Passages

[dwk]

An absolutely monumental talent. That opening of Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore is stunning, as is the editing of the dog fights in Return of the Jedi

Yeah, I'm glad that Criterion were able to interview her for their upcoming Alice release.

[DimitriL]

A legend and everyone in the industry knew it. Her reputation ended up "the woman who saved Star Wars," but I like the real story better - which is that they were only half done and the effects hadn't even begun to arrive, but Scorsese was so sure that Marcia was the only person who could save New York, New York that she left Star Wars (Paul Hirsch finished the film) and flew to the East Coast to dive into that.

Be the person everyone considers a miracle worker.

[beamish14]

A legend and everyone in the industry knew it. Her reputation ended up "the woman who saved Star Wars," but I like the real story better - which is that they were only half done and the effects hadn't even begun to arrive, but Scorsese was so sure that Marcia was the only person who could save New York, New York that she left Star Wars (Paul Hirsch finished the film) and flew to the East Coast to dive into that.

Be the person everyone considers a miracle worker.

Hirsch and Richard Chew edited it more or less simultaneously, but correct, Marcia Lucas laid the foundation down for them

[Gregory]

Kelly Curtis (Trading Places, The Devil's Daughter).

Pioneering Spanish director, screenwriter, multihyphenate Josefina Molina

[DimitriL]

A legend and everyone in the industry knew it. Her reputation ended up "the woman who saved Star Wars," but I like the real story better - which is that they were only half done and the effects hadn't even begun to arrive, but Scorsese was so sure that Marcia was the only person who could save New York, New York that she left Star Wars (Paul Hirsch finished the film) and flew to the East Coast to dive into that.

Be the person everyone considers a miracle worker.

Hirsch and Richard Chew edited it more or less simultaneously, but correct, Marcia Lucas laid the foundation down for them

In his book, Hirsch says that Lucas let Chew go around the time Marcia left because he wanted to work with a single editor at that point.

[DeprongMori]

Edgar Morin, age 104. Most known on the film side of things for the work he did with Jean Rouch in 1960 with Chronicle of a Summer.

[domino harvey]

Marjane Satrapi at 56

[The Curious Sofa]

I’m rarely shocked by announcements of the deaths of famous people, but this one is truly heartbreaking. She was a wonderful artist and a wonderful woman.

[beamish14]

Marjane Satrapi at 56

Oh, god. That is just horrible

[dx23]

I’m rarely shocked by announcements of the deaths of famous people, but this one is truly heartbreaking. She was a wonderful artist and a wonderful woman.

After her husband's death just a year ago. Devastating loss.

[Never Cursed]

Marjane Satrapi at 56

Some of the social media responses to this have been absolutely disgusting, and demonstrate that people neither understood Persepolis nor her quite nuanced feelings about the Iranian government. Very disheartening to see fellow leftists casually slip into rank misogyny or mockery of what kind of sounds like a case of suicide because her art didn't quite match how they feel about Iran right now

[knives]

What could possibly be objectionable about her position on Iran which always seemed the most straightforward approach possible of love and frustration for her homeland?

[MichaelB]

Some of the social media responses to this have been absolutely disgusting, and demonstrate that people neither understood Persepolis nor her quite nuanced feelings about the Iranian government. Very disheartening to see fellow leftists casually slip into rank misogyny or mockery of what kind of sounds like a case of suicide because her art didn't quite match how they feel about Iran right now

How dare Iranians have complex, nuanced views on Iran!

(Actually, every Iranian I've ever discussed Iran with—and we must be into double figures by now—has had decidedly complex and nuanced views. Wholly unsurprisingly.)

[The Curious Sofa]

Marjane Satrapi at 56

Some of the social media responses to this have been absolutely disgusting, and demonstrate that people neither understood Persepolis nor her quite nuanced feelings about the Iranian government. Very disheartening to see fellow leftists casually slip into rank misogyny or mockery of what kind of sounds like a case of suicide because her art didn't quite match how they feel about Iran right now

How were Satrapi's feelings towards the Iranian government nuanced and why should they be? She made it clear that she loved Iran, but certainly not its regime.

[Never Cursed]

Marjane Satrapi at 56

Some of the social media responses to this have been absolutely disgusting, and demonstrate that people neither understood Persepolis nor her quite nuanced feelings about the Iranian government. Very disheartening to see fellow leftists casually slip into rank misogyny or mockery of what kind of sounds like a case of suicide because her art didn't quite match how they feel about Iran right now

How were Satrapi's feelings towards the Iranian government nuanced and why should they be? She made it clear that she loved Iran, but certainly not its regime.

She can hardly be counted as a booster of the government of the Islamic Republic, but she evidently supported the overthrow of Pahlavi rule and was a strident opponent of American involvement in Iran, up to and including extending contingent critical support to the regime in the (then-hypothetical, now not so much) event that the US attacked it.

There are many things that I wish for in my country — I want my country to be free, I want my country to be democratic, I don’t want any journalists to go to jail because of an article they wrote in my country. But if the United States of America attacked my country, no matter what, I would be against the United States.

This is a line that everyone who becomes a kind of dissident has to walk: how far does opposition carry you? Satrapi adopted what I think is the correct stance; namely, that even though the regime is bad, its destruction via imperialist forces would also be bad and would probably result in a worse government and overall situation for Iranian people. Contrast this with the pathetic posturing of Reza Pahlavi, who was practically salivating at the start of the ongoing war at the thought that he might be made king of the country if it fell.

