1980s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 3)

[Mr Sausage]

If I were imagining a strict filmic equivalent, it would have to be a film that ran for days and consisted of extremely long, deftly choreographed tracking shots that were dominated by intimate details of decor and gesture rather than conventional establishing long shots, and which could unexpectedly shift into flashback, or change location, or adopt another point of view, in the middle of an uninterrupted shot. So, for all intents and purposes, you'd reasonably assume that the book is unfilmable. Until you see Ruiz's elegant solution in Time Regained - which is where we came in.

I remember thinking about whether a long take and a long sentence are equivalent expressions when someone somewhere mentioned that Tarr's extremely long takes and tracking shots were his equivalent of Krazsnahorkai's long sentences. I don't think they are. Long sentences like those composed by Proust (or Krasznahorkai) aren't continuous the way a long take is; the grammar spirals, subordinates, diverges and converges, rephrases and recontextualizes. If there's a type sentence that a long take mimics, it's a parataxical one that constantly develops forward (like Hemingway gone mad, or Molly Bloom's monologue). Long takes do something quite different than most long sentences: they emphasize continuity and conjunction; everything is part of the same plane, always rolling forward. There are no impediments in a long take like there are in the long sentences of the two authors above (or others like Bernhard or Kleist). I really like the idea of the sudden shifts between locations and times; the uninterrupted shot would still make all of those places and times seem continuous, which captures something Proustian; but they would also turn consciousness into a flat plane, all times and places equal with each other, not plumbed, or sunk through as successive layers of reality.

So I don't wonder if, counterintuitively, montage, the assembly of fragments of images even, is a better equivalent to the long sentences of Proust, because it's only there that images can spiral, clash, recontextualize or rephrase, and consciousness can be represented as meandering excavation. Proust's sentences often turn things over and over until the kernal is discovered. Montage is great for that.

Haven't seen Time Regained.

[knives]

What of an interrupted long take then? I can only think of Lynch's Lumiere short for what I mean by that. Basically a fusion between montage and long take (Wright's Anna Karenina seems to try this also).

[Mr Sausage]

I can't think of any examples that I've seen, but it sounds good in theory. I'm not a filmmaker, tho', so I don't think anyone should take my suggestions on what could work all that seriously.

[zedz]

If I were imagining a strict filmic equivalent, it would have to be a film that ran for days and consisted of extremely long, deftly choreographed tracking shots that were dominated by intimate details of decor and gesture rather than conventional establishing long shots, and which could unexpectedly shift into flashback, or change location, or adopt another point of view, in the middle of an uninterrupted shot. So, for all intents and purposes, you'd reasonably assume that the book is unfilmable. Until you see Ruiz's elegant solution in Time Regained - which is where we came in.

I remember thinking about whether a long take and a long sentence are equivalent expressions when someone somewhere mentioned that Tarr's extremely long takes and tracking shots were his equivalent of Krazsnahorkai's long sentences. I don't think they are. Long sentences like those composed by Proust (or Krasznahorkai) aren't continuous the way a long take is; the grammar spirals, subordinates, diverges and converges, rephrases and recontextualizes. If there's a type sentence that a long take mimics, it's a parataxical one that constantly develops forward (like Hemingway gone mad, or Molly Bloom's monologue). Long takes do something quite different than most long sentences: they emphasize continuity and conjunction; everything is part of the same plane, always rolling forward. There are no impediments in a long take like there are in the long sentences of the two authors above (or others like Bernhard or Kleist). I really like the idea of the sudden shifts between locations and times; the uninterrupted shot would still make all of those places and times seem continuous, which captures something Proustian; but they would also turn consciousness into a flat plane, all times and places equal with each other, not plumbed, or sunk through as successive layers of reality.

So I don't wonder if, counterintuitively, montage, the assembly of fragments of images even, is a better equivalent to the long sentences of Proust, because it's only there that images can spiral, clash, recontextualize or rephrase, and consciousness can be represented as meandering excavation. Proust's sentences often turn things over and over until the kernal is discovered. Montage is great for that.

Haven't seen Time Regained.

I agree that a montage approach might also work, but it would have to be extremely finely finessed, and almost musical in its construction to preserve that sense in Proust of the gossamer thread of structure and coherence in his digressive sentences. In terms of long takes, I wasn't envisaging anything like the long linear or static shots of a Tarr or Tarkovsky, but a more animated, Ophulsian choreographed style (which would have its own quality of montage). And as you say, you'd have to be able to accomodate shifts between different planes of time and reality within the shot, but that's something that some directors (Ruiz among them) can pull off brilliantly.

