Shock Corridor

Samuel Fuller's Shock Corridor

"Sam Fuller is not a beginner, he is a primitive; his mind is not rudimentary, it is rude; his films are not simplistic, they are simple, and it is this simplicity I most admire."
~Francois Truffaut

To hear Sam Fuller talk is to know what his films are like. First off, he's the roughest, gruffest Jew you'll ever see. A sizable cigar perpetually inhabits his mouth, yet his speech is unobstructed. He speaks with the certainty of a man who isn't going to stop to hear anyone contradict him. A fine oral storyteller, he knows what makes an interesting story, how to strike the right tone at the right time, follow through with the perfect gesture; and not only that, but his style has such bravura, such pure energy and intensity, that the desire to listen is irresistible.
That his films seem like a manifestation of his personality can only be a good thing. Not merely a manifestation either, but an enhancement, or a dense focus of that energy. This vigorous storytelling he infuses with a mythological essence. His films resemble myths in every way: they have moments of rare and strange beauty; characters who at once express an indefinable humanity and an epic grandeur; complex worlds composed of archetypal landscapes (projections of the characters' mental terrain?); and that mythic voice capable of telling such powerful stories with such a simple form.

I recommend watching the film before reading any further.

While Shock Corridor bears all the familiar traits of a Fuller film (everything mentioned above, as well as moments of great emotional and physical intensity, political commentary, and a shade of B movie pulp), it strikes me as Fuller's most surreal and oneiric; all of his films (that I've seen) have traces of that, but this one has an abundance. Of course, setting the film in an asylum lends itself to such an approach, but Fuller manages to work with that boon without cheapening anything. The core of the story is simple, the whodunit plot and the political allegory, but strange moments and startling dream imagery weave through that core so thoroughly that they become indistinguishable from one another. Fuller's choice of imagery and characters elevates the film beyond simple understanding; the emotional grip of the film affects me in a way I can't quite define (its active, brutal power in the madhouse reality and the passive yet intrusive sway of the more somber moments).




Take, for instance, the characters. We have the three witnesses, of course, all of which are remarkably interesting and charged with political undertones (I say undertones, but I could just as well say overtones). They all have some particular nuance that left an impression. For Stuart, although his self-appointed Civil War hero role is entertaining, it's his moment of clarity: the history he reveals, compared to what we'd seen so far, came as an unexpected jolt, profoundly moving and played with earnest. Watching him revert back to his role of Civil War hero, I felt a strange sadness.
For Boden, the genius/child, it's the state he chooses to return to. And the reaction Barrett has to the portrait Boden drew for him: holy crap. But I love the idea there, becoming afraid of your own identity. . . or whatever Boden drew.
And Trent. For most, I imagine, the most memorable part of the film. His (Hari Rhodes) performance is astounding, full of frightening power, and his force only adds to the strangeness of the circumstances. And is it strange. The image of him in the pillowcase Ku Klux Klan mask, orating before he chases the old black man down the hall, it brands itself on the brain.




Also deserving a brief mention, the multitude of peripheral characters (all of varying importance, but all wonderfully conceived): Pagliacci, Barrett's opera-loving roommate; the two orderlies who we suspect; the outright psycho who canoes across the floor and screams "Hallelujah" during Trent's racist spiel; the hilarious and even slightly frightening room full of nymphomaniacs. Fuller peoples his films with memorable characters, full of contradictions and mysteries and personality.

Not to leave out the protagonist, of course. Johnny Barrett. His languid sarcasm and tempestuous attitude (we can never tell if it's him or his feigned insanity or later, his real insanity, as the line is constantly blurred) make a nice mix, especially when confronted with an authority figure; Peter Breck (the actor) jumps from even-handed professional to sarcastic rebel to shuddering lunatic, and the performance is compelling and often hilarious.




The film is filled with its own melange of American mythology and ideology; the asylum's patients represent perversions of the American Dream, of course, but Fuller developed a parallel history to support this idea. We have Stuart's Civil War hero, and the role that Barrett adopts to get closer to him. This is reaffirmed when he speaks to Trent. Their steamboat journey together on the bench speaks of Mark Twain and the Mighty Mississippi, grass roots America and the vast folk history that stems from it. These allusions to a classic America, associated with the devastating problems represented by Fuller in the film, builds a microcosm of America; not only does Fuller point out social problems, suggesting that America is insane, he constructs a society, with a history and culture that parallels America's, for this criticism to inhabit.




Yet we also have, at once distinct and ingrained, these dreams and visions juxtaposed with the naturalistic environment. As naturalistic as an insane asylum gets, anyway, for it's still full of operatic sleepwalkers and catatonics reaching for an invisible infinity. The dreams, those brief and memorable incursions into the minds of Barrett and his three witnesses, are what I speak of. With Barrett we have the sequences where he dreams of his girlfriend Cathy. At first, these sequences didn't do much for me, the simple layering of the girl over Barrett sleeping; but when I saw her sprawled over his shoulder, toying at his ear with her boa, it suddenly gelled. Paired with the striptease we see of her at the beginning (almost as dreamlike as Barrett's actual dreams; the dark isolation, Cathy's head consumed by the boa at the start), the scenes become almost haunting. They give credit to Barrett's decomposing mental state. A fine aural manifestation of the chaos in Barrett's life and mind occurs in one of these scenes, where Cathy's ethereal singing runs into the "la la la" of Pagliacci vocalizing some opera song (I believe from "The Barber of Seville"), creating a muddled cacophony until Cathy's song fades.




