Last Movie You Watched

[milk]

Watched Rashomon today. I hadn't remembered that this movie turns on a rape. In fact, I couldn't enjoy this that much because of the way the rape is treated. Mifune plays the rapist and is the most magnetic performer here. His character is even the most likable at times, which left me pretty disgusted. It's magnificently filmed to be sure, but obviously for another time when women were treated non-seriously and as somewhat less than human. It's not just the way the characters are; to me, it's the perspective of the film itself which trivializes the rape and the significance of the woman's reality as well. Just my impression.

[Karl Henning]

Two minutes of "beauty shots" of Monument Valley:  whatever else may be said of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Spielberg gave us that.

In fact, I like the movie very much.  Even though . . . the fact that Indy makes it past the three tests, doesn't mean that Donovan and Elsa can just waltz through.  And the timing is such that, yes, they do just waltz through.

The knight in the Grail chamber says, of Donovan, "He chose poorly."  Which is odd, because Elsa clearly chose the chalice for him.  What does "He chose poorly" mean?  That his choosing to rely on Elsa was poorly done?

These quibbles aside, it's a wonderful "superior B-movie," as intended.

I am not one to denigrate I. J. and the Temple of Doom.  I like it very well, the odd quibble (as with this movie) notwithstanding.  I'll agree that Last Crusade is a couple of steps up, but this does not mean that Temple of Doom is bad.

[SimonNZ]

Frederick Wiseman's three and a quarter hour hour documentary on the New York Public Library.

Like his previous work this has no voice-over, nobody speaking directly to camera, just a cross-section and kaleidoscope of workers going about their business. Unlike some of his more recent films which had more of various staff going about their duties quietly with the occasional board meeting or event, this is as much as eighty or ninety percent group discussions dealing in one way or another with the politics and the philosophies of the duties and services. Therefor unlike some of his recent films this can't be watched passively - it requires, even demands, that you the viewer engage intellectually with the concerns and viewpoints presented. But like the rest of his work it is excellent and easily recommended.

[aligreto]

Spy Game





An engaging political thriller that is worth a watch.

[MN Dave]

The Golden Compass (fantasy) and Gallowwalkers (horror Western) were an enjoyable way to pass my Saturday afternoon.

[drogulus]

     I finally watched Black Book, and it's the most Verhoeven-esque movie ever made. All the strengths and weaknesses are present, and he explores the great themes about fascism, distrust of heroism, the need to survive in times that want you really, really dead, tithood (of course), and enough good guy/bad girl reversals to make your head spin.

     

     This is a great film.

[NikF]

Juliette, ou la clef des songes/Juliette or the key of dreams.

I believe almost everything photographed by Henry Alekan to be worth a rewatch and then another and still further possibly one more, if like tonight it was via a nice print in a private viewing. As a whole, the somewhat plodding along delivery of the obvious and banal was a constant reminder that this isn't Carne's finest hour, certainly if considered outside the time and place of the 1950s. But a bonus is that Suzanne Cloutier has a beautiful face with features which lend themselves to the type of light that resembles them, soft and full and warm, and when that reflects out from the big screen it's a pleasant touch - clearly, Alekan taught Suzie how to kiss.

An aside; after leaving the venue I stopped to buy fish and chips which I ate with my fingers on the way home while the wrapping paper hosted a battle between the vinegar and grease and falling rain. The winner? - imo you can't beat a piping hot fillet of freshly battered haddock.

[GioCar]

At the local film festival tonight: a restored print for the 30th anniversary of Wings Of Desire.

This was actually my favorite film when I was much younger so it was great to see it again and on the big screen.

I couldn't discern if the black and white was sharper, I did notice more detail, though thats probably just due to the screen size - but the colour parts, particularly after the "fall" were much more vivid.

Its not the subtitling I'm used to from my old much watched VHS copy, and while I thought some things might be clearer or more literal, I lamented the loss in a few places of having all the passing thoughts however fleeting subtitled. This was most noticeable in the library scene where the VHS had everything in quick succession, but here it was only the main three or four. But elsewhere most everything was covered.

There's also an odd translation choice in Marion's big final speech where the repeated word "alone" ("Now I can say it as tonight, I'm at last alone." "Only with him could I be alone") is changed to "lonely". That may somehow make sense in German with different connotations, but it really doesn't in English.

One of my favorite films as well but, sorry to say that, what a silly English title  .
I did recognize it only from the image, and imo that title completely missed the inner meaning and main character in the film which is the city of Berlin, a few years before the wall went down.

