Tag Archives: Holocaust

Chronique d’un été [1961)

Capture capture capture.

Always capture the emotion of what you’ve just seen.

You have to take a piss?

It can wait.

[ok, sometimes it can’t]

But here it must wait.

Because Chronicle of a Summer is beyond the level of masterpiece.

For so long, I wanted to see a film of Jean Rouch.

Et voilà…ici!

Joined by another genius = Edgar Morin.

Where Nuit et brouillard fails, Chronique d’un été succeeds.

The reality (yes) of the Holocaust is in Marceline.

Marceline who does not want to sleep with an African.

Marceline with the concentration camp tattoo.

Marceline and her memories of her dear papa.

In this moment, the Holocaust becomes true.

We believe it…because it is not the same bullshit propaganda we have heard a million times.

Propaganda meant to amplify a truth can actually succeed (fail) in negating a truth.

Such is with the Holocaust.

It is where Spielberg fails with Schindler’s List.

It’s the Titanic of Holocaust historiography.

Titanic might be a good film (I believe it is), but it is certainly not cinema.

It is popcorn viewing.

That’s what Spielberg (of Jaws) did with the Jews.

He knew no other way.

He made a pop song out of Berg’s Violin Concerto.

Not even that.

Worse.

But Rouch (rouxsch) and Morin (more on, not moron) do the opposite.

Here we see all the techniques which would dominate the work of Jean-Luc Godard in the 1960s.

And Godard has admitted the debt to Rouch.

Ethnography.

What is that?

Ethnic and graphs?

Might be some false cognation in there.

But yes:  this is a film from the social sciences.

Morin, the sociologist.

Rouch, the anthropologist (always mentioned as an “ethnographic filmmaker”).

It you want to see a film that doesn’t suck, see this one.

It has everything.

But it is not forced.

It is Paris, but it is also Africa (Côte d’Ivoire, Belgian Congo, colonial Algeria, jungles, leaves over the “sex” [genitals]).

Yet, all of this is merely talked about.

We are taken there by dialogue.  Language.

Immigrants.  Africans.

High and low.

A Renault factory.  Saint-Tropez.

Up and down.

Youth happy because the sun is shining and they are young.

Elderly who have lost their spouses or siblings.

Down and up.

Immigrants from Italy.  Depression.  REAL FUCKING DEPRESSION.

But beauty.  La bohème.  Attic apartments.

Bullfighting.  Rock climbing.  Bananas.

Fruit and //furniture forgeries.

Cooked books.  Accounting irregularities.

Leisure.  The revolution of doing nothing. [or at least something surreal]

You can’t just buy one book and expect to have it tell you “how the French think”.

No, my friends…

You must work at it.

You must study for years.  Study a culture.

And that’s what I’ve done with the French.  Because I love them.

 

-PD

 

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Spalovač mrtvol [1969)

This is one of the strangest films I’ve ever seen.

The Cremator.

Directed by Juraj Herz.

Even if you are familiar with the Czechoslovak New Wave, this film will still take you by surprise.

It is a mélange of times and themes.

And truly a horror story.

But there is a Brechtian detachment at work.

This would explain labels such as “comedy horror”.

It’s perhaps more absurd and surreal than it is funny.

But it is certainly frightening.

A very creepy piece of cinema.

Everything revolves around a crematory official/director named Kopfrkingl.

That name alone is enough to jar the most languid viewer at each pronunciation.

Historically speaking, this was not a successful film upon release.

No, it was too weird to be incorporated into the Czechoslovak communist pantheon moving forward.  And so the world would have to wait until 1989 to get a look at this thing.

The whole film feels like a dream.

A bad dream.  With some particularly vivid violence.  [Or vintage violence.]

Mr. Kopfrkingl is a truly, outrageously delusional man.

And he only becomes more so as the film goes on.

Modern viewers might notice a bit of Eric Cartman in Rudolf Hrušínský’s performance as Kopfrkingl.

Seen behind an iconic ribbon microphone, Kopfrkingl invokes the manic strains of Hitler and we feel the sick surge of idiocy grab hold of our dear cremator.

The strangest part of Kopfrkingl’s delusion is his obsession with Tibet.

It makes me wonder whether David Lynch saw this prior to Twin Peaks?

