Films of Faith List Discussion + Suggestions (Genre Project)

[knives]

Shrew, if I remember Redford interviews from the period the film started off as a slightly more explicit O Brother Where Art Thou type adaptation with him and Morgan Freeman set to be the stars. It's been forever since I've seen the film, but as I remember its themes are completely without relation to the original story and a bit misplaced for a religion list.

[bamwc2]

Shrew, if I remember Redford interviews from the period the film started off as a slightly more explicit O Brother Where Art Thou type adaptation with him and Morgan Freeman set to be the stars. It's been forever since I've seen the film, but as I remember its themes are completely without relation to the original story and a bit misplaced for a religion list.

My understanding (without ever having seen it of course) is that it was a fairly explicit reworking of The Bhagavad Gita with Matt Damon in the role of Prince Arjuna who doesn't want to kill his relatives in battle (or er, play golf as it were) and Will Smith as Krishna who explains to him about karmic duty. The Google machine is full of reviews claiming this at least. For what it's worth, I try to stay about 100 miles away from Will Smith films (which I would do even if there weren't a court order).

[knives]

It definitely fulfills the narrative fully and completely. Just nothing thematically connected to religion as far as I can tell. Still, I remember liking it so its probably worth a spin.

[knives]

Green Fields
his isn't just cut from the same cloth as Fiddler on the Roof, it basically is the same cut of a few cuts. There's a strong soviet vibe to the story and the direction which I'm sure is no accident. Occasionally this makes the film a little too cornfed and lumpy. Fortunately so much of the film overcomes the goofy sort of archetypal familiarity of the macro. Particularly the cinematography which in the opening matches The Black Cat in style and when on the farm still manages a unique lighting scheme. The movie seems to connect socialism to religion by pointing to how the theories of both are pleasant and maybe even great, but their practical reality can be poor or even painful. This is most clear and the film gives its best and shows its worst with its main Rabbi in training, best because it often overcomes its lame presentation of the proletariat as something cute and simple and worst because the main kid gives an awful eye of saucers performance. The romance fares far better while retaining a lot of the thematic fighting over what sort of ideology is practical to those on the outside of books.

Amen.
This film depends a little too hard on coincidence and beauty to rank high for me and is the first serious disappointment, for me, from Costa-Gavras. That said I wouldn't call it bad as there's a lot of little details spread throughout which gives the movie extra life. For instance there's no real human enemy with the general bureaucracy and indifference being the film's sole poison against good intentions. The film though is much too polite to really matter much though.

The Light Ahead
This is easily the best of the Ulmer Yiddish films and really one of his best films. It's also really clear at this point how much more controlled and vocally interesting the performances are when Ulmer speaks the language they're acting in completely. This also seems a striking end to the optimism of the other films despite not being the last or even the most melodramatic he made. Everything is portrayed in a dark shadow giving a frightening Karloff look to many of the characters and tending to the good characters with a depressed pity. It's without a doubt in my mind that this end to the European Jewish fantasy was a major influence on Austeria which hits many of the same notes even if it is with more hindsight in the Polish film. These are patriarchal men not made monsters only on account of their self destructive hubris. There's this one beautiful moment about midway through where the lead talks to god asking the eternal question of why that is absolutely crushing to watch, made me cry a little, that slowly shifts over to him selling religious books. He reads a prayer to a childless woman and as she cries over it he gives a look of distaste that left me dirty for pitying him so just a scene ago. That's the film's genius in a nutshell.

Samson and Delilah---Roeg
This was extremely different from what I was expecting in just about the best sort of way. Late Roeg having the rap it does with the previous films in the series I thought at best this could be a dry excuse for some basic cable soft core violence and sex, but the end result is much more stylish and intelligent than that. Roeg really goes all out on his meager budget (though it really does look like he's grappling with a lion early on) giving the very secure sense that he is the one directing. Yet it isn't a sort of sloppy application of his style with the edits and odd angles all feeling necessary. The most shocking thing though is Allan Scott's script which is the most intelligent grappling of the character I've ever seen. There's a few typical additions to the characterization of these sorts of characters like with Samson's insecurity, but of them seem to be better thought out and relatively unique to the film emphasizing the fall from grace Samson finds himself. Even the aforementioned insecurity is painted pretty fully by that as his strength seems pointless as long as the Jews are weakened. It's a very interior film with much of the discussion being a simple expression of thought with inactivity being much more compelling then the few action scenes. I wish more of these biblical adaptations could support such a wit and make so well thought out a use of the spectacle.

The Shoes of the Fisherman
Before I get to anything else I just have to bring up how beautiful this film is. Even by glossy Hollywood standards this is just a gorgeous film to absorb with a dynamite combination of colours which breath so perfectly you have to get lost in them even before the film gets all travelogue. This is exactly the sort of craftsmanship that makes studio cinema so worth it. Even the bloat, this is nearly two and half hours long, is surprisingly fun giving an overabundance of character that somehow works. Some of the subplots initiate with the appearance of flab, but mostly work themselves out to excellent world building and adding to the themes.

As to those reasons for watching this the film seems surprisingly aware of its surroundings while lacking any sense of self importance which are two qualities so lacking in these '60s epics. The film so effortlessly combines its story of religious politics to the current climate of global politics. The filmmakers are fairly open about not having the answers and the reality of how even their characters couldn't so much of the discussion is just how to deal with the ever living threat of a random and violent death. I could have never guessed this would be such an intelligent film.

[bamwc2]

Viewing Log:

All the Colors of the Dark (Sergio Martino, 1972): This pretty cool giallo begins with Jane (Edwige Fenech) living out the nightmare (and having nightmares about) of a car accident that caused her to miscarry. In all of these dreams she finds herself pursued by a mystery man with piercing blue eyes and a ceremonial dagger that he swings at her. Soon she begins to think that she sees him in real life. Is she going insane? Nope! She's just pursued by group of satanists that want to sacrifice her after her mother left their ranks twenty-some years earlier. The plot isn't the most original thing that you can imagine, but this is a very visually gorgeous movie with some creepy good moments to it. It's not a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, but still an easy recommendation...

Fig Leaves (Howard Hawks, 1926): ...as is this early silent comedy from Hawks (only his second film, in fact!). The film begins with the Biblical (actually, it's a version of a much older tale that had been kicking around the near east for centuries before Genesis 2 was ever recorded) equivalent of The Flintstones as Adam (George O'Brien) and Eve (Oliver Borden) living in the Garden of Eden with a slightly more primitive version of 1920's life. Instead of reading the morning 'paper', Adam read the morning stone tablets. All of their needs are met by various dinosaur/animal helpers. All that's missing is the obligatory breaking of the fourth wall and the mugging "It's a living" comment. After fifteen or so minutes of these sight gags, we flash forward to the same couple living in the mid-20s, where the fashion conscious Eve finds herself working as a model behind Adam's back, while Adam is the center of unwanted romantic attention from one of his neighbors. The material is fairly silly, and the connection between the two time periods is never clear, but there are enough chuckles here to make it fairly harmless fun.

Godspell: A Musical Based on the Gospel According to St. Matthew (David Greene, 1973): Pier Paolo Pasolini's much lauded literal translation of The Gospel of Matthew doesn't strike me as so faithful since the action has been moved to New York, and the apostles are portrayed as a bunch of singing hippies. It's been a while since I read the New Testament, but that doesn't quite seem right. Issues of fidelity aside, this film is a complete mess, turning Jesus into someone who won his wardrobe in a game of strip poker with cocaine-era Robin Williams, and his retinue into a bunch of dirty hippies, each with their own eccentricities. Hey, look, I dress and act like I'm in the circus. But I talk through a tiger hand puppet. I'm...oh, hey, it's the late great Lynne Thigpen! Okay, so there are a couple of good songs in here, and some interesting reenactments of the parables, but none of it stacks up to Norman Jewison's infinitely better Jesus Christ Superstar. I'm afraid that there's only room in my heart for one reimagining of the story of Jesus through a hippie lens, and this ain't it.

