awed but not moved by HUNGEr. Sands is a violent man who dies in the service of a dubious cause and on a cross of his own choosing. He's a Christ without humanity, and McQueen's aestheticization of his suffering and death becomes borderline creepy.

The New Yorker, March 30, 2009

NOW PLAYING: Big Screens

SF

One church to go to this Easter Weekend is the Imax at Canada Place: U23D, services nightly at 8pm (Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter Sunday only). Opening Good Friday, running through Apr 13 is LA DOLCE VITA (Cinematheque): "a three-hour masterpiece that shows one man's descent into the sweet life of debauchery... Sprinkled with religious images and gestures at salvation" (Cinemaclock). Carole and I savoured CHERRY BLOSSOMS (opens Easter weekend at VanCity): don't read any write-ups, better to experience this film as it comes to you: suffice it to say, a late-middle-aged couple, as distanced from their children as any in Ozu, as distanced from their lives as anyone in IKIRU, face death and, finally, travel to Japan. Stick around for the more-or-less Easter-themed late show at VanCity, Monty Python's LIFE OF BRIAN: "Always look on the bright side."

Langley's Twilight Drive-In might just be the perfect place to see Scott Derrickson's THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (remake of the 1951 sf classic), especially now that spring's sprung. DOUBT, GRAN TORINO and THE WRESTLER soldier on at Granville 7, with the first two also showing up at the Hollywood.


NSF

SUNSHINE CLEANING has opened at Tinseltown and the Park. Pettily, I resent the filmmakers' compulsion to remind us it's "from the folks who brought you LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE" - can a title be product placement? Still, a film I want to see: LMS with body bags.

CORALINE continues three dimensionally at Tinseltown, flat everywhere else. FROST/NIXON visit The Hollywood, GOMORRAH has opened at the Fifth, where THE READER carries on reading.

shall we kiss?

Nathan Lane:
There are two stories here, one framed inside the other - a very nineteenth-century device. In the outer on, a picture-framer (his profession is no accident) begs a woman he barely knows for "a kiss without consequences." In refusing, she tells him the cautionary tale of Nicolas, who, lacking affection, suggests to a married friend named Judith that she meet his needs. This being Paris, Judith concurs, and, as you might expect, the no-strings encounter turns out to be tied up in strings of every sort. ...what we learn, as the jokes fade from the movie in the second half, is that beneath Mouret's goofy ditherings is an unremitting moralist, gripped by the ethics of temptation. ... SHALL WE KISS? puts its viewers in a bind worthy of the lovers themselves: should we organize a Socratic symposium on the issues raised by the film, or hurl our popcorn violently at the screen?
New Yorker, April 6, 2009

Of course, one man's moralizing is another man's meat. Wonder how Nat feels about other Moral Tales? He may be right, of course, but his antipathy piques my curiosity.

FFCC Award Winners

2009 Faith & Film Critics Circle Award Winners

Most Significant Exploration of Spiritual Themes
Winner: Silent Light
"Cycling image by image through the idea of things being revealed and unveiled, the time-lapse Genesis imagery that sets the film in motion culminates in a theologically rich network of visual and thematic allusions – as if Regygada’s natural cinematography needs an additional shove towards the transcendental." (M. Leary, Think-Film)
Runner-up: Doubt
Also nominated: The Dark Knight, In Bruges, Slumdog Millionaire

Best Narrative Film
Winner: Slumdog Millionaire
"The story explores the deepest themes of life, from loyalty and love to betrayal and despair. The redemptive nature of the film is seen in the title itself as Jamal travels an unexpected road which prepares him for the questions he will be asked on the television show. That love is possible in even a 'slumdog’s' life is a message of hope that speaks to a world where the majority of humanity lives in poverty." (Hal Conklin and Denny Wayman, Cinema in Focus)
Runner-up: Silent Light
Also nominated: Happy-Go-Lucky, Paranoid Park, WALL-E

Best Documentary
Winner: At the Death House Door
"Pickett's odyssey makes for an incredible story. One of the executions he had to preside over was of a man who killed a popular parishioner during a prison riot. Watching Pickett negotiate, even in memory, the complex of emotions that his job has forced him to reconcile, I was struck by how the film begins with the political and moves to the spiritual. Like Plato's Republic, which cannot answer the question "What is Justice?" without describing the perfect society, At the Death House Door begins with a seemingly simple, direct question and shows how hopelessly complicated the simplest questions can be." (Kenneth R. Morefield, from his 2008 top 10 list)
Runner-up: Man on Wire
Also nominated: Encounters at the End of the World, Pray the Devil Back to Hell, Young@Heart

Best Film for the Whole Family
Winner: WALL-E
"While the film’s themes of consumerism and environmental carelessness are unmistakable, unduly political spin on the film is probably more related to election-year hypersensitivity than the film itself. WALL‑E is not about left or right, liberal or conservative. Rather, it is about living thoughtfully, about what traditional Christian language calls good stewardship of resources and the environment." (Steven D. Greydanus, Decent Films)
Runner-up: More Than a Game
Also nominated: City of Ember, Horton Hears a Who, Kung Fu Panda, The Spiderwick Chronicles


