― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 17 November 2006 00:36 (seventeen years ago) link
I read Schrader's little book on transcendental style a few years ago; it had some useful insights into Ozu and Bresson.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 17 November 2006 01:14 (seventeen years ago) link
and then there's this:http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.cinematical.com/media/2006/11/schraderjma.jpg
and:he claims that cinema, and especially the idea of finding aesthetic art therein, is mostly dead, a relic of the 20th century. He calls cinema a "broken down horse"
― jhoshea megafauna (scoopsnoodle), Friday, 17 November 2006 03:20 (seventeen years ago) link
"He shoot me there!"
(For me, the funniest bit from Easy Riders, Raging Bulls)
― The Dusty Baker Selection (Charles McCain), Friday, 17 November 2006 03:33 (seventeen years ago) link
― pinkmoose (jacklove), Friday, 17 November 2006 03:49 (seventeen years ago) link
anyone who thinks most great movies were made before 1970 is probably an asshole
It's no more valid than thinking most great novels were written before 1930.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 17 November 2006 03:54 (seventeen years ago) link
― timmy tannin (pompous), Friday, 17 November 2006 04:02 (seventeen years ago) link
― pinkmoose (jacklove), Friday, 17 November 2006 04:05 (seventeen years ago) link
― pinkmoose (jacklove), Friday, 17 November 2006 04:12 (seventeen years ago) link
anthony, are you saying sirk is an outsider? srsly?
― benrique (Enrique), Friday, 17 November 2006 09:43 (seventeen years ago) link
― Bobby Ganush (Uri Frendimein), Friday, 17 November 2006 11:05 (seventeen years ago) link
like douglas sirk!
or in terms of its master-thinkers even more so. canons are usually testament not just to prejudices but moreover of amnesia and ignorance of the past.
― benrique (Enrique), Friday, 17 November 2006 11:09 (seventeen years ago) link
― jhoshea megafauna (scoopsnoodle), Friday, 17 November 2006 14:04 (seventeen years ago) link
― benrique (Enrique), Friday, 17 November 2006 14:08 (seventeen years ago) link
...
I agree with Kurzweil that humankind is on an evolutionary cusp. We can foresee both the end of the 20,000-year reign of Homo sapiens and the beginnings of the life-forms that will replace it (something Kurzweil and Garreau predict will happen in the next hundred years). Art looks to the future; it is society’s harbinger. The demise of Art’s human narrative is not a sign of creative bankruptcy. It’s the twinkling of changes to come. Such thoughts fill me not with despair but envy: I wish I could be there to see the curtain rise.
ok he might actually just be a little crazy.
― jhoshea megafauna (scoopsnoodle), Friday, 17 November 2006 14:11 (seventeen years ago) link
― benrique (Enrique), Friday, 17 November 2006 14:13 (seventeen years ago) link
well i liked it, but i was more just pointing out that when given the choice between the two dude picked one with the antiquated sensibilities.
(neither would make my super awesome filmographic cannon.)
― jhoshea megafauna (scoopsnoodle), Friday, 17 November 2006 14:16 (seventeen years ago) link
― jhoshea megafauna (scoopsnoodle), Friday, 17 November 2006 14:22 (seventeen years ago) link
― jhoshea megafauna (scoopsnoodle), Friday, 17 November 2006 14:27 (seventeen years ago) link
anyone who thinks most great movies were made before 1970 is probably an asshole.
Since nearly two-thirds of the Century of Cinema falls in this period, you need more than a drive-by one-liner to be taken seriously with this. And since the aesthetics of film developed and matured almost entirely in this time, its supremacy seems even more undeniable. This strikes me as the kind of thing somebody who hasn't even bothered to see hardly any Renoir, Bresson, Ford, Ozu, Sturges, Rossellini etc. would say. Have you?
Over 90% of great Hollywood studio films were likely made before '70, maybe '65. (The early '70s is balanced out by the preeminence of crap in the last 25 years.)
The "broken down horse" thing makes sense to me, as I don't think there's any question we're going to be watching exclusively digital media in theaters in 10-20 years (hello, NOT FILM. Most of what either gets discussed heavily or anticipated on ILX -- Borat, Inland Empire, Jackass 1 & 2, or my recent favorite The Joy of Life -- is not cinema).
re the Kurzweil and Garreau stuff (which I plan to look at) about our imminent evolutionary leap: Can't you see people already using their phones and PDAs with the frequency and utility of organs? They're already half-machine. (Which is why I'm kinda surprised Cronenberg didn't make Schrader's 60.)
