Orsons Picks

[jaime marzol]

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no doubt when cohn saw LFS, it must have been like watching some one with scissors cut up his money and flush it down the toilet. boy was he wrong. i'll reserve comment on the sodomy-guard in MIDNIGHT EXPRESS. but yes, overly long films of no particular acclaim i have a hard time sitting through, though this is not the case with everybody. some people just want a cheap, uncomplicated way to kill a few hours. the mall-theater was made for them.

ignorance is bliss. before i went to film class i had no idea i was watching shit. now i'm impossible. i know right away when it's shit, and i'm not going to sit through it.

GOODFELLAS:
check out the long shot through the card game when young henry hill meets jimmy conway, put it beside the long shot of the card game in fritz lang's 'M'. GOODFELLAS aslo has those 2 other incredible long shots, when we are introduced to all the mugs at the bamboo inn, and when henry takes karen to the copa. the one in the copa is breathtaking. the one when we meet the mugs at the bamboo inn was inspired by a shot in LITTLE CEASER, when rico is brought into a backroom to meet the mugs playing poker.

that is what i like about watching marty, before embarking on a film he does his homework.

all of TAXI DRIVER was modeled after one scene in hitch's THE WRONG MAN; when the fonda character gets arrested and driven to jail. and the list goes on and on.

[Jaime N. Christley]

I think that, from the point of view of a consumer - that is, if we're talking about movies as commerce - sure, the director should be highly attuned to making his audience as comfortable as possible.

However, we have pan & scan and dubbed versions of classic international movies, thanks to that attitude.

In thinking about movies as an art form, all attempts at "laying down the law" w/r/t running times, audience comfort, and even narrative cohesiveness, are going to be thwarted. Why? Because all true art is a demonstration of free will, and a lot of exciting art - movies not being excepted here - comes from defiance of authority, of rules and guidelines, of do's and don'ts.

I would love to imagine this Harry Cohn at the Sokurov retrospective I attended in February.

[Rick Schmidlin]

Could you imagine any studio head hireing Bresson.

[jaime marzol]

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jaime c, i wasn't passing the law on the land, or suggesting to censor an artist in any way. an artist is entitled to make his movie as long and as boring as he damn well pleases. i was just stating my feelings on long films. the artist should not be made to shorten his film, he should know that on his own. less is more.

[Jaime N. Christley]

jaime c, i wasn't passing the law on the land, or suggesting to censor an artist in any way. an artist is entitled to make his movie as long and as boring as he damn well pleases. i was just stating my feelings on long films. the artist should not be made to shorten his film, he should know that on his own. less is more.

I wasn't bringing up censorship either, at least, not in the traditional sense of the word. I don't know if they have a word for the new censorship, that is, the pressure placed on an artist by commerce to give them as pleasant an experience as possible at the movies, not to bore them, not to display a frank attitude towards sexuality, not to criticize American foreign policy, and so on.

But that's a whole new can of worms, isn't it.

Couple things, though:

an artist is entitled to make his movie as long and as boring as he damn well pleases...less is more.

It sounds like you're linking length (running time) with boredom (lack of involvement with the screen). I don't know if that works - if a movie is good, and not just good in the way that Lawrence and the Godfather movies are (engrossing epics with entertaining stories), but good in its own way, that means it's just the right length. One hour, two hours, seven hours, doesn't matter. But if it works for you, great. I wish that there weren't so many people who shared your views, but there are.

i wasn't passing the law on the land

Well, not that you could pass the law on the land, but perhaps you were reflecting the law when you said:

all films unless they are of GODFATHER, or LAWRENCE OF ARABIA quality should be less than 2 hrs long.

[jaime marzol]

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jaime c:
artists have to adhere to limitations when they use a producer's money and tools to create their art. they have to adhere to the wishes of the guy who gave them the money to make the film, which is why welles never bothered with the studios, and just used his own cash.

thus scorsese's categorising the director as smuggler, meaning he used the studio's resources to create a personal vision that the studio wasn't aware was a personal vision, till it was too late.

and i have never ever, ever heard of any restrictions on filmmakers criticising american foreign policy, except that if a movie is criticical of american foreign policy, it must be 3 1/2 hrs long. other than that i don't know what you are talking about.

this post is my last answer to this line of questioning, i can see where we are headed. seems my comment about length put a prickly burr between your butt cheeks, and jeff preferes we don't do this type of posting here.

we should now move on to more constructive posting.

hey, how about that francis ford coppola?

