The basic ideas among young American film-makers are simple: the big movies we grew up on are either corrupt, obsolete or dead, or are beyond our reach (we can’t get a chance to make Hollywood films)—so we’ll make films of our own, cheap films that we can make in our own way. For some, this is an attempt to break into the “industry”; for others it is a different approach to movies, a view of movies not as a popular art or a mass medium but as an art form to be explored.

Much of the movie style of young American film-makers may be explained as a reaction against the banality and luxuriant wastefulness which are so often called the superior “craftsmanship” of Hollywood. In reaction, the young become movie brutalists.

They, and many in their audiences, may prefer the rough messiness—the uneven lighting, awkward editing, flat camera work, the undramatic succession of scenes, unexplained actions, and confusion about what, if anything, is going on—because it makes their movies seem so different from Hollywood movies. This inexpensive, inexperienced, untrained look serves as a kind of testimonial to sincerity, poverty, even purity of intentions. It is like the sackcloth of true believers which they wear in moral revulsion against the rich in their fancy garments. The look of poverty is not necessarily a necessity. I once had the experience, as chairman of the jury at an experimental film festival, of getting on the stage in the black silk dress I had carefully mended and ironed for the occasion, to present the check to the prizewinner who came forward in patched, faded dungarees. He got an ovation, of course. I had seen him the night before in a good dark suit, but now he had dressed for his role (deserving artist) as I had dressed for mine (distinguished critic).

Although many of the American experimentalists have developed extraordinary kinds of technique, it is no accident that the virtuoso technicians who can apparently do almost anything with drawing board or camera are not taken up as the heroes of youth in the way that brutalists are. Little is heard about Bruce Baillie or Carroll Ballard whose camera skills expose how inept, inefficient, and unimaginative much of Hollywood’s self-praised work is, or about the elegance and grandeur of Jordan Belson’s short abstract films, like Allures, that demonstrate that one man working in a basement can make Hollywood’s vaunted special effects departments look archaic. Craftsmanship and skill don’t, in themselves, have much appeal to youth. Rough work looks in rebellion and sometimes it is: there’s anger and frustration and passion, too, in those scratches and stains and multiple super-impositions that make our eyes swim. The movie brutalists, it’s all too apparent, are hurting our eyes to save our souls.

They are basically right, of course, in what they’re against. Aesthetically and morally, disgust with Hollywood’s fabled craftsmanship is long overdue. I say fabled because the “craft” claims of Hollywood, and the notion that the expensiveness of studio-produced movies is necessary for some sort of technical perfection or “finish,” are just hucksterism. The reverse is closer to the truth: it’s becoming almost impossible to produce a decent looking movie in a Hollywood studio. In addition to the corpses of old dramatic ideas (touched up here and there to look cute as if they were alive), big movies carry the dead weight of immobile cameras, all-purpose light, whorehouse decor. The production values are often ludicrously inappropriate to the subject matter, but studio executives, who charge off roughly 30 percent of a film’s budget to studio overhead, are very keen on these production values which they frequently remind us are the hallmark of American movies.

In many foreign countries, it is this very luxuriousness that is most envied and admired in American movies: the big cars, the fancy food, the opulent bachelor lairs, the gadget-packed family homes, even the loaded freeways and the noisy big cities. What is not so generally understood is the studio executives’ implicit assumption that this is also what American audiences like. The story may not involve more than a few spies and counterspies, but the wide screen will be filled. The set decorator will pack the sides of the image with fruit and flowers and furniture.

When Hollywood cameramen and editors want to show their expertise they imitate the effects of Japanese or European craftsmen and then the result is pointed to with cries of “See, we can do anything in Hollywood.” The principal demonstration of art and ingenuity among these “craftsmen” is likely to be in getting their sons and nephews into the unions and in resisting any attempt to make Hollywood movie-making flexible enough for artists to work there. If there are no cinematographers in modern Hollywood who can be discussed in the same terms as Henri Decae or Raoul Coutard or the late Gianni di Venanzo it’s because the studio methods and the union restrictions and regulations don’t make it possible for talent to function. The talent is strangled in the business bureaucracy, and the best of our cinematographers perform safe, sane academic exercises. If the most that a gifted colorist like Lucien Ballard can hope for is to beautify a John Michael Hayes screenplay—giving an old tart a fresh complexion—why not scratch up the image?

The younger generation doesn’t seem much interested in the obstacles to art in Hollywood, however. They don’t much care about why the older directors do what they do or whether some of the most talented young directors in Hollywood like Sam Peckinpah (Ride the High Country, Major Dundee) or Irvin Kershner (The Hoodlum Priest, The Luck of Ginger Coffey, A Fine Madness) will break through and do the work they should be doing. There is little interest in the work of gifted, intelligent men outside the industry like James Blue (The Olive Trees of Justice) or John Korty (The Crazy Quilt) who are attempting to make inexpensive feature-films as honestly and independently as they can. These men (and their films) are not flamboyant; they don’t issue manifestos, and they don’t catch the imagination of youth. Probably, like the students in film courses who often do fresh and lively work, they’re not surprising enough, not different enough. The new film enthusiasts are, when it comes down to it, not any more interested in simple, small, inexpensive pictures than Hollywood is. The workmen’s clothes and crude movie techniques may cry out, “We’re poor and honest. They’re rich and rotten.” But, of course, you can be poor and not so very honest and, although it’s harder to believe, you can even be rich and not so very rotten. What the young seem to be interested in is brutalism. In certain groups, automatic writing with a camera has come to be considered the most creative kind of film-making.

Their hero, Jean-Luc Godard—one of the most original talents ever to work in film and one of the most uneven—is not a brutalist at so simple a level, yet he comprises the attitudes of a new generation. Godard is what is meant by a “film-maker.” He works with a small crew and shifts ideas and attitudes from movie to movie and even within movies. While Hollywood producers straddle huge fences trying to figure out where the action is supposed to be—and never find out—Godard is in himself where the action is.

There is a disturbing quality in Godard’s work that perhaps helps to explain why the young are drawn to his films and identify with them, and why so many older people call him a “coterie” artist and don’t think his films are important. His characters don’t seem to have any future. They are most alive (and most appealing) just because they don’t conceive of the day after tomorrow; they have no careers, no plans, only fantasies of roles they could play, of careers, thefts, romance, politics, adventure, pleasure, a life like in the movies. Even his world of the future, Alphaville, is, photographically, a documentary of Paris in the present. (All of his films are in that sense documentaries—as were also, and also by necessity, the grade B American gangster films that influenced him.) And even before Alphaville, the people in The Married Woman were already science fiction—so blank and affectless no mad scientist was required to destroy their souls.

His characters are young; unrelated to families and background. Whether deliberately or unconsciously he makes his characters orphans who, like the students in the theatres, feel only attachments to friends, to lovers—attachments that will end with a chance word or the close of the semester. They’re orphans, by extension, in a larger sense, too, unconnected with the world, feeling out of relationship to it. They’re a generation of familiar strangers. An elderly gentleman recently wrote me, “Oh, they’re such a bore, bore, bore, modern youth!! All attitudes and nothing behind the attitudes. When I was in my twenties, I didn’t just loaf around, being a rebel, I went places and did things. The reason they all hate the squares is because the squares remind them of the one thing they are trying to forget: there is a Future and you must build for it.”

He’s wrong, I think. The young are not “trying to forget”: they just don’t think in those terms. Godard’s power and possibly his limitation as an artist is that he so intensely expresses how they do feel and think. His characters don’t plan or worry about careers or responsibilities; they just live. Youth makes them natural aristocrats in their indifference to sustenance, security, hard work; and prosperity has turned a whole generation—or at least the middle-class part of it—into aristocrats. And it’s astonishing how many places they do go to and how many things they can do. The difference is in how easily they do it all. Even their notion of creativity—as what comes naturally—is surprisingly similar to the aristocratic artist’s condescension toward those middle-class plodders who have to labor for a living, for an education, for “culture.”

Here, too, Godard is the symbol, exemplar, and proof. He makes it all seem so effortless, so personal—just one movie after another. Because he is skillful enough (and so incredibly disciplined) that he can make his pictures for under $100,000, and because there is enough of a youthful audience in France to support these pictures, he can do almost anything he wants within those budgetary limits. In this achievement of independence, he is almost alone among movie directors: it is a truly heroic achievement. For a younger generation he is the proof that it is possible to make and go on making films your own way. And yet they don’t seem aware of how rare he is or how hard it is to get in that position. Even if colleges and foundations make it easier than it has ever been, they will need not only talent but toughness to be independent.

As Godard has been able to solve the problems of economic freedom, his work now poses the problems of artistic freedom—problems that few artists in the history of movies have been fortunate enough to face. The history of great film directors is a history of economic and political obstacles—of compromises, defeats, despair, even disgrace. Griffith, Eisenstein, Von Stroheim, Von Sternberg, Cocteau, Renoir, Max Ophuls, Orson Welles—they were defeated because they weren’t in a position to do what they wanted to do. If Godard fails, it will be because what he wants to do—which is what he does—isn’t good enough.

Maybe he is attempting to escape from freedom when he makes a beautiful work and then, to all appearances, just throws it away. There is a self-destructive urgency in his treatment of themes, a drive toward a quick finish. Even if it’s suicidal for the hero or the work, Godard is impatient for the ending: the mood of his films is that there’s no way for things to work out anyway, something must be done even if it’s disastrous, no action is intolerable.

It seems likely that many of the young who don’t wait for others to call them artists but simply announce that they are, don’t have the patience to make art. A student’s idea of a film-maker isn’t someone who has to sit home and study and think and work—as in most of the arts—but go out with friends and shoot. It is a social activity, an extroverted and egotistic image of the genius-creator. It is the Fellini-Guido figure of 81/2, the movie-director as star. Few seem to have noticed that by the time of Juliet of the Spirits he had turned into a professional party-giver. Film-making, carried out the way a lot of kids do it, is like having a party. And their movie “ideas” are frequently staging and shooting a wild, weird party.

“Creativity” is a quick route to power and celebrity. The pop singer or composer, the mod designer says of his work, “It’s a creative way to make a living”—meaning it didn’t take a dull lot of study and planning, that he was able to use his own inventiveness or ingenuity or talent to get to the top without much sweat. I heard a young film-maker put it this way to a teen-age art student: “What do you go to lifeclass for? Either you can draw or you can’t. What you should do is have a show. It’s important to get exposure.” One can imagine their faces if they had to listen to those teachers who used to tell us that you had to be able to do things the traditional ways before you earned the right to break loose and do it your way. They simply take short cuts into other art forms or into pop arts where they can “express themselves” now. Like cool Peter Pans, they just take off and fly.

Godard’s conception of technique can be taken as a highly intellectualized rationale for these attitudes. “The ideal for me,” he says, “is to obtain right away what will work—and without retakes. If they are necessary, it falls short of the mark. The immediate is chance. At the same time it is definitive. What I want is the definitive by chance.” Sometimes, almost magically, he seems to get it—as in many scenes of Breathless and Band of Outsiders—but often, as in The Married Woman, he seems to settle for arbitrary effects.

And a caricature of this way of talking is common among young American film-makers. Some of them believe that everything they catch on film is definitive, so they do not edit at all. As proof that they do not mar their instinct with pedantry or judgment, they may retain the blank leader to the roll of film. As proof of their creative sincerity they may leave in the blurred shots.

Preposterous as much of this seems, it is theoretically not so far from Godard’s way of working. Although his technical control is superb, so complete that one cannot tell improvisation from planning, the ideas and bits of business are often so arbitrary that they appear to be (and probably are) just things that he chanced to think of that day, or that he came across in a book he happened to be reading. At times there is a disarming, an almost ecstatic, innocence about the way he uses quotes as if he had just heard of these beautiful ideas and wanted to share his enthusiasm with the world. After smiling with pleasure as we do when a child discovers the beauty of a leaf or a poem, enabling us to reexperience the wonder of responsiveness, we may sink in spirit right down to incredulity. For this is the rapture with “thoughts” of those whose minds aren’t much sullied by thought. These are “thoughts” without thought: they don’t come out of a line of thought or a process of thinking, they don’t arise from the situation. They’re “inspirations”—bright illuminations from nowhere—and this is what kids who think of themselves as poetic or artistic or creative think ideas are: noble sentiments. They decorate a movie and it is easy for viewers to feel that they give it depth, that if followed, these clues lead to understanding of the work. But if those who follow the clues come out with odd and disjunctive interpretations, this is because the “clues” are not integral to the movie but are clues to what else the artist was involved in while he was making the movie.

Putting into the work whatever just occurred to the artist is its own rationale and needs no justification for young Americans encouraged from childhood to express themselves creatively and to speak out whatever came into their heads. Good, liberal parents didn’t want to push their kids in academic subjects but oohed and aahed with false delight when their children presented them with a baked ashtray or a woven doily. Did anyone guess or foresee what narcissistic confidence this generation would develop in its banal “creativity”? Now we’re surrounded, inundated, by artists. And a staggering number of them wish to be or already call themselves “film-makers.”

A few years ago a young man informed me that he was going to “give up” poetry and avant-garde film (which couldn’t have been much of a sacrifice as he hadn’t done anything more than talk about them) and devote himself to writing “art-songs.” I remember asking, “Do you read music?” and not being especially surprised to hear that he didn’t. I knew from other young men that the term “art” used as an adjective meant that they were by-passing even the most rudimentary knowledge in the field. Those who said they were going to make art movies not only didn’t consider it worth their while to go to see ordinary commercial movies, but usually didn’t even know anything much about avant-garde film. I did not pursue the subject of “art-songs” with this young man because it was perfectly clear that he wasn’t going to do anything. But some of the young who say they’re going to make “art movies” are actually beginning to make movies. Kids who can’t write, who have never developed any competence in photography, who have never acted in nor directed a play, see no deterrent to making movies. And although most of the results are bad beyond our wildest fears, as if to destroy all our powers of prediction, a few, even of the most ignorant, pretentious young men and women, are doing some interesting things.

Yet why are the Hollywood movies, even the worst overstuffed ones, often easier to sit through than the short experimental ones? Because they have actors and a story. Through what is almost a technological fluke, 16 mm movie cameras give the experimental film-maker greater flexibility than the “professional” 35 mm camera user, but he cannot get adequate synchronous sound. And so the experimentalists, as if to convert this liability into an advantage, have asserted that their partial use of the capabilities of the medium is the true art of the cinema, which is said to be purely visual. But their visual explorations of their states of consciousness (with the usual implicit social protest) get boring, the mind begins to wander, and though this lapse in attention can be explained to us as a new kind of experience, as even the purpose of cinema, our desire to see a movie hasn’t been satisfied. (There are, of course, some young film-makers who are not interested in movies as we ordinarily think of them, but in film as an art-medium like painting or music, and this kind of work must be looked at a different way—without the expectation of story content or meaning.) They probably won’t be able to make satisfying movies until the problems of sound are solved not only technically but in terms of drama, structure, meaning, relevance.

It is not an answer to toss on a spoofing semi-synchronous sound track as a number of young film-makers do. It can be funny in a cheap sort of way—as in Robert Downey’s Chafed Elbows where the images and sound are, at least, in the same style; but this isn’t fundamentally different from the way George Axelrod works in Lord Love a Duck or Blake Edwards in What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?, and there’s no special reason to congratulate people for doing underground what is driving us down there. Total satire is opportunistic and easy; what’s difficult is to make a movie about something—without making a fool of yourself. Kenneth Anger did it with Scorpio Rising. Yet few others have taken that wonderful basic precaution of having a subject or of attempting to explore the world.

Is Hollywood interested in the young movement? If it attracts customers, Hollywood will eat it up, the way The Wild Angels has already fed upon Scorpio Rising. At a party combining the commercial and non-commercial worlds of film, a Hollywood screen writer watched as an underground filmmaker and his wife entered. The wife was wearing one of those classic filmmakers’ wives’ outfits: a simple sack of burlap in natural brown, with scarecrow sleeves. The screen writer greeted her enthusiastically, “I really dig your dress, honey’ he said, “I used to have a dress like that once.”

This article originally ran in the September 24, 1966, issue of the magazine.

 

The USA Film Festival announces the full schedule of events for the 41st Annual USA Film Festival, April 27 - May 1, 2011.  All programs will be held at the Angelika Film Center Dallas, 5321 E. Mockingbird Lane, Dallas, Texas.  Advance tickets are available exclusively through Ticketmaster beginning Friday, April 15, 2011.

The program includes special TRIBUTES to the following performing artists:

Barry Corbin
William Fichtner
Malcolm McDowell
[Editors Note: For additional information on the Tribute programs, please see the attached PDF of the program schedule.]

The Festival also salutes film, television and theater actors David Hyde Pierce, Peter Riegert and Karen Young with new films The Perfect Host (David Hyde Pierce), White Irish Drinkers (Peter Riegert) and The Green (Karen Young).

"People always ask if there is a "theme" to this year's festival and we always say no, because our selections for the spring program are never theme-based.  We screen new and classic films, shorts and features, and create programs (tributes, compilations, etc.) based on what we think will be interesting and provocative for that particular year." said Ann Alexander, Managing Director for the year-round USA Film Festival.

"Still, every year, certain common threads tend to emerge.  This year, we take more than a few "road trips," an ever-popular film theme, and there is a definite "elegance" to the films featured.  Not elegance as meant in the fashion sense - although Cary Grant is certainly a style icon for the ages - but rather the elegance that comes from keen intelligence and self assurance.  Filmmakers, like Alfred Hitchcock who's supremely elegant To Catch a Thief opens the festival on its 55th anniversary, with a clear voice and steady hand who take the time to tell their story, each with their own unique sense of confidence and style.  Each of this year's writers, directors and performing artists share that aplomb, that elegance."

"From the enigmatic and memorable debut features by women writer/directors Massy Tadjedin (Last Night), Kathy Lindboe (NoNames), Caroline Bottaro (Queen to Play); debut films from writer/directors Nick Tomnay (The Perfect Host) and Sam Jaeger (Take Me Home), as well as director Steven Williford and writer Nick Marcarelli (The Green); to veteran filmmakers Tamar Hoffs' take-no-prisoners Pound of Flesh, Michael Winterbottom's glorious The Trip, Justin Chadwick's inspiring The First Grader, Harry Thomason's contemplative The Last Ride, and John Gray's stunning White Irish Drinkers, these are masterful filmmakers who don't need special effects or tricks to bewitch audiences into coming along with them.  Great writing, shooting and performances are more than enough to hold us elegantly in their thrall."

LIST OF PROGRAMS (chronologically)

REMEMBERING CARY GRANT

AN EVENING WITH JENNIFER GRANT

 

On-stage conversation with Jennifer Grant, book-signing and 55th Anniversary screening of TO CATCH A THIEF (1956)

Wednesday, April 27 7:00pm

The sweeping vistas of the Riviera pale next to the sight of Cary Grant and Grace Kelly falling in love in this sprightly heist movie.  Grant stars as reformed cat-burglar John Robie, who comes out of retirement when a new jewel thief goes to work using his signature style of thievery. Kelly plays Frances, a proper debutante who discovers that larceny is an aphrodisiac - a theme Hitchcock would pursue more explicitly in Marnie - and tests Robie's resolve by throwing herself, and her priceless jewels, at him. With glorious costume design by Edith Head, a hilarious supporting turn by Jessie Royce Landis as Kelly's mother (she would play Grant's mother in Hitchcock's North by Northwest four years later) and unforgettable fireworks (both literal and figurative), To Catch a Thief remains one of the most charming and exciting films from the Master of Suspense. 106 mins.  The program will be hosted by historian and author Foster Hirsch.

Good Stuff: A Reminiscence of My Father, Cary Grant

Good Stuff is an enchanting portrait of the profound and loving relationship between a daughter and her father, who just happens to be one of America's most iconic male movie stars.  Jennifer Grant was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. She graduated from Stanford University with a degree in history. Her first acting role was in Aaron Spelling's Beverly Hills, 90210, and she later appeared in Friends, Super Dave, and CSI, as well as several feature films. She lives with her son, Cary Benjamin, in Beverly Hills.

              Complimentary copies of Jennifer Grant's book, Good Stuff, will be distributed (limited supply).

THE PERFECT HOST

Wednesday, April 27 7:30pm

Warwick Wilson (David Hyde Pierce) is the consummate host.  He carefully prepares for a dinner party, the table impeccably set and the duck perfectly timed for 8:30pm.  John Taylor (Clayne Crawford) is a career criminal. He's just robbed a bank and needs to get off the streets.  He finds himself on Warwick's doorstep posing as a friend of a friend, new to Los Angeles, who's been mugged and lost his luggage.  As the wine flows and the evening progresses, we discover just how deceiving appearances can be.  Co-writer/director Nick Tomnay's dark-hearted comedy/drama is full of outrageous moments and suspenseful twists.  Audiences may never look at David Hyde Pierce the same way again after seeing this slippery psychological thriller that reveals just how far we're willing to go to satisfy our needs.  Also featuring Nathaniel Parker, Helen Reddy, Megahn Perry, Joseph Will and Tyrees Allen. 93 mins.  David Hyde Pierce and writer/director Nick Tomnay in attendance.

DAVID HYDE PIERCE

Emmy and Tony Award winner David Hyde Pierce made his professional and Broadway debut in 1982 as the waiter in Christopher Durang's "Beyond Therapy."  He went on to create roles in the off-Broadway productions of Mark O'Donnell's "That's it Folks!," Richard Greenberg's "The Author's Voice" and "The Maderati," Harry Kondoleon's "Zero Positive" and Jules Feiffer's "Elliot Loves" before returning to Broadway in Wendy Wasserstein's "The Heidi Chronicles."  In 2005 he originated the role of Sir Robin in the Broadway production of "Monty Python's Spamalot" for which he was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Musical.  In 2007 he won the Tony Award and earned another Drama Desk Award nomination for his role as Lieutenant Frank Cioffi in the musical comedy "Curtains," before going on to appear in the Manhattan Theatre Club revival of the 1930's comedy "Accent on Youth," and most recently, in the acclaimed London and Broadway production of David Hirson's "La Bete. "  In addition to his work in new plays, Mr. Pierce has also appeared in numerous repertory theater across the country.  Mr. Pierce's film credits include Bright Lights, Big City, Crossing Delancey, Little Man Tate, Sleepless in Seattle, Wolf, Nixon, Isn't She Great, Wet, Hot, American Summer, Full Frontal, Down With Love, A Bug's Life, Osmosis Jones, Treasure Planet and The Perfect Host. His television credits include Norman Lear's political satire "The Powers That Be" and "Frasier," for which he earned four Emmy Awards and the American Comedy, Television Critics, Viewers for Quality Television and Screen Actors Guild Awards.

THE LAST RIDE

Thursday, April 28 7:00pm

Based on the tragic final days of legendary country crooner Hank Williams, The Last Ride stars Henry Thomas (E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Legends of the Fall) as country music star Luke Wells and Jesse James as Silas, the young man hired to drive him from Alabama to a New Year's Eve concert in Canton, Ohio, circa 1952. But there's a catch to young Silas' seemingly simple job: he has to not only get Wells there on time, but sober enough to perform -- a task easier said than done.  Wells not only has a penchant for drinking, fighting, and general hard living, he's as haunted as he is talented, fighting against a chronic disease and determination to self-destruct. Two men from disparate backgrounds form an unlikely bond over the course of a fateful journey. Also featuring Kaley Cuoco, Fred Dalton Thompson, Stephen Tobolowsky and Ray McKinnon. 103 mins.

Director Harry Thomason, producer/composer Benjy Gaither in attendance.

Award-winning British film director Michael Winterbottom (Welcome to Sarajevo, 24 Hour Party People) turns his talents towards foodies and improvised comedy with this sublimely hilarious tale that sees veteran comedic actors Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon playing "loose versions" of themselves as they embark on a week long road trip across the North of England, visiting top restaurants for a series of reviews, exploring the countryside, and getting on each others nerves. The latter is manifest via witty impersonation face-offs (Brydon is a master impressionist) including a Michael Caine riff that is laugh-out-loud hilarious and a Sean Connery/James Bond "martini" parley that is sheer genius.  In between their misadventures, Steve struggles with his faltering relationship with his girlfriend and his stagnating Hollywood career, while Rob, miserable git that he is, enjoys being a happily married father. A cheeky combination of fact and (mostly) fiction with stunning views of England's Lake District, Lancashire, and the Yorkshire Dales, The Trip is destined to be devoured by smart audiences everywhere. 111 mins.

TAKE ME HOME

Thursday, April 28 7:15pm

Struggling would-be photographer Thom (Parenthood and Eli Stone's Sam Jaeger) is at the end of his rope: he's been turned down for a job for the umpteenth time, evicted from his apartment, and reduced to living in the illegal taxi cab that he uses to make ends meet during times like this.  High-strung executive Claire (Amber Jaeger) is also having a bad day after catching her husband making a pass at his new secretary and learning that her estranged father has suffered a massive heart attack. Partially out of necessity and largely out of desperation, she offers Thom several thousand dollars to drive her from New York to California, embarking on a journey that forces them both to do some serious self-evaluation and make some life-altering decisions. Funny, endearing, and uncompromising, writer-director Sam Jaeger's dramedy is a road trip worth the trip. Also featuring Victor Garber, Lin Shaye, Christine Rose and  Bree Turner. 97 mins.  Sam Jaeger and producer Jane Kosek in attendance.

LAST NIGHT

Friday, April 29 7:00pm

Writer/director Massy Tadjedin's sexy and evocative debut feature is set in New York City -- the story of a married couple that, while apart for one night, are each confronted by temptation that may decide the fate of their marriage. Joanna (Keira Knightley) and Michael Reed (Sam Worthington) are seven years into a successful and happy relationship.  They are moving along in their lives together until Joanna meets Laura (Eva Mendes) at a party, the stunningly beautiful work colleague whom Michael never mentioned.  While Michael is away with Laura on a business trip, Joanna runs into an old but never quite forgotten love, Alex (Guillaume Canet) and agrees to have drinks with him.  As the night progresses and temptation increases for the couple, each must confront who they are inside and outside of their relationship.  Last Night is ultimately a film about choices - the choice you make to be with someone, to give yourself physically and emotionally, and how to survive all three. 93 mins.  Filmmakers in attendance (pending).

NONAMES Tribute to BARRY CORBIN

The feature film will be preceded by a film clip compilation Tribute honoring Barry Corbin

Friday, April 29 7:00pm

Writer/director Kathy Lindboe's haunting feature debut drama is based on a true story about a young man, Kevin (James Badge Dale, Rubicon) and his relationships -- with the town he loves, his fractured family, his girlfriend (Gillian Jacobs, Community), his life-long friends -- and trying to find his place in a dying town with two bars, a cemetery and a mill that is closing.  This sharply observed film captures the free-wheeling 70s, fueled by drugs and alcohol, and the aimlessness and desperation brought about by hopelessness.  Dogged by unsettled scores, it becomes clear that Kevin must leave the town he loves if he is to save himself. Barry Corbin is Ed, Kevin's boss and long-time family friend who tries to counsel him out of a potentially volatile situation. 103 mins.  Kathy Lindboe, Barry Corbin and other cast/crew in attendance.

