TCM: The Greatest Movie Channel

[Simon Boccanegra]

Marnie is the great divider. I really couldn't stand it, and I've been surprised as the voices have become louder and more numerous claiming it as one of his masterpieces. There are some movies you don't take to, but you can imagine finding more in them on a repeated viewing, and I didn't get that from this one at all -- it certainly puts what it has right over the plate. But I don't even think it's well acted, except for Diane Baker as Lil. 

The Birds is my personal checkout point, and I like that one much less than I like Psycho and earlier ones in the pantheon (Vertigo, Rear Window, Strangers on a Train, Notorious, Shadow of a Doubt, Rebecca, etc.).  

I suppose I should see Frenzy again sometime. That's the other well-regarded late one. I saw it only once in the tape era and don't remember much of anything.

[Milburn Stone]

For me, his decline started with The Birds. Then Marnie was worse. (Oddly, looking at a bit of The Birds recently, I thought Tippi wasn't quite as awful as I remembered; but she certainly was awful in Marnie. Diane Baker was the lone good thing in that movie, as @Simon Boccanegra says, unless you count Martin Gabel.) Then the next three movies continued the decline (never been a fan of Frenzy, although it has its partisans, as Simon says). And then, miraculously, he made a mildly diverting movie in Family Plot! While it has Universal-backlot-and-locations-within-1-mile-of-Universal-TV-movie deadening its every frame, the performances of Harris and Dern lift it up, as does the John Williams score, Devane's villain is good, and Hitch once again seems capable of lightness and comedy. I've always been glad he went out on that note.

Edited December 2, 2020 by Milburn Stone

[caracas1914]

On 11/25/2020 at 4:14 PM, Rinaldo said:

Which makes an interesting criss-cross with Rope, for which the first-choice casting for Rupert was Cary Grant. But for whatever reason (stories vary) he didn't do it, and James Stewart was cast instead. Screenwriter Arthur Laurents has written that he was especially disappointed that they didn't get Grant, because the only way the gay subtext could be conveyed in that era was through the personal qualities that the three main actors conveyed, and Stewart was so unambiguously heterosexual that he killed that whole idea.

Ah, Rope with its infamous 10 minutes takes somewhat appearing to be one long uninterrupted film.  Looking at it now you can clearly see the edits.  I confess Rope is a guilty pleasure of mine, for all it's flaws.

Stewart was reportedly unhappy with this Hitchcock filming experiment but  yes, the bigger problem  is that he was woefully miscast.  Cary Grant in the role would have brought forth the  sexual tension of the character with his two former students.    Stewart mouthing Nietzsche-like takes on murder just looks so WTF out of place, ( almost as bad as Gary Cooper mouthing Ryand  individualism tripe on the Fountainhead). 

 

Edited December 5, 2020 by caracas1914

[Rinaldo]

1 hour ago, Milburn Stone said:

And then, miraculously, he made a mildly diverting movie in Family Plot! While it has Universal-backlot-and-locations-within-1-mile-of-Universal-TV-movie deadening its every frame, the performances of Harris and Dern lift it up, as does the John Williams score, Devane's villain is good, and Hitch once again seems capable of lightness and comedy. I've always been glad he went out on that note.

I'll agree, on the same limited scale in which you made your reaction. Barbara Harris was generally a blessing to any movie she appeared in, and so I remember her here (although, doesn't she wink into the camera as the final fadeout? that can kill a whole movie for me in retrospect). And there was a general lightness of spirit about the whole film which made it far more sit-through-able than its immediate predecessors, aided (I agree) by the John Williams score, the only time they collaborated. 

[Charlie Baker]

I am not claiming Marnie is one of AH's best.  But I feel it works better than some of you do--it's like the director applied some of Douglas Sirk's overripeness to his usual approach and dark subject matter.  I feel the reverse of Milburn about Tippi Hedren--that she's not very good in The Birds but is better as Marnie.  

Rope is fascinating for its highly theatrical style and subtext and of course the long takes, but for sure James Stewart was miscast. 

For me Torn Curtain is the absolute worst Hitchcock.

[Milburn Stone]

17 hours ago, Charlie Baker said:

For me Torn Curtain is the absolute worst Hitchcock.

Has there ever been a Torn Curtain DVD/Blu-ray "extra" where Bernard Herrmann's score was laid in against the picture in the places he spotted? I would like to see that. I don't actually imagine that it would turn it into a good movie, but I would be amazed if it didn't get a little better.

[Rinaldo]

2 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

Has there ever been a Torn Curtain DVD/Blu-ray "extra" where Bernard Herrmann's score was laid in against the picture in the places he spotted? ....

I had a glib answer all ready, connected with the unlikelihood of of reuniting a rejected score with a completed film, but I must eat my unspoken words: the current DVD issue does list among its extra features "Scenes scored by Bernard Herrmann." From all descriptions I've found, this includes only selected scenes, not the whole movie. But it's something. Herrmann's original score has, of course, been recorded separately, by one of the labels devoted to such specialized fare.