Gospel Road: A Story of Jesus (Robert Elfstrom, 1973): I'd never heard of this one until a couple of weeks ago, but a film about the life of Jesus written by, starring, and featuring the music of Johnny Cash? Yes, please! Unfortunately, this middlebrow piece of shit turns out to be about as an unimaginative telling of the 'Murican gospel as possible. I suppose the big draw here is The Man In Black, who periodically narrates events from where everything really happened in the holy land!!! Seriously, though, doesn't all that black trap in all the desert heat? Everything is overly sanitized here as we get a G rated version of the gospel that probably manages to make Roma Downey's life of Jesus movie look edgy by comparison. Even worse, this is the Wal-Mart of Jesus movies, going out of its way to randomly include inexplicable shots of the USA throughout. The entire cast is lily white and Mary, ostensibly a first century Semite, speaks with a deep Southern drawl. Well, at least it has one of the all time great American singers in front of the camera. Surely he can save it, right? Wrong. All of his gospel song here are big misfires, and some of them are...just creepy. Do we really need Cash to sing a song about how the children must have just flocked to Jesus, with a bunch of barely clothed 8 year olds frolicking in the surf with Aryan Christ? I don't really think so.

Himala (Ishmael Bernal, 1982): Elsa (Nora Aunor) is a young Filipino woman who's small town existence is shaken up one day when she believes that she sees a beatific vision in the sky. Her daily prayers attract first the attention of her neighbors, and later the press who publicize Elsa's miracle. Soon Elsa is heralded as a miracle worker operating under the power of the Virgin Mary, and finds herself part of an apparatus charging for healings and blessings. However, Elsa is neither as innocent or pure as she's presented to her audience, and possesses a proclivity for some decidedly un-Christian activities. Is Elsa telling the truth about her visions or is it all an act for attention? The film does a good job building up to a tragic conclusion where we get the answer. Over all it's a worthwhile journey to take along with the film's protagonist.

[Michael Kerpan]

Himala -- my favorite Philippine film -- and one of the top films of the decade (internationally).

[knives]

The Bridge of San Luis Rey
This is unlike anything I was expecting it to be which is good because I was assuming it was an Atom Egoyan film. There's a lot of pretty narration and thought to the film which has elements of a crutch particularly with Byrne's scenes, but it never really leaves it as a poor movie. Beyond that and other aesthetic appreciations I have to admit I'm not entirely certain of the film. It's okay and gives the sense of a depth that probably is not there for which I feel bad that I didn't get more out of its story. Though I suspect I would have been more appreciative had more fat been cut out with a greater focus on De Niro's character. Are the other versions worth searching out?

Stolen Summer
Given how the film was made, which seems as commercial and Weinstein approved as a film could be, I was expecting this to be a chore. Fortunately instead through an earnestness that comes brilliantly through its young point of view even its weakest parts eventually charm with a surprising level of intelligence. Though much of the film wouldn't work if it weren't for the naivety of its premise even more then necessarily that intelligence. The giddiness is most evident in the scenes with Brian Denheney's priest character, but even when the film acknowledges the disadvantages outside of its POV like the slow growing subplot of the older son going to college that earnestness makes the cliche work surprisingly well. Nothing here is particularly great, but that honesty of experience leaves a great impression. Generally, I must admit, I don't look back to historical reviews, but given this film's origins and the '80s nostalgia film duplication I was more then a little curious about how the reaction was. So of course Ebert had a little bit to write on this which is pretty interesting for this viewing project at least in terms the historical value of the film if not necessarily its theology.

Black Robe
This is just a brilliant and touching movie and probably the best use of Bruce Beresford's skills I've seen yet. The film is about as small an epic as can fit into the Hollywood model with the camera questioning the interior of its characters in often, though not always, surprising directions. Perhaps this is just because of the laserdisc ready transfer on the disc, but there's a real ugliness to the sight of the film that often comes across as pitiful documentary. Even the prettyboy priest in training who is the closest the film has to a bad spot seems rough and realistically off in how the camera shoots him. The thing that really pushes the film over into greatness is the absolute frankness the movie holds about the role of the missionary. Contrasting with nearly any example from cinema shows this as highlighting the ugly stupidness of the priest and the sheer lack of care from the natives in brilliant tones. It even manages to best The Great White of Lambarene thanks to a stronger emphasis of the mechanics of failure and proper characterization beyond its primary colonizer. In fact the primary priest is probably the most roughly sketched of the characters with him being defined by his reactions and relationships to others. He and by extension his use of religion are surprisingly passive which makes him seem safe even as he tries to poison the world through his religion.

It's a very different take on the subject from Tender Mercies where Christianity is viewed in a very positive fashion with it managing to lift the characters up via class. The difference of treatment can't but help, at least for me, make religion seem oddly modern violently shaking caste realities, often as a negative, even as it helps the voice of those on the interior of a caste. That's a horrible word salad of an explanation, but in essence what I mean is that Tender Mercies highlights how in a class system religion can be helpful while here it highlights how religion is horrifying in a caste one (whether or not these are absolute truths are beside the point that's just what the texts communicate). That said there are many elements where religion could be seen as good here thanks to the non-judgmental filming style. For example while I'm personally repulsed by the self flagellation and other masochistic actions of the priest the film accepts why he does it without lingering so that if the priest were watching himself he'd probably say that that's a good thing with sound logic.

The Clay Bird
I'd love to hear a more nuanced view on this film from someone with more knowledge of Bangladesh since my own is limited to basically the infotitle at the beginning of the disc. My own is pretty much just being floored by every aspect of the film. The characters, the beauty of the cinematography, the quiet play between the various muslim and hindu sects, the suggestion of the political changes exploding at the time, it all is so wonderfully done being successful at making me legitimately curious to know more which is probably the best thing a film can do. There's also a wonderful familiarity to the film especially with the madrassa scenes and those relating to it. Masud is great at getting these little textures of humour and emotion out of every day burdens.

David---Markowitz
The only shocking or unique thing about this film is that it keeps the politics of the original novel which is rather shocking given how I thought by '97 everyone agreed that this whole genocide thing wasn't a good idea. Beyond that this is a turgid mess mostly skipping the fun bits and focusing on the least interesting characters (i.e. David) without giving vibrancy to the story around him. The one steadfast positive to the film is Jonathan Pryce as Saul. He brings an appropriately MacBethian ferocity to the role with the film alive at every moment he's involved. I truly would have been happy if the film was exclusively about his rise and fall rather then just the cliff notes version of that. It's also fun to see Nimoy and Nero in the film though they don't do particularly great jobs in their limited roles.

[knives]

Sorry, Dom but hey, at least I gave it a shake.
Land of Plenty
I have to admit it took me forever to get over the aesthetic of the film which is just not something I like at all. I was nearly blinded of the film's other qualities because the videotape look took me so off guard and seems so unnecessary for any of the visual aspects of the film. Though eventually I thought up thematic reasonings for it which would probably make it work better on a rewatch. That said there's a lot I just flat out hated about the film which is the first Wenders I've seen that's so flat with its characters and immature with its themes. The main male character is the bigger example of what I mean. Doing a dramatic Dale from King of the Hill is basically an impossible job for even the most on their game director so I don't know how much I should hold this against him. All the same he never goes beyond that cartoonish archetype almost making it irrelevant what he's trying to say with the character since he never makes the go beyond what he's introduced as. Even with the shift to investigating the death he seems to just be acting out in the hopes of something racist. The Michelle Williams side of the story is a lot better in part because the actors present (i.e. Wendell Pierce and Burt Young) could just stand around as they mostly do in this film and be more dynamic then your average person. The themes are insurmountable for me though as they just strike me as colonialist and exoticism like an old hippy shouting about how America's not real anymore and it's so much better in a world without war or money. I was half expecting Imagine to play at the credits, but thankfully Wenders had the good taste or lack of money not to do that. I genuinely want to like this movie because such an open film on the way life in America was changed over the course of the Bush administration needs to be done and Wenders here at least has the honesty to do it, but somehow he doesn't display the talent. Hopefully sleeping on it will change my opinion some since I do respect what the film tries to do even if I don't think it is successful on any level.

