15 Directors Who Shaped My Movie Love

So there's this meme going around that Paolo tagged me with. So why not? The idea is that you list 15 directors, mainly off of the top of your head, that contributed to the way you experience and think about the movies. This is not a list of my all time favorites though half of the list would probably overlap. This is the list I come up with when I think briefly on the formative masterminds and/or the ones that have or had some sort of claim on my soul if you will. Three of them I could definitely live without at this point but I'm trying to be honest about the exercize.

Wise with Wood ~ West Side Story 

So here goes in no particular order... 


ROBERT WISE (1914-2005)
When I was a kid West Side Story and The Sound of Music were the most Epically ! Epic !!! movies to me. At the time I didn't quite grasp the auteur theory but at some point I became aware that this guy had made both so therefore "He must be the best director of all time!" Later I discovered that he wasn't but I still think he's a stronger talent than he gets credit for being nowadays.
first encounters: The Sound of Music and West Side Story (on television) 

ALFRED HITCHCOCK (1899-1980)
As I said in my Rope retro, he's training wheels for any young budding film buff who is curious about The Man Behind the Curtain (Hitch or otherwise).
first encounter: North By Northwest (I think I saw it here, the place I saw many old movies for the first time. My parents didn't know what a monster they were creating by taking me there regularly.)

WOODY ALLEN (1935-)
For the same reason as Hitchcock really; it's impossible to think you're watching anyone else's film. Woody was the first director I "followed", eagerly anticipating and attending each movie as soon as I could. As a result, he'll always have a place in my heart.
first encounters: Broadway Danny Rose (in theaters... my older brother's idea), The Purple Rose of Cairo (in theaters, my idea)

Wyler meeting Charlton Heston's son.

WILLIAM WYLER (1902-1981)
The auteur theory isn't everything. This man understood dramatic storytelling and didn't dumb it down but made accessible all the nuances and fine points. Plus he could wring top notch work from all kinds of actors. His resume is deservedly overstuffed-with-classics. Just last month while watching The Best Years of Our Lives I even dreamed of watching all of his movies chronologically in a row for a blog project. I bet it would be an awesome journey. 
first encounters: Ben Hur (revival house) and Wuthering Heights (VHS) 

STEVEN SPIELBERG (1946-)
Because everyone loves him and therefore he was ubiquitous when I was growing up and still is to a degree. There was no question that he was shaping Hollywood and more than one moviegoing generation. I never felt personally attached but he was always present in the movie menu.
first encounters: Raiders of the Lost Arc & E.T. (in theaters)... the latter is the only movie I can ever remember seeing with my Grandma *sniffle*






JAMES CAMERON (1954-)
Because I seriously wish he was mandatory study/viewing for anyone assigned to direct a mainstream action film. He's never created an action sequence that was boring or difficult to follow (few others can say the same) and even if the dialogue is and was a bit clunky, his films are such masterful pop(corn). Plus, like all the greatest directors, he doesn't ignore female characters but makes them crucial players.


first encounters: The Terminator (cable), Aliens (in theaters... one of the very first R rated movies I ever saw in theaters. Ooohh.)

Pedro and His Muses celebrate All About My Mother's Oscar win

PEDRO ALMODÓVAR (1949-)
Truth: I look forward to no one else's movies more. Pedro always gives audiences something for the heart, the brain, the eyes and the groin and rare is the filmmaker who understands to provide us with all four pleasures in each and every film. 


first encounters: Women on the Verge... (in theaters), Law of Desire (VHS) 

Ridley with Veronica Cartwright on 
the Nostromo in Alien (1979)

RIDLEY SCOTT (1937-)
Because he made two movies that I remain deeply in the thrall of (Blade Runner and Thelma & Louise) and kicked off one franchise I obsessed over regularly for a good long while (Alien). And he helped inform my love of Art Direction within movies. All that but I could never work up much enthusiasm for anything in between or after those three peaks which just goes to show you: even if you love someone's something, you never know how it's all gonna shake out in terms of fandom.

first encounters: Legend (in theaters), Blade Runner (I can't remember how I first saw this...? There's too many versions!)

TIM BURTON (1958-)
He started off so very strong and stylized. Few things are as pleasureable as the weird and whimsical as long as they're genuinely felt and not manufactured. Unfortunately...  no, no, let's not go there! I can't deal.

first encounters: Pee Wees Big Adventure (I think on cable?), Beetlejuice (in theaters)

Sirk with Dorothy Malone on the set of Written on the Wind (1956) 
Why is she reading My Antonia?