Again, it's not an 80s film, but I feel like Scorsese's Age of Innocence at times approaches Proustian syntax, and he actually orchestrates a lot of different techniques (tracking shots, montage, match cuts, dissolves, optical printing) in order to achieve this effect. That's another case where there's an overarching musicality to the way sequences are assembled.

Oh - an obvious point of reference we haven't mentioned yet: the 'all in one breath' Russian Ark.

[matrixschmatrix]

Actually, for me, the two examples that come to mind are Chris Marker and Tag Gallagher, both of whom use combinations of longer movements, static images, and repeated gestures to create a form of visual poetry that feels very much like an elegant, complex sentence- though I think in both cases, it's equally a matter of using the images to support complex verbal ideas as a creation strictly of images.

[Lemmy Caution]

Just did a little quick googling and Sophie Marceau still has a very big China following.
She actually sang La Vie en Rose as a duet with a Chinese male singer on the 2014 Chinese New Year Gala Show. It's an extended holiday-variety show, which attracts more than half the population of China during its 3 or 4 hour run-time. She also appeared at the large Guangzhou Auto Show late in 2013, and in 2012 she was in Beijing promoting one of her films and French films in general, trying to crack the China market.

None of the articles I found really explained why or how she became such a big deal in China. You get glossy sentences more along the lines of: "For millions of Chinese, Marceau is the incarnation of the elegance and romanticism of France, a nation famed for fashion, luxury and the art of living." But really that's for tens of millions, and after the New Year's show, hundreds of millions of Chinese. A million being kind of a puny number in China.

Another article at least references some of her films:
"Marceau not only enjoys great popularity in Europe, but has won the hearts of Chinese audiences by her performances in films such as Fanfan, Braveheart and the 1999 James Bond thriller The World Is Not Enough."
Not clear why she caught fire here, but it amazed me how popular she was/is.

[jindianajonz]

Here's the (currently unavailable) Taiwanese DVD / BluRay - I don't know if anybody can provide a link to somewhere that still has this in stock.

If you are feeling particularly desperate, there's this...

If google translate is correct, you even get two choices for shipping- a $60 option, or a $100 million option!

[domino harvey]

Last Rites (Donald P Bellisario 1988) Handily the worst film I've seen for this project yet and while I will almost certainly see worse before it's over (it IS the 80s), if I see one more inept than this it'll be quite a surprise. Not one aspect of this film even makes sense, which could lend it a certain charm to be sure if it weren't pasted together with such sloppy, TV drama-level theatrics and so little attention to detail that for most of the film the vitally important relations of some characters to others aren't even explained. Perhaps the producers thought this gave the film twists, but that's not supposed to be used synonymously with bad writing. This is ostensibly a movie about how New York priest Tom Berenger is led astray by Daphne Zuniga, who seeks solace both spiritual and carnal in the confession box after witnessing the murder of a mob boss' son-in-law. I could see this basic material making for a nice drama or introspective thriller-- a man of the cloth facing temptation, the danger of the situation, the assorted betrayals personal and interpersonal-- but Donald P. Bellisario seems more concerned with how to shoot Zuniga naked without actually showing anything (In this Bellisario indeed proves a degree of ingenuity lacking everywhere else in the picture) and unintentionally comical shootouts to devote even five minutes to either taking the premise of the film seriously or exploiting it in new and novel directions. And after a while, even the entertainment value of how poorly made and conceived everything is wears off and it just becomes a Bataan Death March through pisspoor MOTW theatrics. (And the ending to this, holy shit, it is almost worth recommending just to have others witness first-hand how much this movie could not give less of a shit by the end.)

Ruthless People (Jim Abrahams / David Zucker / Jerry Zucker 1986) A rare non-parody film from ZAZ, this farce delivered everything I expected and failed to receive from A Fish Called Wanda, and indeed had many of that film's component parts first and, most importantly, is far far far far funnier. Danny DeVito steals the movie as the scumbag husband who plans to murder his wife Bette Midler only to be informed by some hopelessly earnest kidnappers that she's being held for ransom and they'll kill her if their instructions aren't met. So of course he gleefully countermands every directive they issue, and there's all manner of farcical characters in play besides, the funniest being Bill Pullman's uproariously stupid hunk, whose idiocy inspires the film's single biggest laugh-getting-line late in the film. But this is a comedy, like ZAZ's Top Secret!, with lots of big belly laughs sprinkled generously throughout, and while it is not without its fat and less than effective passages, on the whole this is an exemplary mainstream hit from the 80s that still packs a non-contextual punch. Highly recommended.

