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Cinema School Log
November, 2003
Tuesday, November 4th - Today we spent some time talking about the demise of the Hollywood studio system in the early 50s, and the emergence of independent filmmakers. We talked a lot about bankability, and how it drives Hollywood today. Stempel maintains that the only people that are bankable now are actors�and 2 directors: (Spielberg and, for small budgets, Eastwood). I think M. Night is bankable, but other than that, I tend to think that he�s right. (Bruckheimer might be bankable, but I feel unclean even thinking that.) Then, we got to watch On the Waterfront. What an amazing, amazing film. The script is absolutely astounding � even considered by many Hollywood historians to be the greatest ever written. I don�t think I agree with that, but I was definitely involved in the script itself, even to the point where I was unconscious of the visuals � which are quite noteworthy in their own right. Every time I watch this film, I think the same things: Brando is good, and you can definitely see how his style has changed actors. (Too bad the �Contender� speech has become so clich�d. It would be great to see for the first time again.) Cobb is also excellent, if not too far from his usual role. Eva-Marie Saint is very vulnerable. Steiger is great, albeit with relatively little screen time. In fact, the whole cast is strong, from top to bottom. But the thing that always blows me away is Karl Malden�s performance as Father Barry. There are several speeches that run the risk of being very corny. But he is completely committed to the character, and never seems trite. Unfortunately, Cobb, Steiger and Malden all got Best Supporting Actor nominations, split the movie�s votes, and none of them came away with it. Another amazing thing about the film is the way Kazan is able to wring the maximum emotional effect out of his scenes. He may get more out of each scene than any director before or after. (Not sure of that. It�s certainly what Stempel thinks, though.)
Wednesday, November 5th � Direct Cinema night, probably the first of many. The films we watched today also served to highlight America�s obsession with the Kennedys, John F. in particular. The first film was called Primary, and was about the Wisconsin Primary election that featured a head-to-head confrontation between Hubert Humphrey and Kennedy. It raises the whole question of how unbiased can documentary people actually be. All I can say is that if this film was an accurate portrayal of Humphrey�he may have been the least charismatic man who ever lived. And Kennedy was definitely towards the other end of the spectrum, so it wasn�t even close to competitive once people really started to vote. Next, we watched Crisis, which is about Kennedy�s handling of the segregation issues with George Wallace and the University of Alabama. Although it ended up being mostly about Robert Kennedy. (George Wallace, by the way, was a real jerk.) There was one fascinating sequence where there was a camera crew in the White House, taping a conversation Robert Kennedy was having with his right-hand man, Nicholas Katzenbach, in Alabama. At the same time, there was a crew taping Katzenbach. The directors didn�t realize that until they starting sorting out the footage. It was a great scene. Finally, we watched Faces of November. A purely visual film showing people reacting to Kennedy�s funeral. Very wrenching stuff, especially the shots of his little kids. The medium is indeed powerful. It was also interesting to see how the Direct Cinema style is so prevalent in American documentary now. Pretty much everything we see on TV now is either this style, History Channel type stuff�or a bunch of talking heads. Ugh. I�m going to come down tomorrow and edit.
Thursday, November 6th � Done editing, mostly. I still need to get my titles shot, and add them to the film, but that should take about 15-20 minutes. All in all, I�m very happy with it. My continuity and cutting-on-action was much smoother this time. And Mimi was really great, so it packs some emotional punch, too. I�ll be interested to see how people react to it. In class, we got to watch a few more Project Twos. There seems to be a general lack of imagination. And lots of guns. (Those two things may go together, come to think of it�) I�m pretty comfortable with my project, now that I�ve seen others. I�ll be very interested to see what happens with Project Three, when people are allowed to give their imagination free reign.
Monday, November 10th � We had another test in Cinema 1 today. So the entire class time was spent discussing sound systems, reviewing for the exam, and then taking it. I polished it off in 12-15 minutes (52 questions, multiple choice). Feel pretty confident. Varner is definitely not trying to flunk people out in this class. (I�d better watch out. Maybe I made a bunch of stupid mistakes�) This class is still very interesting; lots of nuts and bolts stuff. But it kind of hard to write anything about. No class tomorrow, either. I have to come down to Yale to get my final (hopefully) roll of Super 8 developed. But I may actually get to see my kids tomorrow night.
