Dennis Locantore
Studio pic
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
antichrist: Antichrist the movie: morphing the blog to somethi...
antichrist: Antichrist the movie: morphing the blog to somethi...: "All of this under the heading of ANTICHRIST: The MOVIE was intended as an experiment in blogging to which I am totally new. If you want to r..."
Antichrist the movie: morphing the blog to something more inclusive...ALL FILM FANATICS UNITE!
All of this under the heading of ANTICHRIST: The MOVIE was intended as an experiment in blogging to which I am totally new. If you want to read about those films which have affected me most deeply throughout my life, whether by and single element (acting, direction, screewriting, cinematography, scoring, special effects, etc., READ ON! I promise a few things. Not to bore you silly with "pre-fab" film critics pretentions, discussions of esoteric and anyodyne directorial florishes which ultimately mean nothing, films so obscure that NO ONE beyond the cognoscenti has seen them, and worst of all well-meaning but ultimately UNREWARDING talk of enuii and the MTV stle of editing which infests todays' so called movies to the point of distraction from ALL else. It's like watching a visual SLEDGE HAMMER aimed at one's eyes without relief!
So let's start with an ad hoc favorite film list....NIGHT AND THE CITY (Jules Dassin's 1950 20th Century Fox) Classic film noir with Richard Widmark {in the performance of his career} Gene Tierney, Herbert Lom. Stanislaus Zbyszko, Googie Withers, Hugh Marlowe, Mike Mazurki. As EXPRESSIONISTIC AND AFFECTING as they come.
SOME CAME RUNNING (Vincente Minnelli, 1958, MGM) Minnelli's flair for artisitc and decorative flourish is at it's most inspired peak here, as are truly underrated performances by Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin (what a shock THIS MUST HAVE BEEN AT THE IME), Shirley MacLaine, Martha Hyer, Arthur Kennedy (the last 3 all Oscar nominated). William Daniels superb cinematography (Sinatra's long association with him began here...witness the number of films thereafter he associate produced with Sinatra), Elmer Bernstein's grandly romantic and original score, and the fine script by Cy Howard. And so damned entertaining!
FORBIDDEN PLANET(Fred MacLeod Wilcox, 1956 MGM)...Yes I know...Old school to todays' cretinous MTV style film viewers but still an astoundingly inventive sci-fi twist on Shakespeare's THE TEMPEST with Leslie Nielsen at his most square-jawed, Anne Francis at her pre-HONEY WEST sexiest, Walter Pidgeon at his most charismatic and unknowingly evil villainous best. With Art Direction and Special Effects beyond anything imagined at the time, and of course the ELECTRONIC TONALITIES of LOUIS AND BEBE BARRON, very much in the style of Karlheinz Stochausen's CONTACTE. GROUND BREAKING and still influential. STAR TREK would NEVER have existed without it.
FEMALE CONVICT SCORPION; JAILHOUSE 41. (1972, TOEI Studios, Shunya Ito)...The most visually inventive and stylish film from the Japanese at that time in the low-rent exploitation film genre. A simple revenge story becomes a tour de force through sheer inspired invention of direction, cinematography and performances. If you never see another Japanese film see this one to know where Quentin Tarantino's KILL BILL 1 and 2 were REALLY COMING FROM!
TOYS IN THE ATTIC (1963, Geroge Roy Hill, United Artists). The single best Lillian Hellman adaption on the screen woefully trounced at the time critically. The film is continually wonderful and packed with great performances and direction. Geraldine Page may overdue the "tics" that were part of her acting style all her life but she is just wonderful in this part of the sister who sercetly harbors feelings of incest for her brother (Dean Martin)....Dean Martin...what to say of him. He was a "limited actor"...Yeah RIGHT! That's what Some Came Running, Rio Bravo, Kiss Me Stupid and this film are just great...His roles in all of the aformenetioned films plus ROUGH NIGHT IN JERICHO (Arnold Laven's 1967, Universal western where he plays the nastiest role of his career) are just PERFECT performances. The Panavision cinematgraphy of Joseph Biroc (who
worked most often with director Robert Aldrich) is superb in it's use of the frame. And George Roy Hill's direction is commited and consistantly so far and away above his later films like BUTCH CASSIDY and THE STING that it doesn't look like the work of the same man. A stellar score from George Duning rounds out a great movie. And although attacked at the time for this it IS NOT WATERED DOWN! The incest angle is very explicit but subtle.
