been really busy of late–especially with the Montreal Fiores–but at least I’m keeping up with some of what’s going on out there.
like what?
well, I’m very much looking forward to
Cinema Viewfinder’s Brian De Palma blog-a-thon! I hope to get into the spirit by writing at least one piece on the director (probably Blow Out or Femme Fatale–two of my absolute favourites)
and
David Cairns’ Film Club/Hitchcock Year two-car collision in the vicinity of Strangers on a Train–on track for tomorrow
I also loved Jacqueline T. Lynch‘s pieces on Picnic and Peyton Place. (I’m especially interested in the latter–both as a film and a novel… Metalious’ book was a revelation, when I finally read it last year… one fine day I’ll write that post on Middlemarch/Kings Row/Peyton Place that’s been knocking around in my brain)
I’ve also been reading as much Inglourious stuff as I can, and delighting in the current issue of In Posse Review–which features two of my favourite writers doing characteristically fascinating things:
Jamie Popowich’s “Banana Peels”
and (for all you monomaniac sorts, or types)
Angela Szczepaniak’s “Bitter Heaven: A Romance”
enjoy ’em all
oh–and I suppose I ought to put these final thoughts about Inglourious Basterds up here [cut and pasted from the glorious Shadowplay thread, but perhaps even more inspired by Sean Collins’ thoughts on the film here]:
commenter-Brian wrote:
“The Nazi war hero can’t watch his own exploits on the screen because he knows real men die. ”
I replied:
I thought the Nazi war hero was distracted by his desire to rape Shoshanna… one of the real strengths of this film, for me, is its refusal to sentimentalize in this “real men die” way… sure Zoller knows this propganda shite isn’t like the films he admires, but he’s no disillusioned war vet either…
EVERYONE in this film (except for the “Jew-hunter”) is 100% convinced of the need to kill their enemies–and absolutely none of them are thinking about the ways in which those enmities have been constructed…
The people who are constructing this movie as a phantasmagoria of art uber alles [this is where Sean comes in] are the most perplexing to me of all… if the movie works at all, it works in the reverse direction–as a statement about the inability of art to do anything but respond to other art… I think we’ve all had enough of the “monster-who-understands-the-finer-things” trope, and the best thing about this movie is the way it sets us up to expect a meeting of the hearts and minds between Shoshanna and Zoller on the aesthetic plane, and then tosses them both onto the celluloid pyre, without any moment of tenderness passing between them (unless you count Shoshanna’s nod toward empathy after she thinks she has nullified the threat represented by Zoller… personally, I like to read that as another tease)
see you soon
Dave
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