POUND OF FLESH Tribute to MALCOLM MCDOWELL

The feature film will be preceded by a film clip compilation Tribute honoring Malcolm McDowell

Friday, April 29 7:00pm

Barden College's most revered professor, Noah Melville (Malcolm McDowell) teaches the idyllic school's most popular Shakespeare class. His family, his students, and (most of) his colleagues adore him, yet few of them are aware of his extracurricular enterprise: Between lectures, the professor facilitates an escort service staffed by some of the gorgeous coeds, who finance their tuition through this unorthodox "scholarship" program.  When the corpse of a young woman is discovered near campus, Melville's complicated world begins to crumble as driven police sergeant Rebecca Ferraro (Elizabeth Rodriguez) and troubled detective Patrick Kelly (Angus Macfadyen) begin closing in.  Writer/director Tamar Hoffs' provocative, satirical, twist-driven thriller isn't afraid to push to, and sail over, the edge - tongue in cheek all the way. Also featuring great performances by Timothy Bottoms, Dee Wallace and a cast of young stars including Whitney Able (Monsters). 94 mins. Tamar Hoffs and Malcolm McDowell in attendance.

RADIO FREE ALBEMUTH

Friday, April 29 9:30pm

A witty adaptation of the novel by cult-favorite science fiction author Philip K. Dick (whose works have been the basis for the movies Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, The Adjustment Bureau, and many others) by writer-director John Alan Simon. Set in an alternate reality circa the 1980s, it tells the story of Berkeley record store clerk Nick Brady (Jonathan Scarfe), who begins to experience strange visions from an entity he calls VALIS that cause him to uproot his family and move to Los Angeles, where he becomes a successful music company executive. Along with his best friend, science-fiction writer Phil (Shea Whigham), and a mysterious woman named Silvia (Alanis Morissette), Nick finds himself drawn into a dangerous political-mystical conspiracy of cosmic proportions as they attempt to overthrow the fascist president (Scott Wilson) of a dystopian United States. Combining generous amounts of paranoia, social commentary, and genre-bending speculative fiction, Radio Free Albemuth is a film-lovers delight and a PKD fan's dream come true. 119 mins.  Writer/director John Alan Simon and actress/producer Elizabeth Karr  in attendance.

THE LOCKER

Texas Filmmakers Showcase

Friday, April 29 9:45pm

At first glance, Emily (Natalie Dickinson) is a typical 20-something, but she's anything but.  For her, the line between reality and imagination has drastically begun to blur.  Constant paranoia and a feeling of being followed have led to her being institutionalized.  Emily insists that she and four other girls were kidnapped and held prisoner by a unknown masked assailant who tormented them for days before she alone managed to escape. Now she finds herself trapped between what is real, and what may be real, as her doctors tell her one thing, and her mind tells her another as she struggles to find the truth.  Written and directed by Robert Paschall, Jr. and shot in Dallas with a great local cast.  92 mins.  Bobby Paschall, cast and crew in attendance.

SHORT FILM COMPILATION CROSSROADS AND CROSS PURPOSES

Friday, April 29 9:15pm

This collection of dark comedic and dramatic short films feature some of life's messiest and most unexpected moments.  Included are TJ Thyne's RUN; Tom Lenk and Tara Karsian make a connection in the indescribably outrageous HELLO CALLER; a neurotic LA woman (Alex Dawson) challenges the sanity of her shrink (Stephen Tobolowsky) in CLARA'S CARMA; animated mayhem ensues in ENRIQUE WRECKS THE WORLD featuring a terrible chain reaction; and Fran Krause's NOSY BEAR takes on hunters and guns; TIME FREAK explores why you shouldn't do it over again even if you could; THE INTERVIEW shows how to get a job in a post-apocalyptic world; love and greed collide in SWEET SWEET BABY; life's unpredictable choices unfold in BEFORE WE GET TO SEATTLE; and a stunning double betrayal in HOW IT ENDED, featuring Debra Winger, Larry Pine and Halley Feiffer.  82 mins.  Filmmakers in attendance.

THE 48 HOUR FILM PROJECT

Texas Filmmakers Showcase

 

Group A - Saturday, April 30 5:00pm

Group B - Saturday, April 30 7:00pm

Group C - Saturday, April 30  9:00pm

Celebrating its 10th anniversary, the 48 Hour Film Project's 2011 World Tour kicks off in Dallas this year with three dozen filmmaking teams competing for prizes and bragging rights. Dallas is one of 80 cities worldwide participating in the Project's expanded tour, with a record 3,200 filmmaking teams worldwide expected to take part in the planet's largest timed filmmaking competition.  The finished films will be screened during the Festival on Saturday, April 30th, and the Awards program will take place on Sunday, May 1st.  The race weekend takes place April 15-17.  Each team will be given a genre, a character, a prop and a line of dialogue to incorporate into their film.  Filmmakers supply the inspiration, adrenaline and caffeine needed to accomplish a completed work (between 4-7 minutes in length) in 48 hours.  The audience selects its favorite and a local panel of film professionals will select the Best Film and other category award winners.  For registration and other information, please visit www.48hourfilm.com/dallas

QUEEN TO PLAY

Saturday, April 30  5:00pm

Oscar-winning actor Kevin Kline and French star Sandrine Bonnaire star in this stylish, sophisticated comedy-drama set on the picturesque Mediterranean isle of Corsica. Bonnaire stars as Helene, an attractive, intelligent and very repressed chambermaid who discovers a latent love for the game of chess after witnessing a leisurely sexy match between a vacationing couple (Jennifer Beals and Dominic Gould).  Obsessed with the game (to the chagrin of her husband and daughter) she begins taking secret tutelage in its finer points from another of her cleaning clients, an expatriate American doctor (Kline) living in isolation, resulting in a series of events that radically transform both their lackluster lives.  Based on the novel "The Chess Player" by Bertina Heinrichs, Queen to Play marks the auspicious debut of French director and screenwriter Caroline Bottaro with one of the year's most utterly charming films.  96 mins.

TOREY'S DISTRACTION

Saturday, April 30  5:00pm

What if your child had a rare genetic defect -- one that if left unchecked, would take their life prematurely? Tisha Blood's intimate film follows the amazing Torey Harrah and two other young girls with craniofacial anomalies over the course of 10 years through dozens of surgeries, introducing us to their families and the medical professionals who become part of their extended family.  Recent medical advances are saving the lives of children born with Apert Syndrome, and Dr. Jeffrey Fearon and his team at Medical City Dallas are at the forefront of those advances.  The Festival is proud to salute Jeff Fearon and his team for their commitment to craniofacial research and treatment on behalf of children everywhere.  94 mins.  Tisha Blood, Torey Harrah and other guests in attendance.

DRIVE ANGRY Tribute to WILLIAM FICHTNER

The feature film will be preceded by a film clip compilation Tribute honoring William Fichtner

Saturday, April 30  7:00pm

If you missed this outrageously over the top movie in theaters, now's your second chance to experience its gleefully self-obsessed wonders with one of the screen's greatest hoodlums -- William Fichtner.  Drive Angry stars Nicolas Cage as John Milton, a dead man who escapes from Hell (in a Buick Riviera, no less) to seek vengeance on the self-styled Satanic messiah (Billy Burke), who brutally murdered his daughter, before he can sacrifice Milton's infant granddaughter during the next full moon.  Along the way, Milton acquires a plucky sidekick (Amber Heard) and are in turn pursued by a mysterious infernal bounty hunter known as The Accountant (USAFF honoree William Fichtner).  Shoot-outs, fist-fights, car chases, explosions, nudity, one-liners, and special effects ensue. A throwback to the good ol' days of grindhouse cinema, Drive Angry offers a tongue-in-cheek good time, with no holds barred and no apologies offered.  104 mins.  William Fichtner in attendance. The tribute program will be introduced by producer Garry Brown.

THE GREEN

Saturday, April 30  7:30pm

Having left behind the concrete and steel jungle of New York City for the idyllic shores of Connecticut, high school drama teacher Michael Gavin (Jason Butler Harner) enjoys a quieter domestic existence with his partner, Daniel (Cheyenne Jackson), living by a simple, unspoken code: don't speak up, don't make trouble. His hard-earned peace is turned upside down when he is accused of engaging in inappropriate behavior with one of his high school students. The boy runs away from home, leaving his recovering addict mother (the fantastic Karen Young) and her mercenary boyfriend (Bill Sage in another great performance) to capitalize on the alleged affair. In the wake of it all, Michael fights a lonely battle against the suspicions, mistrust, and latent homophobia of his friends and neighbors, as well as an ugly secret from his past.  The top notch cast also features Julia Ormond and Illeana Douglas.  91 mins.  Director Steven Williford, writer Paul Marcarelli ("The Verizon Guy"), Karen Young and other cast in attendance.

WARRIORS OF THE DISCOTHEQUE: THE STARCK CLUB DOCUMENTARY

Texas Filmmakers Showcase Saturday, April 30  9:30pm

Filmmaker Joe Alexandre's short film about the notorious Starck Club screened at the USAFF two years ago on the occasion of the landmark's club's 25th anniversary.  The screening was wildly popular and Joe collected even more interviews and footage, so that now the project is a feature film filled with all the material that could not be included in the short work.  Aside from being ground zero for the popularization of the designer drug MDMA (legal at the time), the Starck Club was so much more.  Philippe Starck is now a world renowned designer, but prior to the Dallas club, he was an up and coming Parisian designer who was virtually unknown outside of France.  After the club, he went on to design the Hotel Royalton in New York as well as the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills.   Warriors of the Discotheque explores the legacy and influence the Starck Club has had on everything from design, music, and fashion to acceptance and tolerance of different sexual orientations. Incorporating interviews with those that were there including former employees, managers, performers, and key influential patrons, the party that was 1984 in Dallas lives on. 89 mins. Writer/director Joseph Alexandre in attendance.

HURRY UP AND WAIT

Saturday, April 30  9:45pm

In 2009, filmmaker Justin Malone and producer Lior Spirer followed the Atlanta-based band Gringo Star (Nick and Peter Furgiuele, Peter DeLorenzo and Matt McCalvin) on a six week journey through fourteen countries as they embarked on a tour of Europe. Playing at large and lavish venues each night, the shows attracted hundreds of eager new fans, and the positive vibe is everywhere.  Energized by this newfound exposure, sleeping on park benches and showering with cologne each day is part of the deal, and the headliners boast of Gringo Star's determination and talent.  Success is just around the corner, but the stand-offish music scene they encounter in the UK leaves them with smaller audiences and fading hopes.  Playing tiny clubs with no promotion that draw miniscule crowds proves to be the true test of drive for success.  A raw behind-thescenes look at what it takes to make a name for one's self in the dog-eat-dog world of rock and roll, Hurry Up and Wait is a must see for Gringo fans and music lovers in general. 78 mins. Director/Editor Justin Malone, producer Lior Spirer and Gringo Star (Nick and Peter Furgiuele, Peter DeLorenzo and Matt McCalvin) in attendance.

THE FIRST GRADER

Sunday, May 1  7:15pm

Set in a mountain village in Kenya, Director Justin Chadwick and screenwriter Ann Peacock present the remarkable and uplifting true story of an Maruge (Oliver Litondo), an 84-year-old farmer and veteran of the Mau Mau uprising of the 1950s who decided to go to school when the country introduced universal education. A man who has suffered a lifetime of loss and degradation, Maruge is determined to seize his last chance to learn to read and write by enrolling in a class populated by six-year-olds.  The school's authorities are reluctant to admit Maruge, partly due to limited resources, but also partly due to tribal rivalries that continue to haunt the young nation.  Moved by Maruge's unyielding determination to learn, young teacher Jane Obinchu (Naomie Harris) becomes his ally in a fight to overcome threats, bureaucratic red tape and the burdens of the colonial past.  A stirring tale of dignity, survival, and reconciliation, Chadwick's film is certain to stir the hearts of viewers. 103 mins.  Justin Chadwick and producer Richard Harding in attendance.

WHITE IRISH DRINKERS

Sunday, May 1  7:00pm

It's early autumn of 1975 in Brooklyn and 18-year-old Brian Leary (Nick Thurston) is killing time in his mostly Irish neighborhood, pulling off petty crimes with his street tough older brother Danny (Geoff Wigdor), whom he both idolizes and fears.  He doesn't really want to be a criminal, but he doesn't share the dreams of his friends from their working class neighborhood either. They all yearn for socially acceptable 9-to-5 civil service jobs with benefit packages that will carry them through weekends of boozing it up until retirement rolls around. A talented self-taught artist, Brian escapes his frustrations and the never-ending shouting matches between his hot-tempered father (Stephen Lang) and world-weary mother (Karen Allen) by putting on headphones and painting in the basement.  Even though Brian's best bet is an offer to attend a prestigious art school and escape a dead-end future, he doesn't want to betray his blue-collar roots by accepting a scholarship to college. Peter Riegert is Brian's boss at the local movie theater,  trying to make ends meet with one big Rolling Stones concert. A stirring coming-of age drama with great resonance, White Irish Drinkers boasts terrific writing and a remarkable cast of established veterans and up-and coming young actors.  109 mins. Writer/director John Gray and Peter Riegert in attendance.

PETER RIEGERT

Peter Riegert has been acting, writing, directing and producing for the past 40 years.  His movies include National Lampoon's Animal House, Local Hero, Crossing Delancey, Chilly Scenes of Winter, Coldblooded, Utz, Oscar, Passed Away, The Mask, Traffic, and the short film The Response, which received the ABA Silver Gavel and was short listed for an Academy nomination for live-action short. Television credits include "The Sopranos," "Gypsy," "Barbarians at the Gate," "Concealed Enemies," "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" and "Damages." On Broadway he was in "The Old Neighborhood," "An American Daughter," "The  Nerd" and "Dance With Me." His Off-Broadway credits include "Sexual Perversity in  Chicago," "The Birthday Party," "Mountain Language," "Isn't It Romantic" and "A Rosen  By Any Other Name."  His directorial film debut was the Academy Award-nominated short By Courier, which was followed by his first feature, King of the Corner, starring Isabella Rossellini, Eli Wallach, Rita Moreno, Beverly D'Angelo, Eric Bogosian and Dominic Chianese.  He is currently preparing to shoot his next feature, based on the novel "A Field of Darkness" by Cornelia Read.

SHORT FILM AWARDS PROGRAM

Sunday, May 1  7:30pm

Join our National Jurors for announcements and screening presentations of this year's (33rd Annual National Short film & Video Competition) winning films as well as the winners announcements for the 48 Hour Film Project. Awards are given to the best in Animation, Fiction, Non-Fiction and Experimental categories as well as awards for Texas ties, student achievement, and more.  Meet the First Prize Winners (who are notified the day prior and flown to Dallas for the show) as he or she presents the winning entries and receives the cash awards. USAFF prize winners who were recognized early in their careers include Alexander Payne, Todd Haynes, Jessica Yu, Wes Anderson, Bill Plympton, Michael Almereyda, John Lasseter, and many more. The USAFF is an Academy-qualified program and many films recognized here have gone on to be nominated for the Academy Award.  Recent Competition-winning films that were qualified for Academy consideration include 2007s Academy Award winner West Bank Story and 2010s nominated Kavi.

There is something joyous about the way they dress and they won't care a hoot what Janet Street-Porter thinks

✤You may have noticed that it was Ladies' Day at Aintree on Friday, and, as usual, the papers have been busy appraising the outfits – from fascinators and fake tans, to floor-length leopard-print. Hovering over it all, however, has been the implication that northern women have no style. Yesterday, Janet Street-Porter contributed her thoughts in a column for the Daily Mail. "Do (generally southern-based) fashion editors realise the mayhem they unleash up north when they issue edicts like 'the 70s are back'?" she wondered, before lambasting the hair extensions, fake nails, bare flesh and spare tyres of northern women. "On a serious note, what message do these outfits send out?" she asked, concluding that "[put] crudely, they're up for a good time?" Well, JSP, in essence, yes, that's precisely the message. There is something unrestrained and joyous about the way these women dress, and I'll warrant they really don't give two hoots what any po-faced beige-clad southerner has to say about it.

✤The votes are in, and it appears that, all things considered, America prefers Russell Brand as a rabbit. Figures from the weekend's US cinema box office showed Easter bunny animation Hop, voiced by Brand, beat alternative Brand-vehicle, the poorly reviewed Arthur – a remake of Dudley Moore's 1981 tale of a lovable rich drunk, to second place. As impressive an achievement as first and second box office placings may seem, the conclusion in the American press seems to be that Arthur is a flop, and if Russell Brand wants to be taken seriously as an actor, then he needs to stop playing Russell Brand. There's also been speculation that in 2011 drunks on screen are no longer as endearing as they were in 1981. I'd add that we're not well-disposed towards the rich either just now. Anyway, there is still reason for Brand to be cheerful: 56% of Arthur's audience was female. So that famous pulling power is still working.

Northern? Really dig rabbits? Let us know on the blog.

Granta issue 113 is the first time the magazine has put together a selection in a language other than English. This generation of young novelists writing in Spanish were all born in or after 1975, the year that marked the end of the dictatorship in Spain. Repressive regimes in South American countries would hold out for another decade, but unlike their predecessors, for these writers, censorship, blacklists, exile and persecution are historical facts, not memories. They have other preoccupations, including a texture of daily life that can include transfiguration. We thank Granta for permission to publish the following extracts from the work of two of the twenty-two authors in this refreshing volume - Alberto Olmos and Patricio Pron.

After 112 issues in English, Granta is publishing in Spanish for the first time.

 

 

 

 

 

Eva and Diego

by Alberto Olmos

 

...

It all started over a shop. The thought, I mean; the ideas. I explained my ideas to Diego at breakfast. I spend my days managing ideas at the newspaper and if I’ve an excess of anything, it’s ideas.

Shitty ideas.

I told Diego that life’s capped. That’s what I said, it’s capped, and I put my hands over my cup of coffee in the shape of a small roof. It was Sunday, the paper was on the table and we’d both switched our mobiles on. Diego was wearing a T-shirt that said: A Great Day for Dads.

‘Tell me all about it, Eva,’ Diego said.

In fact, he didn’t say that. Not exactly.

‘Tell me all about it, Evita.’

That’s exactly what he said.

I found the ideas that brought me to this point in our own street. That’s what I told Diego. I suddenly got the sense that our street was just one mutation after another. There was an electrical goods shop in front of the entrance to our block, an old-style electrical goods shop. Toasters, microwave ovens, hairdryers; I bought one of everything there. But one day the business shut, and from then on I kept speculating about the kind of shop that would replace it. The temporarily empty, street-level window allowed me to glimpse an almost amniotic interior. Every day I could see a commercial structure gestating: a table, a counter, a few boxes, variously sized, mysteriously shaped packages. People moved around inside with what might be faces belonging to dentists, plumbers, lawyers, estate agents, florists . . .

Finally, a signboard emerged victorious with the words ‘Shoe Shop’.

So it was to be shoes. But you had to be quick, because the shoe shop went bankrupt after three months.

The process of total destruction and the next entrepreneurial pregnancy was repeatedly rehearsed by the front of the store. An ice-cream shop. I groaned. They can’t set up anything I don’t find tempting.

Six months later, a travel agency.

Four months later, a children’s clothes shop.

‘Don’t you think that’s a sign?’ said Diego.

‘No.’

‘I reckon so.’ The worrying clothes shop for children from 0 to 12 years old lasted one month and twenty-two days, but to me the message it preached seemed eternal.

I didn’t understand what was wrong with that space. Why none of the options worked in those two hundred square metres, as if passers-by and market opportunity couldn’t see eye to eye.

I expect the solution would have been to open another electrical goods shop . . .

I lost interest. And that was because an entire building came to dwarf the failure of a few small traders.

It was a building four blocks from our place that I really wished I could remember. But I can’t, because one day the building suddenly vanished.

I would walk past it on a Sunday when I went to buy the newspaper. The Sunday I noticed it was missing (how cute to say several tons of real estate went ‘missing’), it was raining. I was wearing a coat with a hood and walked the whole way looking down at the ground and dodging puddles. On the way back, however, I looked up, even though it was still raining just as hard. I wasn’t worried about sinking my shoes into the puddles as long as I could avoid seeing my face reflected.

I sank my shoes into a huge puddle and kept them there for ten minutes. I was terrified out of my mind standing opposite an empty plot.

A single thought went round my head the whole time I stood there with my high heels in water: what the hell used to be there? I’d walked down that street at least once a week for the last five years. I’d looked in the shop windows. I’d drunk coffee in several of the bars along the way. I’d made eyes at the gorgeous man who had usually just bought his left-wing paper as I was about to buy my right-wing paper. I knew that a red-headed girl lived in the blue house. I knew that there was a park with swings and two slides. I took care not to stain my skirt when they painted the benches green. I’d noticed several new rubbish bins. I’d noticed that two public telephone boxes had been removed. I’d occasionally got a whiff of a strange burning smell.

But that day, as I gazed into the huge, misshapen void, as ugly as a missing molar, I couldn’t remember how many floors the vanished block had had, the colour of its facade, the shops at street level (if there were any), if people looked over the balconies, if they hung clothes out to dry; if Spaniards or South Americans or ghosts without a homeland lived there; if I’d ever leaned against its walls to adjust my high heels; if Diego had ever mentioned that building in a conversation about someone or something; or at the very least if that building got wet, for Christ’s sake, when it rained.

I asked him, as soon as I was back. Diego, did you see they’ve demolished that building? What used to be there? Can you remember? Diego couldn’t remember. Why is it you can’t? Why is it I can’t?

Life’s got a cap.

And I thought, will this building, the new one, the one they’ll erect far too quickly after the plot’s been covered in rubbish and dog turds and drug addicts’ syringes and all kinds of shit, will it be the one that won’t be demolished one day, that will survive, that, in the end, will no longer watch me walk past to buy the newspaper or sit on a green bench that’s been repainted nine times? Will it be the building that can’t even remember that I looked it straight in the eye hundreds of times and was dumped there, dressed anyhow, with or without handbag, but alive?

I am such a plot.

I really don’t understand what you’re talking about, love. I’m sorry.’ ‘I’ll try to explain myself.’

‘I’m all ears.’

I told Diego about an experiment we’d just reviewed in the newspaper. It involved putting one person in a room by himself. It’s comfortable enough but has no facilities or means with which to communicate with the outside world. There is no window that looks out on life. There’s no television to bring in some kind of life. There’s nothing, apart from time.

The individuals subjected to the experiment hit levels of psychosis that can only be compared to levels inspired by the spectacle of real horror. When asked about the causes of their stress, grief or (in some cases) anxiety attacks, they all drew the same conclusion: nothing had provoked their anxiety attacks, their grief or their stress. Nothing.

Nothingness was how I read it and I told Diego so. Nothingness is real horror.

I did yoga once; I did aerobics. I did German and a course in another language I don’t remember now (not just the words in that language but which language it was). I spent whole evenings watching videos on the Net. Whole evenings searching for pornography. Whole evenings with an old friend, talking about things I can’t for the life of me recall now. I routinely went to exhibitions, until I got fed up. To the theatre, until I got fed up. To modern dance, until I got fed up. I did cordon bleu by correspondence. I did things; I do things.

‘We do things, Diego.’ But when I immerse myself in a new activity there always comes a moment when I wonder: whatever did I do before I started doing this? And I can never remember. And Diego can’t either. Yes.

Do we do things?

The building disappeared, and I couldn’t remember it. Now there was an empty plot, a plot that, very shortly, would be capped by another building in the same way that my aerobics classes on Saturdays were immediately capped by my German classes; I didn’t remember the building in the same way I can’t remember all those hours of aerobics, hours of German or hours of ridiculous languages: only a name that describes their absence.

Because an empty plot, sometimes, demands its own space.

You know what I always do in the cinema, Diego?’

‘You whisper: this film is revolting. That’s what you always do in the cinema, Evita.’

‘Yes, but I also do something else, a kind of prayer.’

‘You pray the film’s going to be a good one?’

‘No, I tell the film, “Get me out of here,” Diego. I tell the film that.’

And if it’s a good film, it does get me out of there. Like a good novel, an evening at the theatre or the 8,500 songs I now have on my iPod.

Like a shop. Particularly a shopping spree.

In fact, is there anything one can do in this world that doesn’t involve spending?

And that’s what I said to Diego: ‘Isn’t there anything one can do in this shitty world that doesn’t involve spending?’

‘Quiet, please. We’re talking.’

‘God’s Gonna Cut You Down’ by Johnny Cash was playing. I remember that because an enormous batch of CDs had just arrived in the editorial room; the release of which the record companies were hoping we would publicize. As usual, the editor-in-chief and I took advantage of our position in the pecking order to ransack that ton of free music before anyone else got near it. I just appropriated a couple of CDs (including the Johnny Cash); Rafael Presa took more than fifty CDs home with him.

Both Rafael Presa and I earned more than anyone else in our section. In fact, I earned more than anyone. We didn’t need to ‘steal’ the CDs and books; or the DVDs and concert tickets that arrived in the Culture section every day. But we did.

The fact that I took less advantage than Rafael Presa of my position wasn’t because I was more honest or generous than he was (generous in the sense that everything we stole or enjoyed could be enjoyed, if they were so lucky, by people – editors, interns – who really couldn’t allow themselves the weekly luxury of buying CDs or going to concerts or plays): it was down to the fact that I like spending money. I like buying things.

Particularly buying expensive things.

Because cheap things like bread, milk, paper and fruit are useful, the pleasure they give comes from the fact that you use them. The best part of bread is in the eating; the best part of a pencil is doodling in the margins of a newspaper. Besides, there is something moving in the constant company these more humble products provide. We could even say our daily bread is very tender, like a husband.

Nonetheless, expensive things are completely useless and never give more pleasure than when you are buying them. They are passions that perish. Like lovers.

‘I’m going to buy an iPod.’

‘What on earth is that?’

An iPod is an MP3 music player created by Apple in 2001 that has revolutionized the way we understand music. I, personally, no longer understand music.

I had a salary that allowed me to buy approximately fifteen iPods a month. My salary was then fifteen iPods a month, fifteen potential iPods a month, fifteen monthly temptations to buy an iPod.

Consequently, I was one of those people who just had to buy an iPod. I simply have to buy whatever they’ve just invented to be bought. I involve spending.

I bought the iPod out of boredom. But out of fear as well. Spending is about the fear of dying. Everything I’ve ever bought is a bet I place that I’ll keep on living. If I were going to commit suicide I wouldn’t buy anything; if I’d set the end of my life for 1 August I wouldn’t buy an iPod on 31 July. We buy because we want to be here for a lot longer, because what we acquire needs us alive. Things make claims on us. The meaning of life is simply that everything we buy is meaningless if we are dead.

Spending implies a future.

The day I bought my iPod, forty-five people died in a terrorist attack. When an important piece of news breaks, part of my section collaborates with the ‘affected’ section (National or International Affairs, usually); additionally, the Culture pages are reduced in number and, as the one in charge, I’m left with almost nothing to do. I’m bored and look out of the window.

The bombs exploded at 8.56 a.m. in a Madrid shopping centre. They were hidden in the changing cubicles on the women’s clothes floor. Thirty-two victims were women; twelve were children. Only one man died. Several dozen more were injured, in a similar ratio in terms of sex and age to those who had died.

Responsibility for the attack pointed to Arab terrorist groups. I saw one photo and refused to look at any more. A dummy clad in human flesh. The bomb had completely wrecked one individual’s body and her skin, bones and organs had splattered all over the front half of a dummy.

‘We’re next.’

Journalism is essentially pessimism. I left the office before lunchtime.

To go spending.

I like buying new technology because it takes me quite a long time to realize it is pointless. I read the instructions, hit the keys, connect a cable here and another there, and feel as if I’m confronting a huge mystery I have to solve. And I enjoy it. Then there is no mystery, only a useless gadget I jettison in any old drawer.

I bought my iPod because the sales assistant was very handsome. The shopping centre was strangely devoid of people (or not so strangely: forty-five dead, after all). I’d decided to use the morning to pay Diego a visit, so I opted for the ground floor rather than the sixth. I take less time to buy a microcomputer or PDA than to buy a pair of shoes and the result is the same.

The sales assistant was very handsome.

