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Chungking Express (1994)


--If movies are to amuse us, must they always have conclusions?--



People disappear
and reappear

without meaning
or warning.

People retreat.
People repeat.

People are incomplete.
Stories do not conclude

interlude leads to interlude.
In the absence of love

objects may amuse us--
soap with an eating disorder

a dishtowel that weeps,
conspicuous sunglasses

and the mysterious comings and goings
of fish in a fishbowl

are witness
to an incomplete loneliness.

Daily life
like a shimmering flow

of incomplete brushstrokes
speeds round us, nonstop

yet if we slice that
open, isn't everyone

sealed in, alone, in slow-mo
with their troubles

which they love so



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view trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo_WlQ7OVSU

Shadows (1959) , Dir. John Cassavetes' first film

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Shadows (1959) , Dir. John Cassavetes

Simply the best

French New Wave cinema

ever to be made (in America)

--and all that jazz!!!


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clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZ-rv2Or3YE&feature=related

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Ecstasy (1933) (Czech)

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Ekstase (1933), a/k/a Ecstasy

In The Most Whispered About Picture In The World
a marriage begins and ends
without dialogue.

When the young bride returns, still chaste, to
her father's home, he asks her what happened,
and she tells him: Nothing.

Soon enough something happens.
Clothes are minor discarded details
shed as easily as the need for words

and skinny-dipping naturally leads
to cunnilingus; the first non-porn female orgasm
on film; censorship; confiscation at the border, and burning.

The face of a Jewish princess in climax
is, by 1935, still too scandalous,
but eventually

scenes are inserted
to make Ecstasy more socially acceptable:
A pre-fling divorce, and a daydream of a baby--

because marriage and babies
are sacred, and not to be polluted
by pleasure

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Nude swimming clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7TnmjEFYuc&feature=PlayList&p=2ACDADB31DD47921&index=3

Sunrise (1927)

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Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)


The fantasy of sin, hedonism, seduction
is never nearer
than when a snaky vamp gyrates wildly
glistening in the moonlight
held in your arms above you
inches from your jugular

Your troubled wife weeps
in a country cottage nearby, but at the moment
you don't care

because when the aggressive
woman from the city
kisses you, you swoon like a woman,
feel sleek and beautiful
for the first time

enraptured by your submission;
empowered by the sinister eroticism
of your own weakness;
that, you never knew.
But now, you know--your role
is to adore the bobbed-hair
goddess, at any cost.

Too, the city itself tempts you--
streetcars, traffic, searchlights,
nights awash in colored neon,
sophisticated flappers with dark lips and
kohl lids, artists, dance halls bobbing with
ecstatic jazz, impossibly evil,
an orgy of sound and flesh
anonymous and stylish.


But then again, love never seemed so real
as the earth under you nails that nourishes the seeds
and feeds you; the sunshine yellow of an innocent's hair;
sharing simple joys and memories with
someone trusting and open, entrusted
to your care--


and so you come back
to earth

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"Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans"
view clip here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zbEoyG02Hw&feature=related

Children of Paradise (1946)

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Children of Paradise (1946)


In the finale, isn't life

just like a

screaming mime

torn violently from his

spiritual bride?

Further and further

from his goddess

the bobbing horde pushes

him. They

are a violent sea of
white-clad revelers
whose ironic costumes proclaim:

If we sweep you in the wrong direction--

Too bad but don't blame us!

We are innocent, because we, too

are pure--!
We too, are spinning!
We too

love life while spinning dizzily

in the the wrong direction--

we, too--

are

French--!

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The Freshman (1925)

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The Freshman (1925) (starring Harold Lloyd)

If the pur-suit of happiness turns out to be so poorly sewn

it falls off your body in pieces

as you dance your Jazz-Age ass off

at the party, don't worry;

it doesn't matter that you

haven't read a book, or attended a class, other

than football practice--and that

your newly-bought friends laugh at you

behind your back; all that matters in the end

is that you learn one lesson well--that being:

how to pick the right girl

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Clip from "The Freshman" with commentary:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTGDNyj7VyY

Rain (1932) starring Joan Crawford

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Rain (1932)


Joan Crawford's drama-drenched
kinda street, kinda sweet Sadie
deconstructs morality

as the camera flows
with the liquid wit
of a lit sailor.

This "flop" was pre-code and
precocious; it's natural audience
wasn't born yet


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Homage to "Rain" on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k9wjqUtXm0&feature=PlayList&p=E04019D977A8B540&index=1