It's that time. Deadline. Time to swallow down your bitter cup of joe to go. Time to stoke up a Camel straight and rake the rim of your fedora. Time to straighten the seams on your nylons and add yet more scarlet to your pursed lips. Time to load the revolver with bullets and to slip the switchblade in your handbag. Time to choke in the boldface headlines of page one of The Noir City Sentinel before heading out into a world that's incorrigibly corrupt and where a chump knows that even change doesn't come free. Not that the newspaper really warns you about anything new that you have to face once you leave your railroad apartment; it's just a mirror, after all, reflecting a psychotic world escaped and still at large, full of criminals, kingpins and hoods, molls and voluptuous dames limned with lamé and seductive danger. That's right. Now you're getting it. Bullets will fly Friday night January 23 when the seventh edition of the best film noir festival in the world makes deadline at the Castro Theatre, San Francisco—make that Noir City—California. The presses won't stop until February 1, 2009. The theme of this year's festival is Newspaper Noir, with many of the films set in the world of newspapers, or, in some cases, publishing or radio. "Come see how mid-20th-century media stack up against today's fourth estate," Noir City programmers Eddie Muller and Anita Monga entice.
Muller and Monga have made a special effort to have Noir City's nightly double bills (and for the first time separate Saturday matinees) reflect the traditional programming of theaters in the 1940s. To that end, they sought out rare, legitimate B films—shorter movies that were intentionally made to fill out the second half of a double bill. "I think this will probably be as close as you're going to get to actually going to the movies in 1948," says Muller.
"Making a special appearance at this year's festival will be 1950s favorite Arlene Dahl, who will appear for an onstage interview between screenings of two of her favorite films, made back-to-back in 1956: Slightly Scarlet (based on the novel Love's Lovely Counterfeit by James M. Cain) and the rarely screened femme-fatale classic Wicked as They Come."
To begin my hack journalist coverage of this year's Noir City Film Festival, I asked TCM host Robert Osborne to reminisce on Arlene Dahl.
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Michael Guillén: I'm sure you're aware that here in San Francisco we have our Noir City Film Festival where film noir classics are shown? The festival's theme this year is journalism—which somewhat links in to TCM's thematic approach [for "The 31 Days of Oscar"]—and the festival's main guest this year is going to be actress Arlene Dahl. I was wondering if you've ever met Arlene?
Robert Osborne: Arlene is a great friend of mine actually. She's one of my best friends.
Guillén: Oh really? That's true?
Osborne: I just had dinner with her the night before last. She's a terrific lady and she's always been a better actress than she got credit for because she's so beautiful. But she did some films like Slightly Scarlet (1956) with Rhonda Fleming and John Payne. She's very good in that and she was wonderful in Woman's World (1954) with Clifton Webb and Lauren Bacall. She kind of stole that film actually. She's wonderful in a movie called Wicked As They Come (1956)—which was done in England—and Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959), the first one with James Mason; she's very good in that—
Guillén: —That's where I first saw her—
Osborne: I've always felt she was an underrated actress and she's a lovely person. She's also knowledgeable about film and about working in film. She's a great gift for San Francisco to have live on stage.
Guillén: I'm very much looking forward to the chance to talk to her. If you were me, would there be anything you would ask her? About Slightly Scarlet, let's say?
Osborne: I would ask her maybe why she feels that when Slightly Scarlet came out, the film was not particularly acknowledged as anything special but now it's acquired a cult following. I would ask her why she thinks that's happening. Also, I would ask her if she thinks a film can truly be film noir when it's been filmed in color.
True to my own thematic heart, this year Turner Classic Movies (TCM) approaches the Oscar® season with its annual "31 Days of Oscar" organized as a university curriculum, with Academy Award®-winning and nominated films representing such a wide array of departments as economics and biology to music appreciation and world history. As film host and historian Robert Osborne has specified, "In case you wonder why we call our Academy Award® salute '31 Days of Oscar' and extend it three days past the 28 days of February, no college degree is required to learn the reason. The answer is simple. When we began our Oscar® salutes in 1995, the Academy Awards® were presented every March which has 31 days. Then in 2004, the award month was changed to February, so we changed too, but decided to extend our salute as well to continue delivering a full "31 days" of the best of the best." As the official biographer of the Academy Awards®, Osborne is full of such facts and I welcomed the opportunity to talk with him once more; it's always a genuine pleasure.
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Michael Guillén: Hey, Robert, a pleasure to speak with you. Happy New Year!
Robert Osborne: Thank you. You too. Happy Obama Year!
Guillén: Yeah! Keeping in mind the theme of this year's Oscar® salute, should I address you as Professor Osborne?
Osborne: I think "Dr." might be appropriate.
Guillén: Speaking of this year's university theme, how was that developed? Did you have much to do with that?
Osborne: I didn't have anything to do with that. Credit goes to our programming department. We like to have a different take on the Oscars® every year in how we present the films. The one thing we want to emphasize is that this is a college that's fun to go to. I went to college and I didn't have that great a time so the idea of going to college for a month isn't my idea of necessarily a great time until I realized what college was like in those old movies. People sing and dance all day. Nobody really goes to school. No tests, or any of that. But it's a fun way to focus on the film's themes rather than the stars or any other kind of connection. We're giving it a go this year to see how people like it.
Guillén: One of the things I find instructive about TCM's programming is precisely this strategy of thematic programming, whereby it's revealed that movies can be accessed and read in many different ways.
Osborne: Absolutely! I couldn't agree more. That's the great thing about it. The magic of movies is that you can see the same movie three or four times; but—if you're looking at it from a different angle—it's like a new movie sometimes. If you're looking at it because it's a Katherine Hepburn film as opposed to a film directed by George Kukor as opposed to a film adapted from a Broadway play and is now a movie—or any other aspect of it—it does give a different focus and can make that movie constantly interesting.
Guillén: I understand you have 25-28 new titles you're introducing into the TCM repertory this year?
