Random Thoughts

The previous Ozu movie was fantastic, and once again, the Eclipse DVD comes without any soundtrack. So I’m listening to reggae bangers.

Various: Harmony, Melody & Style (1)

This is really good… I have no idea where this is headed. Is it just gonna be about these kids?

This movie has the best featured review on imdb of all times:

Several days ago I saw a perfect print provided to the PFA by the Japan Foundation, with benshi Midori Sawato accompanying. The performance, of course, was exquisite, if sedate in keeping with the film and Ozu’s reputation. Whether by chance or ingenuity the PFA placed Sawato on a raised platform, so you couldn’t look at her face without also seeing the film, or the film without seeing her. Her male intonations, though with at least no obvious satire, rival those of Laurie Anderson or Lily Tomlin. But I’ve been wondering what on earth to say about Ozu. He hadn’t discovered yet his low camera angle, and the pacing’s not quite as slow as it would become. I’m afraid all that’s stayed with me that anyone else might not say, is that, perhaps oddly for a film about a typical family of four, Ozu’s camera again and again frames groups of three. I can’t remember whether he does this later. Maybe Ozu just liked an image size that makes three optimum. Already, without the formality to come, his frame was beginning to solidify. Don’t know. Something to think about is all.

Various: 300% Dynamite!

I don’t know what’s going on half of the time… the kids are apparently really shocked to find out their father have hairy ankles?

Those are long johns.

According to the liner notes on the DVD, this is the first Ozo film to “remain in circulation”. I’m not quite sure what that’s supposed to mean, but I guess they’re saying tat it was continued to be shown in Japan… until today? I ave no idea.

And it’s a compelling movie, but not as good as Tokyo Chorus. It’s all about the horrors of being a child, subject to any neighbourhood bully.

Various: This Is Reggae Music

I Was Born, But…. Yasujirô Ozu. 1932.

This blog post is part of the Eclipse series.

This is very, very unrestored. And silent. I mean, totally — there’s not even any music. So I listened to banging house music while watching this.

Ozu had made several dozens of movies before this (churning out half a dozen per year in the 20s), but this is apparently considered his first really good one.

Did I mention how unrestored this is? But it varies wildly from one moment to the next.

I’m impressed by how quickly the titles pass by — Japanese people can read fast.

And there’s not a lot of them — Ozu manages to tell a lot totally silently without cheating by resorting to titles.

Grody toilets, dude.

Did they shorten the English translation? Hm…

Ozu continued making silent movies until 1936, when he finally bowed to commercial pressures and went talkie.

And… this is such a fluid silent movie? Usually with silent movies, I feel like there’s something lacking, but this feels kinda complete the way it is. (Cultured people in the 30s and 40s bemoaned the vulgarity of talkies, and longed for the pure artistic expression of the silent movies, until Cahiers de cinema went *pfffffft* to all that jazz, and convinced everybody that missing sound was a technical limitation while black-and-white vs. colour was an artistic choice.)

It’s the slogan for the ages.

This is such a good movie. It’s billed as a comedy, and it’s pretty amusing now and then, but it’s really a melodrama? It reminds me, strangely enough, of Douglas Sirk’s movies a couple decades later.

It got a light touch, and a feel for character, that imbues the scenes with a sense of importance, of poignancy.

It’s not quite a masterpiece, but it’s kinda irresistable?

The banging house music didn’t hurt, either.

Oh, that’s just here…

Lovely movie. Best I’ve seen in ages.

Tokyo Chorus. Yasujirô Ozu. 1931.

This blog post is part of the Eclipse series.

Heh heh.

Anyway, so this movie is three drunk, high guys pretending to be Italian mobsters and improvising, with D A Pennebaker filming.

I like Pennebaker’s camera work. It’s really cool. The three guys are kinda on the tedious side. They don’t say anything interesting — it’s like they have an idea that their prattle is fascinating — but they’re not saying anything, really. And they crack themselves up all the time without having really done anything funny.

But it’s like it almost works? If they’d planned things a bit better and had some interesting things to say? Instead it’s just some guys hamming it up.

That’s harsh:

The very urgency that Mailer has always tried to communicate makes it impossible to wade through so much rambling for a little art.

That’s harsh.

That’s harsh.:

This is likely the most self-indulgent, grating dumpster fire of a “film” I’ve ever had the displeasure to sit through in its entirety. There might be worse movies out there, but I shudder to imagine the possibility of their existence.

Heh heh.:

This makes me even more confused as to why Criterion rejected my Eclipse set proposal Matt and His Friends Dicking Around.

Heh heh:

After the actors quickly exhaust their capacity for concocting witty repartee from thin air (Sacha Guitry, these guys are not!) there isn’t much else left when it’s just the three of them except resorting to primal caveman antics and locker-room level horseplay.

You may surmise from the amount of googling going on in this here blog post that I’m not riveted by this movie.

Hey! A hammer! Rip Torn should have been in this movie, too, and beaten some sense into Mailer.

Mailer’s so drunk.

I feel like Peter Falk and Ben Gazzarra should have been in this movie instead.

Halfway through the movie, it seems like they realise that they have nothing, so they start bringing in a series of … “characters” … none of whom can keep themselves from smirking at appearing in the movie.

Except for the dog. The dog’s the best actor here.

Finally! Somebody interesting.

The final ten minutes are kinda good? After that woman with the beehive arrived, things finally took off and became interesting.

The preceding 70 minutes aren’t very good. So:

Wild 90. Norman Mailer. 1968.

This blog post is part of the Eclipse series.