[ritter]

This really curious and hitherto unknown to me Spanish classic from 1951 was shown on Spanish TV last night:



La corona negra (The Black Crown) uses a plot devised by Jean Cocteau, based (very loosely, as far as I can tell) on Mérimée's La Vénus d'Ille. It's a Franco-Spanish coproduction, and the screenplay is by Charles de Peyret-Chappuis. The female lead is Mexican beauty María Félix (who is outstanding), and her male counterparts are Rosanno Brazzi and Vittorio Gassman. The director is Luis Saslavsky from Argentina. It's all unusually cosmopolitan for Spanish cinema of the time.

The film is set (and was filmed) in Tangiers and the Spanish protectorate of Morocco. A convoluted plot of crime, amnesia, passions and the occult, with some rather striking dreamlike sequences. Quite fascinating, actually.

[lisa needs braces]

     I finally watched Black Book, and it's the most Verhoeven-esque movie ever made. All the strengths and weaknesses are present, and he explores the great themes about fascism, distrust of heroism, the need to survive in times that want you really, really dead, tithood (of course), and enough good guy/bad girl reversals to make your head spin.

     

     This is a great film.

I enjoyed this one when I saw it some ten years ago. Underrated gem.

[listener]

from the Shaw Brothers
THE SNAKE PRINCE
people who change into giant snakes and breathe out streams of water or fire as the story requires
some female nudity, an impossibly large egg is born
all to the music and dance of  1970's style beach party music and dance.   weird and unique

[Abuelo Igor]

It's magnificently filmed to be sure, but obviously for another time when women were treated non-seriously and as somewhat less than human.

Wow, yet another all-time classic that wouldn't even get past the drawing boards today. Never mind the ground-breaking narrative structure, the all-around artistic quality, the fact that it was made in Japan in the nineteen fifties and set in less enlightened times. It doesn't meet today's standards of political correctness and therefore doesn't deserve its classic status. If we started doing that on a systematic basis, I think school children would be really grateful, because the entire canon of culture would dwindle significantly. That doesn't mean that we cannot be critical of certain attitudes and portrayals, but retroactive censorship is not really my thing.

[milk]

Wow, yet another all-time classic that wouldn't even get past the drawing boards today. Never mind the ground-breaking narrative structure, the all-around artistic quality, the fact that it was made in Japan in the nineteen fifties and set in less enlightened times. It doesn't meet today's standards of political correctness and therefore doesn't deserve its classic status. If we started doing that on a systematic basis, I think schoolboys would be really grateful, because the entire canon of culture would dwindle significantly. That doesn't mean that we cannot be critical of certain attitudes and portrayals, but retroactive censorship is not really my thing.

I sympathize with your sentiment. I don't want anything censored, not even Alex Jones - whom I hate hate hate. But, ironically, nothing is immune from criticism either. This film isn't an objective take on medieval Japanese values. It's sexist from 1951. It could only be conceived of by someone, male, who is quite clueless and careless about rape. That may have been THE attitude of the time, to be sure. I do love Kurosawa, by the way.

[Karl Henning]

It could only be conceived of by someone, male, who is quite clueless and careless about rape.

I think this essentially wrongheaded.  The central action of the movie is the bandit's being on trial, and the rape is one of the charges to which he is made to answer.  Not only is the bandit neither glorified nor exonerated for the deed, the rape is specifically designated as crime.  The wife's shame has practically an entire sub-narrative to itself.  And one of the concluding reflections of the movie is utter despair of human goodness (not, "well, it's all rather a downer, but at least the bandit got himself a piece of nice tail").

To tweeze, out of all that, "a trivialization of rape" does (with all due respect) seem to feed the anti-Liberal "PC-gone-amok" narrative.

One of the first Russian jokes I was told when I was in St Petersburg was about a ladies' sauna which was recently built next to a block of flats.  One of the residents called his Building Committee to complain.

"What's wrong?" they asked, on arriving at the Citizen's flat.

"It's indecent," he protested.  "You can see naked women over the top of the fence."

One member of the Committee looked out the window, and said, "I only see the fence, Comrade."

"Yes, but if you step up onto this chair . . . ."

[Karl Henning]

The theme of Rashomon is:  Everyone lies, for his own reasons.  Each version of the story is told by an individual with his own shortcomings in perspective, and with his own motives for suppressing or refashioning the odd fact.  This is the story which Kurosawa is telling.

To boil that down to [This is a story which] could only be conceived of by someone, male, who is quite clueless and careless about rape, is dreadfully poor reading.

[milk]

I think this essentially wrongheaded.  The central action of the movie is the bandit's being on trial, and the rape is one of the charges to which he is made to answer.  Not only is the bandit neither glorified nor exonerated for the deed, the rape is specifically designated as crime.  The wife's shame has practically an entire sub-narrative to itself.  And one of the concluding reflections of the movie is utter despair of human goodness (not, "well, it's all rather a downer, but at least the bandit got himself a piece of nice tail").

To tweeze, out of all that, "a trivialization of rape" does (with all due respect) seem to feed the anti-Liberal "PC-gone-amok" narrative.

