1963 poll

[niminy-piminy]

1963viewing No15:
NORMAL LOVE (Jack Smith)
https://letterboxd.com/film/normal-love/
(ltbxd 1964, imdb 1963)

Smith's second feature length film derives from his adoration of Maria Montez, the B-movie star best know for her performance in Cobra Woman. It features a variety of 30's horror film monsters, a mermaid, a lecher, and various cuties.

Review by Yunus ↓
No, this is not normal...

https://youtu.be/l1HanTOxToA

Backed by Jonas Mekas , Jack Smith embarked on a “commercial” follow-up to Flaming Creatures in mid 1963: “I spent my summer out in the country shooting a lovely, pasty, pink and green color movie that is going to be the definitive pasty expression. All the characters wear pink evening gowns and smirk and stare into the camera.” The Great Pasty Triumph, known briefly as The Pink and Green Horrors and eventually retitled Normal Love, was very much a film of its season. With the exception of several scenes staged around the Moon Pool, a candle-lit, incense-shrouded, mirror-strewn altar to Maria Montez , which Smith had assembled in the midst of an East Village apartment, it was strictly back to nature – shot variously in rural New Jersey, on Fire Island, in Queens, and at Old Lyme, Connecticut. The dominant colors are pink and green – fittingly, one scene is a ceremonial watermelon feast. “Rubens. Arabian Nights. Chinese Masters. Monet,” Jonas Mekas rhapsodized after seeing the first rushes. In fact, Normal Love suggests a pastoral, pastel-colored conflation of Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, I Walked with a Zombie, The Mummy’s Hand, and The Spider Woman; for Smith’s fellow Montez-enthusiast Ronald Travel, Normal Love was a work that obviously drew “its look, its feel, its colors, images, and backyard fairy moth sheen directly from White Savage.”

[Curtis, baby]

someone asked about the lithuanian short, i think, but i can't find where. anyway, it's up

[niminy-piminy]

someone

it was me. thanks!

[niminy-piminy]

1963poll viewing No16:
TO PARSIFAL (Bruce Baillie)
https://letterboxd.com/film/to-parsifal/

https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebo ... nd=ucpress
The 16-minute film falls neatly into two nearly equal parts, separated by fades to and from black.
Both parts exhibit a circular (symmetrical) construction which also contributes to the mythic—ritualistic—aspects of the work.

Extreme close-up, camera down towards table: bloody fish's mouth, very red (1.7 seconds)
Close-up, down: fish's body, knife cutting both the frame and the fish's belly (3.3 seconds)
Close-up, down: one fish, split open; the knife passes through its body and the frame of the shot (4.0 seconds)
Extreme close-up, down: a fish's head, its yellow eye in the right center of the frame (1.3 seconds)

In its essentials, the Parsifal story begins with a kingdom mysteriously laid barren by the illness of its ruler, the Fisher King. The king suffers from a wound of unknown origin, and the land of his kingdom is infertile by response. The king and land can only be restored to health by the quest of a pure knight for the Holy Grail, the vessel in which Christ's blood was gathered during the crucifixion. The knight must resist the seductions of a temptress (Kundry, in the Wagner opera) and perform various acts of bravery.

Even from this brief summary we can see points of congruence with Baillie's To Parsifal. There is a "wounding," as we have seen, quite prominent in part one—that of the fish. What better representation of the "Fisher King"? And a naked woman appears in part two—accompanied on the soundtrack by an excerpt from Act II of the opera, in which Kundry sings seductively to Parsifal to stay with her and abandon his quest. We could postulate, therefore, that part one of the film depicts the wounding of king and land and that part two concerns the quest for redemption and fertility. But this interpretation raises many questions. Should we therefore see To Parsifal as an anti-technology film, depicting the "rape" of nature by man's interference? Who or what in the work is Parsifal? Why the presence of the train in part two?

https://youtu.be/hPD05FkJpFE

[pabs]

Watching Rohmer's "Bakery girl from Monceau" last night, I was obviously very intrigued when I noticed a headline on a corner newspaper-stand. It says something like "Pandemic in England".

This morning I Googled "pandemic" and "England" and found what the newspaper probably referred to: an outbreak of smallpox in Bradford in 1962. "... task of tracing, vaccinating and placing under surveillance of all possible contacts was immediately introduced: 285,000 persons were vaccinated and well over a thousand contacts were traced in the first five days after the discovery of the outbreak."