Thubten Gyatso dies, and Hitler comes to power.

1933.

Based on a novel by Ladislav Fuks, this tale must be seen to be believed.

There are short-circuit edits akin to Sidney Lumet’s The Pawnbroker. 

Indeed, director Herz is himself Jewish.

Truth be told, there have been few films which deal with the Holocaust as effectively (if obliquely) as The Cremator

Every shot of Hrušínský from the back evokes the Peter Lorre of M. 

This is a thoroughly fascinating cinematic experience.

 

-PD

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Knight Without Armour [1937)

First, my apologies.

My apologies to every Jewish person I may have offended.

There is no good explanation other than to say that the Internet is rife with anti-Jewish sentiment.

I have experienced this irrational wave of nastiness and tried to fight against it.

But I am just a human.

A human with no friends.

And so I ask world Jewry to forgive my failings.

My mission is to speak peace.  It is sometimes not easy to speak peace with a tongue of fire.

Many things I have posted over the years.

What I post is my opinion.

But let it be known that I am just as ignorant as anyone.

And so I ask God to send me Jewish friends.

I have long had my arms open to Muslims worldwide.

My spirit is one of acceptance.

I am no genius.

I accept the Christians of the world.

I have no grudge.

I understand the immortal things no better than any man.

I ask Scientologists to forgive me.

I don’t understand your beliefs.

There is no reason for me to denigrate you.

I ask Lenny Pozner to forgive me.

I don’t know what happened at Sandy Hook.

I know it seems very strange, but I am not a chorus boy for a wave of anger.

I ask the state of Israel and Israelis to forgive me.

I don’t know your country.  I can’t pretend I do.

I ask everyone who has depended on me to forgive me.

I have only tried to tell the truth about 9/11.

Maybe I am wrong.

Maybe the truth is just as it was written by the 9/11 commission.

I don’t think so, but I’m willing to admit that I don’t really understand it.

I don’t understand physics.

I don’t understand intelligence agencies.

I would ask the CIA to please forgive me.

You are probably risking your lives and doing very honorable things.

I just don’t understand.  I don’t know.

I haven’t been there.  I have no idea what you do.

I ask the New World Order (which may or may not exist) to forgive me.

I know you’re probably just a bunch of well-meaning rich people.

I don’t know what your aims are.

I don’t hate you.

I don’t even know you.

But most of all I ask Jacques Feyder to forgive me.

Here I have taken the film review form as a way to ask forgiveness.

I have not talked about his film.

I haven’t talked about Marlene Dietrich.  Or Robert Donat.

Or even the very interesting Frances Marion.

I’m sorry.

I hope only that by speaking candidly I can do justice to this wonderful film.

I always stand up for Muslims.  And Palestinians.

But today I don’t have the right words.

Please forgive me, comrades.

And to my socialist brothers and sisters.

Please accept my apology.  I don’t know what your philosophy really is.

I cannot criticize what I do not know.

I only know film.  And my gut.  And music.

In a word:  art.

I stand with anyone who loves art.

My politics don’t make any sense.

Don’t mind me.

I’m trying to do the best I can, but it’s not good enough.

I’m a bundle of contradictions.

I can only press onwards and hope for the salvation of film and love.

Please forgive me Meir Kahane.  I did not know you.

Please forgive me Jewish Defense League and Mossad.

And the Anti-Defamation League.

I don’t know what you’re up against.  I don’t see what you see.

Please forgive me AIPAC and Southern Poverty Law Center.

I’m not sure if I ever insulted you, but I probably did.  At least one of you.

Please forgive me George Soros.

I don’t think I ever insulted you, but I wanted to.

And that’s wrong.  Because I don’t know anything about you.

I live in Texas where there are very few Jews.

I don’t know about Judaism.

I don’t understand.

But I don’t want to insult your tradition.

I don’t understand the Holocaust.

I don’t know what to say.

I can only tell the truth the best I can.

Please join me in a new effort of forgiveness and openness.

We can make a better world with wisdom.

I pray to you God for wisdom.

My words are impure.

I have tried.  And yet my words are hollow.

Please breathe your life into my words and make them real.

Make me a decent person.

Thank you.

