tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4222475879097604897.comments2023-10-31T10:21:00.796-04:00Thanks for the Use of the HallDan Sallitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13136066978329749513noreply@blogger.comBlogger813125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4222475879097604897.post-20782866940064297722023-04-12T19:40:46.511-04:002023-04-12T19:40:46.511-04:00David - I don't actually have a list of favori...David - I don't actually have a list of favorite albums, but here's something I gave to a friend when he asked me something similar about a decade ago. It's all modern pop or rock. <br /><br />Richard Thompson (I WANT TO SEE THE BRIGHT LIGHTS TONIGHT, HENRY THE HUMAN FLY)<br />Gene Clark (THE FANTASTIC EXPEDITION OF DILLARD AND CLARK, WHITE LIGHT)<br />Big Star (RADIO CITY, THIRD)<br />Neil Young (AFTER THE GOLD RUSH, HARVEST, TONIGHT'S THE NIGHT)<br />Leonard Cohen (first album, VARIOUS POSITIONS)<br />Game Theory/Loud Family (THE BIG SHOT CHRONICLES, TWO STEPS TO THE MIDDLE AGES)<br />Joni Mitchell's BLUE<br />Simon and Garfunkel's BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER<br />Liz Phair's EXILE IN GUYVILLEDan Sallitthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13136066978329749513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4222475879097604897.post-54033052116596123352023-04-08T15:03:28.553-04:002023-04-08T15:03:28.553-04:00Hello Dan, it’s me again. As a list-maniac I thoug...Hello Dan, it’s me again. As a list-maniac I thought I would also ask you about your favorite albums, especially since I know you like Richard Thompson whom I really admire.<br /><br />Best regards,<br />DavidAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4222475879097604897.post-73290402281810688412023-03-08T10:28:17.192-05:002023-03-08T10:28:17.192-05:00It's been a long time, but I liked them less t...It's been a long time, but I liked them less than my favorites, found them a bit more difficult to integrate in my mind. I can easily imagine myself going up on them upon rereading.Dan Sallitthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13136066978329749513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4222475879097604897.post-10212476533214897772023-03-07T17:52:36.768-05:002023-03-07T17:52:36.768-05:00Thank you for responding so quickly! So many marve...Thank you for responding so quickly! So many marvellous books, I’ve read all of them except the last four (but „The Man Who Loved Children” has long been on my to-read list). <br />I also plan to read D. H. Lawrence's „The Rainbow” and „Women in Love” as I really, really loved „Sons and Lovers” — do you like them?<br />Davidnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4222475879097604897.post-42870164345523906942023-03-07T14:55:07.705-05:002023-03-07T14:55:07.705-05:00Excited to see a real comment! A semi-inactive blo...Excited to see a real comment! A semi-inactive blog gets about a hundred spam comments for every one of those. Unfortunately, I don't have a thought-out, official list of favorite novels. A few that occur to me, beyond the two amazing books that you mentioned: a number of Dostoyevsky works, including <b>Crime and Punishment</b>, <b>The Idiot</b>, <b>The Brothers Karamazov</b>, and <b>Notes from the Underground</b>; some D. H. Lawrence, especially <b>Sons and Lovers</b> and <b>Lady Chatterley's Lover</b>; Emily Brontë's <b>Wuthering Heights</b>; Stendhal's <b>The Red and the Black</b>; Nathanael West's <b>The Day of the Locust</b> and <b>Miss Lonelyhearts</b>; Nabokov's <b>Lolita</b>; Bolaño's <b>The Savage Detectives</b>; Christina Stead's <b>The Man Who Loved Children</b>; Coetzee's <b>Boyhood></b>; Todd McEwen's <b>Fisher's Hornpipe</b>. I want to include Lorrie Moore, but I think maybe I'd choose her short story collections over her novels.Dan Sallitthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13136066978329749513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4222475879097604897.post-58690904149574813382023-03-07T13:50:50.407-05:002023-03-07T13:50:50.407-05:00Hello Dan, I'm a big fan of your film criticis...Hello Dan, I'm a big fan of your film criticism and those color-coded lists of your favorite films — thanks to them I've seen dozens of outstanding movies I probably would never have heard of otherwise.<br />My question may seem odd as it's not film-related, but I would love to know what are your favorite novels, let's say, your TOP 20? I think you mentioned on Twitter once that you like „The Man Without Qualities” and „Tom Jones”, which sounds great.