Slam Dance (Wayne Wang 1987) I didn't think any part of this mess with cartoonist Tom Hulce (in an extremely unappealing central performance) navigating criminal worlds he barely comprehends worked or was even entertaining, and I tried really hard to find some strings of value to clutch onto. I failed. I know it has its vocal defenders, but it never rose above its collection of weirdly disparate parts to make a satisfying whole.


So… I have the Blade Runner set with all the different cuts, and I've never seen the film. Which is the best version to watch first? Keeping in mind that while It is possible I will revisit the film in the distant future to try a different version out, I am very unlikely to watch more than one version for now.

[Mr Sausage]

So… I have the Blade Runner set with all the different cuts, and I've never seen the film. Which is the best version to watch first? Keeping in mind that while It is possible I will revisit the film in the distant future to try a different version out, I am very unlikely to watch more than one version for now.

The Final Cut for sure. It's the director's cut, essentially. The other cuts are the theatrical one (an inferior, compromised movie) and another version assembled in 1992 that was closer to Scott's preferred cut, but was rushed and done without his direct supervision. The Final Cut is the only version Scott had complete control over.

[knives]

I'll second Sausage. I saw that cut when it was making the theatrical rounds and at its worst its still fairly fun fluff without anything I'd consider extra baggage.

[John Cope]

So… I have the Blade Runner set with all the different cuts, and I've never seen the film. Which is the best version to watch first? Keeping in mind that while It is possible I will revisit the film in the distant future to try a different version out, I am very unlikely to watch more than one version for now.

The Final Cut for sure. It's the director's cut, essentially. The other cuts are the theatrical one (an inferior, compromised movie) and another version assembled in 1992 that was closer to Scott's preferred cut, but was rushed and done without his direct supervision. The Final Cut is the only version Scott had complete control over.

Normally I'd agree with your logic but in this case I'm not as compelled. I too would probably recommend The Final Cut but I can't get real enthusiastic about that. For me I suppose it partially has to do with how long I've held this movie dear to me and because of that I'm sure I lean toward the first theatrical cut warts and all. But I don't perceive any of the cuts as perfect. And, to be frank, though I'm a fan of Scott it's a fraught relationship. I think he can often be his own worst enemy--sometimes this happens when he capitulates too much to studio interference/"advice" (as with what happened to Legend in '85, the flip side of the Gilliam-Brazil scenario) but just as often, especially as he's become more comfortable with the power he's gained, he can screw it up for himself and that's what happens with those later cuts of BR. I don't think Scott is generally a profound thinker and is best off when he doesn't overthink his material. I don't believe he has a good grasp on the very real profundity of his material here and never did; the collaborative element in his greatest films often is what makes the difference. In the case of BR, I sincerely doubt that he was ever thinking all that much about the whole Deckard/replicant angle about which so much has been made in the years since. When the subject became prominent he started to weigh in on it but, for me at least, his perspective is not a wise one or anything that benefits the material. So we get in these later cuts an emphasis on how to read and understand the situation that becomes harder and harder to deny or avoid. That's an issue if you think, as I do, that the interpretation he's pushing either makes no sense or is just a very bad idea, instituting a distracting kind of infinite regress question begging rather than embracing the pure, clean and deep enough implications that were already established and clearly in place. I also don't like the digital upgrades in the effects on the later cuts however much they are meant to improve things. For me, once again, they do not and in fact are disruptively dissonant against the practicals of the '82 cut. There are good, valuable things in that Final Cut though. I'm grateful to have all the cuts including the workprint which is simply a fascinating artifact for fans.

[Mr Sausage]

Well, it seems your problem with The Final Cut/'92 director's cut is mostly down to a problem with the movie itself. Fair enough. I've never valued it as a movie of ideas but as a piece of extraordinary atmosphere and formal inventiveness, and also as a dramatic movie (go figure) as it is genuinely moving and emotional, for all its oppressive formalism. I'd say the 'is Deckard a replicant?' angle doesn't add much to the movie, but the inclusion of those scenes doesn't bother me. They were shot and evidently meant to be there (they were only left out to make the studio-mandated happy ending work). It's really the loss of both the voice-over, which ruins some key emotional beats and a lot of the atmosphere, and the happy ending that I appreciate.