Osborne: Yeah, we have some really interesting stuff. That's another thing about our programming that I do like: we constantly keep adding to our own library that we own and leasing films for periods of time. Whenever you look at our Now Playing guide or go to our website, you're not seeing just the same titles all the time. This year we have, for instance—which we've never had before—My Left Foot (1989) with Daniel Day Lewis, which I love, and the 1938 Pygmalion—the original My Fair Lady—which we've never shown before and which is such a great movie. We've added some movies from the '90s like Boyz N the Hood (1991), and Bugsy (1991) with Warren Beatty. We're also adding Pretty Baby (1978) with Brooke Shields, Carnal Knowledge (1971), and we've also got Elia Kazan's first film A Tree Grows In Brooklyn (1945) and a couple of very charming Paramount comedies from the '40s; one's called Take A Letter, Darling (1942) with Rosalind Russell and Fred MacMurray and No Time For Love (1943) with Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray. You mix those in with Gone With the Wind (1939), Ace In the Hole (1951), The China Syndrome (1979), and Casablanca (1942), it makes for a great mix of films.
Guillén: It certainly does! I likewise appreciate that you include international titles. I'm specifically looking forward to Kon Ichikawa's The Burmese Harp (1956) and René Clément's Gervaise (1957).
Osborne: It's going to be great. We're going to have a good time.
Guillén: In your capacity as the "official biographer" of the Academy Awards®, I was wondering if you could help me confirm or deny a rumor?
Osborne: I'll try.
Guillén: It's my understanding that the Oscar® statuette was designed by art director Cedric Gibbons and that—during the time that he was designing the statuette—his wife Dolores Del Rio was entertaining an out-of-town guest, namely Emiliano "El Indio" Fernandez, who—rumor has it—served as Gibbons' model. Do you know anything about that?
Osborne: I don't. That's not any point of the story that I've heard. It's entirely possible. But what I do know is that—when they were having their first get-together and the Academy was established to keep the labor unions from coming in, the Academy was there to arbitrate any labor problems; they didn't want the industry to be unionized. But by the time the Academy really got rolling, the unions had come in. When they started emphasizing one of their "little ideas" to give awards for the best performances of actors and actresses, when they started concentrating on that, they had a meeting in which the Board of Governors and other people were trying to decide what kind of award to give. Would they give a scroll? A sheet of paper? A plaque? Supposedly, Cedric Gibbons on a tablecloth at that very meeting sat down and sketched out the statuette that they give out to this day. When they went to the next step is what you'd be talking about and I have no idea of that process. It's a very intriguing idea. I've never really thought that maybe he did have a model to finalize the sculpture. Oscar® is supposedly a nude soldier standing on a reel of film with a crusader's sword; that's its basic concept.
Guillén: Does the Academy Awards® have an archive in Los Angeles accessible to the public?
Osborne: Oh sure! They're a library. They've got that. But the reason why I'm wondering about your question is because the book that I wrote for the Academy—80 Years of the Oscar—was through the help of their researchers and your question is something that has never come up so I'm not sure if they have that information.
Guillén: I was just curious if Cedric Gibbons left any of his original drawings of the statuette or anything like that within the archives?
Osborne: I don't believe there are. There may be and you could certainly find out by calling the Academy library. They're most helpful. I'm not sure if you've dealt with them before?
Guillén: I haven't; but, I'm curious to do so. Also, in your capacity as the official biographer of the Academy, you likewise serve as a red carpet greeter each year at the ceremony. What does that entail?
Osborne: What it entails is being the first one to greet them when they come in and make them feel welcome before they head down this red carpet, which—when you're standing there—looks like it goes on a mile and a half with thousands of people screaming and yelling in the bleachers on the other side. I welcome them on behalf of the Academy and make them feel welcome and comfortable, say a few words, and also announce them on the loudspeaker so that not only the press on the red carpet but the fans in the bleachers know they've arrived. I make a presentation of that. The first year I did it was a little nerve wracking; but, this will be my fourth year and I had a great time last year.
Guillén: As a fan, let's say, is there anybody you look forward to meeting this year on the red carpet?
Osborne: Well, you know, all of them I must say. I really do enjoy the whole thing. The Meryl Streeps of the world always come with something to say and they're always very pleasant; it's just a very enjoyable experience. It's nice to meet new people I haven't met before.
By the way, I just looked it up and the reason I'm questioning the Dolores Del Rio / Cedric Gibbons connection with the Oscar® statuette is because they were married in August 1930, so she wasn't his wife at the time the statuette was designed. This was all put together in 1927-28. Del Rio didn't get divorced from her previous husband until June of 1928. She may have been running around with Cedric Gibbons at that point but it's entirely possible that she wasn't. She certainly wasn't married to him at the time when the first Oscars® were given out.
Guillén: Final question here, Dr. Osborne: It's my understanding that this year the Academy has decided to pay tribute not only to those films which have been considered by the Academy for awards; but, that a clip reel has been prepared to honor films which the moviegoing audience has loved and which have not been considered for awards by the Academy. Do you have any thoughts on that populist tip of the hat?
Osborne: That's certainly viable. Movies belong to everybody. The Academy tries to honor the best that's out there; but, there's no reason why they shouldn't say that Dumb and Dumber was popular with the public even if it didn't score any Academy Awards®.
Guillén: Thank you, Robert.
Osborne: It's always a pleasure talking with you. Enjoy the Oscars® yourself!
Ricardo Montalban passed away Wednesday, January 14, at the age of 88. Lorenza Muñoz has written a fine obituary and career overview for the L.A. Times, accompanied by a fantastic photo gallery. Claire Dederer and Bruce Weber have done the honors for the New York Times. Both obits acknowledge Montalban's contributions to stage and screen, as well as the opportunities created for Latinos by way of his activism. His performance in the film noir classic Border Incident remains one of my all-time favorites as, of course, is his characterization of Khan Noonien Singh, arch nemesis to Star Trek's Captain Kirk.
Turner Classic Movies (TCM) will dedicate the entire daytime lineup for Friday, January 23, 2009 to pay tribute to Montalban. The collection features musical pairings with Esther Williams in Fiesta (1947) and Neptune's Daughter (1949), as well as dramatic roles in Border Incident (1949) and Battleground (1949).
