Excellent beginning -- getting back to strenghts in comparing the American cinema that inspired German cinema in the 70s, although I think Fassbinder and Wenders genuinely adored that cinema a lot more than Cousins is letting on.
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 5 November 2011 21:14 (twelve years ago) link
DAS IST NICHT EIN BAUBLE JETZ
― mark s, Saturday, 5 November 2011 21:15 (twelve years ago) link
ok i am a bit drunk
but have to watch misha b now
by 1am you will be even more drunk I'm sure -- don't disappoint me when I wake up :-)
And that Von Trotta film, saw that years ago -- so happy he's included that.
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 5 November 2011 21:18 (twelve years ago) link
The best of:
Italian cinema: Identity and sexGerman cinema: Identity and History.
Not sure you can generalise like this
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 5 November 2011 21:21 (twelve years ago) link
christ I can't stand Ken Russell
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 5 November 2011 21:27 (twelve years ago) link
PLEASE GOD LET HIM PLAY A CLIP OF "THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM"
― mark s, Saturday, 5 November 2011 21:28 (twelve years ago) link
The image matching from film to film is among the best I've seen so far. He's brilliant on The Conformist. That Bertolucci related story of his meeting w/Godard meet in a Paris cafe is good. Could have explored some of that with a 30 sec look at Godard's Vertov stuff.
Whenever he speaks the word 'identity' I die a little a little tho'. All bobbins, for real. xp
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 5 November 2011 21:34 (twelve years ago) link
haha "she's like chas in performance shedding her clean-cut self when she meets a more vital human being" -- ok chas is a GANGSTER and the "more vital human being" was mick jagger MOSTLY IN BED
*sigh* at deploying "the raw and the cooked" to mean "the vital and alive and amazing vs the lame and entombed": MARK COUSINS YOU DO NOT EAT YOUR FOOD RAW you ponce
― mark s, Saturday, 5 November 2011 21:41 (twelve years ago) link
Weird to talk about that last scene of Walkabout (a scene I've liked in terms of pure film although it didn't make sense to me as Agutter character never shows that much feeling toward the Aboriginal kid).
Also I've been watching Mad Men all day (and for the first time). xp
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 5 November 2011 21:41 (twelve years ago) link
That scene of Australians in a swimming pool next to the sea is a good find tho'.
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 5 November 2011 21:43 (twelve years ago) link
SPOILERS she actually causes his death, though not intentionally -- i think the idea is that she is terrified and wants to get home while she's in the desert, but once she IS home and safe she realises she was caught up in something amazing, and relives
― mark s, Saturday, 5 November 2011 21:44 (twelve years ago) link
the key word in "performance" is the word performance, oddly enough -- and the aboriginal kid is just as caught up in it as jenny agutter (he's "performing" his own puberty ritual, iirc)
― mark s, Saturday, 5 November 2011 21:45 (twelve years ago) link
ok yeah that reading makes a lot more sense.
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 5 November 2011 21:48 (twelve years ago) link
These Japanese docs...I just need to see 'em.
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 5 November 2011 21:49 (twelve years ago) link
i've missed em all by writing too much, i'll have to watch them in the middle of the night (after "the thin red line" HOW WILL I STAY AWAKE?)
― mark s, Saturday, 5 November 2011 21:50 (twelve years ago) link
Yeah I was only partially watching, but an inspired move to go on about them -- he could've chosen to talk about a million other things going on in Japanese cinema at that time
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 5 November 2011 21:53 (twelve years ago) link
distractoblogging
― mark s, Saturday, 5 November 2011 21:55 (twelve years ago) link
STOP SAYING RADICAL you nob
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Cinema
^Not heard of this...
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 5 November 2011 21:57 (twelve years ago) link
haha love the colonizers leaving scene in Xala
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 5 November 2011 22:00 (twelve years ago) link
the diop interview's terrific -- i've seen sembene's yeelen but that's all, i wanted to see more (when i was writing about african pop) but they were nowhere to be found, easily
― mark s, Saturday, 5 November 2011 22:03 (twelve years ago) link
the colonisers leave but sembene wants a "radical enlightenment" -- all these directors are from francophone africa, ie have had a french secular ("enlightenment") education
cousins should be saying this; the directors are well aware of their own contradictions, the films are about little else
― mark s, Saturday, 5 November 2011 22:04 (twelve years ago) link
"radical enlightenment" <-- raw or cooked?
