Leos Carax clip "retrospective": my interview and several scenes

In conjunction with our vintage episode this week on-air, I thought I’d post some fragments of my 2000 interview with cult French filmmaker Leos Carax, and two of his finest music-driven sequences.

Thus far in the 14 years I’ve been doing the show I’ve covered a lot of the filmmakers whose work I love, but none has been a greater puzzlement than Carax: a young tyro who made two terrific lower-budgeted movies and then seemed to hit a Coppola-like impasse on his third, the wonderfully romantic Les Amants du Pont-Neuf (1991). The film makes up a large part of his “mythos,” as he went over-budget, shot for a long period of time, and actually recreated an actual Parisian bridge in a studio. The result is a deliriously (dare I say it again) romantic film, but it seemingly sealed his fate working with French budgets, and he didn’t make a fourth film until 1999 with the challenging and even abrasive Pola X.

I interviewed him on the NYC opening of the film (and also spoke to its star Guillaume Depardieu). Pola seemed to work against a lot of what drew cinephiles to his first three films: it was missing a “music-video” moment like the ones below, the storyline had ambiguities (the "Pola" in the title actually stands for Pierre, ou les ambiguities). The initial trio are brimming with life and an enthusiasm that is very reminiscent of early Godard, whereas Pola set out not to entrance viewers but to keep them awake and slightly disoriented.

In any case, I was just thinking about Carax, and wondering if he is working on anything these days. Thus, I present two clips from my interview:
The first has him discussing the clash of styles between the first three films and Pola (includes a very cool silent-movie moment from his second film Mauvais Sang (Bad Blood, 1986), which exemplifies his initial “cinephile” stylization, great stuff.


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The second is a brief discussion of the financing he was forced to find for Pola since he wasn’t exactly an odds-on favorite for funding in France after the failure of Les Amants:


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Next are the two clips that solidified my love for Carax’s work, as if I didn’t already dig his pure enthusiasm for filmmaking, and devotion to sanctifying beautiful actresses in the manner of Godard (Mireille Perrier in Boy Meets Girl is a perfect gamine figure, but Juliette Binoche is transcendent in both of her pics with Carax; the two were a real-life couple, and Carax even scratched a dedication to her in the emulsion of one of them!). The first is visualization of a song from David Bowie’s Anthony Newley period, “When I Live My Dream” from the first Carax film Boy Meets Girl (1984).


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The second is the most exuberant fuckin’ scene I can think of: Denis Lavant (the tiny, athletic star of Carax’s first three films) is in love with the very Anna Karina-like Juliette Binoche in Mauvais Sang (Bad Blood, 1986), so he winds up running/dancing through Parisian streets to Bowie’s “Modern Love.” Something I’ve shown many times on the show because it’s a testament to the use of music in movies, Carax’s New Wave-ish enthusiasm for filmmaking, and Lavant’s incredibly deft physical skill.


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Some things I didn’t post: the original French trailer for the splendid Les Amants du Pont-Neuf (Bowie ain’t the focus here, but one of his songs is heard). This movie is available on U.S. DVD as Lovers on the Bridge.


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A true oddity that I’d never seen, which of course had to surface on the invaluable YouTube, Carax’s making-of about Pola made for the Cannes film festival, quite a weird little number, with much silent-movie imagery:


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Some gent’s nicely assembled “best of” montage of Carax’s work thus far (including the above-mentioned short), scored to (what else) “Modern Love”:


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And, as a last blast (literally): Carax’s short offering showing “his last minute”:


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My latest upload: RIP Alice Ghostley, woman who inspired sarcastic god Paul Lynde

Have to pay tribute to this grand old character lady, who kicked off the other day at the ripe old age of 81. She is best known to a generation for her ditzy, wacky role as Esmeralda on Bewitched, but she started out thoroughly legit: she debuted in the New Faces of 1952 and won a Tony in the 1960s as Best Featured Actress in a Lorraine Hansberry play. What do I offer here? Well, I’ve uploaded something that directly relates to her most permanent contribution to the history of camp TV, in my opinion. When Charles Nelson Reilly was interviewed a few years back in TV Guide, he was asked about that “hl-hul” chortle he had, and he attributed it to Ghostley, whom he said had actually also given her ‘tude to Paul Lynde. I had never considered this before, but the proof is in the clippage: here we have her with her male mirror image, the inimitable Mr. Lynde, in Joan Rivers’ bad-taste comedy Rabbit Test. The film is Joan trying desperately to be Mel Brooks (back when Mel was at his peak of popularity), and it has a host of guest stars, including folks like Paul that Joan must’ve met while doing Hollywood Squares. It’s godawfully arch, but when acted by pros like this, it’s certainly worth your time.