I spotted him within five minutes. He was reading a magazine on the counter of his Apple stand. I have thousands and thousands of CDs at home and the last thing I’d have thought of would be to purchase a gadget that would force me to get rid of them all.

I assumed his drive to sell had been deactivated by the lack of customers. The least he could do was offer me a fucking iPod.

I walked past the young man again, much more slowly and nearer this time. He ignored me.

I finally went over to him. ‘Hello,’ I said. The young man took off his headset (I’d not noticed it) and smiled.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

His mouth was very sweet.

‘How can I be of help, madam?’

‘I’d like one of those.’

I pointed to the most expensive iPod on display. Indeed, I pointed at the price tag, not at the gadget itself.

The sales assistant headed over to the display cabinet. I gave him a good look up and down while he unlocked one of the glass doors.

He turned round and stared at me.

‘What colour would you like, madam?’

‘Red.’

To subscribe to Granta and receive a free copy of Granta 113, please click here

 

 

A few words on the life cycle of frogs

Sections X and XI

 

by Patricio Pron

 

 

...

X

While I was living in the apartment my friend had lent me, the living Argentine writer’s footsteps echoed over my head night after night, and I, who couldn’t sleep – not so much because of the noise of the footsteps themselves, which was negligible, but rather because of the conviction that I would be wasting my time doing anything but writing – I started to use these nights to write, running an absurd race against the living Argentine writer, about which he knew absolutely nothing, filling pages and pages with words that would some day be my answer to what the living Argentine writer had written, taking what he had written as a point of departure and then a few words on the life cycle of frogs going somewhere else, which was how he and others had written before and how I should have written, too, and others would after me. Sometimes I fell asleep, but as soon as I heard the footsteps, I went back to writing right where I left off, as if pushed by a command both superior to and preceding myself, who had acquired a sort of literary instruction destined only for me, apparently, a kind of literature class given only for my benefit and that could be summarized in just one word, repeated to the point of nausea: work, work, work. I worked. Little of what I wrote mattered; I myself have forgotten it. I knew that what I was writing wouldn’t be accepted even in the underground magazines – those that represented the saddest, most underground spectrum of the underground itself – where I’d published before, benefiting, I suppose, from the condescension with which certain prodigal souls praised the works of youth and imprudence – but I kept writing, and at some point, I had five or six stories, one of which was relatively good. No one died in it – a total novelty for me, of course – and it seemed no one came out scalded by some violent and terrible situation. Really, the story was like a dream, one of those placid dreams you have when you fall asleep under the sun and from which it is so unpleasant to wake up. The writers from the provinces are usually rescued from their dream of becoming writers, a terrible dream, difficult to abandon, when their parents die in the provinces and leave them an apartment or a small factory or, in the worst case, a widow and a few mouths to feed, and the writer from the provinces must return to his province, where invariably he ends up establishing a literary workshop; there, he preaches the goodness of the capital and convinces his students that there, in the capital, something really happens, and sooner rather than later, the students end up leaving for the capital, and so the whole cycle repeats itself, like the life cycle of frogs. I already knew that my parents wouldn’t die for some time, and however things went, I wasn’t going to abandon the dream of literature, I was going to keep dreaming, and this dream was personal and non-transferable and couldn’t be shared without the risk of being completely misunderstood, but I also knew that I’d accepted this misunderstanding and decided to resist it no longer and was willing to be dragged along by it, as if by a bad wind, wherever it wanted to carry me.

XI

One day, the story that was a little less bad was accepted by an important magazine. Not by one of those magazines that projected themselves just above the underground, but an important magazine, one of those magazines where you supposedly only published if you knew one of the editors and had fucked them. Well, I didn’t know any of the editors, and as such, I hadn’t fucked anyone, but there I was, in that magazine, publishing one of the stories I’d written while listening to the living Argentine writer’s footsteps come and go all night from an imaginary shelf full of books to an imaginary desk, and these footsteps were a commandment and a lesson that only a mastery of technique, developed through incessant practice, made one a good interpreter of himself and others; that is, a writer.

A few days later, when enough time had passed to be some while, and my story had been published in the magazine where you could publish only if you knew one of the editors and had fucked them, and when I’d written other stories and had published two and been selected for an anthology of young writers, one of those anthologies whose table of contents one rereads ten years after its publication and feels fear and sadness, I found myself once more with the living Argentine writer, and I  worked up the courage to interrupt a conversation about the woman who hadn’t come to clean the stairs for two weeks, and I told him that I listened to him every night. I don’t remember how I said it exactly, but I remember the words ‘nights’ and ‘apartment’ and ‘write’ and ‘I know’ and ‘writer’, and I remember his bewildered, worried face, and now I actually do remember that he answered his son had a fever, and he’d spent his nights dozing on the couch and getting up a few times a night to take the boy’s temperature or simply curl up at his side and think that everything would pass quickly. He also told me that during those days he hadn’t been able to write anything, and for the first time in his life, this hadn’t mattered to him at all. I lowered my head and asked him how the boy was now, and he said fine and showed me a truck he’d just bought him. The truck was red and had a hose, and it came with a few firefighters who seemed ready to cross the flames of hell to save a boy from sickness and death. I  stood there, not knowing what to say, and the living Argentine writer even had to give me a light push so that I ’d leave the elevator for my apartment. A few weeks later, I left the country, and a little while later the living Argentine writer did, too. He kept writing, and so did I; and at the source of all of that was an involuntary education and a mystery and a commandment that I ’d learned from him without his knowledge and that I ’d never tell him, no matter how many times I ran into him again. Once, though, I asked him if he’d had a secret teacher, too, someone to imitate at least through a total surrender to literature and its contradictory demands, and the living Argentine writer handed me a copy of a book by a dead Argentine writer and smiled and I, at least this once, I thought things always happened this way, that the writers we love often serve us through their comfort and example without their ever knowing it, and in this sense, they’re as imaginary as the characters or lands they imagine and people.

 

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Rosemary Bechler would like to thank Granta's Saskia Vogel for this 2010 Xmas week treat 

Destroy All Movies is the punk film Bible, and a weekend-long release party at Cinefamily proves LA's still the mohawk Mecca. Raw concert clips, post-apocalyptic gang fantasies and scene survivors will blow the doors off the Not-At-All-Silent Movie Theatre with rare footage from the East Coast, West Coast and both ends of the pond.

The chaos begins Saturday afternoon with "TV Party Tonight", ripped from the small screen's attempts to make sense of a movement. The program features news clippings, public-access performances and after-school special The Day My Kid Went Punk. Of course, the Cinefamily managed to track down the director of this dated gem for a Q&A. Saturday evening boasts rough-and-rowdy 35mm screenings of Times Square and Class of 1984, the latter accompanied by its director and a Mondo Mohawk Megamix courtesy of Destroy All Movies editors Zack Carlson & Bryan Connolly and VHS anarchist-preservationists Everything Is Terrible!

But in the end, narratives are bullocks. The real thrash sets in Saturday at midnight, with D.O.A., a dirty-fly-on-a-dirtier-wall look at English pioneers Sex Pistols, Generation X and X-Ray Spex on an ill-fated American tour. The sick boys soldier on Sunday afternoon with Urgh! A Music War, the iconic concert film featuring X, Devo, The Cramps, The Police, Joan Jett, Gary Numan and enough extras to cause spontaneous human combustion. It's a rare look at real punk and new-wave legends, and an even rarer look at bands too tough to survive past filming.

Sunday evening sports a deadly double of European punk docs. La Brune Et Moi stalks the Parisian underground, while Shellshock Rock puts the feckin' a in Belfast with Stiff Little Fingers! Destroy All Movies concludes with local legends The Slog Movie (featuring Fear, TSOL, Circle Jerks & vintage Oki Dog) and cracked-out mockumentary Desperate Teenage Lovedolls, two Super-8 stunners shot in the Super-80's. Director Dave Markey will be on hand for the program, as will "Lovedoll" Jennifer Schwartz.

Individual shows are $10 a piece, and Cinefamily's got a hundred weekend passes for $35. Should you survive the celluloid, the weekend pass also nets you an after-party at Part Time Punks at The Echo.

But a monopoly on the movement might be the least punk thing ever. The UCLA Film & Television Archives plugs into anarchist auteur Alex Cox, who hosts a new cut of his spaghetti Western pastiche Straight to Hell on Friday night and Sex Pistols biopic Sid & Nancy on Saturday. For the grand finale, the Downtown Independent hosts "anti-folk" Soviet songstress cum power pianist Regina Spektor's Live in London concert film for one night only, also Saturday. It's 2010 - why haven't they invented a way to be in three places at once yet?

See you at the movies!

All Week
Four Lions (2010) (Downtown Independent)
Kuroneko (1968) (Nuart Theatre)
Made in Dagenham (2010) (The Landmark)

Thursday 11/18
Car Wash (1976) / Used Cars (1980) (w/ director of photography Don Morgan) (New Beverly Cinema)
The Desert of Forbidden Art (2010) (w/ directors Tchavdar Georgiev and Amanda Pope) (Aero Theatre)
Dino's Drive In: Films on Film (Echo Park Film Center)
Due Date (2010) (Arclight Sherman Oaks) (21+ screening)
The Invention of Dr. Nakamats (w/ Dr. NakaMats) (Cinefamily @ Silent Movie Theatre) (What's Up, Docs?)
Level 5 Screening (free event w/ Brody Condon) (Hammer Museum)
My Mother, The Mermaid (2004) (Korean Cultural Center)
Visualize This: Previs in the Making of “Star Trek” (2009) (Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences)
Vittorio Racconta Gasman: Una Vita Da Mattatore (2010) / A Beautiful Happy Birthday Dino Rossi (2010) (Egyptian Theatre) (Cinema Italian Style)
West Side Story (1961) (Egyptian Theatre) (70MM)

Friday 11/19
52 Pick Up (1986) / Body Double (1984) (Cinefamily @ Silent Movie Theatre) (Neon Noir)
Le Amiche (1955) / The Passenger (1975) (New Beverly Cinema)
Brother and Sister (2010) (Egyptian Theatre) (Argentina New Cinema)
Evil Dead (1981) (Art Theatre of Long Beach) (Mondo Fridays)
Fallen Angels (1995) / Time and Tide (2000) (LACMA) (Hard Boiled Hong Kong)
Fight Club (1999) (Regency Academy) (Insomniac Cinema Midnight Movie)
Hard Target (1993) (Nuart Theatre) (Cine-Insomnia Midnight Movie)
Mickey One (1965) / Night Moves (1975) (Aero Theatre)
Portrait of My Father: Ugo Tognazzi (Egyptian Theatre) (Cinema Italian Style)
Straight to Hell Returns (1974/2010) (w/ Alex Cox & guests) (UCLA Film & Television Archive @ Hammer Museum) (No Brakes: Alex Cox in Person)

Saturday 11/20
Le Amiche (1955) / The Passenger (1975) (New Beverly Cinema)
Carancho (2010) / Puzzle (2010) (w/ actor Rodrigo Grande) (Egyptian Theatre) (Argentina New Cinema)
Destroy All Movies!: The Complete Guide to Punks on Film (Cinefamily @ Silent Movie Theatre)
Exiled (2006) / Once Upon a Time in China (1991) (LACMA) (Hard Boiled Hong Kong)
Eye of the Cat (1969) (New Beverly Cinema) (New Beverly Midnights)
The First Beautiful Thing (2010) (Egyptian Theatre) (Cinema Italian Style)
The Ghost Writer (2010) / The Matador (2005) (w/ Pierce Brosnan) (Aero Theatre)
Mundo Alas (2010) (w/ director León Gieco) (Egyptian Theatre) (Argentina New Cinema)
Pufnstuf (1970) (w/ Sid and Marty Krofft) (Aero Theatre)
Regina Spektor: Live in London (2010) (Downtown Independent)
Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) (Sins O' The Flesh Midnight Show) (Nuart Theatre)
Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) (Midnight Insanity Midnight Show) (South Coast Village Regency Theaters)
Sid and Nancy (1986) / Highway Patrolman (1991) (w/ Alex Cox & guests) (UCLA Film & Television Archive @ Hammer Museum) (No Brakes: Alex Cox in Person)

Sunday 11/21
The 48th Ann Arbor Film Festival Tour: The 16mm Program (w/ filmmakers Laida Lertxundi and Alexandra Cuesta) (Los Angeles Filmforum) (Egyptian Theatre)
Body Heat (1981) (The Bay Theatre)
Destroy All Movies!: The Complete Guide to Punks on Film (Cinefamily @ Silent Movie Theatre)
Letters to the President (2009) (free event) (UCLA Film & Television Archive @ Hammer Museum) (Archive Documentary Spotlight)
A Matter of Principle (2010) / The Mural (2010) (Egyptian Theatre) (Argentina New Cinema)
The Social Network (2010) (w/ Aaron Sorkin & other guests) (Aero Theatre)
Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983) / Escape to Witch Mountain (1975) (New Beverly Cinema)
Traces and Memory of Jorge Prelorán (2010) (w/ actor Arturo Goetz & singer María Entraigues) (Egyptian Theatre) (Argentina New Cinema)
Way Out West (1937) (Autry National Center) (The Imagined West)
Windjammer: The Voyage of the Christian Radich (1958) (Warner Grand Theatre)

That's all for this week. I hear they booked other movies this week too, but I don't buy it.

Welcome, my son, welcome to the machine.
What did you dream?
It's alright, we told you what to dream.
Pink Floyd, ‘Welcome to the Machine’

How do you tell a story? Start at the beginning and move steadily towards the end, silly – begin at ‘Once upon a time’ and keep going until you reach ‘Happily ever after’ – everyone knows that. And that’s the way stories have been told since time immemorial. Up until recently. Since the advent of cinema the public has become more and more adept at following ever-increasingly complex storylines beginning in media res, flashing forward in time, jumping back, plopping into subplots and skipping from third person narratives to first and back again. Fairy stories these are not. And The Birth Machine by Elizabeth Baines is certainly not. But it begins like one:

Once upon a time there lived a king and queen who had no children; and this they lamented very much. But one day as the queen was walking by the side of the river, a little fish lifted its head out of the water and said, "Your wish shall be fulfilled, and you shall soon have a daughter."

You might recognise it. It’s from Edgar Taylor’s 1823 translation of the Grimms’ fable ‘Dornroeschen’ which he rendered as ‘Rose-Bud’ – we know it better these days as ‘Sleeping Beauty’. You can read it in full here (jump down to #177). Personally I don’t remember the fish in fact Disney’s version is so ingrained on my head I found I remembered very little of this version.

Fairy tales of course frequently exist in a variety of forms and it’s usually the one we read (or see) first that becomes the definitive version in our heads. Even though there have been in total a whopping-great seven different versions of Blade Runner the one I remember was the one I saw in the cinema in 1982, the International Cut, although I have since seen the other two must-see versions, the 1992 Director’s Cut and the 2007 Final Cut. It’s rare for books unless they’re translations to have more than one edition but The Birth Machine has. The book was first published in 1983 by The Women’s Press. A revised version was self-published in 1996 retitled The Birth Machine - The Author's Cut and now a further revised, and – hopefully – final version, has now been published by Salt Publishing. Unusual to say the least. You can read the whole history on her blog here.

Just as directors don’t always have total control over what ends up on the cutting room floor authors don’t always have as much say as you might imagine when it comes to what their editors do with their blue pencils. To say that the edition published by The Women’s Press was butchered is probably going too far but changes were made. The most significant alteration was where the story starts. The editor decided that the book should begin with chapter four which opens with:

Earlier that morning she shivered in the hospital corridor. A new admission for induction of labour.

Considering the book is called The Birth Machine and in this latest edition there’s a gynaecological couch on the cover you might not think that such a bad decision, to cut to the chase. But is that where the story begins? This is how Disney’s version of Sleeping Beauty begins:

In a far away land long ago lived a King and his fair Queen. Many years had they longed for a child and finally their wish was granted. A daughter was born. They called her Aurora. Yes they named her after the dawn for she filled their lives with sunshine.

Aurora is the Roman goddess of the dawn by the way.

So no fish then. There was no fish in the original either. The Grimms added that bit in. An element of their writing style is how their tales invariably include magic and communication between animals and humans.

The most recent version of The Birth Machine opens with chapter one reinstated to its rightful position:

Ladies and Gentlemen: the age of the machine.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we are proud to welcome to Boston Professor McGurk, who has flown in from England to lecture today on the latest developments in the use of the machine.

So are we in some kind of auditorium or lecture hall? No, we’re actually inside the Professor’s head. His wife is pouring his cornflakes while he flicks through his diary; he is a man much in demand: “you’re lucky to catch him, sometimes he’s late, sometimes he’s gone already when you get there; often he regrets he can’t be there in any case.” The Professor is a man of science and he has complete faith in it. Science though is all about doubt and the effort to resolve it. He has forgotten that in his . . . I was going to write ‘self-assuredness’ but really the word I was looking for is ‘arrogance’.

We do get to meet the woman who earlier that day had been shivering in the hospital corridor, Mrs Harris, Zelda, the wife of Dr Harris, a colleague of the Professor’s as it happens. First impressions are important. Elizabeth Baines didn’t want our first impression of Zelda to be her standing in a hospital corridor, no; she wanted us to see her through the eyes of the Professor’s students, as Elizabeth says in her Author’s Note at the end of the book, “as an object in his virtuoso demonstration.” Without her, without some body to undergo processing, there is no way to see just how wonderful the machine is:

“Good morning, Mrs Harris. Mrs Harris is about to benefit from our modern technology. Aren’t we, Mrs Harris?” He says with a wink in Mrs Harris’s direction: “Mrs Harris is a rather special patient. How are we feeling, Mrs Harris?”

He turns back to the students: “Now to connect the patient up to the machine.”

You just want to slap him, don’t you?

When I first heard of this book, a couple of years back in fact, I wondered if it might be a science fiction novel; the book Demon Seed came to mind, a book that, coincidentally, also exists in two versions. This isn’t the case but there is common ground. In both books machines are heavily relied upon to provide for the comfort and safety of humans. In reality ‘the machine’ that is going to look after Zelda and her unborn child is actually two machines but really Elizabeth is using the term ‘machine’ here in a much broader sense.

Although the book does not shy away from describing the birth of Zelda’s baby in great (although not gratuitous) detail, obstetrics is not the real issue here, simply a convenient context for examining bigger issues. She writes:

[M]y intention when I wrote The Birth Machine in 1982 was to tell a story exploring the hubris of much contemporary ‘scientific’ thinking. In particular, I was interested in the contemporary tendency to overlook, or even deny, the factor of uncertainty.

My daughter was born in 1980 and so this brought back many memories for me. I recall inquiring as to the functions of the various contraptions that crowded around the head of the bed, what the readouts indicated and what warning signs I should be on the lookout for. Also I remember how I was lightly dismissed by the staff when I advised them that the readings were drifting into the danger zone; a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

This is not the first time I’ve read a book by Elizabeth Baines. A few months back I read her novel Too Many Magpies, a book that also deals with the divide between science and magic, and you can read my review of it here. I had a difficult time getting into it and I might have had a similar problem with this earlier novel if I hadn’t anticipated a similar approach to her subject matter. There are several intertwined storylines going on here and it takes a wee while to connect them:

1. The induction of her child from Zelda’s perspective
a. While drug free
b. While medicated
2. The birth from the point of view of various members of staff
3. The events leading up to her pregnancy and admission
4. A series of events from Zelda’s childhood
5. The experiences of two medical students
6. The experience of her husband’s staff

In presenting the story in the way she has what Elizabeth has been trying to do is break her readers in gently – ‘wean’ is the word she uses – so that we start off from a safe ‘objective’ distance before being asked to submerge ourselves in Zelda’s worlds of childhood and impending motherhood. Starting with a man also seemed to her like a good way to rope in potential male readers. And I agree.

This is where I feel that Salt’s cover design lets the book down (even though it was designed by a man) because as a male I can’t imagine sitting on a bus riding along the side of the Clyde with a bunch of working men reading a book with a dirty great pink gynaecological couch on the front cover. Now if they’d used H R Giger’s Birth Machine on the cover that might have been very different (see my quick suggested cover aside) notwithstanding how much they would have been charged for permission to use the image in the first place. My wife was also “creeped out” by Salt’s cover. She said “It makes me shudder.” I never read my copy of The Yellow Wallpaper on the bus for exactly the same reason – the cover. I much prefer the cover to The Author’s Cut and I’m rather sorry now I didn’t stick it on my Amazon wish list when I first discovered it.

The Yellow Wallpaper is, of course, regarded as an important early work of American feminist literature and it would be easy to read The Birth Machine purely as a feminist novel. It is but that’s not all it is. This is how Elizabeth herself describes the book:

The Birth Machine concerns a woman about to give birth who finds herself silenced (and her subjective experience discounted) by not just the system and apparatus of the medical profession, but above all by its language and logic – which indeed to some extent she has internalised. For me above all it's a novel about language, and scientific logic and the competing power of dreams and myth and intuition. The protagonist Zelda also has a buried secret, and the novel is also about the silencing power of repression.

I asked Elizabeth if she saw any connection between the two books:

Gosh, The Yellow Wallpaper. Well, I know when I read that I was very impressed and affected – I guess I must have been influenced: wouldn't be surprising, though no one else has seen the connection, and I hadn't thought of it myself. I guess they're both about women trapped – psychologically as much as anything.

If you don’t know The Yellow Wallpaper this is what it’s about according to Wikipedia:

Told in the first-person perspective as a series of journal entries, the story details the unreliable narrator's descent into madness. The protagonist's husband, John, believes that it is in the narrator's best interest to go on a rest cure, since he only credits what is observable and scientific. He serves as his wife's physician, treating her like a powerless patient. The story hints that part of the woman's problem is that she recently gave birth to a child, insinuating she may be suffering from what would now be called postpartum psychosis.

So, in both books, males are in charge. In Zelda’s case it’s a male professor and a male husband who oppress her. There’s no doubt that each of them of them believes that they’re doing the best thing for her and especially the baby but trying to get a simple answer to a simple question proves impossible whether Zelda is talking to a male or a female and I found the experience exactly like that when my first wife was in labour: no one would give me a straight answer to a straight question.

The question Zelda wants answered is a simple enough one. Before being admitted she asks her husband to ask the Professor and when he gets home he hasn’t got his coat off before she wants to know:

“Did you speak to the Professor?”

“Yes.”

“What did he say?”

“It’s OK. There’s nothing wrong. It’s just a precaution.”

“Roland! Precaution? Against what?”

He lifted two palms. “I don’t know . . . anything. Any of the complications of late pregnancy. They’re just making absolutely sure that everything goes properly.

Control is a big issue in this novel. Women have been having babies for thousands of years. Their bodies take control and, complications notwithstanding, several hours later out pops a wee baby. My mother had no great love of doctors and her experiences of childbirth were not pleasant ones. She probably would have died were it not for the intervention of modern medicine but she was no great advocate for their cause and many times she advocated natural childbirth. She’d tell me about African women who had babies out in the fields, who’d just squat down, have their babies and then get on with sowing or whatever it was they’d been doing ten minutes earlier. There’s something luxurious though about not having to be responsible. People pay through the nose for others to take care of them but the difference there is that not being responsible doesn’t rob them of their power. Zelda is systematically robbed of her power. She is treated, and spoken to, like a child:

The new Sister on duty pops her head round. Mrs Harris has her eyes closed. Is she asleep? Is she dreaming?

She opens them and looks straight back.

“That’s right, Mrs Harris, have a sleep, you’ll need it, that’s a good girl.”

Good girl, Zelda.

In The Yellow Wallpaper the woman’s husband also uses this kind of demeaning language: when his wife asks about leaving the room in which she is resting he calls her “a blessed little goose” and later when she first notices a faint figure behind the pattern and calls his attention to it he calls her his “little girl.” It is this kind of treatment that causes Zelda to lapse into her childhood reminiscences.

What is interesting about the first memory that Zelda has is that it also incorporates a controlling male, her father. In the dark she creeps down to the kitchen where she finds her father making something on the hotplate:

He said without turning: “What in hell are you doing here?”

She said, “I’m hungry.”

He snorted. The thing on the hotplate whispered.

“What are you making?”

“Toast.”

She came and peered. “That’s not toast.”

“Call it what you like. I call it toast.”

The slice glistened on the stove, deep yellow, emitting tiny bubbles at its lower edges. She saw he’d done something new: buttered the bread first, before cooking. He did another for her, turned the loaf on its end and sawed across flatwise.

So he’s not uncaring. None of the men in the book are uncaring per se. They are all in charge though. Her father could just as easily have told her to go back to bed and he does exactly that when she starts to overstay her welcome. The same happens in the hospital. She gets hungry but is completely at the mercy of the hospital staff. They decide what she can have and when, even something as simple as a cup of tea. The machines are monitoring her so their contact is minimal. And even there it’s not her body that’s in control of her own contractions; she practices the natural breathing techniques she’s been taught but this only provides her with the illusion of control; there is nothing natural here. She’s praised for doing these but only because, because Zelda believes these are doing her good, they keep her quiet, calm. She gets a “good girl” for that. When she cries out in pain it’s another thing completely:

The nurse says, “Now come on. You were doing so well. Remember your exercises, you haven’t forgotten them, have you?” She shoots a meaningful glance. “And think about your baby. You haven’t forgotten him, have you? He’s best if you’re calm. That’s a good girl.

Interesting that the child is used to threaten her with. Much the same happens in The Yellow Wallpaper when John says, “I beg of you, for my sake and for our child’s sake, as well as for your own…” [Italics mine]

Zelda is a natural woman. By that I suppose I mean a child of nature but that sounds a bit pretentious. She has grown up at a time when children were used to roaming the countryside without the same fear of molestation that exists today. That was my childhood. Childbirth in the old days was very much a concern of women. The men toddled off hunting and left their wives in the care of “what Adrienne Rich has called the stereotype of ‘the filthy peasant crone’”[1] a character that wouldn’t look out of place in any of Grimm’s fairy tales. These roles are played by Zelda and her friends, Annie and Hilary – too old at thirteen? – who, along with Zelda, concoct magic potions in their den and attend to their plastic doll-babies. While the now-adult Zelda is drugged she hallucinates seeing Hilary there in the delivery room and imagines Roland saying, “What’s she doing here? Look, she isn’t scrubbed up, she isn’t aseptic, she’s a hazard, send her home.” In the den though the girls have all the power. Hilary drags along her little brother on occasion but all he seems to do is whinge. It is the boy, however, that reminds the girls about “the thirteenth fairy’s promise.” The childhood tale appears repeatedly throughout the book; the fish takes on a more pronounced role, that of guide.

After Zelda’s child is born she is lying in bed still sedated and memories of the recent and distant pass all are mixed up in her head:

Things gone wrong. Patterns inverted.

A simple start, a simple wish. A fish jumps, sperm-shape, comma in the flow of things, a simple movement, automatic, primordial. The fish blows a clean bubble. “Oh, Lord and Lady, thy wish shall be granted.” The pastel lady starts. Her husband in the distance is gathering blue nettles. The bubble bursts. The prophecy scatters, to reassemble in a different pattern.

[…]

It was wrong. An inversion. The princess mustn’t awake. Said the thirteenth fairy: the princess must die; and then the twelfth fairy spoke: I will lessen the spell; the princess will merely sleep. But only when it’s a prince who comes breaking through the tangle may there be waking, and the forest put out flowers like blood.

Who was her prince? The boy hiding behind the trees, who only wanted to play, who they left alone? Was he Roland, her husband, Roland the professional, the straight man, the stiff man, the man who never once had brought her to orgasm? Or is the prince her son whose arrival causes Zelda to wake up in the truest sense?