TOUCH OF EVIL (1958, Universal-International, Orson Welles) Entirely possible NOW that Welles' universally admired classic and ground breaking masterpiece CITIZEN KANE has overstayed it's welcome due to simple overexposure and imitation, and that this even MORE baroque masterpiece is more entertaining, more inventively directed, and more instinctively involving. Wonderful perfomances from Charlton Heston (way better than he was in his same year Oscar winning performance in Ben-Hur), Janet Leigh (so sexy and yet so unthreateningly so in this), Akim Tamiroff as a sleazy Mexican villain, Mercedes McCambridge as a lesbian druggie, and best of all Dennis Weaver as the precursor to Anthony Perkins in Hitchcock's PSYCHO, as a mentally "challenged" sex-obesssed but REpressed hotel "night man." Scary, frightening and hilarious often at the same time gotta wonder how he managed to play such straight roles for most of his career. With the boomshot from hell opening of cinematographer Russell Metty this is an astounding piece of work.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1968, Paramount, Sergio Leone) What a cast (Charles Bronson, Jason Robards, Jr., Claudia Cardinale and Henry Fonda who was Leone's FAVORITE actor cast as the worst of all possible villains...hell he shoots kids!), what direction (Leone), cinematography (Tonino Delli Colli, in Techniscope), and possible the very APEX of achievement in film composition as Ennio Morricone (who is without a doubt the most prolific and inspired and consistent composer in film history {more than 500 scores!!}. Score composed BEFORE the film was SHOT. Name me one of todays' corporate directorial a**-lickers who could do this and have a composer of this accomplishment take on the project. A financial flop here and subject to drastic recutting over the years due to this...(SEE Tim Lucas' Video Watchdog back issues for the complete story). For me it is just the finest Western ever made.
Could go on with a few other titles and will before long. ALL POSTS ARE WELCOME HERE and SO are recommendations disagreements etc. My blog is your blog!
So let's start with an ad hoc favorite film list....NIGHT AND THE CITY (Jules Dassin's 1950 20th Century Fox) Classic film noir with Richard Widmark {in the performance of his career} Gene Tierney, Herbert Lom. Stanislaus Zbyszko, Googie Withers, Hugh Marlowe, Mike Mazurki. As EXPRESSIONISTIC AND AFFECTING as they come.
SOME CAME RUNNING (Vincente Minnelli, 1958, MGM) Minnelli's flair for artisitc and decorative flourish is at it's most inspired peak here, as are truly underrated performances by Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin (what a shock THIS MUST HAVE BEEN AT THE IME), Shirley MacLaine, Martha Hyer, Arthur Kennedy (the last 3 all Oscar nominated). William Daniels superb cinematography (Sinatra's long association with him began here...witness the number of films thereafter he associate produced with Sinatra), Elmer Bernstein's grandly romantic and original score, and the fine script by Cy Howard. And so damned entertaining!
FORBIDDEN PLANET(Fred MacLeod Wilcox, 1956 MGM)...Yes I know...Old school to todays' cretinous MTV style film viewers but still an astoundingly inventive sci-fi twist on Shakespeare's THE TEMPEST with Leslie Nielsen at his most square-jawed, Anne Francis at her pre-HONEY WEST sexiest, Walter Pidgeon at his most charismatic and unknowingly evil villainous best. With Art Direction and Special Effects beyond anything imagined at the time, and of course the ELECTRONIC TONALITIES of LOUIS AND BEBE BARRON, very much in the style of Karlheinz Stochausen's CONTACTE. GROUND BREAKING and still influential. STAR TREK would NEVER have existed without it.
FEMALE CONVICT SCORPION; JAILHOUSE 41. (1972, TOEI Studios, Shunya Ito)...The most visually inventive and stylish film from the Japanese at that time in the low-rent exploitation film genre. A simple revenge story becomes a tour de force through sheer inspired invention of direction, cinematography and performances. If you never see another Japanese film see this one to know where Quentin Tarantino's KILL BILL 1 and 2 were REALLY COMING FROM!