[knives]

Not that anyone cares, but after reconsidering it as a recontextualization of Paris, Texas I think my opinion has improved a great deal from yesterday even as it isn't ready to risk making my list. Anyways this is going to be my last dump for a while.

The Name of the Rose
Very much in the vein of a Dan Brown conspiracy novel though constructed in a way suggesting that Eco has actually read a book before. Annuad's casting is the biggest problem here relying on grotesqueness instead of performance to characterization in a way that comes across as an especially sleezy giallo. That description is probably more interesting then the film.

Agora
This was significantly better then its reputation lead me to understand telling a very different story then one of swords and sandals. At its core this is a pretty basic romance done truly excellently playing with it's setting as new (or really I suppose reintroducing of old) textures allowing a freshness that a contemporary setting of the story wouldn't allow. The digressions afforded by the christian backdrop are integrated very well and with a sometimes dastardly intelligence almost disguising the true genre of the film almost to the point where it's hard to tell what is digression and what is the actual story. Just on the story level it's nice to see a film this well constructed. The film isn't even just pleasant Christian propaganda either showing the ugliness the era had for everyone with the riot scene and the slaughtering of the Jews in particular having a few brutal moments of violent zealotism defining them alongside giving bread to the people.

Lake of Fire
I'm not sure what use this film is for or rather the use of making this film in this specific fashion. At best Kaye is preaching to the choir with only the feign of complexity. Probably the best point of comparison for me is Judgement at Nuremberg in that this film also pretends to be objective, fairly considering both sides, but eventually becomes an exploitation film and just because I agree with the side its on doesn't make it right to be so especially across three long hours. Kaye fares better than Kramer both because he is a better filmmaker with a beautiful use of black and white and close-ups with the occasional smart choice of intercutting. The other thing is just the textual nature of documentary allowing for slightly less contrives and a more realistic argumentation of both sides with at least a few of the choice people like Chomsky giving a great deal of nuance and understanding that is absent from most of the film. Which just brings up another problem of the film where it is far too bifurcated to make any serious impact of the topic. I get that the problem in America where the film is set the issue is primarily a Christian/ atheist divide, but outside of the occasional Jewish atheists there's no one really outside of the hegmonic divide portrayed such as a Buddhist or Muslim who might have feelings on the issue. Also the nuance Kaye pretends to have might be more realistic if he didn't leave the lifers as only ex-KKK members and similar drooling madmen. I don't know if it is just impossible to find a lifer deeply into activism on it who isn't a religious idiot, but Kaye's film would come across as far more honest about its point of view if it did.

Gojoe: Spirit War Chronicle
The most immediate and clear thing about this film is how unusual it is for Ishii. The style isn't mild by most standards (think Miike in a less cartoonish violent mode), but for what I've experienced from him so far this is practically Bresson. The use of some music and flashbacks is the closest he gets to his norm. That's not what I'm posting about though it is a topic worth a lot of discussion. Instead I was rather happy over how he compensated his aesthetic with a pretty interesting application of Shinto mythology and thinking to the typical feudal narrative almost like an ultra violent Raining in the Mountains. I'm not able to really elucidate on the specifics of the symbols not knowing enough of the culture Ishii is tapping into, but he makes it clear even to these foreign eyes the broad outline of how violence can become a musing for more complex philosophical ideas. Not even the most direct action scene is without some indication of an idea with the best one occurring about half way through as a real war style battle is fought back dropped to a monk and some other figure having a spiritual battle across a long distance purely in thought. In a way this experience was the exact opposite of Brook's film in that my curiosity in learning more was through being able to engage even without understanding what is up.

If I understand everything correctly though Ishii is grafting onto the traditional samurai narrative a story about the evolution of Japan spiritually from classic Shinto to their variation of Buddhism and how the end result isn't so much a killing of the old religion as a Cronenbergian mutation. He seems fairly critical of the changes while also getting excited over the effects it has on the surrounding populace particularly those already deeply involved with religion. A scene near the end is particularly breathtaking for how it suggests the murder of the old idols by the new ones who nevertheless crack under their own weight.

The Mahabharata
I feel like to actually judge the content of this I should have read the actual poem. Without a doubt a lot of the story is elided with most of the brothers getting the story short shrift along with various other stories hinted at but not fully spoken of. Such a reading would probably answer how Brook and Carriere played with the morality of the film which is the most fascinating element to me. Technically the film is clearly a television adaptation of a play leaving not much to speak of (which is unfortunate given the visual strength Brook has shown elsewhere). Through modern western eyes a lot of the nuts and bolts to the story (which if I understand correctly is sort of like the Hindu Tanach) are rather bad with a fair amount of acceptance (and even in one instance urging) of rape and fear of actual reproduction. Though the film is also pretty pro polyandry which is a pleasant surprise of sex positivism. Part of the problem I'm having might be blamed on Carriere's redactions which seem to focus on the mechanics of the story over the philosophical material. It's not completely gone, but often seems an afterthought. Perhaps my problems with this film would be better answered by an adaptation from an actual Hindu though reading it seems the easiest option.

There are some interesting ideas that they seem to be working with on the relationship between storytelling and religion. It starts with the lake sequence which gets really discursive and offers a lot more of what I was hoping for from the previous two and half hours. It leaves me thinking of Arabian Nights or Cloud Atlas readapting figures to a new era and understanding. Had the movie followed through on that perhaps it would have been great, but it returns back to its ordinary world too soon.

Lourdes
If nothing else this film makes me appreciate having seen The Song of Bernadette more since I wouldn't get nearly as much of this film without it. That said I don't think much a knowledge of Lourdes is needed to really get the film though it certainly helps. Like with White Elephant this is a handsome and smart film that I can appreciate distantly, but it doesn't really work to produce more then a congenial nod and smile in reaction. Worse though I don't think it really ever explores its content much despite taking on a leisurely pace. There's no moral exploration in wanting to magic away illness or dealing with the issue of faith versus exploitation that the film's ironies seems to play with. At best it manages the level of character study, but even then what character? The quadriplegic lead gets a lot of shots of her thinking, but what she's thinking isn't noted in any way leaving not much of a character to have studied. Occasionally the film hints at something deeper, but at best it is a hint. Most often it's just another way to play with the lead's detachment against the others excitement. I don't think the film is bad, but it strikes me as intensely empty.

White Elephant
This is a film almost too quiet for its own good. The sketching of character and the way it connects social justice in the old and new senses are expert and wonderful, but also fascinatingly oppressed. This leaves the film without any big moments nor emotions which is something to its benefit in the long term I suspect, but as for an immediate viewing experience its stunted and distanced in a way that slum social development typically isn't. Even when the characters go beyond verbalizing their pain, as when Jeremie Renier (doing great work even outside the Dardennes) cries over his frustration while his co-worker talks him down from a martyr complex, it is done almost in silence with the idea of the scene overriding the action. Thematically this works really well, but in terms of engagement it leaves the film a little bit like a chore.

[bamwc2]

The Name of the Rose
Very much in the vein of a Dan Brown conspiracy novel though constructed in a way suggesting that Eco has actually read a book before. Annuad's casting is the biggest problem here relying on grotesqueness instead of performance to characterization in a way that comes across as an especially sleezy giallo. That description is probably more interesting then the film.