DOUGLAS SIRK (1900-1987)
Because he influenced so many directors I love but I came to him after his ancestors which is like a glorious reminder that there's always more to experience from the past. When you sift through cinematic history you might even love someone so much that you wish you could jump in a time machine and shake the person's hand or give them a million kisses or a bear hug or promise them your first born child, depending on how they react to you arriving in the time machine in the first place. Maybe you should just send a thank you note in the machine.



first encounters: Lured and All That Heaven Allows (on DVD)

DAVID LYNCH (1946-)
Because he's a true original and yet his highly personal films resonate with so many people. It's like he was practicing Inception long before Nolan ever thought it up; his dreams and nightmares became ours. Plus, he made me believe in television as a powerful artistic medium in its own right and for its own reasons and not just the cinema's poor uglier relation. 


first encounters: Dune (in theaters) and Twin Peaks (television)

Campion's Bright Stars

JANE CAMPION (1954-)
Because there were so few female directors when she rose up but it was no kind of affirmative action enthusiasm -- she could have been a genderless space alien and would have still completely vaulted to the top of Directors Whose Movies You Must Watch!


first encounters: The Piano (in theaters), Peel (on VHS)

INGMAR BERGMAN (1918-2007)
It's not only that he made deeply great movies. I am fascinated that he ever existed at all... or rather, he has come to represent a myth / reality that I did not experience firsthand but am always fascinated to think on: the 1960s and 1970s and how adventurous movie fans once were. (See also: Federico Fellini.)


first encounters: Cries and Whispers and Persona (VHS)

ROBERT ALTMAN (1925-2006)
Movies should be crowded with true character... and characters. And they should be alive with possibilities as if the camera could follow anyone offstage and there would be a whole new movie waiting, tantalizingly out of reach.


first encounters: Fool For Love (VHS), The Player (in theaters) 

Bale & Haynes hit a Goldmine!

TODD HAYNES (1961-)
Because he keeps growing and therefore keeps us guessing. And because his one of his pet themes, the fluidity of identity, is among the most cinematic of themes.

first encounters: [Safe] (VHS), Velvet Goldmine (in theaters) 

If you ask me who are the "best" or my "favorite" directors the list would have to change at least by a third, maybe even a half. But that would require more careful consideration. If you ask me who from the past I'd like to resurrect to make one last motion picture the list would look crazy different. But that might be a fun list to make some time. Hmmmm.

I don't know who to tag since this meme has been going around for some time now. So I say YOU in the comment section: which 15 directors shaped your ideas about the movies in your formative film years.

Yes, No, Maybe So: Mildred Pierce (2011)

It's not intentional but today will be something of a TV day here at The Film Experience -- and to think how we were just bitching about all the false arguments in its favor -- and let's start with this trailer for the HBO Miniseries Mildred Pierce. [thanks to Sebastián for alerting me]



Like Angels in America seven years back, the director, cast and production values allow us to easily pretend that it's really just a feature film in disguise. It's just another part of The Great Convergence because what are today's franchises like Harry Potter and Twilight other than three season'ish long television series with bigger budgets?

YES I'll see anything -- and have seen everything -- that Todd Haynes directs. From subversive queer shorts like Dottie Gets Spanked to the inventive Superstar (the legally troubled Karen Carpenter bio with Barbie dolls) through to Oscar contending films like Far From Heaven and I'm Not There. His films never fail to excite the eyeballs, the intellect and hormones. Some people think he has trouble with the heart portion of entertainment, that his films are too heady, but to this complaint I say [insert expletive]. Even if that were true, better that problem than the far more common cinematic ailments of brainlessness, sexlessness and generic aesthetics.

NO I don't understand the casting of 23 year old Evan Rachel Wood as 34 year old Kate Winslet's nasty ungrateful daughter Veda at all. Aren't they too old and too young for their roles respectively, thus compounding the problem? Believable mother daughter chemistry won't be as important as usual since they're at odds, but still. Not sure I follow this. Plus, I've been aching for Evan Rachel Wood to get out of her bad girl rut. She has more range than this (or at least she once did).

MAYBE SO As much as I love Kate Winslet, performing in the shadow of Joan Crawford's signature role just seems so... foolhardy? It's one thing to star in an adaptation of a novel that's been adapted before. It's quite another to star in an adaptation of a novel that's been adapted before as an immortal and glamorous star's biggest hour.

I'm a yes given Kate + Todd + below the line players like DP Edward Lachman. Though I feel I should note that Todd's regular costume designer Sandy Powell did not work on this -- she told me her schedule conflicted when I interviewed her during the Young Victoria Oscar run.

My current plan: read the book in the next month or two so as not to be thinking of the gorgeous Michael Curtiz noir the whole way through.

Kate in her Emmy winning* role as Mildred Pierce.

You? Have you seen Joan Crawford's Oscar winning take on the Mildred Pierce role? If not, what are you waiting for?