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Friday, 17 November 2006 14:42 (seventeen years ago) link
― benrique (Enrique), Friday, 17 November 2006 14:45 (seventeen years ago) link
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Friday, 17 November 2006 14:54 (seventeen years ago) link
semantics!
over 90% of great Hollywood studio films were likely made before '70, maybe '65. (The early '70s is balanced out by the preeminence of crap in the last 25 years.)
this would only constitute an argument if no one else was making movies. (and of course there were tons in the 70's).
re the Kurzweil and Garreau stuff (which I plan to look at) about our imminent evolutionary leap: Can't you see people already using their phones and PDAs with the frequency and utility of organs? They're already half-machine. (Which is why I'm kinda surprised Cronenberg didn't make Schrader's 60.) half-pointy stick > half-plow > half-tv > half-smart-phone: the evolution of man!!!
(and yeah i've seen movies by all those dudes you mentioned w/ozu being the one i have true affection for. although why everyone loves toyko story so much better than good morning {which has fart jokes, hello!} is a mystery to me.)
― jhoshea megafauna (scoopsnoodle), Friday, 17 November 2006 14:54 (seventeen years ago) link
We're not talking about whether you have a great affection for them, we're talking if they made canonical films.
No, something's either made on film or isn't, or is a stitched-together TV sketch show or isn't.
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Friday, 17 November 2006 15:00 (seventeen years ago) link
celluloid is not a medium. that's like saying literature is paper or some shit.
― benrique (Enrique), Friday, 17 November 2006 15:01 (seventeen years ago) link
well some of them can be in my cannon any day, but i must warn you it's gonna be based on affection. and of course i wasn't partiularly saying that movies after 1970 were better, just that there's a lot of good ones there too, right?
woman under the influence, terminator, mulholland dr, borat - how u be leavin these out?
― jhoshea megafauna (scoopsnoodle), Friday, 17 November 2006 15:08 (seventeen years ago) link
― jhoshea megafauna (scoopsnoodle), Friday, 17 November 2006 15:10 (seventeen years ago) link
xpost
tbh tv >>>>>> the cinema for a long-ass time. but then cinema used to be more like tv; films would be melted down; it was an ephemeral medium.
― benrique (Enrique), Friday, 17 November 2006 15:12 (seventeen years ago) link
Literature is experienced via paper (this may change, let's see); film is experienced via projected light through celluloid.
i wasn't partiularly saying that movies after 1970 were better
More films were made en toto before '70; you said "most great movies were made before 1970" is assholism. You were, by the math, saying they're better since.
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Friday, 17 November 2006 15:19 (seventeen years ago) link
that's all you're doing! but just claiming high art values for it, universalizing it.
― benrique (Enrique), Friday, 17 November 2006 15:21 (seventeen years ago) link
― jhoshea megafauna (scoopsnoodle), Friday, 17 November 2006 15:22 (seventeen years ago) link
― jhoshea megafauna (scoopsnoodle), Friday, 17 November 2006 15:24 (seventeen years ago) link
― benrique (Enrique), Friday, 17 November 2006 15:24 (seventeen years ago) link
dude has two movies post 1990 on his list!!!!!!!
But that math says that there are many fewer canonical films since '90, which I wouldn't quarrel with -- for one thing, by Schrader's criterion of Repeatability, we don't entirely know their place in the firmament yet.
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Friday, 17 November 2006 15:42 (seventeen years ago) link
where was schrader's criteria, i was just looking for it? morality was included lol.
― jhoshea megafauna (scoopsnoodle), Friday, 17 November 2006 15:46 (seventeen years ago) link
― Eric H. (Eric H.), Friday, 17 November 2006 15:47 (seventeen years ago) link
― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 17 November 2006 15:47 (seventeen years ago) link
― jhoshea megafauna (scoopsnoodle), Friday, 17 November 2006 15:48 (seventeen years ago) link
― Eric H. (Eric H.), Friday, 17 November 2006 15:56 (seventeen years ago) link
― jhoshea megafauna (scoopsnoodle), Friday, 17 November 2006 16:03 (seventeen years ago) link
― benrique (Enrique), Friday, 17 November 2006 16:10 (seventeen years ago) link
This explains you purty well.
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Friday, 17 November 2006 16:15 (seventeen years ago) link
― benrique (Enrique), Friday, 17 November 2006 16:18 (seventeen years ago) link
xp
― jhoshea megafauna (scoopsnoodle), Friday, 17 November 2006 16:19 (seventeen years ago) link
No, it doesn't, but since it speaks so directly to his cause (and conveniently uses the language of "the enemy"), I can see why he temporarily lowered his lofty standards.