The following is the complete schedule for TCM's January 23 tribute to Ricardo Montalban (PT):
4:30AM Fiesta (1947)—In his first leading role, Montalban plays a young man whose parents want him to become a toreador, but he is more interested in music. Esther Williams and Cyd Charisse also star in this musical shot on location in Mexico.
6:30AM Neptune's Daughter (1949)—Once again teaming with Esther Williams, Montalban plays a millionaire playboy trying to win the affections of a bathing suit designer. This colorful musical features the Oscar®-winning song "Baby, It's Cold Outside."
8:15AM Latin Lovers (1953)—Montalban vies for the affections of a wealthy heiress played by Lana Turner in this lush, tropical musical directed by Mervyn LeRoy.
10:00AM Border Incident (1949)—This early look at the issue of illegal immigration features Montalban and George Murphy in a tense story of agents out to stop a ring smuggling Mexicans across the border.
11:30AM Battleground (1949)—Montalban gives an outstanding performance as a Mexican-American soldier fighting in Germany during the Battle of the Bulge. Van Johnson and John Hodiak co-star.
1:30PM Across the Wide Missouri (1951)—In this pioneer epic starring Clark Gable, Montalban plays a young Indian war chief out to prevent a band of pioneers from reaching their destination. John Hodiak co-stars.
3:00PM The Singing Nun (1966)—In this true story, Montalban plays a warm-hearted priest who helps a guitar-strumming Belgian nun spread her music to the world. Debbie Reynolds stars, along with Greer Garson, Agnes Moorehead and Chad Everett.
As a long-time admirer of Steven Soderbergh's unique genius as a maverick filmmaker, I was one of the many who thronged to see the roadshow edition of Che at its Toronto International screening, and—despite considerable distraction at the festival—felt compelled to write Che up right away (here). I've since seen it as well in its theatrical version, which caused me to grumble about the cuts that had been made to shorten its length when Michael Hawley announced IFC's decision to extend the traveling roadshow to San Francisco, where it is currently playing at Landmark's Embarcadero Cinema.
Despite Mick LaSalle's anemic (if not insulting) miscomprehension of the film in his "review" for the San Francisco Chronicle, this is a cinematic experience not to be missed, whether afterwards you weigh in favorably or not. As a respectful aside, let me be quick to assert that it is LaSalle's fearlessness to foist an opinion that makes his reviews readable, even if often laughable. But let me also caution that at a time when San Francisco is experiencing the diminishment of its ethnic diversity in favor of a commodified demographic, LaSalle scores no points with me as a Chicano by asserting: "To be specific, it's possible to watch all four hours and 17 minutes of this picture and still not be sure why Soderbergh told this man's story, why he thought it was worth such epic treatment and why he handled his subject with such glowing veneration. If Soderbergh made as idol-worshiping an epic about George Washington or Abraham Lincoln—actual heroes with tangible, positive legacies—people would gag at the naive treatment. Perhaps with Che, the hope is that audiences might be confused or browbeaten into reverence, into just assuming they're missing something." [Emphasis added.] If anyone's missing anything, it's Mick LaSalle, from the get-go. In his presumption that Che is hagiographic propaganda, he fails to notice that it's not, and for very good reason. Whereas posing the "tangible, positive legacies" of Presidents Washington and Lincoln against revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara is like comparing apples and oranges. Mick LaSalle commits the most grievous of errors possible for a film reviewer, which is to use the holy "we" to guise a misguided personal opinion. He can do better than to guise personal distaste as critical acumen. It's no wonder that the true "we"—audiences—are fed up with film critics who deny them the sovereignty of their own intelligence. Then again, as a film critic, perhaps LaSalle feels he has left more of a "tangible, positive legacy" than the rest of us? We have a word for him in my community: pendejo.
Of course Steven Soderbergh breathes in such contention like fresh air because—as he puts it—it makes the project alive. Contrary to LaSalle's presumptions of hagiography, Soderberg has come to his "biopic" of Che as an admitted agnostic. I believe he should be taken at his word. Shortly before yesterday's premiere of the roadshow, Soderbergh sat down with me at the Prescott Hotel to discuss his controversial diptych. [Illustration of Soderbergh courtesy of Charles Burnes, The Believer.]
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Michael Guillén: I'm working on an essay to contribute to a volume on film festival culture and the topic I've decided to tackle is that unruly beast: the Q&A session, which I consider to be the flint spark between filmmaker and audience. I'd like to know generally what your experience has been with Q&As and, specifically—because I understand you weathered a somewhat contentious Q&A at your Ziegfield Theatre screening in Manhattan—how the Q&As for Che are going?
Stephen Soderbergh: That's a good place to start because the Q&As for Che have not been like any other Q&As I've ever done; people stand up and yell at you. I love that. I feel like that's at least alive. A lot of times you're either telling people things they already know or they sense and—as I get further into my career—I find it more difficult to describe how I work or how things are done. My question is always, "What are they looking to get out of a Q&A?" Because when I attend a Q&A for another filmmaker—and I've been the person interviewing filmmakers many times—in that case, I try to put myself in the audience's position. I ask the filmmaker questions that I want to know the answers to and I guess that's what an audience is looking for as well.
Guillén: Have you learned from your audiences by such interchange?
Soderbergh: Well, it's always interesting to see what lands with them, what imprints, especially in a movie like Che, because it's not always what you think. They don't always respond in a way that you would anticipate. I'm lucky in the sense that—especially on this film—there's a lot of stuff to talk about that goes beyond the typical, "What's Brad like?" So I've been pretty lucky in that regard. I find the whole thing very odd. I'm not sure if over the past 20 years the extreme level of demystification that's been going on with regard to moviemaking is a good thing or not. I think it's a great thing if you want to make movies—I wish I'd had access as a teenager to the stuff that's out there now—but, for the audience, I can't say that it's a good thing.