I saw the final cut in theatres when it came around and it was one of the most thrilling theatre experiences I've ever had. The movie had never seemed more coherent. The small digital manipulations did not bother me (if I even noticed them), and I appreciated having some bits restored, like

Spoiler

the shot of Batty's thumbs going into Tyrell's head,

which weren't there in the director's cut. The version represented by The Final Cut/'92 director's cut is superior to the compromised theatrical version, which is less original as a movie, and The Final Cut, for me, is the more satisfying and accomplished version of Scott's original cut.


I could see someone liking all the cuts as a sort of triangulation of some as yet unrealized perfect movie, but ultimately for anyone looking to watch just one cut to get the experience of the thing it has to be the Final Cut/'92 director's cut version, and my pick of those two cuts is the one that got more time and attention from Scott himself. It's not that big a deal between the two latter ones, tho', anyway.

[colinr0380]

I quite like the goofy Last Rites if only for the mob wife going into the hotel room on which her husband is cheating on her and shooting him dead while he is only wearing a couch pillow for protection! Zuniga (playing the lady the chap was fooling around with who the wronged wife somehow forgets to also kill) does make for a nice-but-dim heroine and all of the moral grey area that Berenger has sort of disappears in the end for a by the numbers chase thriller.

I do like the early 'comedy confessional' scene though, with Berenger trying to stifle giggles whilst listening to his flock's nutty confessions!

I certainly agree with domino on Ruthless People though. With this and War of the Roses Danny DeVito seems to have an affinity for pushing horrible marriages to comic extremes!

[Emak-Bakia]

Has anyone here seen Gordon Willis' Windows? I'm trying to decide if I should blind buy the DVD-R, since it's only $12 on Amazon right now.

I have. Its been a few years but overall I found it to be better than the reputation that precedes it. It's a strange, over-the-top, somewhat illogical thriller that looks exactly like a late 70s, early 80s Woody Allen film (not only did Gordon Willis direct it but he was also the DP, and Mel Bourne was the production designer... one of the extras from Annie Hall also plays a cab driver).

Thanks for the response. I overcame my aversion to streaming and just watched the rather poor quality YouTube upload. It is a very interesting film, and the near-universally negative reaction to it is puzzling to me. I’ve read complaints elsewhere that the film is homophobic, though I think it’s probably possible to argue the opposite (I should watch the film again before venturing into those waters, however.) In any case, I found it easy to overlook the film’s issues with sexuality for now and simply enjoy the beautiful New York City photography and moody sounds. Sequences such as this one are truly experimental in Hollywood, and it’s moments like it that really create the film’s strange atmosphere. I sense that it’s the kind of film that will stick with me for a while. I recommend it.

[domino harvey]

Blade Runner (Ridley Scott 1982) Thank you for the guidance as to which version to watch, as I can now say with some definitiveness that I will not be indulging in a second viewing of the Final Cut or any other cut, as my problems with this film run far beyond what a few minutes here or there could assist. I suspect I may have just not seen this at the right age or was just never going to be able to recognize its charms, because I thoroughly didn't enjoy this film. Throughout I was in mind of the famous Pavement lyric, "So much style and it's wasted"-- so much effort and time clearly went into creating this vision of the future, and yet like many modern critical visions of the future, it is almost relentlessly ugly and dingy and unpleasant to look at. And some of the more outlandish motifs, such as the nonstop falling rain both outside and inside make little sense when looked at logically-- why would an important developer of replicants, who has many specially-modified toys and models in his house, live in a dive with leaking water in every room, except that it would look like totally cool in a finale shoot-out? The script for this drove me crazy, too-- perhaps it is a product of the differing versions, but why does M Emmet Walsh relay the same expository information about the replicants twice, in back-to-back scenes, when neither explanation should be necessary (One "Here's who you're after" segment should suffice, no?) to a man who is allegedly a gifted pursuer of replicants. And so on. Sorry, this is yet another popular film everyone else here loves but I just don't "get."

Chan is Missing (Wayne Wang 1982) Sloppy, often amateurish microbudget indie following two Chinese-American cab drivers as they search in quasi-noir fashion for their missing business partner. The film is pieced together from obvious ad-libbed dialog, the film's construction is a mess, scenes happening days apart were clearly filmed back to back in various locales (the main characters forget to change their clothes), and yet, despite all these pretty significant issues, I found myself kinda charmed by the many moments of documentary-like insight into the people populating Chinatown. Arguments about flags, parades, internal strifes amongst differing factions of Chinese-Americans, there is so much here that we rarely get to see in American films, it's a shame it wasn't integrated better into a more satisfying final result. It's a scrappy dog of a picture, but I found myself rooting for it to be better than it was.

