The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions (Decade Project Vol. 4)

An ongoing project to survey the best films of individual decades, genres, and filmmakers.
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therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#901 Post by therewillbeblus » Thu Dec 31, 2020 1:59 pm

Was Melville gay or has there been a critical lens dissecting his work through a queer framework, or was he seeking to insert themes from his namesake because of their arbitrary superficial connection? I personally don't see that theme in his work regarding "coming out" and would be interested to hear more about that specific area of queer subtext you're alluding to- though I absolutely think there's a delicate interest in male bonding, hidden under a cloak of tough, aloof exteriors, which could broadly be recontextualized there I suppose. His work is a bit like an inverted, sterile version of Hawks with a frigid depiction of apparent interpersonal alienation hiding intimacy underneath. I think these films are a nice precursor to Miller's Crossing's restrained study of masculine compassion and how to safely express it, though that film really hits the sweet spot of observational comedy and cynical pathos as an uncomfortably-defined necessity for our cold defenses that I don't think Melville quite does. These films all seem much more interesting as a wider anthropological statement than a specifically queer one.

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knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#902 Post by knives » Thu Dec 31, 2020 2:03 pm

I can’t remember whether or not he was actually gay, though I believe he was bisexual, but queer readings of his work are incredibly. It’s how I got into him to begin with.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#903 Post by therewillbeblus » Thu Dec 31, 2020 2:05 pm

I can definitely see that, because I think queer theory often goes hand in hand with what I'm describing, but I guess I was more interested in the "coming out" specifically- though perhaps I answered my own question if you mean broadly grappling with the conflict of socially-normative exteriors and yearning interiors.

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knives
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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#904 Post by knives » Thu Dec 31, 2020 2:17 pm

It's been forever since I've seen the reading, but in this film's specific case it was about how doing the robbery has an inevitable sense of being caught and the compulsion to gamble as a sort of safety mechanism against people getting to know you with Bob and the boy as lovers. I actually think Le Samurai works the most easily under this queer lens given its very erotic approach to Delon. I remember joking with friends that it was the hottest porno ever shot with the actor's clothes on.

I suppose that is why I'll have to differ with your, very traditional, conception of these movies as frigid or sterile. They're frigid and sterile under a sort of Francophone, heteronormative lens, but his sort of queer outsider approach like a Jewish Araki creates a warm energy of constant duplicity and the need to show the performance as real. Something like The Red Circle actually would go well with The Tenant or The Shop Around the Corner.

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therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#905 Post by therewillbeblus » Thu Dec 31, 2020 2:25 pm

Apologies if I wasn't clear, but I don't see these films as "frigid" or "sterile" in any definitive sense- quite the opposite. As opposed to Hawks, who I prefer for many other reasons, Melville makes you work for it- presenting these interactions through this heteronormative, or just plain normative lens of detached observational objectivity, which helps pronounce the warmth of reciprocity and trust, like a light shining even more beautifully because it's accentuated against a grey sky.

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knives
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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#906 Post by knives » Thu Dec 31, 2020 2:39 pm

I would have assumed Hawks as the more objective director. Melville paints his films in otherworldly tones and has the actors stylized in a way removed from accident. If anything he’s an impressionist which is one of the most subjective forces on an audience member, what I assume your statement on work is referring to, whereas Hawks’ relaxed form gives us a full range of the characters. Likewise Hawks shooting style fits more easily with the usual language of the objective camera. Hawks always has his films from the camera-human POV, while many Melville shots are too high and too low if they are not directly taken from a character. Melville’s camera is never afforded to be a kinoeye.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#907 Post by therewillbeblus » Thu Dec 31, 2020 2:49 pm

All fair points, I've definitely been reflecting on Melville's later work during this conversation which may color my reading, but essentially I see them both as auteurs who establish objective formalism and continually provide windows to let the audience in subjectively in their own unique ways. Melville's process affords less distinctive warmth and through the opportunities for subjectivity (i.e. the cigarette offering in Le Cercle Rouge) we get the same effect of Hawks' observational warmth that wears a different kind of shell in character.

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domino harvey
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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#908 Post by domino harvey » Thu Dec 31, 2020 2:53 pm

Worth remembering that as with Rossellini, the Young Turks idolized the way Melville’s films were shot and the man himself. He was often called a stepfather of the New Wave, which he cheekily embraced and rebuffed with equal glee, but he was certainly willing to soak up their adulation

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Mr Sausage
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 9:02 pm
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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#909 Post by Mr Sausage » Fri Jan 01, 2021 12:07 am

therewillbeblus wrote: or was he seeking to insert themes from his namesake because of their arbitrary superficial connection?
I’m pretty sure Melville was not his birth name and he deliberately took it from the writer. Tho’ I can’t say I’ve ever heard it used as evidence of queer themes in work before.

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Rayon Vert
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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#910 Post by Rayon Vert » Fri Jan 01, 2021 12:55 am

Grumbach was his birth name. But apparently he took the name Melville (during the war years) because of his particular fondness for Pierre, or the Ambiguities.

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Mr Sausage
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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#911 Post by Mr Sausage » Fri Jan 01, 2021 10:35 am

Rayon Vert wrote:Grumbach was his birth name. But apparently he took the name Melville (during the war years) because of his particular fondness for Pierre, or the Ambiguities.
Pierre? Really? That’s the worst novel ever written by a major novelist. Maybe it reads better in French.

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Rayon Vert
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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#912 Post by Rayon Vert » Fri Jan 01, 2021 12:21 pm

So it says in the Antoine de Baeque biography. I wasn't aware it had such an awful reputation - isn't it an example of the late flowering of the Romantic hero? I remember liking it for such reasons at age 21 or so, but couldn't vouch for it now.

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NABOB OF NOWHERE
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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#913 Post by NABOB OF NOWHERE » Fri Jan 01, 2021 12:58 pm

Rayon Vert wrote:
Fri Jan 01, 2021 12:21 pm
So it says in the Antoine de Baeque biography. I wasn't aware it had such an awful reputation - isn't it an example of the late flowering of the Romantic hero? I remember liking it for such reasons at age 21 or so, but couldn't vouch for it now.
Well there must be something in it to get Carax's attention.

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dustybooks
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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#914 Post by dustybooks » Fri Jan 22, 2021 1:07 am

I just saw Bunuel’s El; what a magnificent film, and a downright terrifying yet coyly well observed central performance by Arturo de Córdova. I also saw Los Olvidados and The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz this week, loved the former and liked the latter, but this is frankly perhaps my favorite of his narrative films I’ve seen thus far.

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