It's easy to dismiss the color sequences in the film as memorable only because they provide such a visual contrast to the otherwise black and white cinematography. For me, they're the most deeply probing and lucid moments in the film, giving another dimension to everything. They provide what one might consider the most unhindered perspective of reality we witness, something saner than sane: the clarity of vision one might have if the veil of reality could be lifted without having the comforting mist of insanity descend. It is a metaphysical clarity we see in these sequences.
The first instant of color is completely arresting: the image of a golden Buddha against a blue sky (echoes of another, earlier Fuller film, Steel Helmet). The world of the Orient, with the despairing confession of involuntary bigotry and Communist complicity as the vocal accompaniment. The shots are beautiful (although stretched by the differing aspect ratios between the b&w and color footage, which adds to the distorted atmosphere). We do not see war, or discrimination, or anything he talks about; instead, we see possibly the solitary moments of happiness he can remember, a time unaffected by American prejudice and Communist corruption.
When the color footage reappears, it is no less affecting. Trent speaks, bound to a bed, hysterical and frightened. He shrieks of men in masks, destruction, terror, while a vivid tribal dance dominates the screen. The dark-skinned dancers are masked for the ceremony. The implications are terrible and poignant, in the context of Trent's condition (and the grander social condition he represents). Men become afraid of their own cultural history, of their kinsmen and even of themselves, by the harrowing force of the white majority's will. A psychological study in the fifties or sixties had black and white children choosing whether to play with a black or a white doll; nearly all of the children picked the white doll, even the black children. The tribesmen, visually married to the Ku Klux Klan, become an embodiment of this phenomenon of displacement: the transfer of anger from the aggressor to the self.
And the last color sequence, one of pure Fullerian energy: the rushing torrent of some vast waterfall (I'd say Niagara Falls, except it might be another). This one is reminiscent of another image, where the film seems to find its title. The corridor is suddenly barren, Barrett alone and screaming in a thunderstorm contained within the building. Rain pouring down, water splashing and filling the floor, thunder screeching, lightning striking down at Barrett's convulsing form. Both these scenes shudder with uncontrollable vivacity, trembling force, and both are projections of Barrett's psyche. Interesting, that both should involve torrents of water; it's an apt metaphor for chaos, but plenty of other things are, too: landslides, volcanoes, wars. Why choose water to act as the bridge between sanity and madness? Water fascinates me, and its use here is particularly intriguing. Is Barrett being baptized into a new life, a storm of chaos followed by perpetual calm? I like to speculate, but have no answers. I can only say that Fuller's film assailed me like a thunderstorm, leaving me in a state of contemplative clarity, crisp as the scent of ozone.




Links:

Cinefile - A fine defense of Fuller as a filmmaker, in regards to this film. It's not as eloquent and simple as Truffaut's remark, but it's more disparaging to his detractors, which I fully support.

Criterion Collection essay - Definitely worth reading; short but useful.

Culturecourt - Not a great read, but worth looking into for its occasional insights that I didn't bother to highlight.

La Dolce Vita

Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita
or The Sweet Life


Fellini is known for starting out as a director of Italian neo-realism, but moving from that style into much more personal and unusual works. I've seen six Fellini films, ranging from one end of the spectrum (neo-realism) to the other (balls-out fuckin' crazy). La Dolce Vita, along with La Strada (which I won't discuss but which I certainly recommend), lies somewhere in the middle of that spectrum: it still bears the weight of neo-realism, the moral obligations and the portrayal of post-war society, but it is also imbued with a magic, a wealth of strange incidents and surreal imagery, to the degree that the film nearly loses itself amongst it. The power of the film stems from the juxtaposition of these two polarized sensibilities: although surrounded by this magic, the characters in the film fail to realize its significance. But maybe that's saying too much too soon.

You should definitely watch the film before reading any further.

Nearly any essay you read about La Dolce Vita will note the significance of the first and last scenes as a sort of framing device. Both are moments where communication is obstructed in some way, first between Marcello and the suntanning girls and, at the end, between Marcello and Paola, the girl from the restaurant. Both feature the presence of some foreign object, a flying statue and a dead stingray, which is associated with Christ. It's important for me to point this out because I won't be discussing it, but I cannot ignore its significance. My exploration of the film will be through different routes. The religious and social implications of the film are fascinating, though, so I've included two essays in the links below, for anyone interested.
(I never want to suggest that my writing can be the sole supplement to any of the films discussed; if you're truly interested in learning about cinema, read everything you can get your hands on and, if there's not enough, make more.)




My approach will deal with the idea of the Sacred Moment, and how these moments are corrupted or dismissed by the characters, by their unawareness of their surroundings. This is what leads to their universal tragedy (everyone is lost, with rare exception; Marcello is merely a representative, chosen because he does not start out lost).
Before, I associated the fanciful, often surreal imagery with these Sacred Moments, but not all of the imagery is related to the idea. The statue of Christ, the children following the imaginary miracle in the rain, the seance, the perpetual presence of the swarming photographers (apparently the term paparazzi derives from the name of Marcello's photographer buddy Paparazzo): these are striking images but that does not mean they are sacred. They are strange, but they serve another purpose entirely. I allude to specific scenes, rare moments in the three hours of the film, that reflect a bastardization of truth (or what Fellini means us to understand to be truth).

Sylvia in the fountain

Some will say that Sylvia cannot be salvation, because she is the movie star: egotistic and narcissistic, obsessed with her own glamour and fame. In a word, flawed. This is true, she very much is. But we cannot allow ourselves to view these characters as mere caricatures; they have been reduced to that, yes, but they have the potential of a full person within them and there exists the hope of being restored to that state. If they could not be saved, the film would be empty. Sylvia and Marcello are capable of saving each other, they almost reach that point, but it is their failure to sacrifice and compromise, to change in some way, that leads to the perpetuation of their isolation. (The "La Dolce Vita or La Vita Nuova?" essay below has some interesting comments about this segment of the film.)

Echoes of Nature in the Condominium

This scene does not qualify as a Sacred Moment. It does not possess the necessary magic and does not offer anyone a chance at finding meaning. The Moments I speak of represent a proximity with something beyond the redundancy of their lives. I chose this scene because it is interesting in the sense that it alludes to something spiritual (in the Wordsworthian sense that nature is spiritual), filtered through the excesses of technology so that it becomes meaningless. Fellini seems to suggest that if they abandoned their intellectual droning, left the condominium and the city and the pointless ceremony of their lives, they might be able to find some kind of salvation in nature. A proximity or true appreciation of nature and its boons might at least enhance their perception of life. But they're listening to the sounds of nature through a man-made device. It's a trifling novelty, filtering out any traces of life and inspiration. This scene speaks of their tendency to take whatever is cheap and convenient, rather than putting themselves at risk to find something worthwhile.

