I have a query that will indicate that I'm somewhat out of touch with

current film books.



Let's say I wanted to know how an "auteurist" director is generally

assessed. As of the early 80s I would look to Sarris, Roud's two volume

book, JPC's two volume book, and perhaps the St. James Press dictionary

of filmmakers.



Are there more current volumes with essays assessing the work of

directors? I'm not talking about books on individual directors, but

dictionary/guide type books, and I'm looking for authoritative ones,

that might contribute answers to the question, "How is Minnelli regarded

today."



- Fred

John Wakeman, ed.  "World Film Directors" (vol. 1: 1890-1945. vol. 2:

-1985).  New York: H.W.Wilson, 1987.  Each volume is nearly 1300 pages,

double-columned.  Most of the contributors are British but the essays

are often pretty good notwithstandings.



David Thomason: Dictionary of Film [Directors].



JPC & Bertrand Tavernier: 50 ans de Cinéma américaine.  (also nearly

1300 pages, double-columned).  There's an attractive paper edition,

revised, that sold for 150F a few years ago.  (The annoying thing is

that one doesn't know which of the authors wrote which sentences.)



Jacques Lourcelles, Dictionnaire du Cinéma: Les Films.  Laffont,

paperback.  More than 1700 pages, doubled-column.  His essays are

auteurist, not just of the separate movies, and he's often quite

interesting.  There are probably a dozen Maltin-like books out in French

and Italian, all of them nonchalantly auterist, generally not worth

consulting.









Fred Camper wrote:



>

> Let's say I wanted to know how an "auteurist" director is generally

> assessed. As of the early 80s I would look to Sarris, Roud's two volume

> book, JPC's two volume book, and perhaps the St. James Press dictionary

> of filmmakers.

>

> Are there more current volumes with essays assessing the work of

> directors?

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Tag Gallagher <tag@s...> wrote:

David Thomason: Dictionary of Film [Directors].

>

> JPC & Bertrand Tavernier: 50 ans de Cinéma américaine.  (also

nearly

> 1300 pages, double-columned).  There's an attractive paper edition,

> revised, that sold for 150F a few years ago.  (The annoying thing

is

> that one doesn't know which of the authors wrote which sentences.)

>

> .

>    It's "americain," Tag, not "americaine". And you just have to

ask me who wrote which sentences. Make a little list. For one thing

some of the essays are entirely Bertrand's, some entirely mine; and

many are mainly by one of us with just a little bit by the other guy.

So that makes it easy. Sometimes we have forgotten who wrote what but

not often. Also His style and mine are quite different so that can be

a cue too. The anonymity was our choice from the start (in "30 years"

back in 1970 too...)



      JPC

>

>

>

> Fred Camper wrote:

>

> >

> > Let's say I wanted to know how an "auteurist" director is

generally

> > assessed. As of the early 80s I would look to Sarris, Roud's two

volume

> > book, JPC's two volume book, and perhaps the St. James Press

dictionary

> > of filmmakers.

> >

> > Are there more current volumes with essays assessing the work of

> > directors?

Actually there isn't.



If "Film Comment" is anythign to go byfew people are

seriously concerned with film history -- and even less

with the history of film criticism -- anymore.



That's why this list has been such a godsend. Its kept

me sane.



--- Fred Camper <f@...> wrote:

> I have a query that will indicate that I'm somewhat

> out of touch with

> current film books.

>

> Let's say I wanted to know how an "auteurist"

> director is generally

> assessed. As of the early 80s I would look to

> Sarris, Roud's two volume

> book, JPC's two volume book, and perhaps the St.

> James Press dictionary

> of filmmakers.

>

> Are there more current volumes with essays assessing

> the work of

> directors? I'm not talking about books on individual

> directors, but

> dictionary/guide type books, and I'm looking for

> authoritative ones,

> that might contribute answers to the question, "How

> is Minnelli regarded

> today."

>

> - Fred

>

>





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>David Thomason: Dictionary of Film [Directors].



