bresson, dreyer, ozu, schrader & me

I try to treat my parents better than I have done in the past. Seriously.

see A Man Escaped, wow.

Brooklyn retro for Dreyer; JRo in Artforum:

http://www.artforum.com/film/id=22246

The library finally got a copy of the Criterion version of Gertrud. Yes?

d thomson speaks v highly of it in his biographical dictionary, but i found it a bit of a snooze the one time i saw it in a cinema - lots of long, long takes and tracking shots and repressed emotions and so on.

saw day of wrath again v recently and that has aged much better, imho - really shows off dreyer's genius for capturing all the emotions/feelings flitting across the faces of his v closely scrutinised subjects.

Gertrud was a snooze – enervated Bergman.

Yeah, Day of Wrath scared the hell out of me when I saw it five years ago on crappy VHS. Now that the library stocks the Criterion edition, I might check it out again.

Given how my tastes in movies (and, well, everything) have devolved in the last five years or so, there's no way I'm RESCREENING Gertrud anytime soon. I'll just keep calling it a masterpiece.

No reason to watch Gertrud when most of the horror movies you like convey existential dread more convincingly.

But how many so successfully convey the smug masochism of preemptive sexual lobotomization?

Gertrud was a snooze

i have to agree. i know dreyer is meant to be a master but stagy acting and that looking off into the distance while speaking reminded me of that bit in "love and death" when the characters say "wheat....wheat"

Saw Schrader's The Comfort of Strangers in 35mm tonight, adapted by Pinter from Ian McEwan's novel. It is WACK. And maybe the best of PS's violent bisexual fetish movies.

https://www.villagevoice.com/2017/11/22/with-the-passion-of-joan-of-arc-carl-theodor-dreyer-writes-history-with-fire/

American Gigolo might've been better as a silent; looks great and sleek, silly whenever anyone talks for too long. Was that Mozart piece at the end used in Pickpocket?

“Don’t get me started on Brian De Palma. I re-watched ‘Redacted’ last night because (I) thought that given total artistic freedom he could reach for the stars. And he did. But the stars were beyond his reach. The script is trite, it is weak. That’s because Brian is trite, Brian is artistically weak. Skate fast on thin ice. That’s his story. That’s his con.”

https://www.indiewire.com/2019/06/paul-shrader-brian-de-palma-trite-artistically-weak-1202154370/

I watched AG again over Memorial Day weekend; it looked better than it ever had.

Coming December 10th!

Blue Collar (1978) with optional English subtitles
• Audio Commentary with Co-Writer/Director Paul Schrader and Journalist Maitland McDonagh
• Theatrical Trailer

From Paul Schrader, the legendary director of Hardcore, American Gigolo & Cat People! pic.twitter.com/4jVDdytJmR

— KLStudioClassics (@KLStudioClassic) September 26, 2019

Gonna watch The Card Collector tomorrow. Catching up with his approach by (re)watchingMishima, though I dread its Glassware.

have you seen Light Sleeper, al? one of my favs

I saw it again last year. The casting's odd but it works.

*The Card Counter

at one point during lockdown my gf and i were watching all the films in schrader’s transcendental film book. watched a bunch of ozu and bresson, don’t think we ever made it to dreyer. the two that really stuck with me are ‘a man escaped’ and ‘diary of a country priest’. both totally unique and genius. also so different from each other. my fav ozu is actually one that iirc isn’t mentioned in the book; ‘good morning’, about two kids on a quest to watch tv. i’m not a huge fan of ozu but i like how cozily domestic low-stakes his movies are. im often in the mood for that sort of thing, so i’ve watched like a dozen of his films and would watch another at the drop of a hat

The quality of the farts is what matters.

I prefer Dreyer farts

really enjoyed The Card Collector. not quite as good as First Reformed, but less of a fall off than i was expecting

somewhat disappointed that it isn't about a guy getting banned from zoom poker nights