[Jaime N. Christley]

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jaime c:
artists have to adhere to limitations when they use a producer's money and tools to create their art. they have to adhere to the wishes of the guy who gave them the money to make the film, which is why welles never bothered with the studios, and just used his own cash.

thus scorsese's categorising the director as smuggler, meaning he used the studio's resources to create a personal vision that the studio wasn't aware was a personal vision, till it was too late.

and i have never ever, ever heard of any restrictions on filmmakers criticising american foreign policy, except that if a movie is criticical of american foreign policy, it must be 3 1/2 hrs long. other than that i don't know what you are talking about.

this post is my last answer to this line of questioning, i can see where we are headed. seems my comment about length put a prickly burr between your butt cheeks, and jeff preferes we don't do this type of posting here.

we should now move on to more constructive posting.

hey, how about that francis ford coppola?

artists have to adhere to limitations when they use a producer's money and tools to create their art.

Unless the producer believes in what they're doing.

they have to adhere to the wishes of the guy who gave them the money to make the film, which is why welles never bothered with the studios, and just used his own cash.

Never? Really?

thus scorsese's categorising the director as smuggler, meaning he used the studio's resources to create a personal vision that the studio wasn't aware was a personal vision, till it was too late.

Scorsese was discussing a certain kind of director, while also pointing out great filmmakers who were destroyed by their inability to conform to studio demands.

and i have never ever, ever heard of any restrictions on filmmakers criticising american foreign policy, except that if a movie is criticical of american foreign policy, it must be 3 1/2 hrs long. other than that i don't know what you are talking about.

I don't know what you're talking about either - and as a matter of fact, you're putting words in my mouth, here. But you can't deny that there are certain taboos for films from the US, just as there are those for films in every other film-producing nation.

this post is my last answer to this line of questioning, i can see where we are headed. seems my comment about length put a prickly burr between your butt cheeks, and jeff preferes we don't do this type of posting here.

we should now move on to more constructive posting.

Er, I was being quite constructive, I think. But perhaps my comments were read as accusatory, which they weren't. Well, not all. I still think your original remark about lengths of films reflects a deficiency in the average moviegoer's ability to appreciate anything but a certain...standard of quality in movies, dictated by (what seems to me) tradition and commerce.

Not sure what my butt cheeks have to do with the conversation, either, but I'll echo one of your comments: "I can see where we are headed."

[Jeff Wilson]

Unfortunately, films are too often made subject to demands for X number of screenings a day by theater-owners, and thus must conform to a set length. Witness Scorsese's current battle with Harvey Weinstein over Gangs of New York, which has been delayed yet again while Weinstein tries to get Scorsese to chop the film down to a "reasonable" length. Movies are first and foremost a business, and the people putting forth the money will do whatever they must to ensure a return, as much as that dooms most attempts at art and quality.

[jaime marzol]

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well, as long as we are not doing destructive posting, i will continue:

my rambling reply:

i dislike sitting in theater chairs for long periods of time. i never meant that an artist should be restrticted because i don't like theater chairs.

i am not a mall movie goer, so my opinion means nothing to the current state of of filmaking. i just dislike sitting in theater chairs for long periods of time, and since i haven't seen a first run film in 10 years, attempts at linking my feelings with the current state of things are futile. i don't count. my opinions don't count.

the opinions that count are the opinions of the ones feeding that box office, they are the ones to blame for the current state of things. if they don't flock to 3 hr movies, guess what, no producer will make a 3 hr movie. it's easy to sit at home and judge, unless it's your 42 million on the line.

i'm just a guy who dislikes sitting in theater chairs. i'm 6 feet 4 inches tall and never have room for my legs.

your comments about filmmakers being told how to handle american foreign policy, i've never heard about any of that. sounds like conspiracy buff stuff.

have never heard of any organization that restricts filmmakers from expressing themselves. we have a ratings board that tells you what rating your expression deserves. but no one tells them what they can and can't do. except where blowjobs are concerned. you can't show blowjobs. which is a shame because many movies can be save at the box office with blowjobs.

where the controversy comes in that a lot of people in europe only hear part of the story: when a filmmaker is told he has to make certain cuts in his film, those are the cuts the filmmaker has to make for the film to get the rating restriction the director and producers want. it's based on public standard, has nothing to do with politics. and they don't have to make those cuts, but if they want an 'R' rating, they have to make the cuts. has nothing to do with the government. it's a rating s board, like the Hays Office of the early film days.

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[Jaime N. Christley]

Just as a last note, I was hoping to de-emphasize the accusatory tone of my posts (and I was hoping to do so WITH those posts, which I think I did, but whatev.), and mention that my beef ain't with JM but rather "the state of things." Tha'ssall.