I couldn't recommend this work... I've read portions of it and it comes off to

me as full of the mad ramblings of a hateful little man, who has lost any sense

of cinema's redemptiveness (or any sense for cinema, period).  In the foreword,

Thomson pulls off both ignorance and condescension in one fell swoop when he

proclaims that every director's primal wish is to have been an author: having

realized one is no good at the discipline, craft, isolation, or determined time

necessary to write literature, he turns to making cinema instead.  It's a

disgusting soapbox, this book, -- with a sensibility that can barely be

differentiated from Pauline Kael's -- 'The New Biographical Dictionary of Film'

traffics in all the old cliches (European cinema died in the '70s; modern

globalized Hollywood product's sheer permeation of the semiosphere = "renewed

vigor"; Godard stopped being brilliant after 'Week-end', etc.), and employs this

predatorily haughty tone all throughout.



When I think of David Thomson, I think of Liz Taylor almost falling off the

stage at the Oscars three years ago, rapt like a deer dazed in headlights,

squawking: "GLAAAAAAAAAAAAA-di-AYTER!"



craig.





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Sorry about the e.  Am VERY embarrassed!



Isn't anonymity inconsistent with auteurism?

The implication is that both of you agree with everything the other says.





jpcoursodon wrote:



> <tag@s...> wrote:

>   (The annoying thing is

> > that one doesn't know which of the authors wrote which sentences.)







> >    It's "americain," Tag, not "americaine". And you just have to

> ask me who wrote which sentences. Make a little list. For one thing

> some of the essays are entirely Bertrand's, some entirely mine; and

> many are mainly by one of us with just a little bit by the other guy.

> So that makes it easy. Sometimes we have forgotten who wrote what but

> not often. Also His style and mine are quite different so that can be

> a cue too. The anonymity was our choice from the start (in "30 years"

> back in 1970 too...)

>

>      JPC

> >

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Tag Gallagher <tag@s...> wrote:

> Sorry about the e.  Am VERY embarrassed!

>

> Isn't anonymity inconsistent with auteurism?

> The implication is that both of you agree with everything the other

says.

>

> Valid question. But if two persons get together to write a book

about movies (and mostly directors) they are not likely to disagree a

lot about the movies and directors they are going to discuss. A book

by two critics with widely diverging opinions might be interesting

but that wasn't the book we were writing. If serious disagreements

had come up we might have  opted for signatures, or more probably

(and more logically)we would have dropped the project, or I would

have looked for another partner. We did have disagreements but they

never seemed important enough for either of us to strongly object. We

disagreed on some individual films, but very seldom on the work of a

director as a whole. In a number of cases we did mention that we had

a disagreement about such and such film -- we still do. The main

difference between us was not in evaluating directors or individual

films but in the way we approach them. Some people have told me they

can tell who wrote what most of the time(although in a couple of

instances they were mistaken -- "I imitated Bertrand's style," I

explained).



Interestingly, in the many decades we've worked together those

theoretical questions never came up. From the beginning it seemed

cumbersome and useless to affix signatures to each entry (especially

in view of the fact that many were co-written). Of course I couldn't

have written such a book with, say, Tag, or Bill. Maybe we're not

real auteurists after all...



    JPC

> jpcoursodon wrote:

>

> > <tag@s...> wrote:

> >   (The annoying thing is

> > > that one doesn't know which of the authors wrote which

sentences.)

>

>

>

> > >    It's "americain," Tag, not "americaine". And you just have to

> > ask me who wrote which sentences. Make a little list. For one

thing

> > some of the essays are entirely Bertrand's, some entirely mine;

and

> > many are mainly by one of us with just a little bit by the other

guy.

> > So that makes it easy. Sometimes we have forgotten who wrote what

but

> > not often. Also His style and mine are quite different so that

can be

> > a cue too. The anonymity was our choice from the start (in "30

years"

> > back in 1970 too...)

> >

> >      JPC

> > >

I'm not sure what you're asking, Fred. A book about Ford by one

author won't tell you how Ford is thought of generally, nor would a

collection like the one published a couple of years ago on Jerry

Lewis. Thomson's dictionary contains Thomson's opinions, etc. There's

that Sight and Sound poll that I haven't seen, but I gather from what

I've read about it here that it's a little screwy. In a way,

something like Maltin reflects changes of status as well as anything.