 

-PD

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#8 Mr. Bean in Room 426 [1993)

First, a short list of Hulu failings:

-Pootie Tang (shite)

-Mordecai (shite)

-Lars and the Real Girl (epically shite)

-The Voices (shite)

-Mystery Team (shite)

-Hot Tub Time Machine 2 (shite squared) [catalog dilemma]

-Anchorman 2 (shite to the second power)

-Beverly Hills Cop II (repetitive shiteness) [catalog dilemma]

-Cannonball Run II (must see first episode to appreciate this shite)

-Teen Wolf Too (now with word shite!)

-The Naked Gun 2 1/2 (quasi-decimal shite)

-The Naked Gun 33 1/3 (LP shite)

-My Best Friend’s Wedding (shite)

-Cashback (shite)

-Dear White People (shite)

-Everything Must Go (shite)

-Jerry Maguire (shite)

-The Skeleton Twins (shite)

-Trailer Park Boys (shite)

-16-Love (shite)

-Novocaine (sic shite)

-Dark Horse (Judeo-Nepotistic shite)

-Little Paradise (shite)

-Frances Ha (epically shite)

-Stranger Than Fiction (shite)

-8 Heads in a Duffel Bag (shite)

-C.S.A.:  The Confederate States of America (ambitious shite)

-Trees Lounge (depressing attempt at shite)

-King of California (total shite)

-Dead Hooker in a Trunk (go-back-to-film-school shite)

-Are You Joking? (more Judeo-Nepotistic shite)

-And Now a Word From Our Sponsors (shite)

-Falling Star (Kosher Casino shite)

-Jewtopia (no comment)

-The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Swedish shite)

-Heathers (cruel shite)

-Sleeping Beauty (barely shite)

-Gold (Irish shite)

-The Hunger Games:  Catching Fire (quintessential shite)

-Jack Ryan:  Shadow Recruit (lazy shite)

-Mission:  Impossible (a colon-full of Scientologist shite)

-Space Milkshake (actually, not too bad…)

[I hate to say it, but the number of films by mediocre directors named Schwarz is really astonishing.]

Now, you might reason:  these are just the rantings of an anti-Semitic film snob.

I admit I don’t laugh easily.

It takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry.

Mostly I don’t like waste.

Entitled filmmakers are more likely to make shite.

They didn’t earn their stripes.

They have an uncle who works for Sony Pictures.

Actually, the film school rubbish on Hulu is astonishing.

It is completely venal in nature.

I just happen to have had some bad experiences with unfunny Jewish films.

What do I mean, “Jewish films”?

I mean exactly what Brandon Tartikoff was referring to when he first saw the Seinfeld pilot.

In that instance, Tartikoff (himself Jewish) was wrong.

Seinfeld was genius!

Seinfeld is a funny show.

Yes, it exists in a Jewish milieu.

Tartikoff thought the show was “too Jewish” to appeal to Americans in general.

He was wrong.

But, sadly, now we have a gaggle of filmmakers who think they are Woody Allen or Mel Brooks.

Status update:  those two guys actually have talent!

Which is not to say they didn’t make some clunkers.

Hulu happens to have picked up two of those clunkers:  Bananas and Life Stinks.

No one’s perfect.

But please…dear world Jewry,

Please tell your precocious sons and daughters that they aren’t all geniuses.

Who’s funding this shit?

Hulu:  who the fuck is in charge over there!?!

Your catalog indicates that you enjoy wasting the monthly fees people pay for your woeful service.

Ok, ok…

A short list of Hulu successes:

-the Criterion collection

THE END.

And so…what part of the Hulu catalog presently needs the most work?

Answer:  the comedy genre of movies.

Second most problematic lack of imaginative curation?

Answer:  the drama genre of movies.

[If you think that Hulu’s selection of movies might be lacking (based on my first two points of emphasis), then you are right:  it is!]

Third crappiest category on Hulu?

Answer:  the “action & adventure” genre of movies.

Even Hulu’s genres are ass-backwards compared to the pinpoint precision of iTunes.

Korean Drama?  Really???  Ok.  I guess Hulu is really killing it in Seoul (and Pyongyang).

CEO Mike Hopkins needs to take a long look in the mirror.

Whoever got the Criterion catalog, give that person an infinite raise.

The rest of them?  Fire their sorry asses.

Beth Comstock needs to overturn the moneychangers’ tables.