TOYS IN THE ATTIC (1963, Geroge Roy Hill, United Artists). The single best Lillian Hellman adaption on the screen woefully trounced at the time critically. The film is continually wonderful and packed with great performances and direction. Geraldine Page may overdue the "tics" that were part of her acting style all her life but she is just wonderful in this part of the sister who sercetly harbors feelings of incest for her brother (Dean Martin)....Dean Martin...what to say of him. He was a "limited actor"...Yeah RIGHT! That's what Some Came Running, Rio Bravo, Kiss Me Stupid and this film are just great...His roles in all of the aformenetioned films plus ROUGH NIGHT IN JERICHO (Arnold Laven's 1967, Universal western where he plays the nastiest role of his career) are just PERFECT performances. The Panavision cinematgraphy of Joseph Biroc (who
worked most often with director Robert Aldrich) is superb in it's use of the frame. And George Roy Hill's direction is commited and consistantly so far and away above his later films like BUTCH CASSIDY and THE STING that it doesn't look like the work of the same man. A stellar score from George Duning rounds out a great movie. And although attacked at the time for this it IS NOT WATERED DOWN! The incest angle is very explicit but subtle.
TOUCH OF EVIL (1958, Universal-International, Orson Welles) Entirely possible NOW that Welles' universally admired classic and ground breaking masterpiece CITIZEN KANE has overstayed it's welcome due to simple overexposure and imitation, and that this even MORE baroque masterpiece is more entertaining, more inventively directed, and more instinctively involving. Wonderful perfomances from Charlton Heston (way better than he was in his same year Oscar winning performance in Ben-Hur), Janet Leigh (so sexy and yet so unthreateningly so in this), Akim Tamiroff as a sleazy Mexican villain, Mercedes McCambridge as a lesbian druggie, and best of all Dennis Weaver as the precursor to Anthony Perkins in Hitchcock's PSYCHO, as a mentally "challenged" sex-obesssed but REpressed hotel "night man." Scary, frightening and hilarious often at the same time gotta wonder how he managed to play such straight roles for most of his career. With the boomshot from hell opening of cinematographer Russell Metty this is an astounding piece of work.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1968, Paramount, Sergio Leone) What a cast (Charles Bronson, Jason Robards, Jr., Claudia Cardinale and Henry Fonda who was Leone's FAVORITE actor cast as the worst of all possible villains...hell he shoots kids!), what direction (Leone), cinematography (Tonino Delli Colli, in Techniscope), and possible the very APEX of achievement in film composition as Ennio Morricone (who is without a doubt the most prolific and inspired and consistent composer in film history {more than 500 scores!!}. Score composed BEFORE the film was SHOT. Name me one of todays' corporate directorial a**-lickers who could do this and have a composer of this accomplishment take on the project. A financial flop here and subject to drastic recutting over the years due to this...(SEE Tim Lucas' Video Watchdog back issues for the complete story). For me it is just the finest Western ever made.
Could go on with a few other titles and will before long. ALL POSTS ARE WELCOME HERE and SO are recommendations disagreements etc. My blog is your blog!
Thursday, January 27, 2011
How explicit should this film have gotten?
One of the things which most puzzles me is how contemporary filmmakers feel always think they have to push the envelope...Whether this is from lack of subtlety, their own reflections of the audience as jaded filmgoers themselves, personal taste or lack thereof is something that always fascinates me. Some geniune nut cases like Cathraine Brelliat just are provacateurs...Some like the ubiquitous and prolific (USED to have talent but buried it) Jesus Franco were always dirty old men even when they were young! There is something more to be said for even the Japanese who although their films have incredible amounts of sex and violence, still would leave something to the imagination.
Witness a scene in the 50's film noir shadow classic THE BIG COMBO...Richard Conte is behind Jean Wallace. Both are fully clothed. He is seen murmuring as he proceeds to kiss her from behind and obviously continues to kiss her while proceeding downward from behind her! ANALINGUS is being implied certainly (the fact that the characters' name is MR. BROWN! also adds to this connotation. Yet what is shown is "harmless" and todays' moviegoers would want to see more. I don't think that Lars Von Trier has any idea about being subtle because he hasn't the talent to think that way. I also don't think that this movie could have been made without some form of explicitness. BUT that said do we need to see blatant female masturbation on the screen (outside of porn, can think of scenes in other films that showed the same thing without being so explicit). Some things ARE beyond the realm of acting...and are not so much meant to be censored as meant to be treated with some form of discretion and a talented filmmaker can circumvent anything. If in the staid 40's Preston Sturges could come out with a film as subversive as THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN'S CREEK as a COMEDY (and one of the most hilarious of them to boot) with the content of pre-marital sex, a main character with the name COCKENLOCKER, implied gang-banging, and other stuff like this without showing anything...then something is wrong with filmakers like Von Trier who is all SURFACE talent.