The Yellow Wallpaper ends with an escape:

“I’ve got out at last,” said I, “in spite of you and Jane. And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!”

and so does The Birth Machine in fact Zelda doesn’t wait for her prince:

She can break the seal. She can make her own inversion.

I enjoyed this book very much. It’s the best thing I’ve read by her (I’ve also read her collection of short stories) and I’m happy to recommend it, to men (and not simply fathers) as well as women (and not simply feminists). There is a danger to reading this book simply as an historical document, a record of how women used to be treated during childbirth although it is that. At the time of the release of the first edition, Katy Campbell, reviewing the book for City Limits, declared the book “especially recommended for anyone involved in the Obstetrics industry.” The medical profession has moved on somewhat since then but have attitudes towards women? And what about women’s attitudes towards themselves? I’m as much of a feminist as the next man but what I have noted is that some of the problems women face are not because they are made to do things but they allow things to be done to them. The main male characters in this book are not bad men; are not out to hurt her. (There is one very bad man in the flashbacks who is out to hurt someone.) It’s Zelda that lies back – literally – and takes it. For the most part. We do witness her turn and that is why the whole fairy tale backdrop works so well; modern life is not a fairy tales and people don’t live happily ever after.

You can read a sample from the book here.

***

Elizabeth Baines' grandmother claimed to be a descendent of the family of the Welsh bard Will Hopkin. The fact that the truth of this is unknown was not enough to deter Elizabeth from deciding at an early age to be a writer in his footsteps. Born in Bridgend, South Wales, to a Welsh mother and an Irish father, she studied English at Bangor, and for several years was a teacher of English in schools in Scotland and England. She is the prizewinning author of prose fiction and plays, with an established career as an acclaimed radio dramatist. With Ailsa Cox, she founded and edited the acclaimed short-story magazine Metropolitan (1992-97). Her collection of short stories, Balancing on the Edge of the World, was published by Salt in 2007 and pronounced 'a stunning debut collection' (The Short Review). In 2004 she took up occasional acting by performing one of her own stage monologues for the 24:7 Theatre Festival. She lives in Manchester. She writes the well-regarded Fictionbitch blog and her own author blog.

FURTHER READING

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Analysis of Grimm Brother's Briar Rose/Sleeping Beauty

Analysis of Disney's version of Sleeping Beauty

The Author’s Note from the book.

REFERENCES

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[1] Tess Cosslett, Women Writing Childbirth: Modern Discourses of Motherhood, p.31

Fotoweek DC, the international photography festival, kicks off its third year this weekend. The event corrals photography lovers into exhibits, lectures and workshops all over town. This year, FotoWeek has moved their headquarters to the more central Corcoran Gallery of Art; they're still using their former Georgetown HQ, 3333 M Street NW, but now as the oxymoronically-named Satellite Central, each with its own exhibits and programming.

While it must be difficult to find a good format in which to list the huge number of events during the festival, the fact is FotoWeek's online schedule remains as epically confusing as ever. The following agenda may not be leaps and bounds better, but we've at least distilled your options and listed them chronologically, with a category and very brief descriptions. There are quite a few great-looking events here -- but if you can only make it to a couple, the events DCist would choose to attend are highlighted in bold. Events are free, except where noted, and some require an RSVP even if free. Additionally, events geared specifically towards photographers, as opposed to just fans of photography, are denoted with an asterisk.

Finally, only the exhibits with events during the festival are listed below; there are a huge number of ongoing exhibits at the Corcoran, Satellite Central, National Geographic and elsewhere -- see the full list of those exhibits here, and note that many of them continue on after Fotoweek ends. Keep your eyes peeled for the NightGalleries, giant images projected onto the sides of buildings around town, including Dupont Circle, the Newseum, the American Red Cross and more. A vague schedule is here. Additionally, check out the Fotoweek blog for in-depth descriptions of exhibits and interviews with photographers, including the contest's winners. Event organizers will also start posting daily recommendations of festival events soon.

Thursday, November 4:

• Exhibit Opening: Susan Calloway Art. Diane Epstein, Italy: Beneath the Surface. 5 to 8 p.m.
• * Lecture: Artisphere. Jayme McLellan, Director of Civilian Art Projects, discusses the tools of the “digital darkroom” and achieving optimal color in photographic prints. 7 p.m.
• Party: ReadysetDC and the Phillips Contemporaries hold a festival Prelude Party at this months usual Phillips After 5 event. $12, 6 to 8:30 p.m. The post, um, Prelude Party continues at Hillyer Art Space. $8 for Prelude Party attendees, $10 everyone else. 8 to 11 p.m.

Friday, November 5:

• Exhibit Opening: Hillyer Art Space. Featuring the work of renowned photographers from nine South and Central American countries. 6 to 8 p.m., $5 suggested donation.
• Exhibit Opening: Studio Gallery. The Breadth and Beauty of Photography. 6 to 8 p.m.
• Exhibit Opening: Women Photojournalists of Washington, Women By Women, their annual juried exhibition. 6 to 9 p.m.
• Exhibit Opening: Watergate Gallery, Alexander Vasiljev's Awaiting the Tritons, 6:30 p.m.
• Lecture: National Geographic, Tim Laman's "Bizarre and Breathtaking in New Guinea" 7:30 p.m. $18 (3-part series for $42)
• Exhibit Opening: Center for Digital Imaging Arts. Work by Graduates of the CDIA Photography Program. 7 p.m.
• Official Festival Launch Party: Corcoran Gallery of Art, 8 to 11 p.m. $45

Saturday, November 6:

• Lecture Series: Satellite Central. Features back-to-back hour-long presentations by professional photographers. 12 to 5 p.m.
• Lecture: National Geographic, Tim Laman's "Up High, Up Close in the Treetops: Amazing Apes to Unbelievable Birds," 12 p.m. $16 (3-part series, $24)
• Lecture: Corcoran. "NightGallery: Behind the Projections." 2:30 p.m.
• * Workshop: Corcoran. Cameras for Kids, by Critical Exposure. 1:30 to 4:30 p.m.
• Lecture: Morton Art Gallery. Susan Burnstine discusses how her photography explores the fleeting moments and subconscious realities between waking and dreaming. 2 p.m.
• Exhibit Opening: Pepco Edison Place Gallery. Features the Corcoran’s 2010 All Photo Alumni Exhibition. 6 to 8 p.m.
• Exhibit Opening: Hamiltonian Gallery, Elena Volkova's site-specific photographic installations. 7 to 9 p.m.
• Exhibit Opening: Smith Farm Healing Arts Gallery, Matthew Black's documentation of The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, who take on the identities of 21st century nuns and use the art of drag to raise awareness for the LGBT community, educate about safe sex and AIDS, raise money for local non-profits and advocate for human rights. 7 to 9 p.m.
• * Workshop: Glen Echo Park, Night Shooting with Frank van Riper. $25, 7:30 to 9:30 p.m.
• * NightVisions: Satellite Central. Bring your best images to the professional editors waiting for you during this all-night photo party. They'll pick their favorite, print and hang it right there. 8 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. Sunday. $10, register.

Sunday, November 7:

• * Portfolio Reviews: Corcoran. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. $65/$35 for students, must register.
• Lecture: Satellite Central. Features back-to-back hour-long presentations by professional photographers. 12 to 5 p.m.
• Exhibit Opening: Montpelier Art Center. George Smyth's photography of contemporary subjects printed using the historic Bromoil process. 2 to 4 p.m.
• Exhibit Opening: Torpedo Factory, Multiple Exposures Gallery, juried exhibit of Signature Images. 4 to 6 p.m.
• Exhibit Opening: Zone 2.8, Enrico Dagninio's War Zone. 6 to 8 p.m.
• Lecture: Torpedo Factory, Joyce Tenneson discusses her 40 year career in photography. 6:30 p.m.

Monday, November 8:

• Lecture: Human Rights Campaign. Photographer Jeff Sheng discusses his exhibit, Don't Ask, Don't Tell. 12 to 1 p.m.
• Exhibit Opening: Embassy of Argentina opening 6 to 8:30 p.m.
• Exhibit Opening: U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Lucian Perkins images from Sudan projected onto 15th Street NW side of the building. 6:30 to 10 p.m. RSVP for speakers inside Museum's Hall of Witness.
• * Lecture: Corcoran. “To Publish or to Self-Publish?” 12 p.m.
• Lecture: U.S. Navy Memorial-Heritage Center, "In Our Backyard and Across the World" presented by the American Society of Picture Professionals. 6:30 p.m. $15, RSVP.

Tuesday, November 9:

• Lecture: Corcoran. "Time Being: Photography and the Documentary Impulse." 12 p.m.
• Lecture: National Geographic. Editor in Chief Chris Johns selects his ten favorite photos from the 2009 issues of the magazine.12 p.m.
• Exhibit Opening: MLK Jr. Library sponsored by Flashpoint Gallery. Michael Dax Iacovone and Billy Friebele open Free Space: A Communal and Interactive Survey of Washington, DC. 5 to 7 p.m. [Disclaimer: The author's photography venture Ten Miles Square contributed to part of this exhibit.]
• Lecture: Artisphere, Lia Halloran will talk about her new series, Dark State in the Dome Theater. 5 to 7 p.m. Pay what you can.
• Lecture: Embassy of Argentina. Diego Ortiz Mugica discusses his images of the National Parks of Argentina. 6:30 to 8 p.m.
• * Workshop: Art Institute of Washington, Food Photography, 6:30 to 9 p.m. RSVP

Wednesday, November 10:

• * Workshop: Corcoran. "Multimedia Storytelling," 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., $250
• * Lecture: Phillips Collection. A panel of photographers and attorneys discuss professional rights as a photographer. 1 to 4 p.m.
• Exhibit Opening: Goethe-Institut, featuring the four winners of the 2007/2008 Wüstenroth Foundation documentary photography competition. 6 to 8 p.m. RSVP.
• Exhibit Opening: Vivid Solutions Gallery, Khánh H. Lê's Neither...Nor. 6 to 8 p.m.
• Lecture: Studio Gallery. "The Breadth and Beauty of Photography," 6 p.m.
• Exhibit Opening: Sixth & I, Joshua Cogan's Time Given featuring portraiture from around the world. 6:30 to 9:30 p.m., RSVP.
• Lecture: Watergate Gallery, "Landscapes Through the Lens," 7 p.m.
• Lecture: Hamiltonian Gallery. Elena Volkova and Renee Van Der Stelt talk about their exhibitions, Proofs and Recordings 7 p.m.
• Lecture: National Geographic, Danny Clinch's "Music on…Photography," 7:30 p.m., $20
• Party: Brightest Young Things presents "Young at Heart," Satellite Central, $10, 8 to 11 p.m.

Thursday, November 11:

• * Lecture: Corcoran. "Visual Books: Ancient Structures, Contemporary Discourse." 12 p.m.
• Exhibit Opening: Corcoran opening 5 to 7 p.m.
• Exhibit Opening: Art Institute of Washington, YUM 2! Food Photography Exhibit, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
• Exhibit Opening: Honfleur Gallery, Likeness features ten portraits side-by-side ten interpretations of that portrait in this group show. 6 p.m.
• Exhibit Opening: Art Museum of the Americas, opening 6 p.m.
• Exhibit Opening: Torpedo Factory's Target Gallery opens 5x5 Exposed: Small Works in Photography, 6:30 to 8 p.m.
• Lecture: Corcoran. Tim Hetherington discusses Infidel, his body of work about a platoon of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. 7 p.m., $15, RSVP.
• Exhibit Opening: Carriage House opening 7 to 10 p.m.
• Exhibit Opening: Satellite Central. Outernational: A Photo Cinema Experience by Metro Collective with a live DJ soundscape by Thievery Corporation's Eric Hilton. $20, 8 to 11 p.m.
• * Photography Slam: Busboys & Poets, $10, 9 to 11 p.m.

Friday, November 12:

• Lecture: Corcoran. "Is Photojournalism Dead? Not at the National Geographic magazine." 12 p.m.
• * Slideluck Potshow: Satellite Central. $10, 7 to 11 p.m. Register.

Saturday, November 13:

• * Lecture: American University, Wechsler Theatre. Panel of esteemed photography professionals discuss and answer questions about entering the field. 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. RSVP.
• * Lecture: Corcoran. Adobe Digital Imaging, Session 1 (Lightroom 3). 10 to 11:30 a.m. $15; Session 2 (CS5), 12 to 1:30 p.m. $15.
• * Workshop: Corcoran. Family workshop on community photography. $15, 10:30 a.m. to 12 p.m., Register.
• Lecture: Satellite Central. Features back-to-back hour-long presentations by professional photographers. 11 to 5 p.m.
• Lecture and Opening: Glen Echo Park, Gabriela Bulisova's The Option of Last Resort: Iraqi Refugees in the United States. Artist talk 2 p.m.; opening 3 to 5 p.m.
• Lecture: Corcoran. Amanda Maddox, assistant curator of photography and media arts, leads a gallery talk about the Corcoran’s photography collection. 4 p.m.

Film has the potential to be a most beautiful art, but it has been debased by US cinema, and by television

Film is an extraordinary medium. Like theatre, it has all the elements of drama. It has character, plot, conflict, resolution. You can compare it to the visual arts, to painting, to drawing; it can document reality, like still photographs. It can explain and record like journalism, and it can be a polemic, like a pamphlet. It can be prosaic and poetic, it can be tragic and comic, it can be escapist and committed, surreal and realist. It can do all these things.

So, how have we protected and nurtured and developed this great, exciting, complex medium? How have we looked after it, and does it fulfil its potential?

Over a seven-year period, the US market share of box-office takings in British cinemas was between 63% and 80%. The UK share, which was mainly for American co-productions, was between 15% and 30%; films from Europe and the rest of the world took only 2% to 3%. So for most people it's almost impossible to have a choice of films; you get what you're given. As for television, only 3.3% of the films shown on TV are from European and world cinema.

Just imagine, if you went into the library and the bookshelves were stacked with 63% to 80% American fiction, 15% to 30% half-American, half-British fiction, and then all the other writers in the whole world just 3%. Imagine that in the art galleries, in terms of pictures; imagine it in the theatres. You can't, it is inconceivable – and yet this is what we do to the cinema, which we think is a most beautiful art.

How can we change this? We could start by treating cinemas like we treat theatres. They could be owned, as they are in many cases, by the municipalities, and programmed by people who care about films – the London Film Festival, for example, is full of people who care about films.

And we could decide to tackle television, which has become the enemy of creativity. Here, drama is produced beneath a pyramid of producers, executive producers, commissioning editors, heads of department, assistant heads of department, and so on, that sits on top of the group of people doing the work and stifles the life out of them.

Connection between the writer and the director is not approved of. Scripts are approved just before shooting, even after shooting has started. Discussions at the commissioning stage are always about other television programmes, not the primary source, not what are we making the film about.

When you get into the cutting room the same thing happens. First assemblies, when the shots are put together, go out to executives who then send notes. There's a director's version, immediately sacrificed when the producer comes in; then the producer's version is discussed with the executive producer. And then that is changed, and then the commissioning editor comes in, and so on and so on.

I'm pleased to see that one or two top-ranking BBC people are going to lose their jobs. About time. It takes £1m to get them out of the door, but nevertheless they're on their way. Maybe a few more will join them. Now let's start cutting further down.

To think that our television is in the hands of these time-servers is nothing less than a tragedy. Because television began with such high hopes, it was going to be the National Theatre of the air. It was going to really be a place where society could have a national discourse and they've reduced it to a grotesque reality game. This should not be used to denigrate the idea of public service broadcasting. The commercial sector is probably worse.

What we want, and what writers need to write, are original stories, original characters, plot, conflict, things that dig into our current experience. Things that really show us how we're living, give us a perspective on what is happening. That's what television could do, that's what they have betrayed.

Ratings are the prime consideration. Investigative journalism, where is it? Where's World in Action? One director told me that he was asked to make a film about debt; they were going to do a series about debt and getting into debt. But the requirement was that there were to be no poor people, because obviously poor people are a bit depressing and they don't sell the adverts.

Those of us who work in television and film have a role to be critical, to be challenging, to be rude, to be disturbing, not to be part of the establishment. We need to keep our independence. We need to be mischievous. We need to be challenging. We shouldn't take no for an answer. If we aren't there as the court jester or as the people with the questions they don't want asked who will be?

Let's finally start to realise the potential of this extraordinary medium that we call film.

Director calls for more BBC executives to lose their jobs in a keynote speech at the London film festival

Highly paid, time-serving television executives are killing creativity and making the medium one big "grotesque reality game", according to one of Britain's most respected directors, Ken Loach.

The director, who first joined the BBC 47 years ago and made plays such as Cathy Come Home, launched an excoriating attack on the culture of television today.

Making the keynote address of the London film festival, Loach said: "Television has now become the enemy of creativity. Television kills creativity. Work is produced beneath a pyramid of producers, executive producers, commissioning editors, heads of department, assistant heads of department and so on that sit on top of the group of people doing the work and stifle the life out of them."

He said TV was in the hands of "time servers, who should be got rid of", and welcomed the news of departures at the BBC. "I'm pleased to see, I guess we all are, that one or two top-ranking BBC people are going to lose their jobs. About time. It takes a million quid and a handshake to get them out the door but nevertheless they're away. Great. Good riddance. Maybe a few more will join them. Let's start cutting further down."

Loach spoke of the need for editors and commissioners to give people the confidence to be as good as they could be. "If you've got 10 people sitting on your shoulder you can't be good, you can't be creative. All you can be is a mess.

"This is no way to cherish originality, this is no way to find those special voices that we need."

TV, he said during his speech last night at London's BFI, had been reduced from the national theatre of the airwaves to a "grotesque reality game".

Loach said he had been around a long time. In his career he has made many memorable movies including Kes, Riff Raff and The Wind That Shakes the Barley, which won the Cannes Palme d'Or. He said that he was speaking out when many were unable to.

Loach said filmgoers today, whether watching at the cinema or on TV, had a raw deal and got what they were given by a Hollywood-dominated industry. He said just 3.3% of films shown on television were from European or world cinema.

"What a disaster we are collectively responsible for, what a disaster. The film council was set up to establish a viable industry but, if you don't confront this basic fact that we don't have access to our screens, how can we be viable? If you're producing anything in your own country and you've only got a tiny proportion of the home market you don't stand a chance. Of course it won't be viable unless we challenge this colonising of our cinema."

Loach suggested that cinemas could be like theatres and owned more often by local authorities with programming decided by people who care about films, not "people who care about fast food".

He asked his audience to imagine libraries with 80% American fiction and just 3% from the rest of the world, or the same proportion in theatres or art galleries. "It is inconceivable and yet the cinema, which we think is a most beautiful art – we kill it."

As Chinese journalists, academics and publishers, we call on our government to support freedom of speech and of the press

Dear members of the standing committee of the National People's Congress:

Article 35 of China's constitution as adopted in 1982 clearly states that: "Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration." For 28 years this article has stood unrealised, having been negated by detailed rules and regulations for "implementation." This false democracy of formal avowal and concrete denial has become a scandalous mark on the history of world democracy.

On 26 February 2003, at a meeting of democratic consultation between the standing committee of the political bureau of the central committee of the Chinese communist party and democratic parties, not long after President Hu Jintao assumed office, he stated clearly: "The removal of restrictions on the press, and the opening up of public opinion positions, is a mainstream view and demand held by society; it is natural, and should be resolved through the legislative process. If the communist party does not reform itself, if it does not transform, it will lose its vitality and move toward natural and inevitable extinction."

On 3 October, America's Cable News Network (CNN) aired an interview with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao by anchor Fareed Zakaria. Responding to the journalist's questions, Wen said: "Freedom of speech is indispensable for any nation; China's constitution endows the people with freedom of speech; The demands of the people for democracy cannot be resisted."

In accord with China's constitution, and in the spirit of the remarks made by Hu and Wen , we hereupon represent the following concerning the materialisation of the constitutional rights to freedom of speech and of the press.

Concerning the current state of freedom of speech and press in our country

We have for 61 years "served as master" in the name of the citizens of the People's Republic of China. But the freedom of speech and of the press we now enjoy is inferior even to that of Hong Kong before its return to Chinese sovereignty, to that entrusted to the residents of a colony.

Before the handover, Hong Kong was a British colony, governed by those appointed by the Queen's government. But the freedom of speech and freedom of the press given to residents of Hong Kong by the British authorities there was not empty, appearing only on paper. It was enacted and realised.

When our country was founded in 1949, our people cried that they had been liberated, that they were not their own masters. Mao Zedong said that, "From this moment, the people of China have stood." But even today, 61 years after the founding of our nation, after 30 years of opening and reform, we have not yet attained freedom of speech and freedom of the press to the degree enjoyed by the people of Hong Kong under colonial rule. Even now, many books discussing political and current affairs must be published in Hong Kong. This is not something that dates from the [territory's] return, but is merely an old tactic familiar under colonial rule. The "master" status of the people of China's mainland is so inferior. For our nation to advertise itself as having "socialist democracy" with Chinese characteristics is such an embarrassment.

Not only the average citizen, but even the most senior leaders of the communist party have no freedom of speech or press. Recently, Li Rui met with the following circumstance. Not long ago, the Collected works in memory of Zhou Xiaozhou were published, and it originally included an essay commemorating Zhou that Li Rui had written for the People's Daily in 1981. Zhou's wife phoned Li Rui to explain the situation: "Beijing has sent out a notice. Li's writings cannot be published." What incredible folly it is that an old piece of writing from a party newspaper cannot be included in a volume of collected works! Li said: "What kind of country is this?! I want to cry it out: the press must be free! Such strangling of the people's freedom of expression is entirely illegal!"

It's not even just high-level leaders – even the premier of our country does not have freedom of speech or of the press. On 21 August 2010, Wen gave a speech in Shenzhen called, "Only by pushing ahead with reforms can our nation have bright prospects." He said, "We must not only to push economic reforms, but must also to promote political reforms. Without the protection afforded by political reforms, the gains we have made from economic reforms will be lost, and our goal of modernisation cannot be realized." Xinhua news agency's official news release on 21 August, "Building a beautiful future for the special economic zone," omitted the content in Wen's speech dealing with political reform.

On 22 September 22, Wen held a dialogue in New York with American Chinese media and media from Hong Kong and Macao, and again emphasised the importance of "political system reforms". Wen said: "Concerning political reforms, I have said previously that if economic reforms are without the protection to be gained by political reforms, then we cannot be entirely successful, and even perhaps the gains of our progress so far will be lost." Shortly after, Wen addressed the 65th session of the UN general assembly, giving a speech called "Recognising a true China," in which he spoke again about political reform. Late on 23 September, these events were reported on China Central Television's Xinwen Lianbo and in an official news release from Xinhua news agency. They reported only Wen's remarks on the circumstances facing overseas Chinese, and on the importance of overseas Chinese media. His mentions of political reform were all removed.

For these matters, if we endeavour to find those responsible, we are utterly incapable of putting our finger on a specific person. This is the work of invisible hands. For their own reasons, they violate our constitution, often ordering by telephone that the works of such and such a person cannot be published, or that such and such an event cannot be reported in the media. The officials who make the call do not leave their names, and the secrecy of the agents is protected, but you must heed their phone instructions. These invisible hands are our central propaganda department. Right now this department is placed above the central committee of the communist party, and above the state council. We would ask, what right does the central propaganda department have to muzzle the speech of the premier? What right does it have to rob the people of our nation of their right to know what the premier has said?

Our core demand is that the system of censorship be dismantled in favour of a system of legal responsibility.

The rights to freedom of speech and the press guaranteed in article 35 of our constitution are turned into mere adornments for the walls by means of concrete implementation rules such as the "ordinance on publishing control". These implementation rules are, broadly speaking, a system of censorship and approvals. There are countless numbers of commandments and taboos restricting freedom of speech and freedom of the press. The creation of a press law and the abolishment of the censorship system has already become an urgent task before us.

We recommend that the National People's Congress work immediately toward the creation of a press law, and that the ordinance on publishing control and local restrictions on news and publishing be annulled. Institutionally speaking, the realisation of freedom of speech and freedom of the press as guaranteed in the constitution means making media independent of the party and government organs that presently control them, thereby transforming "party mouthpieces" into "public instruments."

Therefore, the foundation of the creation of a press law must be the enacting of a system of [post facto] legal responsibility [determined according to fair laws]. We cannot again strengthen the censorship system in the name of "strengthening the leadership of the party." The so-called censorship system is the system by which prior to publication one must receive the approval of party organs, allowing for publication only after approval and designating all unapproved published materials as illegal. The so-called system of legal responsibility means that published materials need not pass through approval by party or government organs, but may be published as soon as the editor-in-chief deems fit. If there are unfavourable outcomes or disputes following publication, the government would be able to intervene and determine according to the law whether there are cases of wrongdoing.

In countries around the world, the development of rule of law in news and publishing has followed this path, making a transition from systems of censorship to systems of legal responsibility. There is little doubt that systems of legal responsibility mark progress over systems of censorship, and this is greatly in the favour of the development of the humanities and natural sciences, and in promoting social harmony and historical progress. England did away with censorship in 1695. France abolished its censorship system in 1881, and the publication of newspapers and periodicals thereafter required only a simple declaration, which was signed by the representatives of the publication and mailed to the office of the procurator of the republic. Our present system of censorship leaves news and book publishing in our country 315 years behind England and 129 years behind France.

Our specific demands are as follows:

1. Abolish sponsoring institutions of [Chinese] media, allowing publishing institutions to operate independently; and truly implement a system in which directors and editors-in-chief are responsible for their publication units.

2. Respect journalists, and make them strong. Journalists should be the "uncrowned kings". The reporting of mass incidents and exposing of official corruption are noble missions on behalf of the people, and this work should be protected and supported. Immediately put a stop to the unconstitutional behaviour of various local governments and police in arresting journalists. Look into the circumstances behind the case of writer Xie Chaoping. Liang Fengmin, the party secretary of Weinan city [involved in the Xie Chaoping case] must face party discipline as a warning to others.

3. Abolish restrictions on extra-territorial supervision by public opinion by the media, ensuring the right of journalists to carry out reporting freely throughout the country.

4. The internet is an important discussion platform for information in our society and citizens' views. Aside from information that truly concerns our national secrets and speech that violates a citizen's right to privacy, internet regulatory bodies must not arbitrarily delete online posts and online comments. Online spies must be abolished, the "Fifty-cent party" must be abolished, and restrictions on anti-censorship technologies must be abolished.

5. There are no more taboos concerning our party's history. Chinese citizens have a right to know the errors of the ruling party.

6. Southern Weekly and Yanhuang Chunqiu should be permitted to restructure as privately operated pilot programmes in the independent media. The privatisation of newspapers and periodicals is the natural direction of political reforms. History teaches us: when rulers and deliberators are highly unified, when the government and the media are both surnamed "party," and when the party sings for its own pleasure, it is difficult to connect with the will of the people and attain true leadership. From the time of the Great Leap Forward to the time of the cultural revolution, newspapers, magazines, television and radio in the mainland have never truly reflected the will of the people. Party and government leaders have been insensible to dissenting voices, so they have had difficulty in recognising and correcting wholesale errors. For a ruling party and government to use the tax money of the people to run media that sing their own praises is something not permitted in democratic nations.

7. Permit the free circulation within the mainland of books and periodicals from Hong Kong and Macao. Our country has joined the World Trade Organisation, and economically we have already integrated with the world – attempting to remain closed culturally goes against the course already plotted for opening and reform. Hong Kong and Macao offer advanced culture right at our nation's door, and the books and periodicals of Hong Kong and Macao are welcomed and trusted by the people.