Guillén: I'm aware that this coming Monday the Sundance Film Festival will be screening sex, lies & videotape in honor of its vigesimal anniversary. When I first heard that news, it played oddly in my mind. I opened up the first video store in the San Joaquin Valley back in the '80s—which doesn't really seem that long ago—and yet already the VHS cassette is officially dead. It's amazing that within the space of 20 years even the title of your film has become anachronistic.
Soderbergh: Yeah, right.
Guillén: Is there something you're going to present to your Sundance audience to commemorate that 20-year span and your personal impact on indie film making? Any commentary on current reports that indie filmmaking has somewhat capsized or collapsed?
Soderbergh: Well, I haven't seen sex, lies & videotape in a long time so—if I decide to sit through it—that will be an interesting experience. In terms of what Spader's character is focused on, the Internet has made his activity seem positively quaint. Not that the movie was ever designed to be shocking really; but, what you can get in two clicks now makes him look like a Victorian. That will be interesting just to see how that part of the movie comes across. And, of course, the hair.
As for the independent film movement, there's no question that it's contracted. Every time somebody predicts that it's dead, though, a movie pops and sort of resuscitates it. Its coming-back-from-the-grave potential is wired into the DNA of the independent film movement so I never worry about it too much. There was a period a few years ago when I was asked to look at Memento. This was after it had shown in festivals and after every distributor had turned it down. The movie couldn't get released. I went to a screening of it and came out of that screening thinking, "It's over. The independent film movement is over if this movie can't get released." What happened was the financiers formed their own distribution company, put the movie out, and made a lot of money. It became a huge hit and one of those films that revived the movement for a while. So while we're lighting a funeral pyre to the independent film movement, I know there's somebody somewhere in a room making something that six months from now we're going to be talking about. I never really give up on the independent film movement.
Guillén: Yesterday I was talking to Jeffrey Katzenberg about 3-D technology and he was asserting that in the very near future every single movie is going to be in 3-D and everyone will own their individual 3-D sunglasses for watching films in moviehouses. I'm aware that you're bringing out a 3-D movie musical Cleo about the life of Cleopatra?
Soderbergh: Trying, yeah.
Guillén: Has the economy thrown a wrench into the works?
Soderbergh: No, it's actors' schedules. I was going to film it this Spring but it's been pushed into the Fall. I agree with Jeffrey that 3-D technology is going to become a viable tool and an option for filmmakers; but, I don't think every movie is going to be made in 3-D. I might be wrong; but, I don't think so. Still, there's no question that we're going to see real penetration with that format within the next five years.
Guillén: Will you be authoring Cleo in 3-D?
Soderbergh: Oh yeah, yeah. I think it's great. The one thing they haven't sorted out is the cost.
Guillén: It's quite expensive; something like $1.6 million per minute I understand.
Soderbergh: No, I mean the cost of having everybody exhibiting in 3-D. The exhibitors can't afford it and you can't make them pay for it. That changeover is expensive.
Guillén: What I found to be Katzenberg's most persuasive argument, and one I could get behind, is that—with home entertainment systems having developed as much as they have—something needs to be done to draw audiences back into the moviehouses.
Soderbergh: Absolutely.
Guillén: Which leads me to ask about your strategizing the rather interesting premise of the traveling Che roadshow. I've seen Che now both in the roadshow edition and its theatrical edition and definitely vote for the roadshow—I think Che should be seen all at once—and was disappointed, frankly, that the theatrical release removed the introductory maps. I feel Americans are generally so geographically impaired that the maps served a necessary function in situating the films' narratives.
Soderbergh: They certainly help. But I wanted there to be something about the roadshow that was specific to the roadshow and so that was one of the rewards for sitting in one place for 4½ hours.
Guillén: Along with this lovely program you're offering your roadshow customers. Can you speak to Mary Ellen Mark's contribution to the program?
Soderbergh: As anyone who's into photography knows, she's an icon of her own and I've known who she was since I was taking photographs in high school. Laura Bickford, Che's producer, is a friend of Mary Ellen's and she said to me, "Look, this whole production is such a unique circumstance. We really need to think if there's a way to document it that's as unconventional as the movie." I said, "Yeah, I think there has to be." So Laura said, "Let me call Mary Ellen and see if she'll come out and shoot." She agreed. She did it just to do it. There's no up side for her, really; but, it was a great way to memorialize the experience. To have another artist come in with her own take on what was going on was fascinating for me; just to see what she chose to shoot.
The booklet idea was something that I stole from Francis Ford Coppola. When Apocalypse Now was released in its 70mm engagements, there were no credits and you got a printed program. That became a big collector's item. A buddy of mine has one that I've coveted ever since because I lived in Baton Rouge and I didn't get to see it in that format. But I started thinking, "That's what we should do. We can't have 15 minutes of credits on this thing. I should get waivers so we don't have to put in credits. We'll use Mary Ellen's photographs and do up a really cool special souvenir." People really like it. I've always looked at the roadshow as like going to a concert and that you should have a piece of merchandise to prove that you went to the concert.
Guillén: You've made a personal appearance with the roadshow at the Ziegfield in Manhattan and now here in San Francisco; have you done so elsewhere?
Soderbergh: We open today in nine cities with the roadshow and then I think there's going to be another wave later in the month and I'm sure I'll go somewhere. I've already been to most of the cities where the roadshow is touring to do press.
Guillén: As a Chicano, of course, when I first heard you were helming this project, I was as excited as I was about Julie Taymor directing Frida. Both Frida Kahlo and Che Guevara, along with the Virgin of Guadelupe for that matter, are commodified icons whose iconicity is exactly their idealized advocacy. But I want to be up front about this: when I first saw Che in Toronto, I was surprised by the fact that I didn't get emotional watching it. Some critics have disparaged the film as "cold"—which I think is being used too harshly—but, I am intrigued by the film's temperate sensibility. If I think about films by, let's say, such directors as Ron Howard or Clint Eastwood, I consider them "hot" films in the sense that they are emotionally manipulative and nearly formulaic in how they intentionally push all the right buttons to provoke all the right emotions. Che, by contrast, feels completely different for being emotionally distant. Can you talk about why you took it in that direction? [Painting of Frida Kahlo, courtesy of Rupert Garcia.]