I still have the first edition of Movies on Television, where Shock

Corridor is classed as a "BOMB." In the current editions, it has been

upgraded, reflecting a general shift of opinion. Also, I have the

impression that many hands write the capsules. But why are you

interested in finding out how specific auteurs are generally

evaluated today? If I understood the question better I might have a

more useful answer.

hotlove666 wrote:



.... But why are you interested in finding out how specific auteurs are

generally evaluated today? If I understood the question better I might have a

more useful answer....



So I can write something like, "Even in serious histories of Hollywood

film, Minnelli is taken more as an entertainer than as a real auteur,

and his musicals are given more attention than his melodramas" -- if

it's true, of course. Certainly the essay in the Roud book would support

this, and JPC's essay supports it partially. I know some people take the

melodramas seriously and think they're great, and I wouldn't be

surprised if that was the consensus among this enlightened group (if

it's not, it ought to be), but in terms of US publications at least most

of what I've looked at so far in the way of books doesn't seem to give

the melodramas their proper due.



This is not a huge issue -- I'm just looking for a way to introduce my

view, if I can reasonably claim that it's not the mainstream one in

terms of the established literature. And since this is for a possible

Reader piece, I'm only really concerned with what American critics

think.. Then I can follow something like the above with something like,

"But actually, in the subtle camera movements and complex relationships

between  areas of color in 'Some Came Running' and 'Home From the Hil'"

can be found the profoundest commentary on bourgeois American life this

side of Douglas Sirk...".



- Fred

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper <f@f...> wrote:

> hotlove666 wrote:

>

> .... But why are you interested in finding out how specific auteurs

are generally evaluated today? If I understood the question better I

might have a more useful answer....

>

> So I can write something like, "Even in serious histories of

Hollywood

> film, Minnelli is taken more as an entertainer than as a real

auteur,

> and his musicals are given more attention than his melodramas" --

if





     The question is, Fred, what are the "serious histories of

Hollywood film"? I can assure you that most people who consider

Minnelli an auteur have as much respect (or more) for his melodramas

as for his musicals. See for example Steven Harvey's 1989 Minnelli

book. Are you interested in the opinion of critics who do not

consider him an auteur, but just an 'entertainer" whatever that

means?

JPC



> it's true, of course. Certainly the essay in the Roud book would

support

> this, and JPC's essay supports it partially.



I don't think I ever suggested that I thought M's musicals were more

important or better than his melodramas. I'm just somewhat ambivalent

about the melodramas just as I am sometimes about Sirk's no matter

how much I admire them (it's actually some of the auteurist praise

for them that bothers me, not the films themselves). Moreover in the

case of Minnelli I think the distinction between genres is of minor

importance, because his comedies and musicals tend to be downbeat and

melancholy and the dramas upbeat which blurs the differences.

   JPC





  I know some people take the

> melodramas seriously and think they're great, and I wouldn't be

> surprised if that was the consensus among this enlightened group

(if

> it's not, it ought to be), but in terms of US publications at least

most

> of what I've looked at so far in the way of books doesn't seem to

give

> the melodramas their proper due.



    Again I would suggest Harvey. JPC

>

> This is not a huge issue -- I'm just looking for a way to introduce

my

> view, if I can reasonably claim that it's not the mainstream one in

> terms of the established literature. And since this is for a

possible

> Reader piece, I'm only really concerned with what American critics

> think.. Then I can follow something like the above with something

like,

> "But actually, in the subtle camera movements and complex

relationships

> between  areas of color in 'Some Came Running' and 'Home From the

Hil'"

> can be found the profoundest commentary on bourgeois American life

this

> side of Douglas Sirk...".

>

> - Fred

> "But actually, in the subtle camera movements and complex relationships

> between  areas of color in 'Some Came Running' and 'Home From the Hil'"

> can be found the profoundest commentary on bourgeois American life this

> side of Douglas Sirk...".



Well if they understand what you mean by "this side of Douglas Sirk" in the

first place

maybe you're case won't be that hard to make....