Speaking Through the Architecture: Invisible Confessions of Love

Perhaps (along with the restaurant with Paola) the most intimate scene in the film. Maddelena and Marcello find a moment alone at one of the innumerable, anonymous parties they attend, the one where they visit the "haunted" villa. Maddelena brings him to a room where the architecture carries sound, even whispers, from the end of a hallway to another room altogether. Maddelena confesses her love through the walls, Marcello sitting in the middle of the room, asking where she is. He reciprocates, declaring that tonight, in this moment, he feels like he needs her, needs to be close to her. Shortly afterward she's kissing another man while he's left calling for her, with no idea about where she is.
Let's not get into the multitude of meanings and interpretations we could find in this scene. I'll leave those to you, or whoever else wants to analyze it. Instead, let's assume that Marcello (if not Maddelena; she seems genuine, to have a spark of honesty, but she's too far gone) really meant what he said. Let's assume that, for that moment, he wanted her and needed her and loved her. Or at the very least, that he felt like he needed to love her. I get the sense that Marcello and Maddelena are desperately close here; true, it is significant that she's in another room, that she can only confess to him invisibly. But Marcello, he wants to see her, asks where she is, wonders if something might become of this talk. She's lost, but he's not so far gone yet. It feels like in another time and place these distant whispers might have become actions, and thus connections and emotions and devotions. That doesn't happen. The image of Marcello moving about aimless and alone, the sought-after Maddelena kissing another man, is tragic. What could have been a beautiful moment in a different life is a farce for them.

Paola

This girl appears twice in the course of the film, once around the middle and once at the very end. What Paola signifies, in relation to Marcello, is more or less clear: a redemptive force, something akin to the Sacred Moments I've been dwelling on. The difference lies in the characters with which Marcello engages. Paola is, we presume, an innocent of sorts, whereas the other characters Marcello interacts with all exhibit a level of corruption comparable to his own. Paola doesn't qualify as a Sacred Moment, one existing as a perpetual occurrence, embodied in an individual. The Sacred Moment can only be just that, a moment, where circumstance leads Marcello to an opportunity with redemptive or restorative potential, granted that certain decisions are made, or rather, a certain perspective adopted. Only one scene with Paola provides this for Marcello, the scene in the restaurant. Her brief appearance at the end signifies something else entirely: it indicates the severity of Marcello's loss, that he's stooped to a point beyond redemption, where he can no longer even hear her.
The minutes spent together in the restaurant are the only in the film that one could actually describe as sweet. It's simplistic and unremarkable, yes, but consider the vapid world of wealth and spectacle that Marcello usually inhabits. The girl is pretty, but not exotic or gorgeous like Sylvia or Maddelena or even Emma. These idle moments of simple conversation, platonic compliments, and radio music give a context for warmth and happiness in the film. Marcello has this, fleetingly, although he obviously cannot appreciate its importance. Let's dismiss the idea of Marcello's genuine interest in literature as an avenue to meaning; note, in this scene, how he does not manage to write anything, even with his typewriter in front of him. He doesn't need to. The distractions of the world soon impede upon this paradise, though; one wonders whether such tranquility can ever be permanent.

Other scenes in the film suggest an urge for the Sacred Moment, some significant connection with another human. These attempts, often instigated by Marcello, tend to fail. When Marcello brings Emma to the hospital after her suicide attempt, how earnestly he talks to her, only to call Maddelena afterward (who is asleep, who does not, one might say cannot, respond). When Marcello's father comes to town looking for a good time, the desperation with which Marcello tries to bond with him (an absent figure in childhood). This situation, too, ends miserably.

It seems that Marcello, from the start, is a man doomed to find no meaning. He is such a passive host, merely moving to where the flow of the grand party takes him. When Sylvia climbs into the fountain, he follows her reluctantly. When his girlfriend takes pills, he brings her to the hospital; when they argue, he picks her up in the morning. The women in his life guide him around without leading him anyplace, and he is willing to let this happen (only one woman, the girl from the cafe, does not force him someplace and it is probably because she does not force him that he cannot follow her). He seems to be on a pursuit for meaning, but it is clear he will fail. Any fleeting interest he takes, be it literature, religion, sex, he takes because others indulge; the only course he knows to happiness could be through others. He writes literature because others seem to think it will lead to meaning, not because he's convinced of the truth and power of literature itself. Everything ends in passive defeat. He seems so uncertain, so reliant on the pursuits of others, that even his pursuit of meaning seems like an imitation. He only searches for meaning because others search for meaning.
That is why he's doomed to fail.




Links:

The following two links are essays written about the film, the second in response to the first. Both are very interesting, and worth reading if you have the time. I think the arguments in the response are generally stronger and more observant, but they're both perceptive.
They're also both on JSTOR, so you'll need access to that server to read them.

"La Dolce Vita: Twentieth-Century Man?"

"La Dolce Vita or La Vita Nuova?"


This article is long and only haphazardly insightful, but it has its moments. If you just want to glance through it, I recommend reading footnote 21 and the section of the essay to which it corresponds.

Orphée

Jean Cocteau's Orphée
or Orpheus

The second film in Cocteau's Orphic Trilogy (in chronological and thematic order: The Blood of a Poet, Orpheus, The Testament of Orpheus). If you're not familiar with the myth, I included a wikipedia article on it under the links at the bottom of the post. Not to suggest that the film really adheres to the actual myth, but knowing the story certainly facilitates one's understanding of the film.

That said, I recommend you watch Orpheus before reading any further.



Of the three films in the trilogy, Orpheus is the most accessible, being the only one with anything like a story. But it is like Beauty and the Beast in the sense that much of the story seems arbitrary; we receive no explanations or reasoning, we must merely accept these things that happen and the decisions that the characters make.

Those characters, of course, are those plotted out in myth: Orpheus and Eurydice. The story in the film is placed in then-contemporary France, and the myth is altered significantly, leaving only some basic similarities. We have Orpheus and Eurydice (keeping the original names, despite the setting), we have the death of Eurydice, Orpheus crossing into Hades, the return, and the subsequent loss of Eurydice. Even the Maenads (the Bacchae) are represented by a bunch of feisty youngsters that kill Orpheus. Yet Cocteau's adherence to the myth seems based largely on convenience, because most of the story works within its own framework and merely borrows from the myth (more conceptually, with Cocteau's obsession about the nature of a poet, than literally).

The use of the myth isn't what interests me here. It's used well enough, and with originality, but it's something else that makes this film work.

Heurtebise.

I know Cocteau only in the context of his films. I've seen snippets of his art, I've read a poem or two, but I've only heard of his novels and plays. But from what I've read, Heurtebise was a sort of muse, an angel/demon, an entity that permeated Cocteau's work. I've linked two articles at the bottom of the post that give some brief background (the topic is elusive, so it's hard to find anything concrete). It happened after the death of a friend and (presumed) lover:

"As legend has it, Cocteau was standing in an elevator when the angel spoke to him and divulged his name: it was the same as that of elevator manufacturer Heurtebise."