One similar effort that I would like to see attempted on a future DVD release is Vertigo with an extra audio track which would include a new recording of Herrmann's score. This is one case where the composer wasn't able to conduct it himself, as was his usual practice, because of a US musicians' strike, so it was handled by Muir Mathieson in the UK -- not as well as it might have been, I have to say. Some of it sounds like they didn't get any retakes; for instance, in the middle of a quiet interlude in the famous title music, the vibraphone player makes an enthusiastic loud entry -- about 8 measures early. (Yes, I've checked against the score.) With present-day technology, we could have the original soundtrack (which has been carefully restored) on the main audio track, and newly recorded music with all the foreground sound effects on a different track for those who care.

[Charlie Baker]

One thing for sure--BH's score would have to be an improvement over what the film was released with.

We haven't mentioned, and I learned only in passing last night, that the December spotlight on Wednesday nights is on Herrmann scores.

[Milburn Stone]

1 hour ago, Rinaldo said:

I had a glib answer all ready, connected with the unlikelihood of of reuniting a rejected score with a completed film, but I must eat my unspoken words: the current DVD issue does list among its extra features "Scenes scored by Bernard Herrmann." From all descriptions I've found, this includes only selected scenes, not the whole movie. But it's something. Herrmann's original score has, of course, been recorded separately, by one of the labels devoted to such specialized fare.

OK, for $14 from Amazon, I popped for it. I'm somewhat familiar with Herrmann's score from the Elmer Bernstein recording--in fact, I can hear two themes from it in my head right now--and I know where those themes were meant to go in the picture--but until I see/hear the synthesis of the visuals with Herrmann's music, I don't feel confident in the conclusion that Hitchcock made a tremendous mistake in dumping it. I'm open to the possibility that my reaction will be, "Um, yeah, still doesn't work." But I need to know!

[Rinaldo]

The movie that I would like to see with the original score restored is 2001. I'm probably (heck, I know I am) in a small minority, but the use of familiar pieces like The Blue Danube or Also sprach Zarathustra just doesn't work for me -- I already have associations with those works that are too strong, so they don't match what I'm seeing. And I really do like Alex North's score (as I almost always do with his work), to the extent that it's been recorded. But I know it remained unfinished, and in any case the picture was cut to the music that was eventually used, so there's no way I can get my wish.

[Simon Boccanegra]

I'm reminded a bit of how James Horner was spitting mad for the remaining ten years of his life about the rejection of most of his score for The New World. He slaved over a hot desk and this is the thanks he got. Some of his music is there, but it's easy to miss. Malick, who's always been big on using classical music in his films (Orff, Saint-Saëns, Faure, Ives, Smetana, Mahler, Berlioz, et cetera), decided to more prominently feature Wagner and Mozart. They were not 17th-century figures, but I though it worked well enough. 

I remember when the movie was in theaters and people were commenting on "Horner's score" and actually praising (or panning) Wagner and Mozart.

[Rinaldo]

13 hours ago, Simon Boccanegra said:

I'm reminded a bit of how James Horner was spitting mad for the remaining ten years of his life about the rejection of most of his score for The New World. He slaved over a hot desk and this is the thanks he got. Some of his music is there, but it's easy to miss. Malick, who's always been big on using classical music in his films (Orff, Saint-Saëns, Faure, Ives, Smetana, Mahler, Berlioz, et cetera), decided to more prominently feature Wagner and Mozart.

I imagine that almost anyone can sympathize with Horner about this, having one's work rejected and replaced. It's infuriating and demeaning. (I speak with some feeling, having experienced the process myself, if in a different context.) 

Still, that's almost an everyday occurrence in the cutthroat world of film scoring. In Gergely Hubai's definitive book on the subject, Torn Music: Rejected Film Scores, a Selected History, this incident isn't even unusual enough to rate an entry of its own. It's mentioned in the opening paragraph of the discussion of the replacement of George Delerue's score for Platoon by Barber's Adagio for Strings. This paragraph sums up the situation so informatively that I'll venture to quote it here:

Quote

When producers and director's fall in love with classical selections (often from their temp tracks), film composers usually face an uphill battle to keep their underscores intact. Stanley Kubrick, as noted earlier in this book, was a great lover of classical music, which he used lavishly in his temp tracks and in his final films as well (e.g., 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Shining). Another director prone to employing more classical music than original score is Terrence Malick. In Days of Heaven (1978) he replaced most of Ennio Morricone's music with “The Aquarium” from Camille Saint-Saëns’ popular orchestral suite The Carnival of the Animals. His The Thin Red Line (1998) featured music by Charles Ives (The Unanswered Question), Gabriel Fauré, and Arvo Pärt alongside an underscore by Hans Zimmer. In The New World, Malick utilized music by Wagner and Mozart along with an underscore by James Horner.