-Sam

jpcoursodon wrote:



>--- In

>

>I don't think I ever suggested that I thought M's musicals were more

>important or better than his melodramas.

>

True, but you also don't seem to consider him a great filmmaker who has

major statements to make, the auteur of flat-out masterpieces, etc.

That's what I meant by the awkward "support it partially."



I do like very much your point about Minnelli's "melancholy," but I

think melancholy pervades the dramas too.



I'm not trying to exclude auteurists or look to only people who regard

Minnelli as an "entertainer." Maybe instead of assuming some consensus

I'll just couch my intro in terms of answering the things I've read.



- Fred

Fred Camper wrote:



> Maybe instead of assuming some consensus

> I'll just couch my intro in terms of answering the things I've read.





What intro? What are you talking about?????





For whatever it's worth here's what I wrote about Minnelli (I forgot to

include my own encyclopediette of directors in my list):





Vincente Minnelli (Chicago. 1903-86). Minnelli was a decorator for

department stores and a set designer for Broadway shows before

embarking, at age 40, on a film career customarily noted, first, for its

remarkable musicals -- indeed, Minnelli's other films are not even

mentioned in Roud's Cinema: A Critical Dictionary -- and, second, for

its surfeit of style and dearth of substance or personality.



The second misjudgment perhaps follows from the first. The Hollywood

musical, following its Broadway parentage, was the most restrictive of

genres, not only in its subservience to structure, but far more,

particularly at Minnelli's home studio, Metro, to middle-class

platitudes, cuteness, picturesqueness, and the cult of the pedestrian.

It is instructive that the only scene in which Minnelli's Madame Bovary

takes on fire is the neurasthenic waltz where passion bursts social

constraint, or that his romantic leads who always succeed are banal

beaux and blah belles, while his lonely losers are caustic pugs and

ardent gamins of genuine talent and personality (Oscar Levant versus

Gene Kelly in An American in Paris [1951] and The Band Wagon [1951]; Van

Johnson in Brigadoon [1954]). No matter how sincerely Minnelli believes

that only sincerity is necessary to make our dreams come true, the

doctrine never inspires him the way it does Murnau in Sunrise (1927),

Borzage in Seventh Heaven (1927), McCarey in Love Affair (1939), or

Dreyer in Ordet (1955). Transports of ecstasy and yearning in Minnelli’s

musicals are squelched by the urbanity of Lerner & Loewe, where rapture

takes the form of a sap crooning "It's Almost like Being in Love." In

Minnelli's melodramas there is no almost; there is insanity and rage,

the word "almost" cannot possibly modify love, and it is precisely

urbanity that is being opposed at every second by passions as extreme as

possible: witness society's incapacity to accommodate Van Gogh (Lust for

Life [1956]), Tom Lee (Tea and Sympathy [1956] or Dave Hirsh (Some Came

Running [1958]).



In the musicals "home" is a paradise that is always gained, as in Meet

Me in St. Louis (1944) or Brigadoon. In the melodramas "home" is the

unfindable place where we belong. When lovers gaze at each other across

the screen, the scene is a prelude to a pedestrian embrace in the

musicals; but in the melodramas, where the embrace never comes, such

scenes are the high points of the pictures: who can forget Van Gogh

staring at the minister’s daughter, Deborah Carr staring at Tom Lee,

Dave Hirsch confronting Martha Hyer in her bedroom mirror?

samfilms2003 wrote:



>

> > "But actually, in the subtle camera movements and complex relationships

> > between  areas of color in 'Some Came Running' and 'Home From the Hil'"

> > can be found the profoundest commentary on bourgeois American life this

> > side of Douglas Sirk...".

>

> Well if they understand what you mean by "this side of Douglas Sirk"

> in the first place

> maybe you're case won't be that hard to make....





Who wrote the line you quote?



Sirk is considered by some people who don't know his work and prefer to

regurgitate clichés from others who don't know his work to the effect

that Sirk was making commentary on bourgeois American l life --

specifically, they mean acidic commentary, since (as we know) it's

difficult to think of any American filmmaker who has not made commentary

on bourgeois American life.  If you see Todd Haynes's Far from Heaven

you can see a vomitosious parody of Sirk that is, in fact, exactly the

sort of commentary on bourgeois American life that Sirk never did and

which regurgitators have decreed as though it were a truism to be the

essence of Sirk himself.