[The Curious Sofa]

Some of the social media responses to this have been absolutely disgusting, and demonstrate that people neither understood Persepolis nor her quite nuanced feelings about the Iranian government. Very disheartening to see fellow leftists casually slip into rank misogyny or mockery of what kind of sounds like a case of suicide because her art didn't quite match how they feel about Iran right now

How were Satrapi's feelings towards the Iranian government nuanced and why should they be? She made it clear that she loved Iran, but certainly not its regime.

She can hardly be counted as a booster of the government of the Islamic Republic, but she evidently supported the overthrow of Pahlavi rule and was a strident opponent of American involvement in Iran, up to and including extending contingent critical support to the regime in the (then-hypothetical, now not so much) event that the US attacked it.

There are many things that I wish for in my country — I want my country to be free, I want my country to be democratic, I don’t want any journalists to go to jail because of an article they wrote in my country. But if the United States of America attacked my country, no matter what, I would be against the United States.

This is a line that everyone who becomes a kind of dissident has to walk: how far does opposition carry you? Satrapi adopted what I think is the correct stance; namely, that even though the regime is bad, its destruction via imperialist forces would also be bad and would probably result in a worse government and overall situation for Iranian people. Contrast this with the pathetic posturing of Reza Pahlavi, who was practically salivating at the start of the ongoing war at the thought that he might be made king of the country if it fell.

Like most leftist Iranians, her family supported the overthrow of Pavlani but they could not have known that it would be replaced by an even worse regime, which would have many of the very Marxists and leftists executed, who got them into power. Marjane would have been 9 or 10 years old then, a little too young to support a revolution. She was against US intervention and I understand her reasoning but that still isn't a nuanced view of the current Iranian regime. Anyways, thanks for reminding me why I stay away from the political corners of social media.

[The Curious Sofa]

On a loosely related note, when I lived in London, I always had a number of Iranian friends and colleagues and they were among the most film literate (and fun) people I've ever known. I don't know whether that was just my good luck or whether that is a general thing in the culture. If they wouldn't take tourists hostage and hang the gays from cranes there, I would have loved to visit the country for the people.

[Never Cursed]

Marjane would have been 9 or 10 years old then, a little too young to support a revolution.

Shame that she never wrote a memoir expressing how she felt at the time...

[colinr0380]

Just mentioned in the latest Terracotta newsletter is that director Yoshihiro Nishimura passed on 25th May, director of some of the most notable titles in the late 2000s wave of extremely hyperbolically and often surrealistically body horrily gory Japanese comic-horrors. Tokyo Gore Police most famously, and also the 2016 sequel to 2005's Meatball Machine (the other film that kicked off that subgenre), Meatball Machine Kodoku.

He also did the final segment of the first ABCs of Death anthology film from 2012, with the entry "Z for Zetsumetsu". Here's my write up of that segment from a while back:

Z: How to end such a bizarre, eclectic, by turns comic and disturbing series of shorts? Another nutty Japanese piece from the director of Tokyo Gore Police of course! A strange mix of Nazis (equated with America - as in cultural imperialism?), fight scenes involving a woman wielding a gigantic phallus with a springloaded knife in the tip, gouts of spraying blood, something about Kunta Kinte, root vegetables propelled through the air by Kegel manoeuvres before landing into a stew pot, someone getting punched in the face by a pair of breasts, the glorious majesty of a perfect rice dish created by ejaculation, something about 9/11 (with the twin towers on one breast and the plane on the other, getting slapped together) and something about the Japanese tsunami (painted on buttocks), all overseen by a man seemingly a close relation of Dr Strangelove!

He received a bit of notice in the UK at least with 2020's Tokyo Dragon Chef getting a home video release, albeit only on DVD(!). And apparently released his latest film just last year with Tokyo Evil Hotel.

[MichaelB]

On a loosely related note, when I lived in London, I always had a number of Iranian friends and colleagues and they were among the most film literate (and fun) people I've ever known. I don't know whether that was just my good luck or whether that is a general thing in the culture. If they wouldn't take tourists hostage and hang the gays from cranes there, I would have loved to visit the country for the people.

I can absolutely second this. I was once at a film festival in Georgia (as in the country, not the US state) where I was the sole representative of Western Europe and I was outnumbered by Iranians ten to one. Some of the most fascinating conversations I’ve ever had in my life happened that week.

And Iran is very close to the top of my list of countries that I’d love to visit one day (and I don’t feel that way about most other places in the Middle East), but I suspect now might not be ideal.

[hearthesilence]

That reminds me, what's going on with Jafar Panahi? I know he was planning to return to Iran after the Oscars were over (i.e. after he fulfilled his promotional obligations to Neon), but I imagine he's still somewhere in the U.S. or Europe until the war ends. Once that happens though, I fear what will happen to him - he's facing a prison sentence that's been appealed, but the change in leadership (thanks to this moronic war) will stack the odds against him even more.

[The Curious Sofa]

Marjane would have been 9 or 10 years old then, a little too young to support a revolution.

Shame that she never wrote a memoir expressing how she felt at the time...

She also had personal conversations with god around that time.