MAKSQUIBS CINEMATHEQUE: 10:30 P.M. SUMMER (1966)

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Like just about everyone with an interest in the movies, I'm watching more films on DVD and going out to movie houses a lot less. Convenience trumps the better experience.
Of course, you lose audience interaction and the poor film now has to compete with all the comforts of home.
It's a bit like seeing Rembrandts & Titians in a book reproduction, or from posters with iffy color values, no texture or weight to the surface and the wrong dimensions . . . all while snacking on chips & soda. (Oops! You get that at your local cinema,too.)
The ease of instant movie gratification risks turning an art form (well, sometimes) into little more than low-grade eye-candy & mindfodder. So, maybe it's worthwhile to write a bit down on what we're all viewing, just to keep fully engaged.

DVDs: the latest opiate of the people meets the internet, where everyone's a critic.
God help us.

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Sunday, October 25, 2009

10:30 P.M. SUMMER (1966)

Melina Mercouri & Peter Finch are Madrid-bound with their young daughter & best pal Romy Schneider, but life gets complicated in the small, crowded town they overnight in. Not only is Melina binge-drinking, but Peter & Romy only have eyes for each other. Worse yet, a parallel story is the talk of the town: A young husband is being hunted down after murdering his wife & her young lover. It’s all high-flown literary nonsense from author Marguerite (HIROSHIMA, MON AMOUR/’59) Duras who co-scripted with helmer Jules Dassin. At least, Dassin makes things visually striking, even sumptuous, but in a manner that cuts completely against any particle of believability coming thru. Still, there’s something fascinating in watching someone as ill-suited as Dassin attempt territory well-tilled at the time by Alain Resnais & Michelangelo Antonioni. (Actually, the film this calls to mind, is Roberto Rossellini’s masterful VIAGGIO IN ITALIA / VOYAGE TO ITALY/’53.) Dassin made this right after his delightful and wildly successful TOPKAPI/’64, yet couldn’t muster a Stateside release. Perhaps the nudity scared off distributors. Melina & Romy even take a shower together. How steamy! Or, maybe not steamy enough!

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A last thought before we go.

Well, enough from me. But before we sign off, here's a great quote from Emile Zola's L'OEUVRE (THE MASTERPIECE), which is about painting rather than the yet to be invented medium of film, but which points a fine critical eye toward the whole idea of art criticism. It's a good, if chilly, thought to keep in mind, especially when you surf the net.

"Has it ever struck you that posterity may not be the fair, impartial judge we like to think it is?

"Suppose the artist's paradise turned out to be as nonexistent as the Catholics, and future generations prove just as misguided as the present one and persisted in liking pretty pretty dabbling better than honest to goodness painting. There are some accepted masterpieces for which I myself wouldn't give a twopenny damn.

"Classical training has given us a wrong view of everything and forces us to acclaim as geniuses a lot of fellows who are no more than well-balanced, facile painters, while what we might really prefer is the work of more emancipated but less even artists known only to an initiated few. Immortality at present depends entirely on the average, middle-class mind and is reserved only for the names that have been most forcibly impressed upon us while we were still unable to defend ourselves...

"Perhaps that's the sort of thing that's best left unsaid. It's certainly the sort of thing that gives me the shudders!"- Emile Zola

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Sunday, October 25, 2009

10:30 P.M. SUMMER (1966)

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A last thought before we go.

DROP ME A LINE