8. Transform the functions of various propaganda organs, so that they are transformed from agencies setting down so many "taboos" to agencies protecting the accuracy, timeliness and unimpeded flow of information; from agencies that assist corrupt officials in suppressing and controlling stories that reveal the truth to agencies that support the media in monitoring party and government organs; from agencies that close publications, fire editors and arrest journalists to agencies that oppose power and protect media and journalists. Our propaganda organs have a horrid reputation within the party and in society. They must work for good in order to regain their reputations. At the appropriate time, we can consider renaming these propaganda organs to suit global trends.

We represent ourselves, hoping for your utmost attention.

Li Rui, former standing vice minister of the organisation department of the CCP central committee, member of the 12th central committee of the CCP

Hu Jiwei, former director of People's Daily, standing committee member to the 7th National People's Congress, director of the Federation of Chinese Communication Institutes

Jiang Ping, former head of the China University of Political Science and Law, tenured professor, standing committee member to the 7th National People's Congress, deputy director of the executive law committee of the NPC

Li Pu, former deputy director of Xinhua news agency

Zhou Shaoming, former deputy director of the political department of the Guangzhou military area command

Zhong Peizhang, former head of the news office of the central propaganda department

Wang Yongcheng, professor at Shanghai Jiaotong University

Zhang Zhongpei, researcher at the Imperial Palace museum, chairman of the China Archaeological Society

Du Guang, former professor at the Central Party School

Guo Daojun, former editor-in-chief of China Legal Science

Xiao Mo, former head of the Architecture Research Centre of the Chinese National Academy of Arts

Zhuang Puming, former deputy director of People's Press

Hu Fuchen, former director and editor-in-chief at China Worker's Publishing House

Zhang Ding, former director of the China Social Sciences Press at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

Yu You, former editor-in-chief of China Daily

Ouyang Jin, former editor-in-chief of Hong Kong's Pacific magazine

Yu Haocheng, former director of Masses Publishing House

Zhang Qing, former director of China Cinema Publishing House

Yu Yueting, former director of Fujian Television, veteran journalist

Sha Yexin, former head of the Shanghai People's Art and Drama Academy, now an independent writer of the Hui ethnic minority

Sun Xupei, former director of the News Research Institute at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

Xin Ziling, former director of the editorial desk at China National Defence University

Tie Liu, editor-in-chief of Wangshi Weihen magazine (Scars of the Past).

Legal Counsel：

Song Yue, Chinese citizen, practicing lawyer in the State of New York, US

This translation was made by the University of Hong Kong's China Media Project and was first posted here.

Quentin Tarantino and editor Sally Menke at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, February 18, 2007. Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images. As most film enthusiasts undoubtedly know by now, Oscar-nominated editor Sally Menke was found dead in Los Angeles’s sprawling Griffith Park yesterday, after going for a hike Monday at the height of the city’s record-breaking heat wave. Although Menke’s passing is foremost a tragedy for her family and loved ones, it is also an incomparable loss for cinema. She cut for directors such as Oliver Stone (Heaven and Earth) and Billy Bob Thornton (All the Pretty Horses), and every child of the 90s owes her an infinite debt for giving Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles the pacing necessary to harness their deficit-starved attentions. However, Menke will be remembered most vividly for her unusually intimate collaboration with Quentin Tarantino. Having cut every single one of the auteur-savant’s films, Menke established a partnership with Tarantino that will go down as one of the great editor-director combinations in American cinema, taking its place beside those of Steven Spielberg and Michael Kahn, and Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker. Tarantino fans will undoubtedly feel that painful loss when they are exposed to a film not edited by Menke, and that loss will serve as a reminder that editors are the great unsung heroes of all our favorite films.

By Tom Spurgeon * the great Peter Bagge shows off his cover for the next Hate Annual. It's weird that we're almost into double-digits on those. Also: yikes. * Dark Horse is apparently doing a bunch of one-shots for the Felicia Day-written The Guild. I don't know that series or its other-media predecessor at all, but the subject matter seems like it could be a rich one and it's certainly built for a certain, passionate, potential readership. * the Library Journal previews a bunch of early 2011 comics projects, including a new edition of a late-'90s Lorenzo Mattotti project. New Lorenzo Mattotti anything is always welcome news. * Jeffrey Brown has a new cat-related book out (via Sean T. Collins, I think). * Bill Radford ends The Comics Fan. * Jeremy Tinder and Aidan Koch are the newest cartoonists to join the revolving cast of MOME. * Julia Wertz has posted a few pages from her latest book as an inducement to get you to consider buying it. * there have been one million copies of Scott Pilgrim books printed. That should be more important to comics people than how much of the production budget the North American cinema release of the movie version made, but of course it isn't. * the team of Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning will be writing the forthcoming Heroes For Hire comic; they're the writers that have been doing those well-received Marvel space books for a few years now. The weird thing about Heroes For Hire is that all those people look like terrible employees. * okay, at first upon reading this I thought that Grant Morrison was adapting the Michael Keaton film Multiplicity, which is probably the only entry point by which his doing the Charlton heroes in a vaguely, Watchman-y way doesn't seem so weird. * yeah. * I always knew that David Low was on a list of potential hanging victims were Germany to take Great Britain, and hadn't even heard of this sort-of funny, sort-of dark planted rumor featuring him being joined on that list by some cartoon editors, a rumor now debunked. * the new Leon book is in. * not comics: the writer Matt Fraction notes that Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead, a history of National Lampoon, is out. I know next to nothing about one of the great fountainheads of American comedy the last half-century, including one of the top 10 magazine homes for cartooning in the same period, so I'll definitely make a beeline for that one next time I'm in a bookstore. * one-time Legion Of Super-Heroes super-team Paul Levitz and Keith Giffen are once again working together with those characters. * the writer Greg Rucka returns to superhero comics. * the fact that Paul Trap's Thatababy was being offered as a potential replacement for Cathy in my hometown newspaper meant with 99 percent certainty that someone out there had signed the Amazon.com contest participant to a syndication deal. Turns out it was Universal. I think that one could potentially launch very well. * finally, Amazon has spit out a release date for Pantheon's collection of Dan Clowes' Mister Wonderful: April 2012. (thanks, Brad Mackay)

This is in supplement to my forthcoming lengthy article for Pop Matters: For the Criterion release of The Thin Red Line, the label worked closely with Terrence Malick and John Toll. There was no talk of an extended cut, and, according to Criterion, the existence of one is just a rumor. “John and Terry were heavily involved in the new mastering and Terry had input into all other parts of the release as well,” states a Criterion insider. Malick chose to stay true to the original theatrical mix with no aural embellishments. Is there a future for Malick’s Badlands with Criterion? Criterion states, “We'd love to work on Badlands but it's not in the works at the moment.” Note: This review is based on a test pressing of the DVD. I have not received the Blu-Ray version yet. Also, I am not an audio/videophile, all of which is secondary to me. More knowledgeable folks will have those up in no time. To these eyes and ears, it all looks and sounds great. This is more about the extras. The digital transfer was supervised by Terrence Malick and John Toll. The blacks are crisp and have depth to it, with lush greens and blues giving the film a naturalistic feel. This is vital since the second-unit footage is all-important to a film so heavily dependent on it (leaves, rain forest canopies, ocean swells, birds and animals, one could argue, are on an equal par with the performers). The Blu-Ray edition is DTS-HD Master Audio staying true to the fidelity of the original theatrical mix. I don't have the Blu-Ray yet, so cannot comment on it. I should get it any day now. Criterion also provides brand-new audio commentary by John Toll, production designer Jack Fisk, and producer Grant Hill. Obviously, Malick's input would have been great, but we know the deal here. This is one quirk I wish Malick would get over. It seems that directors that have nothing to say, basically taking on a work for hire, will spout all kinds of banalities in their commentaries, but another like Malick (or Kubrick) will stay quiet. Though Fisk, Toll and Hill's banter is informative enough, some depth could have been given with guidelines pertaining to Malick’s vision, or of what he was trying to achieve, as well as more information about the superlative cinematography. A great idea would have been a separate commentary track with a film scholar or proffesor fo philosophy, not to try and tell us what the film is about, but recognizing archetypal imagery and maybe shedding light on it based on what we know of Malick's readings. Grant Hill, of course, sheds no light on his legendary spats with Malick when he could not figure out what the director was doing with his time, the film and the erratic habits he kept (like refusing to watch dailies) In short, I was really looking forward to the commentary and found most of the information provided to be pretty generic for a film label that thrives on cinema history. Most of this information has already been given in past interviews. A separate feature hosts interviews with actors Kirk Acevedo, Jim Caviezel, Thomas Jane, Elias Koteas, Dash Mihok, and Sean Penn. These are drawn in part, from past interviews given for the documentary Rosy-Fingered Dawn: A Film on Terrence Malick. Though this documentary is little seen (commonly available on the Internet for those who want/need to find it), it does give a fresh perspective on all of Malick’s films to date (it came out before The New World). This advantage, of course, is that the interviews are closer to the actual filming of The Thin Red Line, and not remembered in happenstance. Others are new, and actors like Thomas Jane and Kirk Acevedo give new information on Malick’s directing style and how they were cast. There are glaring omissions here. John Dee Smith’s experience was unique in that Malick had attached himself to him for the duration of the filming as well as the post-production process. Malick intimated his past as a shared experience with Smith’s own southern upbringing. Both had troubled pasts, so there was an affinity for what Smith had to offer despite his inexperience as an actor that Malick uniquely tapped. Another feature is a new interview with film composer Hans Zimmer. His past with Malick is checkered with stories of legendary spats with the demanding director. Malick also had a musical ear with a quirky sense of how he wanted certain keys to be employed to bring out disparate elements to the film. Zimmer, like composers before and after him seem to be affronted by Malick’s intrusion into their own world, yet, admittedly, he did bring out the best in their work. Zimmer does not address all the music he didn’t use, a veritable bug in the ear of thousands of fans of the released soundtrack that yearn to hear more (to the degree that they have bootlegged the music lifted from the film by separating it from each of its channels in the 5.1 mix). It is a serious shame that most of this is sitting in Zimmer or Fox’s vault, unused and ignored. Also, it would have been enlightening to hear about some of the other musicians used in the film under Zimmer's Media Ventures productions. Composer Francesco Lupica's Cosmic Beam was an important element to Malick, and it is mentioned twice by the commentary and by editor Saar Klein, but some footage of Lupica performing on it would have brought a whole lot to the table in understanding what a "cosmic beam" is and how it was used in the film. Instead, Zimmer continues to this date to use samples of what Lupica performed and Media Ventures recorded (and they even baked some of Lupica's tapes, notably the track "Sit Back and Relax" included on the official soundtrack, cut down from its fourteen+ minute version to just under three) without compensating Lupica or giving him recognition. But that's for another post . . . rest assured, Lupica is preparing to release his music independently, which means all of the music composed and used for Malick's last three finished films. To me the most important and interesting feature are new interviews with editors Billy Weber, Leslie Jones, and Saar Klein. These three, so to speak, along with a team of assistants, went through hell to constantly come up with various assemblages of the film to suit Malick’s indecisions and experimental approach to film. I only wish they had also done a commentary, as it would have added a whole lot to this release. Editing a Malick film is an experience that, as Weber states at one point, if you had been through it at all, any other film by any other director will be easy by comparison. Saar Klein is one of the fresh voices, and his insight into Malick’s vision and how he strived to accommodate it is remarkable.There was a whole lot that could have been added here, and to this point, it means it will be brought out in depth in my book. There is a story here to tell . . . Criterion also added a new interview with writer Kaylie Jones, the daughter of The Thin Red Line’s author, James Jones. Though she does delve into her father’s experiences with the war, which is interesting to a degree, she barely mentions Terrence Malick. Malick had been paid by some private investors to work on a screenplay of The Thin Red Line, and lived in Paris for many years staying in close contact with Jones’s widow, Gloria Jones. She does not share any of this, and for that we are at a loss. The writing of this screenplay and its metamorphosis through Malick’s rebel vision is vital to the history of American cinema. A brand new interview with casting director Dianne Crittenden brings with it some archival footage of various actors auditioning for roles in the film (Crispin Glover!). She is insightful enough, commenting on what Malick wanted in his acting talent and how she went about doing it. It is good for watching once or twice. Criterion also included fourteen minutes of outtakes, all of which were chosen by Malick. The general tenor of the clips are one with Rourke and Caviezel, one with Matt Doran in a violent encounter with a Japanese soldier, a drunken Mazzi ranting about Lt. Band, another where he and some company members go to confront a drunken Band. There is an outtake between Clooney and Ben Chaplin discussing Bell’s divorce options after he receives his “Dear John” letter. John C. Reilly gets to rant a bit to Caviezel. I think the two best are Coombs and Rourke’s sympathetic sniper being led through the brush by a Melanesian scout. I really wish that one made the final cut, Rourke brings to his performance what he similarly did with Sean Penn’s The Pledge. The remainder of the features are a few minutes of World War II newsreels from Guadalcanal and the Solomon Islands and a batch of the Melanesian chants The original theatrical trailer is also included, but why not include the teaser that is still available on the film’s official web site from Fox? There is also a booklet featuring an essay by film critic David Sterritt, but I have not received that yet. In the end, if I had to criticize, I wish there would have been more material included that would have answered our questions about the longer cuts, more outtakes, and they also could have included The Making of The Thin Red Line documentary shown on HBO, or, accessed all of that footage shot, Malick’s skittish dislike of appearing on film notwithstanding. A documentary much like they included with The New World would have been a fantastic addition to Criterion's disc. Most importantly, the film looks phenomenal, it finally has room to breathe and breathe it does. I will add more to the look and sound of this film once I receive the Blu-Ray version. Peace, Paul

Web Exclusive: Awards to take place Feb. 19 in Beverly Hills -- American Cinema Editors will recognize outstanding editing in nine categories of film, TV and documentaries at its annual Eddie Awards Feb. 19 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills.

Happy Monday, I think.It's not the "happy" thing I'm "thinking" about, it's the Monday thing. Because if it's Monday and you are reading this, you are reading something I had posted for me.Why? I'm on set for something. Something I will be bringing you info about sometime in the future, maybe next year. (Just in case some of you were like: "Why does Da7e get a column when he doesn't do anything else for LR?").As a result, these 6 Things have been written in advance, saved and activated by one of my LR Compatriots. I'm unreachable at the moment, though you can probably collect vagaries on my Twitter Account.Since I've been working hard to make sure this code is as pretty as it can be considering I'm writing across multiple platforms and their various formatting whoopsies, the code on this post is clean, but some of the entries are rushed. ThruYou and the phone numbers, for instance, are lesser attempts at "free" content (remember, each week I guarantee a "free" thing?), but they're place holders for the massive amount other film I watched this week (finishing the Ken Burns Civil War doc, for instance, ate most my evenings)I'm not making excuses, I'm just letting you know how this week's content differs from the previous weeks'. Where I usually have more time to get immersed in film news weirdness, I spent a lot of this week watching things.And listening to The Suburbs by Arcade Fire, but who ISN'T? #6 – [555 and 212-664-7665] Suggested Reading:A Surprisingly Informative Yahoo! AskWhat Is Scott Pilgrim's Favorite Pickup Line? Vanity Fair. Did anyone who checked out Scott Pilgrim this weekend catch that Ramona Flowers has a non-555 number? A NEW YORK number none the less? Ramona Flowers, currently not picking up her cell phone at (212) 664-7665. Those of you who went home to instantly search the phone number like I did will learn that this number has been used on screen before as Elizabeth Banks' number in Definitely Maybe. Def/May is a Universal Picture, Scott Pilgrim is a Universal Picture, I think it's safe to say that (212) 664-7665 is a Universal number. Edgar Wright has made note of it, saying that he thinks Scott Pilgrim is the third movie to use (212) 664-7665. I can't find the third Universal movie to use the number. 555, as most film fans will know, is the information prefix for the US and Canada. Back when phone numbers were assigned with a word and a battery of numbers after them (PEnnsylvania 6-5000, for instance is P(7)E(3)6-5000 - still the number for the Hotel Pennsylvania), the letters K and L (both on the 5 key) were not used in assignment, hence every time you hear someone in a period movie describe their number as "KLondike" something-something. The Last Action Hero famously gives up Hollywood's 555 secret as a way to convince Arnold that his movie world is fake. The Far Side was once the subject of a lawsuit when they listed a 555 number as the number for Satan, then published the strip in Australia where the 555 prefix is in use. 555 has been encroached upon in recent years with 555 numbers available for purchase outside of the 555 - 0100 to 555-0199 fields. Any number in that gap has been set aside for Hollywood, other 555 numbers can now be purchased by the public. Which means a TON of previously used phone numbers not between 100 and 199, like The Ghostbusters above, might actually start connecting you to people. Good thing we have the HUGE and COMPREHENSIVE 555-LIST to keep track of our favorite fictional phone contacts, no?   #5 – [Thru-You or CrowdSourcing Makes For Less Writing] Suggested Reading: About Creative CommonsWhat Is CrowdSourcing?InnerLogic's Thru You Blog CrowdSourcing is awesome – in case you haven't noticed. Why? Because it's the next thing to come out of the remix culture (sometimes referred to as hip hop culture, but I find that term has racial overtones I'm not addressing when I call it remix culture), and remix culture forms the basis of the pro-collaboration legal arguments we're having right now in politics and media. Want to jailbreak your iPhone? Want usable, DRM free copies of movies that you buy? Want more mashup albums like (500) Days Of Weezy? Support crowdsourcing projects, support Creative Commons licensed material. One of my favorite crowdsourced projects is called ThruYou, produced by an independent producer who goes by Kutiman. It's an EP worth of songs mixed from YouTube videos. That's about all I'm going to say. Start by clicking HERE. #4 – [Columbia University Short Films 2010] Suggested Reading:Columbia University Film Festival 2010 Official SiteNYC Cine's CUFF CoverageI was at the /Filmcast New York Meetup when I met Aaron Walker, the co-director of the Columbia Universtiy short On The Road, a 16 minute road comedy shot on the RED camera. The man was handing out DVD screeners of the Columbia University 2010 MFA shorts, but had only brought copies for Devindra and Dave Chen.Later, Aaron looked me up to ensure I received my own DVD copy. He went out of his way to physically bring a disc to me while I was in a meeting and has been excellent about keeping in contact and promoting his peers. Of all the shorts he suggest I check out, he didn't suggest his own until I asked him which he worked on. Great guy, and ge's out raising money for his newest film called The Stranger. He wants to shoot this in Paris and has a very Parisian story about an Algerian musician and... well, CLICK HERE if you want to join me as a Kickstarter backer.This year's Columbia University shorts included two films I had previously heard of while working on other shorts this year: One was called TUB (Director: Bobby Miller), and is the story of a man who masturbates into his bathtub only to end up impregnating it. The other was called Off Season (Director: Jonathan Van Tulleken), which I had only heard described as isolationist and creepy. "Isolationist" turned out to not be the right word. "Isolated" would have done just fine, as I'm pretty sure the film isn't preaching isolation, but does do great things with an expansive snowy landscape.I've linked to the official sites of those shorts as they are both still playing around the country in festivals and late-night showings. Both of them would take some effort to track down, but both are worth your tracking down effort.I ended up liking a handful of other shorts on the DVD. It seems like I really missed a fantastic program at the IFC when these went up on the big screen in the spring.Other shorts that caught my interest were Babyland (Dir: Marc Fratello), about a girl who tells her one night stand that she's pregnant. The short has a few twists, one I didn't see coming and one that must be the end of 30% of college-made short films out there. The Hirosaki Players (Dir: Jeff Sousa) felt like part of a feature film had been fractured off into it's own forum and pleasantly surprised me with it's acting, even though it's all subtitled ("take THAT, anti-subtitle folks" is actually one of my notes).Also, as guy who likes stories that manage to say something without hitting you over the head with it, Loop Planes (Dir: Robin Wilby) ended up having a bitter-sweet charm that had me smiling at the end. Not that the ending is happy, I was just having fun with the whole short. It also features some great acting by very real-seeming kids and some great amusement park camera angles for also being shot on the RED.Loop Planes was produced by Julie Buck, who is also working with Mr. Walker on The Stranger. That got me interested enough to learn more about The Stranger on Mr. Walker's blog.As some of you may have noticed, a trailer for a short I produced was released last week and we're waist-deep in post production. It's nice to see my peers out there pounding the pavement and it's FANTASTIC getting a look at these people's first shorts as they rocket into the industry, attempting to become the new filmmakers of tomorrow. #3 – [Body/Anitbody] Suggested Reading:DVD Verdict's Body/Antibody ReviewBody/Antibody on AmazonBody/Antibody on FacebookFull disclosure time: I received a screener of Body/Anitbody - currently on DVD - from the production because Jordan Hoffman and Matt Patches of UGO, some of my New York blogger friends, worked on it. Hoffman is the producer and co-director while Patches worked as a PA. I'm not reviewing Body/Antibody per se as much as I'm jotting down my reactions to it because Body/Antibody doesn't deserve to be put in opposition to the Columbia Shorts or Enter The Void, other NotAReviews included here. They aren't compatible with one another, and shouldn't be juxtaposed in review.Body/Antibody tells the story of Kip (Robert Gnomes), a man with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder who lives in a rent controlled apartment on Manhattan. After the film's opening bookend with Kip in a mental institution ends, we see that Kip's life was pretty good in his relatively-cheap apartment he inherited from his grandmother. He's managed not to leave his place in 10 months, which allows him to be as compulsive as he wants, even as it makes him a lonely man.Celine (Leslie Kendall) moves in across the hall and Kip becomes fascinated with her body, lusting after her even when it's revealed that her ex-boyfriend Andy (Frank Deal) is abusive.Body/Antibody is split into two parts, "Body" and "Antibody." The first part tells the story of Celine and Kip falling in "love," and "Antibody" reveals the true nature of what we saw in "Body." One of my notes written during the credits of the film reads: "Style/Anti-Style" and here's why: "Body" has the burden of introducing you to the characters and establishing a status quo for when "Antibody" takes over to unravel your expectations. "Body" contains more shots designed to show the sparse environment of Kip's apartment or montages of bustling Manhattan to use as comparison's to Kip's white, sterile world. "Body" is shot more stylistically, like the shadow of As Good As It Gets, focusing on obsession; convincing us that Kip is the crazy one."Antibody" has the burden of plot and tension, much more like a horror film. When "Antibody" takes over about halfway into the flick, the camera work stops being expository and becomes very focused in it's intention. As the film approaches its climax, there are less stylistic shots. Coverage of dramatic scenes are limited to information you need to know to understand the plot or shots carefully orchestrated to cause horror-like tension (Read: Shots of Andy making crazy eyes, angles that suggest that dead body might not be an inanimate object for long).At the end of the film, for better or for worse, the adjective I was left with (and possibly created with a hyphen) was Pop-Hitchcockian. Not in a Disturbia type of way, but in the way it deals with limited characters and subtle tone of dread. In the world of independent film, three or four character horror films are a dime a dozen. They are cheap to produce and all you need is a director and cast capable of creating enough inter-character tension to sustain the running time. Only rarely did I get ahead of the story telling in Body/Antibody, but it didn't last for long as "Antibody" is choc-full of twists.The most distracting aspect of the film are the bookends with Debbie Gibson (yes - that one) as a case worker, but other than that, Body/Antibody is an entertaining exercise in the tonal shifts inherent in a well-constructed thriller. Could production value or the performances have been better? Sure - but it's unfair to hold that against the film, just like it would have been unfair to trash student actors above in the Columbia Shorts. Body/Antibody is worth you checking it out if you're a fan of indie films, psychological thrillers or low-budget horror (not SLASHER horror). You can buy it at Amazon, or - if you don't want to gamble on something you haven't seen - add it to your Netflix Queue. #2 – [Downsides to the Pursuit of Happiness] The above video is the VMA Nominated “Pursuit Of Happiness” by Kid Cudi, shot by Knowmore and Brody Baker. I'm the bus boy. Blink and you'll miss my tattoo.Suggested Reading:The Declaration Of IndependenceMy Dog Ate My Blog - Eat Pray Love I hope you didn't see Eat Pray Love this weekend. I didn't see Eat Pray Love. I didn't even read Eat Pray Love. I will most likely end up seeing Eat Pray Love at some point after it comes out on video, because I'll watch Julia Roberts do a bunch of stupid things just because it's Julia Roberts. Earlier this week, I was contacted at HeyDa7e@gmail.com and forwarded to an article on a blog called My Dog Ate My Blog, self described as a creation of editors, writers, and marketers in the education industry looking for an outlet for their general creativity and immaturity. Their post on Eat Pray Love questioned, among other things, how valid is it to pursue happiness as rich Americans with publishing deals when the life you lead behind is still a rich American life with a publishing deal? I sent the below comments to My Dog Ate My Blog, and they chose not to re-publish them. I'm sure Eat Pray Love, the book, is really empowering. When it first hit stands and I started seeing multiple copies on my subway commutes in New York, I initially avoided it because it had the word "Pray" in it. That's my prejudice: I don't like motivational books that encourage me to put my trust in something that I cannot interact with, contribute to or control. I don't recognize that we as Americans are one nation "Under God" no matter what some court in 1954 said. The puritanical spirit instilled in America by our founders is now a shared history of millions, not a treatise on what religion to practice. We have the freedom to practice that religion, I agree that freedom is one of the cornerstones of this country, even if I think the very document that started us off might be negatively affecting the nation's happiness. I saw a play this past weekend at the New City Theater on 1st Ave in the East Village. I believe it was called: "Keep Your Baggage With You (At All Times)" It's one of those plays that you get used to if you see off-off broadway, because there are four characters and they all end up having crappy, hurtful relationships with each other. In one crappy, hurtful conversation about a relationship, the idea that LOVE is just some chemical intoxicant that tricks your body into procreating is brought up, followed immediately by another, very elegant idea: that the Declaration of Independence hammering the right to the pursuit of happiness into our brain is actually hurting us interpersonally. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. This is tested in school, it's recited in movies, it's programmed into out brain. If you are an American child growing up middle class, you know that in this country, we have the right to pursue happiness. Which would be GREAT if happiness was possible. But let's not get THAT dark with this discussion... That's the problem with Eat Pray Love and most other things that are trying to tech empowerment as a road to happiness: they are completely separate things. I know a lot of empowered women (the majority the television execs I work with are female). They are capable of great happiness, but it's not their constant state of being. It's no one's constant state, because we're only promised the right to the pursuit, not to actual happiness. Americans are living in a perpetual state of trying to be happy while simultaneously diluting ourselves into thinking we deserve to be happy. Empowerment isn't happiness. That's why Eat Pray Love is false. That's why Sex and the City empowers with one hand (women in control of their own sexual life, YAY!) and debasing with the other (I could be just like these ladies if I bought this purse, and drank this booze, and had this many gay friends, and lived in New York, and gave in to consumer culture without questioning it). What's worse is that Americans are obsessed with the pursuit of happiness or the idea that you could always be happier and it's your right as a human being to endeavor to reach a happier state. This is why there are so many freaking single people in the country: real relationships with real people are about the compromises you make to be with each other. If you don't have the patience to seek those compromises or consider the concept that making yourself less happy might allow for more happiness in the future. You end up like me, where you get into a good relationship then screw yourself out of it because your wandering eye has the stupid notion that "maybe something better will come along." One ends up pursuing happiness, never trying to develop it. I'm sure Eat Pray Love is a fine movie because Julia Roberts is in it, and I'd watch her do boring things as long as she gave that smile/laugh combo that I'm addicted to like crack. But: as for the film and the "empowerment" and "happiness" it preaches - bullshit. I don't know much about empowering women or making other people happy, but I'm pretty sure that there is a way to do both without paying for someone to tell me how they diluted themselves into thinking they were happy for that week. [Quick Note, RE: Spending Money to discover yourself as children die of starvation in Africa. Not sure if this is selfish because I'm not sure that humans feel more happiness or sadness than all other humans. Yeah, it's kind of gross that a globe-hopping trip makes this woman feel better when a cup of rice would make thousands of humans just as happy, but it "just as happy" exists, so does "just as sad" so maybe Julia Roberts was as depressed by her luxurious monotony as African children are with their starving monotony.] #1 – [When I Entered The Void – A NotAReview] Suggested Reading:Hallucinogenic Enter The Void Shakes Up Lincoln CenterForces Of Geek Enter The Void Review I got to see Gasper Noe's new film Enter The Void this week, after missing its runs at Cannes, Toronto, Sundance and SXSW, and I'm still a little stunned by it. If you've seen anything by Gasper Noe, chances are it was Irreversible – the film starring Monica Bellucci that takes place in reverse chronological order and includes a graphic, traumatic rape scene that allows the film to simply be described as: That Rape Movie. When I first saw Irreversible, I knew it as That Rape Movie, which doesn't really give the proper amount of credit to the film, Noe and what they are trying to accomplish together. I also can't say, even after seeing Irreversible, that I necessary recommend it. It's about bad things happening, and it leaves me with that dark feeling at the end; a Requiem For A Dream dark feeling: that everything around me is going to end badly for all involved. Enter The Void both is and is not similar in that deeply disturbing feeling. This film tells the story of Oscar, an American drug dealer living in Japan. He's been slinging drugs to pay for his sister, Linda, to come live with him after they were separated into different foster homes when they were young. Oscar promises never to leave his sister, which gets trippy when Oscar gets shot by the police. The rest of the film has the spirit of Oscar hovering over the city and twisting through time. That doesn't even begin to describe the film, it's just a description of a plot that exists to justify some crazy camera work and disturbing imagery. Enter The Void isn't as concerned about being a story as it is about being an experience. Most of the action is seen as if we are hovering above it, a disembodied spirit moving in and out of peoples heads, lights ...and an aborted fetus. Noe is obsessed with the micro and the macro, but isn't concerned with showing us the character moments that make up a traditional narrative. The first 20 minutes or so takes place in the first person, right down to internal monologue and blinking. Yes, the screen blinks. Which made me blink, which succeeded in syncing me up with the character. I think the first 20 minutes are also in real time, right down to a fairly lengthy drug-trip sequence. After the inciting incident – the murder of the main character and by proxy the audience – we enter a sequence where we view key moments in Oscar's life from directly behind him. After that, the camera becomes something not-Oscar, a floating spirit with a top-down perspective. Each shift brings us further away from character moments that involve the performances of the actors but ups the style quotient and the WTF nature of the whole thing. Did I mention there are breaks in between scenes where there are either strobed colors flashing at you or you fly over a Tokyo that gets increasingly fantastical? It's almost impossible to actively engage with this film while it's playing. That's one of the things I liked the most about it. It's a rare experience to walk out of the film, dazed and heading to the bathroom, having very little idea of what just happened. It's the good version of what you were feeling when you walked out of Transformers 2: Revenge Of The Fallen (anyone want to compare Bay and Noe? I think there's an interesting conversation there about style, substance and visual assault on your audience). The screening I attended included a Q&A with Noe after the screening where mundane questions about drugs were asked and Noe did the last thing I wanted him to do which was give his multiple interpretations of the ending. I'll spare you the insanity of trying to interpret what Noe sees in his own work and simply guess that this film is going to gain cult status slightly below that of AntiChrist's entrails-eating-fox. I'm not sure it's a focused enough film to be about one thing or even have one message. It's just difficult to engage in that way. I'm sighing, right now, as I'm keying in this sentence. I'm doing a horrible job of describing Enter The Void. I should have just transcribed the conversation I had with Cinematical's David Ehrlich about if the movie was really “pretentious” or not. We came down on the side of “not,” but we got really close to “pretentious.” Right before the movie started, I saw some other NYC Critics there and I tried to beg my way out of the label of “critic” because that's not really what I'm doing right now. I don't want to trash the parts of Enter The Void that might not have worked, but I don't want to praise some of the more out-there things the film subjects its audience to. I will say this: Enter The Void is challenging entertainment. What I saw was the “Director's Cut” that came in at 2 hours and 40-some minutes. On September 24th, a slightly shorter cut will be released in an art house cinema near you. Don't look for it at your local chain of theaters, because this film in Not Rated (for good reason). Right after the film, I ended up in the bathroom with Benicio Del Toro, who had his reaction to Enter The Void quoted on the Speakeasy Wall Street Journal blog: “It’s rare to get an auteur these days and Gaspar was just doing his thing with all the colors and stuff.” Colors and stuff: BLAM! Sorry about the mish-mash of unrelated craziness this week. HOWEVER, they are 6 pretty fantastic things, possibly the most fun I've had in a week since I started the column. That said, I need more reccommendations, especially now that you can tell how open I am to absolutely ANYTHING. Click the below graphic to send me an e-mail. I'm pretty good about responding. If you've taken issue with what I've started, you can challenge me to explain or retract in the comments section here or at my Formspring account. I don't know why, but I seem to be taken the LEAST seriously of the Latino Review Formspringers. I'll be spending all week looking for new things and reading your responses. COMING UP: I've finished Season Two of Veronica Mars, and all 8-some hours of Ken Burn's Civil War documentary...maybe something about race/class issues? Do I want to take my rants in that direction?I still have a stack of pilot scripts for the upcoming Fall Season. Any shows you are particularly interested in? E-mail me at HeyDa7e@gmail.com and I'll see if I have it.I also feel like I've been leaving Books and Music hanging with all my TV/Film blabbering. I don't know what that would entail. Maybe I should try to lasso DC Pierson (Derrick Comedy, Mystery Team, Grassroots) into giving me a few words on his novel? Tweet at him if that's something you are interested in.And because I'm going to keep linking to it until someone tells me to stop, you should check out the website for the short film I'm workng on now: Http://Proposals-Film.com Source: Da7e/AntiDave