[Curtis, baby]

1963poll viewing No7:
CHRISTMAS (Roland Klick)
https://letterboxd.com/film/weihnacht/

Wow awesome, thanks Jiri! This is going on my ballot

[niminy-piminy]

Watching Rohmer's "Bakery girl from Monceau" last night, I was obviously very intrigued when I noticed a headline on a corner newspaper-stand. It says something like "Pandemic in England".
This morning I Googled "pandemic" and "England" and found what the newspaper probably referred to: an outbreak of smallpox in Bradford in 1962. "... task of tracing, vaccinating and placing under surveillance of all possible contacts was immediately introduced: 285,000 persons were vaccinated and well over a thousand contacts were traced in the first five days after the discovery of the outbreak."

i like making such observations and discoveries!
i am only (usually) unable to wait till the other day and google right away.
as a result, many times i watch a film twice or thrice as long as its duration (which makes watching films a very time-consuming activity).
now, gonna watch both 1963 Rohmer's films (hopefully will finish before the poll's deadline).

[niminy-piminy]

oke, i finished SUZANNE'S CAREER pretty fast.
the only thing i googled was the word "cowlick" (which — in relation to hairdo — i never heard before).
now, i am contemplating if my current lockdown hairdo can be also called "cowlick"...

[Curtis, baby]

I used to have a double cowlick, then my hairline receded past them. No I have no cowlicks and I miss them. Ah, youth!

[niminy-piminy]

finished THE BAKERY GIRL OF MONCEAU and all the trivia i noticed that could be considered significant (signified?) was Rue de Saussure.
but i didn't google anything because i am already familiar with langue and parole concepts.

[nrh]

riccardo freda's lo spettro starts out seemingly like a gothic les diaboliques riff but turns out to be even bleaker than the clouzot. it's kind of a follow up to dr hitchcock, being that its a gothic horror of marriage with barbara steele and another character named dr hitchcock, but i actually prefer this one, which is less static in form and lets freda really do his thing with staging, camera placement and some great shock effects (especially one late murder with a shaving razor).

i found a full dvd version with both italian and english audio tracks and subs, but the print certainly isn't great, with tons of motion artifacts throughout. the print on prime is softer but brighter, doesn't have the artifacting, not great english soundtrack only, and in 4:3 which i don't think is original aspect ratio.

[pabs]

finished THE BAKERY GIRL OF MONCEAU and all i noticed that could be considered significant (signified?) was Rue de Saussure.

I was in Paris in January this year and my cousin lives a few blocks away from rue de Saussure. I took a picture of the plaque thinking the same thing as you, but it turns out it's not named for the same Saussure (Ferdinand de Saussure) that you and I were thinking of. It's for another Saussure called Horace. I was disappointed too!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_B% ... e_Saussure

[niminy-piminy]

another Saussure

Next time, when I'll see in a film taking place f.e. in Geneva written f.e. Rue Derrida I'll not automatically assume it's THE Derrida but I'll google (and ultimately might discover the street is called after Maximilian Derrida, locally well-known Emmental cheese manufacturer).
Film is such a deceptive medium!
However, Rohmer's deceptions are no less charming than Saussurea plants...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saussurea

[pabs]

But! Ferdinand de Saussure (our Saussure) is however the grandson of this Saussure who is honoured with the Paris street name. So all is not lost. And what a multi-talented family.

[greennui]

I rewatched Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment (Robert Drew), a docu on the Stand in the Schoolhouse Door incident. The most noteworthy thing about it was the level of access the film crew got. They got intimate footage of pretty much everyone involved as it all unfolded, the Kennedy bros, George Wallace and the two students. Almost felt like a scripted film at times and not a defining civil rights era moment as it happened.

RFK casually making an important call in the Oval Office as JFK jerks and taps his knee anxiously:



This slimey scumbag:

[niminy-piminy]

1963poll viewing No20:
ZAPRUDER FILM OF KENNEDY ASSASSINATION (Abraham Zapruder)

Zapruder short will not make it onto my ballot.
But once the 1975 poll will be done again, the sarcastic reenactment of the Zapruder footage by Ant Farm & T.R. Utco called "The Eternal Frame" will be high on my list.

THE ETERNAL FRAME (T.R. Uthco, Ant Farm, 1975)
https://letterboxd.com/film/the-eternal-frame/
https://vimeo.com/447256571

[niminy-piminy]

1963poll viewing No22:
MORAL 63 (Rolf Thiele)
https://letterboxd.com/film/morale-63/

The young Marion is arrested by the police for pimping, prostitution and indecent exposure. Reporter Axel Rottmann senses a lucrative story for his newspaper. He makes a deal with Marion, to tell her story.

