We returned to Noirland this week with Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye. Eliot Gould’s portrayal of Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe was brilliantly eccentric, right down to driving a ’48 Lincoln Continental around ’70’s California. Movie magic.
And yes… that is Arnie. Looking quite buff (aside from the package). LOL.
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Well… that was a blast! Wicked tunes from DJ Orloff and a completely fresh set of visuals, set the mood for the incredibly effective masterpiece of creepy ghostliness that was The Innocents. The set-up was all very… well… innocent. Kind-hearted nanny accepts a position to look after two angelic, orphaned charges. Heading for a Nanny McPhee story, right? Sound of Music, right? Uh uh. A brother and sister possessed.
I had promised a slew of devilish treats, but due to the unforeseen, early-morning failure of the building’s water pump, we were lucky to have flushing toilets, let alone fresh baked goodies… ah… first world problems.
The second feature (although not a feature, strictly speaking, since it was shown without it’s own sound track) was Female Vampire… another one of those Franco-Italian vampire porn treasures from the seventies. This one seemed to have a cohesive plot, though: deaf-mute (hot) vampire girl sustains herself by sucking the life out of her sexual partners. Yes… that’s what I mean. Hmmm.
My own costume, although brilliant in conception, was ultimately un-achievable (in some ways a blessing, since it would have severely hampered my ability to drink, ironically), but others did not disappoint. The popular vote never took place, but I think I can safely award the prize to Alexandra and Nicolas (pictured below, against a background from Freaks, photo by Circe). Also notable were “Marie: An Brunette”, and the glowing “Sasha” who, incidentally, lost one of his balls on the sofa! Kyril was also very convincing as Boris Yeltsin. Oh wait… maybe I’m imagining things!
🙂
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Jacques Tournier’s immaculate noir classic Out of the Past felt as tightly knit as a wool sweater fresh out of a hot clothes dryer. Oops… speaking noir talk again! The new (last April) projector really does a sparkling job with black and white… expect more. Actually, expect more next week!
We had a great turnout at MovieNight this week… just one sandwich too many. What? Well, someone (I don’t know who) left a half eaten sandwich on one of the sofas. Flea found it. Flea ate it. Flea had what the Brits call a “dodgy tummy” for the next couple of days. Oh well…
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Once again, MovieNight was left stunned by the work of German director Christian Petzold. We got off to a bit of a rocky start when I felt compelled to pause the movie and scold the texters (I appreciate that it’s hard to go straight into serious watching mode after partying at the bar for an hour or so… this is the paradox of MovieNight), but there weren’t many dry eyes when the end credits rolled; indeed, some of us were sobbing inconsolably.
At the time of writing this, Phoenix is showing at the IFC Center, and Lincoln Plaza Cinemas. I beseech you to go see it.
To those quibbling over a key plot point (SPOILER ALERT) “a husband failing to recognize his wife”, MovieNight “consigliere” Chris Norris said the following in an email:
But I think prompting that very question may be part of the film’s brilliance, more strategy than demand to suspend disbelief. (Though we definitely need to do that for a WW II-era plastic surgeon who offers the disfigured their choice of bold new looks.)
It’s amazing how well this plot serves a psycho-historical theme of denial, which is the one condition 1946 Berlin must have demanded from every single resident. You don’t breeze out of a death camp without it. You don’t live in central Mitte or Kreuzberg without it. You don’t stroll past the Reich Chancellery without some high-octane denial keeping you breathing. Denying the obvious is a life skill needed by everyone from survivors to collaborators to war criminals.
So In the face of staggering evidence, Johnny denies that the woman he betrayed is staring him straight in the face. Nelly denies that the man she loved used history as murder weapon. Even Lena, who says she can’t stand German music, loves Weimar king Kurt Weil. But she can barely manage that. Without a fantasy of running away to Haifa with Nelly, Lena can’t pull off the meagerest denial. That’s why she feels less connected to the living than the dead, and why she joins them.
Speak low if you speak of love, the song says. And of atrocity, don’t speak at all. Once that’s illuminated, the whole thing is so elegant, right down to the bitter irony of the bar name and film title. No Phoenix is rising from these ashes. Not today.
More of Chris’s thoughts at bychrisnorris.com
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For a variety of reasons, not least of which was likely the sudden weather change from gorgeous to disgusting, we had a pretty small group in the house for the second feature of the new MovieNight season, but a lucky group it was!
Made in Czechoslovakia in 1966 at the start of a period of discontent with Soviet rule (which would build into the “Prague Spring” two years later) Closely Watched Trains is a masterpiece of cinematic excellence, which has no doubt influenced many filmmakers over the past (almost) fifty years. A first glance, it’s a gentle comedy about a boy turning into a man, set in a train station in Nazi-held territory during World War II. His co-workers are a hodge podge of entertaining characters, one of whom is a not-entirely-unlikeable womanizer, who tries to help the boy out. In the scene below he seduces (or is perhaps seduced by) another railway worker.
When her mother discovers that she has been “stamped”, she embarks on a campaign to see justice done, but in the end, the worst “crime” is deemed to be “abuse and disgrace of the German national language”. This is all quite amusing (and rather sexy), but it is just one example of how Closely Watched Trains takes satirical aim at bureaucracy and authority. Please seek it out!
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OMG. We kicked things off with a bang (literally and figuratively) this week. Funny… the lady in the green dress didn’t seem to notice.
So happy to have you all back!
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