Dennis Hopper began as a nervous young man reduced to tears by Old Hollywood and became a wild star who transformed and sometimes terrorised his industry. A close colleague remembers a man of genius, humour and real warmth

In 1986 I was commissioned by the recently set up Channel 4 to direct two hour-long documentaries about the Hollywood-based production company BBS. This was set up by legendary producer, Bert Schneider, director Bob Rafelson and accountant Steve Blauner. They blew a giant hole in the studio-based Hollywood system by making movies for under $1m.

Their best-known productions were The Last Picture Show, Five Easy Pieces and The King of Marvin Gardens. Dennis had come upon BBS in the late 1960s via Peter Bogdanovich, who had made a terrific thriller, Targets, about a pathological gunman who killed, without motive, the drivers of cars on motorways.

This was financed by Roger Corman who wanted to back Easy Rider until his bankers sat down for a meeting with Dennis, the putative director of the project, whose language by all accounts was so colourful they refused to countenance him as helmsman. So Dennis upped and went to Bert Schneider, who agreed to produce it, and the rest as they say is history.

From the very beginning, Dennis had his moments. After a terrific start in 1955 with Rebel Without A Cause and a soul-changing meeting with James Dean, it underwent a juddering halt when he tried to mess with Hollywood veteran Henry Hathaway. He was cast in a minor role in From Hell to Texas and found it impossible to take the intricate direction Hathaway was determined to give him. Over the course of a day and a night and over 80 takes, he was interrupted by studio executives calling Dennis, "Hey kid, this is Hathaway you are fucking with, do you want to work again or not?"

Dennis was reduced to a catatonic lump of weeping jelly. Banned from every set in Hollywood, he told me he planned a million and one ways to dispose of Hathaway, but decided to wait, see and hope.

A decade later and Dennis was probably all but uncontrollable. While Easy Rider was being produced he was sitting next to the veteran director George Cukor at a Hollywood dinner and suddenly turned to him, saying: "you are old Hollywood and we're the new. We are going to BURY YOU". Not quite the way to behave even in impolite society, and the way Easy Rider was actually made and finally completed is a tremendous tribute to Bert Schneider's ability to hold a rein on a disintegrating project.

And filming was only part of the story – after editing it for a year, Hopper wanted to show a full five-hour version without further cuts. So a team of editors began to trim the film, working from both ends and arriving, finally, at some agreed mid-point. Then, even when it won the Palme D'Or at Cannes, US executives did not see the potential of the film until word-of-mouth gathered together the 1960s generation who absolutely understood the philosophy expounded by Hopper, Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson and filled the aisles (all other seats being taken) of cinemas worldwide.

Anyway, back to 1986 and we arrive with a full film crew (yes, in those days we even travelled with one) in LA to interview Dennis, only to find that he is in hospital with a suspected overdose and basically "out of it". Again, it is Schneider who visits Dennis, calms him and re-motivates him. So we hang about the Chateau Marmont hotel and wait for Dennis to recover, filling our time with key interviews from other BBS players. One of these is Ned Tanen, a Hollywood executive apparently carved out of granite who ran major studios all his life and had the misfortune to inherit Dennis's next project: 1971's The Last Movie.

Well, he told us, it very nearly was. Shot in Taos, New Mexico, where Dennis had tried to introduce the natives to the French "New Wave" at the local flea-pit without a great deal of success (there were many variegated stains on the screen as a result) this rambling stream-of-consciousness movie almost brought Dennis's career to a much earlier close.

He replaced the actor chosen for the lead, Ben Johnson, with himself and proceeded to embark on a series of existential adventures which left even the nouvelle vague well behind. Poor Tanen, beholden to his shareholders and board members, who all dumped on him from a great height, could only muster the following comment about Dennis even long after the event: "He is, I think, some kind of genius…"

The public reaction to the death of such an icon will be fascinating to observe. So far people seem to be mentioning Easy Rider, almost as a matter of course, and his role as the multiple-substance-addicted heavy in David Lynch's Blue Velvet. Famously he told Lynch that he was not going to play the part: he was the part.

This reminds me of Dennis's comment about talking to James Dean, when they were really no more than students, and Dean said to him: "Don't act drinking from the glass just drink!" Essentially this note from friend to friend saw Dennis through five decades of memorable appearances on large and small screens.

There was so much more to him than this, though. Dennis's work as an artist and photographer has, in my opinion at least, been overlooked disgracefully in the UK. It was to be the Hermitage in St Petersburg that offered Dennis, two years ago, a one-man show – something unheard of even for a Soviet artist. His pride in this aspect of his work was deeply felt, but privately held, attended to and enjoyed.

My abiding memory of him is someone who always saw the humour, even in the blackest of moments. He was also a fantastic friend.

It was Dennis's great regret that he only achieved eight credits as a director (against over 200 as an actor) and he felt that those talents were badly neglected. This is my opinion too, but in a sense his mischievous screen persona, used to such advantage in the films of others, became a millstone and sapped his time and energy.

Inevitably the question on this so sad day is: how will history remember him? Well, he lived long enough for the hell-raising days of his youth to be forgotten, or not even to be recognised by younger generations of filmgoers. This alien from the Sixties, unrecognisable through the whiskers and long hair, riding forever through both real and imagined deserts: it is he, Dennis, who carries with him our hopes and dreams. What did he amount to? What did he achieve? A handful of great acting performances, some wonderful films as a director, three or four incredible art collections dissembled by ungrateful wives, many loyal and devoted friends and the respect of his luckier colleagues.

Perhaps the ultimate irony is that he was embraced by the very Hollywood establishment he was determined to bury, and it is now they who will be burying him.

Paul Joyce is a documentary film-maker and artist

His best films

Rebel Without a Cause

(Nicholas Ray, 1955)

His fresh-faced 1955 debut, insecure and in the shadow of James Dean, whose spirit he so determinedly carried on.

Easy Rider

(Dennis Hopper, 1969)

His first film as director was a complacently subversive countercultural movie that made him a fortune and turned his friend Jack Nicholson into a star. His collaborator was black humorist Terry Southern, co-writer of Dr Strangelove.

The Last Movie

(Dennis Hopper, 1971)

A truly wild western, perhaps the greatest expression of the 1960s zeitgeist. Its producer, Universal Studios, buried it for a decade after it received critical acclaim at Venice.

Tracks

(Henry Jaglom, 1976)

One of the best, most rarely revived Vietnam movies in which Hopper's veteran brings the war back home.

The American Friend

(Wim Wenders, 1971)

Hopper involves himself in the new European cinema as Patricia Highsmith's psychopathic Tom Ripley.

Hoosiers

(David Anspaugh, 1986)

Hopper gives his greatest performance as an alcoholic former high school basketball star seeking redemption.

Blue Velvet

(David Lynch, 1986)

In his later career, Hopper turned in a succession of truly terrifying heavies, of which the menacing small-town gangster Frank Booth (a role he begged for) is the most nightmarishly unforgettable.

Selected by Philip French

A rep for the Limelight Marketplace tells us DNA Info didn’t have its facts straight when it said the Chelsea outpost of Grimaldi’s wouldn’t be opening until summer. Apparently the opening date has been pushed back only two weeks till May 7, when the entire “festival of shops” opens to the public. Hours for the marketplace will be Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. till 10 p.m., and Sunday from 11 a.m. till 7 p.m. Check out the list of vendors below.

Baci Gelato
Purveyors of decadent gelato to New York’s finest restaurants and hotels, Baci Gelato will be operating in the specialty food room offering a full espresso bar, gelato, fresh juices/smoothies, crepes and waffles.
www.bacigelato.com

Barbara Scott Flowers
Barbara Scott has been providing uniquely preserved, beautiful floral arrangements in the Tri-state and Montreal area for over thirty years. Each arrangement is custom-designed and guaranteed to retain its original look for a minimum of three to four months. www.barbarascott.com

Book Smart
Booksmart is the main supplier of books to private schools in the tri-state area. Booksmart produces book fairs, book signings and has a direct line to best selling authors.
www.booksmartny.com

Brocade Home
Lisa Versacio, founder of West Elm brings her latest concept, Brocade Home to the Home Gallery at Limelight Marketplace. Brocade Home leased all 9 shops in at the Marketplace. Brocade’s light filled space showcases Lisa Versacio’s idea of affordable luxury at its very best.
www.brocadehome.com

Butterfly Bakeshop
Butterfly Bakeshop is known for its lavishly decorated and whimsically shaped cakes, blending kitchen skills with fine-art aesthetics. From miniature red velvet for one to a custom cake for a party of 100 or more, Butterfly Bakeshop’s treats impress loved ones with tasty indulgent bespoke cakes.
www.butterflybakeshop.com

Carter & Cavero
Carter & Cavero offers the finest extra virgin olive oils pressed at their optimal ripeness and hand-selected by the experts to exhibit the finest quality of the fruit.
www.carterandcavero.com

Caswell Massey
The country’s oldest retailer, Caswell Massey offers luxury personal care products including soaps, lotions, gels, fragrances and accessories for both men and women. Using pure essential oils and natural ingredients, Caswell Massey has remained true to its roots for 257 years. Caswell Massey looks forward to expanding their audience at Limelight Marketplace.
www.CaswellMassey.com

Cosmé Proud
Luxury skincare collection Cosmé Proud features the finest and most carefully chosen Japanese skincare products for consumers who are committed to keeping long-lasting beautiful skin. A standout in the line is the popular 24k gold revitalizer which uses 24 karat gold flakes.
www.cosmeproud.com

Cupcake Stop
Riding the wave of the gourmet food truck movement, Cupcake Stop is opening its first brick and mortar location in the Sweet Shop at Limelight Marketplace. Baked fresh daily from the highest quality ingredients, a cupcake from the Cupcake Stop is a delicious treat for the most discerning New Yorker.
www.cupcakestop.com

Grimaldi’s Pizzeria
This famous Brooklyn Pizzeria will be opening its first Manhattan outpost at the Limelight Marketplace. With access both through the main hall of shops and its own separate entrance on 6th Avenue.
www.grimaldis.com

Hunter Boots
The official Wellington boot to Her Majesty the Queen, Hunter Boots is synonymous with street-smart style. This is the first storefront for the 150 year old brand. It will debut its full collection of handbags and leather boots, along with its traditional wellies.
usa.hunter-boot.com

It’s Sugar
Known as the Willy Wonka of retail, Jeff Rubin, co-founder of Dylan’s Candy Bar and owner FAO Sweets, brings his latest creation, It’s Sugar to Limelight Marketplace. www.itsugar.com

J. Sisters
The famed New York salon known for its celebrity clientele is opening its second location at the Limelight Marketplace. The legendary sisters leased the third floor, once known as the Spider Room.
www.jsisters.com

Jala Frozen Yogurt
Jala Frozen Yogurt boasts beneficial antioxidants and bacteria flora. Each serving contains approximately 10% of the recommended daily allowance for calcium and one third of the recommended daily allowances of vitamins A, C and E.
jalaicecream.com

Jon Wye
Jon Wye set’s up shop in a skybox at Limelight Marketplace. He creates bespoke leather accessories on site and carries thought provoking screen printed tee shirts.
www.jonwye.com

LeSportsac
LeSportsac has become an American icon sold in countries around the world. The Classic and Designer Collections (designed by trendsetters Stella McCartney, Jonathan Adler, Diane von Furstenberg, tokidoki and Gwen Stefani) have established LeSportsac as the leading American brand of casual nylon bags worldwide.
www.lesportsac.com

Little Candy Cakes
Former celebrity stylist Cindy Paragallo brings her love of design and fashion to the culinary world. Little Candy Cake creates whimsical miniature wedding cakes created entirely from solid chocolate. Each Little “Candy Cake” is handmade and individually created. Ideal for gifts, favors or an everyday celebration the quality of these chocolate cakes are obvious to all who set their eyes on these little treats.
www.site.thelittlecandycake.com

Lulu Denim
Purveyors of trendsetting fashions from the latest contemporary designers, the South Beach fashion emporium is transplanting its carefully edited collection to Limelight Marketplace.
www.luludenim.com

Mari’s New York
Former Balthazar baker and creative director, Mari manufactures one-bite brownies. Her packaging looks as good as her brownies taste! Mari currently wholesales to Barneys and Bergdorf Goodman.
www.marisny.com

Mariebelle Cacao Bar
The beloved SoHo chocolatiere is opening a Cacao Bar & Café in one of the famed skyboxes. This full service café will feature a refined menu of light fare and signature beverages including Aztec Hot Chocolate and an exotic selection of teas.

Mariebelle Chocolate
Maribel Lieberman is offering her luxurious selection of artisanal chocolates and candies in the Sweet Shop at Limelight Marketplace as well as at a kiosk on the main floor. www.mariebelle.com

Miss Tea
Miss Tea was created out of true belief in the benefits of tea and herbs.
Miss Tea’s uses only 100% organic ingredients. Their specialty tea blends, like Femininitea, Activitea, Securitea are created to fit the needs of hectic urban life. In addition, Miss Tea will carry tea pots, glassware and tea accessories.
www.miss-tea.com

Old Hollywood
Voted best jewelry in New York magazine’s “Best of New York Shopping” issue, Old Hollywood carries lines from emerging designers to one of kind vintage creations. Tiffany Porter, and partner Alex Shulhafer leased 12 out of the 13 cases in the jewelry & accessories department at Limelight Marketplace, and will attract guests with exclusive pieces ranging from $20 - $600.
www.oldhollywoodmoxie.com

Om Aroma & Co
Om Aroma & Co. is an award-winning anti-aging organic spa and skincare line. All products are free of parabens, formaldehyde, sulfates, and other toxic chemical fillers.
www.omaroma.com

Sophie & Teddy's Doggie Delight
The first ever eco-friendly pet store will open at Limelight Marketplace. Our guests can stock up on organic pastries, spa products and accessories for their four legged friends.

Selima Optiques
Selima Salaun, a trend-setting designer and professional optician and optometrist, is the mastermind behind the luxurious eye wear collection that VIP's of the fashion, music and cinema industries just can't seem to get enough of. You’ll also find eclectic styles by Blinde, Kata, YSL and Gucci.
www.selimaoptique.com

Silly Souls
Silly Souls carries unique baby clothing, shoes, socks, apparel and gift baskets. The stylish line featuring cheeky slogans is perfect for hip moms and babies.
www.sillysouls.com

Soapology
Soapology is an all natural and organic skincare company. Customers can create their own signature scents at their aromatic oil bar, choosing from a wide range of aromas like tea leaf, oatmeal, pink grapefruit and patchouli.
www.soapologynyc.com

Sue Devitt
Sue Devitt is the official vendor of color cosmetics at Limelight Marketplace.
Her work has graced the runways of Versace, Dolce & Gabana and Valentino and is favored by top beauty editors and A-list celebrities from Sarah Jessica Parker to Liv Tyler. Currently Sue Devitt is sold at Barneys New York and Harvey Nichols.
www.soapologynyc.com

Thérapie New York
General Store for Limelight Marketplace
This luxury lifestyle emporium exists to meet the needs of the busy, stressful New Yorker. Therapie New York will carry everything one can need from small necessities to grand indulgences.
www.therapieny.com

Tina Tang Jewelry
Tina Tang’s “Classics with a Twist” designs have made her the creative darling of NYC’s Greenwich Village since 2002. Tina is thrilled to be expanding her retail presence to the Limelight Marketplace. Her jewelry is frequently featured internationally in the top fashion magazines and blogs, and her celebrity clientele includes; Jessica Biel, Rebecca Romijan and Tyra Banks amongst others.
www.tinatang.com

Zakka
Taste maker Toshiki Okazaki brings his acclaimed shop and artists' space to Limelight Marketplace. Zakka which means “variety of things in Japanese” will offer limited edition Japanese toys, graphic art-related books, as well as other select items boasting unique design.
www.zakkacorp.com

Limelight Marketplace, 656 Avenue of the Americas, nr. 20th St.; 212-226-7585

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Filed Under: openings, chelsea, grimaldi's, limelight marketplace

DENVER, CO--March 23, 2010--After four packed and critically acclaimed screenings at SXSW last week, THE PEOPLE vs. GEORGE LUCAS will be presented in the World Showcase programme at the 2010 Hot Docs International Documentary Film Festival in Toronto (April 29 – May 9).

Hot Docs is North America's largest and most important documentary film festival, conference and market. Each year, the Festival presents a selection of approximately 150 cutting-edge documentaries; and the World Showcase programme is the Festival's immensely popular survey of the year's finest non-fiction films from around the world. With its lively mix of public and professional events, Hot Docs is the ideal North American market and meeting place for the documentary industry. Last year, the festival attracted over 2000 delegates, including documentary filmmakers, buyers, programmers, distributors, and commissioning editors from around the world.

“Hot Docs is the perfect follow-up to our immensely popular Spotlight Premiere screenings at SXSW,” says Director Alexandre O. Philippe, “and I couldn’t think of a more exciting venue to introduce our film to Canadian audiences. Hot Docs is an essential stop on the circuit for all documentary filmmakers, and we’re truly honored to be listed among the high-caliber of non-fiction films selected to compete this year.”

THE PEOPLE vs. GEORGE LUCAS, which explores the dysfunctional relationship between the great filmmaker and his fans over the past three decades, will screen at the Bloor Cinema on May 1st (9:15pm) and May 4th (11:45pm), and at the Innis Town Hall on May 3rd (4:00pm).

Star Trek and Mission Impossible 3 Editor to Deliver Keynote Address at NAB ... PRLog.Org (press release) Her career achievements culminated with an Eddie Award nomination from the American Cinema Editors for her work on the 2009 futuristic phenomena Star Trek: ...

Publisher of Movie magazine and books on cinema and art

Ian Cameron, who has died aged 72 from a virulent form of lung disease, had a long and enterprising career as an independent producer of books, notably on cinema and art, and of an influential film magazine, Movie. Producer is the best word, since he was variously author, editor, photographer, designer and publisher. The flair and commitment that he brought to the last four of these roles came to overshadow his own writing, but in his 20s he was a sharp and articulate film critic, a dominant voice in the debates that were transforming attitudes to cinema in Britain in the 1960s.

His childhood had been unsettled. Born in London, he was only five when his mother died and his Scottish father sent him to live for a year with maiden aunts in Inverness; on returning, he found he now had a stepmother. After attending University College school in Hampstead, north London, as a day boy, and doing national service in the RAF, he went up to St John's College, Oxford, to read zoology. He was active in the university film society, and, in 1959, became film editor of Oxford Opinion. In those days a small undergraduate magazine could make a big impression nationally, and Cameron's film section emphatically did so, starting with his polemical first editorial: "Film criticism in Britain is dead. Perhaps it was never alive …"

The impetus was carried over into his editorship of Movie, which he started in London in 1962. This handsome magazine had the same polemical edge, the same emphasis on close visual analysis backed by imaginative integration of text and pictures, and the same core team of critics: Cameron himself, Mark Shivas and VF Perkins, who were soon joined by Paul Mayersberg and Robin Wood. It challenged in spectacular fashion the tired orthodoxies that still dominated Anglo-Saxon film criticism, and Cameron was its most forceful spokesman, both within the magazine and in debates conducted elsewhere, for instance with Pauline Kael in the American journal Film Quarterly.

Before long, Shivas began a career as a television and film producer; Mayersberg became a screenwriter and director; and both Wood and Perkins became key figures in the developing field of academic film studies. Cameron followed neither path, but expanded his work in publishing, and, in 1966, launched a groundbreaking series, Movie Paperbacks: generously illustrated studies of, mainly, American and European film-makers, including multiple contributions from Wood, Raymond Durgnat and the future Hollywood director Peter Bogdanovich.

Cameron himself co-authored for the series, with his first wife, Elisabeth, Heavies (1967) and Broads (1969), both of which brought a striking combination of thorough research and perceptive appreciation to the work of a wide range of Hollywood players, mostly unfashionable ones. He also co-authored with Wood a book on Michelangelo Antonioni (1968), expanded from his own earlier study which had, remarkably, filled an entire issue of Film Quarterly in 1962; and he had a short spell as film critic of the Spectator in 1966.

Increasingly, though, his own writing was being sacrificed to his work as editor and designer of a wide range of publications, not just on film, but on natural history, the decorative arts, architecture and design.

Film books, and Movie, continued to appear sporadically into the 1990s, maintaining his high production standards, but without making the same impact within a now-crowded market. For his art and design books, Cameron set up effective deals with firms such as Thames & Hudson in London, and Abrams in New York, delivering complete "packages" for them to publish: notable among these was a beautiful series of nine books by the artist Andy Goldsworthy. When the system worked, his authors had the best of both worlds, getting the benefits of large-scale distribution and of small-scale craftsmanship; Cameron's wit and warmth, combined with his professionalism, made his companies a pleasure to work with.

In 1989 he had moved to Moffat in Dumfriesshire with his second wife, Jill Hollis, who was always an equal partner in the work of their company Cameron & Hollis, and who will keep it operating. Until close to his death, Cameron remained professionally active, going to Italy to supervise the printing of an updated edition of Roger Billcliffe's definitive catalogue raisonné of Charles Rennie Mackintosh's furniture, which he had first published in 1979 – a book typical of his design skills and attention to detail. It was published last month.

He is survived by Jill and their son Cal, by his children Alice and Robert from his marriage to Elisabeth, and by six grandchildren.

• Ian Alexander Cameron, film critic and publisher, born 13 March 1937, died 26

Imedi TV broadcaster provokes panic with report claiming Russian attack in progress

Switching on their TV sets at 8pm on Saturday, Georgians were greeted with incredible news – Russia had invaded. The pro-government Imedi TV station reported that Russian tanks were once more trundling into Georgia. Not only that, but the country's pro-western leader Mikheil Saakashvili had been murdered, the station said.

For the next half an hour there were scenes of absolute panic, as the mobile network collapsed, Georgians spilled on to the streets, and friends and relatives desperately tried to reach each other and seek out information. In fact, they needn't have bothered.