Afterward, he wrote the poem "L'Ange Heurtebise". The character found its way into the play Orpheus, and then made his way into the film. And it's this character that seems to make the film work.

It's filled with plenty of other fascinating things, of course. I love the everyday quality of the supernatural, a sort of magical realism: motorcyclists as harbringers of death, a car radio that receives transmissions from a dead poet, the bureaucracy of limbo.




We have Cocteau's trick photography, often tricks from his previous films, but they still manage to work, to capture one's attention in unexpected ways. My favorites are the altered perspective set in the underworld, where Heurtebise and Orpheus fall sideways, and Orpheus putting the rubber gloves on in reverse.
A return of Cocteau's obsession with mirrors; his use of a vat of mercury to make the liquid-mirror effect is brilliant. Again, Cocteau manages a kind of casual poetry in the dialogue; for instance, when Heurtebise speaks of mirrors:

"Mirrors are the doors through which death comes and goes. Look at yourself in a mirror all your life, and you'll see death at work, like bees in a hive of glass."

It's beautiful, yeah, but this line also defines the essence of the film: the inconstant borders between life, identity, love, death, poetry, immortality. Heurtebise is at the center of all of this.
There's still plenty to do with Orpheus and the others. Orpheus is troubled with his identity as a poet, and Eurydice is concerned for him. Love and death are inextricably bound together, as they are in the original myth, and the love network is complex and clearly meaningful (Orpheus and his death loving one another, especially).

But Orpheus is too capricious to keep track of. He may have some feelings for Eurydice, but they are overshadowed by his obsession with the car radio poetry and his love of the princess. Yet at the end, they seem happily reunited in life. I don't presume to know what everything means, things change too often to settle on a satisfying answer, but it seems that the only reliable vein of interpretation lies in Heurtebise. He is the only character who seems wholly certain about who he is, where he is, what's happening.

He and Eurydice are the innocents of the film, the honest characters. Orpheus and the princess are manipulative and obsessed, egotistic and easily distracted. Their love feels false, although whether that's Cocteau's intent or my own reaction it's hard to say; I suspect it's just the latter. And while Orpheus is yearning for his death, Eurydice patiently yearns for him to return to her. Yet even when she dies, Orpheus ventures into the underworld not for her, but to seek out his own mortality.

Heurtebise, of course, has fallen in love with Eurydice. You saw what happened. Heurtebise is quiet about it, restrained, full of the self-sacrificial virtue. Eurydice is too worried about Orpheus to notice, at least not until Heurtebise must declare it outright at the trial, and by then it's too late. I like that they have trials in a place where people can't lie. Something about it seems very intimate, to be forced to admit something in those circumstances.




Anyway, I leave the film wondering whether Orpheus is supposed to be arrogant, self-absorbed, uninspired, the image of the poet without the substance, without the essence. Heurtebise and even the princess commit an act of self-sacrifice to restore Orpheus and Eurydice to supposed happiness. That pleases Eurydice well enough, I'm sure, but she's oblivious to any real suffering. Heurtebise, who is dead because he committed suicide, who is a servant in the afterlife, who falls into unrequited love, who sacrifices himself, who is not a poet but who has all the admirable traits a poet should have. He does not waver. He takes pain and frustration with the impassive professionalism one would expect of a chauffeur.

It's hard to define what exactly it is about Heurtebise that affects the film so profoundly; even as the most consistent character, he is perhaps the most difficult to understand. Surely a significant part of it is his tolerance, his role as the angel, patient and guiding even when we feel he should have left Orpheus long ago. In fact, we're never quite sure why Heurtebise dedicates himself so fully to Orpheus. He guides without any clear motivation, sacrifices without any benefit, but still he travels alongside the poet.

Perhaps Heurtebise is the spirit who guides a man through his mortality, who opens up the mirror into the self, who makes the man a poet.


We will discuss Heurtebise again, when I write about The Testament of Orpheus. I'd also like to mention one more thing, though:
Orpheus was made in post-war France, and the atmosphere is prevalent in the film. The ruins Orpheus wanders through in the static limbo are buildings that were actually bombed out during the war. The committee that the princess, Orpheus, and Heurtebise must stand before is based on such trials held in occupied France. Interesting, that Cocteau should impliment these features in his underworld.

Below are links with extra information on them (I recommend, once again, reading Cocteau's essay on the Criterion site), the Orpheus myth, and the background on Heurtebise as he exists throughout Cocteau's work.

Links:
Film Reference
Criterion Collection
Criterion Contraption

Orpheus myth:
Wikipedia

Heurtebise links:
Background 1
Background 2

Cocksucker Blues

Robert Frank's Cocksucker Blues
or The Rolling Stones' Cocksucker Blues

"Except for the musical numbers
the events depicted in this film
are fictitious. No representation
of actual persons and events
is intended."

You know you're headed into murky water when a documentary (if something this honest and improvised can be called such) starts with a message like that.
(This one will be a challenge to find if you want to see it, because it was made in 1972 and never released. You can only attain it through the purchase of a bootleg copy or through certain methods online. The Rolling Stones, though they reportedly liked the film, saw that releasing it would hurt their reputation, would only add to the weight against them after the debacle at Altamont (documented in Gimme Shelter, which I intend to see soon). The court ruled that the director be present at all future screenings, which rather limits the distribution rights.)

I recommend watching the film before reading any further.

Jim Jarmusch's line about this film is well-known, and for good reason. According to Jarmusch: "definitely one of the best movies about rock and roll I’ve ever seen. . . . it makes you think being a rock and roll star is one of the last things you’d ever want to do."
And that sums the film up nicely, in a lot of ways, but it only captures the primary, over-arching theme of the film: the ennui of that lifestyle, travelling between shows, and the attempt to dispell it using drugs, sex, games, anything; the too seldom relief of performance; the utter lack of glamour in the rock lifestyle, the fact of the humanity behind the myth on-stage; the moments between that everyone forgets, and how long they can be.
Most people writing about this film write about that (the links below are fine examples). I could too, because it's a strong idea and it's documented brilliantly (poetic vérité, as someone said), it has plenty to offer; but I won't. Instead, because that's already been done and because I have many other things to say, I'll take a more specific approach, dwelling on particular scenes or moments that either embody or transcend that theme. Moments that capture something beyond mere backstage action.