Soderbergh: Because—based on all the research—that was the feeling that I got of him, even from people that were close to him. I felt it would have been—not only a mistake—but, immoral to present him differently than my impression of him, which was that—from his writing and from people who knew him—Che was distant.
Guillén: And yet his humanity came into play for me by discovering he was an asthmatic, which I didn't know. As an asthmatic myself, I'm aware of how complicated that can be.
Soderbergh: And completely debilitating! No, his humanity is in the fact that he got up every day and did what he did. So, yeah, right, the movie is not about feelings. It's not. And that's a problem for a lot of people.
Guillén: I read in your recent Esquire interview that one of the things you most appreciated about Che Guevara was precisely his work ethic, which is commensurable to your own.
Soderbergh: Well, sort of. Certainly, the fact that he placed being a revolutionary above everything and everyone else and the way in which other things are excluded when you feel that way, that was something I felt I could understand: the total preoccupation and what that does to people around you. Many descriptions of Che I've heard sounded familiar to me. I don't think you could find anybody that I've worked with who would say that I was unfair or indecisive; but, I also don't think you'd find anybody that would say, "He's such a warm personality." [Laughs.] Know what I mean? That's what really came across to me about Che: the people who loved him admitted that he was not an embraceable person.
Guillén: With regard to your research for the film, you traveled to Cuba?
Soderbergh: We went five times.
Guillén: You met Castro?
Soderbergh: I didn't. Benicio did for two minutes.
Guillén: I'm familiar with Campeche, which you used as a stand-in for Santa Clara. How did that come about?
Soderbergh: It was so frustrating to not be able to shoot in Cuba.
Guillén: Was that due to the Cuban government or to our own government's embargo?
Soderbergh: Our embargo. I can't work there. I can visit there as part of a cultural exchange, but I can't work there. It was frustrating to have to recreate things that are there and that looked pretty similar to how they looked 50 years ago. Santa Clara was a real problem because it was a certain-sized town and had a certain look. We scouted all around that area of Mexico, went looking in five or six towns in the Veracruz/Yucatan area, and Campeche fortunately had the elements that we needed and they were open to having us come in and change things around a little bit. It turned out to work very well for us, but it took four to five months of scouting to determine that Campeche was going to work.
Guillén: Let's discuss the aesthetics behind the diptych, these two films that—though they mirror each other—are visually quite distinct from one another. When I reviewed the films after Toronto—adjusting first of all to the fact that I wasn't emotionally devasted as I had assumed I was going to be and that, instead, I was intellectually intrigued by what I'd learned from watching the films—I noted that one of the things I learned was the problematics of trying to stage guerrilla warfare in varying environments. The two films did a masterful job of presenting that problem, not only through the narrative, but in the look of the films. Can you speak to how you used the Red One to create these two quite different looks? The Cuban story was colorful, vibrant, positive, textured with mixed staging, whereas the Bolivian story was still, bleached, dry.
Soderbergh: The first thing I was trying to do was to recreate the voice of the two texts that I was working from: his Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War and then the Bolivian diaries. Reminiscences is obviously written after the fact with much hindsight and historical perspective. The voice in that book is very different from the voice in the Bolivian diaries, which was contemporaneous and had no perspective at all about what's going on outside. The first thing I was trying to do was to come up with an aesthetic that would duplicate the difference in those two voices. In the case of Cuba—since it's written from the perspective of the victor; the whole thing has the patina of success—I was looking for a more traditional Hollywood frame, the Cinemascope frame, with classical compositions, a steady camera, vibrant colors, a warm palette, more inviting….
Guillén: I described Che: El Argentino as possessing a glamorous sheen.
Soderbergh: Absolutely! Then in Part Two, I wanted a sense of foreboding, a little bit of a jagged quality, a sense that "I don't know where this scene is going to go", just an uneasiness that comes from having the camera on your shoulder and the taller frame, which is a less glossy frame to my mind, and a color palette that was muted. When I was talking to the production designer Antxón Gómez about the first film, I said, "We have green in both places but in Cuba it's green with a lot of yellow in it and in Bolivia it's green with a lot of blue in it." He knew not to put anything in the first film that really should belong in the second film and vice versa. We avoided warm colors in the second one and cold colors in the first. Again, these were all technical decisions that were based on my trying to recreate the sound of his voice in those two books. That's where that whole idea started. Now, though there have obviously been many other roadshow releases in the past—the distant past mostly—unfortunately, I think this is the first time that the poor projectionist has to change lenses between films. During the intermission he has to go into the projection booth, remove the scope lens off the projector, and put the flat lens on.
Guillén: [Shaking my fist angrily in the air] Damn you, Soderbergh!
Soderbergh: [Chuckles.] I can tell you right now that they also have to change the shape of the screen and I know they're not happy.
Guillén: Speaking of you having the camera on your shoulder, sell me on The Red One.
Soderbergh: It's a game changer. They won't tell me exactly how they're doing what they're doing; but, there's some type of proprietary algorithm that makes this sensor different than any sensor I've ever seen before. The way it sees light is totally unique. It doesn't look like any other digital camera I've ever seen and it just keeps getting better. We were using version 1 on Che and they're now on version 18. I've shot two films with it since Che and I can tell you it's improving by leaps every few months. In a couple of years I think it will have the latitude of film. When you combine that with its size and the ease of using it, to me it's like a fantasy. It's like literally the guy crawled into my head and designed exactly the camera that I needed. By the end of the year The Red will be bringing out a smaller camera called The Scarlet, which is a 3K camera the size of your hand. There's a 5K camera called The Epic which is coming out that's also smaller than The Red. This guy's going to take over the world, I'm tellin' ya. It's unbelievable what he's been able to do.