The report, it turned out, was a hoax. The Kremlin hadn't invaded and Saakashvili, it emerged, was very much alive. Not since Orson Welles persuaded Americans that the Martians had landed, during his hysteria-sparking War of the Worlds radio broadcast, had a whole nation been so duped.

Today furious opposition politicians denounced the TV stunt as dangerous and irresponsible. Angry residents in the capital, Tbilisi, gathered outside the offices of Imedi TV, hours after the report flashed erroneously around the world. Saakashvili, however, was unapologetic. He declared that the threat of Russian attack remained "very realistic".

Zaza Gachechiladze, editor-in-chief of the Georgian Messenger newspaper, said: "People were completely shocked. I was driving to my friend's party when I got a phone call telling me to turn on the TV.

"I rushed upstairs. There was Dmitry Medvedev saying that Russia was intervening in Georgia. I didn't notice this was old footage from August 2008. I immediately started looking for my children."

Gachechiladze said it took him 10 minutes to establish the story was, as he put it, "bullshit". He added: "It was a very cruel simulation. One lady whose son was in the army had a heart attack and died. Another pregnant lady lost her baby. Many children were taken to hospital suffering from stress. It was horrible what happened, actually. It is a criminal act that should be punished."

Over in Moscow, Russia's state news agency, Interfax, flashed news of the apparent invasion and Saakashvili's demise. British and American correspondents abandoned their dinner parties, phoned their editors in London, and began hunting for their flak jackets. It was left to David Cracknell, a seasoned former senior reporter on the Sunday Times now working for the Georgian government, to kill the story. He sent journalists a laconic SMS. It read simply: "Not true."

But for many Georgians the threat of a Russian invasion remains hauntingly real, given the five-day conflict of August 2008. Georgian tanks attempted to seize back the rebel province of South Ossetia, prompting a punitive pan-Georgian Russian invasion. Russian troops continue to occupy breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia – a short drive away from Tbilisi, down a scenic mountain valley lined with walnut trees and orchards.

Relations with Russia have scarcely improved since Vladimir Putin, Russia's prime minister, notoriously told Nicolas Sarkozy during the Russo-Georgian conflict that he planned to hang Saakashvili "by the balls". Few observers, however, expect Russia to launch another attack since it achieved most of its geopolitical goals last time.

They included thwarting Georgia's attempts to join Nato, humiliating Saakashvili and – by proxy – his backers in the US, and avenging the west's decision to recognise Kosovo, a move Moscow bitterly resents. (Russia got its own back by recognising South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent. So far, though, only Venezuela, Nicaragua and the tiny Pacific guano island of Nauru have followed Moscow's lead.)

Nearly two years on, Georgia's unhappy war with its mighty neighbour continues to divide Georgians and polarise society. Saakashvili insists his South Ossetian offensive was a desperate response to a long-planned and already under way Russian assault. Georgia's opposition accuses Saakashvili of criminal recklessness. It says that since coming to power in the 2003 Rose revolution Saakashvili has turned from liberal reformer to nationalist autocrat.

It is no coincidence that Imedi TV's extraordinary broadcast came days after Georgia's opposition leader, Nino Burdzhanadze, held talks in Moscow with Putin, and called for the restoration of ties. Announcing that Russia had bombed Georgian airports and seaports, the 30-minute bulletin said that Burdzhanadze had taken power. The broadcast appears to be an ill-conceived dig at Georgia's opposition, before important elections for a mayor of Tbilisi in late May.

Georgia's interior ministry conceded that the broadcast had caused "great panic". Cinemas in Tbilisi emptied as parents called their children home. However, Georgy Arveladze, the head of Georgia Media Production Holding which owns Imedi, said the aim of the broadcast had been to show the "real threat" of how events might unfold. The station said it had indicated the broadcast was a scenario – but the distinction appears to have been lost on most viewers.

Russia and its state-controlled media have long portrayed Saakashvili as a dangerous tie-chewing maniac. Today gleeful Kremlin politicians seized on the TV channel's stunt to ram home their view that Georgia's leader was indeed deranged. Russia's envoy to Nato, Dmitry Rogozin, dubbed it "criminal", and said the western military alliance should have nothing to do with Georgia's erratic president.

Imedi TV used to be Georgian's main independent TV station. Saakashvili, however, took the channel off the air after falling out with its owner, the oligarch and opposition presidential candidate Badri Patarkatsishvili. After Patarkatsishvili's death in exile in England in 2008, Sakaashvili handed the station over to a government supporter. It now regularly screens pro-government opinion.

A study of the pioneering French film magazine documents its vast influence

Cahiers du Cinéma, the world's best-known film magazine, is, according to Emilie Bickerton in her admirable history, "limping on today as another banal mouthpiece of the spectacle". It will be 60 next year, provided it survives its latest change in ownership from Le Monde to the British publishing house Phaidon. It was founded in 1951 by a trio of writers, chief among them France's most respected critic and theorist, the 33-year-old André Bazin, a liberal Catholic of wide and generous sympathies. He attracted a group of young men of passionate views frequently expressed in extreme, sometimes mystical terms. They attacked respectable literary cinema ("la qualité française") and the tastes of an older generation ("le cinéma du papa") and exalted the director as individual creator ("la politique des auteurs"), most especially old Hollywood masters like Hawks, Hitchcock, Preminger and Walsh. These young Turks, little interested in politics, were moral aesthetes who saw movies as a religion and criticism as theology.

Several of the best-known Cahiers critics – notably Eric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol, François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard and Jacques Rivette – became the core directors of the French new wave, and their stylistically iconoclastic pictures (whose leading characters were often seen poring over copies of Cahiers) found a world audience in the early 1960s. They and their concept of the auteur had a permanent influence on world cinema, if a somewhat less revolutionary one than seemed likely at the time. Interestingly, as Bickerton points out, Cahiers itself didn't itself embrace the new wave with any particular enthusiasm.

The years of auteur criticism and filmmaking from the early 50s to 1968 were the magazine's glory years under Bazin (who died in 1958), his successor Rohmer and then Rivette, who set about extending its somewhat limited interests by covering the burgeoning developing nations cinema. But as a result of les événements of 1968 (which included the struggle between the De Gaulle government and the cinéastes for the soul of the Cinémathèque Française, where Truffaut and co had sat at the feet of its co-creator, Henri Langlois), it became politicised. This led to a preoccupation with theory (neo-Marxism, neo-Freudianism, structuralism) and then to a wholehearted commitment to Maoism. Bickerton, a member of the editorial board of New Left Review, rather approves of the first part of this phase, which has a strong influence on academics abroad. (Her NLR colleague Peter Wollen practised auteurist criticism under a pseudonym before turning to semiotics, publishing a seminal book on this critical progress in 1969 called Signs and Meanings in the Cinema.) But she is repelled both by the surrender to Maoism in the 1970s and the way Cahiers embraced a crass consumerist policy to win back middle-of-the-road readers after a drastic slump in circulation.

Bickerton has done a valuable and highly informative job in locating the historical roots of Cahiers in the cinematic cultural debate that French intellectuals engaged in from the first world war onwards, and an equally useful one in relating the magazine's decline to the distressing politics of post-1968 France. I have a few criticisms. Her indexer has done a poor job – Cahiers' chief rival, Positif (for long a much superior journal), figures prominently in the text but goes unmentioned in the index. More significantly, it's a pity she couldn't find a few pages for the British magazine Movie, whose editors went on to become prominent critics, teachers and filmmakers, and the US critic Andrew Sarris, who coined the term "auteur theory", edited the short-lived Cahiers du cinéma in English and wrote The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929-1968, a taxonomic masterwork. Together they introduced auteurism to the English-speaking world. She might also have compared the Cahiers critics-filmmakers with their British contemporaries, Lindsay Anderson, Karel Reisz and Tony Richardson, who wrote for Sight & Sound and created the Free Cinema movement and that brief, invigorating storm in a kitchen sink, Britain's own new wave.

This Sunday, Kathryn Bigelow, the director of the critically-acclaimed film, The Hurt Locker, just might be the first women to win the Oscar for best director. She’s already one a slew of other directing awards including the very prestigious Director’s Guild of America award for best director. A majority of the directors who won the DGA award also went on to win an Academy Award for best director so don’t be surprised if Ms. Bigelow receives Oscar gold Sunday night.

In honor of Ms. Bigelow I’ve decided to dust off an old post of mine about women film directors from the silent era to the modern age, and have made a few updates. Enjoy!

As anyone to name a film director and most likely you’ll hear the names Spielberg, Scorsese, Coppola, Cameron and Tarantino. It is rare that the first name you hear is a woman’s. Why is this? Well, men do dominate the film industry. And only men have won the best director Oscars...so far. Or maybe it’s because only recently have women gone behind the scenes to direct movies and need time to catch up to the big boys. Well, not exactly.

Women have been a part of Hollywood since the silent movie era. Many of these women, like Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish, are known for their work in front of the camera. However, women have been calling the shots behind the scenes since before the advent of the “talkies” in the late 1920s. They worked as producers, editors, screenwriters, and yes, directors. Many of these women held very creative and influential positions. One of the highest paid directors of the silent era was a woman. Furthermore, women directors were not afraid to make socially-conscious films.

Just as many actresses like Barbra Streisand and Penny Marshall have turned their talents to directing so did actresses of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Film noir actress, Ida Lupino, directed both films and TV shows in the 1950s and 1960s. And she wasn’t afraid of focusing her camera lens on controversial issues.

So far very few women have been nominated for directing a feature film. These women include Lina Wertmuller, for the Italian language film Seven Beauties (1975), Jane Campion for The Piano (1993) and Sophia Coppola for Lost in Translation (2003), and now Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker.

The following a just a few notable female film directors and their work.

Silent Era to 1930-Alice Guy Blaché

Parisian-born Alice Guy Blaché (1875-1968) was the first female film director in the history of film making. She was also the first director, male or female, to bring narrative film to the silver screen. From 1896 to 1920 Ms. Guy Blaché directed over 400 films. She made her first full length film, The Life of Christ, in 1906. The Life of Christ was a big budget epic that included 300 extras. That same year, her film La Fee Printemps (The Spring Fairy) was one of the first films to be shot in color. In fact, many of her films used a great deal of the best special effects of that time period.
Ms. Guy Blaché was the first woman to own and run her own film studio, the Solax Studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey. After Solax stopped producing films, Ms. Guy Blaché went to work for William Randolph Hearst's International Film Service.

By the early 1920s, Ms. Guy Blaché stopped making movies, but that did not stop her from giving lectures on film making. She was pretty much forgotten by film historians until she published her memoirs in 1976.

Some other films by Ms. Guy Blaché:

The Cabbage Fairy (1896)
The Dangers of Alcohol (1899)
A Fool and His Money (1912)
A House Divided (1913)
Dream Woman (1914)
The Divorcee (1919)
Tarnished Reputations (1920)

1930 to 1950-Dorothy Arzner

Born in California, Dorothy Arzner (1897-1979) directed seventeen films between 1927 and 1943. She was the only female director to work with the major actresses of her day, including Rosaline Russell, Joan Crawford and Katharine Hepburn. In fact, Ms. Arzner's 1933 film, Christopher Strong, was the first film to bring the legendary Katharine Hepburn to public awareness.

Though Ms. Arzner initially wanted to work as a doctor, she soon turned her ambitions to movies. She began her career with Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, the parent company of Paramount. After starting out as a typist, Ms. Arzner soon climbed the ranks to screenwriter, and then editor. One of the most famous films she edited was Rudoph Valentino's Blood and Sand. She was able to leverage this work into directing her first features Fashions for Women and Get Your Man in 1927.

Ms. Arzner's success as a director lead her to direct one of the first "talkies," The Wild Party featuring "It Girl" Clara Bow. And between 1927 and 1932, she made eleven features for Paramount until striking out on her own as an independent film director.

As a director, Ms. Arzner tackled many thorny topics including working women and female independence. Her work was often seen as melodramatic, but did reflect on women's roles both in the home and outside in ways that films directed by men did not.

Ms. Arzner stopped directing movies in 1943. However, she did direct commercials for Pepsi and taught filmmaking at UCLA in the 1960s. And there are reports that director Todd Haynes wants to do biographic on Ms. Arzner's life and how she affected motion pictures.

Some other films directed by Ms. Arzner:

Anybody's Woman (1930)
Working Girls (1931)
Merrily We Go to Hell (1932)
Craig's Wife (1936)
The Bride Wore Red (1937)
Dance, Girl, Dance (1940)
First Comes Courage (1943)

1950 to 1970-Ida Lupino

Ida Lupino (1918-1995) was born in London and was encouraged by her parents to enter show business. She got her start as an actress. She mainly played tough yet sympathetic characters, and jokingly referred to herself as a "poor man’s Bette Davis." Some of Ms. Lupino's most notable roles were in the movies Drive by Night and High Sierra. In 1947, she left the studio system to become a freelance actress. Soon after Ms. Lupino began to focus her talents to behind the camera. Her first directing job came about when Elmer Clifton fell ill during the filming Not Wanted. Not only did Ms. Lupino end up directing the movie, she also shared writing credit.

Not content to direct what we’d call "chick flicks," Ms. Lupino often directed tough action films. Her films also focused on controversial themes like rape, unwed motherhood and bigamy. She had her own production company and often directed films with no big name stars or huge monetary support from the studios. Her films were the precursor of independent cinema.

In the 1950s Ms. Lupino began to direct TV shows, including The Fugitive, Gilligan's Island and Bewitched. She was the only woman to direct an episode of The Twilight Zone. In the 1970s, Ms. Lupino returned to acting in small roles. Of women working behind the scenes, she claimed, "I'd love to see more women working as directors and producers. Today it's almost impossible to do it unless you are an actress or writer with power...I wouldn't hesitate right this minute to hire a talented woman if the subject matter was right."

Some other films directed by Ida Lupino:

Outrage (1950)
Hard, Fast and Beautiful (1950)
The Bigamist (1953)
The Hitchhiker (1953)
The Trouble With Angels (1996)

1970 to the Present-Kathryn Bigelow

Born in 1951 in San Carlos, California, Kathryn Bigelow started her career out as an artist. She worked as a painter, and later got her Master’s degree in film at Columbia where she studied mainly film theory and criticism. She worked briefly as a professor until turning to film directing.
Bigelow’s first film was a 20-minute short called The Set Up. In this film two men fight each other while two others provided voice commentary about the images they are watching. Bigelow’s first full-length feature was a biker movie The Loveless (1982), which she co-directed with Monty Montgomery.

Bigelow has directed both film and TV. Some of her television credits include the notable drama Homicide: Life on the Streets (1997-1998) and the mini-series Wild Palms (1993). Probably one of the most popular of her movies is the action-packed Point Break (1991) starring Keanu Reeves and the late Patrick Swayze.

Bigelow has won widespread critical acclaim for the Oscar-nominated The Hurt Locker, a movie set in Iraq about bomb diffusers. Made on a minuscule budget with mostly unknown actors, Bigelow so far has won the Director’s Guild of America award for best director, and she just might win the best director Oscar on March 7th.

Bigelow has been considered an anomaly of female directors because her movies often focus on action and suspense, not romance and relationships like the films of Nora Ephron or Nancy Myers.

Other films by Kathryn Bigelow:

Near Dark (1987)
Blue Steel (1990)
Strange Days (1995)
The Weight of Water (2000)
K-19: The Widowmaker (2002)

Women continue to make in-roads as film directors. A few names are Allison Anders (Grace of My Heart), Lone Sherfig (An Education), Tamara Jenkins (The Savages) and Mira Nair (The Namesake). Just like Ida Lupino and Penny Marshall, actresses are also sitting in the director’s chair. The late Adrienne Shelly directed Waitress. Sarah Polley directed Away From Her (she got an Oscar nomination for best adapted screenplay). And French actress, Julie Delpy, directed 2 Days in Paris. And most recently Drew Barrymore directed Whip It. I'm looking forward in seeing other work by female film directors. It's an exciting time for movies.

To learn more about female film directors, check out these sites:

IMDB
Directors Guild of America
American Film Institute
Alliance of Women Directors
Movies by Women
Sisters in Cinema

I've been thinking a lot about truth lately, and how accustomed we have become to accepting lies. It seems that in many ways, we receive more truth through fiction these days than we do from anything else. We seek out stories that will tell us what we want to hear, rather than what we need to know -- it's a cowardly way both to learn and to live. I've recently been reading in search of truth, and found some titles that have enlightened me in more ways than one.

Dutch journalist Joris Luyendijk knows all about manipulating truth -- he has seen it happen again and again from his station in the Middle East. In his new book for Soft Skull Press, People Like Us: Misrepresenting the Middle East, he blows open all the things we think we know about the region, and demands that we accept the hard and difficult choice of not always knowing. In the very beginning he writes:

"I didn’t want to write a book explaining how the Arab world could become democratic, how tolerant or intolerant Islam is, or who is right or wrong in the conflict between Israel and Palestine. I wanted to write the opposite -- a book that shows how difficult it is to say anything meaningful on such as major issue as the Middle East."

From his base in Cairo, he traveled to Israel, Palestine, Iraq, Syria and more, covering stories of war and peace as a correspondent. It quickly became clear that while there was a narrative that his editors (and Western readers in general) sought in Middle East stories, life on the ground there did not support it. A member of Hezbollah who contributed to the tenuous situation for Palestinians and “was responsible for the children orphaned by Israeli bombardments” was delighted to pleasantly pass the time and discuss soccer with Luyendijk. The pressure to conjure up articles of oppression found him noting that the women of Egypt face stringent travel restrictions, while ignoring their casual grocery store conversations so similar to female discussions around the world. In other words, there was always more than one story to tell, but he quickly learned there was only one version of those stories anyone in the West wanted to hear.

As he riffs on one level of insanity after another (“Egypt’s dictator is called ‘President’ even though he inherited his job from his predecessor who, in turn, used force to gain power. This particular dictator leads the ‘National Democratic Party’ which is neither democratic nor a party.”), Luyendijk maintains an attitude of wit and bemused sarcasm that will be particularly appealing to older teens. He isn’t talking down to his readers at all, but in fact is actually trusting them to be smart enough to be talked up to. This is a journalist who says: Let me tell you how it really is, even though it isn’t easy to hear. The mind reels with one revelation after another. Those all too commonly displayed images of protestors damning America, and burning its flag in spontaneous riots, that instill the conviction of “them vs. us” into our national conversation? “Guys,” he writes, “you probably think that a demonstration is something citizens use freely to express whatever they are for or against, but in a dictatorship such ‘outbursts of anger’ are often staged or are at least heavily managed by the regime.”

Oh. Should’ve seen that one coming, right?

With every word, Luyendijk provides a different perspective on what we think we know, and challenges head on what we are accustomed to believing. Killer smart and devastatingly direct, this is journalism at its best. A book for back pockets and backpacks, for classroom discussion and those determined to take on the world, People Like Us is not to be missed.

Although I have reviewed books on the effects of coal mining on the environment in the past, I read the personal essays in Coal Country: Rising Up Against Mountaintop Removal Mining with equal parts shock and despair. A companion to the documentary of the same name, the heavily-illustrated Coal Country largely focuses on people living in Appalachia who are directly affected by this intensive method of coal removal. It is far more effective than many titles on the subject because the words here are not from distant (and so often easily-dismissed) environmentalists, but by residents who have called the region home for generations. Consider the story told by Larry Gibson, whose family has owned their land on Kayford Mountain for over two hundred years. He refused to sell, but is surrounded by one of the largest mountaintop removal sites in history:

“We lost about eighty, well, close to a hundred headstones in the family cemetery, because every time the coal company would blast, they’d blast debris over into the cemetery. It would bust some of the headstones, turn some of them over. Then they’d send a crew of men over to clean them up. And then the old sandstone headstones that had carving on them, we caught them actually throwing them away, destroying them as well. And the simple reason behind that was to try to prove that we didn’t have as many graves there on the ground as we had. And so if they could reclaim some of the grave sites, well, the mountain had thirty-nine seams of coal. There’s a lot of wealth underneath there… And on the other family cemetery across the ridge we have mine cracks right through the graves that’s three and four feet wide, that you can see down in and there’s no casket, no body -- all that’s left is a headstone.”

Gibson has been repeatedly threatened with violence for refusing to sell, and his dogs have actually been shot and killed as punishment. Dead family pets is a common thread in Coal Country, as more than once a dead dog is used as a stark message to sell or shut up. Essay after essay recounts struggles not only against the mining itself, but also the damage to roads, rivers, houses and the larger landscape. In 2002, “three so-called hundred-year floods happened in ten days.” The sheer difficulty of living in coal country is too much for some. Consider Debra and Granville Burke:

First the blasting above their house wrecked its foundation. Then the floods came, four times wiping out the Burkes’ garden which the family depended on to get through the winter. Finally on Christmas morning 2002, Debra Burke took her life.

Because Coal Country is focused on individual voices telling their own personal stories, it humanizes the difficulty of standing up to Big Coal in a way that will cut through to readers no matter where they live. It also does an excellent job of explaining why there is so much about coal mining, and why, even in the face of such strong environmental damage, it still has a following among people who need industry jobs to survive. A lifetime of supporting coal mining starts young here, as activist Shannon Elizabeth Bell explains: “Because of special coal education materials and curricula created by the West Virginia Coal Association, schoolchildren throughout the southern coalfields are taught the ‘many benefits the coal industry provides in daily lives.’ Students of all ages are encouraged to enter projects in the Coal Regional Fair which awards cash prizes in the categories of science, math, English/literature, art, music… etc.” All of those projects must, however, be about coal.

Energy is a huge topic in our national conversation, and it's not going away. For all its emotional weight, Coal Country is a clear, bare-bones look at what coal costs, and who is paying. Other books have tackled this subject effectively as well, but few can approach the immediacy of a man discussing the disappearance of his ancestors’ bones. One of the bigger lies to have been propagated against the American people is that of cheap energy. The editors of Coal Country sweep that away in an instant. This is incredibly timely and significant writing. All high school teens living on the grid need to read it.

Historically, some journalists have gained enormous fame for telling the truth, and one of the most acclaimed was Elizabeth Cochran, otherwise known as “Nellie Bly.” In her new photobiography of Nellie, Bylines, author Sue Macy tracks her life from a childhood in western Pennsylvania to professional success in New York City. Elizabeth was born in 1864, when there was little opportunity for a young woman to achieve financial independence. She was educated, but more importantly, curious and bold. Living with her mother (who took in boarders to make ends meet), Elizabeth took issue with the opinions about women expressed by a columnist in the Pittsburgh Dispatch. She wrote a letter to the editor -- a very good letter, in fact -- and was offered a job. Her first published words appeared on January 25, 1885, and she never looked back.

Nellie is most famous for a piece of “stunt” journalism. She chose to mimic the adventure of Jules Verne’s Phineas Fogg in Around the World in Eighty Days in 1889. With only a single bag and no chaperone (scandalous!), she departed New York with promises to update her readers as frequently as she could along the route. Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World carried her dispatches and made her a celebrity. By the time she returned, Nellie had made her mark, and easily written her way into history.

And yet, for all the drama of her great trip, as Macy explains, there are other things Nellie accomplished that are far more admirable. She had herself committed to the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island in New York for ten days so she could document the abusive treatment suffered by inmates (many of whom were not insane at all, but rather did not speak English). Her subsequent exposè on the facility resulted in immediate improvements, and marked her as one of the period's “muckraking” journalists. She investigated murders and police corruption, interviewed radical activist Emma Goldman and women’s rights crusader Susan B. Anthony, and traveled to Chicago in 1894 to cover the violent Pullman Strike. Even after she married, she continued to work and ask questions and do whatever she could to directly change people’s lives. She was fearless and tireless and dedicated. Her fame might have been due to a stunt, but her worth was found in her unflinching honesty. Macy does her great credit with this heavily-illustrated and lively volume, and hopefully (oh please God) it will find its way onto the desks of the next century’s crusading journalists as well. We could all do a lot worse than to emulate Nellie Bly.

On another historical subject, in the wake of recent discussions by the Texas State Board of Education on textbooks, which, due to the state’s education market, have national implications, I have become a bit obsessed by Senator Joe McCarthy. There has been movement from some of the Texas board’s social conservatives to rehabilitate McCarthy in the texts, and show how he has been “basically vindicated.” My recollections of teaching McCarthy included no way in which his methods could ever be deemed admirable. Fortunately, James Cross Giblin recently completed a thorough investigation of the senator, now published as The Rise and Fall of Senator Joe McCarthy -- and now if teens are subjected to incorrect information by dint of Texan buying power, they will have a highly readable title to turn to for the actual historical truth.

After a brief prologue introducing McCarthy as, at one point in his career, “more powerful than the president,” Giblin then goes back to the senator's humble Wisconsin beginnings, and provides an excellent exploration of his childhood, education and decision to embark on a law career. He also shows the long roots of McCarthy’s daring approach to life’s challenges, and his penchant for raising the stakes in card games -- habits that would later serve him well in politics.

As it was such a significant part of his personal biography, Giblin pays special attention to McCarthy’s World War II experience, and the manner in which he embellished his military record. Then things turn to politics, and the book takes off as McCarthy lands in the capitol during the height of the “red scare,” and embraces the mission of fighting communism infiltration, real or imagined, in the government. It is this mission that would make him one of the most popular and infamous leaders in U.S. history, while simultaneously destroying countless lives, and ultimately bring about his own downfall. Giblin knows all this and he shows it, but he does it with very personal stories, both of those who were McCarthy’s innocent targets (the case of Annie Lee Moss is particularly riveting) and those who worked by his side. It’s fascinating and terrifying history, not only for what McCarthy accomplished, but how the echoes of his fear-filled attacks can still be heard today.

Giblin includes a personal touch from his school years in his narrative, slightly buried but easily discovered through checking the copious back matter. Mostly he stands back, however, and lets McCarthy tell his own story -- which is plenty to freak out the average reader. I do wish he had relied less on Wikipedia -- but his candid admission of this resource is a minor quibble. If Texas wants McCarthy as a hero, that's their choice, but Giblin makes clear how wrong such a decision would be, and how much the rest of the country should resist it.

In case you wonder just how far a nation will go to keep the truth from its people, consider the perspective on Iraq presented by journalist Ahmed Mansour in Inside Fallujah: The Unembedded Story. Mansour is a reporter and talk show host for al-Jazeera, and was lucky enough (if you want to call being an unarmed reporter in the middle of a war lucky) in 2004 to get around a U.S. military blockade and into the town of Fallujah before a battle took place there between American troops and “insurgents.” He backs up a bit and explains some of the history of Fallujah, its often contentious relationship with Saddam Hussein, and how and why it became a specific target of the U.S. Readers might question a few of Mansour’s assertions about how things were playing in America before the attacks (he is a fan of Nancy Pelosi, which conservatives will almost certainly dismiss) but his perspective on America is important, because it represents the viewpoint of millions of other people. Most of the book focuses on Fallujah itself, however -- on how Mansour got in, where he stayed, and the reports he filed. Mansour’s story is significant because no other reporters got into the city, and thus while the U.S. military controlled the story in the American press, Mansour was able to send out a very different look on who the victims were and how the fighting went.

One of the most frustrating things for me about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is the very different ways in which they have been covered from past wars. Teenagers who grew up watching these wars on the nightly news likely have no idea how direct media coverage used to be, and how the whole notion of being “embedded” goes against journalistic integrity. Former CBS anchor Dan Rather made his career in the jungles of Vietnam in 1966, which is was what journalists used to do. With few exceptions, this level of journalistic integrity is unheard of in the twentieth century, and we have all suffered for it.