― Eric H. (Eric H.), Friday, 17 November 2006 16:28 (seventeen years ago) link
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Friday, 17 November 2006 16:36 (seventeen years ago) link
― benrique (Enrique), Friday, 17 November 2006 16:39 (seventeen years ago) link
― Eric H. (Eric H.), Friday, 17 November 2006 16:51 (seventeen years ago) link
― Eric H. (Eric H.), Friday, 17 November 2006 16:52 (seventeen years ago) link
Premiere of The Canyons at Lincoln Center!
http://www.filmlinc.com/films/series/an-evening-with-paul-schrader-the-canyons
― playwright Greg Marlowe, secretly in love with Mary (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 9 July 2013 19:12 (ten years ago) link
Film Comment really doubling down on this in the next issue.
― Gukbe, Tuesday, 9 July 2013 21:08 (ten years ago) link
gtfo w/ 180 minutes !
shouldve def let sodes edit
― johnny crunch, Wednesday, 10 July 2013 13:30 (ten years ago) link
I think that's the time of the event, including the Q&A with Schrader.
― playwright Greg Marlowe, secretly in love with Mary (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 10 July 2013 13:48 (ten years ago) link
well it better be
― johnny crunch, Wednesday, 10 July 2013 13:54 (ten years ago) link
now listed at 100 mins.
aaaand I forgot the public sale started at midnight, and the tix are gone.
― playwright Greg Marlowe, secretly in love with Mary (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 11 July 2013 11:32 (ten years ago) link
Checked back to see what I wrote about Auto Focus at the time, and it did improve some. What seemed like a very limiting flatness then was still there, but shrunk down, it wasn't so bothersome. One of the better Schrader films, I'd say. Similar to Star 80 in a lot of ways.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 22 April 2014 04:16 (ten years ago) link
I just saw Mishima yesterday, and...WOW. Kind of mad that the most intriguing of the stories adapted (Kyoko's House) is one of the handful of Mishima novels that's never been released or translated in the west.
― Damnit Janet Weiss & The Riot Grrriel (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, 22 April 2014 04:33 (ten years ago) link
I saw Blue Collar once before, about 10 or 15 years ago, and don't really remember how I felt. It seemed very strong this time--I'd say Schrader's best film after Affliction. Pryor, Keitel, and Kotto are so good, the essential blandness that drags down most of Schrader's films for me was never an issue.
Pryor hisses invective--at the union steward during the meeting, at the IRS guy--as well as anyone I can remember. Kael singles out Kotto, and he really is great; one of those performances that feels completely natural, without a trace of acting. And Keitel does one of his best jobs ever of laying back and letting those around him be the focus of attention.
Really liked seeing a couple of Scorsese bit players: George "What's a mook?" Memmoli, and Harry Northup (Doughboy) from Taxi Driver.
― clemenza, Thursday, 1 May 2014 21:57 (nine years ago) link
I'm sympathetic, but at the same time wincing at the thought of a Nicholas Cage thriller:
http://deadline.com/2014/10/paul-schrader-dying-of-the-light-nicolas-cage-protest-853521/
― clemenza, Sunday, 19 October 2014 19:45 (nine years ago) link
As for the state of cinema itself, Schrader has long put forth the position that the moviegoing experience was we know it is on it's way out the door. "...the 20th-century concept of a projected image in a dark room in front of a paying audience. If you’re wedded to that concept, you’re in trouble, because that concept is dead," he states. Pointing toward both longer form storytelling on TV and shorter form moviemaking on the internet, Schrader says the definition of a "movie" is up for grabs, and the three-act, two-hour movie is becoming stale. And so, when it comes to the push lately for 35mm projection and saving analog formats, you better bring that nostalgia somewhere else.
"It’s all revanchist claptrap. The goal of art is not to tell people what tools they want to use, but to use whatever tools are around. The tools are always changing and the artists need to change with the tools. We didn’t have movies 100 years ago, and we did quite fine without them, and now they’re going to become something else again," Schrader says.
http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/paul-schrader-talks-bad-people-behind-dying-of-the-light-says-push-for-35mm-projection-is-claptrap-20141121
― things lose meaning over time (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 22 November 2014 07:00 (nine years ago) link
Damn, there's no region 2 of Mishima. A lot of high quality picture dvds look pretty bad on my multi-region player and I'm reluctant to shell out for another multi-region player, especially with bluray possibly pushing dvds out the way.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Thursday, 5 February 2015 04:02 (nine years ago) link
The Criterion Mishima is gorgeous on pretty much every level (transfer, artwork, packaging...)
― Don A Henley And Get Over It (C. Grisso/McCain), Thursday, 5 February 2015 07:34 (nine years ago) link
Somebody posted it on YouTube but I'm going to resist it.