It has to be added Marrion is arrested by a man in power wearing a silly hat (it's carnival time)...


The context of this particular film (which will certainly appear on my ballot) is as follows:

1/ In 1957 a girl named Rosemarie Nittribitt was murdered...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosemarie_Nitribitt

Rosemarie Nitribitt, was a German luxury call girl whose violent death caused a scandal in the Germany of the Wirtschaftswunder years. The case gave rise to a novel, three movies and a musical.

2/ Instantly after her death, a novel was published and the first film (based on the novel) was ROSEMARY (Rolf Thiele, 1958)...
https://letterboxd.com/film/rosemary/
Later, a remake was made called A GIRL CALLED ROSEMARY (Bernd Eichinger, 1996)...
https://letterboxd.com/film/a-girl-called-rosemarie/

3/ The other filmmaker (besides Rolf Thiele) who cinematically scavenged on the (freshly) dead body of Rosemarie Nittribitt was Rudolf Jugert with his film called either LOVE NOW, PAY LATER, or SHE WALKS BY NIGHT (from 1959)...
https://letterboxd.com/film/she-walks-by-night/

3/Moreover, Rolf Thiele exploited the theme by making a "sequel" called ROSEMARY'S DAUGHTER (1976)...
https://letterboxd.com/film/rosemarys-daughter/

4/ Aaaaaaand now finally, we get to the movie from 1963 called "MORAL 63" by Rolf Thiele which is a sarcastic tale that is not based on a single specific murder or scandal (like those films mentioned above) but sums up in a single fictional story social hypocrisy of its time within "Bonn Republic" (including the occurrences surrounding the murder of Rosemarie Nittribitt).

The main character (of MORAL 63) Marion is played by the Nadja Tiller who also played Rosemarie (Nittribitt) in the previous film ROSEMARY (by Rolf Thiele). The whole story (narrated retrospectively by Marion after she has been put under arrest) is centered around the institution (a brothel) labeled as "House for the Maintenance of Interpersonal Relationships" where for the sake of discretion VIP men wear fake noses...


What kind of morals are meant by "MORAL 63" is suggested in a scene where Marion wears a sash with the inscription MISS MORAL but poses in such a way that we can read SS MORAL. Almost immediately thereafter follows a still with Franz Josef Strauss on Der Spiegel cover. It is the same Franz Josef Strauss who is the main hero of the unreverential documentary called THE CANDIDATE (Alexander Kluge, Stefan Aust, Volker Schlöndorff, Alexander Von Eschwege, 1980) which I already mentioned in this forum (in a thread focused on docs) and "reviewed" on ltbxd...
https://letterboxd.com/film/the-candidate-1980/

Review by jiri_nvk ↓
Take the lidel for the ladle as the loodle de lidel.
Oodle aadle eedle, andeloodel, ogle aad oodle, that Prussian Swine!
Serving higher interests than for hussassa, bing bong in fadeloop dulipalidle.
And now, my dear friends, doddle diddle dolittle, dering bing bong, I'd like to bodle deydel over slabbalong the delarzel of Barzel.
But above all, I want to make it very clear that with us, the pinkler, there is a lodel di yodel di ladel, afta la bofta, det lidel didel hadel, di oozle or poodel, odle lede hadelo.

I could chirp endlessly about this remarkable movie but I will follow the example of a discreet bird and will not write any other spoilers...


I only regret I can't post this as a podcast so all of you (instead of just reading) could hear my rambling and then (maybe) to respond like Marion...

[Angel]

Ta kokkina fanaria (The Red Lanterns)

55 Days at Peking
Boxer a smrt (The Boxer and Death)
Daisan no kagemusha (The Third Shadow)
Gamperaliya (Changes in the Village)
I compagni (The Organizer)
I fidanzati (The Fiancés)
Il successo (The Success)
Johnny Cool
Judex
Les tontons flingueurs (Crooks in Clover)
Mahanagar (The Big City)
Onna no rekishi (A Woman's Life)
Os Verdes Anos (The Green Years)
Pasazerka (Passenger)
Polustanok (Whistle Stop)
Susuz Yaz (Dry Summer)
The Prize
Tiburoneros (The Shark Hunters)
X

