Phillip Lopate and Geoffrey O'Brien
Dear Geoffrey,
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StumbleUponIt's been a cold, rainy day, and I had the misfortune to be out in some of it. Got a ticket yesterday because we had forgotten to have our inspection ticket renewed, so I took the car into the gas station this morning. They told me one of my tires had dry rot, so I'd have to get it replaced; then they told me I should really buy two new tires, as they would be better balanced that way. "Dry rot" sounds like an emotional condition of some kind. No wonder I seek out ontological beauty in the movies.
Speaking of which, I don't really fear that capturing moments of being on-screen will disappear with digitized technology. There will always be film artists who are captivated by the welling-up of spirit in material fact. Recently I saw a film called The Circle (again Iranian) which had its good and bad points, but there was a beautiful, long-held shot of a prostitute smoking a cigarette in a bus while eavesdropping on the other passengers. (Women smoking in public in Iran is a big no-no, part of the point of the scene.) It allowed me to pass into that contemplative space of watching anyone zone out. Like Joan Fontaine ironing in Letter From an Unknown Woman. I remember a scene like that also in Blue Velvet, where Dean Stockwell was dancing on a porch and the plot stopped and it was all very dreamy--my favorite moment from that film. I also confess a guilty affection for David Lynch's feature spin-off of Twin Peaks, Fire Walk With Me, especially for the languid dance sequences in the club, which are very sexy.
Which brings me to In the Mood for Love, probably the pivotal film of this year's crop. What did you think of it? I don't say it's a masterpiece; the script could have been better in places, but it weaves a spell, permits the moment to dilate. And the sensuous weave of the two leads, Maggy Chung and Tony Leong, their costumes alone, her 1950s-60s period dresses, his silk suits, make me want to be in that place half the time. The film is like a piece of music, a tango (another tango for Wong Kar-wai, after Happy Together) that languorously circles around its chord changes without ever resolving them, just as the two of them never consummate their longing. Surely the appetite for this kind of movie will persist even in the face of Gladiator. Young people are drawn to it, at least artsy young people; Wong Kar-wai is becoming an underground star. Asian cinema will keep us honest, ontological beautywise, in the years to come, maybe.
I saw an incredible Chinese mainland film called Platform in the New York Film Festival, by the same young guy who made Xiao Wu, which was also brilliant. He's a disciple of Hou Hsiao-hsien but has his own rock 'n' roll soul. Platform, in fact, is about an agitprop Maoist theater troupe that undergoes political thaw and becomes a rock group. Demand it be booked into your local theater.
I gotta run. Are you tempted by Memento? Maybe we can go together.
Yours,
Phillip
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Reader Comments From The Fray:
[Thursday Notes from the Fray Editor: So Phillip Lopate came into the Fray too, to answer the A.O.Scott post below, and Mr Scott answered him, and then David Edelstein thought it was all getting too friendly, and really we recommend you read the whole thread (starts here), no actually we are imploring you to read it, because it is one of the great Fray feuding threads, with posts titled "A.O. Wimps Out" and "By God Mr Edelstein" and a mention of effete drivel. There are special extra insults from star posters and others, plus this unmissable summary of the action from Fray favorite Joseph Britt ("What are these people arguing about? [Is it]... that anyway House of Mirth was supposed to be grim, a bummer and/or a downer but is nonetheless worthy for other reasons, so the Times' critics' criticism is wrong. Have I got it?"). Neill Hamilton--a trouble-maker if ever we saw one--tried to help Mr Britt out, below.]
While the posts appear to be trading blows about the movie The House of Mirth, it appears that they are arguing about certain hidden issues. A.O.Scott is arguing that the New York Times is not as fun as a frat party, and never will be if he can help it. Edelstein is arguing that he prefers Gillian Anderson in the X-Files, altho' he misses Mulder. Zeit for some reason wanted to talk about the only Art movie he has ever seen, and Lopate's point is only known to him. I hope this helps.
--Neill Hamilton
(To reply, click here.)
[Wednesday Notes from the Fray Editor: Some rumbling in the film critics' ranks here. Did the New York Times diss House of Mirth like frat boys? A.O.Scott says no, below. And Slate's movie critic David Edelstein is in The Fray arguing too. There are comments on individual films throughout. To take random examples, a defense of Manhattan, and the excellent question "Where was Wonder Boys?". (If there was a post agreeing that The Leopard is one of the best films ever made, we would feature it too.) Microcinemas are discussed here. And (we are filing under the heading "good to know if true") how posting on The Fray can protect you from Alzheimer's, here.]
Mr. Lopate writes:
What is his source for this ridiculous contention? There are three film critics at the Times: Elvis Mitchell, Stephen Holden, and me. To my knowledge (and his), Mitchell has never written about House of Mirth, and my only published remarks about the film came in a Slate "Movie Club," in which I said that while I admired Davies's visual technique, I found the movie emotionally inert. So perhaps Mr. Lopate is referring to Stephen Holden's review, which ran when House of Mirth was shown at the New York Film Festival. But while Holden did describe the movie's depiction of New York society as "grim" and "bleak," he did not fault (much less "lambaste" or "despise") House of Mirth for its somber mood. Rather, he thought Gillian Anderson was miscast as Lily Bart, and found most of the secondary characters one-dimensional.
The implication that "the Times critics" favor shallow, feel-good pictures will be laughable to anyone who bothers to read the paper, and will certainly come as news to the makers of Erin Brockovitch, Gladiator, Finding Forrester and Chocolat, all of which we treated pretty roughly. Perhaps the only articles in the Times Mr. Lopate reads are the ones he writes himself, or perhaps he fell asleep over the paper and dreamed up a team of shallow critics to serve as "Breakfast Table" straw men. In any case it's too bad that, in his desperate need to preserve a sense of intellectual superiority, he has so egregiously smeared and misrepresented the work of other critics. I guess I'd rather be middlebrow and literary than highbrow and illiterate.
--A.O.Scott
(To reply, click here.)
Timesaver: Oscar night in a nutshell.
Armey Archer, Joan Rivers and Spawn, scores of "stars", 30% ridiculously over-dressed, 30% under-dressed in designer slobbery, 30% appropriately dressed but ill-coiffed, indoctrination through a summary of historical significance, popular clips from this year's movies, witty, left-leaning banter from an officious host, audience shots of actors (22% of all shots include Jack Nicholson), more witty banter including rolling blackout jokes, irrelevant awards for tech-geeks, makeup people and unknown music industry wonks, more witty banter including Dubya jokes, slow tease with clips from best movie nominees, slightly more "important" awards, tacky musical and dance numbers, more witty banter probably including J-Lo dress references, more shots of Jack, building suspense, complete overuse of the words "vision, brilliance and genius," sappy "thank yous", lifetime achievement award to somebody who's more talented than all the nominees put together but just never had the right PR people, annoying, hand-wringing, impassioned political statements by "stars" with furrowed brows, salutes to the independents (who are the only people doing anything new, anymore), building suspense, more witty banter about events that occurred earlier in the night, best film award, a little more irrelevant bullshit and two weeks worth of water cooler talk
--Johnny Hotpants
(To reply, click here.)