In closing, bust this phat quote from Salman Rushdie:

"...There are other reasons, too, for proposing the novel as the crucial art form of what I can no longer avoid calling the post-Modem Age. For one thing, literature is the art less subject to external control, because it is made in private. The act of making it requires only one person, one pen, one room, some paper. (Even the room is not absolutely essential.) Literature is the most low-technology of the art forms. It requires neither a stage nor a screen. It calls for no interpreters, no actors, producers, camera crews, Costumers, musicians. It does not even require the traditional apparatus of publishing, as the long-running success of samizdat literature demonstrates. The Foucault essay suggests that literature is as much at risk from the enveloping, smothering forces of the market economy, which reduces books to mere products. This danger is real, and I do not want to seem to be minimizing it. But the truth is that of all the forms, literature can still be the most free. The more money a piece of work costs, the easier it is to control. Film, the most expensive of art forms, is also the least subversive. This is why, although Carlos Fuentes cites the work of film-makers like Bunuel, Bergman and Fellini as instances of successful secular revolts into the territory of the sacred, I continue to believe in the greater possibilities of the novel. Its singularity is its best protection. "

[jaime marzol]

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good, i'm glad you put in that last post. i was feeling responsible for the current suck-ass state of films, because i don't like sitting in theater chairs.

(whispers): I'm not supposed to talk about this with europeans, but if you promise not to say anything:
some amrican films that are 2 hrs long and are critical of american foreign policy are told to go back and add 90 minutes. they must be 3 1/2 hrs long. it's the law. happens all the time. happened to MOULIN ROUGE, and COYOTE UGLY. they were critical of american foreign policy, they were told, personally, by bush himself, to tack on 90 more minutes of footage each, or take out all the stuff critiquing our sacred cow, american foreign policy. producers didn't want to go the extra expense, and they ended up cutting out all that juicy american foreign policy stuff.

but when the director's cut comes out all that stuff will be put back in. it's part of the Taft-Heartly Act. Or is it the Munroe Doctrine. i forgort which.

happened to sam peckinpah's WILD BUNCH. all the great parody stuff he did on american foreign policy that was cut out by the government was put back, in the release of the Director's Cut in 1992. but it drove sam into a lifetime of cocaine abuse which eventually killed him.

all this covert stuff is all too sad

[dmolson]

Don't forget that damning attack on America's influence on the auto industry, culled at the last minute from 'Dude, where's my Car?'

By the way Jaime M., you really haven't been into a first-run film theatre in 10 years? Man, if you're 6'4", you should really check yourself in to one of the huge movie plexes made today (at least up here in Canada; I'm sure they were likely imported from the US to get us to change our 'golden topping' laws) because you can actually play theater soccer in them! Sure, some box-plexes hire 18 year old sega addicts to work the projector, and many of the films are from the Sony/Enron factories with less artistry than their accounting, but occasionally they do show, skillfully and with a very pleasing result, a high calibre product. Saw our own 'The Fast Runner' last week, which has been already flagged here by Mr. RS; an incredible, amazing film. Made in my Canada, too (although apparently the original script, written for Hitchcock, had back-projection images of igloos and polar bears pecking at the eyes of crows)!
Cheerio!

[jaime marzol]

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i've been to a lot of art theaters in the last 10 years, and a lot of theaters, but i think the last first run film i saw at a mall theater was ED WOOD. though i did see TOUCH OF EVIL, and REAR WINDOW at mall theaters, i didn't consider them first run.

in miami they have rooooomy theaters, in orlando not really. i also have a problem in aeroplanes. damn seats are so close together. geography should be shrunk down so flights are shorter. (watch this comment piss off jaime c because he's also against shrinkng geography)

[Welles Fan]

Jaime M: I'm 6'5" myself, and usually feel comfortable in my neighbourhood 'plex what with their rocking-type chairs.

Don't get me started on the freakin' sardine arrangement on airlines. I was in such pain from my most recent flight I can scarcely make myself take a long flight again.

[jaime marzol]

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if we have rocking chair theaters in orlando i don't know about them, and if we did i doubt i would go anyway because most films suck.

i am completely impossible when i comes to films. if it's not something i'm intensly interested in, i have absolutely no interest in watching.

you have to sit through 30 crappy movies to find one great one. i don't have the patience. when my wife wants to watch a film with me she has to rent 5 or 7 of them, each film get 10 to 15 minutes of my attention before it gets the buzzer and the next film is popped in. most of the time all her picks get buzzed.

then suggest, "hey, how about watching THE BLUE ANGEL?" she'll say, "Again?" I'll say, "im not watching eddie murphy, and i'm not watching stalone, ok? if we watch THE BLUE ANGEL now, next time i'll watch the eddie murphy movie with you." of course, i'm lying.

so welles fan, what the hell are you watching at your local multiplex that has you leave the theater feeling like you've just had a significant cinematic experience? anything?

i refure to use films as a cheap way to kill 2 hrs. i don't have 2 hrs to kill. any film if i don't walk away feeling moved, fullfilled, changed, provoked in some way, was a total waste of 2 hrs.

i just remembered, i went to see kubrik's last film first run. theater was decently comfortable, film was a total waste of 2 hrs, i thought. some liked it.