When Bruce Ario’s literary executor, Dan Schneider, received Ario’s papers, he realized he had enough material to reconstruct his great American novel, “Cityboy”, to its legendary mid-90s edition. The book is now available through automachination press, complete with a major critical essay by Dan Schneider on the process of restoration, examining the ways in which “Cityboy” was slowly destroyed by a vanity press, and offering fresh insights into Ario’s life and work. […]
Although I have been taking photos for some time, there was no real purpose behind it until Joel Parrish and I decided to shoot our first film—”From There To There: Bruce Ario, The Minneapolis Poet”. Today, I am in the habit of carrying a camera on my walks, which has better attuned me to my surroundings and creates an obligation to document them.
These photos are arranged chronologically, beginning in 2009/10, when I was studying abroad in China and Greece. There is almost nothing from this period, despite having taken 100s of photos, as they are not worth looking at. The ones that do appear are poorly preserved and/or damaged. In all, there are a couple dozen photos between 2009 and 2021 that were good (or at least ‘interesting’) enough to display—a hit rate which suggests my lack of interest in photography then. […]
If Christopher Nolan’s debut “Following” (1998) is the blueprint to his filmography, laying out all his thematic concerns and technical flourishes (albeit in primitive form) from the jump, then its follow-up “Memento” (2000) might very well be the culmination, as all those elements seem to find their ideal narrative manifestation in the nigh-experimental crime drama about a man with a traumatic brain injury who cannot form new memories.
It also remains Nolan’s best film, and while more recent generations have become enamored with the likes of his “Batman Trilogy” and sci-fi epic “Interstellar”, it is “Memento” that will stand the test of time; if simply by virtue of its status as a film school mainstay, if not for its popular standing, fickle as such standings can be.
This is not, I admit, the most controversial claim. One cannot say that “Memento” is an underrate” work, though one may be able to say that Nolan’s more popular fare has decidedly overshadowed his earlier accomplishment(s) in the public eye. I’m willing to bet that a not insignificant number of those flocking into 70mm IMAX screenings of “The Odyssey” have never even heard of, much less seen, his first two features. And of those who have, how many would likewise claim that “Memento” tops the oeuvre? I’ve only ever met a handful of self-professed Nolan admirers who have done so, despite its stature as an independent film classic. […]
Like floorboards aglow
Neither dream
Nor memory of tomorrow
Or red, or white
The fuse of all light
That is recounted […]
I’ve praised both “Play It Again, Sam” (1972) and “The Front” (1976) as examples of good early Woody drama, but it’s really “Annie Hall” that kicks off Allen’s Golden Age, for it’s the beginning of his best characterizations, best visuals, deepest narratives, and the overall sense that he had ‘made it’ as a filmmaker of ability and substance. This is because “Annie Hall” takes many of his now-classic preoccupations with sex, death, relationships, inevitability, and intellectual posturing (including his own!), and creates a genuine narrative out of it, not by force or gags, but simply by dropping some great characters into a landscape, and seeing how a narrative unfolds out of them. There is also a seeming simplicity, here, in Allen’s ‘Alvy’ persona, that absolutely misleads viewers into sympathizing with Alvy, rather than Annie. In short, it is Alvy that constantly spouts self-deprecating gems and rich but down-to-earth posits that aggrandize him as both an Everyman, and as a kind of ‘hero,’ who’s gone through it, and gotten over it, too — “it” being ‘confusing’ relationships, a lack of self-assurance, or whatever else that might be imbued into the film, yet isn’t really there. The film starts with direct exposition, as Alvy Singer tells the audience of his two key metaphors for life: […]
I, like everyone reading this report, had never heard of late Cambridge professor Jason Arday until the British press had turned him into a story. On some level, it is a strange story because it is so generic. The wife of billionaire Bill Ackman, Neri Oxman, is said to have plagiarized her dissertation, yet remains a sought-after designer and consultant. The VroniPlag Wiki documents hundreds of cases of plagiarism in Germany, most of them unknown, save for a politician who lost his doctorate then went into business. Joan Peters, a widely-debunked hoaxer, saw multiple reprints of her forgery, “From Time Immemorial,” long after she’d been exposed. Similarly, Jason Arday was hired under unusual circumstances then accused of plagiarism and fabulism. Nathan Cofnas, the racial hygienist who first reported on Arday (and who is himself the subject of an academic fraud investigation) thought Arday’s personal story—‘the autistic, high-achieving son of African migrants’—would bring Cofnas media attention. At present, Cofnas has no academic position. He lost a wrongful termination suit against Cambridge, and, most recently, some temp work at Ghent. By contrast, Jason Arday enjoyed substantially more academic citations while teaching full-time. However, once Cofnas’s story had spread, British media hounded Jason Arday until he resigned. A few weeks before Arday’s suicide, Cofnas threatened on TV: “The lesson is this what’s [sic] happened [sic] if you don’t give Cofnas a job!” […]