 

Edited December 4, 2020 by Rinaldo

[Simon Boccanegra]

In Days of Heaven (1978) he replaced most of Ennio Morricone's music with “The Aquarium” from Camille Saint-Saëns’ popular orchestral suite The Carnival of the Animals.

 

I think Hubai is off on this one. Morricone's score is all over Days of Heaven. We only hear "The Aquarium" over the opening titles and (in fragments) two more times: when the characters are waving at President Wilson's train and near the end when the girls elope from the boarding school. Had he replaced most of Morricone's music with it, it would have been very monotonous.  

However, some of the Morricone score is a variation on "The Aquarium," as below.  

 

[Charlie Baker]

With the release of Mank, an interesting take on the reputation of Citizen Kane.

Kane Still the Greatest?

[meowmommy]

2 hours ago, Charlie Baker said:

With the release of Mank, an interesting take on the reputation of Citizen Kane.

Kane Still the Greatest?

Back when I was an undergraduate in the mid 70s, Theater 190, Art of the Cinema, was beloved by thousands of students because it was supposed to be a cake course (it wasn't) and you got to watch movies all day (you did).  Anyway, we were taught that it was the technical advances, little things like showing ceilings where none had been seen before, and use of visual metaphors such as the ever lengthening dining table to make the dramatic point, that made Citizen Kane so special.  Of course, the ending matters, too.  A few dozen students, thinking the penultimate scene with the newspaper reporters packing up and leaving was the ending, got up and left and completely missed Rosebud.

[Rinaldo]

That's an interesting article, evenhanded especially in its treatment of Kael's essay (which indeed had both good perceptions and sloppy research -- and which, writers keep getting wrong, had tons of praise for Welles and wasn't out to devalue him). I have to raise an eyebrow at the idea that stories of Welles being a credit hog are "silly" -- that habit of his has been more than sufficiently documented, even if he did on occasion give credit to a valued colleague. (Reading about his theater work in my younger days, I honestly thought he designed all the sets and lighting, because that's the impression he aimed at in his publicity.) I also agree with the conclusion that all-time-best lists don't matter much in the end. That said, I myself am a little uneasy at having Vertigo at # 1 -- I like it better as a rarely seen, almost legendary, quirky oddity (which is what it was for many years) than as an enshrined masterpiece.

As for college viewings of the movie (I think that's how I first saw it, in a dorm dining room), I do think it helps to have a little historical sense about other movies of its time. Maybe that's easier for young viewers now, with older movies so much more easily available. I didn't really understand the social milieu or the newsreel framing, or the novel lighting and photography. A decade later, when I'd seen so much else from that period, it seemed a whole different movie.

[Milburn Stone]

@Rinaldo quoted:

"When producers and director's fall in love with classical selections (often from their temp tracks), film composers usually face an uphill battle to keep their underscores intact." 

Film score fanciers know (but others might not) that Bernard Herrmann was notorious for refusing to watch a rough cut that had a temp track. (He couldn't stop directors/editors from using them, but he could insist on not hearing them.) He even refused to sit for the rough cut of DePalma's Sisters that used Herrmann's own music as the temp track.

[Milburn Stone]

3 minutes ago, Rinaldo said:

That's an interesting article, evenhanded especially in its treatment of Kael's essay (which indeed had both good perceptions and sloppy research -- and which, writers keep getting wrong, had tons of praise for Welles and wasn't out to devalue him).

According to Peter Bogdanovich (in the podcast that's all about Peter Bogdanovich), Welles was one who thought Kael's article did devalue him.

I agree with you that it didn't. 

[voiceover]

Little Women was my favorite book as a girl, and I've cherished at least something from each of the adaptations (Christian Bale is the best actor to have played Laurie; Jonah Hauer-King looked exactly like Alcott's description of Jo's best friend) (I could go on, and have).   

It is from this fangurl island that I report with horror and disgust that the TCM app's article about the 1994 adaptation has an error so glaring for a classic movie channel to make, I can hardly bear to report it here:

The author mentions Susan Sarandon taking on the role of Marmee -- the part, he writes, made famous by Katharine Hepburn.

Are you freaking kidding me??  

I'll be on my fainting couch, having a little bromide with gin while waiting for a rebroadcast of One Way Passage.

[caracas1914]

On 12/8/2020 at 6:18 PM, voiceover said:

Little Women was my favorite book as a girl, and I've cherished at least something from each of the adaptations (Christian Bale is the best actor to have played Laurie; Jonah Hauer-King looked exactly like Alcott's description of Jo's best friend) (I could go on, and have).   

It is from this fangurl island that I report with horror and disgust that the TCM app's article about the 1994 adaptation has an error so glaring for a classic movie channel to make, I can hardly bear to report it here:

The author mentions Susan Sarandon taking on the role of Marmee -- the part, he writes, made famous by Katharine Hepburn.

