Mark Cousins' The History of film: An Odyssey

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.

DAS IST NICHT EIN BAUBLE JETZ

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.

The best of:

Italian cinema: Identity and sex
German cinema: Identity and History.

Not sure you can generalise like this

christ I can't stand Ken Russell

PLEASE GOD LET HIM PLAY A CLIP OF "THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM"

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

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

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

That scene of Australians in a swimming pool next to the sea is a good find tho'.

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

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)

ok yeah that reading makes a lot more sense.

These Japanese docs...I just need to see 'em.

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?)

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

distractoblogging

STOP SAYING RADICAL you nob

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Cinema

^Not heard of this...

haha love the colonizers leaving scene in Xala

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

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

"radical enlightenment" <-- raw or cooked?

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.

Toasted?

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.

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

cousins is great at stunt juxtaposition: jodorowsky is a magnificant (=insane) way to conclude this ep

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

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.

"hyenes" looks like the best movie ever

i totally recommend yeelen, i loved it

whisky is a killer app, just sayin

but i am ready oh yes

it loooooooooked like our dreams

lars von trier is fat

"most people"

"big, brillliant questions" <-- stop saying "brilliant"

"das is mein mann"

fassbinder, you should have him the centre, he really really is

"sneered at its lies" <-- you are such a dildo

"performance" <-- it is quite a giveaway you dimwit dick

god i love fassbinder

all the right films, all the wrong justification

anthony easton art thou living yet

can't decide whether m. cousins or c. nolan's dreams are duller

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

haha, no cousins is diligent -- he is a careful student of bredth, this is no bad thing (except in his own hippy head)

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

trust his eye and his instinct, not his words -- he is a crap writer