One of the first Russian jokes I was told when I was in St Petersburg was about a ladies' sauna which was recently built next to a block of flats.  One of the residents called his Building Committee to complain.

"What's wrong?" they asked, on arriving at the Citizen's flat.

"It's indecent," he protested.  "You can see naked women over the top of the fence."

One member of the Committee looked out the window, and said, "I only see the fence, Comrade."

"Yes, but if you step up onto this chair . . . ."

When was the last time you saw it? I hadn't seen it for twenty years. I found myself unable to ignore the questions that continually pop up about the meaning and depiction of the rape In Rashomon. It's not easy to tease out what is a representation of the view of medieval Japan and what is the "gaze" of the film. From the standpoint of the medieval story and mores, the bandit's criminality is for having stolen something that is valuable to men and what is the difference between honor and shame for the woman. That's true. One can very well lay this at the doorstep of the historical context. The rape itself is never given any realism, or consideration in itself, for what it is. The Bandit is almost a comic character in Rashomon, certainly the most memorable and really charming part of the film (Mifune is the most talented performer here). I don't think any character's story presented is dismissed out of hand because of the reality of rape. Each is dismissed for different reasons, including the one where she enjoys the rape. Clearly it's self-serving for the bandit but not depicted as implausible because of the horror (which really isn't hinted at, only dishonor after the fact is regrettable). There is no reality really. The inhumanity is doled out equally among the characters, including the woman, because of their actions - nothing specially bad about the rape that exonerates the woman. Watch it again and you'll see the fingerprints of a man from a very sexist society in time and place all over it. Does the very fact that that dehumanization of women was THE view of the time and place (1951) let the film off the hook? Does a critique of the film from the most realistic and humanistic point of view equate to political correctness? I disagree on several fronts here: Rape and its depiction doesn't get immunity from a filmic statute of limitations; it's not the special property of one or another political pov, it's always horrible and immoral; my comments merely critique the representation of woman in a film, the fact that this film is old is neither here nor there. There is nothing politically correct about saying that rape presented in a silly and shallow way is lacking, though this may indeed be a very modern view. Rashomon is the gaze of a man of his time. Fine. This man is not interested in the reality of rape and neither was his audience. Fine. Rashomon doesn't really show how a woman would really look and feel and react and exist having been raped? Yes for me. I don't see anything politically correct about my view. This is not the same as the N-word in Huckleberry Fin which clearly needs lots of context, historical, linguistic, political, to understand and appreciate. Rape itself doesn't change. Let me add: go back and watch this film now. What you'll see is several performances of a rape. None of them care about reality. None of them even hint at it. People have always said: oh well that's not the point of the film. EXACTLY my point!

[milk]

Sorry for my very long-winded response. I think my critique comes down to this: for many years I would have said that Rashomon is a great film that's not intended to really show rape. Rape is a devise in the story, obviously. So, we enjoy this great piece of cinema understanding what it's not intended to do.
However,
Watching this film as a grown up, not a film student, I not only see why someone would have trouble viewing it uncritically, I actually felt uncomfortable the whole way through - not uncomfortable because of what was on screen, but uncomfortable and cringing because of what was left out. Furthermore, it seems fatuous to ignore the reality that only a male society could depict rape without depicting rape.

[Karl Henning]

I watched it afresh two months ago.

[milk]

The theme of Rashomon is:  Everyone lies, for his own reasons.  Each version of the story is told by an individual with his own shortcomings in perspective, and with his own motives for suppressing or refashioning the odd fact.  This is the story which Kurosawa is telling.

To boil that down to [This is a story which] could only be conceived of by someone, male, who is quite clueless and careless about rape, is dreadfully poor reading.

Yes, the philosophical meaning of Rashomon is another way that the film uses rape as a device rather than a reality.
You're not saying my point is untrue, just that it shouldn't be boiled down to this? Seems to me you are not considering my points fairly but rather trying to win an argument. You can disregard this subjective part then. Let's grant that a woman could have made Rashomon. What's changed now about my reading? Nothing. There is still a rape that is not really a rape. There is still the charm and comedy of the bandit. Would anyone make this film, this way, today? Why not? Because of political correctness? Or because rape is taken more seriously and understood better by societies that care and appreciate women's perspectives more? If I'm wrong, then how so? I find it interesting that I stand alone in this interpretation. Maybe I really am wrong. But I'm just not seeing how. Perhaps you can change my mind by pointing out something in the substance of my reading.

[milk]

I'm not saying that this is the only aspect worth thinking about. The moral philosophy remains a part of the film as does its wonderful mise en scene and cinematography. All I'm saying is I cringed throughout the thing. This is a film in which a raped woman is equally to blame for the moral consequences the film presents. I'd say Mifune's charm makes things worse too even as the rape is cringeworthy for its unreality.