There's a certain type of critic who finds "profound" and

"anti-bourgeois" to be indistinguishable.



>

--- Tag Gallagher <tag@...> wrote:

> If you see Todd

> Haynes's Far from Heaven

> you can see a vomitosious parody of Sirk that is, in

> fact, exactly the

> sort of commentary on bourgeois American life that

> Sirk never did and

> which regurgitators have decreed as though it were a

> truism to be the

> essence of Sirk himself.

>

>

"Far From Heaven" is NOT a parody of Sirk.It's a

revisiting of his themes combined with a revisiting of

aspects of Ophuls' American works -- particularly "The

Reckless Moment" -- a very important film. While

"sampling" "All That Heavn Allows," and "Imitation of

Life" Todd does so in order to introduce additional

material that wouldn't have been dealt with in the

50's -- in the style of the 50's. This parallels what

McGehee and Siegel do with their "Reckless Moment"

remake "The Deep End" which is set in contemporary

circumstance and style.



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--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein <cellar47@y...> wrote:

  > "Far From Heaven" is NOT a parody of Sirk.It's a

> revisiting of his themes combined with a revisiting of

> aspects of Ophuls' American works -- particularly "The

> Reckless Moment" -- a very important film. While

> "sampling" "All That Heavn Allows," and "Imitation of

> Life" Todd does so in order to introduce additional

> material that wouldn't have been dealt with in the

> 50's -- in the style of the 50's. This parallels what

> McGehee and Siegel do with their "Reckless Moment"

> remake "The Deep End" which is set in contemporary

> circumstance and style.





I wondered if Far From Heaven was responding to The Deep End as well, in that it

restored the character of the maid (excised from Deep End) and even gave her the

same name as in the Ophuls.

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Tag Gallagher <tag@s...> wrote:

>

>

> >

>

> Sirk is considered by some people who don't know his work and

prefer to

> regurgitate clichés from others who don't know his work to the

effect

> that Sirk was making commentary on bourgeois American l life --

> specifically, they mean acidic commentary, since (as we know) it's

> difficult to think of any American filmmaker who has not made

commentary

> on bourgeois American life.



  True. But let's not forget that Sirk himself has encouraged

misreadings of his films, notably in the famous (or infamous)

Halliday book-length interview "Sirk on Sirk". If what Sirk says  in

that book about the "message" and social criticism of Imitation of

Life is true then I don't think his commentary on "bourgeois American

life" is worth all that much. He sounds so superior to and

contemptuous of his characters. "Her life is a very cheap imitation"

etc... Of course I've been taken to task in the past for

misunderstanding Sirk when I was just pointing out the fallacy of

some of his unconditional admirers...

    JPC

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon" <jpcoursodon@y...>

wrote:

> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Tag Gallagher <tag@s...> wrote:

> >

> >

> > >

> >

> > Sirk is considered by some people who don't know his work and

> prefer to

> > regurgitate clichés from others who don't know his work to the

> effect

> > that Sirk was making commentary on bourgeois American l life --

> > specifically, they mean acidic commentary, since (as we know) it's

> > difficult to think of any American filmmaker who has not made

> commentary

> > on bourgeois American life.

>

>  True. But let's not forget that Sirk himself has encouraged

> misreadings of his films, notably in the famous (or infamous)

> Halliday book-length interview "Sirk on Sirk". If what Sirk says  in

> that book about the "message" and social criticism of Imitation of

> Life is true then I don't think his commentary on "bourgeois

American

> life" is worth all that much. He sounds so superior to and

> contemptuous of his characters. "Her life is a very cheap imitation"

> etc... Of course I've been taken to task in the past for

> misunderstanding Sirk when I was just pointing out the fallacy of

> some of his unconditional admirers...