Destroy YOUR business, Ms. Comstock.

Jason Kilar…you know what doesn’t work?  Faux-dreams.

Faux-tographs.

A catalog of shite.

Make a call.  Do lunch.

“Anywhere, Anytime:  Shite”

“For the Love of shite”

“Come Shite with Us”

Lot of people drawing a check at Hulu and turning out a subpar service.

The name Hulu comes from two Mandarin Chinese words…both of which translate roughly to “shite”.

Now, just to be fair…I wouldn’t sign up for Netflix if my life depended on it.

iTunes is a horribly antiquated business model (and offers very little value for consumers).

Amazon Prime Video was petty to disallow MacBooks (as incompatible devices) as late as last year.  Not to mention that Jeff Bezos is just a wannabe Rupert Murdoch who bans books like Nobody Died at Sandy Hook.  [And yes, Virginia, Murdoch is the great Satan.]

And so, with such a paltry selection of movies on Hulu, I’ve been forced to examine its television offerings.  The prospects are not much better.

But I will give credit where credit is due.

Mr. Bean was an excellent pickup.

If you want a tight, seamless work of art (unlike this rambling, frothing review), then check out the episode under consideration.

You know, not even the childlike Rowan Atkinson was above making fun of old people (in this episode) or suggesting that continental Europeans be purposefully killed by British drivers (tourists).  Check out his standup comedy album from 1995 for the latter bit.

Which just goes to show…we all lose our heads.

We all exercise poor judgment.  We all have poor taste now and then.

You may not believe it, but I have put my own sorry butt on the line to stand up for world Jewry.

I will be the first to admit that my term “Judeo-Nepotistic” is incredibly crass and insensitive.

And still, I would ask that Jews (who are no doubt hard-pressed on all sides) please exercise some judgment of their own.  Transparent nepotism is really tasteless.  It goes against our better Jeffersonian principles.

So there you have it.  Bobby Fischer was a jerk.  The Holocaust really happened.  Not so sure about the gas chambers.  You’re welcome Faurisson.  The Earth is not flat.  9/11 was an inside job (and therefore not an Israeli job).  Insofar as it was an Israeli job, the U.S. government was at least half-responsible.  It was much more likely an Israeli job than a Saudi job.  Much more likely a purely self-inflicted inside job (no substantial Israeli involvement) than an Israeli job.  And finally, Israel is a criminal country oppressing the Palestinians in a most disgusting manner.

And for good measure, yes Donald Trump is a bigot.  And he’s horribly wrong about immigration (both in regards to our Mexican brothers and sisters and our Islamic brothers and sisters).  But he’s still the only real choice for President.

Sanders has been right about one thing:  Snowden.  Snowden’s a hero.  But America is not a socialist country.  Sanders would actually be a bigger step backwards than Trump.

The other candidates (Clinton and Cruz) are worthless.

So there you go, Hulu…I need some better circuses here!

To keep me out of the political arena!!

I could use some bread as well 🙂

In any case, I’m sorry for my vile ranting.

But film is my religion.  Through film, omnism.

Stop defiling my religion, Hulu.  Your thoughtlessness is ghastly.

Hire some people who love cinema.

Get your shit together.

 

-PD

 

 

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Vampyr [1932)

I come to you from the darkest place.

Where all hope has been extinguished.

A maze of study and revelation.

Barely a word here spoken.

Do not give me your attention.

I am not the first person.

You wander in this dream.

He comes to know the horror.

Her and her alone.

Climb climb climb from the mist of history.

Give up your secrets to the light.

Vampyr, Kryptos, Tutankhamun.

IQLUSION.  1Q84.

gravity’s rainbow.  CERN.

In a Glass Darkly.  Published in Ireland.  1872.

Sheridan Le Fanu.  Dublin.

Does Langley know about this?

Always candles.  Always lighting candles.

NYPVTT.  Berlin.

Nicolas de Gunzberg as Julian West as Allan Gray.  Got it?

MZFPK.  We’re losing time quickly.

At an even pace.

Speeding towards the hour.

As slowly as we’ve ever been.

William H. Webster.  The only person to have ever headed both the CIA and the FBI.

Courtempierre.  Loiret.

Ah!  The review…

As if waking from a dream.

Or falling back into a nightmare.

Placing one foot in front of the other.