Faith & Film Critics Circle Members
Steven D. Greydanus
Ron Reed
Peter T. Chattaway
Frederica Mathewes-Green
Mike Hertenstein
Josh Hurst
Josh Larsen
Darrel Manson
Brett McCracken
Ken Morefield
Jeffrey Overstreet
Matt Page
J. Robert Parks
Robert Johnston
Catherine Barsotti
Denny Wayman
Jared Wheeler
Visit the FFCC site for links to all FFCC members

valkyrie (2008, USA, Bryan Singer)

No Scientology, but not much Christian faith either. Dietrich Bonhoeffer doesn't even get a walk-on! A regrettable compromise.

"Before shooting had even been completed on director Bryan Singer's VALKYRIE - an account of the failed attempt by Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg and members of the German resistance to assassinate Hitler - the film threatened to become overshadowed by the storm of controversy it had provoked in the German media. Much of the furore centred around the casting of Tom Cruise as Stauffenberg, with the actor's professing of scientology (categorized as a 'dangerous cult' by the German government) central to most concerns. A spokesman for the German Protestant church went so far as to say Cruise's involvement would 'have the same propaganda advantages for scientology as the 1936 Olympics had for the Nazis.'

"The first half of the film is careful to explain the background influences that led Stauffenberg and the other members of the resistance to risk the assassination attempt. There was a strong class aspect to the resistance. Men like Stauffenberg were drawn from the aristocratic Prussian military class and viewed the Nazis as a bunch of thugs led by a lowly Austrian corporal. 'Stauffenberg came from a 900-year-old family who had served kings,' says Singer. 'He had great pride in the longevity of Germany as a great nation. These people were not Nazis, they had never been party members.'

"Stauffenberg was also a Catholic, something only touched on in the film 'I wasn't making a biopic,' Singer clarifies. 'It was important for me that the film be a thriller about the assassination attempt. I left out anything that didn't help to get us to the assassination. His Catholicism was just one facet of his drive.'"

excerpted from James Bell's article "Deadly Knowledge," Sight & Sound, February 2009

So this ain't no SOPHIE SCHOLL. Which means there's still a great Soul Food movie to be made - screenwriters of the world, Arise! Until then, for all the details Hollywood skipped, Videomatica has the dull-as-dumplings doc KILLING HITLER: THE TRUE STORY OF THE VALKYRIE PLOT.

Mar 15: POP SWITCH premiere screening

Jason Goode is a PT guy - acted in some Stones Throw shows, most recently TWIGS (he was the furniture mover) - who makes films. THE HITCHHIKER was penned by our Literary Manager, Kathy Parsons, and starred Gina Chiarelli. Well, his new one - scribed by and starring Lucia Frangione, also starring Michael Kopsa and Duncan Fraser - is ready to go! If you want to get the look, here's the dope...


(Don't worry about the RSVP date. Just let them know as soon as you can.)

Film & Faith Critics Circle Nominees

The nominees are:

BEST EXPLORATION OF SPIRITUAL THEMES:
The Dark Knight
Doubt
In Bruges
Silent Light
Slumdog Millionaire

BEST NARRATIVE FILM
Happy-Go-Lucky
Paranoid Park
Silent Light
Slumdog Millionaire
Wall-E

BEST DOCUMENTARY
At the Death House Door
Encounter at the End of the World
Man on Wire
Pray the Devil Back to Hell
Young @ Heart

BEST FILM FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY
City of Ember
Horton Hears a Who
Kung Fu Panda
More of a Game
The Spiderwork Chrinicles
Wall-E

Apr 3: THE TRIAL OF JOAN OF ARC, Pacific Cinematheque

Trial of Joan of Arc 

with actress Florence Delay Carrez in attendance (!)

Pacific Cinematheque

Friday April 3, 7:30pm

France 1962. Director: Robert Bresson
Cast: Florence Carrez (Florence Delay), Jean-Claude Fourneau, Marc Jacquier, Roger Honorat, Jean Gillibert
Pacific Cinémathèque and the Consulate General of France are pleased to present a Special Film Evening.

FLORENCE DELAY IN PERSON! │ Novelist, actress, distinguished member of the Académie française, and star of Bresson’s 1962 masterpiece Trial of Joan of Arc.