Tuesday, November 11th - No Class (Veterans Day)
Wednesday, November 12th � We delved deeper into the Direct Cinema style, today, watching two films: A Face of War (Eugene S. Jones), and Titicut Follies (Frederick Wiseman). Face of War was about the Vietnam War, and led to a very interesting time afterwards. This is pretty much the last group of people I would ever pick for a rationally discussion about Vietnam. We had the people who were boasting about their draft dodging, the people who were outraged about how the poor, naive American servicemen had been cheated by the government, and we had the large group of women who were appalled at the idea of children dying during a war. The same women would, I am sure, be comfortable with - even adamant about - killing children in some other way. Irritating. I think I�m starting to break under the strain of keeping my �radical� political views to myself. The film itself, though, was very powerful. Reminded me of John Huston�s film San Pietro, except much more vivid and real. Jones decided to use only sound from the actual shoot; there was no music, and no voiceover of any kind. There weren�t even any real interviews. And I think it was far more effective because of it. There was a slight pacifist leaning to the work as a whole, but it was done by a former WWII vet, and so the soldiers were very well portrayed. An interesting experience. The second film, on the other hand, was amazing. It is a �stark and graphic portrayal of the conditions that existed at the State Prison for the Criminally Insane at Bridgewater, Massachusetts.� Both those words definitely apply: stark, for sure, and graphic to some lesser extent. Wiseman is the most patient film-maker I have ever seen. There was one extraordinary shot of a psychiatrist talking to a man diagnosed with acute paranoia. At the beginning of the conversation, the patient sounded perfectly normal. After a little bit, though, you start to wonder. And by the end of the long, 6-7 minute conversation, you now he�s crazy. If Wiseman had cut away at any point, though, the audience would never have been able to see that. Freaky stuff. Crazy people are�crazy. And the people that take care of them can be crazy too.
Thursday, November 13th � Cinema Two is essentially done now. I took my last film down today. And I showed it, to fairly warm reviews. This is the second time I get the most questions on a project, which I like. It means people are actually asking. There were no questions like: �What happened?� or �I didn�t understand the ending. Could you explain it?� So it went well. And now we�ll just be watching other people�s films until the end of the year. So I can kick back, relax�and try to figure out what I�m going to do next semester. Wow! Time flies when you�re having fun. And when you get zero sleep.
Monday, November 17th � Got my second Cinema One test back. The results were very similar to the first test. Exactly similar, actually. So, I�m not real worried about that class. The subject matter for the lecture today was fascinating, though. Professor Varner discussed editing, but focused primarily on the artistic aspects, rather than the technical ones. Which is a first for this class. The film we watched at the end of class was a composition of editing styles, and it was great. The Odessa Steps sequence, Hollywood montages from Citizen Kane and The Graduate, Russian montage scene from Elephant Man, and then my favorite events of the evening: French Montage, or mise en scene. The art of the long take. Make that the very long take. We got examples from Citizen Kane, again. One from Raiders of the Lost Ark. And one from Slingblade. If I had tons of money, that would be my style. We finished off with sequences of parallel editing: the baptism/assassination sequence from The Godfather, and the preparation to the shootout from High Noon. Great, great stuff. I have to watch some of these again.
Tuesday, November 18th � Today, Stempel showed us Hiroshima Mon Amour, made by the same fellow who did Night and Fog. And I must confess that it was the first film in this class that I did not enjoy watching. Alain Resnais tries to do too much. He is trying to tell a story that has at least two meanings: one meaning as it relates to the lives of the people involved, and one meaning as it relates to the things they represent. (At different points in the film, they represent cities, mankind, and even abstract ideas such as love and forgetfulness.) Problem is, those things are sometimes at odds with each other. For example, Eiji Okada�s character � named, tellingly enough: Man � is also very clearly meant to represent Hiroshima. So, she is trying to escape from him, and he pursues her relentlessly. Which works nicely as a commentary about how people have reacted to the dropping of the atom bomb. But her character has a hard time remembering people that she loves, and she hates forgetting things. Which is not at all the way people react to forgetting about the atom bomb. So he really shouldn�t have both of those things going on at once. But he does. And that leads to some significant confusion. I mentioned that in the discussion, and was informed by one of our female foreign students that the film was slow, but absolutely self-explanatory. I was a bit irritated about that, especially since she made no efforts to explain it. I was a bit mollified later in the discussion, however, when she tried to get someone to explain the ending to her. Maybe not as self-explanatory as she first suspected. Humph. Still, despite its confusion�and the fact that it was a bit too long�it was a very interesting film. Stempel used it to demonstrate what he calls the �New Stylization.� He means the period in the late 60s and early 70s where filmmakers (mostly Italians) began to realize that movie viewers could be just as interested in style as in content. There is certainly style in the film � in spades. The opening sequence is amazing, no doubt about that. It reminded me very much of Resnais� work on Night and Fog. And he does a wonderful job of shooting both Japan and France. Which reminds me of another wonderful aspect of the film: his mixture of storylines and times. There is a flashback sequence in the middle of the movie which is wonderfully handled. It reminds me a bit of Memento, with its use of misplaced sequences and shots. It packs a really powerful emotional punch once you are able to understand what is happening. That is a statement which would probably be true of the film in general. But I�m not at all convinced that is possible.