Are you freaking kidding me??  

I'll be on my fainting couch, having a little bromide with gin while waiting for a rebroadcast of One Way Passage.

We feel for for you Countess Delave, if word gets out,  La publicite!  

 

[EtheltoTillie]

On 12/8/2020 at 9:18 PM, voiceover said:

Little Women was my favorite book as a girl, and I've cherished at least something from each of the adaptations (Christian Bale is the best actor to have played Laurie; Jonah Hauer-King looked exactly like Alcott's description of Jo's best friend) (I could go on, and have).   

It is from this fangurl island that I report with horror and disgust that the TCM app's article about the 1994 adaptation has an error so glaring for a classic movie channel to make, I can hardly bear to report it here:

The author mentions Susan Sarandon taking on the role of Marmee -- the part, he writes, made famous by Katharine Hepburn.

Are you freaking kidding me??  

I'll be on my fainting couch, having a little bromide with gin while waiting for a rebroadcast of One Way Passage.

Oh, the humanity!

[benteen]

Make Way for Tomorrow is on tonight.  Great film, sadly a little known classic.

Edited December 13, 2020 by benteen

[Schnickelfritz]

5 hours ago, benteen said:

Make Way for Tomorrow is on tonight.  Great film, sadly a little known classic.

Have the Kleenex at the ready. A friend of mine did a beautiful copy of the poem in calligraphy.  It's been said that it was the inspiration for the "Rosebud" dying line (and sled name) of Kane in Citizen Kane as the husband in the movie says that his wife marked this favorite poem in her book with a rosebud. The movie was one of Orson Welles' favorites. He once said it could make a stone cry. I hope anyone who hasn't seen it will give it a try.

*********************************************************

Make Way For Tomorrow (Poem from)

A man and a maid stood hand in hand;
bound by a tiny wedding band.
Before them lay the uncertain years
that promised joy and, maybe tears.
"Is she afraid?" thought the man of the maid.

"Darling," he said in a tender voice,
"Tell me. Do you regret your choice?
'We know not where the road may wind,
'or what strange byways we may find.
'Are you afraid?" said the man to the maid.

She raised her eyes and spoke at last.
"My dear," she said, "the die is cast.
'The vows have been spoken. The rice has been thrown.
'Into the future we’ll travel alone.
'With you," said the maid, "I’m not afraid."

Edited December 13, 2020 by Schnickelfritz

[Charlie Baker]

Dick Van Dyke is 95 today. (And incidentally, Christopher Plummer is 91.) DVD will always have a place in my heart for his self-titled sitcom of the 60s.  He made a number of movies, and probably the sole genuine classic among them is Mary Poppins.  I am not particularly a fan of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang but this number is a great one.

 

[Rinaldo]

Late Saturday, TCM showed two documentaries about American film criticism. I just finished watching them both.

For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism is informative and enlists a number of important voices, but I found it rather diffuse in effect. It alternates between history segments (starting a century ago, and narrated by Patricia Clarkson) and interview montages with any critics who agreed to participate (since it was released in 2009, these include Andrew Sarris and Roger Ebert), often asking everyone the same question, like "what are your qualifications?" Important early figures are included, like Otis Ferguson, James Agee, and Bosley Crowther. But I think it's fair to say that the heart of the timeline is the 1960s and 70s, with the legendary (if one-sided) feud between Andrew Sarris and Pauline Kael. The narrative continues into the present century with the changes in print journalism and the rise of online criticism and necessarily can't reach any kind of real conclusion. It was fun to see the faces of critics I'd only known as names, at any rate.

What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael, from 2019, feels more satisfying, partly because restriction to one person's life allows greater focus and a proper conclusion, but also because of the chosen mode of presentation: No narrator, just her words (I'd love to know how Sarah Jessica Parker was chosen as "her voice," though in the end she does well) and those of people who knew her, speaking to the camera. She herself is also seen and heard in a number of TV and home movie clips. Any needed bibliographical landmarks are displayed onscreen without fuss... including, I was happy to see, the man who actually did the research that went into "Raising Kane." Among those participating are her daughter Gina James, Molly Haskell (much more gracious than her late husband Sarris ever had been -- admittedly Pauline had been brutal about him in "Circles and Squares," but he never stopped resenting it or their first meeting, ever), Alec Baldwin, Quentin Tarantino, and many more. Peter Bogdanovich is given his obligatory 5 seconds to pout about how meeean she was to Orson Welles (she wasn't). It gives a good picture of her life, including her curious blind spots: her eternal surprise that people she'd eviscerated in public didn't want to hang out and be buddies; her co-opting of her daughter's life as chauffeur and typist; her assembly of a crowd of younger like-minded critics (the "Paulettes") while publicly maintaining that no such thing existed. Naturally someone tries to make the point that after gaining fame by taking an anti-auteurist stance, she became a huge auteurist herself; but I think this betrays a misunderstanding of what auteurism meant as Sarris practiced it in the 1950s, as well as the nature of her admiration for some of the new directors who arrived in the 1970s. Anyway, I enjoyed this a lot and I think it's very well put together.

