MC's Criterion Challenge 2021 (by way of Letterboxd)

[StuSmallz]

Personally I don't find any of the scenes in that movie tedious to sit through. The length of a scene in minutes and seconds has no bearing on whether it's tedious or not. The difference between the long scenes in a Cassavetes film and the genuine tedium of a film like Blue Is the Warmest Colour is that Cassavetes' scenes develop and build and Kechiche's don't. But perhaps more to the point, Cassavetes' scenes need to be long in order to show characters in a perpetual state of becoming and to give spectators the time to reconsider and revise their initial impressions of them.

I know that; that's why I liked the heist in Rififi as much as I did, because it was riveting the entire time, even though it was a half hour-plus sequence without a single line of dialogue, or even one note of music. Because this isn't a matter of me looking at the length of a scene, and randomly deciding that it's too long once it's reached some arbitrary length; that breakfast scene could've lasted the entire movie, and I wouldn't have minded if it had been sufficiently engaging. But, it just didn't engage me enough to justify the large amount of screentime it took, and, while it could've been a great scene on the whole, I still feel that there aren't many filmmakers that could make a half hour of people arguing on-and-off while eating breakfast 100% effective, and based off the final result in Influence, Cassavetes, IMO, just wasn't one of them.

[baby doll]

I know that; that's why I liked the heist in Rififi as much as I did, because it was riveting the entire time, even though it was a half hour-plus sequence without a single line of dialogue, or even one note of music. Because this isn't a matter of me looking at the length of a scene, and randomly deciding that it's too long once it's reached some arbitrary length; that breakfast scene could've lasted the entire movie, and I wouldn't have minded if it had been sufficiently engaging. But, it just didn't engage me enough to justify the large amount of screentime it took, and, while it could've been a great scene on the whole, I still feel that there aren't many filmmakers that could make a half hour of people arguing on-and-off while eating breakfast 100% effective, and based off the final result in Influence, Cassavetes, IMO, just wasn't one of them.

I haven't seen the film in a few years so I can't be very specific, but my memory isn't that the characters argue on and off. Rather, when Peter Falk turns up with his buddies and expects Gena Rowlands to cook breakfast for all of them, rather than getting upset as most wives would, she overcompensates by acting as if she's delighted to be cooking for all these guys and telling them how much she loves them until it becomes uncomfortable and Falk tells her to knock it off. In other words, the scene is about two kinds of obtuseness: Falk's (socially acceptable) obtuseness regarding his wife's feelings and Rowlands' (socially unacceptable) obtuseness towards the feelings of the one black guy on Falk's work crew. The scene needs to be long for all of its nuances to register (including the unspoken racial subtext), especially since it's difficult, if not impossible, to pinpoint the exact moments when Rowlands' happy housewife routine ceases to be acting and becomes sincere, and when her behavior crosses the line. In other words, for much of the scene it's ambiguous whether Rowlands' behaviour is eccentric but harmless or whether it's really too much, and part of the achievement of the scene is to draw out that ambiguity for an extended period, to make the viewer sit with ambiguity and force them to really think about how they feel about the characters' actions and to reconsider their judgements as the scene unfolds.

[Idioteque Stalker]

Short thoughts tonight.

43. A film featured in the "Queersighted: Queer Fear" series -- Hellraiser. This poor wretched soul, damned to an eternity of unimaginable torture at the hands of a demonic new wave band, somehow manages to return to the mortal world one pulsating globule at a time. With great effort the being slowly reconstructs itself (American Werewolf in London-style, or Nazis from Raiders but in reverse) -- are those arms? Legs? No, a spine. There's the arms. And that must be the brain. God help us all, the thing has a face.

The damnable abomination speaks: IT'S ME, FRANK.

I had a good time. Solid final girl. Three stars.


44. A film featured in the "New Korean Cinema" series -- Mother. Detective stuff is not my favorite. The mother angle made it slightly more interesting. Solid if unexceptional acting, directing, music, visuals, everything. A well-enough-made movie that I will be fine to never watch again. The third act would be more ethically challenging if it weren't so predictable. I'm sure many cinephiles would claim Bong Joon-ho hit a grand slam with Parasite but was hitting homeruns long before... sorry to you early adopters, I understand your plight, but Parasite is far and away his best. The mildest of yays. Three stars.


Next up:
45. Directed by Ingmar Bergman -- Summer with Monika and The Passion of Anna seem like decent options, but I'm leaning Shame because I've owned the dvd forever and never watched it. And who can turn down a Bergman movie called Shame?

46. Directed by Agnes Varda -- Le Bonheur or One Sings, the Other Doesn't. Leaning Le Bonheur due to length.

[baby doll]

A Passion is one of Bergman's two or three best films.

Le Bonheur is one of Varda's very best. L'une chante, l'autre pas is good but not great.

[Idioteque Stalker]

A Passion is one of Bergman's two or three best films.

Le Bonheur is one of Varda's very best. L'une chante, l'autre pas is good but not great.

I went with the Baby Doll special on this one, with good results.

45. Directed by Ingmar Bergman -- The Passion of Anna. Everything you want and expect from late-60s Bergman is here: a legendary cast, probing characterization, and hefty doses of psychological violence centered around suffering, fear, and isolation. There are a few odd cinematic choices to spice things up as well, such as a fairly explicit sex scene spliced into the main story (but featuring none of the leads -- possibly a visualization of the novel Liv Ullmann's character is translating) and some quick, pseudo-behind-the-scenes interludes in which the four actors provide insight into the characters they depict (as if the DVD extras were accidentally placed within the film itself). What you may not want or expect is numerous counts of animal violence, and some curious narrative rhythms that skip over swathes of relationship development to get to the juiciest bits of confession and cruelty. It should've been longer -- or maybe it's actually beneficial to watch it, along with The Hour of the Wolf and Shame, as a real trilogy. I say good luck to anyone brave enough to do such a thing. Three stars.

46. Directed by Agnes Varda -- Le Bonheur. The "everyone's favorite artsy grandma" narrative that developed during Varda's twilight years belies just how subversive her films could be. This one is all vibrant colors and Mozart on the surface, brutal vivisection of pretty much all men underneath. Like when you look up from smelling the flowers just to realize you've been complicit in fueling a toxic patriarchy. Four stars.


Next up:
47. Based on a book -- The Cloud-Capped Star or An Angel at My Table.
48. Foreign-Language Oscar Winners -- I fell asleep in Roma. I guess it's time for a rewatch. Pretty slim pickins for me on this one.