I completely agree, but the prospect of finding a lost work of Aristotle's is intriguing to say the least. If you were a philosopher who wasn't named 'Plato' during the first couple of centuries of Christianity, your work would be burnt. Gone forever...

Agora
This was significantly better then its reputation lead me to understand telling a very different story then one of swords and sandals. At its core this is a pretty basic romance done truly excellently playing with it's setting as new (or really I suppose reintroducing of old) textures allowing a freshness that a contemporary setting of the story wouldn't allow. The digressions afforded by the christian backdrop are integrated very well and with a sometimes dastardly intelligence almost disguising the true genre of the film almost to the point where it's hard to tell what is digression and what is the actual story. Just on the story level it's nice to see a film this well constructed. The film isn't even just pleasant Christian propaganda either showing the ugliness the era had for everyone with the riot scene and the slaughtering of the Jews in particular having a few brutal moments of violent zealotism defining them alongside giving bread to the people.

...which brings us to a story about Christians burning down the Library of Alexandria, which housed the complete works of Aristotle as well as numerous Pre-Socratic philosophers. However, I don't remember any Jewish characters in the film. It's a pretty mediocre film overall, but still interesting. I only wish that they had kept Hypatia's death the way that it happened according to history: murdered by a group of angry Christians who chopped her to bits with sharpened seashells.

Lake of Fire
I'm not sure what use this film is for or rather the use of making this film in this specific fashion. At best Kaye is preaching to the choir with only the feign of complexity. Probably the best point of comparison for me is Judgement at Nuremberg in that this film also pretends to be objective, fairly considering both sides, but eventually becomes an exploitation film and just because I agree with the side its on doesn't make it right to be so especially across three long hours. Kaye fares better than Kramer both because he is a better filmmaker with a beautiful use of black and white and close-ups with the occasional smart choice of intercutting. The other thing is just the textual nature of documentary allowing for slightly less contrives and a more realistic argumentation of both sides with at least a few of the choice people like Chomsky giving a great deal of nuance and understanding that is absent from most of the film. Which just brings up another problem of the film where it is far too bifurcated to make any serious impact of the topic. I get that the problem in America where the film is set the issue is primarily a Christian/ atheist divide, but outside of the occasional Jewish atheists there's no one really outside of the hegmonic divide portrayed such as a Buddhist or Muslim who might have feelings on the issue. Also the nuance Kaye pretends to have might be more realistic if he didn't leave the lifers as only ex-KKK members and similar drooling madmen. I don't know if it is just impossible to find a lifer deeply into activism on it who isn't a religious idiot, but Kaye's film would come across as far more honest about its point of view if it did.

I voted for this one in the documentary project and will for the religion project as well. I actually think that the film does a great job of showcasing the best arguments on both sides. If the anti-abortion side comes off as lacking (which it does), that's because of the intellectual bankruptcy of their position. I've been teaching this issue or over a decade now, and have simply never found a credible anti-abortion argument. Oh, and Nat Hentoff, who is interviewed here, is both an atheist and anti-choice.

The Mahabharata
I feel like to actually judge the content of this I should have read the actual poem. Without a doubt a lot of the story is elided with most of the brothers getting the story short shrift along with various other stories hinted at but not fully spoken of. Such a reading would probably answer how Brook and Carriere played with the morality of the film which is the most fascinating element to me. Technically the film is clearly a television adaptation of a play leaving not much to speak of (which is unfortunate given the visual strength Brook has shown elsewhere). Through modern western eyes a lot of the nuts and bolts to the story (which if I understand correctly is sort of like the Hindu Tanach) are rather bad with a fair amount of acceptance (and even in one instance urging) of rape and fear of actual reproduction. Though the film is also pretty pro polyandry which is a pleasant surprise of sex positivism. Part of the problem I'm having might be blamed on Carriere's redactions which seem to focus on the mechanics of the story over the philosophical material. It's not completely gone, but often seems an afterthought. Perhaps my problems with this film would be better answered by an adaptation from an actual Hindu though reading it seems the easiest option.

There are some interesting ideas that they seem to be working with on the relationship between storytelling and religion. It starts with the lake sequence which gets really discursive and offers a lot more of what I was hoping for from the previous two and half hours. It leaves me thinking of Arabian Nights or Cloud Atlas readapting figures to a new era and understanding. Had the movie followed through on that perhaps it would have been great, but it returns back to its ordinary world too soon.

I hate to say it, but I couldn't finish this one before selling the disc. I found the style too off putting. If you want to read the original text, then good luck. The epic (which actually contains a number of sub-epics) clocks in at just under 2,000,000 words and is many times the size of the Christian Bible!

[Michael Kerpan]

Eco's book is vastly better than Annaud's rather stupid movie. Aristotle's works were prized generally, the work that was suppressed in Name of the Rose was suppressed because of the particular idiosyncrasy of an individual, not based on official Church doctrine.

[bamwc2]

Eco's book is vastly better than Annaud's rather stupid movie. Aristotle's works were prized generally, the work that was suppressed in Name of the Rose was suppressed because of the particular idiosyncrasy of an individual, not based on official Church doctrine.

I've never read the book, but I can believe what you say. The film stinks. However, notice that I was only talking about early Christianity, not the medieval church. By that time Aristotle was rediscovered by Catholics thanks to the Crusades, and because of the popularization of Aquinas would have been of tremendous interest to any Scholastically minded monk. Thanks to the influence of the early Neo-Platonist Christians, Plato was the only Hellenistic philosopher that they trusted in the first few centuries of the faith. There were many spontaneous anti-intellectual riots like the one depicted in Agora that sought to destroy so-called 'Pagan' works. That's why Aristotle's original works are forever gone. All that we have today are bone dry student notes. It's a shame, because he wrote in dialogue form like Plato. According to Cicero Aristotle was the superior dramatist.

[Mr Sausage]

Eco's book is vastly better than Annaud's rather stupid movie. Aristotle's works were prized generally, the work that was suppressed in Name of the Rose was suppressed because of the particular idiosyncrasy of an individual, not based on official Church doctrine.

The movie loses most of the interesting things in the novel, both the serpentine nature of the theological debates (understandably) and the post-modern ends to which they are deployed. One of the things Adso notices, and William all but agrees with, is that the distinctions between the warring theological factions are so fine and so difficult to follow that the factions come to blend with each other and turn less rather than more distinct. Hence the post-modern aspect, where divisions between categories (especially high and low ones) become permeable, structures become arbitrary mental fictions, knowledge a labyrinth of code deciphering--to the point where the way that we create meaning and value comes to the forefront and is critiqued. It's a book that isn't actually about religion, but about the nature of knowledge and ideas, using theology as a major example. It's also about over-reading, not just in theological distinctions, but in the way an atmosphere of conspiracy causes one to forge links of meaning between disparate events and come up with a narrative.

The movie loses all of this and in effect becomes about religion, the right one and the wrong one. The right religion being William Baskerville's proto-humanism, based on reason, logic, learning, and a love of kindness and humanity--that is to say, a modern religiosity. This is contrasted with a caricature of unmodern (mediaeval) religiosity, full of sternness, self-flagellation, inquisitions, and executions, where the iron will of law and order supplants reason, conscience, and fellow-feeling. The result is the presentation of a time period struggling to escape itself into the light of a more humane age (neither true nor fair, but whatever, you can still make a good movie out of it).