― mark s, Saturday, 5 November 2011 22:06 (twelve years ago) link
Xala is on TV on Monday, btw.
Think I'm going to have to re-watch this on More 4 on Demand sometime. Lots of great clips.
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 5 November 2011 22:08 (twelve years ago) link
Toasted?
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 5 November 2011 22:09 (twelve years ago) link
chas was a clean-cut gangster tho, & clean-cut in his notions of proper behaviour, masculinity, sexuality etc despite being a violent criminal. mick jagger danced around with flourescents to the last poets and was in bed with quite a lot of ppl.
― zvookster, Saturday, 5 November 2011 22:10 (twelve years ago) link
haha, ok busted, but i still don't buy that walkabout simply maps onto performance in an uncomplicated way -- jagger is the "cultured" "painted" creature and chaz the fellow caught in unquestioned ritual
― mark s, Saturday, 5 November 2011 22:16 (twelve years ago) link
cousins is great at stunt juxtaposition: jodorowsky is a magnificant (=insane) way to conclude this ep
― mark s, Saturday, 5 November 2011 22:20 (twelve years ago) link
ok i have to endure 2000 hours of t.malick to catch the start of this one now -- like malick, cousins's eye is superb; also like malick, he's a bit of an up-himself bonehead with a tin ear WHO I AM GLAD IS DOING THE STUFF HE IS DOING even if i get irritated by a good deal of it
― mark s, Saturday, 5 November 2011 22:23 (twelve years ago) link
Holy Mountain never appealed to me so I've never gone out of my way to see it, but he had to try and tidy up the identity narrative running through this ep somehow.
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 5 November 2011 22:23 (twelve years ago) link
"hyenes" looks like the best movie ever
― Michael B Higgins (Michael B), Saturday, 5 November 2011 22:55 (twelve years ago) link
i totally recommend yeelen, i loved it
― mark s, Saturday, 5 November 2011 23:05 (twelve years ago) link
whisky is a killer app, just sayin
― mark s, Sunday, 6 November 2011 01:36 (twelve years ago) link
but i am ready oh yes
― mark s, Sunday, 6 November 2011 01:37 (twelve years ago) link
it loooooooooked like our dreams
― mark s, Sunday, 6 November 2011 01:41 (twelve years ago) link
lars von trier is fat
― mark s, Sunday, 6 November 2011 01:42 (twelve years ago) link
"most people"
― mark s, Sunday, 6 November 2011 01:43 (twelve years ago) link
"big, brillliant questions" <-- stop saying "brilliant"
― mark s, Sunday, 6 November 2011 01:44 (twelve years ago) link
"das is mein mann"
― mark s, Sunday, 6 November 2011 01:46 (twelve years ago) link
fassbinder, you should have him the centre, he really really is
"sneered at its lies" <-- you are such a dildo
― mark s, Sunday, 6 November 2011 01:49 (twelve years ago) link
"performance" <-- it is quite a giveaway you dimwit dick
― mark s, Sunday, 6 November 2011 01:50 (twelve years ago) link
god i love fassbinder
― mark s, Sunday, 6 November 2011 01:51 (twelve years ago) link
all the right films, all the wrong justification
anthony easton art thou living yet
― mark s, Sunday, 6 November 2011 01:52 (twelve years ago) link
can't decide whether m. cousins or c. nolan's dreams are duller
― Bond 23: Skyrim (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 6 November 2011 01:58 (twelve years ago) link
of course cousins thinks herzog is germany's wild man. not fassbinder
"a dangerous idea that people tried to make safer" -- THOSE STUPID "PEOPLE" eh, thank god we are not that stupid
― mark s, Sunday, 6 November 2011 02:00 (twelve years ago) link
haha, no cousins is diligent -- he is a careful student of bredth, this is no bad thing (except in his own hippy head)
― mark s, Sunday, 6 November 2011 02:01 (twelve years ago) link
this is a fabulous range and spread of films and ideas, cousins's panic comes with the narrative summary, he always reaches for the dreary USP, his instincts are good and then he markets them out of sight and mind
― mark s, Sunday, 6 November 2011 02:03 (twelve years ago) link
trust his eye and his instinct, not his words -- he is a crap writer
― mark s, Sunday, 6 November 2011 02:04 (twelve years ago) link