*just guessin'
*

Flashback: Best of the 90s (Pt. 2)

Start with Pt 1 of this 90s Flashback... if you're confused about what's going on. To make a long story short, I'm excerpting items from an old zine I wrote in Spring 2000, during the first year of the website. Yes, I was originally juggling too many things. Why that's not like me AT ALL.

We previously covered my dated lists for Actors, Supporting Actresses and Supporting Actors -- lists I don't agree with in full anymore (though the supporting actresses list I quite like still). So now we move on to Picture and Actress.

Best Actress
Top ten chronological order. What follows is original text from the magazine, with the winner in bold text. I had purposefully excluded 1999 which is why you don't see Kate Winslet for Holy Smoke or Hilary Swank for Boy's Don't Cry though here's what I wrote about Swank in that same zine...

I'm rooting for Swank on Oscar night. But I must express concern that she could turn into Elisabeth Shue and only have this one great role in her.

Ha. I was right but it's funny in retrospect to have proof that I had no animosity at all (I love Shue). I mean I wasn't giving the Swankster mean nicknames or spoofing my own hatred of her and I was actually rooting for her to win that first time. It was that damn disingenuous "girl from a trailer park" campaigning and the second win that rubbed me in directions wrong and wrongest. [sic]

• Anjelica Huston, The Grifters (1990)
  Her daring unsympathetic work tore through the screen.
• Jodie Foster, The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
  Clarice Starling is one for the history books.
• Susan Sarandon & Geena Davis, Thelma & Louise (1991)
  I'm loathe to separate this duet, so I shan't.
• Michelle Pfeiffer, Batman Returns (1992)
  Meow. Her funniest most magnetic star turn this decade.
• Emma Thompson, Howards End (1992)
  She shone as the passionate but centered Margaret Schlegel
• Juliette Binoche, Three Colors: Blue (1992 [sic] it was actually 1993. I think I was avoiding a certain 1993 problem in my head! read on.)
  A mystifying transcendent performance.
• Holly Hunter, The Piano (1993)
  One of our finest comic actresses in her best dramatic work.
• Elisabeth Shue, Leaving Las Vegas (1995)
  No one knew she had this in her but I'm glad she did.
• Frances McDormand, Fargo (1996)
  An expert comic performance that owns the great film.
• Helena Bonham-Carter, Wings of the Dove (1997)
  She gets better and better and this is the top.

Hmmm. Looking back I'm confused why Julianne Moore [safe] isn't listed. I was also a bit surprised that Meryl Streep's Postcards From the Edge didn't factor in but then I remembered that it took quite some time before Meryl Streep's "Suzanne Vale" started threatening to be my favorite of her character gallery.

1993 was too good a year in Best Actress. Too many riches.

And I'm a touch surprised to see Juliette Binoche there though I think the performance is a hypnotic icy marvel. The film was released in the States in 1993 which means that I'd have to bump Michelle Pfeiffer from The Age of Innocence off of my best actress 5 that year (*sniffle*) which would leave me with Holly Hunter, The Piano (winner) and nominees: Angela Bassett, What's Love Got to Do With It; Juliette Binoche, Three Colors: Blue; Stockard Channing, Six Degrees of Separation and Emma Thompson, Much Ado About Nothing (previously discussed) none of whom I am able to part with. Sorry 'Chelle! It hurts me more than it hurts you.

Best Picture
[Chronological Top Ten. Winners in bold red. What follows is original text. 1999 I had originally excluded as it had just ended and I was still deciding on "bests" for that year.]

Heavenly Creatures and Porn Stars

• Beauty & The Beast (1991)
  Best cartoon of the decade. The genre has thankfully exploded since this.
• THELMA & LOUISE (1991)
  Eternal thanks fo Ridley, Callie, Susan & Geena. Best road trip of the decade.
• Husbands and Wives (1992)
  Allen's best film of the 90s. Its status will grow in time, trust me.
• Trois Coleurs (1992-1994)
  Have this experience! Kiezlowski's enthralling spiritual trilogy.
• THE PIANO (1993)
  Jane Campion's painterly erotic masterwork.
• Schindler's List (1993)
  I hate to include Spielberg but he actually deserved the kudos on this one. (recently discussed at the blog)
• Heavenly Creatures (1994)
  Peter Jackson's surreal mood juggling giddy nightmare.
  
• Dead Man Walking (1995)
  Tim Robbins enthralling and enormously moving death row drama.
• Boogie Nights (1997)
  P.T. Anderson's mega-entertaining superbly acted porn-opus.
• Wings of the Dove (1997)
  Vastly underrated James adaptation by Iain Softley and a trio of fine actors.

