A few minutes of Gas-s-s-s

It was with a mixture of apprehension and giddy excitement that I popped "Gas-s-s-s" (also known as "Gas! -Or- It Became Necessary to Destroy the World in Order to Save It") into the DVD player some time ago. You see, I'd been reading Roger Corman's "How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime" and felt the urge to catch up with a few of those several hundred films he's had a hand in. I've seen (and loved) pretty much all his Poe films and, despite a bit too much self-congratulating in the book, love the fact that he really did a lot for independent filmmaking and gave so many people their starts in the industry. However, I've also seen some of his other films too...

Given the cost constraints, time constraints and just general skill constraints, I can certainly appreciate what Corman did in many of his quickie films. Sometimes it works and a little fun gem pops out (e.g. "Bucket Of Blood") and other times it doesn't (e.g. "Creature From The Haunted Sea"). So there was "Gas-s-s-s" and I wondered where it may fall on the spectrum...

Turns out, somewhere in between. I pretty much rank it along with the psychedelic "The Trip" due to the concept and its occasional inventiveness. Though it's down right silly at times (not always in the best way - the humour fluctuated all over the place)and poorly acted for much of it, there's this one short segment of the movie that stood out for me. It happens when the wandering heros of the movie stumble upon an outdoor concert with Country Joe And The Fish playing and the visuals get all psychedelic man. The music wasn't great, but for a few minutes all these images flew across the screen. In order to see them a bit better, I did a frame by frame step through of that section of the film and found some really great stuff (pardon the 46 screen captures that follow):


















































Maybe Roger knew what he was doing after all...

Scribblings Of A Random Nature #19

Detective Story (2007 - Takashi Miike) - When I cued up Takashi Miike's 2007 film "Detective Story", I was exceptionally tired. I thought I would kick it off, maybe watch half an hour or so just to get the feel of it and then watch it all the next evening. I was even more tired than expected I guess as I started drifiting off to sleep several times early on and ended up only getting fractured bits of the story and characters. So of course, I shut it off and came back the next day to restart it. It was then that I realized it wasn't necessarily my occasional snoozing that made the movie seem choppy - it was the movie itself. Several different characters that, except for a one way phone call between two of them, seem to have nothing to do with each other zoom past in the first few minutes. It's disorienting, confusing and, because Miike has a certain way with framing and cutting his scenes, pretty damn engrossing. Especially if you've got a good night's sleep under your belt. At the root of the story is famous artist Yuki Aoyama whose paintings and artwork show all kinds of mutilations, body parts and other assorted grotesqueries reconfigured into new images. Several female fans end up dead in rather gory fashion - each one missing a specific organ and associated to one of Mother Nature's elements (water, air, earth, fire). Detective Raita Kazama stumbles into the case after one of these women visits him in fear for her life just before she is murdered. Raita has his own detective agency, a rather strained relationship with the police (with whom he becomes a suspect very quickly) and has a new neighbour in his apartment building who also happens to be named Raita. The story is fine and involving, but it's not really the main draw of the film. Miike is playing with the form and the function of movies - even more so than he usually does. His characters look straight into the camera, absurd actions are taken simply to move the plot forward and indications abound that something is not quite right. From scene to scene, new techniques are used to attempt to convey different moods or pieces of information. An interrogation scene receives clipped editing to indicate how the cops are trying to circle around Raita, the camera focuses on inconsequential details to show a character's loss of concentration, squawking music overlays the soundtrack to induce irritation, etc. You can't help but wonder sometimes whether Miike is playing things very fast and loose on set - "Hey, you know what we should try?" - but, even though not everything works, I'm kind of thrilled with the results as he is constantly trying out new methods to push his filmmaking forward.









A Perfect Couple (1979 - Robert Altman) - Though I've yet to see all of Altman's films, I can't help but think that this is his biggest misfire. And yes, I'll even include "Popeye" in that list. Dooley and Heflin play a couple who begin the film on their first date and progress towards a serious relationship that is hampered at many different points by their smothering families. Dooley's is run by a dominating father who controls, almost moment to moment, the lives of each family member. Heflin is a singer in large band who live, practice and tour together and are run by a controlling, dominating front man who, almost moment to moment...You get the picture. Dooley's family is, if completely ridiculous, at least reasonably entertaining (particularly because of the always great Titos Vandis and Henry Gibson). Heflin's storyline, though, is downright unwatchable. First and possibly foremost is due to Heflin herself - I know she's smothered by the band, but she plays the whole film as if she were a zombie (and not one of those fast moving varieties) and the moments when she is performing her backup singing duties would be laughable if they weren't so jaw-droppingly bad (again, I realize the character is disengaged from her circumstances, but you have to really see it to believe it). Of equal badness is the music being performed by her band (with the completely terrible name of "Keepin' 'Em Off The Streets") which is offensively bland and was dated before the sound waves even reached the first eardrum. You can't purposely write music this bad, so you know they actually thought it was good. It's an important thing to point out since it is a very major part of the film and many songs are performed in their entirety. If all that wasn't bad enough, Dooley and Heflin have no chemistry - not once did I believe that he actually wanted a second date (even as an excuse to get out of his house) nor could I see a reason why she would even consider accepting. He's annoying and uninteresting and she's a limp piece of celery. I watched the making of featurette on the DVD and I still just don't know what they were thinking.