IMPORTED 35mm PRINT! │ One of film’s giants, Robert Bresson was master of a spare, rigorous, intensely metaphysical cinema (famously called "transcendental" by Paul Schrader) that explored, with rare poetry and purity, the human struggle for grace and redemption. His startling, searing take on one of cinema’s most filmed stories is based — like Dreyer’s 1929 silent masterpiece, The Passion of Joan of Arc — on the actual transcripts of Joan's trial, here distilled into the very essence of the spare Bressonian aesthetic, and focusing with unsettling power on Joan’s physical humiliation. (British critic Gilbert Adair has described the film as "Bresson’s essay in sadomasochistic voyeurism.") Trial of Joan of Arc won a Jury Special Prize at Cannes in 1962, and was much admired by the filmmakers of French New Wave, and by Tarkovsky, who cited it as a formative influence. "Perhaps the ultimate expression of Bresson’s unique cinematic voice...In the austere documenting of Joan's imprisonment and trial, physical objects — chains, stones, wall, windows — become metaphors for her spiritual isolation and sounds — the scratching of a pen during her hearing — contribute to the minimalist musicality of the experience" (James Monaco). "For the first time in film history, one feels that Joan was really burnt" (Richard Roud). B&W, 35mm, in French with English subtitles. 65 mins.

"Bresson...creates one of the greatest female characters ever put on celluloid." BBC

Trailer

Japanese poster

Mar 4: Horton Foote Has Died

My favourite film is TENDER MERCIES, and another followed soon after which made a very personal connection with me, TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL. Both are by Horton Foote, whose exquisitely understated studies of "just plain folks," mostly Texans, makes me think of him as the American Chekhov. Maybe it's time to do something of his at Pacific Theatre...

Horton Foote on the set of “The Traveling Lady”

at the Mabee Theatre at Baylor University in February 2004.

New York Times
March 4, 2009
Horton Foote Has Died

Horton Foote, who chronicled America’s wistful odyssey through the 20th century in plays and films mostly set in a small town in Texas and left a literary legacy as one of the country’s foremost storytellers, died in Hartford, Conn., on Wednesday. He was 92, said his daughter, Hallie Foote.

In screenplays for such movies as “Tender Mercies,” “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “The Trip to Bountiful,” and in plays like “The Young Man From Atlanta” and his nine-play cycle “The Orphans’ Home,” Mr. Foote depicted the way ordinary people shoulder the ordinary burdens of life, finding drama in the resilience by which they carry on in the face of change, economic hardship, disappointment, loss and death. His work earned him a Pulitzer Prize and two Academy Awards.

Here is a portion of his obituary, written by Wilborn Hampton; the complete version will be posted at nytimes.com Wednesday evening.

In a body of work for which he won the Pulitzer Prize and two Oscars, Mr. Foote was known as a writer’s writer, an author who never abandoned his vision or altered his simple, homespun style even when Broadway and Hollywood temporarily turned their backs on him.

In screenplays for such movies as “Tender Mercies,” “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “The Trip to Bountiful,” and in plays like “The Young Man From Atlanta” and his nine-play cycle “Orphans’ Home,” Mr. Foote depicted the way ordinary people shoulder the ordinary burdens of life, finding drama in the resilience by which they carry on in the face of change, economic hardship, disappointment, loss and death. His work earned him a Pulitzer Prize and two Academy Awards.

Frank Rich, who as theater critic of The New York Times was one of Mr. Foote’s champions, called him “one of America’s living literary wonders.” Mr. Rich wrote that his plays contained “a subtlety that suggests a collaboration between Faulkner and Chekhov.”

Mr. Foote, in a 1986 interview in The New York Times Magazine, said: “I believe very deeply in the human spirit and I have a sense of awe about it because I don’t know how people carry on. What makes the difference in people? What is it? I’ve known people that the world has thrown everything at to discourage them, to kill them, to break their spirit. And yet something about them retains a dignity. They face life and don’t ask quarters.”

Mr. Foote spent most of his life writing about such people in a simple, homespun style. In more than 50 plays and films, most of which were set in the fictiional town of Harrison, Texas, he charted their struggle through the century by recording the daily, familial conflicts that filled their lives.

He often seemed to resemble a character from one of his own plays. Always courteous and courtly, he spoke with a slow Texas drawl. He enjoyed good food and wine but would usually opt for barbecue and iced tea or fried chicken with a Dr Pepper when he was home in Texas. He was a jovial man with a wry humor, and his white hair and robust frame gave him the appearance of a Southern senator or one’s favorite uncle, the one who always had a story.

Albert Horton Foote Jr., one of three sons of Albert Horton Foote and the former Hallie Brooks, was born March 14, 1916, in Wharton, Texas, a small town about 40 miles southwest of Houston that was once surrounded by cotton fields. His father was a local haberdasher and his mother, who was from an old Southern family, taught piano.

Although he boarded a train for Dallas at the age of 16 to pursue a career as an actor, Mr. Foote never really left home. From his first efforts as a playwright, he returned again and again to set his plays and films amid the pecan groves and Victorian houses with large front porches on the tree-lined streets of Wharton. His inspiration came from the people he knew and the stories he heard growing up there. “I’ve spent my life listening,” Mr. Foote once said.

May 11-22 / Jul 27-31: Film courses at Regent

A reminder about a couple intriguing film courses coming up at Regent College. Check here for more details.