The "runners up" listed were Edward Scissorhands, Howards End, Pulp Fiction, Queen Margot, Babe, Fargo and The Truman Show. And my three favorites of 99, listed elsewhere in the zine were Being John Malkovich, Run Lola Run and All About My Mother. (I've always enjoyed Lola but I didn't remember it as that high up!)

Some notes: It appears that I was in love with the word "enthralling" in Spring 2000. I guess I could not choose an adjective for Heavenly Creatures so I just went with all of them. I was also, not yet dead set against "ties". The Piano (see my review) now holds the throne on its own and those porn stars, waitresses on the run and murderous teen girlfriends continue to sit nearby as ladies in waiting to "Best Film of the 90s." (And yes, I do still think Beauty & The Beast is the best animated film of the 90s. Sorry Toy Story and Princess Mononoke) The rest of the list would need a seriously rethink or overhaul.

And if that weren't enough -- you're all "please stop. It's 2010!" yeah, yeah, we'll get back to it -- here were some other fighting words back then. Original Text follows. I can't totally stand by all of this since it's 10 years ago that I wrote this and I haven't seen at least half of the films since. Plus, I seemed to have had a distinct distaste for films with negative messages. But here's what I wrote ten years ago...

The World is Stone Pt 1 (Unjustly aborted movie children i.e. the most underrated films of the 90s.)

• One True Thing
  Dismissed as just a fine Streep film. Sorry, try again. Just a fine film.
• Velvet Goldmine
  Time has lifted [safe] to grand cinema status. Same thing will happen to Todd Haynes' most electric film.
• Strange Days | Nell | The Ref
  Not classics but severely and rudely underrated.
• Queen Margot
  This film floors me. Luscious. Epic. Incredible.
• Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
  You might want to hate it but you'll learn to love it.
• Truly Madly Deeply
  A rarely insightful look at the mourning process with two terrific lead performances.
• Batman Returns | Mars Attacks
  Burton's least appreciated. Funny and clever films.
• Living Out Loud | Home for the Holidays
  The first was widely shrugged off, the second universally hated. I'll never get why. Holly Hunter is perfection in both.
• Men Don't Leave
  An emotional stunner with Jessica Lange in top form.
• Romeo + Juliet
  The media tried to reduce it to "Shakespearean MTV" when it's a visually inspired experience. DiCaprio and Danes briefly gave Young Hollywood a good name.

The World is Stone Pt 2 (spoiled brats - overrated films of the 90s)

• LA Confidential
  Didn't anyone else find the ending a major cop out?
• Deconstructing Harry
  One of Woody's worst. Childishly vicious.
• Henry Fool
  A revered arthouse film that's so pretentious I felt like tearing at my skin.
  
• Forrest Gump | Saving Private Ryan
  Two ultra adored patriotic Tom Hanks blockbusters with scary political implications or simplified messages.
• In the Company of Men
  It's just inert as a film. Lifeless even in all its bile.
• Braveheart
  Mel Gibson's sick, homophobic, bloodthirsty operatically self-indulgent mess. Won the Oscar of course.
• Casino
  Just when I was sick to death of it, I realized it was only halfway over. Repetitious, ugly, and revered based solely upon the name in the director's chair.

Hmmm.

Many many people have told me I should love Casino (1995) as they do. Perhaps I wasn't in the right place? But I still remember the visceral hatred of it in the movie theater ... so I'm scared to go back. I rarely employ "pretentious" as a kneejerk insult now so I wonder what I'd think of Henry Fool today? I still have plenty of hate for Forrest Gump (see recent proof) and Braveheart (see recent proof) but I am confused at the dismissal of LA Confidential which is obviously a goodie.

Things I have no memory of: Hating In the Company of Men or loving One True Thing.

What were your favorite and least favorites of the 1990s back in 2000?
How is the list different now?
*

Modern Maestros: Todd Haynes

Robert here, continuing my series on great contemporary directors. This week a director who I knew little about despite loving almost all of his work.  But knowing how popular he is here I knew I'd have to tackle him eventually.  So I gave myself a crash course, not on the films which I already knew, but on the man.  And what a discovery indeed!

Maestro: Todd Haynes
Known For: Art movies about society, identity, music and more masquerading as non-art movies.
Influences: A long list: Jean Genet, Stan Brakhage, Hitchock, Chantal Akerman, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Douglas Sirk (of course), Oscar Wilde,  Orson Welles and on and on and on.
Masterpieces: Far From Heaven and I'm Not There
Disasters: None.
Better than you remember: I doubt many people who actually saw Velvet Goldmine really disliked it, but it is better known for being a commercial flop than for being a quality film.
Awards: Oscar and Globe nominated for writing Far From Heaven. Spirit Award winner for Directing Far From Heaven (and nominated for just about every other movie he's made.)
Box Office: Over 15 mil for Far From Heaven.  That Oscar recognition helps.
Favorite Actor: Julianne Moore in three films.