If any moment epitomizes this pervading sense of ennui, it's the scene in the locker room. It's stripped of all the illusions: no drugs, no distractions, no music, no jokes, not even conversation. Just two people so miserably inactive that they've sought the only remaining refuge: sleep.
Other scenes deal with this mid-tour boredom, but the ones that interest me most are those farthest from the rock lifestyle. For instance, when a small group consisting of Jagger and some others pile into a car in an attempt to escape the restraints of tour life. They're still distinctly confined by the limits of the car, but they get moments outside: stretching their legs, listening to an old man play guitar. This trip, something so simple as a car ride, becomes a tremendous relief to them, a rare and cherished freedom. I don't mean to exaggerate its importance, but it's the only time in the whole film where we see them totally outside of the dreaded tour cycle. They can behave normally, have some normal conversation. Jagger talks about how hungry he is, and how food in the South, even in coffee shops, is the best in America (a truer statement I've ne'er heard). They talk about seeing green things. It's an escape, and for a while they seem human, just human.
In a scene just afterward, perhaps the same trip, they're hanging out with some folks (a few old black guys they probably met by chance) in a small pool room. Some are playing pool, a few are drinking, they're talking and joking around with one another. These are rare moments, compared to the rest of the film, but they let you breath easy and you see that they had good moments, and that these good moments were often the simple ones.




Robert Frank, in preparing the documentary, had the brilliant idea of bringing a camera for everyone and plenty of film; this meant that anyone could pick up a camera any time and film whatever they wanted to, and that's just what they did. The sound they captured is limited, which explains the frequent use of non-diegetic sound and music, but we get plenty of spontaneous events from a series of perspectives. We see people reacting to the camera: a girl waving in front of it goofily, people smiling at it like the girl in the mirror, performing for it because they're aware of its presence. It's thanks to this that the footage is as diverse and compelling as it is. This is how we see Keith Richards and the saxophonist throwing the tv off the balcony, just to film it busting on camera. Again, like normal guys, practically small town kids who are so bored that breaking things is the best entertainment. They laugh about it like a teenage boy would laugh. One of the film's most admirable traits is the disspelling of the illusion. Of the Rolling Stones myth.

It's impossible to ignore the music, though. You would be foolish to try. Now we see plenty of performance footage, sure, but music has another place in the lives of these wanderers: again, between shows. The presence of music throughout their lives is obvious in the film, and while it's far from a point of focus, it's definitely present. On the airplane, during the bizarre, half-forced orgeistic party (apparently started when Robert Frank said that nothing ever happened). We see Richards and Jagger beating to percussion as they watch the girls being stripped, making the occasion some tribal frenzy. They're just having fun, but we must note their inclination to pick up instuments and enhance the performance through their semi-rhythmic clatterings. That's probably the most outstanding example, but we see it occur in other circumstances: during their frequent and impromptu rehearsals, during unexpected moments where suddenly Richards is playing piano with some black guys or a group has gathered 'round to improvise a song. And in contrast to everything else, we have the stage performances and we see then the band's irresistible energy, the myth coming to life, as if they must hibernate during the day and only truly wake for their fans.
Whenever I think of the music and its presence in the film, I think of the scene with the music box. Everyone going about their business, looking at costumes or talking about this and that. And behind it all, we hear the delicate tremblings of a music box playing its beautiful and simple song (taken from something classical, although I can't recall the title of the piece). The cameraman asks if Bianca Jagger will wind the box once more, and the music persists, rising and dying out before being wound up to rise again.
The other scene I think of in regards to music is the awesome Stevie Wonder performance, where both Stevie Wonder and Mick Jagger are stumbling epilleptically across the stage together. The performance is actually pretty remarkable, in spite of the poor video quality (for the most part, the mid-level film quality and bootleg decomposition makes the experience feel more underground and intimate, but the performance action is often muddled). This was supposedly one of the Stones' best tours and footage like this supports a claim like that, whatever may have happened off-stage.




So far we have the Rolling Stones as: the greatest rock band ever, the listless wanderers who can never leave their caravan, simple men separated from the myths that tower over them. But have we seen them as the masturbating, narcissistic self-voyeurist?
Robert Frank brought a lot of camera, and boredom abounded, so we shouldn't be surprised that it happened. But it's still beautiful to see Jagger jerkin' it, filming himself in what seems to be a mirror in the ceiling. Present here is one of the great uses of non-diegetic sound throughout the film; it's utilized plentifully because, as I said before, they had more footage than sound. But it merely serves to highlight the beginning of a string of bizarre and perverse circumstances sewn through the film. The film always manages to be interesting, mystifying, or revealing in some way, and it often manages instances of circumstantial beauty and poetry. But none are more bewildering and fascinating than the following:

We see a girl doing cocaine. She's not a young girl, but it soon becomes apparent that it's her first time doing cocaine. After the effects have caught hold of her and she's had a little while to experience it, she says "I didn't know what it'd be like, but, I thought it would be real good cuz they're so good, I knew it would be real good. But I didn't know it would be this good." We have the Stones as Lucifer, corrupting the innocent (Mick Jagger has been called "the Lucifer of rock").

We see the girl who has nothing to live for but the Stones, who's very open about her misery and problems (lost her child because she did acid and so what, the kid was born on acid it can be raised on it too), who'd just as soon kill herself if she doesn't get into the show cuz she doesn't care about anything else now. We have the Stones as Savior, giving purpose to the desperate.

And there are other moments. Darker and stranger moments.




Recall the segment where a group has split from the regular route to ride around in a car. After Jagger listens to the old man play guitar, just as the old man closes his car door, a cock crows. We are shown one of those homemade signs you sometime see in the Bible belt, a simple white cross declaring "Repent now" as the cock crows. Frank shows us this sign several times in this sequence. We see a hand reaching from between the bars in the prison (seems like Jagger got that footage), almost as if they're reaching for the Stones. Repent now.