Edited December 15, 2020 by Rinaldo

[EtheltoTillie]

On 12/13/2020 at 10:49 AM, benteen said:

Make Way for Tomorrow is on tonight.  Great film, sadly a little known classic.

I saw it once and was overwhelmed. I tried to watch it again a couple of years ago and I couldn’t sit through it, it was too sad. It’s an amazing film that should be seen by all. 

[EtheltoTillie]

4 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

Late Saturday, TCM showed two documentaries about American film criticism. I just finished watching them both.

For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism is informative and enlists a number of important voices, but I found it rather diffuse in effect. It alternates between history segments (starting a century ago, and narrated by Patricia Clarkson) and interview montages with any critics who agreed to participate (since it was released in 2009, these include Andrew Sarris and Roger Ebert), often asking everyone the same question, like "what are your qualifications?" Important early figures are included, like Otis Ferguson, James Agee, and Bosley Crowther. But I think it's fair to say that the heart of the timeline is the 1960s and 70s, with the legendary (if one-sided) feud between Andrew Sarris and Pauline Kael. The narrative continues into the present century with the changes in print journalism and the rise of online criticism and necessarily can't reach any kind of real conclusion. It was fun to see the faces of critics I'd only known as names, at any rate.

What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael, from 2019, feels more satisfying, partly because restriction to one person's life allows greater focus and a proper conclusion, but also because of the chosen mode of presentation: No narrator, just her words (I'd love to know how Sarah Jessica Parker was chosen as "her voice," though in the end she does well) and those of people who knew her, speaking to the camera. She herself is also seen and heard in a number of TV and home movie clips. Any needed bibliographical landmarks are displayed onscreen without fuss... including, I was happy to see, the man who actually did the research that went into "Raising Kane." Among those participating are her daughter Gina James, Molly Haskell (much more gracious than her late husband Sarris ever had been -- admittedly she'd been brutal about him in "Circles and Squares"), Alec Baldwin, Quentin Tarantino, and many more. Peter Bogdanovich is given his obligatory 5 seconds to pout about how meeean she was to Orson Welles (she wasn't). It gives a good picture of her life, including her curious blind spots: her eternal surprise that people she'd eviscerated in public didn't want to hang out and be buddies; her co-opting of her daughter's life as chauffeur and typist; her assembly of a crowd of younger like-minded critics (the "Paulettes") while publicly maintaining that no such thing existed. Naturally someone tries to make the point that after gaining fame by taking an anti-auteurist stance, she became a huge auteurist herself; but I think this betrays a misunderstanding of what auteurism meant as Sarris practiced it in the 1950s, as well as the nature of her admiration for some of the new directors who arrived in the 1970s. Anyway, I enjoyed this a lot and I think it's very well put together.

I hope I can still catch this. I missed it on my listings. Incidentally I did not like Mank, if it’s okay to post about it here. 
ETA still available on Watch TCM. Watching now. 

Edited December 15, 2020 by GussieK

[Milburn Stone]

17 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael, from 2019, feels more satisfying, partly because restriction to one person's life allows greater focus and a proper conclusion, but also because of the chosen mode of presentation: No narrator, just her words (I'd love to know how Sarah Jessica Parker was chosen as "her voice," though in the end she does well) and those of people who knew her, speaking to the camera...It gives a good picture of her life, including her curious blind spots: her eternal surprise that people she'd eviscerated in public didn't want to hang out and be buddies...

Saw this when it was first released, at the theater in Chicago that would have been called an "art house" in the olden days. I liked it too. Re that curious blind spot...For another purpose, I watched the confrontation between Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer on Dick Cavett recently, and your words reminded me instantly of Vidal. Vidal has apparently eviscerated Mailer in the New York Review of Books, Mailer is taking umbrage, and Vidal affects astonishment: "Norman, these things aren't personal, you know..." 

[Rinaldo]

16 minutes ago, Milburn Stone said:

Mailer is taking umbrage, and Vidal affects astonishment: "Norman, these things aren't personal, you know..." 

That's great. Thanks for sharing, @Milburn Stone.

A couple of other points while I think of them. Watching this on one's TV, it's irresistible (I didn't resist, at any rate) to freeze-frame the letters she received from admirers to see who they were and what they wrote. Of course she received even more phone calls, which are unrecoverable, but I'd have loved to hear Barbra Streisand's call after Funny Lady got panned, to say she wasn't upset and to talk about it.