I wish somebody would do a case study of The Red because it is a textbook example of problem solving. The corporations can't innovate the way an individual with the right amount of resources can innovate. In this case, Jim Jannard—who designed and built this camera—is Howard Hughes. It was his idea, his money, he handpicked the team to put the thing together, and there was no interference. It was done entirely to his specifications. That's how leaps are made! And it's the reason why the larger companies who've made digital motion picture cameras are now behind; they're corporations and that's not how new ideas get born. So it's not surprising to me that he's done it; the fact that he's done it is a real lesson to people who want to innovate.
Guillén: Is there a reason why you credit yourself under the pseudonym of Peter Andrews when you do your own cinematography?
Soderbergh: Yeah. If you look at the billing blocks for my movies, I'm a big believer that having your name once works as "directed by"….
Guillén: And it's enough?
Soderbergh: It's enough! In point of fact, listing your name more than once actually dilutes your impact as opposed to increasing it. In a lot of these billing blocks, you see these directors whose names appear five times. They have a possessory credit, they've taken a producer credit, they've got a writing credit, whatever, everywhere you look you see their name. To me that dilutes it. That makes the director credit seem less interesting.
When this came up, it was two years after my dad died and my dad was the one who really gave me the movie bug. His first two names were Peter Andrew and I thought, "This will give me more pleasure seeing that name than it would seeing my own name." Also, when I edit my own films, I use Mary Ann Bernard and that is my mother's maiden name. Everybody's covered.
Guillén: My final question: having worked with this material for such a long time, what can you say about Ernesto "Che" Guevara? What have you come away with from this project knowing about this man?
Soderbergh: Oh, that he would probably hate me. [Laughs.]
Guillén: He'd have no use for you?
Soderbergh: There would be no place for me in the society that he was building.
"No two eyes can witness all the splendid film presentations that occur in a year here," Brian Darr offers by way of introduction to his impressive Hell On Frisco Bay line-up of contributions from film writers on their 10 favorite Bay-area repertory house screenings. I was honored to contribute my tip-of-the-hat tribute to 10 retrospectives programmed by Pacific Film Archive in 2008. Spectatorial diversity ensues as Ben Armington, Robert Davis, Adam Hartzell, Michael Hawley, Ryland Walker Knight, Frako Loden, Carl Martin, Miriam Montag, Shahn, Lincoln Spector, Marisa Vela, Jason Wiener, and Austin Wolf-Sothern join Brian in listing their favorites.
Continuing with his articulate generosity, Michael Hawley offers The Evening Class his write-up on films from Berlin & Beyond that he's caught on screener. Thanks, Michael!
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"When I left Havana, nobody saw me but me."
And so begins the most oft-recorded song in the history of music—Sebastián de Iradier's ode to desire, wanderlust and melancholy—"La Paloma." Composed in Spanish Basque country in the 1860s, the melody has been adapted by scores of countries and cultures over the past century and a half. Over 2,000 recorded versions are known to exist, which is the subject of Sigrid Faltin's lovely bit of movie musicology, La Paloma—Longing Worldwide, my favorite of the films previewed for this year's Berlin & Beyond film festival.
The documentary begins, appropriately enough, at the Havana Music Museum, with a version played on an enormous 19th century music box that belonged to the wife of poet/writer/revolutionary José Martí. From Cuba, the song's popularity quickly spread to Mexico, where it became the beloved favorite of Emperor Maximilian. The film features some choice clips from William Dieterle's 1939 film Juarez, including Bette Davis' Empress Carlotta on a Chapultepec Castle balcony, listening wistfully as the tune drifts through the night air. Flash forward to contemporary Mexico, where "La Paloma" has become a rousing nationalist anthem decrying election fraud and social injustice, as interpreted by singer Eugenia Léon.
The film's globe-trotting continues with stops in Hawaii (Elvis crooning his version titled "No More"), Germany (as performed by a concentration camp combo known as the Ghetto Swingers) and Romania, where the song has become a brass band funeral dirge. The most distinctive interpretation is discovered in Zanzibar, Tanzania, where it's traditionally sung at the end of weddings to wish the bride, groom and all their guests farewell. Sung in Swahili and set to a swaying Orientalist rhythm, it contains these two wonderful closing lines: "Forgive those who said anything nasty. Nobody should be offended or sad."
"La Paloma makes you open up and feel yourself. It's the great song of life," proclaims one interviewee—a sentiment this documentary does a nice job of affirming. For those who aren't sure how the melody of "La Paloma" goes, I offer a clip from 1961's Blue Hawaii. La Paloma—Longing Worldwide contains an Elvis clip, but it's big-haired, bell-bottomed jumpsuit Elvis. This is Elvis in a pair of white swim trunks crooning alongside a quartet of bongo-playing beachcombers. Incidentally, the film's website is also well worth a look. Among other things, you can watch the trailer, listen to song clips, read translated lyrics and even download a "La Paloma" ringtone.
Another Berlin & Beyond documentary I thoroughly enjoyed was David Assmann and Ayat Najafi's Football Under Cover. This rousing film documents a frustrating, but ultimately fruitful endeavor to stage an all-female soccer match in Tehran between an amateur Berlin team and the Iranian national women's team. Right at the start, the organizers are told that in Iran, "nothing is possible and everything is possible," a dictum that holds true right up until game day. It takes a year of bureaucratic hoop-jumping to make the event happen, during which time the filmmakers shoot a series of poignant team member portraits. Most memorable of these is Niloufar, a David Beckham-obsessed young Iranian woman who prides in her ability to masquerade as a boy in order to clandestinely practice soccer in a public park. In one of the film's few ominous moments, she's mysteriously cut from the team at the 11th hour.
Game day arrives and the German team struggles with their cumbersome, skin-covering uniforms. As only women are permitted into the stadium, the film's two male directors are thrown out and forced to watch through a crack in the fence. (The film would make a great double bill with Jafar Panahi's Offside, about a group of girls who run afoul of the law when they sneak into a soccer stadium disguised as boys). Freed from the glare of patriarchal oppression, the jubilant Iranian spectators get loose and rowdy, cheering their team with shouts, chants and dancing. It's really a thrill to watch. At half time they're reprimanded over the loudspeakers, and reminded that anyone whose veil is askew will be removed by the "moral guardians" patrolling the crowd. "If you want to dance, go to a disco." As if… These admonishments only makes the crowd more agitated, and they start chanting in unison, "We women only have half the rights!" Fortunately, no one appears to get hauled off to jail, and the game's final score is a diplomatic 2–2.