And the part of the film that branded itself like hot iron onto my memory. We are in a small hotel room. The footage is almost colorless, just grey with a hint of what might be green. A naked girl laying on her back, alone on one of the beds. She uses her arm on a pillow as a pillow. She grazes her fingernails idly along her body: at first around her left nipple (her breasts flat against her chest), then moving downward across her stomach, saying "I saw fireflies last night." Night is punctuated by the arrival of her hand at her vagina (unshaven; this is 1972), where she lingers just an instant before roving on.
Why it stays with me, I can't say. Rest assured, it has nothing to do with the clear shot of her bush. But those words, at that moment. Surely there's a context or a reason someplace, but we are not provided that luxury. We have only that event, existing independently of its natural surroundings. Perhaps it reminds me of a time, a few summers ago (2005), after rehearsing The Tempest (I was Caliban) one night we stepped outside and a girl, a friend from New Orleans, was startled by the presence of these random glows, flickers of light throughout the air. She'd never seen fireflies before, she thought they were make-believe, something like fairies. And I remember her awe. And maybe I associate that with this filmed memory, its distorted and unusual companion moment in time. That might be why it stays with me, but I doubt that it's only that.

That's all I'm going to say about the film, lest this run to unbearable lengths, but just one more tidbit in relation to this blog:
In the last quarter of the film, some heroin dealer is talking about this society of heroin users and their legacy. It's an interesting monologue, and it almost sounds scripted, but something stood out when he talked about legacy. He mentioned Samuel Taylor Coleridge (who I haven't mentioned here, but have been studying) and Jean Cocteau (who I've written about twice and will write about twice more). So I thought that was a weird coincidence.


Some of the links tend to repeat a few things about the history of the film, but they all have their own worthwhile take on it and each offers a different variety of detail and background info.

Links:
Rolling Stone article
Thorough, lots of background
Write-up with ample detail
Guardian article

Le Sang d'un poète

Jean Cocteau's Le Sang d'un poète
or The Blood of a Poet


Cocteau: "a descent into oneself, a way of using the mechanism of the dream without sleeping, a crooked candle, often mysteriously blown out, carried about in the night of the human body."



The second of the four Cocteau films I'll be watching within the next few weeks. This film (his first) differs quite a lot from Beauty and the Beast, which was made fifteen years later. They use the same brand of magic, the trick photography and the surreal environments, but otherwise they are different creatures entirely. Beauty and the Beast is a fairy tale, a strange and possibly subversive one, but a fairy tale nonetheless. The Blood of a Poet revels in its own abstraction, in some cases seems to intentionally alienate the audience, seems anything but the film trying to speak to the child's eyes watching behind our filtering gaze.
So why have I reacted more nostalgically to this film than the fairy tale?

I recommend watching the film before reading any further.

Let me first make it absolutely clear that my childhood was long, blessed, full of fairy tales, but that I was the sort of child that saw the strangeness in things. That not only saw it, but was attracted to that strangeness.
And let's also be absolutely clear: The Blood of a Poet is a strange film. It's the sort of film that annoys most people, because the artist expects us to "interpret it for ourselves". So in the beginning, we could say the mouth coming off on the artist reflects the way a piece of art influences, or perhaps infects, its creator. We could say plenty about him making out with his own hand. We would be overwhelmed by the possibilities once he rubs it off onto a statue and gives it life. The further we make our way into the film, the less footing our explanations have. For the purposes of this write-up, I'm going to avoid explanations and focus instead on reactions. Well, one reaction. Mine.
I read (check the Senses of Cinema link below) that the film "looks more like an animated cartoon then a true live-action film", and while I wouldn't use that term exactly, it's a reasonable description. What impressed itself upon me most about the film was the sense of artificiality. We witness highly expressive and nonrealistic acting, performances that are more allegorical or metaphorical than they are representative of any true persona. Mixed in with the live action we see various paintings, sculptures (wire, stone, stone/flesh), and tableaux which correspond with the action taking place, often involving direct interaction between the two and in some instances even replacing the live action (such as the poet and his mouth-hand being shown as a statue). The settings are unfamiliar, in part because they're so sparsely decorated; there is no sense of trying to convince us of true location, we are in a false world and we know this. Most artificial of all, or most clearly artificial, are the cinematic qualities of the film. The film quality itself is fine, for the time, but the trick photography, the transitions, the use of the medium throughout the film, are all obviously filmic techniques. They don't have the invisible smoothness of special effects today, they don't engage the suspension of disbelief as urgently. Of course, that has something to do with it being a novice effort and the limitations of technology at the time, but that's not explanation enough. Cocteau seems to encourage this sense of fakeness, of something constructed. It certainly adds to the atmosphere of the piece. But it also hints at the essence of imagination, the beauty of poetic observation, and the ways they must be hindered by the failings of established artistic media.
What better way to make something seem alien than to mediate it so heavily that we know, quite consciously, that it is alien. Certainly not natural, not something that can exist outside of the cinematic realm. Film has often been described as the artistic medium that comes closest to the state of dreaming: images, best seen in the darkness, a projection of. . .



(So why did I mention my childhood before? Remember the part where the poet is stalking through the hallway of the hotel, struggling to walk against the bizarre gravity of the place. Walking through the hallway, peeking through the keyholes of DOORS. Doors. With a capital D. It was the name of a game two friends of mine created, a puzzle game that the creator narrated in person while the participant tried to figure it out. It involves a series of hallways or chambers filled with different doors, each hiding a unique and surreal scenario. The Blood of a Poet reminded me of unrestrained imagination, the kind I was free to exhibit and revel in as a child. Beauty and the Beast is nice, and creative, and beautiful, but it still adheres to a story, to characters, to expectations. Watching the poet peek into the keyholes, I am reminded of Wednesday evenings on the branches of the oak near the schoolboard office with Andrew, trying to figure out what to do with the purple lightbulb or that gargoyle. It doesn't seem like a dream to me so much as an adventure one might stumble into, lucid and awake. I can see the Mexican die and fall and rise and fall again and it will not seem strange, because there are worlds where this happens. The poet observes, and poetic observation is often like a dream. The film seems less like a dream to me and more like the waking life of the poet, however dreamlike that might be.)



Should be clear by now, but my favorite part of the film was the sequence within the mirror. Well, I've always liked mirrors, and doors, and that part stood out to me for its own merits and the personal merits it reminded me of. There is the snowball fight, of course, and the card game that follows. These also deal with the essence of the poet, although these deal less with perception and more with the nature of the artist and his struggle. Cocteau, temporarily disengaging his open interpretation, suggested that:

"The poet's solitude is so great, he so lives what he creates, that the mouth of one of his creations lives in his hand like a wound, and that he loves this mouth, that he loves himself in short, that he wakes up in the morning with this mouth against him like a pickup, that he tries to get rid of it on a dead statue-and that this statue begins to live-and that it takes its revenge, and that it sets him off upon awful adventures. I can tell you that the snowball fight is the poet's childhood, and that when he plays the game of cards with his Glory, with his Destiny, he cheats by taking from his childhood that which he should draw from within himself."

