May 12, 2008
Meme, me, and other odd obsessions
There's a meme going around that I am certain others may have seen. I've been tagged twice by two distinguished residents from the left coast, Kimberly of Cinebeats, and Michael of The Evening Class. Aside from the fact that she tagged me first, I'm not going to say no to a woman who loves all manner of cinematic mayhem, and may love the films of my youth even more than I do.
The meme is this:
) Pick up the nearest book.
2) Open to page 123.
3) Locate the fifth sentence.
4) Post the next three sentences on your blog and in so doing…
5) Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.
The book is Voices from the Japanese Cinema by Joan Mellen. Page 123 is her interview with Kon Ichikawa. Here are the three sentences starting with the fifth, from Sensei Ichikawa -
"I wonder if I can get this across to you in Japanese via an interpreter. I'll try. These three people are representatives of the human without possessing human souls."
Taken completely out of context, Ichikawa could well be speaking about some candidates for the President of the United States. I'm sorry. It's a cheap shot I couldn't resist. Actually, the three people are characters from Kagi, also known as The Key or Odd Obsession. Here's is a film from Ichikawa, based on a novel by Junichiro Tanizaki, starring Machiko Kyo and Tatsuya Nakadai, and it's only available on VHS! I can't be the only one who wants to see this on DVD with English subtitles.
I'm not tagging anyone because I think everyone has been tagged, and I'd rather not impose myself on anyone. If you want to join the "fun", consider yourself tagged.
In the meantime, today is the birthday of Burt Bacharach and Steve Winwood. Aside from sharing the same birthday, they both worked with Clive Donner. Bacharach did the songs and music for Donner's most famous film, What's New Pussycat?, while Winwood, with his then new band, Traffic, did some of the songs for one of Donner's lesser known films, Here We go 'Round the Mulberry Bush. You might not be able to see the film, but the soundtrack album is still available, also with songs from the band Winwood was formerly with, The Spencer Davis Group.
My favorite song from What's New Pussycat? is "My Little Red Book". Some consider it heresy but I prefer the version by Love. As for Mulberry Bush and Steve Winwood, here are the opening credits and song.
Posted by peter at 12:46 AM | Comments (0)
May 11, 2008
Coffee Break
Halle Berry in Things We Lost in the Fire (Susanne Bier - 2007)
Posted by peter at 07:09 AM | Comments (0)
May 09, 2008
Invitation to the Dance Blog-a-thon: Flower Drum Song
Flower Drum Song
Henry Koster - 1961
Universal Region 1 DVD
One last contribution to the Invitation to the Dance Blog-a-thon, a more traditional kind of musical, and a choice made more timely by a posting over at Edward Copeland's by Josh R.
There is so much both right and wrong with the film version of Flower Drum Song. The film and original play were made with good intentions, and yet . . .
Having a virtually all Asian cast in a mainstream Hollywood film was admirable, but having them portray Chinese or Chinese-Americans seems to emphasize the idea that all Asians look alike. I also have a problem with the casting of American-American Juanita Hall as a Chinese matriarch, no matter that Rogers and Hammerstein loved her. Even when the older characters do not speak pidgen English, there is still the taint of Hollywood stereotypes. Had Anna May Wong not died, and played the part filled by Hall, that may have been another reminder of how little had changed for English speaking Asian actresses since the release of Picadilly. Flower Drum Song works best in not looking too deeply at what may be wrong, and enjoy what is best in the film, primarily Nancy Kwan.
There were times when watching and listening to Nancy Kwan that her energy and attitude reminded me of Ann-Margret. Kwan never achieved the career of Ann-Margret which is yet another example of Hollywood's lack of imagination. Not that things have changed that much in the fifty years since the Broadway show opened, and the forty-seven years since the film's release. Flower Drum Song took advantage of Kwan's dance training. That ability was ignored until the end of the decade when Kwan appeared in The Wrecking Crew with the dance transposed to martial arts.
The other standout scenes involve talented Patrick Adiarte as the very American young man who loves baseball and rock and roll, dancing with Kwan as well as showing his solo abilities. The show's best song, "Love, Look Away" is part of a ballet on an abstract set, performed by Reiko Sato, with the singing voice dubbed by Marily Horne.
As one whose interest in Asian films has directed me to seeing some of the recently released DVDs of Hong Kong musicals made during that time, there are questions on how Flower Drum Song would have been perceived had there been awareness of the musicals that usually starred Linda Lin Dai. The Shaw Brothers produced musicals were Hong Kong versions inspired by the musicals Hollywood produced at the time. Of course the only people aware of Linda Lin Dai would be the residents of the real Chinatowns. That the dance sequences are reasonably filmed documents of the performances probably has more to do with choreographer Hermes Pan, than director Henry Koster. Serious thoughts get pushed aside when one considers that the best reason to bother with Flower Drum Song is the sight of Nancy Kwan's legs.
Posted by peter at 12:54 AM | Comments (0)
May 07, 2008
Invitation to the Dance Blog-a-thon: Carmen comes Home
Karumen kokyo ni Kaeru
Keisuke Kinoshita - 1951
Panorama Entertainment Region 3 DVD
The song heard at the beginning of Carmen comes Homes is a tribute to the small mountain town where the film takes place. The elegiac feel to the song reflects a part of Japan that Keisuke Kinoshita must have known would eventually disappear. What I was not prepared for is that while Carmen comes Home is about the cultural shifts in Japan after World War II, the film also brings up points about art and culture that are still being discussed.