One of the friends who talks to the camera multiple times is Craig Seligman, who has to my mind written one of the most insightful books about Kael (and that despite half the book being about Susan Sontag, whom I don't really care about). He knowledgeably rebuts Stuart Byron's attempts to brand her as homophobic, and he deals thoroughly with Renata Adler's famous diatribe (he has fun pointing out how consistently Adler shows herself to be humorless and prissy, but in the end he concedes that it's probably the most substantial piece of anti-Pauline writing because she's honest that what bothers her is Kael's basic viewpoint, all of it).

In another book about her post-retirement life (Afterglow I think), we're told that she sometimes ran into George Roy Hill in Great Barrington, where they both ended up. It's heartening to read that, despite his having fired off that "Listen, you miserable bitch" letter to her, they found common ground in those years in conversation about the medications they had to take.

[caracas1914]

19 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael, from 2019, feels more satisfying, partly because restriction to one person's life allows greater focus and a proper conclusion, but also because of the chosen mode of presentation: No narrator, just her words (I'd love to know how Sarah Jessica Parker was chosen as "her voice," though in the end she does well) and those of people who knew her, speaking to the camera. She herself is also seen and heard in a number of TV and home movie clips. Any needed bibliographical landmarks are displayed onscreen without fuss... including, I was happy to see, the man who actually did the research that went into "Raising Kane." Among those participating are her daughter Gina James, Molly Haskell (much more gracious than her late husband Sarris ever had been -- admittedly Pauline had been brutal about him in "Circles and Squares," but he never stopped resenting it or their first meeting, ever), Alec Baldwin, Quentin Tarantino, and many more. Peter Bogdanovich is given his obligatory 5 seconds to pout about how meeean she was to Orson Welles (she wasn't). It gives a good picture of her life, including her curious blind spots: her eternal surprise that people she'd eviscerated in public didn't want to hang out and be buddies; her co-opting of her daughter's life as chauffeur and typist; her assembly of a crowd of younger like-minded critics (the "Paulettes") while publicly maintaining that no such thing existed. Naturally someone tries to make the point that after gaining fame by taking an anti-auteurist stance, she became a huge auteurist herself; but I think this betrays a misunderstanding of what auteurism meant as Sarris practiced it in the 1950s, as well as the nature of her admiration for some of the new directors who arrived in the 1970s. Anyway, I enjoyed this a lot and I think it's very well put together.

I've alway had  a soft spot for Pauline Kael.  Agree or disagree,  Kael  had visceral reactions/responses to films which mirrors the way many of us experience movie-going.  Nowadays some film criticism is so tip toey or almost by consensus.  Compare with Pauline's : nothing wishy-washy about her film opinions.   She was not afraid to go out on a limb, and when it came to  panning a movie, todays critics don't hold a candle...hehehehe....   

[Milburn Stone]

11 minutes ago, caracas1914 said:

I've alway had  a soft spot for Pauline Kael.  Agree or disagree,  Kael  had visceral reactions/responses to films which mirrors the way many of us experience movie-going...She was not afraid to go out on a limb...

It was partly that, and partly (IMO) that she was such an amazingly good writer. She carried you along with her. If you saw a movie after you'd read her review, you might occasionally think, "Wow, I have no idea what she was on about with this one," but while you were reading the piece, not having seen the movie yet, you were 100% persuaded.

And of course she was right most of the time. Both about what she loved, and what she loathed.

[Rinaldo]

18 hours ago, caracas1914 said:

Nowadays some film criticism is so tip toey or almost by consensus.  Compare with Pauline's : nothing wishy-washy about her film opinions.   She was not afraid to go out on a limb

I so agree with this. It's rare to find a major critic today offering a strongly dissenting viewpoint from others. Even though they may honestly feel that they're not swayed by studio pressure or press junkets to become an adjunct of the advertising effort, it does seem to leak in and every has the same generally positive reaction -- unless a movie is so unavoidably bad that everyone feels safe piling on together.

I'm become much more awake to Kael's failings over the years, yet when I reread one of her books (and I own them all, plus the ones written about her) I feel as invigorated as I did when the reviews were brand new. When she wrote her pre-release praise for Nashville (thereby infuriating other critics, who hadn't been invited), how I wanted to see it! -- right now!! (And when I did, I wasn't disappointed.) She belongs, for better or worse (I can see both side, but I'm more attuned to the "better"), to a world before current sensitivities about "the appearance" of partiality -- in her mind, if she knew she felt impartial about someone's work, she had no obligation to declare a connection or make a "full disclosure" statement. And so we outsiders never knew how close she was to Sam Peckinpah, how she hung out with Woody Allen and to some extent Robert Altman, how she had mentored Paul Schrader and worked a bit on James Toback's movie before reviewing. And in fact she was right: the personal connections didn't protect any of them from getting blasted if she thought the new movie was a stinker.

