Catch-22 (1970)

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Catch-22 (1970)


This version should be called "Catch-2:15"--
the only time of day with light worth filming
according to cinematographer David Watkin.

Mike Nichols' adaption is fairly true to the book
and adds a coherent look,
costly and never to be repeated;

real planes, real stone buildings, real explosions,
real Orson Welles flown in
and real actors who spent most of their time
waiting, in boredom and confusion

for the hands of the clock and the sun in the sky
to reach up just so high



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L'Avventura, L'Eclisse, and Il Grido

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L'Avventura (1960) and L'Eclisse (1962)


These movies are about intersections.

Some intersections have people
shuffling through, exuding passion, disappointment, confusion or
just sitting in a cafe, doodling, taking up space

some intersections are "empty."

The camera follows
some people, not others.
The camera lingers
on a corner after a "scene" is over.

What are we looking at?
What do we WANT
the camera to do?

To go there, or...
--there...or--

anywhere!-- but here.



What if the camera doesn't comply?


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Il Grido (1957)


This is a film about dislocation.


Woman rejects man.

Man rejects town.

Man, brooding, is handsome, and useless.

Other women want to use him.

Man runs from them.

Rootless man

runs from self.

Life is ended.

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Repeat story, for several generations.

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Kiss Me Deadly

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KISS ME DEADLY (1955)


In 1955, fully aware classic film noir
fucks itself for the final time.

In the first scene a woman running barefoot, crying
gasping for air contains the key, literally,
as the credits roll up from the wrong end of the screen.

Soon she is tortured, she screams and screams
but we see
only her knees.

Sound betrays image, the image
of the big wisecracking man is shorn and shorn again
by Woman--who sweats, lies, dances, opines--
Woman is more than hole

in this film it's the men that are only parts
lusting after the "great whatsit"
a/k/a Pandora's box. When it's opened--

hide in the ocean!--
from the apocryphal climax of so much sleazy
over-the-top bizarre dreaminess.

Perhaps Hammer really died in the opening sequence?

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To resolve or not to resolve, that is the question

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The Passenger (1975)


A blue sky, a bluer truck, a swath of plaid shirt, an identity shed.
Electricity in the dessert, not much said.
What is the sound of one man escaping life twice?
Like half

of the last tango in Paris
reading quietly in a Gaudi edifice, only less...

music. Antonioni at his best momentarily
confuses, corrupting expectation's conventional usage

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Early innovation in camera movement

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The Last Laugh (1924)

Mocking laughter and ironic laughter
are soundlessly the same
in this film where nothing is spoken and
nothing need be said to make it better; it's all

in the motion--of the camera! whose famous fluidity
gave birth to cinematic innovation
in 1924, in Germany, the lens

of F. W. Mirnau is unchained, to fall
down as a man's dignity is dashed, and then
to swoop up again as he becomes
the most unlikely Master of the Universe

and only the night watchman gives a damn
in this important silent gem.

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The Cult of Joan. Saint or witch?

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La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (1928)

God works
in silence.

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