<br /><br />Best regards, DavidDavidnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4222475879097604897.post-25884659515241586872023-01-11T10:47:44.859-05:002023-01-11T10:47:44.859-05:00Can't discuss here...Can't discuss here...Dan Sallitthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13136066978329749513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4222475879097604897.post-76314103060937500672023-01-11T10:35:00.153-05:002023-01-11T10:35:00.153-05:00Hi, would you please let us know where ? No luck s...Hi, would you please let us know where ? No luck so far finding them…SubGeekhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06925289554053154166noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4222475879097604897.post-83837190371653483842022-07-31T19:47:29.440-04:002022-07-31T19:47:29.440-04:00Working Within the Shot. As noted above, Edwards ...<b>Working Within the Shot.</b> As noted above, Edwards is aware of the advantages of completing actions or events within a single shot, though he is not doctrinaire on the subject. <i>Mister Cory</i> shows Edwards’ love of physical comedy even at this early stage of his career, and when staging a gag he inevitably follows the silent comedian’s preferred practice of containing the action within a shot. Examples include: the long, Chaplinesque scene of Cory painfully navigating a crowded dining room with a tray of dishes; the follow-up shot of Cory repeatedly scolded by Earnshaw while cleaning up; later, a sleepy Cory walking into a shower fully clothed. In action scenes, where editing is the rule rather than the exception, Edwards cuts freely, but he tends to cut between peaks of action rather than during them. The best example is the well-staged and emotive fight between Cory and his kitchen co-workers after his imposture with Abby is exposed: there are several cuts in the scene, but nearly every blow and its effect are kept together within the same shot. Even in scenes without much action, but where an event increases the level of drama, Edwards shows a marked, Preminger-like tendency to avoid the conventional cut to a closer shot, instead preserving the original shot over the dramatic transition. Examples include: the painful surprise of Abby opening the kitchen door, in long shot, to discover Cory’s true social status; the placid long-shot breakfast scene at the Vollard home in Chicago, where Jen has an animated reaction to discovering Cory’s name in a formal invitation; the unnerving moment just before the climax when gangster Matrobe (orchestra leader Russ Morgan) hits Cory with his hat.<br /><br />Despite his pleasure in depicting contemporary environments and social behavior, Edwards tends to draw on the stylistic resources of the generations that preceded him. In fact, an imaginary combination of Lubitsch’s respect for the limitations imposed by appearances, and Keaton’s exploitation of spatial continuity for humor, is a respectable approximation of Edwards’ filmmaking personality.<br /><br />As the studio system’s power waned and Edwards embraced the role of independent producer-director, he experimented with more dissonant, modern subject matter in films like <i>Experiment in Terror</i> (1962) and <i>Days of Wine and Roses</i> (1962). But, whether by design or circumstance, he soon established himself as an exponent of retro cinema with the physical comedy of the Pink Panther films and <i>The Party</i> (1968), the camp nostalgia of <i>The Great Race</i> (1965), and genre evocations such as <i>Gunn</i> (1967) and <i>Wild Rovers</i> (1971). <i>Mister Cory</i>, which seems to me as exciting and personal as any of Edwards’ later work, derives much of its appeal from the pleasing tension between the unsettled archetypes of 50s melodrama and the more stable virtues of Edwards’ sensibility.<br /><br />Dan Sallitt is a filmmaker and film writer living in New York. He was the film critic for the <i>Los Angeles Reader</i>, and his writings have appeared in the <i>Chicago Reader</i>, <i>Slate</i>, <i>Wide Angle</i>, <i>Senses of Cinema</i>, and other venues. His movies include <i>Honeymoon</i> (1998) and <i>All the Ships at Sea</i> (2004). He blogs at <a href="http://sallitt.blogspot.com" rel="nofollow">Thanks for the Use of the Hall</a>.Dan Sallitthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13136066978329749513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4222475879097604897.post-70034738594771362242022-07-31T19:46:35.685-04:002022-07-31T19:46:35.685-04:00In all these cases, by sacrificing a small amount ...In all these cases, by sacrificing a small amount of clarity, Edwards creates a distinctive, restrained behavioral surface that demonstrates Cory’s grace and skill instead of signaling it. The effect suggests Edwards’ affinity with Ernst Lubitsch, who, as Andrew Sarris once wrote, “taught the American cinema the importance of appearances for appearance’s sake.” One wouldn’t push the comparison too far: for one thing, Lubitsch favors a theatrical, artificial acting style, whereas Edwards aims for a relaxed naturalism that is almost Hawksian. In both Lubitsch and Edwards, however, one senses that the filmmaker enjoys letting characters manage their appearances successfully, and offers the audience the quiet pleasure of their success.