Wish Eureka would pick it up but they don't tend to do as many newer films as Criterion.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Thursday, 5 February 2015 13:58 (nine years ago) link
as noted elsewhere, his tormented clergyman movie is getting him his best press in eons
https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/4875-the-daily-venice-toronto-2017-schrader-s-first-reformed
― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 15:17 (six years ago) link
^it's one of his best, indeed.
also has a revised edition of his transcendental film book out next year
― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 7 October 2017 17:00 (six years ago) link
Dog Eat Dog never really topped the insane opening sequence, but the cartoonish gruesomeness of the film on the whole was hmmm memorable.
― Οὖτις, Saturday, 7 October 2017 19:51 (six years ago) link
The point is not to *get* the canonical movie, but use it as a tool to learn a different style or perspective or world (KANE got its position because it’s an extremely teachable movie in terms of narrative / aesthetic strategies)— Peter Labuza (@labuzamovies) March 20, 2018
― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 20 March 2018 14:38 (six years ago) link
^^ a point often missed by conservatives bemoaning what lib English faculty are doing.
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 20 March 2018 14:40 (six years ago) link
Girish Shambu on the male canon and auteurism
https://filmquarterly.org/2018/09/21/times-up-for-the-male-canon/
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Monday, 24 September 2018 17:55 (five years ago) link
gee i wonder why pic.twitter.com/nQstniXRHM— paul schrader's facebook posts (@paul_posts) August 4, 2021
― i carry the torch for disco inauthenticity (Eric H.), Wednesday, 4 August 2021 02:00 (two years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvGktPaDAPM
― Two Severins Clash (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 4 August 2021 02:15 (two years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6psa1ptpGTc
― Two Severins Clash (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 4 August 2021 02:19 (two years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PJhhwtBt70
― Two Severins Clash (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 4 August 2021 02:20 (two years ago) link
The possibly 9/11-anniversary-timed (hard to say with release schedules right now) The Card Counter is supposed to be cathartic, I suppose, but I found it to be more and more of an ordeal as it went along. The truly dreadful soundtrack played a part in that. I thought I was headed out to see a good poker film.
― clemenza, Sunday, 12 September 2021 21:14 (two years ago) link
You do what you must. But I was impressed that Schrader got such a wide opening for a film exploring the impact and legacy of Abu Ghraib. Has this, or other episodes of the War on Terror, been treated in such detail before?
Also, I hope that the desk jockeys who defended "enhanced interrogation" will be questioned again. But somehow I suspect once again they'll not experience material or professional discomfort.
― Infanta Terrible (j.lu), Monday, 13 September 2021 00:32 (two years ago) link
Just saw it, unsure if I “get” it. The first movie in a while (in a theater, anyway) where I feel like I missed something.
― Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Sunday, 26 September 2021 20:03 (two years ago) link
https://www.facebook.com/1631212662/posts/10223350640467517/?d=n
― i carry the torch for disco inauthenticity (Eric H.), Thursday, 21 October 2021 21:31 (two years ago) link
As ever, the use of “woke” as an epithet makes me less likely to take someone seriously.
― Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Thursday, 21 October 2021 22:39 (two years ago) link
Thanks, Eric. I aged ten years reading those comments.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 21 October 2021 22:51 (two years ago) link
Card Counter was good. That camera trick in Abu Ghraib was pretty good.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 6 November 2021 18:43 (two years ago) link
oh, i was going to look and see if anyone had posted about it and i forgot. i did NOT like the card counter. goofy, unbelievable story. it was like what if i made first reformed again, but this time it's bad?
― certified juice therapist (harbl), Saturday, 6 November 2021 18:51 (two years ago) link
it wasn’t as good as first reformed but i liked it a lot
― flopson, Saturday, 6 November 2021 19:09 (two years ago) link
noticed this name as an exec producer lol - https://m.imdb.com/name/nm13254828/?ref_=m_ttfcd_cr1
― johnny crunch, Sunday, 9 January 2022 14:57 (two years ago) link
this movie was largely tedious and bad btw but i couldnt help thinking if you play everything about the last scene exactly as it was but have the USA poker bro instead of tiffany haddish visit oscar isaac in prison the movie would be improved
― johnny crunch, Sunday, 9 January 2022 20:51 (two years ago) link
On Facebook:
I’M SEEING DEAD FILM CRITICS. Attending film festivals was always a buzz. You would go, meet filmmakers whose work you knew, run into old film critic friends, make new ones, talk, argue, drink. That moment has passed. Earlier tonight I spotted Richard Corliss in the lobby of the Excelsior. I went over to greet him then realized he’d died two years ago. So many ghosts.
― The self-titled drags (Eazy), Tuesday, 6 September 2022 16:14 (one year ago) link