There has been pushback on the canned reports that became all too common in recent years, but reading Mansour’s story is one of the biggest in-your-face rebuttals to accepting at face value any official government response you are going to come across. Journalism keeps government honest (consider the street journalism in Iran last year), and Mansour, through his credible coverage, is able to bring a great deal of honesty to what we now know was a bungled mess that involved a devastating convergence of politics and military might, with tens of thousands of people stuck in the middle with no way out. For readers concerned that the author will be one-sided in his approach, be aware that Mansour is not an Iraqi, and he often speaks quite highly of different Americans he met and interacted with. He could have made this a book that wholeheartedly blamed the U.S. military, but instead he ponders the egomania of U.S. politicians and leaders (Paul Bremer in particular) who sought to punish the masses for the crimes of a few. He is stunned by what he sees but records it so we, years later, can see it too. A lot of young men, both Iraqi and American, were wounded or died in Fallujah, and he saw many of them and recorded the horrors of all of their deaths. This is what journalism is all about, and it proves why one side of a story is never enough.

Finally, Olive Branch Press has released a new updated edition of Jack Shaheen’s Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People. This is a staggering look at films dating back to the turn of the last century, and includes brief plot overviews and bulleted lists of inaccurate and racist portrayals of Middle Easterners in American cinema. Some of the entries are short, as in The Fifth Element, a science fiction film that begins with a brief ten-minute segment set in 1914 Egypt, with “lazy children and a frightened high priest.” Much more detailed are the nearly endless stream of entries for B-movie action flicks that relied heavily on scary pseudo-Arab terrorists. Analysis of Delta Force fills more than two pages (for reasons obvious to anyone who ever sat through the Chuck Norris flick) but the more recently released Mummy trilogy with Brendan Fraser doesn’t do too well either.

The book is eye-opening on multiple levels, both in the blatantly racist aspects of many films from the past, and in the more subtle moments that many moviegoers have likely not noticed. (I do think it’s a bit of a stretch to note Arab mice dressed in fezzes for the Disney cartoon The Rescuers, however.) Reel Bad Arabs is a book for paging through (the entries are alphabetical after a thorough introduction from Shaheen), but for cinemaphiles and film students, it is an enormously valuable text. You don’t need a “best of” book when you are serious about movies; what you need is a book that will alter the way in which you watch film. Shaheen accomplishes that and more here, with a straightforward, analytical, quote-heavy text that is unbelievably well-researched. The man has done a lot of work; if you are a student of pop culture (or cultural studies), then you need to see what he has discovered.

Bigelow, Bullock, and Bridges also will win gold
Except for some pipe-dream scenarios in which the 10-nominee/weighted-voting system could turn out a victory for Inglourious Basterds or some other dark horse, everyone concedes that this year's winner for Best Picture and just about every other significant award is — The Hurt Locker ! How did this happen?

THE HURT LOCKER Who would have thought an Iraq War film could kick James Cameron’s butt?

Our Film Editor predicts the Oscar winners BEST PICTURE The Hurt Locker BEST DIRECTOR Kathryn Bigelow BEST ACTOR Jeff Bridges BEST ACTRESS Sandra Bullock BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR Christoph Waltz BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS Mo’Nique Join the Phoenix's interactive Oscar battle!

Except for some pipe-dream scenarios in which the 10-nominee/weighted-voting system could turn out a victory for Inglourious Basterds or some other dark horse, everyone concedes that this year's winner for Best Picture and just about every other significant award is — The Hurt Locker!

How did this happen?

In a steady ascent, the gritty little Iraq War film has taken nearly every critics-group prize, the top Golden Globes, and prizes from the Producers Guild, the Directors Guild, the American Cinema Editors, and the Writers Guild. It's also won a host of BAFTA awards, including Best Picture and Director.

Its main rival, Avatar, on the other hand, has merely amassed more than $2.5 billion at the box office.

The moolah is part of the problem for Avatar. So much money is unseemly for a work of "art" (as in Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences). Not even a Picasso brings that much.

But it's not just the money. Titanic made a pile too, but its cast included actual human beings (two of whom even got Oscar nominations). Actors make up the largest group in the Academy. And of those who aren't actors, most believe that movies are an actor's medium. And just about everyone hates James Cameron.

Read more

Oscar ballots have yet to be turned in, but awards tallies so far — including this weekend's BAFTAs and WGAs — render Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker underdog no more. Meanwhile, Avatar's James Cameron wants this all to be over.

Bigelow became the first woman to win best director at the BAFTAs in London on Sunday, part of a six award sweep that also included several technical awards that should have been a lock for Avatar. (Avatar took two awards of its eight nominations, for special effects and production design). It was the day after Hurt Locker screenwriter Mark Boal beat James Cameron for original script at the Writers' Guild Awards.

That night in Los Angeles, before hopping an overnight plane to England, Cameron told The Los Angeles Times,

I wish there was some magic clicker device that I could just hit and jump from the beginning of the season right to the end. That way I could just look up on my shelf and see what new trophies I won, if any, and move on."

"If any" will be the operative phrase. Oscar junkies note that "no film has ever won the DGA, WGA and ACE [the American Cinema Editors' awards] awards without winning Best Picture."

At this point, observers say Avatar's best shot at an upset is its popular appeal and box office success. But for now, The Hurt Locker's Hollywood-ready narrative — the tiny war film that could — is looking pretty advantageous.

Here's an interview with Bigelow at the BAFTAs, in which she exhibits her characteristic classiness:

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'Hurt Locker' Takes 6 Prizes At UK Film Awards [AP]
Is Hurt Locker A Lock For The Oscars? [LAT]
Oscar Lock: Does Hurt Locker Hold All The Keys? [The Wrap]

When it comes to editing, I’ve only gone as far as reviewing Upcoming Pixar posts and maybe a few photos on a daily basis.

So, I can only imagine what it would be like to edit a full length animated feature film! Although that’s a whole ‘nother type of editing it sure sounds like quite a job. Fortunately the Eddies are here to recognize those who excel in the field.

Last Sunday, the American Cinema Editors (ACE) handed out their annual awards, and as you can imagine, Pixar went home with a prize! Kevin Nolting, editor on Up, was honored with Best Edited Animated Feature Film. Pixar’s 10th was up against two other big ‘toons, Coraline and Fantastic Mr. Fox.

As far as I can tell, this is the first time that the Eddies included an Animated category although WALL•E won Best Edited Comedy/Musical last year. The Hurt Locker and The Hangover also took home top prizes.
Check out the rest of the winners here.

Congratulations on this unique victory, Kevin Nolting!

(Thanks, karly05 from the Pixar Planet Forums)

Filed under: Awards, Oscar Watch

Continue reading Have The Film Editors Made 'Hurt Locker' The Leader?

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The war story “The Hurt Locker,” the bachelor bash “The Hangover” and the animated tale “Up” have earned top honours from the American Cinema Editors.

more images more images THE HURT LOCKER has collected another industry honour - the movie picked up the main prize at the American Cinema Editors’ (ACE) Awards on Sunday (14Feb10). Kathryn Bigelow’s war film, which is nominated for a string of awards at this month’s (Feb10) Oscars, landed the trophy for best editing for a dramatic feature at ... Read more »»».

A complicated back-story could lead to a Taxi Driver remake—starring Robert De Niro. The ACE awards happened. Barbara Walters won't torture us anymore before the Oscars. Today's Trade Roundup is dedicated to former president Martin Van Buren.

•Martin Scorsese is remaking Taxi Driver with Robert De Niro, but the whole thing is complicated by the fact that Lars Von Trier is making him do it. Sort of. So, Von Trier did that movie The Five Obstructions in 2003 with Jorgen Leth, where Leth remade Von Trier's film The Perfect Human in a bunch of different ways. Now, writes Variety, "In the new project, Von Trier will challenge Scorsese and De Niro to remake their 1976 classic Taxi Driver." Is this a collaboration between the directors, or will Scorsese simply make the film at Von Trier's behest? Either way, Variety says filming won't likely start until Von Trier finishes shooting his sci-fi film Melancholia Next year. It's all very strange. [Variety]

•Variety reports that British director Mike Newell is writing and directing "an untitled feature about the mysterious death of former KGB spy Alexander Litivinenko" for Warner Bros. Remember that guy? He was poisoned with polonium-210 and died in London in 2006 after all his hair fell out. Putin totally did it! (If I'm dead tomorrow, you know what happened. -ED) [Variety]

•For 29 years, Barbara Walters has bumbled her way through the hour before the Oscars with her interview special. But this year will be her last. Guests will include Sandra Bullock and Mo'Nique. Said Walters: ""I will always remember when Hugh Jackman gave me a private lap dance or sitting down with the legendary Bette Davis or being taught to tango by Al Pacino." Ugh, why did she have to remind us of that Hugh Jackman lap dance thing. [THR]

•Michelle Borth ("The Forgotten") and Jonathan Scarfe ("Raising the Bar") have been cast to star in the ABC pilot The Matadors. Matadors is "a Romeo-and-Juliet-style drama about two feuding families' battle against each other as one populates the state attorney's office and the other manages an influential private law firm." Also stars Zach Gilford. [THR]

•People won stuff this weekend at the American Cinema Editors' awards: The Hangover won best editing in a movie, and 30 Rock won best editing in a half-hour series. Editing! [Variety]

•A publicist for Craig Furgeson's Late Late Show was busted sending out fake ratings to showbiz types. Good thing nobody cares about late-night anymore! [The Wrap]

The editors of The Hurt Locker, The Hangover and Up won the feature film competitions at the 60th annual American Cinema Editors 'Eddie' Awards in Beverly Hills.

The editors of "The Hurt Locker," "The Hangover" and "Up" won feature film competitions Sunday at the 60th annual American Cinema Editors Eddie Awards at the Beverly Hilton. "The Hurt Locker" editors, husband-and-wife team Bob Murawski and Chris Innis, earned the trophy for a dramatic film, topping a category that included "Avatar," "District 9," "Star Trek" and "Up in the Air." "It's a...

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The American Cinema Editors have honoured the year's best film and television work.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- The war story "The Hurt Locker," the bachelor bash "The Hangover" and the animated tale "Up" have earned top honours from the American Cinema Editors.

The Hurt Locker, The Hangover, Up and The Cove take top honours at the annual American Cinema Editors awards.

War movie and Oscar hopeful The Hurt Locker wins the major prize at the American Cinema Editors' (ACE) Awards.

Fue reconocida junto a The Hangover y Up por la organización American Cinema Editors

The war story "The Hurt Locker," the bachelor bash "The Hangover" and the animated tale "Up" have earned top honors from the American Cinema Editors.

Kathryn Bigelow's "The Hurt Locker" continued its pre-Oscar domination over James Cameron's "Avatar," beating it out for the American Cinema Editors' annual ACE Eddie awards. "Locker" editors Bob Murawski and Chris Innis beat out "Avatar" editors James Cameron, John Refua and Stephen Rivkin, as well as the editing teams for "District 9," "Star Trek" and "Up In The Air." The winners - handed out last night - also honored the likes ...

Gabourey Sidibe rocks a bright red gown as she attends the American Cinema Editors Eddie Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Sunday (February 14) in Beverly Hills, Calif. The 26-year-old Precious actress presented the award for Best Edited Feature Film (Dramatic) to Bob Murawski and Chris Innis for The Hurt Locker. At the ACE Awards, Gabby [...]

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Gabourey Sidibe rocks a bright red gown as she attends the American Cinema Editors Eddie Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Sunday (February 14) in Beverly Hills, Calif.

The 26-year-old Precious actress presented the award for Best Edited Feature Film (Dramatic) to Bob Murawski and Chris Innis for The Hurt Locker.

At the ACE Awards, Gabby told the UKPA what her incredible year’s been like.

“It’s been a full year of ‘I can’t believe this is happening!’” she shared. “I’d like to be able to take a nap at some point, but I do enjoy this.”

10+ pictures inside of Gabourey Sidibe at the ACE Awards…

The war story "The Hurt Locker," the bachelor bash "The Hangover" and the animated tale "Up" have earned top honors from the American Cinema Editors.

`Hurt Locker,' `Hangover,' `Up' earn top honors from American Cinema Editors

‘Hurt Locker,’ ‘Hangover,’ ‘Up’ win editing honors BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. ? The war story “The Hurt Locker,” the bachelor bash “The Hangover” and the animated tale “Up” have earned top honors from the American Cinema Editors. The group honored “The Hurt Locker” for best editing on a dramatic feature film, while “The Hangover” won in the comedy ... Original source on Gaea Times at : ‘Hurt Locker,’ ‘Hangover,’ ‘Up’ earn top honors from American Cinema Editors.

Zap2it.com (blog)

`Hurt Locker,' `Hangover,' `Up' win editing honors The Associated Press The war story "The Hurt Locker," the bachelor bash "The Hangover" and the animated tale "Up" have earned top honors from the American Cinema Editors. ... American Cinema Editors honor 'Hurt Locker,' 'The Hangover'Los Angeles Times all 76 news articles »

Here are the winners for the American Cinema Editors' 60th Annual ACE Eddie Awards announced Monday evening. They were announced tonight in a ceremony at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. This is funny -- these folks are so good at editing that the night ended much earlier than scheduled! BEST EDITED FEATURE FILM (DRAMATIC): The Hurt Locker Bob Murawski & Chris Innis BEST EDITED FEATURE FILM (COMEDY OR MUSICAL): The Hangover Debra Neil-Fisher, A.C.E. BEST EDITED ANIMATED FEATURE FILM: UP Kevin Nolting BEST EDITED HALF-HOUR SERIES FOR TELEVISION: 30 Rock: "Apollo Apollo" Ken Eluto, A.C.E. BEST EDITED ONE-HOUR SERIES FOR COMMERCIAL TELEVISION: Breaking Bad: "ABQ" Lynne Willingham, A.C.E. BEST EDITED ONE-HOUR SERIES FOR NON-COMMERCIAL TELEVISION: Dexter: "Remains to be [...]

ACE Eddie Awards: Filmmaker of the year Eddie goes to director -- The American Cinema Editors have tapped Rob Reiner to receive the ACE Golden Eddie filmmaker of the year nod.

This week British indie rockers Editors will be headlining the Wiltern with none other than Brooklyn-bred indie rock trio the Antlers in tow. Tulsa-based indie pop songstress St. Vincent (LAist Interview, Review) is poised to perform to a sold-out crowd at the El Rey Theatre. Eagle Rock-bred indie rock outfit Princeton (LAist Interview) will be continuing their month-long residency at Spaceland. And, lastly, experimental English indie rockers Wild Beasts will be embarking on their first North American tour, stopping through the Troubadour.

Wild Beasts - "Hooting & Howling"

Monday

Princeton, Casxio, Rafter, The Jubilee Singers @ Spaceland (FREE!)
Red Arrow Messenger, Jenny O., Rumspringa @ Bootleg Theater (FREE!)
Useless Keys, The Black Apples, Light FM, L.E.F. @ The Echo (FREE!)
Gamble House, Guy Fantastico, Haim, Damn Sons @ Silver Lake Lounge (FREE!)
Spirit Animal, Des Roar, Imagine Dragons, All Wrong and The Plans Change @ The Roxy
Laura Jansen, Sweet Talk Radio, Jodi King, Alex Vargas of Vagabond @ The Hotel Café
Slanty Shanty Band, Elijah Crampton, TBA @ Pehrspace
Joe Jack Talcum, American Sheriff, Lord Grunge, Bassturd + DJ Jester and the Filipino Fist @ Echo Curio

Tuesday

Loudon Wainwright III @ Largo at the Coronet
St. Vincent, Wildbirds and Peacedrums @ El Rey Theatre
Nouvelle Vague, Soko, Findley Brown @ Henry Fonda Music Box
Mia Doi Todd, Ariana Delawari, Correatown, DJ Nobody @ Spaceland
Ferraby Lionheart, Buddy, Josh Ottum, Evan Voytas @ Bootleg Theater
Mumford and Sons @ Troubadour (Sold-Out)
Jay Nash, Katie Costello, Nikki Jean, special guest @ The Hotel Café
Roll The Tanks, Gooby Goo & Peekers, Bomb Your Face @ Silver Lake Lounge
Laco$te, Michael Nhat, Fawn as Women, Fantastica Bastidas @ The Echo
Red Tide, River Avenue, Flying Machine @ El Cid
Shakey Graves, Cave Country, Hod Hulphers @ Echo Curio
Sinden @ Arena
Electrolightz, Jen Lasher, Hyphy Crunk @ Cinespace
Lucy Schwartz, Letron, Jennifer Singer @ Saint Rocke
The Thermals, Thao with the Get Down Stay Down @ Detroit Bar

Wednesday

Nocando's record release, Dntel, King Cannibal @ The Airliner
Wild Beasts, Still Life Still, Magic Bullets @ Troubadour
Justin Townes Earle @ Amoeba Music (FREE! Early Show; 7 PM)
The Fold presents A Haiti Benefit w/ Pete Yorn, Tim Kasher, Craig Wedren, special guests @ Bootleg Theater
Cobra Lilies, Findlay Brown, Pizza!, Superhumanoids @ The Echo
JDub Records and LA Record Present: Milk and Honey w/ Luke Top (of Fool's Gold; DJ Set), Jason Savvy (of Malabomb; DJ Set) @ Bar Lubitsch
Golden State, The Hundred Days, Taxi Doll, KC Booker and The High Decibels @ The Viper Room
Big Phony's record release, Austin Hartley Leonard, Lindsay Ray, Anne Heaton @ The Hotel Café
The Tuffingtons, Warlords of Rock and Roll Thunder and Lightning, New Planets @ Silver Lake Lounge
Thurlow, Samuel Stewart, Mouse Kills Tiger, The Heligoats @ Echo Curio

Thursday

Editors, The Antlers @ The Wiltern
The Thermals, Thao With The Get Down Stay Down, Slang Chickens @ Troubadour
Richard Thompson @ Largo at the Coronet
Justin Townes Earle, Joe Pug, The Hi Hos @ The Echo
Eyedea and Abilities, Dosh, Silent Army @ Echoplex
Alec Ounsworth, The Romany Rye, Line and Circle @ Bootleg Theater
Imaad Wasif, Becky Stark, Voice on Tape @ Spaceland
Big Phony's record release, Guggenheim Grotto w/ special guests, Oak & Gorski, That Noise @ The Hotel Café
Artichoke, Setting Sun, Sam Mellon and the Skylarks, The Long Holidays @ Hyperion Tavern
Body Parts, Alina Cutrono, Micah James, Deathday Party @ Echo Curio
Captains, Venus Bogardus, Bullied By Strings, Dreamers @ Silver Lake Lounge
Michael Nhat, Big Whup, No Paws (No Lions), Pangea @ The Smell
Death Hymn Number 9, Aftergloam, Stab City, Manhattan Murder Mystery @ L'KEG Gallery
The Binges, Dinner At The Thompson's, 8mm, Hadouken @ The Viper Room
Paperplanes, Two Guns, Cowboy and Indian @ The Prospector
Death Hymn #9, Dante Vs. Zombies, The Living Sickness @ Alex's Bar

Friday

Fitz & The Tantrums, Sweater Girls @ The Echo
The Chicago Underground Duo, Pit Er Pat, The Pity Party @ Bootleg Theater
Miss Derringer, The Creep Show, The Triggers @ Troubadour
Christian Death @ El Rey Theatre
Web In Front presents Shadow Shadow Shade, Twilight Sleep, Marvelous Toy @ Spaceland
I See Hawks in LA, Richie Lawrence record release @ Cinema Bar (3967 Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles)
The Idyllists' record release, The Passports, Freddy & Francine, Dawn Thomas, The Appletons, The Ravishing @ The Hotel Café
Sierra Swan, Carina Round, Samuel Stewart, Wildlife @ Pehrspace
The Monolators, Make Me, Heavy Hawaii, The Preteens @ The Smell
Let Go of the Rail, Moment Trigger, Lee Noble @ L'KEG Gallery
The Damselles, The Hi-Ho's, Sweet Little Things @ Casey's Irish Bar & Grill
Seasons, So Many Wizards, Torches in Trees, C-Horse @ Juanita's Restaurant & Bar
Meshell Ndegeocello @ Largo at the Coronet
Moan Red, Ric Veda, The Jack Fris Radio Choir, The Marietta James @ Redwood Bar & Grill
Demonora, TS and The Past Haunts , Weasels Exist, Eating Faces @ Mr. T's Bowl
Dog, The Crystelles, Actuary, Geronimo, Sissister @ Echo Curio
James McMurtry @ McCabe's Guitar Shop
Tommy Santee Klaws @ Robin's Sculpture Garden (1632 Abbot Kinney Blvd., Santa Monica)

Saturday

Lucent L'amour 2010 w/ Bassnectar, Stanton Warriors, N.A.S.A., Yard Dogs Road Show, Lucent Dossier Experience, Beats Antique, Ana Sia, Lazer Sword, Lynx & Janover, Patricio @ The Shrine
Alice in Chains @ Hollywood Palladium (Sold-Out)
The Album Leaf accompanied by Magik*Magik String Quartet, Sea Wolf @ El Rey Theatre
Daniel Lanois' Black Dub @ Spaceland
Saint Motel, Young the Giant, Chasing Kings, Links @ The Roxy
Social Science's Lonely Hearts Club w/ Obi Best, Sunny War, Soko, Correatown, Yeah Brother, Eagle And Talon, Boris Smile, Vincent Minor, Fascinoma, Patrick Park @ Social Science Loft (530 Molino St. #217, Los Angeles)
Spain @ Origami Vinyl (FREE! Early Show; 7 PM)
West Indian Girl, Pollyn @ Bootleg Theater
Foxtails Brigade, The Karabal Nightlife, Devotionals, Ash Reiter @ Echo Curio
Laco$ta, Repetitions, I.E., Essay @ The Smell
The Black Currents, Sunshine Factory, Los Larks, Feats in Inches, The Legion @ Mr. T's Bowl
Graydon, Coby Brown, Jason Karaban & Craig Elkins and friends, Zachariah and the Lobos Riders, Jeremy Silver, Erin Ivey @ The Hotel Café
ALO, Chris Velan @ Troubadour
Pacific Pride, Peg Leg love, Brigsley Blong, Her Imaginary Friends @ Silver Factory Studios
The Mau Mau's @ Redwood Bar & Grill

Sunday

Kidrockers w/ Dengue Fever, Buddy @ The Echo (Early Show; 1 PM)
Van Dyke Parks, Clare and the Reasons @ McCabe's Guitar Shop
Build An Ark @ Amoeba Music (FREE! Early Show 5 PM)
The Meek, Weekend, Young Prisms @ The Echo
Normandie, Night Horse, Yours Til Death @ The Viper Room
John Wiese, Lasse Marhaug, Joe & Joe, Seven Depressions @ The Smell

Jamieson is puking his guts out again. When they made the meds, Jamieson, they did not mean you. Jamieson has a hard time dealing with his medications. But he tries. Sometimes he tries not throwing them at the wall.

I leave the other boys on the couch. Jamieson is puking his guts out.

On his knees.

When it's over Jamieson will join his friends.

I'm watching Jamieson with his head in the toilet and it occurs to me.

Jamieson is the one.

I need an assistant. I am overwhelmed.

I pick Jamieson.

"Jamieson, I need you."

No one has ever needed Jamieson. No one.

Jamieson is a skinny white boy whore because he is always throwing up.

I do not know what his tricks thought of it.

"Why me."

I take a towel and wipe some of the vomit from his chest.

I shrug.

"I just need you."

"But I can't do anything."

"Perfect. You're hired."

"Will there be a bathroom."

"You can have your own bathroom."

"But what will I do."

"Answer email and make me cocktails."

"What kind of cocktails."

"Martinis."

"What if I have to throw up."

"You can take the Blackberry with you while you puke."

"Will you pay me."

"No. This is one of those you do it because you love to do it jobs."

"What, I can send email and puke."

"There are many, many people who write to me who need puking on. Can I ask you one thing, Jamieson."

He nodded.

"How come you guys don't wear shirts."

"We're hot."

I smile.

One pukes his meds a lot. One has syphilis and thinks I don't know. I keep thinking maybe I am being mean by waiting for him to come to me with his news. One has a new Iphone. He's stealing again. I wonder who's missing an Iphone. No one I know. At least he steals from people I do not know. One has lost about ten pounds this week. This isn't even the beginning of the list.

I need an assistant. Even one who pukes all the time.

Jamieson is ready to join his comrades now. The throwing up is over for a while.

The one with syphilis is eyeing me. I hang back. This is not my video. This is their video. Their way.

He wants to tell me something.

"Your office smells like vomit," he says.

The joke is supposed to be that my office is a toilet.

"Yes, well, so does your dick."

"You know."

"I know everything. I thought you stopped doing tricks."

"Does anyone ever really stop doing tricks."

"Syphilis is hell to pay for with HIV," I say.

He knows.

"I fucked this guy in the ass. He must have it in his ass."

No one says: why would some idiot with syphilis want to be fucked by some kid with HIV.

You got me.

There are some things I just don't get. Often, I just let them go.

I don't get the arrogance of publishers. I do try to let it go. I don't get why all of them are evil cunts.

I don't get why Jamieson is puking all the time. I don't get Facebook much. I don't get how lights go out and darkness swallows gravity. I don't get Americans. I don't get impatience. I don't get greed.

My dog, Isabella, gets all of this, but I just don't.

"So, do you wanna see the sore on my dick."

I shrug again. How does what I want or do not want matter.

When they made antibiotics, they meant us. When they made really, really bad judgement, they meant us. When they said boys at risk doesn't really tell the story of it, they meant me. When they took their shirts off so they could look hot on their video, they meant perhaps briefly in a virtual world that isn't real perhaps they could approximate what boys their age look like who aren't whores but they come off looking like whores anyway.

I don't know what any of it means. Maybe nothing.

"Do you want me to puke before I come over in the morning or after," Jamieson asks.

"Before."

"Should I bring my stuff."

He means his ratty sleeping bag and his tits since that's about the extent of his stuff.

"Yes. Bring your stuff."

He stops the universe dead in its tracks and bores his eyes into me.

"You mean me."

"I mean you."



Lucian.Daemon@gmail.com

Isn’t it a little ironic that there’s not a single agent in the book biz that will seriously look at a VOOK proposal. Not one. The idea of the book is a dead end. Writers with cameras has a future. Publishing will go down kicking and screaming and clinging to its blacklists. (I did not say backlists I said BLACKlists and I am on them all). But the gatekeepers will bite the digital dust. In time. In time, even the grand poobah agents like Todd Schuster and Janet Silver will become ephemeral antiques. Media execs like Ellie Hirschhorn at the very grand poobag I mean bah Simon and Schuster are going to have to scramble but can they scramble fast enough. I doubt it. Editors like Nan Graham do not scramble. They just drag their slow lengths along. Will I have to buy every guy at Cinematheque the new Apple Ipad. It is going to change everything. You can BET I will invest in that paradigm. It’s a given. Publishing will not be the place it is now unless the grand poobags I mean bahs can move time backwards. Narrative will endure. However, its images are going to move. The agents and the editors will be utterly lost -- this list of corporate fucks is a long one -- and they will greet any change with the usual, mean-spirited indifference. Oh poor them. But change is here to stay. The radical writer with a video camera redefines the book. Join us! http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=210147378670

http://twitter.com/vook1

http://www.facebook.com/people/Tim-Barrus/100000080077064?

http://vook.tumblr.com

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=210147378670

Cinematheque Films: Arts Education: Students are allowed access to fair use art materials and mixed media in the teaching of iconic manipulation in photographic, video and film production. Representations and facsimiles posted here are presented as teaching tools and instruments employed to instruct students in the techniques and application of mixed media art and collage. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act allows art-teaching entities the fair use of such materials in classroom and teaching-research applications.