Todd Haynes has been fooling us, and he's very good at it.  For a little while now Haynes has been tricking us into thinking he makes conventional prestige appeal films.  It's a good trick for someone who truly makes art films.  Since his debut (as part of the New Queer Movement) he's been masquerading art film as pop film successfully, in the 90's by mixing moods like the horror meets suburban quaintness Safe or the Ziggy Stardust meets Citizen Kane Velvet Goldmine.  But the real slight of hand was Far From Heaven.  A movie that seemed to be and was a big awards player (thanks a lot to Julianne Moore, not to mention Hayne's own talents) and yet no one noticed that it was still an art film at heart.  Homage is one thing, but Far From Heaven could be Haynes attempt to make a film entirely inside the reality of another director (with the benefit of fifty years of cultural perspective).  Just as we thought he'd hit the mainstream, Haynes fooled us again with a film so star-laden it had to be accessible at the least.  Instead we got I'm Not There a confounding enigma that required more audience dedication and participation (though it was worth it) than anyone expected.  Anyone except perhaps lifelong Haynes fans who already knew the trick up his sleeve.

I'm Not There was almost audacious in its suggestion that a musical biopic could be more than an extended dramatized Behind the Music episode.  And we shouldn't be surprised that this breakthrough should come from Haynes, for whom music has been one of his favorite subjects.  Muscians naturally lead him toward his favorite topics: how our environment shapes our identity, and how we conform to or rebel against that force.  For musicians their environments are constantly changing, often antagonistic and usually result in a person becoming self-destructive, retreating from the world or fragmenting their own persona.  Another familiar topic for Haynes: women, and as usual the aggressive ever changing cultures that force them to confront their identities.  As for men... sorry guys, we're really just not that interesting.  Unless of course we're gay, and thus perfect for Haynes' cinematic touch.

 Two identities, shaped by the world.

Stylistically don't be fooled by how much his films are influenced by past cinema.  Haynes is his own man. Even when a film lives in another's reality, Haynes has the talent to make it his own.  Later this year Haynes may fool us again.  He's hard at work on the much anticipated Mildred Pierce miniseries, starring Kate Winslet.  Here's a story that fits in perfectly with the director's consistent exploration of women and their place in the world.  But where is the secret art film hiding inside?  We'll all be waiting to see.  Because we all keep coming back.  We're all fools for Todd Haynes.  Nomatter how many times he keeps fooling us.

Joan Crawford vs. Kate Winslet

Weirdest news of the week coming at'cha right now...

Kate Winslet, who we all thought would lie low for a bit after her Oscar win, is going to play "Mildred Pierce". Yes that Mildred Pierce! It's the restaurateur/mother/martyr role that won the immortal Joan Crawford her long coveted Oscar. HBO is expected to win the rights to the film which is, according to Variety, not a feature remake so much as a miniseries adaptation of the novel that the 1945 classic was based on.

But still...

What's infinitely better news than another classic being reworked? A classic being reinterpreted by the one and only Todd Haynes (Far From Heaven), that's what. If you they have to remake classic cinema --and they don't have to but never mind all that -- at least get someone with a true voice involved. Haynes has already made a mini masterpiece by riffing on the films of Douglas Sirk. He's adept at cinema on cinema or any kind of text on text for that matter. But will lightning strike twice? And for the small screen?

Joan Crawford could not be reached for comment but we hear she's pissed.


And you don't want to mess with Joan Crawford.

"CHRISTTTINAAAAA" "KAAAAAAAAAAATE !!!"

Cannes: Maggie Cheung and Your Nine "Great Directors"

Before the Palme D'Or is handed out, I've got two last bits from our buddy in Cannes but first (sigh) a big old frowny face in regards to the following nugget.

<--- Maggie Cheung and her boyfriend Ole Scheeren in 2008

Maggie Cheung's scene in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds was cut before the Cannes opening and will not be restored even though Tarantino is returning to the editing room. Presumably he's tinkering for maximum audience playability. The cutting room floor is a regular habitat for actors with small roles but this time it really hurts: Maggie still works the red carpet, but never the silver screen. She retired from movies after Clean and 2046 five long years ago. Basterds was going to provide us with a rare chance to see one of the most bewitching living actresses on the big screen again. Damn!
*
On to cheerier topics.

The generous take on Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock appears to be that it's a "minor" effort. Rosengje found it charming and especially enjoyed the first "fun and frothy" hour, but understands why people aren't taken with it

...the movie loses a lot of momentum toward the conclusion, with the actual music festival not quite coming together in a cohesive manner. Ang Lee makes the puzzling decision to not include any concert footage. The managed chaos that defines Taking Woodstock's first hour feels like it has been building toward something that viewers are ultimately denied access to.