Jacob Have I Loved (Victoria Hochberg 1989) Telefilm adaptation of the famous young adult novel. Bridget Fonda is miserable living on a small island, always in the shadow of her "prettier" (Talk about a narrative leap!) sister, who over the course of the narrative manages to take everything Fonda desires away from her in an unthinking fashion afforded to those blessed with popularity. No one here is ever going to watch this movie, I know, but I thought Fonda's mostly unreined outbursts and peaks of sullen anger were a smart fit to her teenage character, and a good example of playing a not-yet experienced actor's weaknesses as strengths. Plus one of the central characters is played by someone doing an A+ Charles Bickford impression the whole time, how can you not be just a little bit curious to see that? Okay, so the movie's pretty mediocre otherwise and seemed to run just under an hour so that it could find its way into classrooms across the country without taking more than one class period to watch, but I (and given the films' differing aims, somewhat unfairly) liked it a lot more than the other more well-respected works I encountered this round!

[Michael Kerpan]

Domino -- have you read the source novel, P K Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Like most PKD novels, this has some plot sloppiness -- but I think it is a lot more interesting than the undeniably stylish film adaptation (whose new name never made much sense to me).

[domino harvey]

I have not read any Philip K Dick works, but I wouldn't be surprised to find this basic material works in a different context

[knives]

I'll second Kerpan. I wouldn't list it as grade A Dick, but it's a very fascinating book with a very enjoyable prose style. Though for the film's defense I really do love Rutger Hauer's performance.

[FerdinandGriffon]

Throughout I was in mind of the famous Pavement lyric, "So much style and it's wasted"-- so much effort and time clearly went into creating this vision of the future, and yet like many modern critical visions of the future, it is almost relentlessly ugly and dingy and unpleasant to look at.

Well, I think you're in the minority here. I don't mean in disliking the film, but in finding its imagery and production design unattractive. A huge part, if not most of, the film's appeal is the design, which many (myself included) find breathtaking. It's a sensual, overwhelmingly decadent world, where noir and art-deco style have deliquesced to some kind of limit-point of Sternbergian grandeur. The rain, preposterous as it may be, is another wash of texture and light over an already hyper-saturated image, and it's more than forgivable, for those who are buying in. This is the reason it's been so relentlessly influential, not it's plot mechanics, which are a little creaky. I also wouldn't say the film is a "modern critical vision of the future". Scott loves this world, much more than Dick did his, and it's less a coherent prognosis of the future than a portrait of a personal utopia, suffused with nostalgia for a fantastical past.

RE: Dick discussion. In general I much prefer PKD to Blade Runner, but I think the film is much better than that particular novel, which I remember as being a bit half-baked and confused about its imagery.

[Gregory]

The rain, preposterous as it may be, is another wash of texture and light over an already hyper-saturated image, and it's more than forgivable, for those who are buying in. This is the reason it's been so relentlessly influential, not it's plot mechanics, which are a little creaky. I also wouldn't say the film is a "modern critical vision of the future". Scott loves this world, much more than Dick did his, and it's less a coherent prognosis of the future than a portrait of a personal utopia, suffused with nostalgia for a fantastical past.

I'm far less expert on this film than some here, so I don't really feel comfortable disagreeing, but my understanding was that Scott's vision of the near-constant rain was that it was acid rain as a result of (ongoing) despoiling of the environment and what came to be called catastrophic climate change. It takes many of the frightening changes that befell LA in the 20th century—pollution, destruction of green spaces, burned-out and abandoned ghettoes unfit for human habitation, etc.—and extended them into the future. It's a hellish, oppressive, corporate-run city that most of those who can have abandoned for the Offworld Colonies. It's even more bleak in the original workprint, isn't it? If Scott "loves" the world, isn't it in the sense that an artist who creates a dystopia loves his creation, and not the actual place itself?

[swo17]

Blade Runner (Ridley Scott 1982)
Sorry, this is yet another popular film everyone else here loves but I just don't "get."

I'm curious where you got the memo on this, because I certainly didn't sign it! (Unless by "here" you mean the earth.)

[domino harvey]

I think it came in at number two or three on the previous 80s list, so I think some level of board approval can be surmised. Glad to have you on the team though :wheresthesunglassessmiley:

[knives]

I think, shockingly, Zedz is on your team too (I consider myself Swiss on the subject).

[swo17]

I don't hate the film, just never understood how it constantly ranks high on all-time best lists.

2 4 Film Skool

[Lemmy Caution]

Swiss Knives