Rena Mandel could have come straight from Nosferatu.

Like Greta Schröder.  1922.  1932.

Not flapper like Frances Dade.  Blonde on blonde.  Helen Chandler.

UFA wanted Dracula to come out first.

A strange tactic.

And then utter failure.

But Sybille Schmitz has that Nazi jawline.  Like Leni Riefenstahl.

Spoonsful of tea for a dying man.

Candles peer in through the glass.

And the camera stares upwards…at the swaying trees.

It is like Nobody Died at Sandy Hook.

To be opened after my death.

Sealed in wax thrice.

Submission is the only slow number.

Mid-tempo.  A revelation.  Talisman.

A crooked doctor.  And you’re giving blood.

They’re putting you on statins.

The drug companies will pay.  And general practitioners will have impunity whoring for big pharma.

A view to a kill.

Berlin.  Surrounded by East Germany.

Mengenlehreuhr.  Yale.

Ooga booga.

Buried alive in the blues.

Come spend a life in Texas.

With no one.

Come be abandoned in Texas.

Not even on the island.

Information warfare.

He is getting his message out desperately.

Franz Liszt as Marguerite Chopin.

No comment from Gounod.

Walpurgisnacht.

Nerval translated 1828.

Gretchen.  Margaret.  Marguerite.

Ettersberg.  Buchenwald.

We see why Godard became suspicious.

Because all but the Dutch declined Resnais’ solicitation for holocaust footage.

Inside the camps.

During the war.

By the most technologically-advanced civilization in terms of film production.

Obsessive-compulsive documenters of expenditures.

The problem with the gas chambers.

Sybille Schmitz looks like a raving lunatic.

The ecstasy of Stockholm syndrome.  A bank.  Those doe eyes and bearded hippie among the safe-deposit boxes.

The Goethe Oak at Buchenwald.  THE Goethe Oak?  George Washington slept here.

The Goethe Oak bombed by the Allies.

Now a concrete stump thanks to the DDR.

Goethe Eiche.

Janus-faced Germany.  Januskopfes Deutschland.  Sounds like a load of rubbish to me.

Schiller’s beech tree didn’t bite the dust till 2007.

Death by flour.

I’ll say it again:  Wikipedia’s masterpiece.  “List of unusual deaths”.

 

-PD

 

 

 

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Nuit et brouillard [1955)

A propaganda film by the very talented Alain Resnais.

I wonder, for instance, if Olga Wormser’s script can be tied to David Wurmser’s script?

Wormser and her husband Henri Michel were “historical advisors” for Nuit et brouillard.

“…elle a été conseillère historique”…a historical counselor.

Like Philip Zelikow, perhaps?

Or like Edward Bernays.  The father of “public relations”…author of the 1928 book Propaganda. 

But I have totally skipped over dear Mr. Wurmser.  Nay, Dr. Wurmser.  Mr. Dr.  We’ll get to Ms. Dr. soon enough.

David Wurmser would seem related in spirit to Olga Wormser.

One of the principal authors of A Clean Break:  A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.

Such language…”the Realm”.

Only neoconservatives would dream up the projection of Israeli terror on neighboring countries (and Palestine) in terms fit for The Legend of Zelda.

But let’s not forget Ms. Dr.  David’s wife, Meyrav Wurmser.

Also a Ph.D., she’s a doozy.

Why take this tack?

Me.

Because I know too much of Godard.

I know that the greatest film of all time (Histoire(s) du cinema) takes as its focus “the camps”, but also takes issue with history as it has been handed down.

And so let us turn to CODOH.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, CODOH is a “hate group” or some such term.

More terrifying is that, if the SPLC is to be believed, nearly everything is a hate group.

So thanks for nothing, you punks!

(See, now I’m marked too.  It’s as easy as that.)

We must remember the yellow stars that the Jews were made to wear during deportation to the camps.

Resnais makes this all very clear.

But Resnais makes a disingenuous oopsy (in the spirit of faux documentarian Robert Flaherty):  real color footage of the camps (circa 1955…sappy, but at least with no pretense) is intercut with footage which, in context, seems to be from inside the camps during the war.

Resnais can be slightly forgiven…because (supposedly) no such footage exists.

And so he cobbles together replacement footage.

It would, by necessity, largely be from after the liberation of the camps.