Liev Schreiber is the movie's real standout as a transvestite security guard -- the audience interrupted his first scene with boisterous applause. The actor has limited screen time, making probably around four substantial appearances. Demetri Martin was extremely enjoyable, giving a nuanced performance that belies his limited screen experience. He has great comic timing and definitely suggested the character's muted sexuality (he's closeted) effectively. The supporting cast is generally impeccable, with Emile Hirsch and Paul Dano making the biggest impressions in small roles.

Rosengje also notes that she thinks age will play a heavy factor in reaction to the movie. She admits that some of the details and mythos escaped her (she's in her 20s) but thought the movie was a pleasant diversion, nonetheless.

She also told me about a documentary I hadn't yet heard of from Angela Ismailos called Great Directors.

One of the treats of Cannes is the ability to see sprawling epics alongside small, intimate pieces. The endearing and informative Great Directors falls into the latter category. Pic focuses on nine directors that have influenced Angela's life: Bernardo Bertloucci, Agnes Varda, Stephen Frears, Todd Haynes, David Lynch, Catherine Breillat, Richard Linklater, Ken Loach and John Sayles. A mixture of new interviews, archival footage, and well chosen film clips craft winning portraits of each of the auteurs. David Lynch proves most memorable, putting forth a charmingly gregarious personality that bizarrely contradicts his films. Trying to reconcile clips of Eraserhead and Inland Empire with the man telling anecdotes about Mel Brooks is one of the film's chief pleasures.

The mix of genders, ages, and nationalities of the directors ensures that the topics discussed do not become repetitive, but are constantly revisited in fresh and innovative ways. Despite the unique elements and perspectives, common threads do emerge. Hearing Sayles discuss working on Hollywood scripts to finance his own efforts evokes and contradicts Frears’ and Loach’s development through the BBC. Though the documentary is interview heavy, Ismailos varies her visuals to correspond to the character of her subjects: Bertolucci is shot primarily in formal interviews, while Linklater and Haynes are shown in a variety of interactive locales (i.e. driving, perusing books).

I wish the film shed more light on the Angela herself, who remains an enigmatic presence throughout “Directors,” occasionally revealing her presence during interviews or walking through shots on perilously high heels. She grants the directors a platform for expressing their own inspiration and intentions, but never really delves into the specifics of her own. With such unusual and impeccable taste in auteurs, I constantly wanted to know more about her own pursuits.

Indie Wire has more on the screening and the yacht party that I also sent Rosengje too.

The film sounds intriguing and it certainly prompts a completely necessary! commenting exercize. If I were making a documentary about nine living auteurs that influenced my life (not necessarily my favorites) I might have to go with: Tarantino, Haynes, John Hughes, Mike Nichols, Tim Burton, Paul Thomas Anderson, Woody Allen, James Cameron and Pedro Almodovar... but it's tough to say.

What about you? Which nine men or women would you choose if you were making a personal documentary about auteurs that shaped you?
*

Away We Link

<-- The Where the Wild Things Are poster has been wet pasted and squeegeed onto every surface on the net. So fuzzy! JA made me cackle with his take

Love. I want to go to the store, buy a copy of it, bring it home, lay it across my living-room floor, and hump it until there is nothing but tatters (of it and me both) left. Love.

I don't quite want to hump it BUT it does present a problem for me expectation-wise. How can I live in a world where this movie is anything less than a masterpiece? Uh-oh. Expectations too high too high too high. May the trailer be terrible so that I can find myself in a more reasonable pre-screening headspace.

LiNKs
FilmMaker a conversation with Todd Haynes and Richard Linklater. There's even a Madonna anecdote.
Cinevistaramascope a smart review of Milk, now on DVD.
Rope of Silicon first look at Jeunet's Micmacs a tire-larigot. (That's quite a mouthful).
Suburban Idealist a beautifully written piece on Greyhound, the economy and Forrest Gump on loop.
ModFab casting couch: who should play Thor?
Coming Soon cast coming together for Leap Year, Amy Adams first leading trek into regular RomCom land (Enchanted is too much of a hybrid to count) where all popular actresses eventually go to test their mettle and get sized up for that box office queen crown. Will it fit? That crown is more coveted better than any glass slipper. Who need princes when you can dozens of castles with your own paychecks?
Burbanked is wary of Sam Mendes but likes this Away We Go trailer...



I personally love how low-key it feels and I'm hoping that's reflected in the film because my biggest gripe about Sam Mendes work is how heavy with portent and planning it always feels.