But this is not a good movie. As knives says, ugly faces stand in for character (with the gay character being coded as a kind of gibbering eunuch--fat, bald, childishly effeminate in looks and behaviour), complex issues are discarded and turned into bland and easy hero/villain oppositions, and the thing has the wrong atmosphere entirely: it should be exciting, but it's sluggish and cold. There should be a feeling of intense intellectual work and debate and an equally intense feeling of paranoia, conspiracy, and mystery. A mediaeval complement to a Pakula movie would've been amazing. But the movie implies that its mystery and characters aren't interesting enough; viewers need to worry about whether an unintelligible peasant girl will be sent to the pyre on false charges by the end of the movie if they are to be sufficiently involved. There's a contempt in that decision.

[zedz]

The movie loses most of the interesting things in the novel, both the serpentine nature of the theological debates (understandably) and the post-modern ends to which they are deployed. One of the things Adso notices, and William all but agrees with, is that the distinctions between the warring theological factions are so fine and so difficult to follow that the factions come to blend with each other and turn less rather than more distinct. Hence the post-modern aspect, where divisions between categories (especially high and low ones) become permeable, structures become arbitrary mental fictions, knowledge a labyrinth of code deciphering--to the point where the way that we create meaning and value comes to the forefront and is critiqued. It's a book that isn't actually about religion, but about the nature of knowledge and ideas, using theology as a major example. It's also about over-reading, not just in theological distinctions, but in the way an atmosphere of conspiracy causes one to forge links of meaning between disparate events and come up with a narrative.

If the hypothetical movie Sausage described above sounds like something you'd like to see, then Raul Ruiz's The Suspended Vocation is about as close as you're likely to get. It's two different filmed versions of what is supposedly the same story, interleaved. The differences between the two versions are because they were made by rival religious factions, so small differences between the narratives are charged with theological significance. I find the whole thing a little chilly, but it's (like so many of Ruiz's more conceptually ambitious films) a damnably impressive feat, and unlike anything else you're ever likely to see. Based on a novel by Pierre Klossowski (that I haven't read). (As I recall, domino was a big fan of this film, but I'll leave it to him to confirm or deny.)

[Mr Sausage]

Hah! I actually thought of The Suspended Vocation at one point when I was writing that post. It was a fascinating movie, but I was a terrible viewer of it--I didn't digest the opening preamble for some reason and didn't grasp that it was two films melded into one. I imagine I'll like it even more on a second viewing (and that the theological debates will seem slightly less abstruse). I second zedz's recommendation.

[John Cope]

I have a certain affection for The Name of the Rose even though I don't think it's a particularly good movie. Despite the fact that it reduces the book down to a kind of gloss, emphasizing the mechanics of the plot, I like it because it can't help but carry the remnants or trace inflections of Eco's shall-we-say much more thoroughly developed and examined themes and ideas. It's another of those adaptations of a masterfully great piece of literature which can't compare to its source but cannot rid itself of the specific nature of its influence either (I think of Bertolucci's Sheltering Sky here and Philip Haas's film adaptations of great books). It's also still one of the most atmospheric movies ever made (looks fantastic on Blu) with a superb score. There is some eye roll inducing stuff though, especially amongst Annaud's gallery of grotesques and some of his satire/critique that's a little easy, a little broad, but I have to admit that I find that stuff endearing in all its broadness as an example of a critical thinking reduced to caricature. I also like that the sparsely used voice over is reminiscent of the one in Querelle (in tone of voice if nothing else)--that somehow seems fitting.


Spotlight

Francesco (Liliana Cavani, 1989)

Cavani is most noted, and will probably always be most associated, with her investigations of relationships in extremis, like The Night Porter and The Berlin Affair. But she has also produced a number of terrific historical/biographical features such as Galileo and Beyond Good and Evil, which takes up the figure of Nietzsche. At the other end of the spectrum, a film on the life of Saint Francis of Assisi was, in fact, one of her very first features in 1966. The common thread here would appear to be her interest in disruptive, polarizing figures; most often those with a very particular vision not easily comprehended by others. She returned to Francis' life some twenty years later to treat the subject in a slightly different fashion with Mickey Rourke, of all people, attached to star as the titular saint.

When I first saw this in the early nineties it was Rourke's presence primarily that was the draw since, despite being a fan, I could simply not imagine him taking on this role convincingly. But he is convincing--at least, in a very specific sort of way. This is not the familiar portrait of the saint from Rossellini's film or Zeffirelli's. But neither is it some act of wanton revisionism for its own sake. Rourke captures astonishingly well the subtle drift of a man whose life was intended for military service as he is gradually affected, even infected, by an incremental awareness which eventually motivates him to overturn his entire life, and, by consequence, that of many others. In fact, much of what Rourke does here registers as impressive because of the commitment he and Cavani make to keeping things subdued and simply observing moments of experience that will always remain impenetrable. He inhabits this role with persuasive power, always hinting at the effort to maintain a balance between hopeful insight and frustrated disappointment. Rourke is also well capable of suggesting the latent but elusive threat to the existing social structure implicit in Francis' character; a kind of confrontational challenge which is usually cheerfully overlooked in other presentations. Ultimately, Cavani and Rourke give Francis the respect of puzzling over him rather than simply venerating him.

If this was a surprising work of great accomplishment for Rourke (and, to a slightly lesser extent, Helena Bonham Carter as Chiara) it was just as much of one for Cavani. She makes a real effort to take Francis seriously as a personage in a very particular historical context--the overwhelming emphasis on the materialism of this world makes that point admirably--but her tone is not an overly pious one. In some respects it recalls Alain Cavalier's great Thérèse, though that film has an admittedly even more ascetic form, in that both are similar efforts by artists who are at once both areligious but also genuinely inquisitive and willing to seriously consider the legitimacy of their subjects' perceptions. The greatest accomplishment of Cavani's film is its remarkably steady, evenly handled approach to extreme material often met with hysteria from either side of the ideological fence. Indeed, assessing that reaction is part of her intent. The incidents in Francis' life she depicts are presented within a flashback structure as details recounted by his friends and fellow converts shortly after his death. This has the welcome advantage of framing these incidents in such a way as to indicate their contribution to his legend. Accentuating the inflection of memory upon the accumulating flow of detail and incident allows an ironic approach to what we are seeing and hearing without an overemphasis on the importance of distanced skepticism.

One of the film's principle interests is the way in which Francis represents a destabilizing space of chaotic possibility rather than affirmed order. He introduces that idea into his otherwise rigorously maintained society. Only something like Aristakisian's Palms compares to the incisive way in which Cavani recognizes the implications of that particular level of disturbance, its transformative force. The attention to the detail of this place in time is hugely impressive--not so much an obsession with "historical realism" as a desire to integrate the material and spiritual which skews in certain respects more toward Eastern Orthodoxy than Catholicism. It enhances the impact of the whole and is enhanced further by its confluence with other elements such as Vangelis' superb electronic score which has the effect of creating an additional displacement of sorts within this steadily observed specific historical space. In turn, it emphasizes the fact that Cavani sees Francis as a radical visionary with the propensity to be as much a man of the future as of the distant past.

A masterpiece even in its severely truncated form and worth seeing that way to hear Rourke and Helena Bonham Carter's actual voices (all editons of the proper 150 minute long cut are dubbed). I continue to see this as the greatest of all religious films. There is an emphasis on the rough, textured reality but existing in tension with the aesthetic beauty of light captured and applied to lives like frescoes. But there is also the saint's inscrutable behavior, the impossibility of full comprehension which makes a life seem then like an icon by default. The presentation is balanced but always in tension. The US cut is defaced by an edit job that makes the film virtually incoherent in contrast to the grace of that long version but somehow its glories shine through and in certain respects are actually enhanced (the mysterious made that much more so--here it works and the already fragmented vignette structure helps prevent it all from complete collapse).