>    JPC



For what it's worth, I have always had a huge problem viewing Sirk

both subversive (in the sense of smuggling a messege into the text)

and as social critic. While I consider Sirk a master, who could take

the most corny love story and elevate it to something extraordinary

beautiful, I have always had problems accepting his interpretations of

his own work.



Laura Mulvay wrote "The melodrama (of Sirk) is part of american myth..

. an aspiration to retreat into the privacy of the new white suburbs

out of the difficulties of contemporary political life". Sirk's world

is "Americana", strictly divided in gender and class, immune and

ignorent to outside worldly events; matters which are discussed by

men.



To me, Sirk uses "myth" as a catalyst to make his protagonist undergo

resignation, only later to emerge as an independent human being. While

the resignation is a product of abiding the conservative "americana"

way of life, the emerging (awakening) is a conscious decision; Sirk's

women are not mindless zombies, but thinking beings, immune and

ignorent to outside worldly events. What Sirk's women break free of is

class, not gender, as the strict division between male and female

worlds still are intact. Thus, Sirk doesnt attack the patriarctic

gender code, nor the notion, that one can find happiness and love

within the "americana" way of life.



In "All That Heaven Allows" Cary meets resignation when she has to

chose between her children and her heart. This is no critism of

society, but a melodramatic function (girl loses boy). We can

interpret the motif, but they are still within the bounderies of the

"myth". Even as the children abandon Cary, as she faces solitude,

society stands, even as Cary then makes the choice to follow her heart

and not do what is expected of her. Sirk then, as a footnote, points

out, that she made the right choice, by letting the children move away

from home and expose them as being social leeches. But having rejected

being a traditional mother, by the code of suburbia class, we are

still within the female world. Cary is still immune and ignorent to

the outside world, her choice stands as one made of love and should

not be read in the context of political events in the Eisenhower era.



Henrik

I love The Reckless Moment.  Been proclaiming it for forty years (to

universal indifference).  Even made a video about it.



But, pray, in what sense do you feel it is "very important"?







David Ehrenstein wrote:



>   "The

> Reckless Moment" -- a very important film.

I think it's Ophuls greatest American film. It looks

right ata number of issues dealing with class,

sex,race and criminality in a way very few films have

ever done. Alexandrian libraries have been written

about "Letter to an Unknown Woman" but next to nothing

about "The Reckless Moment." Mason gives one of his

greatest performances in it, and Joan bennett's no

slouch either. And that's not to mention Geraldine

Brooks.



I knew the late Frances Williams who played Joan

Bennett's housekeeper. She adored Ophuls and he her.

In fact he expanded her performance from the original

script. It was his idea that Frances drive Joan

Bennett in that climactic scene.



--- Tag Gallagher <tag@...> wrote:

> I love The Reckless Moment.  Been proclaiming it for

> forty years (to

> universal indifference).  Even made a video about

> it.

>

> But, pray, in what sense do you feel it is "very

> important"?

>

>

>

> David Ehrenstein wrote:

>

> >   "The

> > Reckless Moment" -- a very important film.

>

>

>

>





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--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper <f@f...> wrote:

  >

> Are there more current volumes with essays assessing the work of

> directors?





For what it's worth, there's a sort of brief history of Minnelli criticism in

the first chapter of Naremore's (1993) book on Minnelli.



I checked Michael Grost's website (remembering his post here on Four Horsemen):

it has a long, long page on Minnelli, filled with insights (and drawing links

between the musicals and melodramas).  Another online resource, Senses of

Cinema's Great Directors database, doesn't seem to have tackled Minnelli yet...

I love Halliday's book.  But it should be noted that:



a) Sirk wouldn't allow him to tape, so every word attributed to Sirk is

from notes Halliday wrote down afterward.



b) Halliday, at the time, was vociferously anti-American (in ways I

essentially agree with: his book on the Korean War is utterly damning),

maybe the most anti-American anybody has ever been ever, and it's pretty

obvious he is doing everything possible to make Sirk appear to subscribe

to Halliday's unmodulated hate for America.  I don't fault Halliday for

his hate.  But the book is simply not a reliable reflection of Sirk's

views on America, which I think in reality were, not surprisingly, a

mixture of likes and dislikes.