Musical of the Month: Velvet Goldmine

It's Tuesday Top Ten AND November's musical of the month. When you overplan it's best to kill two birds with one stone. (Guess who overplans?)

Velvet Goldmine, auteur Todd Haynes' marvelous, sexy, agitated tribute to glam rock celebrates its 10th anniversary this month. A decade later it's still quite the queer jewel. It remains one of the sparkliest bits in the filmographies of all involved.

When I first announced this Velvet celebration I dropped the argumentative note that I think it's a better film than Haynes's recent and more acclaimed picture I'm Not There. The latter has a bolder attention-grabbing actorly gambit (multiple performers for one role ... sort of) but the films are close spiritual siblings in many other ways. They're like aggressively eccentric visual historians who share the same pet topics: fluid persona, rock star egotism and cultural youthquakes. So why do I think Velvet is better?

Ten Reasons Why Velvet Goldmine Trumps I'm Not There

10 Christian Bale appears in both of these Todd Haynes extravaganzas. In only one of them does he masturbate to a fold out album cover and newspaper clippings.

"It's a shameful fithy thing you're doing!"

09 Todd Haynes detractors point to his intellectualism as a fault. They say it renders his movies into theses. Mostly I say "what's wrong with that?" ... better to have something meaty to discuss than the alternative. And though I've often chalked this reaction up to lazy anti-intellectualism I see where they're coming from a bit with I'm Not There. Advantage Velvet Goldmine: It funnels its big ticket ideas through the painted lips of characters as unintellectual in nature as Mandy (Toni Collete --I kind of live for her "speeding up" monologue) as awkward as Arthur (Christian Bale) as silent as Jack Fairy (Micko Westmoreland) or as stoned as Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor) or as smugly pontificating as Brian (Jonathan Rhys Meyers). This filter makes it less 'thinky' somehow.

08 Put another way: Velvet Goldmine lives in its body as well as its head. I'm Not There stays entirely cerebral even though rock n' roll is often located in the groin. The sex scene between Mandy & Brian in particular is incisively shot through distorting glass, incisively echoing their fluidity and even the confusion of who is/will be doing what to whom in the long run. And that's not to mention the crude guitar fellatio or the orgy sequence.

"It's funny how people look when they're walking out the door"

07 Unlike many rock and roll films, Goldmine's reach is generous. It focuses not just on a performer (as I'm Not There and most traditional rock pictures do) but it allows for further contextualization by adding an equally weighted audience surrogate (Arthur). We end up experiencing the larger cultural shifts through both performers and audiences. As a result it far exceeds the familiar rise and fall narrative of famous movie musicians and paints an unusual portrait of the death of a particular peculiar moment in both the large and intimate sense and from both directions (performer/voyeur) at once. You have to love it.

06 The flights of fancy in I'm Not There: whale, giraffes, balloons, etcetera... are all (presumably) esoterica. Only Dylan fans might understand them. Velvet Goldmine's most fanciful flourishes such as spaceships, magic amulets, barbie doll kisses and Oscar Wilde, are more accessible. I knew precious little about the glam rock era before watching the movie and I never felt like I wasn't in on any joke.

"Baby's On Fire" and "the curve of your lips rewrite history"

05 Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Ewan McGregor are both way more believable as rock stars than anyone in I'm Not There... and more believeable as rock stars than many other people in many other rock movies. There are many people who think JRM is not much of an actor and to them I say 'ignore the other things you've seen him in an marvel at how perfectly he's cast and shot here and how well he embodies autoerotic androgynous callow celebrity.' He'll never top it but so what? If you have to peak early due it in service of a great film. As for McGregor... "TV Eye" has to be one of the most authentically live & dangerous rock numbers captured on film, doesn't it?


04 The Citizen Kane structure is endearing in its chutzpah. Not that I'm Not There doesn't have balls. But there's more film-appropriate youthful bravado in Goldmine. In short: it's more fun.

03 No sequence within Velvet Goldmine --not even the slightly mistifying Jack Fairy throughline -- is as headscratching or unsatisfying as one sixth of I'm Not There, the sixth being the Richard Gere section. Please note: This is not to take away from that lovely haunting musical bit "Goin' to Acapulco" even if it still makes no sense to me whatsoever.


02 Toni Collette does not appear in I'm Not There. Filmmakers take note: this is an automatic point deduction.

01 Velvet Goldmine gives the world's greatest costume designer Sandy Powell (absent from I'm Not There though she often works with Todd Haynes) a lot to do. When you give Sandy Powell room to play she returns to you entire playgrounds.


I know what you're saying I'm Not There lovers... You're saying...
...............okay okay I don't know what you're saying. I don't get you.

