HOLY MOTORS

The movie's a wonder - following Monsieur Oscar (Denis Lavant, one of cinema's greatest special effects) across Paris for nine different and increasingly abstract performance assignments, HOLY MOTORS registers both as pure cinematic thrills and a more personal, dialectic look at how digital forces are increasingly shaping our world. Director Leos Carax happily isn't a polemicist; indeed, in a film rife with references to the work of his countrymen (the episodes and interludes recall Feuillade, Renoir, Demy, Truffaut, Franju, and probably others - hell, Carax even references himself with a short sequel to Merde!, his segment of the omnibus film TOKYO!), the strident political diatribes of Godard are mercifully absent. What remains is a celebration of the possibilities of cinema, a potentiality undimmed (though certain, Carax reminds us, to be changed) by the prospects of a digital future. Like all great films, its surface pleasures are more than enough to hold our interest, but it contains multitudes and myriad deeper meanings that unfold and intensify as it lingers in the mind. Even the movie's melancholic moments seem to juice the exhilaration of it. It's one of the most gripping statements of total cinema I've ever experienced, and after seeing it twice I doubt I've exhausted it.

And fuck me if it doesn't look better in digital projection than 35mm.

Happy Birthday, Warren Oates.

I was but a lad of twelve when my folks took me to BLUE THUNDER. I remember my dad gasping a bit at the film's dedication to the memory of Warren Oates. By that tender age I'd gained a very basic familiarity with death. And I remembered Oates from STRIPES and a couple of others (possibly THE BORDER, certainly 1941).

What happened at that moment was something I felt more than understood, but for the first time in my life I took a moment of respectful silence to acknowledge, with sadness and gratitude, the passing of someone I felt (again, more than knew) was great.

I've seen enough of his work to know that he was, in fact, one of the greatest. And I'm delighted that so many of his films await me (and I look forward to the Monte Hellman series the Roxie's hosting later this month).

And since it's still July 5th in San Francisco for a couple more hours, I believe I will have a drink.

Happy Birthday, Warren.




(image courtesy the fantastically titled Tumblr Fuck Yeah, Warren Oates. And many thanks to Arbogast for the heads up on the date.)

transition

--Couldn't help but feel a "good news/bad news" sensation when I read that the San Francisco Film Society had finally found a year-round theatrical home. As delighted as I am that they've partnered with New People to run their programming in the basement cinema, I guess the space is now formerly Viz Cinema. The space has had a rough go of its own programming of classic and contemporary Japanese cinema, but were starting to revamp their program with a series of weekend matinee screenings. Perhaps I'm being blindly optimistic when I hope that Viz's programming team will continue to have at least a say in what goes up in the space; I've grown more than accustomed to the fresh anime screened there.

--Perhaps I'm being similarly naive with regard to the Red Vic Movie House, but the programs I've experienced there recently (and the sizes of the midweek audiences they've attracted) are not in keeping with the space's numbered days. The thirty-year-old venue is set to shut down next month, and I'm wondering if maybe people are experiencing the place while they can. Monday's screening of Wings of Desire was very well-attended, as was Jesse Hawthorne Ficks' eye-opening Woody Allen program (including two features and a stunning collection of trailers). The dreamer in me believes that this kind of late-inning attendance could save the theatre; the realist in me knows that even if the Red Vic survived, they wouldn't be back.



--Revisiting Wings of Desire was a curious experience. I found in retrospect that I'd both enshrined the film and taken it for granted, happily declaring it a masterpiece while completely forgetting why I'd done so in the first place. And so I became completely swept away in it, moreso than ever perhaps. The story of the angels that walk among us, and one angel's forsaking of his divinity for earthly love, remains absolutely timeless, and every single character in the film remains a cherished friend.

--Sad, indeed, then was it to say goodbye to one of those friends yesterday. May Peter Falk rest in peace. Adios, compañero.

--Sad, too, am I to mourn the passing of comics artist Gene Colan. Among a number of other accomplishments, his Dracula I consider definitive.



--And yet during the writing of this the New York state senate passed the Marriage Equality Act and its corresponding amendment. Some transitions your proprietor can totally get behind.