Hideko Takamine plays the small town girl who ran away to Tokyo, and returns to visit as a celebrated artist known as Lily Carmen. Even before she shows up, the head teacher of the village school, Chishu Ryu, talks about the importance of art and culture, with the opening scene being of the school children performing a circle dance. One of the other characters, a former teacher, blinded in the war, is known for his musical compositions, and his loss of his beloved harmonium sold to pay for expenses. Added to this mix are the town's entrepreneur, who will always find an angle at making money, Lily Carmen's best friend, a dancer who almost immediately misses Tokyo, and Lily Carmen's parents who try to make sense of their very westernized daughter.
The joke is that Lily Carmen, for all her pretenses at declaring herself an artist, is a stripper. One of the high points of the film is that her act is filmed in such a way that it while there is nothing graphic, it is clear to what extent clothing has been removed. And yet, even Kinoshita suggests that while being an ecdysiast may not have anything to do with conventional notions of high culture, there is a certain talent and even art involved in removing clothing onstage. And here is where Carmen comes Home remains quite relevant in that it asks who determines what is art, what and what has cultural importance, and how does one decide community standards?
The main claim to fame for Carmen comes Home is that it was the first Japanese film shot in color. What makes the film more interesting is that it was shot on location near Mount Asama, in the Gunma Prefecture of Japan, out in the farm country and literally one-horse town. With the songs that border on the melancholy, and comedy that is more wistful than laugh inducing, Carmen comes Home could almost be described as a neo-realist musical, closer to De Sica than Minnelli.
But beyond the topicality of Carmen comes Home remain the questions about the role of art and society. Dance is presented both in terms of its use as personal artistic expression through Lily Carmen and her friend, but also in its social form, in the group dance at the school. Lily Carmen's performance based dance emphasizes her difference from the community and her particular individuality. The group dance is to bring people together, to socialize, to reenforce the cohesion of a particular community. It is not a matter of one form of dance being better than the other, but appreciating the differences, and finding comic possibilities in both. As Joseph Anderson and Donald Richie wrote about Kinoshita: "He is quite in love with his characters and he admires their faults no less than their virtues."
More singing and dancing is to be found at Ferdy on Films.
Posted by peter at 12:52 AM | Comments (1)
May 05, 2008
Invitation to the Dance Blog-a-thon: Mesa que Mas Aplauda
Rene Cardona III - 2006
Laguna Productions Region 1 DVD
I'm combining Marilyn Ferdinand's blog-a-thon with Cinco de Mayo today. This is a major holiday not just in my town, but especially in my neighborhood. Mesa que Mas Aplauda is about a small town restaurant without customers, that becomes an overnight success when Las Vegas showgirl Liz Vega shows up to introduce pole dancing. Rene Cardona III's film is closer to a Mexican version of Coyote Ugly than Showgirls, with fewer pretenses. The film was inspired by the Latin hit song recorded by Osskar Lobo y Grupo Climax, performed at the end of the film. Mostly Mesa que Mas Aplauda is an excuse to have close ups of jiggly parts of the voluptuous cast. Viva La Vega!
Posted by peter at 12:38 AM | Comments (1)
May 04, 2008
Coffee Break
Howard Marion-Crawford and Jesus Franco in The Castle of Fu Manchu (Jesus Franco - 1969)
Posted by peter at 12:42 AM | Comments (1)
May 02, 2008
Viva
Anna Biller - 2007
Anna Biller Productions 35mm film
Is it possible to create a parody of a film that was never meant to be taken seriously in the first place? Or can one make fun of a movie that may have been unintentionally comic? As one who has seen some of the films that served as inspiration for Viva, my reaction was that audiences might be better served by another viewing of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and Camille 2000, perhaps topped off with a bit of Jesus (Franco) and Venus in Furs.
I feel bad in that Anna Biller totally put herself into the film as writer, director, costume and set designer, animator (!), song writer, producer, editor and star. Biller not only stars, but allows her beautiful and naked self to be exposed. The only multi-hyphenate that I can think of that came nearly as close was Clint Eastwood offering a posterior view in Space Cowboys. The best thing I can say for
The basic story of a married woman who ventures into prostitution after being ignored by her self-absorbed husband may remind many of the basic premise of Belle de Jour. The film ends with a very clear homage to Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, with a Biller penned song titled "Two Little Girls". A gay hair stylist resembles a subdued version of John LaZar, the immortal Z-man of BVD. Viva also succeeds in creating sets and colors that resemble "Playboy" pictorials of swinging bachelor pads. I must be getting old - I had lust in my heart not for any actor, but one the Eames chairs used in the film.
Except for a comment by one of the women that the "Playboy" playmates were skinny, any intended feminist critique of early Seventies exploitation films were not noticeable. More obvious were the reworkings of elements from the films from that era, some of which are available on DVD for comparison. I saw some of these films at the time of their initial theatrical release, and even recall interviews with some of the male filmmakers who insisted that their films were cries for sexual equality. For myself, I liked the films by Radley Metzger for the scenes of cunning linguistics. I have to think that had Anna Biller made films in the early Seventies, she might have had Roger Corman in her corner. There are part of Viva that make me think that what Biller created works better as a stage play rather than as a movie. What ever Viva was suppose to be in theory, the final film is a less than lively sum of its many parts.
Posted by peter at 12:49 AM | Comments (2)