If you're on Team Dylan(s) speak up in the comments. Why were the reviews stronger? If you're on Team Goldmine rally 'round.

More Velvet Readings?
Try my Musical of the Month Pals
Movies Kick Ass "Citizen Slade"
Cinemavistaramascope "the curve of your lips..."
StinkyBits "an enthralling confounding fabulation"
Haiku'ed Viper Tetsu pays tribute in Japanese Meter

Next Musical
The classic Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) on December 6th. 'Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas' a little early.
*

Monday Monologue: Velvet Goldmine

The critical reaction to Todd Haynes' recent Dylan thesis I'm Not There with pockets of "masterpiece!" raves was surely informed by the years of goodwill that the director has engendered in the critical community and the status of the icon examined. For 10 years ago he made an even better picture which wasn't greeted as warmly. It was also about peculiar shifting identities and the unknowability of creative giants. So for today's monologue, let's sing the praises of Toni Collette as Mandy Slade in Velvet Goldmine.


This glam rock picture hops around chronologically, just as I'm Not There does, and though Brian Slade / Maxwell Demon (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), Mandy's husband, is the film's principal shape-shifter the other characters also mutate as they tell their communal story. When it comes time to hear her side of the story, about 50 minutes into the movie, we meet Mandy who has retained precious little of the former glitzy diva that we've come to know. Her hair is dishevelled and she moves slowly, taking drags from a cigarette.

Because honestly darling, I haven't spoken with Mr. Slade in, what? Seven years at least. Wow. Yeah, at least.

No, right after everything crashed we split. Brian... he just became someone else but then again he always was.

On the last line Todd Haynes cross-dissolves the image and we drift into Mandy's memories, the film restlessly seeking out visual wonders in the stimulating time period. But even before we've jumped backwards, Collette --a great storyteller of an actress-- has already teased out the past. The "darling" comes out both nostalgic and self mocking (or patronizing, perhaps?) and we know she's performing for the interviewer, remembering a younger version of herself .


Haynes weaves her narration in and over musical moments and between shimmering images of Brian Slade, Jack Fairy and Mandy colliding sexually and emotionally.

It was New Years Eve, 1969, the start of a new decade. The feeling in the air that anything was possible. See Jack Fairy had also come to London in the swinging '60s. And in crowded clubs or hotel bars, this shipwreck of the streets rehearsed his future glory. A cigarette tracing a ladder to the stars.

I needn't mention how essential dreaming is to the character of the rock star.

Jack was truly the first of his kind. A true original. Everybody stole from Jack. But from the moment Brian Slade stepped into our lives, nothing would ever be the same. It was his nature. So I married him.

Her narration ends there followed by Brian singing to her and a sex scene that beautifully captures the fluidity of these young musical creatures. Before Haynes leaves Mandy's story behind, he returns to her voice... in the past... only now it's overtly theatrical, less self aware, and more than a little childlike.

Time. Places. People. They're all... speeding up. So to cope with this evolutionary paranoia, strange people are chosen... who through their art can move progress more quickly.

[narrating again] It was the most stimulating and reflective period of our marriage.

Todd Haynes is one of those people that can move progress quickly through his art. Toni Collette is the strange person who was chosen for this great role.
*

Un [Safe]

It's a rainy gray day here in Manhattan --the type of day where I find myself zoning out, lost in memories, cinematic or otherwise...

There's an interesting very personal essay over at The Bilerico Project from Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore on watching or, rather, rewatching Todd Haynes [Safe] . For those who haven't seen the 1995 movie, it's about a woman who becomes allergic to her environment. It's been called (accurately) a "horror movie of the soul" and it was a critical breakthrough in the careers of both writer / director Todd Haynes and actress Julianne Moore --it was the first time she was asked to carry a film.

I've watched the movie several times and each trip through has felt a little different. One scene or another will meekly ask a question I hadn't heard before like it's aping its protagonist Carol White (Julianne Moore) and phrasing everything like a question. Another mildly bothersome scene might scare me so much I want to turn the DVD off before I start hyperventilating like Carol in a parking garage. The scene that Matillda focuses on in the essay --the "where am I?" moment, I barely noticed the last time I watched the movie and now I want to watch it again right now. Probably not a good idea when my hypochondria has been in full bloom this week.

[Safe], or Safe if you prefer, is a mutating virus of a movie. Even or especially from the present tense of watching it to the past tense of looking back on it. Whether that be the next day or many years later. I still remember the first time I saw it in college. My friends and I didn't talk about it much after the movie was over (unusual for us). A week later one of my girlfriends says, out of the blue, 'that movie terrified me.' Suddenly you couldn't shut us up. We were ready to discuss.

If you haven't seen the movie, schedule the appointment. If you have, tell us about your first time through. Do you feel differently about it now?