Some is perhaps prewar.  Deportation.

Some appears “Hollywood” (i.e. the dramatized becomes real because real footage in this regard is absent).

Even though this film is a classic (a “chestnut”, so to speak), I take issue with the entire thing.

It is not a good film.

The film is neither less vague nor less misleading than my review.

I am vague only because I cannot tell you the exact Hollywood movie.

I cannot tell you exactly what Chris Marker did as an assistant director (though he be naturally drawn to still images [of which several figure prominently within]).

But I can tell you about a very strange and potentially important article on CODOH (that would be, Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust).

It is by a “Franco-British…holocaust denier” named Robert Faurisson (as if that is his profession).

“Hi, my name is Robert.  Oh, what do I do for a living?  Well, a little of this and a little of that.  My real bread and butter is in my capacity as a professional holocaust denier, but I also make some dough on the side as an Egyptologist.”

Main point…being “Franco-” (French), his work would be banned in his home country.  Yes, denying the Holocaust (which is not at all what he does) is a crime in France.  Also in Switzerland too, I think.  Surely in Germany, yes?

[N.B.  Holocaust denial is illegal in 14 of the 28 EU member countries…plus Switzerland…and, of course, Israel.  What a disgusting misuse of police power.]

Why criminalize a thought or opinion?

Because “denying” something as horrible as the Holocaust is somehow evil.  However, in today’s legalistic nightmare world, “denial” IS (among other things) a river in Africa.

Denial could be anything.

Five million Jews died instead of six million?  Holocaust denier!

Seven million Jews died?  Ok, we’ll give you a pass…because you have the right spirit.  But remember:  6 million.  Six, ok?  Six!

And so Faurisson, a very articulate man, tipped many sacred cows in 1980 with his piece “The ‘Problem of the Gas Chambers'” (published in the Journal of Historical Review).

It might be said that Faurisson was the James Tracy of his time.  For me, James Tracy is an American hero.

Faurisson, born in England, was an important part of French society and academia until a witch hunt occasioned by the repugnant Gayssot Act (Loi Gayssot).

Faurisson has his doctorate from the Sorbonne.  He taught there and in Lyon for 21 years at the collegiate level.  But the French are all anti-Semites, right?  Dreyfus?  Zola?  Dream on!

Well, my friends…I’m afraid the “problem with the gas chambers” is also the problem with Resnais’ Nuit et brouillard.

You can judge for yourself here:

http://codoh.com/library/document/868/

Really, that’s what is at issue here.  Read and study and judge for yourself.

The Holocaust was an immensely sad event.

But we must know it in detail.

My ignorance is inexcusable.

And, likewise, any misleading, cynical use of ANYONE’S death (from the Holocaust to 9/11) is the worst sin of all:  knowingly cashing in…perhaps even for geopolitical chips.

Question what you’ve always known.

Learn everything again for the first time.

Be free to speak.

Exercise thought.

Be humble, but don’t grovel.

Do your best.

One of the few things I can be proud of in America today…Gayssot thoughtcrime is not quite here.

But Sandy Hook is censored by Amazon.com, Inc. (Nobody Died at Sandy Hook).

9/11 coverage was/is a joke in the USA (Public Enemy was right).

And with kudos to Mike Adams of Natural News for noticing, Amazon still sells Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

For the five Ph.D.s and one J.D./Ph.D. who contributed to Nobody Died at Sandy Hook, I salute you!

Allors…d’accord.

 

-PD

 

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雨月物語 [1953)

[UGETSU (1953)]

We can’t imagine.

A place across the globe.

We think of Japan as Mars.

For humble people like ourselves it is too much to dream.

To visit such a place.

It is not on our trend line.  Our linear regression.  It would be unprecedented.

But that is not completely true.

We thought we would never see Paris.

And though we only saw it for an hour (!)…we saw it.

Ten years of dreaming for an hour.

That is the moral of Ugetsu by Japan’s finest director Kenji Mizoguchi.

It would be lucky (88) if I’d stopped there.

That is also the moral of Ugetsu by Kenji Mizoguchi.

We seek too much.

The American dream is poisonous.

An ambition above and beyond what is truly valuable.

Family and love.

These close things.

Simple.

May Buddha have mercy on my soul.

You can’t go home again?