Likewise (Seligman points this out in his book) she often got in hot water by not making self-protective statements in advance, because she felt sure she didn't need to, that the fact that a movie dealt with a sensitive subject didn't protect it from negative criticism if it was a bad movie and not worthy of its subject. So after her review of Shoah she was accused of anti-Semitism, after Rain Man she was accused of contempt for autism, after Rich and Famous she was accused of homophobia. If she were writing now, I'm sure she'd fare even worse in that respect, just because she would never preface her remarks with "Of course you must know that I don't hate X, but...". She counted on people being adult enough to figure that out, but she was often mistaken about that.

Edited December 16, 2020 by Rinaldo

[Charlie Baker]

Just caught this year's TCM Remembers this morning..  As always, well done; the roll call seems longer this year than usual.  They managed to include Ann Reinking (in a glimpse from All That Jazz, of course) who just passed away, sadly, over the weekend.   It hasn't been posted to TCM's You Tube channel as yet. 

[Simon Boccanegra]

I don't know if this played a role in Sarah Jessica Parker's selection as Kael's voice in What She Said, but Parker got a rave in the last movie Kael reviewed for The New Yorker, Steve Martin's 1991 L.A. Story. In fact, the last words were about Parker's performance as SanDeE*.  "[She's] the natural heroine for an L.A. movie. She's the spirit of L.A.: She keeps saying yes."

That said, I didn't like SJP's narration. I understand that she wasn't trying for an impersonation, but we hear so much of Kael herself in archival footage of television appearances, and it's discordant when the well-known, very different voice of Carrie Bradshaw keeps horning in in voice-over, delivering famous review quotes.  

I was disappointed in that doc as a whole, although it was pleasant enough and I might recommend it as a crash course for someone who wonders why movie-loving people still talk about Pauline Kael. (Really, I'd first recommend picking through For Keeps or 5001 Nights at the Movies.) It's something of a primer, hitting all the ups and downs while not delving too much into contentious matters. Paul Schrader does get a nibble in, with his comment: "In the end of the game, what Pauline Kael promoted wasn't film. It was her." 

The documentary on Roger Ebert earlier in the decade (Life Itself) seemed to me better as both filmmaking and portraiture. Of course, the subject was alive and cooperating when it was begun, and his condition and his death give it another layer of poignancy. However, I had a better sense of the person and the life when the movie ended, and I learned more I had not known already.  

I consider Shoah one of Kael's greatest reviews.

I differ with some of the above in that I don't think Kael's contrarian streak has gone extinct in modern film criticism. Whenever a new movie is released to widespread acclaim, it's easier than ever to find dissenting voices, with Rotten Tomatoes collating everything. And there are always at least a few. To give one example of a very highly praised movie of recent years, Moonlight has 386 reviews posted there; seven are pans, They're not all obscure bloggers either; some are with major publications, and two have the site's "top critic" seal. (A third is, perhaps inevitably, the National Review's Armond White.)

[WendyCR72]

Here is the link to the video to TCM Remembers 2020. So many names this year...

https://fb.watch/2qOCZJMO9c/

[caracas1914]

12 hours ago, Simon Boccanegra said:

I consider Shoah one of Kael's greatest reviews.

I differ with some of the above in that I don't think Kael's contrarian streak has gone extinct in modern film criticism. Whenever a new movie is released to widespread acclaim, it's easier than ever to find dissenting voices, with Rotten Tomatoes collating everything. And there are always at least a few. To give one example of a very highly praised movie of recent years, Moonlight has 386 reviews posted there; seven are pans, They're not all obscure bloggers either; some are with major publications, and two have the site's "top critic" seal. (A third is, perhaps inevitably, the National Review's Armond White.)

Ah the infamous Shoah review,   Kael wrote that  the director, Claude Lanzmann, “could probably find anti-Semitism anywhere”.  

Somehow I don't see any mainstream critics today writing a similar scathing review.   

It wasn't so much that Kael was contrarian vis-a-vis many revered films, but how she skewered them.    They seemed to offend her personally. though truth be told,  With Pauline, everything was personal. 

Edited December 17, 2020 by caracas1914

[Bastet]

14 hours ago, WendyCR72 said:

Here is the link to the video to TCM Remembers 2020. So many names this year...

Well done as always.  And, jeez, 2020 has been long; a few of those people I thought, "Was that just this year?"  I hope they don't have to edit in any more between now and the end of the year.

[Milburn Stone]

21 hours ago, Simon Boccanegra said:

I consider Shoah one of Kael's greatest reviews.

You made me go back and read the review for the first time since 1985. I agree with you, it's a great piece of criticism. Never for a moment do you feel she's being contrarian to be contrarian. She explicates her response so thoroughly and precisely that you, too, share it. She wanted Shoah to be better than it was. She wanted it to be worthy of its subject.

[VCRTracking]

The thing that set apart Kael from other critics for me is her positive reviews were as entertaining to read as her negative ones. Usually a review is only fun when the critic absolutely hated it and is ripping it apart! When they actually like something it's kind of boring.