[bamwc2]

Viewing Logs:

After Tiller (Martha Shane and Lana Wilson, 2013): Shane and Wilson's much lauded examination of late term abortion providers doesn't deal as much with religion as I thought it would, but certainly did teach me a thing or two about the subject that I was surprised to learn. For those of you who don't know, the film opens with the murder of Dr. George Tiller, one of just a handful of doctors in the country who performed abortions after the 25th week of pregnancy. His killer, Scott Roeder, was a religious fanatic and Operation Rescue affiliate who believed that it was his duty to save the fetuses by any means necessary. But that is not the focus of the film. Instead, the directors focus their lens on the remaining third trimester abortion providers as they navigate moral complexities and death threats from wannabe Roeders. Before watching the film I was under the impression that pregnant mothers who reached the third trimester only sought abortions because of medical complication or fetal non-viability. However, the film features a few women who were unable to obtain a legal abortion of a healthy fetus earlier in their pregnancy. This beautifully illustrates how counterproductive trap laws are that seek to prevent abortions. Some will never happen, while others just get pushed back to a later point in the pregnancy. Though I don't think that the film rises to the same level as the masterpiece Lake of Fire, there is a good deal of pathos here which makes this both an emotionally and intellectually rewarding experience.

Entre Nous (Diane Kurys, 1983): Lena (Isabelle Huppert) is a French Jew during WWII who finds herself forced to live segregated off from her fellow countrymen, and spends her days waiting to be shipped off to a labor camp. Michel (Guy Marchand) a French soldier at the camp, marries her which allows her to leave and resume a life living amongst the Nazis, knowing full well that her heritage could spell the end of her at any moment. Soon she finds a friend in Madeleine (Miou-Miou), a recent widow who, like Lena, will shortly find herself pregnant by a new man. The film turns into a fairly interesting story of their friendship that extends long beyond the end of the war. It's far from the best work of anyone involved (including Kurys, who had previously made the superior Peppermint Soda and Cocktail Molotov, before making this, her third film), but it's by no means a bad piece. It does occasionally play like middling Oscar bait from the era, yet the strength of the two female leads makes it a good enough experience.

Faust (Aleksandr Sokurov, 2011): In this decidedly fresh take on the Germanic legend of Dr. Faustus, Johannes Zeiler stars as scholar Heinrich Faust, whose search for "the Enlightenment" is interrupted only by his attraction to the ravishingly beautiful Margarete (Isolda Dychauk). Eventually he crosses paths with the dull witted, foul smelling, obese, genital-less, and vaguely anti-Semitic the moneylender Mauricius (Anton Adasinsky), who as it turns out, is also Satan himself. Mauricius's power can be the key to unlocking knowledge or gaining Margarete. Which will he choose? Regardless of the answer to that, is there any doubt that Sokurov is the most important living Russian filmmaker? He certainly comes of that way here, creating a grimy and muddy interpretation of 18th century Prussia whose utter madness is often augmented with lens distortions and other camera tricks. It's a messy masterpiece.

Fill the Void (Rama Burshtein, 2012): Hadas Yaron stars as Shira, a young Israeli Jew whose older sister suddenly dies. Like Onan before her, it falls on young Shira to marry her recently widowed brother-in-law, for Shira's family follows Orthodox Judaism and therefore abides by the laws of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Will Shira do it? Should she do it? The film functions well as an exploration of not only Shira's community--which seems foreign to most of us--but also the complexities of the her own dilemma. It's not a great film, but it is one that will stay with me for some time.

Noah (Darren Aronofsky, 2014): At the time of its release last year, Darren Aronofsky's Noah was at the center of the culture wars, with Christian conservatives attacking it for not being a literal interpretation of the Genesis story. This hardly seems like a problem considering that the Genesis account itself is a nearly unrecognizable reworking of a far older myth that kicked around the Near East for hundreds if not thousands of years. If the myth has already been altered so many times, why care if it goes through one more retelling? Far more problematic is that it features an egomaniacal jerk as the hero of the story. No, not Russell Crowe, but that genocidal moral monster God himself. I hate to rehash a topic that's already been thoroughly covered in the thread dedicated to the film, but Aronofsky's attempt to justify the destruction of all life on Earth by saying that the evil of Cain has overrun the world still falls far short of excusing the actions of an evil deity...er 'creator'. I've long been an Aronofky apologist--even defending the apparently indefensible The Fountain--but this one is filled with so much spiritual hokum that there's just no way that I could get into it. It looks beautiful and has some great montages, but no. Just no.

The Possession (Ole Bornedal, 2012): Natasha Calis plays Em, a live action Lisa Simpson, precocious, intelligent, socially conscious, and elementary school vegetarian who just so happens to purchase a box that contains an ancient Jewish demon in it that wants to merge with her and eat her life force from the inside out. Her parents (played by Kyra Sedgwick and Jeffrey Dean Morgan) have recently divorced, with Em and her older sister living with her dad. It's here that they purchase the cursed box which houses the demon at a garage sale. In many ways, the film follows the same tropes as the more familiar The Exorcist, with innocent play leading to the possession, a series of violent changes in the young girl, the bringing in of a religious exorcist (Hasidic rapped Matisyahu, playing a character named 'Tzadok'), and even the requisite "Take Me Instead!" moment!. Despite the highly derivative nature of much of the material, there's still a lot here to like. The film is creepy as heck, with some genuinely chilling moments. The actors all do a more than competent job. Making the exorcists Jewish instead of the obligatory demon hunting Catholics was a welcome and novel move as well.

[domino harvey]

Time to Run (James F Collier 1973) One of the many films to be produced and funded by Billy Graham over the years, this flick actually had some legs in the seventies (it even netted a Golden Globe nomination) and at worst proves to be an interesting time capsule. Sadsack rebellious college student moves out of his parents' house and distances himself from his girlfriend and her newfound Christianity as he finds himself in a world he is unprepared to navigate anymore. Will he find his way to Christ?!?! Yes, I know, it sounds pretty rote, but I found it somewhat atypical for the subgenre-- I mean, name me another Christian witnessing film that shows our protagonist have a one night stand with a QT hitchhiker and suffer absolutely no repercussions or judgments or revelations whatsoever as a result!

As a connoisseur of Christian witnessing films, I feel especially qualified to praise Time to Run, as it's surprisingly progressive and effective at its aims. Having sat through dozens of less than subtle spiritual sermons masquerading as "youth" entertainment, it's refreshing to see one that doesn't engage in straw men and offers opposing view points that are rational and logical before arriving on Christianity as the answer that makes the most sense for our protagonist. It's the lack of absolutism that makes it all the more effective as a proselytizing tool, though you'd never know that from the majority of films in this too rarely explored (from a film theory/criticism perspective) subgenre which traditionally approach Christianity from an insular position, leading to laughable broad strokes for non-believers and the faithful alike. Not so here. I'm not claiming this to be a particularly good film, though I enjoyed it for what it was, but in terms of how it goes after a specific audience, namely young hippies period (both believers or to-be-converteds) and parents of said flower children, it's pretty interesting if you can appreciate recruitment tactics of this sort. The film offers plenty of criticisms of how Christianity was in danger of being considered nothing more than a fad among these hip new believers (One of my favorite lines in the film comes from the typical emotionally distant father who complains, "Last week it was rock music, yesterday it was pot, today it's Jesus") and raises the same arguments atheists still bring up (How can there be a God if there's suffering in the world, &c) without giving overly pat answers one way or the other. The film posits it pretty simply: God is love, love is good, God is good. Yes, I know, all things with whiskers are not necessarily cats, but it's an admirable argument considering some of the other competing witnessing tools I've sat through. And so, like the recent (and probably never to be topped) Blue Like Jazz, here's a Christian film that doesn't overshoot or pander and seems to have half a clue about its audience, and in the process probably "saves" far more people than all those Rapture / briefly die and visit Hell scare-a-thons ever to air in the wee hours on TBN combined.

