Website Wednesday
Well, there I was in the very early hours of Tuesday morning, sound asleep with the television on and “sleep watching” Harry Potter and the OOTP which had started at 9:30 Monday night. But when I momentarily awakened I was not starring at Lord Voldemort but the dreaded black screen and the writing “ You are not subscribed to this station.” Alas, I knew my glorious extended weekend of HBO HD was over.
Perhaps it’s true that we’re getting hidden messages from that black box we love so much: You must think about TV programs all the time. You must subscribe to as many movie packages, as you can. (Paging the people who wear tin foil hats) because I am going to talk about movies again today. And, it’s not even Movie Monday.
In fact, I am so psyched and hyped after 3 days of all movies-all day I may weave movies into Knitting Friday. That was an interesting sweater Luna was wearing in Harry Potter.
But for today; let’s talk about auteurs. Just saying that word makes me want to stand taller and look down my nose at the common herd. French words do that to me. (So it’s probably good I can neither pronounce nor spell them.) It’s like when you use them you’re moved into the special realm of the Bill Buckleys of the world where you must use the “royal vocabulary.”
It has been stated that Louis XIV made life at Versailles so elaborately formal that it would cost the nobility their fortunes in order to “keep up with the Jones” while they vied for a place there at the king’s side. Thus, they had no money available to wage coups against Louis.
I think it’s the same way with “good” manners (as opposed to common civility) today. People will become incensed over a comedian’s joke or a President’s feet on a desk. Like when you watch the magician; his main purpose it to divert you to the sideshow so that you miss the main event and thus you believe in his “magic.”
So for me the word auteur is so phony. So made up. So cocktail party stuff. What is an auteur? It’s a film maker (read director) whose works are his vision and are not bogged down by movie studio endings or, in fact, many times, any adherence to the natural laws of time and space.
A lot of bad movies get made this way and get a pass from a lot of critics. Think Memento (and I’m not passing judgment on this movie perhaps because I still have no idea what happened) where the “hero” has no short term memory and the director’s sense of chronology is something he picked up from another galaxy. Think of The Sixth Sense where I’m still sorting the pieces.
Wikipedia tells us that Cahiers du cinéma, a French film magazine from the 1950s, invented the term auteur. In fact, it tells us that the Cahiers du cinéma reinvented film theory with François Truffaut spouting: "(t)here are no good and bad movies, only good and bad directors.”
The timing makes sense. The late 1940s is considered the peak of film noir. This dark look at the world was not unexpected from a world which had just lived through two world wars and a great depression in less than 50 years. Truffaut was commenting on, not inventing something new. Ah, those French.
By now, you are probably thoroughly turned off by all things French. (I hope you are drowning your disgust with some good French wine.) But before you go off and cross out every French word you can find in your dictionary, take a look at:
http://www.theauteurs.com/dashboard
The purpose of The Auteurs is: Four things that were on our minds when we first dreamt the Auteurs: Number one: why can’t you just watch In the Mood for Love in an airport lounge? Number two: why is it so hard to get hold of Antonioni’s complete filmography? Number three: Wouldn’t it be great to instantly send Tati’s Playtime to a friend if you think they need it (there’s nothing like film therapy)? Number Four: why do films on the Internet look just awful? And that was that. We simply couldn't resist the idea of everyone having their own online film library… your little cinema, anytime, anywhere… after all not everyone can make it to the Cannes Film festival… less if you are a school teacher or you live in Winnipeg (or both)… but that doesn't mean you can’t recite all of Kubrick’s films in reverse chronological order or that you are not desperate to watch the latest Kitano film that is definitely not going to be released in your local multiplex.
Click Films and get 157 pages of films (at 20 per page, that’s over 3000 films), each with a short synopsis, reviews and sometimes an articles on the director. Films range from Persona (Bergman) to Casablanca; from The Dark Knight to Duck Soup.
For some features, you must register (it looks free but this is only from my glance at the Terms of Service with my TV Perry Mason law degree) but so much reading about films and directors and comments to these films can be viewed for free.
I know this is a specialized site. Not every moviegoer wants to peel the onion this carefully when it comes to film. But for anyone past the Herbie and Chuck Go to Vegas XIII movie stage, there is something here for you to like.