Japanese Girls At The Harbour (1933 - Hiroshi Shimizu) - "Love must be generous or it's nothing at all". A story revolving around two young girls vying for the attention of one young man is as old as the hills. Hiroshi Shimizu's 1933 silent film "Japanese Girls At The Harbor" may begin with this shopworn initial premise, but it gets used to build a lovely story of the relationship between trust and love. Its focus is on how the girls of the title approach their relationships and their expectations about what love is, but it also takes a look at the change in moral values within Japanese society and the lure of Western culture. Shimizu's gentle touch to the pace of the story along with some outstanding (and very innovative for the time) camerawork and editing make this a wonderful treasure. The story follows Sunako and Dora -two school age friends who promise that they will always be together. Until, of course, a boy enters the picture. Not a boy really, but a young man named Henry (note the Western style name) who rides in on a motorcycle and shows hoodlum tendencies. Both girls desire him and have a small confrontation, but then settle their differences the next day. The tone of their approaches, however, has been set - Sunako is aggressive and jealous, while Dora is patient and believes that love will win out in the end. Soon after, when Sunako discovers that Henry has also been seeing an older woman named Yoko, she takes drastic action...Though the DVD (part of the "Travels with Hiroshi Shimizu" 4 disc set from Eclipse) comes with an optional musical score, I found the film worked best in complete silence. That's not a criticism of the music itself - a fine new score written by noted silent film composer Donald Sosin - just a statement that the film doesn't need the additional backing of music to shape its tone or emotions. It's all expressed via the visuals. Shimizu's camera stays with the characters via several long strolling tracking shots to allow us time with them, links them between scenes and frames them in different relationships to each other. In the aesthetics of the film, there's a strong resemblance in look and feel to the "poetic realism" approach to filmmaking from France (which began a bit more in earnest a year or so after this film). Whether it was the lovely use of shadows during key moments (presaging film noir), dreamlike transitions or simply the softer, quieter acting style, I found numerous linkages between the two styles even though there are also some quite definite departures in other aspects. Also of particular note is the effective use of editing in several scenes. When Sunako is about to take her measures against Yoko, the camera cuts to closer and closer zooms on her face that heighten the feeling that something is about to occur - it's unexpected and terribly effective. Shimizu uses this tactic again later in the film as a way of conveying a character's dawning realization. Also effective are the slow fades of characters to denote a passage of time. Like ghosts receding from a room to appear again somewhere else far off, the characters sometimes exit a scene by simply slowly disappearing.











My Best Fiend (1999 - Werner Herzog) - Even when Werner Herzog makes a documentary - including first hand accounts involving himself - I still don't believe a damn word that comes out of his mouth. His 1999 film about his abrasive, loving, rage-filled, funny and bordering on murderous relationship with Klaus Kinski (star of 5 of his films between 1972 and 1987) takes the same route as many of his documentaries - stories and statements that become wilder as the film progresses, each one not completely believable, but when strung together paint an overall picture (the "ecstatic truth" Herzog says he wants to get to in each film) of his subject. During the filming of Fitzcarraldo, did tribesmen really come up to Herzog and actually offer to kill Kinski? And did Herzog seriously consider the offer ("And I said, 'No for God's sake! I still need him for shooting!'")? Did Kinski regularly complain about miniscule items on set by screaming at people for hours at a time? Did Herzog really almost firebomb Kinski's house? None of it really matters since the stories (true or not) are fascinating, wonderfully told by Herzog and indicative of the way the two men fought, felt about each other and approached their art - full bore and full steam ahead.

Now There's Something You Don't See Everyday... #2

To Live And Die In L.A. (1985 - William Friedkin)

And I call myself a cinephile...