Although Woody’s last couple of films were underrated, they were not great works, by any means. It would take two years for Woody to return with another true drama, and thus triumphantly close his decade-and-a-half Golden Age. In some ways, Husbands and Wives is the most pure look at ‘Woody’ relationships, and one of the more intimate and best films of his career. In short, if ANNIE HALL was a kind of grown-up ‘first’ for Woody as well as Alvy Singer, and MANHATTAN too odd — it dealt with a grown man and a seventeen year-old girl, after all — or HANNAH AND HER SISTERS too marred by the ‘big problems’ of infidelity, familial conflict, and the like, to really get at the core of romance itself, this film merely examines the inner workings of two marriages, and what the interactions in one say of the events in the other, and vice-versa. It is, then, the most vanilla of the aforementioned films, but while there are no truly arresting visuals, no haunting metaphors, nor moments of ‘perfect poetry’ or scoring, this in no way detracts from what the film actually does. It is hyper-realistic, down to the documentary style, complete with questions and answers that shed light (and not) on those involved, and the quick edits and ‘jagged’ handheld camera that gets into the actors’ faces, showing not only why their marriages disintegrate, but also how the characters themselves are part of a self-imposed pattern they do not understand. […]
THE SORT
Another box of pictures one’s to sort,
Decades lost in the attic … a light cough
Of separation, instinctual pause
Of action, by those who say little
Of themselves, captors unmarked, unnamed
By the sweet curving hand of late Aunt June,
Who at a glance of rippled-edged rectangles
Would have penned a phonebook of relations. […]
Vladimir Vysotsky (Владимир Высоцкий) wrote political songs, but they were not all rebellious. He was playful with the status quo, encouraging aspects of Soviet identity without relying on specific figures or ideologies. Commenting on the Sino-Soviet Split was among his more direct allusions, which reflected public opinion at the time.
By the 1960s, the Sino-Soviet Split played a major role in Russia’s imagination. Although ‘officially’ dressed in Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy, its true reasons were practical. Soviets criticized Mao Zedong’s cult of personality, reneged on nuclear weapons, and feared that much of their own Far East territory was ill-gotten. China was encircled by Western powers whereas the USSR was not, thus encouraging the USSR to avoid “Chinese wars”. Demographic concerns were particularly common, as were concerns about the world’s resources—and spoils…
Vladimir Vysotsky’s reference to Syngman Rhee is particularly telling, as Mao Zedong is being portrayed as a revisionist-imperialist conspiring with an anti-Communist: […]
Man, just how great is Orson Welles?
Can you name another major American filmmaker—world filmmaker, for that matter—who was not only responsible for multiple, medium-defining masterpieces but also turned in stellar performances as both leading man and supporting actor?
Cassavetes comes to mind, though he was often overshadowed onscreen by his partner and muse Gena Rowlands. Woody Allen revolutionized the serio-comic film and was, at the same time, very capable as an actor in his own screenplays; but he had a limited schtick, and one which he (and others) would eventually run to the ground. The great Silent Clowns may be close comparisons, and Welles himself professed a deep admiration for Buster Keaton. De Sica was a fine actor, certainly; and the pioneering Swedish director Victor Sjöström performed splendidly in Bergman’s Wild Strawberries as its main character.
After these (name-drop some of your own, as I’ve inevitably short-shrifted at least a few notables), though, it’s slim pickings. Clint Eastwood? A spaghetti western icon, yes, but his own films as a director do not hold a candle to Sergio Leone’s, much less Welles’s. Tarantino? Nope. Mel Gibson? Please. Tim Blake Nelson is a good actor and filmmaker—but medium-defining? No dice. (I do not count those who turned in only cameos or bit parts, such as Scorsese, Hitchcock, Sayles, etc.) And I won’t be considering up-and-comers like Greta Gerwig, Jordan Peele, or Bradley Cooper just yet, if you can find it in your heart to forgive me. […]