Wednesday, November 18th � Music documentaries today, and a whole new style. Stempel calls it the Self-Reflexive style, and it covers those people who are a sort of combination Direct Cinema and Cinema Veritae. There are a few interviews, but they are non-antagonistic, and their purpose is not particularly to get an unguarded comment out of the subject. And there is a lot of following around and shooting�but there is no effort to try and prevent camera influence. Everyone (filmmakers and subjects alike) is very aware of the camera. It plays a distinct role; almost has its own personality, even. We started off by watching a Pennebaker film called Company: Original Cast Album. It�s about the recording of a Steven Sondheim definitive album. Great, great stuff. Pennebaker has a real knack for focusing on interesting people. The film starts out as a simple documentation of the singing. But it starts to change towards the middle of the film, and we start to see a lot more of the reactions from Sondheim and his record producer, Thomas Shepherd. But the real highlight of the film comes at the very end. Elaine Stritch is playing a relatively unimportant side-character who has one major song called The Ladies Who Lunch. That song is the last one they try to record. It has taken them over 18.5 hours in the studio to get to this point. It is about 4:00 am. And she simply can�t do it. She is either too exhausted, too drunk, or both. The tension builds as she goes through take after take, long coaching sessions with Sondheim, and mini meltdowns with the orchestra�s director. Riveting stuff. And it even has a happy ending. After this, we watched the 2nd best documentary we�ve seen all semester � only slightly inferior to Night and Fog. It was called Soldiers of Music, and was a documentary about Mstislav Rostropovich and his return to Communist Russia right before its fall. It�s an extraordinary combination of things: a political commentary, a study of the personal life of a celebrity, and above all, the study of a profound musical genius. Beautifully shot, wonderfully edited, and with some moments of real humor; mostly Mike Wallace making an idiot of himself. It�s hard to describe too much more than that; really must be seen to be appreciated. Unfortunately, I think it may be one of those films that is completely unavailable on video or DVD. So, if anyone wants to see it, they�re going to have to take Cinema Four at LACC.
Thursday, November 19th � Another uneventful day of Project Twos and Threes. I did get my Project Three back with a 123/125 score. Solid. That�s gonna get me an A in the class, which is nice. I�m still a bit irritated about my titles, though. They just didn�t work. Got to see Kimo�s short, too. The one made with the help of my projector. It was very good. I�m pretty sure it�ll have a shot at the year-end screenings. (I�m sort of hoping mine will, too. Positive vibes.) Professor Obern is great. I hope to take the editing class from him next semester.
Monday, November 24th � Today, we got to watch a scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark MOS today. We watched it with three different musical scores, and then the final score with sound effects. Very interesting exercise to show the effectiveness of sound and music in a film. Not tremendously revolutionary to see that sound and music make things better. But still neat. Spielberg is a great, great filmmaker. But he was a bit sloppy at times here. And John Williams bailed him out. Also, there was a speaker today: a former LACC student who made 4 short films during his time here. We got to watch his last experimental short film. Not neat. In fact, it was confused, hectic, ugly, and even offensive at times. There was an interesting discussion afterwards, but he was a very, very strange fellow. I�m prepared to get used to this kind of thing, though. �The Industry� doesn�t attract the most stable of people.
Tuesday, November 25th � Today I got to see one of the best films Stempel has shown all semester: The Conversation, from Francis Ford Coppola. But before we got into that, Stempel spent some time lecturing on the principles of exhibition. Confusing stuff. It probably didn�t help that I get stuck in Thanksgiving traffic a couple days early, and missed about the first 15 minutes of class. Ugh. But the film more than made up for that. It opens with an amazing, 5+ minute shot. And it just gets better from there. A very unique pace, and a wonderfully appropriate soundtrack. But the real star of the film is Gene Hackman. He really does a wonderful job here. Most of the stuff I�ve seen him in, I feel that he overacts � sometimes badly. Here, there is none of that. A wonderfully restrained performance, overall. But it was just a wonderful film. We had some very interesting discussions afterwards, no doubt about that. A fellow named Richard, who has barely ever talked in class before today, chipped in with some great stuff. He was able to clear up the only confusion I had from the story. We walked back to the parking lot together; quite a neat fellow. I also handed in my extra credit paper today. Got it back at the end of class with an A. He must have graded it while we were watching.
Wednesday, November 26th � Started down to LACC about an hour early, hoping to avoid the Thanksgiving rush. No such luck. Sat on the 5 without moving for over an hour. Turned around and came home. Oh well.