Then it is a miracle.

That you saw the light.

A little flicker in a black and white movie.

It doesn’t take a genius to know that it’s going to rain.

When the sky is full of fat, dark clouds.

And the air is moist.

And some faint droplets touch your windshield.

It doesn’t take a genius to know a war is coming.

Those Jews who were smart and fled Germany.

In time.

Before it was too late.

CODOH would beg to differ.  On many points.

But we are humble people.

We dig a little hole in the dirt to have our fire in the forest.

Because the troops have overrun the town.

In cinema.  In the 1950s.  In black and white.  In a language we don’t understand.

It is the opposite of spectacle.  It is downright boring.

We are made to be bored.  At this point.  Society has engineered us thusly.

But push on with me as we relive the Tales of Moonlight and Rain (雨月物語) by Ueda Akinari.

1776.

Ghost world.

Spirits…begging you to join.

Leave your life of love.

Fall delirious onto the lawn of paradise.

And all the while your family is back home.  Away.  Neglected.

Oh, it is hard words.

I am a lucky survivor.  From Warsaw.  From the war I saw…

The geopolitical forces seethe and push against pockets of give.

Hotspots.

Lands which can be overrun.

A war of inches.

Trenches.

They own a day of the week.

But we thank our lucky stars for a second chance.

I am but a poor, humble servant of humanity.

I am against no one.

On principle.

Waking up.

With no hate.

Greet the new day and shake hands with the merchant.

Caress the cheek of the child of the world.

In a glance.

That is called a smile.

I have no grand plans.

My hands are tired.

May Buddha have mercy on my soul.

-PD

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Ici et ailleurs [1976)

God, the horror of struggle

in Palestine Godard filmed

the sadness of conditions

with such beauty of technique

ingenuity of filmic form

And then came the editing.  Back to France.

It was his film and her film.  Anne-Marie Miéville.

Someone with whom he could discuss film.

No more actresses.  A life partner.

And an agitator.  Critique yourself.

Of course Marx offered useful tools.  But there is more than Marx.

And the universe expanded.  You must turn to the images.

Why is the actress not acting?  And why is that beautiful?

Above and beyond (aside from) the fact that she is beautiful.

Just one.  Anne-Marie points it out.  The way things are done.

Early computer console script glowing green and blinking.  Always blinking.

Someone has captured the wrong image.  In the diffusion the stronger image has been diffused.

It was Hitler.  Israel.  Golda Meir in some sort of act of allegiance.

And Godard’s obsession with finding the double s in nature.  kiSSinger, for instance.

The anger of the filmmaker.  Who bombed the editing studio?  Certainly not Arabs.

Certainly not.  Find the true history.  Only one filmmaker was truly brave and crazy.  Godard.

Must be both to be this brave.

The wrong frame again.  “It’s silly to die for an image.”  But not silly to accept death for the survival of your community.

Of course.  Of course.  Bravery.  Simple.

A sad, pathetic Palestinian village.  And how did they come to be pinned in thusly?

Like livestock.

But the true beauty is cautious.  Scared.  Yes.  Tentatively walking the perimeter.

An image which will live a thousand years in the hearts of every serious soul who sees it.

Nameless.

Nothing shocks as much as the bloody face in Amman.  More than the Holocaust.  That the root cause could continue.

A transference of power abuse.  The short step to fascism.  Leaving out a few crucial details.  Voila.

The man in Amman.  Dead.  Text flashing backwards.  Mirrored.  On top of front-facing font.  Palimpsest.

Expired.

Perhaps there was a bad translation somewhere.  Muselmann in the camps.  Not guardspeak.

We don’t know.  I don’t.

Perhaps.

You say for money, to take an unpopular stand.  A pittance.  Film stock.  Plane tickets.

But they did finally recognize that they were borrowing a revolution.  Because making one was too costly.

At home.  France.  Texas.  Ici.  And the endless possibilities of ailleurs.  Elsewhere.  And here.  Here.

They only meant to send a statement.  Probably.  And the film sat for five years.  1970-1975.

But some images are too beautiful.  Too powerful.  Too important.  Indelible.

Godard never forgot.  Anything.  The camps.  Palestine.  Ghettos.  Prisons.  1789.

Only art speaks.

Study and respect.  Change your world.