     What neither Halliday or Halliday's Sirk succeeds in doing (and what

films today avoid) is to make connections between American foreign

policy and domestic "bourgeois" culture.



c) A good page and a half of Sirk's words are taken verbatim from a

Cahiers interview -- without attribution.



d) Sirk himself was born in Germany of German parents.  He was so

alienated by the course of Germany that he stopped speaking German and

let people (like Halliday) think he was Danish.  He had left his German

wife and married a Jewish woman; the first wife kept the son, raised him

as a Hitler Youth and got the courts to bar Sirk from seeing him (even

when the son, a child moviestar, was working on neighboring sets).  Sirk

stayed in Germany until 1937 in an effort to rescue his son (for which

reason he was for decades condemned as a Nazi sympathizer).  There's no

doubt he found considerable comfort in America and was grateful for

this.  After the war, he went back to Germany, hated the place, and

tried to find out what had happened to his son -- who had been sent to

the Russian front.  His movie, A Time to Love and a Time to Die, is an

autobiographical projection of this lost son.







jpcoursodon wrote:



> .

>

> True. But let's not forget that Sirk himself has encouraged

> misreadings of his films, notably in the famous (or infamous)

> Halliday book-length interview "Sirk on Sirk". If what Sirk says  in

> that book about the "message" and social criticism of Imitation of

> Life is true then I don't think his commentary on "bourgeois American

> life" is worth all that much. He sounds so superior to and

> contemptuous of his characters. "Her life is a very cheap imitation"

> etc... Of course I've been taken to task in the past for

> misunderstanding Sirk when I was just pointing out the fallacy of

> some of his unconditional admirers...

>    JPC

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Tag Gallagher <tag@s...> wrote:

> I love Halliday's book.  But it should be noted that:

>

> a) Sirk wouldn't allow him to tape, so every word attributed to

Sirk is

> from notes Halliday wrote down afterward.

>



So that Halliday could put pretty much whatever words in Sirk's mouth

he wanted.





> b) Halliday, at the time, was vociferously anti-American (in ways I

> essentially agree with: his book on the Korean War is utterly

damning),

> maybe the most anti-American anybody has ever been ever, and it's

pretty

> obvious he is doing everything possible to make Sirk appear to

subscribe

> to Halliday's unmodulated hate for America.  I don't fault Halliday

for

> his hate.  But the book is simply not a reliable reflection of

Sirk's

> views on America, which I think in reality were, not surprisingly,

a

> mixture of likes and dislikes.

>     What neither Halliday or Halliday's Sirk succeeds in doing (and

what

> films today avoid) is to make connections between American foreign

> policy and domestic "bourgeois" culture.

>





   I agree completely, but how can you "love" a book that you say

is "not a reliable reflection of Sirk's view" when the purpose of the

interview was ostensibly to be just that -- a reliable reflection?







> c) A good page and a half of Sirk's words are taken verbatim from a

> Cahiers interview -- without attribution.

>

And we all know how high-handed Cahiers were with their

trasncriptions/translations of their interviews, so there is no

reason to believe the Cahiers text is more accurate than Halliday's.

>

> JPC

>

> jpcoursodon wrote:

>

> > .

> >

> > True. But let's not forget that Sirk himself has encouraged

> > misreadings of his films, notably in the famous (or infamous)

> > Halliday book-length interview "Sirk on Sirk". If what Sirk says

in

> > that book about the "message" and social criticism of Imitation of

> > Life is true then I don't think his commentary on "bourgeois

American

> > life" is worth all that much. He sounds so superior to and

> > contemptuous of his characters. "Her life is a very cheap

imitation"

> > etc... Of course I've been taken to task in the past for

> > misunderstanding Sirk when I was just pointing out the fallacy of

> > some of his unconditional admirers...

> >    JPC

In a message dated 12/27/03 10:03:53 AM, cellar47@... writes:





> Alexandrian libraries have been written

> about "Letter to an Unknown Woman" but next to nothing

> about "The Reckless Moment."

>



I have a review of it here:

http://neumu.net/continuity_error/2002/2002-00001_continuity.shtml



Kevin





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