OK, not exactly a cinephile, but certainly someone who is reasonably well-versed in several genres of film and has a great love of it.

So how the hell did I not know that "The Rabbit Of Seville" (1950) was influenced by Charlie Chaplin's "The Great Dictator" (1940)?

Granted, I hadn't seen the film until tonight, so obviously if I had seen this:




it would've been pretty obvious that Chaplin had a direct influence on one of Bugs Bunny's greatest cartoons (sorry, the poor quality video below is all I could find):




There's even a later scene with two people (the dictators of Tomainia and Bacteria) trying to rise above each other in barber chairs.

I can forgive myself for not having seen the film (now rectified), but how did this particular aspect slide by me all these years?

What's particularly wonderful about Chaplin's scene (choreographed to Brahms' "Hungarian Dance No. 5") is that it is done entirely in one single shot. It's effective at building the humour throughout until it ends with those perfectly timed moves. There are plenty of moments like that in the film - subtle timing from Chaplin that just brings a big fat smile to your face. If his closing speech is anything but subtle (and doesn't quite serve the film as well as I felt it could have), it must've been quite amazing to see on the screen in 1940 with Hitler on the rise...

Another blogger babbles a bit about "Tree Of Life"

Does the film blogging world really need yet another post from someone who finds "The Tree Of Life" both confounding and enthralling and can't quite put their thoughts into cohesive words yet? No, it certainly doesn't. But why should that stop me? Do make sure you read Matt Zoller Seitz's article though - it's terrific. Meanwhile, some random thoughts:

• I've only seen it once, but will undoubtedly see it again in the theatre soon. My wife is eager to see it, so we'll see what we can swing over the next two weeks. I've been told by many that it "reveals" itself to you better on the second viewing...I suppose that's possible because during the first viewing I was too busy focusing on the pure visual beauty in front of me...Gorgeous beyond what I expected.



• The 20 minute "creation of the universe" segment was pretty spectacular indeed, but it's the "endless summer" sections that completely overwhelmed my senses. The scenes with the brothers playing were fantastic and so completely evocative of what I used to do as a kid.



• I've read some people's descriptions of the scene of the two dinosaurs being the first instance of "grace" or mercy since creation (ie. everything that preceded it was purely "nature"). I don't completely agree with that since I saw it as a precursor to the controlling hugs the father gave his boys (e.g. I have power over you), but I like the idea. And I like how the film allows you to find those ideas throughout it.



• Jessica Chastain's mother character floating in the air next to the tree was a perfect moment - how better for a son to remember his mother as angelic?



• Brad Pitt’s performance was superb. No, there wasn't a whole lot of dialogue, but I was sold on every loving yet controlling hug he gave his kids. Both the "hit me" scene and the blow up at the family dinner table reminded me of some fathers I had met when I was a kid (fortunately, not my own).



• The waves of waves - the crashing water, the fluid grass in the wind, the diving camera as it approached the characters (perhaps overused, but no less awesome).



• It wasn’t a perfect film for me by any means though…I never felt a sense of being connected to these people nor did I feel much emotional weight (except, as stated below, when we see the very young boys growing up). "Days Of Heaven" had that for me, but I didn’t get that here. I’m not sure why though...Was it too much of the opening universe coming into creation? The slightly affected whispering? The ending with Penn that didn’t do anything for me?



• I “think” I get a lot of the film’s intent – the struggle between nature and grace, loss of innocence, the doubling of those themes between the Waco family and the grander scheme of the universe, etc. all through the recollections of the older Jack during a particularly stressful point of his life – but I’m still not sure how I feel about how Malick put it together. Since he tends to find his films as he edits them, I couldn’t help thinking that he was still searching for “the film”.



• The most moving and emotional part of the film is without a doubt the early days of the children. The super close up of the baby lying on the ground is fantastic. I don’t know if anyone has ever shot a baby in that fashion before - being that up close, within the very short focal length of a baby’s vision, is where a parent’s face will usually be. The cradling of the foot. Young Jack's interaction with his new baby brother. Learning to walk. I know many films have documented those early stages of a child's life, but having the camera right THERE with the kids was remarkable.



• I love the feeling of movement the film creates. I really could watch this trailer all day long...

I'm very much looking forward to another viewing. If it doesn't all become crystal clear for me (which I don't really expect nor want), at least I can revel in the wonderful combination of images and music and let the film stir my own recollections.

A Single Image #18

Whisky Galore! (1949 - Alexander Mackendrick)

A Single Image #17

The Heartbreak Kid (1972 - Elaine May)