Witness a scene in the 50's film noir shadow classic THE BIG COMBO...Richard Conte is behind Jean Wallace. Both are fully clothed. He is seen murmuring as he proceeds to kiss her from behind and obviously continues to kiss her while proceeding downward from behind her! ANALINGUS is being implied certainly (the fact that the characters' name is MR. BROWN! also adds to this connotation. Yet what is shown is "harmless" and todays' moviegoers would want to see more. I don't think that Lars Von Trier has any idea about being subtle because he hasn't the talent to think that way. I also don't think that this movie could have been made without some form of explicitness. BUT that said do we need to see blatant female masturbation on the screen (outside of porn, can think of scenes in other films that showed the same thing without being so explicit). Some things ARE beyond the realm of acting...and are not so much meant to be censored as meant to be treated with some form of discretion and a talented filmmaker can circumvent anything. If in the staid 40's Preston Sturges could come out with a film as subversive as THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN'S CREEK as a COMEDY (and one of the most hilarious of them to boot) with the content of pre-marital sex, a main character with the name COCKENLOCKER, implied gang-banging, and other stuff like this without showing anything...then something is wrong with filmakers like Von Trier who is all SURFACE talent.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
The cinematography in Antichrist.
The film despite the ugliness of the subject matter and content is extremely well photographed and even beautiful...Am hard pressed to think of another film like this. It's such a curiosity that it kind of defies description. I remember when I was watching that it was as if I as seeing some kind of A CASE STUDY from a psychological basis that somehow got captured onto a very well planned and executed piece of cinema...It is possible to be engrossed the the technique and depressed by the content of the images. It's an cinematic anomaly for people who are strong enough to stay with it...Even in the end one may hate the film...Really would like to hear from others who have confronted this very cinematic but painful assault on their senses!
Sunday, January 23, 2011
RESPONSE TO JEFF G.
Not even sure if I like this film....I can't certainly recommend it to everyone and hesitate to do that. It is a very challenging film, it is extremely well made, violent, sexy (At least it has sexual content) and as I've said well acted...Reminded me in tone very much of Zulawski's film POSSESSION. It is extremely upsetting on a primal psychological level and there aren't many films that get under one's skin like this one does...I am not even saying this is in a POSITIVE way. There have been films in the past whose very content and manner are just so off-putting to most of the general moviegoing or watching public and that NEVER get to the point where this one does! Can think of many of these....John Byrum's INSERTS w/ Richard Dreifuss, Jessica Harper (of SUSPIRIA), Veronica Cartwright and Bob Hoskins, William Lustig's MANIAC w/ Joe Spinell, Ruggero Deodato's CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, Cathraine Brelliat's ANATOMY OF HELL, Gaspar Noe's IRREVERSABLE just to name a few of these gut and psyche challenges. Even Abel Ferrara's BAD LIEUTENANT would seem to fall in this company. How many of these are worthwhile ventures or worthy of being seen (if one CAN stand them) again and again is up to the individual. I remember when you gave me your copy of Yukio Noda's extremely violent ZERO WOMAN and gave me a disclaimer that it was more than you could stand!
To a certain extent all cinema is a CONFRONTATION and some films are more confrontational than others. We who love the horror film genre are USED to CONFRONTATIONAL CINEMA. That fear element is a confrontation of that fear. THAT some of us who love movies want that confrontation, well THIS film definitely DOES THAT IN SPADES! So let that be a warning to all those who can accurately gauge what they can stand to see, feel and experience on screen....The one area where I can honestly say I can see no reason for ANYONE to see the film is it's ENTERTAINMENT value! It isn't that kind of movie.
To a certain extent all cinema is a CONFRONTATION and some films are more confrontational than others. We who love the horror film genre are USED to CONFRONTATIONAL CINEMA. That fear element is a confrontation of that fear. THAT some of us who love movies want that confrontation, well THIS film definitely DOES THAT IN SPADES! So let that be a warning to all those who can accurately gauge what they can stand to see, feel and experience on screen....The one area where I can honestly say I can see no reason for ANYONE to see the film is it's ENTERTAINMENT value! It isn't that kind of movie.
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