Maybe I'm wrong to think of my childhood, then. But I wouldn't call this drawing from my childhood. I'd call it recognizing a common strand of conscious perception running between my childhood, myself, and the ideas that Cocteau suggests in this film. If The Blood of a Poet was meant to portray the struggle of the artist, it didn't work its wonders on me. It achieved something else, which I would consider more admirable.
Either way, it makes me want to play Doors.

(Regarding the links below, I have the regular imdb, the Criterion page (check out the essay, by Cocteau), the Senses of Cinema article, and another blog called the Criterion Contraption; the latter features what basically function as reviews, but I'll give him credit, because it has some interesting stuff and he's more open-minded than most)




Links:
Imdb entry
Criterion page
Senses of Cinema
Criterion Contraption

Vernon, Florida

Errol Morris' Vernon, Florida

Errol Morris went to Florida with the intention of making a documentary called Nub City, about people who cut off their own limbs for insurance money. That project fell through when they threatened to murder him, and out of its ashes sprung Vernon, Florida. It embodies one of my favorite circumstances that can arise in art: that of chance and hope, last minute scrambling for something to make, just to appease your audience. I love the act of rummaging, assembling something great from the pieces left over, utilizing the unexpected once it becomes available. I have no interest in documentaries that take some stance on a certain issue. Vernon, Florida is merely an earnest observation of people, rendered in a light that puts their character into deep relief, outlining those intensely personal traits and eccentricities that make them individuals. Albeit particularly odd individuals.
This is a film I've dreamed of making.

I recommend watching the film before reading any further.

There's not much I enjoy more than talking to people I don't know, that I've never met and, once we've finished talking, probably never see again. It's a different matter than talking to friends, and yeah, sometimes it just ends in akward tedium. But then there are those transcendent moments: the foul-mouthed hippie sculptor in Paris (the one who actually left the US after Bush was elected, possibly the only man who took that promise to heart), the fat man with his shirt unbuttoned (beer in hand) in the campsite in Alabama, the two guys my roommate and I helped out of a breakdown thanks solely to a series of coincidences. I'd love to capture these moments on film somehow. And that's what Vernon, Florida is. Nearly an hour of conversations like that. With people you remember.
And you remember them. Oh, yes. The simple opening with that off-beat music (harmonica and old man humming?) and the truck moving down country roads, spraying what I presume to be some kind of insecticide, perhaps mosquito repellant. I'm familiar with these small, Southern towns, I know these places. The images ring true. And we hear the first words, spoken by an old man with a strange, almost adolescent voice:
"Reality. You mean this is the real world? (a chuckle) I never thought of that."

Not everyone will understand this film. Some will see it as humorous caricatures. That's a fucking pity, to say the least. These will be the same people who laughed at Grizzly Man without understanding what it was about Timothy Treadwell that drove him out to that wilderness. But when I see these people. . .

The one guy who talks incessantly about turkey hunting. Nothing but turkey hunting. Who understands what a double-gobble is and what it means. The utterly baffling sermon about the word "Therefore." The crawling sand. The pet collector with the fantastic story about the mule carcass. The man who's written dog shit and cat shit with two different hands at the same time, done it lots of times. And yeah, I laughed at times. In part because they reminded me that sometimes really simple things still fascinate me. Although I still don't know what wigglers are.

I'm talking a lot about meeting people, and these people in the film, who they are and why that's important. But that's the beauty of the film. Errol Morris made a brilliant film by letting it make itself. Oh, he edited it and he did it well. He picked great stuff, and arranged it well. Very well. (And I wonder what he left out.) But his greatest contribution is that he lets the camera act as our eyes and never tries to obstruct that view. Filmmakers like Michael Moore block out their lenses with their own personalities. Errol Morris knows that these people, the ones he's filming, are far more interesting than any less-than-witty half-jokes could ever be. The people speak for themselves, and the film does what film does best. It watches.

Stan Brakhage once said something about the documentation of true events on film. He differentiated between a documentary and a genuine document, stating that documentaries were "airy documents". It was great to see someone agree with me, and couldn't think of a better way to phrase it. I'll be referring to that statement a lot, I imagine, but Vernon, Florida is a document in the purest sense, without agenda or political fluff.

Errol Morris's careful fingerprints can be found one other place. The film wanders about freely, only constrained, we can assume, by the size of the town. We meet an interesting range of people with all sorts of stories to tell, with no connection aside from all living in Vernon. Yet something runs through the center of it, a very thin but very distinct thread, or a suggestion of a thread. It can nearly be ignored, because Morris wants us to see them for who they are. But we do see a theme arise, however briefly, at certain moments. Rare instances that give us a glimpse of some melancholy truth lurking beneath the stories and ramblings the excited townspeople tell to the camera.

We hear it when the cop is talking, about how crimes seldom happen. That, when they do, they are the trivial sort. How at the moment, his radar gun is in for repairs so all he can do is sit and watch the cars go past.
In the man showing us fuzzy pictures of stars and telling the joke about two sailors, "Yeah, that's just the top of it."
With the man, talking about a four track mind and the demonstration of his skills in this department.
Those finding God (or something like Him) in everyday moments, finding answers to their prayers.
The belief in the wonder of crawling sand.
It's hinted at in almost every moment we see, every moment Morris chooses to show us. The suggestion of it. And there's an optimism there, don't get me wrong, and something beautiful about their lives. But still. . .

It's most prominent at the ending. The thirty five buzzards looming over the camera. We know why they're there, crouching over the struggling remains of this dying town. In all these stories, these tall tales and obsessions and showings off, we see their accompanying regrets, missed opportunities, lost lives; the camera never leaves Vernon, and does anyone else? Waiting for something to happen. Justifying their existences.

And the last words we hear: "I wish there were as many turkeys as there are buzzards." We know what that means, when the man who loves turkey hunting so much (too much) says it. If these people could only do more than count buzzards and wish them turkeys.


Links:
Imdb Listing
Errol Morris' Website

For background about the city of Vernon and some context, you can read the article here.

La Belle et la bête

Jean Cocteau's La Belle et la bête
or Beauty and the Beast, if you couldn't figure that out.

I don't recommend reading unless you've already seen the film.