[Simon Boccanegra]

Shoah was one of her greatest dissents ("Sitting in a theatre seat for a film as full of dead spaces as this one seems to me a form of self-punishment"), but her positive reviews were my favorites of all. If I loved a movie and then I read her full review after seeing it, I could feel that no one else really got at what made the movie special. She could suggest the intangibles of a film with well-chosen phrases. Nashville (which Rinaldo mentioned) is a great example, and The Godfather Part II, Blue Velvet, and The Unbearable Lightness of Being are others that come to mind.

A lot of good critics can describe the fundamentals -- the writing, acting, and craft elements -- of a great movie, but she could share with you her experience of seeing one and being won over, delighted, surprised, overwhelmed by it. The generous space The New Yorker gave her helped, but some of this quality even survives in capsule form in 5001 Nights at the Movies.

Edited December 18, 2020 by Simon Boccanegra

[Milburn Stone]

8 hours ago, Simon Boccanegra said:

Shoah was one of her greatest dissents ("Sitting in a theatre seat for a film as full of dead spaces as this one seems to me a form of self-punishment")...

Just one of the damning specifics she provides is that the complete transcript of this 9.5 hour movie is only 200 pages long.

[EtheltoTillie]

I went back to read the Shoah review and was amused to find by coincidence two additional takedowns of popular movies in the same article:  Out of Africa and The Color Purple. 

[Rinaldo]

14 hours ago, GussieK said:

I went back to read the Shoah review and was amused to find by coincidence two additional takedowns of popular movies in the same article:  Out of Africa and The Color Purple. 

I looked it up myself today, and was reminded that the overall title for that column was "Sacred Monsters"; in her view, all three of those movies were being praised for their intention and cultural "value," despite their actual execution being, in her view, inadequate to their subject matter. That title's relevance to all three is all the more notable as we know that the Shoah review had been ready for weeks, but Shawn kept holding it back. Finally Kael insisted, and Shawn allowed it to run as long as she prefaced it with a softening disclaimer. I'd love to know whether the headline was chosen before or after this relatively last-minute addition: a sacred monster is, precisely, something for which negative criticism is not at all welcome.

Edited December 20, 2020 by Rinaldo

[Milburn Stone]

4 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

Finally Kael insisted, and Shawn allowed it to run as long as she prefaced it with a softening disclaimer.

I noticed the soft opening, but didn't realize she was forced to add it. I did think "that's unlike her, to be sincerely concerned for the feelings of those she may offend." But it's a tribute to her writing that it still felt like Kael talking. I think what I'm saying is that if the reader doesn't know the backstory (as I didn't), the reader would never suspect the opening was coerced. Owing to the subject matter, I just figured she had some solicitousness for readers' feelings that she didn't ordinarily have. It came off as genuine.

Edited December 20, 2020 by Milburn Stone

[Calvada]

On 12/17/2020 at 4:19 PM, Bastet said:

Well done as always.  And, jeez, 2020 has been long; a few of those people I thought, "Was that just this year?"  I hope they don't have to edit in any more between now and the end of the year.

Every year I wonder why the Academy Awards doesn't have the TCM folks do the In Memoriam for their broadcast.  

I too hope they don't have to add anyone to this, but it seems every year there's a death or two that occurs in the last week of the year.  Just like it seems that there's always someone who dies in the week before the Academy Awards.  

[Bastet]

2 hours ago, Calvada said:

I too hope they don't have to add anyone to this,

I haven't checked to see if they've edited it yet to include him, but Oscar-winning production designer Peter Lamont died shortly after it was released.

[WendyCR72]

If you do not go to Facebook, Turner Classic Movies uploaded the TCM Remembers 2020 video to YouTube:

 

[Simon Boccanegra]

I didn't know until now that there were two Ann Todds of classic Hollywood. When I saw the name in the TCM montage, I couldn't believe that the woman who had played Gregory Peck's wife in The Paradine Case had only just now died, since that was in the '40s and she was well into adulthood. But this was Ann E. Todd, a child actor of the same era.

A nice clip package, as always.

[EtheltoTillie]

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner is expiring today on Watch TCM. I finally saw it for the first time. It’s also showing on Amazon Prime as it turns out. What a tour de force of acting, story and filming. Not a wrong moment.

Mrs Miniver is back also. I remember that was discussed months ago, but it has not been on. 

[bmoore4026]

Saw the end of Auntie Mame earlier.  God, I wish I was as dynamic as her.  Hell, I wish I were as dynamic as her friends.  And Mame going out of her way to disrupt that WASP family and have their daughter break up with Patrick is delightful.  The fact that the last straw is Mame saying her friends are opening an orphanage for Jewish refugee children has a lot of resonance.

And Beauregard's death is one of the funniest thing ever filmed.