<br /><br /><b>Power to the Character.</b> Related to the above is Edwards’ tendency to give Cory a bit of power at moments when a film convention might normally take power away. A good example, in a comic mode, is the working out of the gag of busboy Cory having to learn to carry overloaded trays of dishes. His first attempt goes badly (though Edwards spares Cory’s dignity by staging the disaster off screen); a little while later, Edwards sets up another calamitous gag, only to have Cory sidestep the danger deftly. He has progressed from novice to expert between scenes, in Keatonian fashion. Later, when Cory contrives a first meeting with Abby, we are well prepared for him to take aggressive advantage of his opportunity – but, in a writing coup, Edwards has Cory deliver a few good lines, then strategically walk away from his bewildered prey, abandoning a playing field where Abby holds a clear advantage. In the eight-ball pool scene where Jen surprises Cory by narrating every step to date of his well-hidden plans, the clearly discomfited Cory, with no further need to throw the pool game, recovers a modicum of power by sinking three balls at once – in a single shot, of course.<br /><br />This pleasure in pulling power away from the protagonist for the sake of the plot or a gag, then restoring it at the filmmaker’s option, recalls not only Keaton’s comic rhythms, but also Hawks’ comedies, which are distinguished both by the unusual victimization of the comic hero, and by the hero’s single-minded focus on restoring mental equilibrium and authority. One of the reasons that the last twenty minutes of <i>Mister Cory</i> loses force is that the ascendance of a moralistic narrative – Cory, having acquired all he strove for, is punished for overreaching – requires Edwards to withdraw the special favors that he liked to bestow upon his ambitious protagonist.Dan Sallitthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13136066978329749513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4222475879097604897.post-19294477283067410362022-07-31T19:44:27.800-04:002022-07-31T19:44:27.800-04:00This piece seems to have vanished at the above sit...This piece seems to have vanished at the above site - but I think this is the original version. In multiple parts:<br /><br />====<br /><br />Mister Cory: The Centre Still Holds<br /><br />One of Blake Edwards’ earliest and best films, 1957’s <i>Mister Cory</i> can be placed into a category, if not exactly a genre, that was popular at the time: the color, usually widescreen drama of personal aspiration and loss, staged in beautiful and prosperous locations. Modern viewers are likely to make a mental comparison to Ross Hunter-Douglas Sirk dramas like <i>Magnificent Obsession</i> (1954), <i>All That Heaven Allows</i> (1956), and <i>Imitation of Life</i> (1959), all of which share with <i>Mister Cory</i> a general narrative/marketing format, as well as a studio (Universal) and a cinematographer (Russell Metty).<br /><br />In this comparison, Edwards and <i>Cory</i> are likely to come off as faintly old-fashioned, a throwback to a vanishing Hollywood. Sirk, along with contemporaries like Nicholas Ray and Vincente Minnelli, defines 1950s melodrama for the 21st-century filmgoer, who associates the form with the distortions of the American self-image that cropped up after World War II, a subtle or overt exaggeration or destabilization of image or narrative, and an accompanying questioning of prevailing social values. Edwards, who both directed <i>Cory</i> and adapted it from a Leo Rosten story, does not shy away from emotional violence or a clear-eyed look at the workings of class inequity. But somehow the center continues to hold in Edwards’ work: he is not temperamentally inclined toward the distancing of Sirk, the kinetic instability of Ray, or the expressionist emotionality of Minnelli.<br /><br />Here are some of the elements of style that make <i>Mister Cory</i> distinctive:<br /><br /><b>Behavioral Surfaces.</b> <i>Mister Cory</i> is about imposture, and its salient quality is its willingness to honor its protagonist’s self-presentation. For purposes of narrative clarity, most films find ways to tip the audience off to imposture, often through cues given by the actor, sometimes by cutting to telltale evidence or the reaction of another player. Edwards prefers to make the imposture as convincing to the audience as possible, dealing with issues of clarity in other ways. For instance: Cory (Tony Curtis), asking maitre d’ Earnshaw (Henry Daniell) for a busboy job, smiles faintly when Earnshaw requests to be addressed as “Sir,” but saves himself by launching into a well-told lie that erases the smirk from his expression. In this case, context gives enough the audience enough information to interpret Cory’s intention, and Edwards simply allows the actor to dissemble convincingly. In a subsequent