The film also features some decent hippie folk-pop on the soundtrack, including "I Love You", one of the best songs of its kind ever-- and fair warning, don't click that unless you want the song stuck in your head for the rest of your life!

[swo17]

Where can one find this film?

[domino harvey]

I got mine from Amazon (and it's a traditionally pressed release, if that worries anyone)

[domino harvey]

BIll and Ted's Bogus Journey (Pete Hewitt 1991) A sequel which in all ways addresses and fixes my problems with the inferior first film. Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure was a dumb movie passing itself off as clever; this is a clever movie passing itself off as dumb, and the difference is all the difference. Filled with nonstop invention and narrative novelty, this flick throws evil robot doubles from the future (who helpfully address each other as "Evil Bill" and "Evil Ted") at our idiotic heroes, eventually killing them and sending them first on a spirit journey and then on a raucous visit to both Heaven and, most memorably, Hell (Where the two helpfully point out that "Hell sucks, dude"), accompanied by the Seventh Seal's vision of Death (played by a scene-stealng William Sadler) as they try to figure out how to rejoin the living, defeat the villains, marry the princesses, &c &c &c. It's such a bizarre mainstream film, one that devilishly undercuts everything any viewer might have loved from the first film, and so it's not hard to see why it wasn't as commercially successful.

the Heavenly Kid (Cary Medoway 1985) 60s greaseball dies during game of chicken a la Rebel Without a Cause (his winning opponent, somewhat ominously, is wearing James Dean's outfit from the film) and finds himself in a vision of the afterlife constructed on urban cities-- the subway takes the recently dead either Uptown or Downtown. Unfortunately, the greaser is stuck in the middle and so God has a special mission for him-- go to the 80s and befriend a loser teenage boy, making sure to teach him the ropes of being cool. It is somewhat reassuring to discover that God is expressly concerned with getting teenage boys laid, but ultimately this movie doesn't make a lot of sense, though there are some fun segments sprinkled throughout and some gentle pushback against the outdated gender roles of the early 60s that prove mildly entertaining.

Hocus Pocus (Kenny Ortega 1993) Shrill childrens' entertainment featuring three non-stop annoying performances from Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy, and Sarah Jessica Parker as the trio of crones who are summoned back to the living to steal the souls of the children of Salem on Halloween night. These three give perfs that are equal parts obnoxious and self-pleased and all parts miserable to sit through. I know it's not fair for me to recently praise the Ernest movies which exhibit a similar lack of subtlety and then decry this, but the difference is Jim Varney can be funny, and I see no evidence that the same can be said for these three hammy actresses, at least in these confines. The other component parts of this film are suitably workhorse-like, with Eerie Indiana's Omri Katz cast as the protagonist (and reminding anyone watching that you could just be watching Eerie Indiana instead) and a young Thora Birch as his sister, serendipitously also dressed as a witch. And Jeffrey Wells' very own horndog fixation Vinessa Shaw is the qt love interest-- but hold on Wells, by my math she was actually fifteen when she made this, so don't go emailing Ortega for pix of her "yabos" unless you want another blog post you'll have to delete!

Teen Witch (Dorian Walker 1989) Yet another 80s teen comedy giving lip service to the emptiness of popularity, this cult classic finds its "loser" protagonist (who, as ever in these kind of flicks, seems more interesting and appealing than the alleged cool kids) discovering she's blessed/cursed with witchery powers on her sixteenth birthday. She subsequently uses these powers mostly for parlour tricks and petty grievances before wishing to be popular, which leads to some passingly diverting commentary on the transient nature of popularity already more interestingly explored by Can't Buy Me Love a few years prior. Of course, the main reason most people are aware of this film now is thanks to its cringe value due to the presence of several un-self-aware moments of sincere cheese. This aspect is best typified by the sequence in which Our Witch casts a spell on her slovenly bestie allowing her to successfully battle rap with her crush, a regrettable creative decision which has found itself a YouTube/meme sensation in the intervening years a la "Garbage Day." The whole movie is as earnestly unhip as possible in its quest to be as cool as the cool kids, and frankly what little interest there is in this thin material is found in that disconnect. You kind of just want to pat this film's head and say "Aww, nice try."

[Dr Amicus]

BIll and Ted's Bogus Journey (Pete Hewitt 1991) ...It's such a bizarre mainstream film, one that devilishly undercuts everything any viewer might have loved from the first film, and so it's not hard to see why it wasn't as commercially successful.

Although it was a LOT more successful in the UK - it was number 1 for a couple of weeks and made, IIRC, over £6m - I think the first struggled to make £1m.

[Michael Kerpan]

Kiki's Delivery Service seems a lot more "spirtual" than Teen Witch (more so in its original Japanese version as documented in a more or less literal translation that was once available online. less so in the Disney dub).

[domino harvey]

the Agony and the Ecstasy (Carol Reed 1965) Glossy picture postcard film with Charlton Heston as Michelangelo and Rex Harrison as the fussy (well, of course) Pope who commissions the sculptor to paint the Sistine Chapel's ceiling. The best part of the film comes early with the twelve-minute prologue feature glorious moving shots of many of Michelangelo's sculpted masterpieces, filmed in such a way as to actually give some sense of the pieces and given a straight-forward narrator right out of one of the period's numerous Disney docs. But alas, I guess we have to look at actors and so soon enough Heston and Harrison are with us. This isn't a bad film as far as these things go, and I enjoyed Heston and Harrison's interplay, but while everything looks gorgeous, it's not much beyond that.

Anastasia (Anatole Litvak 1956) Ingrid Bergman returns from her Hollywood exile and gets her second (and first of two undeserved) Oscar for playing the is she or isn't she titular heir to the Tsar. Bergman beat, among others, Caroll Baker in Baby Doll, in which actual and memorable acting in a still-relevant film occurs, so I guess that was an easy decision for voters trying to ensure the question-mark reputation of the awards survives and thrives 4ever. On that note, this film is so stagebound and dull that it's kind of amazing in how misguided it is-- after opening with a promising glimpse at the Russian Orthodox celebration of Easter, we then are shoved inside a cellar for like twenty minutes for a seemingly endless scene of talk talk talk in the drabbest locale imaginable, despite the best efforts of the 'Scope frame to show us more indistinguishable gray slate wall than ever before! Eventually Yul Brenner, as the military leader who's organized the scam to pass Bergman off as Anastasia, falls in love, which is barely indicated until the cop-out ending, where the movie just sort of fizzles out and ends. One of the biggest "How did this movie get so far with so many talented people without someone pointing out all of the obvious problems in the material" head-scratchers of the studio era.

Gone With the Pope (Duke Mitchell 19??) So it turns out Duke Mitchell is fully capable of doing the impossible and making a film worse than Massacre Mafia Style. Left unfinished before Mitchell's death and cobbled together in the interim by Rob Reiner's editor Bob Leighton, this mess begs the question why anyone even bothered to stitch this sow's ear into the least silky purse imaginable. A total mess of the least-interesting and compelling parts of the other Mitchell film, with rote gangster machinations eventually leading to a silly plan to kidnap the Pope and hold him for ransom on a yacht out in international waters, where the Pope proceeds to convert all of Mitchell's henchmen. The premise is all there is here, and you've just enjoyed it without having to sit through eighty-two minutes of garbage. And I mean garbage: highlights include Mitchell disrobing and groping a ~500 pound woman as a "gag" and getting a black actress to look very uncomfortable while reciting lines like "Have you ever fucked a nigger girl before?" Gee whiz, what fun.