Take a look.
Well, there I was in the very early hours of Tuesday morning, sound asleep with the television on and “sleep watching” Harry Potter and the OOTP which had started at 9:30 Monday night. But when I momentarily awakened I was not starring at Lord Voldemort but the dreaded black screen and the writing “ You are not subscribed to this station.” Alas, I knew my glorious extended weekend of HBO HD was over.
Perhaps it’s true that we’re getting hidden messages from that black box we love so much: You must think about TV programs all the time. You must subscribe to as many movie packages, as you can. (Paging the people who wear tin foil hats) because I am going to talk about movies again today. And, it’s not even Movie Monday.
In fact, I am so psyched and hyped after 3 days of all movies-all day I may weave movies into Knitting Friday. That was an interesting sweater Luna was wearing in Harry Potter.
But for today; let’s talk about auteurs. Just saying that word makes me want to stand taller and look down my nose at the common herd. French words do that to me. (So it’s probably good I can neither pronounce nor spell them.) It’s like when you use them you’re moved into the special realm of the Bill Buckleys of the world where you must use the “royal vocabulary.”
It has been stated that Louis XIV made life at Versailles so elaborately formal that it would cost the nobility their fortunes in order to “keep up with the Jones” while they vied for a place there at the king’s side. Thus, they had no money available to wage coups against Louis.
I think it’s the same way with “good” manners (as opposed to common civility) today. People will become incensed over a comedian’s joke or a President’s feet on a desk. Like when you watch the magician; his main purpose it to divert you to the sideshow so that you miss the main event and thus you believe in his “magic.”
So for me the word auteur is so phony. So made up. So cocktail party stuff. What is an auteur? It’s a film maker (read director) whose works are his vision and are not bogged down by movie studio endings or, in fact, many times, any adherence to the natural laws of time and space.
A lot of bad movies get made this way and get a pass from a lot of critics. Think Memento (and I’m not passing judgment on this movie perhaps because I still have no idea what happened) where the “hero” has no short term memory and the director’s sense of chronology is something he picked up from another galaxy. Think of The Sixth Sense where I’m still sorting the pieces.
Wikipedia tells us that Cahiers du cinéma, a French film magazine from the 1950s, invented the term auteur. In fact, it tells us that the Cahiers du cinéma reinvented film theory with François Truffaut spouting: "(t)here are no good and bad movies, only good and bad directors.”
The timing makes sense. The late 1940s is considered the peak of film noir. This dark look at the world was not unexpected from a world which had just lived through two world wars and a great depression in less than 50 years. Truffaut was commenting on, not inventing something new. Ah, those French.
By now, you are probably thoroughly turned off by all things French. (I hope you are drowning your disgust with some good French wine.) But before you go off and cross out every French word you can find in your dictionary, take a look at:
http://www.theauteurs.com/dashboard
The purpose of The Auteurs is: Four things that were on our minds when we first dreamt the Auteurs: Number one: why can’t you just watch In the Mood for Love in an airport lounge? Number two: why is it so hard to get hold of Antonioni’s complete filmography? Number three: Wouldn’t it be great to instantly send Tati’s Playtime to a friend if you think they need it (there’s nothing like film therapy)? Number Four: why do films on the Internet look just awful? And that was that. We simply couldn't resist the idea of everyone having their own online film library… your little cinema, anytime, anywhere… after all not everyone can make it to the Cannes Film festival… less if you are a school teacher or you live in Winnipeg (or both)… but that doesn't mean you can’t recite all of Kubrick’s films in reverse chronological order or that you are not desperate to watch the latest Kitano film that is definitely not going to be released in your local multiplex.
Click Films and get 157 pages of films (at 20 per page, that’s over 3000 films), each with a short synopsis, reviews and sometimes an articles on the director. Films range from Persona (Bergman) to Casablanca; from The Dark Knight to Duck Soup.
For some features, you must register (it looks free but this is only from my glance at the Terms of Service with my TV Perry Mason law degree) but so much reading about films and directors and comments to these films can be viewed for free.
I know this is a specialized site. Not every moviegoer wants to peel the onion this carefully when it comes to film. But for anyone past the Herbie and Chuck Go to Vegas XIII movie stage, there is something here for you to like.
Take a look.
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