scene, Cory gently hustles a group of older men into a putting contest on a practice green. Here, Edwards goes to the trouble of inserting an explanatory scene before the hustle, in which Cory reveals his agenda to a passing co-worker. Economy of construction is sacrificed so that Cory’s imposture with the men can be easygoing and convincing, devoid of “stage lies.” Edwards takes a more daring approach to the important scene in which Cory sabotages a motorboat to make time with his romantic object Abby Vollard (Martha Hyer), but is surprised when his victim turns out to be Abby’s younger sister Jen (Kathryn Grant). Edwards avoids all obvious tip-offs – such as the mandatory reaction shot of Cory realizing his mistake – and plays the scene so smoothly and pleasantly that it isn’t easy for the viewer to realize that Cory’s plan has gone awry. The full story is given directly to the audience by Jen, a number of scenes later; but Edwards seems to feel in this case that the audience can handle the temporary confusion.Dan Sallitthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13136066978329749513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4222475879097604897.post-64078333509346158222021-09-29T10:33:44.644-04:002021-09-29T10:33:44.644-04:00Tom - write me for news on the above topic.Tom - write me for news on the above topic.Dan Sallitthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13136066978329749513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4222475879097604897.post-71056270113952447832021-09-04T10:56:38.250-04:002021-09-04T10:56:38.250-04:00Oh wow. Please write me at (my last name) at post ...Oh wow. Please write me at (my last name) at post dot harvard dot edu.Dan Sallitthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13136066978329749513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4222475879097604897.post-46251561954909912942021-09-04T06:09:50.657-04:002021-09-04T06:09:50.657-04:00Hi Dan,
I am writing not in reference to this blo...Hi Dan,<br /><br />I am writing not in reference to this blog post, but rather in connection with a note you posted to the defunct a_film_by Yahoo discussion group about the Stanton Kaye film He Wants Her Back, made for PBS circa 1980. You wrote that you have a tape of it. This was back in 2004, so perhaps you no longer do, but I was hoping you might have converted it to digital form. I very much want to see it, please let me know if there is any way you could help make that possible. <br /><br />Kind regards,<br /><br />Tom Schotland<br />Tomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12687306645111069130noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4222475879097604897.post-83160589496558541742021-08-01T15:05:49.006-04:002021-08-01T15:05:49.006-04:00While I'm waiting to fix this: https://letterb...While I'm waiting to fix this: https://letterboxd.com/sallitt/film/dragged-across-concrete/Dan Sallitthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13136066978329749513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4222475879097604897.post-85496737505528666762021-08-01T10:09:01.371-04:002021-08-01T10:09:01.371-04:00The linked image/review for Dragged Across Concret...The linked image/review for Dragged Across Concrete seems to end at mid-sentence.FictionIsntRealnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4222475879097604897.post-35517829179120801012009-12-24T05:23:00.045-05:002009-12-24T05:23:00.045-05:00This comment has been removed by a blog administra...This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.bathmate mateushttp://www.bathmateus.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4222475879097604897.post-76356885731938078922009-10-11T12:44:25.986-04:002009-10-11T12:44:25.986-04:00They certainly used the version of the game in whi...They certainly used the version of the game in which the person who takes the last card loses. But what's wrong with the process I described?Dan Sallitthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13136066978329749513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4222475879097604897.post-15712803671960582102009-10-11T12:23:18.201-04:002009-10-11T12:23:18.201-04:00From what I understood in the movie, they played t...From what I understood in the movie, they played the misere version: that is who takes the last card, loses. Thus the algorithm presented above will not workUnknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11011387840567659018noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4222475879097604897.post-30410311198019348912009-04-18T22:10:00.000-04:002009-04-18T22:10:00.000-04:00estienne64 - never too late to join the Deville pa...estienne64 - never too late to join the Deville party. It's really too bad for us that those French coffrets don't have English subs - maybe one day I'll go for them anyway.