As with all the films at Berlin & Beyond, Football Under Cover only gets one screening during the week-long festival, and it's at the unfortunate time of 12 noon on a Wednesday. If you can take a long lunch, I'm confident it would be worth your while. If not, the trailer below offers a small taste. Finally, it's interesting to note that this film won the Teddy Award for Best Documentary at last year's Berlin Film Festival. The award is given to films of LGBT interest, and unless I missed something, the queer connection to Football Under Cover is strictly a presumptive one.
I previewed five narrative features in the Berlin & Beyond line-up and my clear favorite was Dennis Gansel's pop political allegory The Wave. Inspired by a 1967 Palo Alto high school social experiment in autocracy, the film considers the question, "Is fascist dictatorship within the realm of possibilities for modern day Germany?" A week-long autocracy class is taught by the coolest teacher in school, Mr. Wenger (we know he's cool because he wears a Ramones t-shirt, lives on a houseboat and has a Fuck Bush sticker on his mailbox). By mid-week he's goaded his class into adopting a group uniform and salute, and stands by as they ostracize those who refuse to conform. They name their movement The Wave and spread their message via a MySpace page. (Mr. Wenger also coaches the school's water polo team, whose dynamics parallel the classroom autocracy theme). Needless to say, by week's end the experiment gets completely and somewhat ludicrously out of hand. It's all a bit much, but I was never less than fully engaged by the films tight script, energetic direction and attractive cast.
In Micha Lewinsky's sweetly unsettling The Friend, a sad-eyed, milquetoast-y young man is asked to be the pretend boyfriend of a rocker chick he's secretly in love with. When she kills herself by electric shock (she removes the ground wire of her guitar amp), he surprisingly finds himself able to comfort the girl's family in his own odd, unassuming way. This leads to a new assertiveness, a new girlfriend (the dead girl's sister) and a new ability to stand up to his passive/aggressive mother. The Friend tells an uncommon tale of how the dead can sometimes bestow the gift of life upon the living. This is Switzerland's submission for 2008's Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, and director Lewinsky has won the festival's MK Award for Best First Feature.
Cross cultural misunderstandings as they pertain to courtship and marriage is the leitmotif for Sinan Akkus' lightly comic Evet, I Do! In four tangentially connected storylines, four couples find their love lives in conflict. A German man wants to marry his Turkish girlfriend, but must first convert to Islam and be circumcised. A Kurdish radio DJ and his Turkish on-air partner find their respective orthodox and secular families at war with each other. A gay Turkish car mechanic has a German boyfriend, but his parents have set up an arranged marriage. And finally, a poor Turkish immigrant needs to secure a green-card marriage, but the prospective bride is hardly the one of his dreams (and he's no prize himself). Not particularly great stuff, but agreeable and reasonably entertaining nonetheless. The same can almost be said for André Erkau's Come In and Burn Out, a comedy or sorts about misfits working in a new-economy call center. Some of the characters are interesting, but their individual, disparate storylines are strained and fail to integrate into any kind of meaningful whole.
Last and least we have Wim Wenders' Palermo Shooting, a film that was universally reviled when it premiered last year at Cannes. Variety's Todd McCarthy pretty much summed it up when he called it "both pretentious and inconsequential." Twenty minutes have been excised from the Cannes edit for this, the film's U.S. premiere, but to little effect. German pop singer Campino stands in as the director's alter-ego, an "art" photographer suffering some kind of spiritual crisis as the result of too many trendy fashion shoots. At the urging of a very pregnant Milla Jovovich (playing herself), he travels to Sicily where he's hounded by a bow-and-arrow shooting apparition of Death (Dennis Hopper). Loaded with clunky dialogue and voiceovers of the protagonist's tortured inner musings, the film is borderline it's-so-bad-it's-good. The best thing I can say is that it's beautifully shot and will look spectacular on the Castro Theater's huge screen (which is where I caught the press screening). It's truly unfortunate that Wenders is coming to San Francisco for a tribute and this is the film that will accompany him.
As per usual, I've saved the films I'm most anticipating for a big-screen experience at the festival proper. These include Revanche, Jerichow and Cloud 9, which I briefly described in my Berlin & Beyond line-up post. I'm also hoping to catch the new 35mm print of Wenders' 1976 New German Cinema classic, Kings of the Road, as well as the English language version of Josef Von Sternberg's The Blue Angel. Also as per usual, Berlin & Beyond is bringing quite a number of filmmakers to the festival, including the directors of Cloud 9, Evet, I Do!, Football Under Cover and The Friend. Legendary German actress Barbara Sukowa will also make the trip with her latest film, The Invention of Curried Sausage. Another special guest is former Palo Alto high school teacher Ron Jones, whose story inspired The Wave.
I've been fortunate enough to view Steven Soderbergh's Che twice; first when it premiered at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival (where I wrote it up) and then again more recently in anticipation of its theatrical release. I was disappointed when I watched the theatrical print to discover the excision of the introductory maps which situated each film's narrative. Thus, I'm heartened to hear from Michael Hawley's write-up that the roadshow doesn't tamper with the film's original presentation.
Soderbergh is once again making the rounds in preparation for Oscar consideration. I was struck by his interview in this month's issue of Esquire. Asked if he felt art makes the world a better place, Soderbergh responded: "What tragedy has it kept from happening? Tell that to the 13-year-old girl from Somalia who got stoned to death last week after being raped by three men and then convicted of adultery, buried up to her head, and stoned in front of a crowd of 1,000 people. If the collected works of Shakespeare can't keep that from happening, then what is it worth? Honestly?" Unflinching words from an uncompromising auteur.