Deliberately excluded (IMDb/TSPDT/S&S top 500)
8½
El verdugo
Flaming Creatures
Il gattopardo
Khaneh siah ast
Le mépris
Mothlight
Muriel ou Le temps d'un retour
Nattvardsgästerna
Shock Corridor
Tengoku to jigoku
The Birds
The Great Escape
The Servant
Tystnaden
Vidas Secas

To see before the dedline
Barnvagnen
Días de otoño
Hikô shôjo
Il fornaretto di Venezia
Saat Pake Bandha
Station Six Sahara
Transport z ráje

Wanted
Baji
Chat sup yee ga fong hak
Ganga Zumba
Il terrorista
Xiao bing zhang ga

[greennui]

Cleopatra (Mank)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8VYk_DcvvU

So, so flat. Actors sleepwalking through giant sets with an engulfing vacuum between every line of dialogue. Liz Taylor summed it up fairly accurately: “They cut out the heart, the essence, the motivations, the very core, and tacked on all those battle scenes. It should have been about three large people, but it lacked reality and passion". Her looking like a snacc in hundreds of different outfits was something though I guess.

[rischka]

LOL you're braver than me greennui ^

i watched tapan sinha's desolate beach, quite beautiful! and pasazerka. watching kids marching into the gas chambers=christmas week

it's a powerful film as is but, having seen some of munk's other works, i can't help but wonder what could have been. one of the finest polish directors imo

[Curtis, baby]

I watched both Cleopatras back in 2015, also in December (movies like that seems Christmassy to me for some reason). The Claudette Colbert version is just sooooo much more visually interesting. Slow, deliberate, nuanced... everything the Liz Taylor one is not

[greennui]

Julio Bressane's version is def my favourite take. Straub-Huillet meets hypersexuality.

[brian d]

Julio Bressane's version is def my favourite take. Straub-Huillet meets hypersexuality.

seconded! (haven't seen the other cleopatras so no point of comparison )

[Lencho of the Apes]

Check the Place Of Things for a Cleopatra-related surprise...

[MrCarmady]

Raven's End is bleak and beautiful. For some reason VLC keeps crashing whenever I try to take a screenshot, which is an apt metaphor for what the protagonist goes through. Definitely going on the list.
Vidas Secas next.

[lineuphere]

Final:

High and Low (Akira Kurosawa)
Sing, Young People (Keisuke Kinoshita)
The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock)
The Elegant Life of Mr. Everyman (Kihachi Okamoto)
Scorpio Rising (Kenneth Anger)
The Love Eterne (Han Hsiang Li)
The Servant (Joseph Losey)
I Fidanzati (Ermanno Olmi)
The Cool World (Shirley Clarke)
The Silence (Ingmar Bergman)
Winter Light (Ingmar Bergman)
Raven's End (Bo Widerberg)
An Actor's Revenge (Kon Ichikawa)
The Big City (Satyajit Ray)
A Legend Or Was It? (Keisuke Kinoshita)
The Leopard (Luchino Visconti)
A Child Is Waiting (John Cassavettes)
Vidas Secas (Nelson Pereira dos Santos)
8½ (Federico Fellini)
The Fire Within (Louis Malle)

[rischka]

winter light followed by the silence seems like way too much angsty white people. but also like good old fashioned dysfunctional family christmas

[mesnalty]

Good timing for the poll: Hallelujah the Hills is currently streaming on Le Cinema Club

[dominicano1970]

The Executioner (Berlanga)

Bay of Angels (Demy)
The Big City (Ray)
The Birds (Hitchcock)
Bye Bye Birdie (Sidney)
Changes in the Village (Peries)
Charade (Donen)
Cleopatra (Mankiewicz)
Donovan's Reef (Ford)
I fidanzati (Olmi)
55 Days at Peking (Ray)
The Great Escape (Sturges)
The Gun Hawk (Ludwig)
High and Low (Kurosawa)
Love with the Proper Stranger (Mulligan)
Passenger (Munk)
The Shark Hunters (Alcoriza)
The Verona Trial (Lizzani)
Whitle Stop (Barnet)
A Woman's Life (Naruse)

Sorry, no room for America America, Judex, The Leopard, The Nutty Professor, The Pink Panther, Sammy Going South.

Merry Christmas, folks!

[rischka]

Good timing for the poll: Hallelujah the Hills is currently streaming on Le Cinema Club

it's very snowy. sort of a christmas movie. how stoned were these people

i've got the executioner and raven's end! will try to fit them in!