<br><br>Have you seen much of Deville's recent work? In the last twenty years, all I've seen are <b>Toutes peines confondues</b> and <b>Un monde presque paisible</b>, both of which I liked but didn't think were as intensely creative as the best Deville.Dan Sallitthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13136066978329749513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4222475879097604897.post-40669473755239915142009-04-18T17:21:00.000-04:002009-04-18T17:21:00.000-04:00I'm obviously coming to this party rather late...I'm obviously coming to this party rather late, but I couldn't leave it without expressing my delight - and surprise - that there are other Deville fans out there. I've seen more than half of Deville's 30-plus films (and it wasn't easy tracking them down), and have been consistently impressed by the visual and (where I have been able to understand it) verbal elegance of his work. I've even considered putting together a spec piece on Deville's "lightness" (a pejorative term here in the UK, but less so in France) for our august film journal <i>Sight and Sound</i>, though my French isn't really up to scratch and I doubt they'd be interested - I don't recall if he rated even a mention in their recent feature on the Nouvelle Vague. However, I gather the films are becoming available in France via a series of "Coffrets Deville" (see the French <a href="http://www.amazon.fr/Coffret-michel-deville-vol-coffret/dp/B001AIASLW/ref=pd_cp_d_3?pf_rd_p=467128933&pf_rd_s=center-41&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B001QGCSYI&pf_rd_m=A1X6FK5RDHNB96&pf_rd_r=0XQX6TDD00JNMX02YWSP" rel="nofollow">Amazon site</a>, for instance): so far there are four boxed sets containing five or six films each...estienne64https://www.blogger.com/profile/15448605382096453870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4222475879097604897.post-18232301351653478922009-04-02T00:19:00.000-04:002009-04-02T00:19:00.000-04:00Patrick - of course you are right, but 0-2-4-6 is ...Patrick - of course you are right, but 0-2-4-6 is covered under the "Early Game" instructions. I broke my instructions into two phases in an attempt to make them easier to remember - otherwise I would have had to list another seven winning patterns.Dan Sallitthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13136066978329749513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4222475879097604897.post-8771452944282069932009-04-01T20:09:00.000-04:002009-04-01T20:09:00.000-04:00@Dan Salitt, you should add (0,2,4,6) to your winn...@Dan Salitt, you should add (0,2,4,6) to your winning solutions, it is easy to get to I know but if you get the other player to go with a board of (0,2,4,6), there is no combination of things they can take away to bring the board back into their favor, allowing you to win. :)Patrick Foleynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4222475879097604897.post-63363773605439063952009-03-09T15:21:00.000-04:002009-03-09T15:21:00.000-04:00Danny - on rereading what I wrote, I'm not hap...Danny - on rereading what I wrote, I'm not happy with my statement that Mackendrick's direction is somehow less prominent than the contributions of the writers, cinematographer and composer. It seems more sensible to say that multiple artists can express their sensibilities at the same time in a movie, and that we tune into each "layer" of sensibility depending on our abilities, preferences and prejudices. So my feeling that Mackendrick is a bit submerged in <b>Sweet Smell</b> probably has less to do with anything recessive about his style then it does with my inclination to put more weight this time around on some of the other contributions. I think that whatever problem I have with the film's mode of expression is powerful enough in my mind to block my receptiveness to the direction.Dan Sallitthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13136066978329749513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4222475879097604897.post-4614752614591486632009-03-06T23:49:00.000-05:002009-03-06T23:49:00.000-05:00Mackendricks influence is everywhere as a director...Mackendricks influence is everywhere as a director, Though he regarded himself as a professional more than an artist. the performances were great, he got career best out of his two stars. the blocking and compositions of his shots are exquisite and meaningful, his use of eyelines and physical triangulations of scenes adds to the menace and enjoyment. The way he sets up Falcos everpresent dog like servant,allways in the background is both satisfying and funny. Touches like Lancaster taking off his glasses in the shadows when discussing Integrity are weirdly compelling and suggestive. All these are th domain of the director, but primarily the performances. The book On filmaking from his notes to his students gives a great outline of Alexander Mackendrick's tireless and timeless working methods.<br><br>DannyAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com