My thanks to Michael Hawley for sharing his focus on Che's traveling roadshow with The Evening Class.
* * *
As you may know, Steven Soderbergh's 2-part, 4½ hour Che epic was scheduled to open across the country last Friday, January 9 as two separate films requiring two separate admissions. At the last minute, however, IFC Films changed its game plan and will now release it a week later in the "Special Roadshow Edition" that played to sold-out crowds in NYC and LA in December.
Nine U.S. cities have been selected for this exclusive one-week presentation, including San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Minneapolis, Seattle, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C. But here in San Francisco we're getting something extra these other cities are not, and that's the opening night appearance of director Soderbergh. He'll be on hand to do a Q&A at the 7:30 show on Friday, January 16 at the Landmark Embarcadero Cinema. Soderbergh's Q&A in NYC was reported to be a lively, contentious affair that went on until 1:00 in the morning, and I'm predicting this screening will be one of the Bay Area's biggest, not-to-be-missed movie events of 2009. Admission is $18.00 and advance tickets can be purchased here.
Anyone younger than 50 is probably wondering just what the hell's a "Special Roadshow Edition" anyway. Well, back in the 1950s when the advent of TV spelled potential disaster for movie theaters, Hollywood came up with a number of gimmicks to attract audiences. These included new widescreen formats like Cinerama and Cinemascope, 3-D and the limited engagement Roadshow release, which sought to duplicate the experience of attending live theater. Blockbusters like The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur, Lawrence of Arabia or The Sound of Music would open in a handful of large cities with reserved seating, a pre-screening musical overture, an intermission, exit music and a printed souvenir program. Occasionally the roadshow version of a film might even contain extra scenes that would be cut for the film's general release (note to self: it's time to finally watch the roadshow DVD of South Pacific I purchased two years ago—with 20 extra minutes not in the version I've seen a zillion times). Wikipedia has a terrific entry on the whole roadshow phenomenon.
As I understand it, the roadshow edition of Che will be shown without trailers, PSAs or artsy Stella Artois beer commercials beforehand. An overture is played before each of the two films, during which time an on-screen map provides a brief geography lesson for the country in which each film takes place—i.e., Cuba for Part One (a.k.a. The Argentine) and Bolivia for Part Two (a.k.a. Guerrilla). There will be an intermission inbetween, and every ticketholder receives a nifty 32-page souvenir program (16 pages per film that meet in the middle thanks to a reverse, dual cover design).
Che world-premiered at last year's Cannes Film Festival, where Benicio Del Toro won the Best Actor prize for his portrayal of Ernesto Guevara. I caught it at a press screening two weeks ago, and found it engaging enough to warrant a second look—especially in its roadshow presentation with Mr. Soderbergh in attendance. Some people will be disappointed that Che isn't a straight-up biopic, although Part One leans somewhat in that direction. Instead, as Michael Guillén articulated in his review of the film from the Toronto Film Festival, it's more of a discourse on revolutionary philosophy and guerrilla warfare tactics. In the two films we get to experience how these ideals succeed brilliantly in one environment (Cuba) and fail disastrously in another (Bolivia).
If you're unable to attend the opening night screening with the director in attendance, the "Special Roadshow Edition" of Che will continue at the Embarcadero Cinema through Thursday, January 22, with two shows daily at 1:30 and 7:30 (the matinee tickets are $15.00). Starting January 23, the two films will be shown separately at regular ticket prices.
Worth a look:
IFC Films Che website, which includes the U.S. trailer. Wikipedia entry for the film, with extensive material on the film's development, screenplay, financing, shooting, distribution and critical reaction. Michael Fox's write-up at SF360.
It's that time. Deadline. Time to swallow down your bitter cup of joe to go. Time to stoke up a Camel straight and rake the rim of your fedora. Time to straighten the seams on your nylons and add yet more scarlet to your pursed lips. Time to load the revolver with bullets and to slip the switchblade in your handbag. Time to choke in the boldface headlines of page one of The Noir City Sentinel before heading out into a world that's incorrigibly corrupt and where a chump knows that even change doesn't come free. Not that the newspaper really warns you about anything new that you have to face once you leave your railroad apartment; it's just a mirror, after all, reflecting a psychotic world escaped and still at large, full of criminals, kingpins and hoods, molls and voluptuous dames limned with lamé and seductive danger. That's right. Now you're getting it. Bullets will fly Friday night January 23 when the seventh edition of the best film noir festival in the world makes deadline at the Castro Theatre, San Francisco—make that Noir City—California. The presses won't stop until February 1, 2009. The theme of this year's festival is Newspaper Noir, with many of the films set in the world of newspapers, or, in some cases, publishing or radio. "Come see how mid-20th-century media stack up against today's fourth estate," Noir City programmers Eddie Muller and Anita Monga entice.
"Making a special appearance at this year's festival will be 1950s favorite Arlene Dahl, who will appear for an onstage interview between screenings of two of her favorite films, made back-to-back in 1956: Slightly Scarlet (based on the novel Love's Lovely Counterfeit by James M. Cain) and the rarely screened femme-fatale classic Wicked as They Come."
Michael Guillén: I'm sure you're aware that here in San Francisco we have our Noir City Film Festival where film noir classics are shown? The festival's theme this year is journalism—which somewhat links in to TCM's thematic approach [for "The 31 Days of Oscar"]—and the festival's main guest this year is going to be actress Arlene Dahl. I was wondering if you've ever met Arlene?
Osborne: I just had dinner with her the night before last. She's a terrific lady and she's always been a better actress than she got credit for because she's so beautiful. But she did some films like Slightly Scarlet (1956) with Rhonda Fleming and John Payne. She's very good in that and she was wonderful in Woman's World (1954) with Clifton Webb and Lauren Bacall. She kind of stole that film actually. She's wonderful in a movie called Wicked As They Come (1956)—which was done in England—and Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959), the first one with James Mason; she's very good in that—
Osborne: I've always felt she was an underrated actress and she's a lovely person. She's also knowledgeable about film and about working in film. She's a great gift for San Francisco to have live on stage.