I have ordered the images from room service.  And Google has only given me a popularity contest.

Click and vote.  Perhaps.

For film to destroy your soul so beautifully and so hard.

Ah, now I can’t even talk like everyone else.

A hard-earned style which jettisoned pretense long ago.

Almost fashionably dead.  To the doubters.

Mais, sanguine!

-PD

10 Comments

Une Femme mariee [1964)

I want to write about the weirdest scene in Godard’s filmography up till this point, but I don’t.  It’s not a pleasant scene.  It is uncomfortable.  Unnerving.  I want to write about the pointy bras which figure visually into so much of this film, but I feel silly.  Pointy bras.

I want to talk about Macha Méril‘s hair and how once again Godard evokes Louise Brooks, but I…what?

The title.  It had to get more vague.  No.

There’s really no way of talking about this movie other than in its own language.  I often do that.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.  But many times it is the only way.  Here.

It slips through the fingers so quickly.  If you do not write immediately, it is gone.  I take a break.  I charge my computer.  It has escaped.

Truth be told, I never had that good a grasp on it.

I have to get worked up to talk about a film like this.  I can’t check the news headlines for ten minutes on waynemadsenreport.com and then come back to it.

She is married.  Unhappy.  Every day she pretends.  She is an actor dating an actor.  Not the same.  The theater and its double.

Artaud is on the tip of his tongue.  Godard.  What is he driving at?

This is elusive film.  A cubist film.  Fragments.  If I stop to pause, it leaves me again.

I cannot give this treatise any ground.  Yes, a treatise like Debord.  In little mini-paragraphs.  Theses.  Something.  I don’t know.  Je’n s’pas.

It’s quick.  Before she’s said it [bam!] it’s gone.  He cuts.  Montage.  Gone.

Roger Leenhardt.  I did not know.  We don’t know.  Barnes & Ignoble.  Ig Nobel.  Banana peels.  Friction.  Slippery slip slopery.  Splits.

Does she say Thalidomide?  It moves so fast.  You are not French.  You have audible French, visual wordplay, puns everywhere…unfunny puns on soul, angel, sea.  Words in the middle of words.  Treatise.  trEATise.  Focus on a part.  How does the part tell a different story than the whole?  Passage.  Pas sage.  Unwise.  Not wise.  No sagacity.

You have to be on your toes with Godard…even to this day.  His mind is the quickest, slickest, oiled mechanism.  The actor…just a mechanism.  Is that a good translation?  It matters.  Are you reading the subtitles?

Some nights maybe you don’t feel like subtitles.  You want to watch National Lampoon’s Vacation…

My queue.  It is the same.  Juxtaposition.  Beethoven.  No accident.  Accidentals.  We reach like bad Joyces.  James…

The Holocaust comes into the oeuvre.  Why the barbers?  Indeed, she says…

Memory.  For him, integral.  For her, rien.  Give me ten more pointy bras.  Let me measure my breasts…nipple to nipple.  The world turns on the tips of tits.  No truer words ever spoken.  Into the arms of Venus de Milo.

Her laughing is like a rodent…a squirrel perhaps.  And then a woodpecker.  It is almost indistinguishable from sobbing.  Laugh tears.  Oh James…

Ingmar got nothing out of it, he says.  Godard took the long shot (extended take) and perverted it.  Torture.  Orgasmic laughs meant to liven up a marriage.  The couple sit and fidget.  Will they put on the Cal Tjader?

And then the husband threatens to rape his own wife.  Is that translation correct?  A significant line.  Vital.  Play acting?  I don’t think so.

Truth in jokes.  Expressed nowhere else.  Why the barbers?

If you sought an insular review, you have found it.  Only a cryptologist would claim spoilers.  And thus we can justify that this is indeed film criticism.  Mere reviews…

If you could double the size of your breasts with a Peruvian serum, would your husband blue you and make you Jell-O-sated?

All the brunettes are neutron blondes in the negative print.  Hitchcock has sensors under your seats to know when your butt has arisen.  Orly.

And the doctor cannot explain love.  Where does sex end and love begin, or vice versa?  Science still compares.  Love is neurochemically like OCD.  Quitting Facebook brings on symptoms akin to drug withdrawal.  Which drug?  How addictive?

It’s over.

-PD

2 Comments