Cocteau's rendition of Beauty and the Beast moves through itself strangely, and upon viewing it I'm not sure what to think. Everything about the film is scattered and the story and setting feel as though were lost long ago and only traces remain. Elements of satire are obvious in Belle's sisters, in the hyper-gallant Avenant, even in central characters like the Beast on occasion, yet other parts are almost laughably somber. It portrays romance, but the awkward love between Belle and the Beast is meandering and uncertain. We have the fairy tale tradition of purely unexplained phenomena which we are expected to accept as truth, like the smoking paws and the events that follow the arrow hitting Avenant. And between all of this something else lurks, hiding in the mist and behind doors that open themselves, something subversive we see most clearly in the bizarre and (intentionally, from what I understand) unsatisfying ending.

I don't mean to imply that I didn't like the movie, because it gave me beauty and mystery at face value, the way they should be given, and it does so with extroardinary delicacy. It's the otherworldliness of everything and the inconsistent attitude of the film that captured me, the sheer defiance toward explanation and logic. The characters in the everyday parts of the film, Belle and her family and Avenant, are funny and simply likeable, even the mean sisters. We can't take the sisters too seriously, conniving though they may be, because we know how the story ends and they won't prevent that. It's not that sort of film. So these average people give the film a lot of vitality and movement, qualities it often lacks in the abstractly beautiful sequences in the Beast's castle. The setting is used to great comic effect, the dialogue is fantastic (in that inexplicably French way), and it provides contrast and relief when put alongside the scenes of the castle. It's good to know that Belle still wants to live her life in a place that is real, where things don't always go in slow motion or move without your help. Later, the Beast's implements gradually invade this territory, when he begins eclipsing Belle's concerns, with the mirror and the key and the horse and everything else. But that's what happens when you step into another world. It invades you.

Appropriately enough, that other world is what everyone remembers about the movie. Looking back, we see Belle's room: half palatial and half pastoral, a blending of leaf and wood with the fineries of silk and stone. We see Belle herself, gliding down the hallway, past the billowing, translucent white curtains. We see her running through the front corridor and up the stairs, crossing over to the Beast's world at that dreamy pace and allowing us to see every graceful motion she makes. We see the Beast, too, bowing before Belle the instant he meets her, in spite of his savagery elsewhere. We see him backing away from Belle very slowly after her refusal, keeping his eyes upon her frame as he slinks back into obscurity. Everything is slow and deliberate yet in a manner that defies reason. Their exchanges, like their surroundings and the time they seem to move through, are delicate and confused and endearingly unnatural. This is a world where a beautiful girl could relate to a beast and learn to love it.

My favorite scene in the film is the first approach to the castle, when Belle's father wanders there unwittingly. Even at the start, when the branches move away and we see the facade of the castle, there is a sense of the unknown. Anticipation when he stood on the stone steps and carefully ascended. The first thrill came when his shadow loomed large against the doorway suddenly. The door opens by itself, which is commonplace by now, although I wonder whether this was the first film to ever use the idea (and doubt it). And then follows the most beautiful moment of the movie: Belle's father moving hesitantly forward while the candelabras on the walls, held by pale human arms that stretch out as he passes, light themselves in a flurry of smoke and colorless flame.

The ending also lingers with you. The disappointment we feel, which Belle actually expresses, when the Beast turns into the prince, so similar to Avenant. He loses all his mystical charm. He's handsome and a bit sly, and he now lacks that simplicity and innocence that only animals can possess. We see Belle turn away from him and then, with a sudden change in attitude, accept him the next moment, as a prince, as an Avenant look-alike. Together they float off into some magical land in a very pale rectangle highlighted against the dark clouds (an admirable attempt at such a special effect, for the time). The situation seems as phony as the block around them. That's what Cocteau wanted, though. According to the man himself, he wanted to make a film where his "story would concern itself mainly with the unconscious obstinacy with which women pursue the same type of man, and expose the naiveté of the old fairy tales that would have us believe that this type reaches its ideal in conventional good looks." Why he went for that, exactly, when the rest of the fairy tale seems so earnest and tender, I can't say, but it works along with the same haphazard logic of the rest of the film. Somehow, this unexpected and almost disappointing ending serve to make this film something more than just the beautiful but standard fairy tale it would have been otherwise.

Quotation taken from Jean Cocteau's essay on the film, included in the Criterion Collection DVD (insert).

Links:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038348/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauty_and_the_Beast_(1946_film)
http://www.criterion.com/asp/release.asp?id=6

Cast and crew:

Cast
Avenant/Beast/Prince Ardent	Jean Marais
Belle	Josette Day
Félicie	Mila Parély
Adélaïde	Nane Germon
Ludovic	Michel Auclair
Moneylender	Raoul Marco
The merchant (Belle’s father)	Marcel André
Credits
Written and directed by	Jean Cocteau
‘Illustrated by’	Christian Bèrard
Based on the story by	Mme. Leprince de Beaumont
Technical consultant	René Clément
Art directors	René Moulaërt
	Lucien Carré
Costume design	Marcel Escoffier
	Castillo
From the house of	Paquin
Music	Georges Auric
Orchestra directed by	Roger Désormieres
Director of photography	Henri Alekan
Camera operators	Henri Tiquet

Note: I know this is wordy, a bit much. I intend to break later posts up a bit with visuals, such as stills from the film, artwork, posters, and possibly videos if they're available. My writing style and format will also vary drastically depending on the film and the mood I'm in while writing.

Cinema/Cinnamon

CineMafo (the name I decided upon after discarding some pun involving the word cinnamon) exists to function as a perspective on cinema and all things cinematic (and probably some things that aren't). The reason for the word Mafo in the title is significant because it represents my presence in this blog, that aforementioned perspective. But I am not a critic, and these are not reviews.
The purpose of the blog is to document every film I see, not just for myself (which I already do), but publicly.
I will write about the films I see, not dwelling upon what could make them better, because that's a miserably flawed way of perceiving art, but upon what makes them great, or interesting, or mystifying, or beautiful, or funny, or ridiculous, or whatever the fuck it might be.

So I'll write about the films I see and what I see in them. You can watch and read along if it does something for you, but this is a masturbatory experiment more than anything else. Nearly everything I write will reveal something about the film, so I recommend watching the film before reading. As I said, not a review. But the fact that I'm writing about it probably indicates that it's worth watching.

I may also include tidbits about my own personl filmmaking efforts from time to time, or relevant news, or whatever else strikes my fancy. We're going freeform here. So here goes nothing.