Rendition (Gavin Hood 2007) Lame liberal Traffic-lite mishmashed storyline thing revolving around Reese Witherspoon's Egypt-born husband being held for questioning/torture even though he's the most patently innocent human being to ever walk the planet. But you know, Republicans and post-9/11 policies, ooooooooooo, so biting. Meryl Streep absolutely embarrasses herself as the snooty neocon who signs off the on the titular treatment for Witherspoon's husband. Jake Gyllenhaal is the conflicted new hand at witnessing the torture, and then thrown into the mix is a story of the head torturer's daughter and her dalliance with a suicide bomber. The film is filled with cheap shots, and none cheaper than the last-minute reveal that not all of the events depicted in the film are concurrently occurring, which is otherwise known as cheating. This film is so self-satisfied in its weak fingerpointing that none but the most receptive of NPR Liberals will be interested in the echo chamber here. And to be clear I'm a liberal who deplores torture etc. But I don't need it making movies worse on top of everything else, either.

[colinr0380]

Wakefield Poole's Bible! (1973)
In which famed gay hardcore director Wakefield Poole takes a bawdy softcore romp through three famous stories from the Bible. I actually got interested in watching this soon after taking a look at Peter Greenaway's Goltzius and the Pelican Company, and it turns out that Bible! is doing a number of the same things that the Greenaway film is doing, just without the meta-textual layer of art history commentary but with just as much humour! I was actually surprised at the quality of this film, which shouldn't really have shocked me as Bijou made the year before this was similarly surprisingly interesting too. Bible! is like Bijou in a number of ways, mainly in the way that it is a silent film (apart from one line of dialogue) that is scored to a curated soundtrack of classical music.

Spoilers follow:

The film begins with a literalisation of the moment of creation using the interestingly charged imagery of stock footage of an atom bomb going off. Then we move into an Under The Skin-style creation sequence of drifting through the cosmos and then footage of blood pumping through veins and a growing foetus, until eventually we see Adam hesitatingly making his way out of a crack in the bowels of the Earth, climbing across rocks and swimming through underground caverns, until he climbs up some greenery and out into the open air. This whole sequence is quite amazing with its completely naked actor cautiously threading his way over rocks and precariously climbing tens of feet up the side of a cliff face. Eventually Adam reaches an idyllic beach and after a swim in the ocean he retreats back to the beach and collapses comatose.

Then, with a change of music track, we get Eve emerging from the ocean like Venus. She too moves unsteadily and one of the best aspects of this segment is the way that both actors seem to look as if they are still working out how to walk properly, like newly born animals. Eve wakes Adam with a kiss and they proceed to 'explore' each other - Adam (maybe thematically?) goes straight for breast suckling. We get a bit of rolling around in the sand (this is sort of a Blue Lagoon sex scene) and then the segment ends with both partners post-coitally relaxing until Eve says the fateful one line of dialogue in the film: "I'm so hungry"!

...which immediately throws us into the big banquet going on in the next segment, about David and Bathsheba. This is a far more broadly comic sequence than the others, but makes for a nice change of pace. Bathsheba is having trouble getting the attention of her boorish husband across the dining table, who is either too busy with reading battle plans or calling out a serving wench to serve more food, get him dressed for battle or clean up (Amusingly the serving wench overwhelms the classical music score with her own soundtrack, which is a cavalry charge mixed with a burlesque number mixed with a bit of the American national anthem for her big departure!). Bathsheba meanwhile grumpily watches, then tries to sexily approach her husband but gets stymied by her long dress getting caught on her chair leg or accidentally sticking her foot into her husband's discarded helmet!

Anyway the husband leaves and Bathsheba goes out into the garden to fume whilst the serving wench cleans up (with her striptease soundtrack playing quietly offscreen from back inside the villa!). After a bit of business with Bathsheba putting an orange into her cleavage to play around with buxoming herself up a little, she suddenly notices with shock David watching her from an upper floor behind a trellis. After an initial shock Bathsheba hesitatingly decides to take the plunge and take a bath for her watching visitor.

While this is all very comic (I especially like the ever more excited David getting closer and closer until he is completely destroying the trellis and any illusion of being incognito!), the best part of this segment is the moment when Bathsheba has taken everything but her last garment off and is in the middle of the pool. The action pauses for a long moment on this moment of no going back for her in exposing herself (which is also a brilliant moment to put in an ostensible sex film!), both hesitating and steeling herself to have courage to do so. That moment ends up making the piece quite touching for suggesting the way that this lady is feeling herself watched with lust again, and seen as an object of beauty rather than just as a comedically frustrated character.

Of course though this scene of consensual voyeurism/exhibitionism gets interrupted, leaving Bathsheba to get dressed quickly on her husband's unscheduled return. Luckily (or tellingly the damning final chance he gets to notice her) he doesn't notice the lillies from the pond on her head or dishevelled, sopping wet clothing and just leaves again!

This leads to the fantastic shot of Bathsheba disrobing again then throwing open the doors to the garden again to give herself to the stranger, that takes place in about five to ten repeated shots of this action from numerous different angles. Which is amusingly immediately undermined by David being nowhere to be found (he fell backwards off the trellis that he was precariously holding onto in the meantime!). We then get the sad moment of Bathsheba, having found the courage to acknowledge a stranger's gaze, finding it too late to do so. She is left in a dishevelled, unkempt state.

Which itself gets undermined as David runs into the dining room in a similarly unkempt state, presumably having picked himself up out of a bush, tears his clothes off mad with lust and we then proceed to get one of those classic madcap chase sequences around the dining room that involves Bathsheba trying to escape from David (though she does lose him at one point and bangs a dinner gong to get his attention again, so she's not that upset!) by running around pillars and from door to door Scooby-Doo style!

Finally Bathsheba gets enough of a lead on David to run into the garden and drape herself artfully on a bench, only for David to charge in and literally dive on top of her!

....which leads into the last long segment of Samson and Delilah. After the comic shenanigans of the second segment, this goes very dark very quickly, with Samson introduced barging his way through a market then brutally strangling a dwarf handmaiden to death before throwing them to the ground. This is all done in slight slow motion, I guess to try and emphasise Samson's size as he lumbers through the scene.

A remaining handmaiden goes to Delilah, portrayed here as an ebony princess in a flowing red cape, who simply by walking past Samson in the town square captivates him and causes him to follow her. This segment really is the most in the vein of the earlier Bijou, as it all takes place in a beautifully abstract environment of billowing sheets early on in the town square and then a completely dark space once Samson and Delilah are together and we get the long sequence of Samson being stripped and washed whilst being lulled into a trance. While Delilah ensure's Samson's attention is elsewhere through stripping herself, erotic massage and then oral sex, the handmaiden gets to work on getting this proto-hippie's hair cut!

Then we get a stunning sequence of Samson getting tied up whilst the naked Delilah is re-dressed in just her jewellery and we see from Samson's point of view as some sort of flaming tube is pushed closer and closer to him, until the classical music reaches its climax and we fade out.

...only to get a short coda hilariously literalising the concept of Mary's immaculate conception by showing a terrifed Mary getting pursued across a desert sand dune by an angel clad only in a white piece of linen and wielding a couple of long transparent tubes!

A fantastic film, that is both funny, sexy and a little theological at the same time! Like any film, this is as much, if not more, about the era of time in which is was made (the early 70s, end of a hippie era, and also the brief era of hardcore film getting respectable mainstream attention - Georgina Spelvin who plays Bathsheba here was in the earlier well known hardcore film The Devil In Miss Jones - and trying to produce films that tame the sex a little and add both a story and humour into the mix to compensate), and telling a religious story through that unique perspective than about capturing any sense of elusive 'truthful authenticity' about the Bible story! In some ways a film like this understands that the stories are parables to be interpreted and re-interpreted according to their era rather than something that can be entirely 'captured truthfully'.

Anyway, I can't fault a film which climaxes the immaculate conception sequence, and the entire film, with this image:




I wonder if Ken Russell knew about this film: at the very least Russell's segment of Aria feels in the same vein as the Samson and Delilah one here!