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Plato's adventures in variety-land

I complete this quartet of YT posters obsessed with very specific show-biz personalities with a Sal Mineo fan who has put up some mind-warping entertainment. First of all, I knew that Sal sang during his '50s heyday, but had no idea that he kept going up until the Shindig era:


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The most interesting thing about these singular-obsessed YouTube posters is that they sometimes don't bother to post the names of the other celebs appearing with their fave-rave. In this case, the Mineo fan didn't bother to post the names of the astounding group of panelists (Lee Marvin, Louis Nye, *and* Gypsy Rose Lee?) that accompanied Sal on the very short-lived The Celebrity Game.


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And the piece de resistance has to be this rock 'n' roll show that Mineo hosted, that appears to have either extreme short-lived or just a pilot. The poster only vaguely mentions Sal's cohost (one hint: he's on trial now for murder, da-doo-run-run-run).


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Ode to Bobbie G.

The same poster who is Lennon-obsessed (no, not John) has a smaller trove of clips featuring '60s variety show appearances by sexy country babe Bobbie Gentry. I have very fond memories of Bobbie, mostly of course for "Ode to Billie Joe." These are much more interesting appearances, tapping into that Ann-Margret sexiness that seeped into much '60s TV entertainment featuring female singers.

And this wonderful bit from The Johnny Cash Show. Now why don't the ladies dress like this anymore?

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In case that didn't sell you on her, here's another song, I believe from the Smothers Bros. show (c'mon, Tom, release 'em on DVD!).

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And since the joy of variety shows always came when the "old" slammed up against the "new," here's Bobbie and the blessed Tiny Tim warbling with Der Bingle (we need more of the Bing/Tiny stuff too!):

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Head bone connected to the...mind?

Since I'm currently fascinated by posters on YouTube who are only putting up clips of one particular artist, I must mention this one lady who has put up a whole raft of songs by and interviews with the Lennon Sisters. I have to admit I have no interest in them per se, but when a clip like the one below is discovered, it definitely needs to be shared.


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Angry Black, Angry Gay, Angry Woman: They Love Liberty

Sure, we still have crap TV (just switch it on, anytime), but there was something about the death throes of the variety show and TV "special" in the 1970s that went beyond the the simple term "kitsch," and wound up in an area that was so stunningly misguided it still can cause jaws to drop. The featured find here is from one YouTube poster's stash of rare Patty Duke footage, that also includes this bit of wonderment (Patty sings in Japanese while Morey Amsterdam looks on).


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The piece de resistance for me, though, is this stunning bit of us-lefties-can-be-patriotic too claptrap from a 1982 Norman Lear-produced TV special. We of course must bless the poster for turning this thing up: it's an ode to the "angry" side of America that includes Angry Woman (Patty), Angry Black (LeVar Burton), Angry Latino (Desi Arnaz Jr.), Angry Native American (Michael Horse), and everyone's favorite, the Angry Gay (Rod Steiger). Need we even add that that "average angry American" (Dick Van Patten) is on hand to lend his voice? This stuff is priceless.


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Bless me, Ingmar, for I have sinned

Couldn't shoehorn this into my Bergman Deceased Artiste tribute on the show this week, so I decided to place it online. A scene from the very strange and hypnotic (and kinky and disturbing) Bergman TV film The Rite (1969). The great filmmaker himself plays the priest.

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Brion James on the shooting of "Flesh + Blood"

Another clip from my very fun talk with the late character. Here he candidly recounts what it was like to make the strange 15th-century action picture Flesh + Blood for "madman" director Paul Verhoeven.


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More of the incredibly rare "Miss Arizona"

The lowdown on this one is in the post below. I will state here, just for the record, I did say that this movie is super-rare, not super-good. But it's such an odd item, and its stars are charming in anything, so it deserves an airing in the U.S.


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This last is by far the strangest clip, a bit of very '80s New Wave costuming that is supposed to evoke '30s Expressionism (I don't think so...). The song is pretty dreadful, but Hanna is as radiant as ever.

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Hanna Schygulla singing, Nazis coming to power, and ... Marcello in blackface?

One can find the strangest stuff in the "used" bins of old video stores. For instance, for some unknown reason the "Blowout Video" emporium that used to be in Times Square in the '90s (on the same block that now is best known for its throngs of screaming kids yelling up to the TRL window) used to carry Japanese VHS tapes, presumably used rental titles. Where they got them, I don't know. I was sifting through them one afternoon and found among the bad American titles (yes, Kirstie Alley comedies were released in Japan), the occasional rarity like the item you see below, in several clips I've uploaded to YouTube.

The film is a very corny Italian-Hungarian coproduction that never, ever was released in the U.S. (and has never played in any of the NYC retrospectives devoted to either of its two stars). It was released in both Italian and Hungarian-dubbed versions in Europe (the Italians being the masters of the art of dubbing), but I was lucky enough to find that the tape I bought was dubbed in English by its two stars, Marcello Mastroianni and Hanna Schygulla! And, since it was a Japanese release, every single minute has prominent Japanese subs.

I've only selected the musical numbers, as they will be of the most obvious interest, but might as well provide a tiny synopsis here. The film stars Mastroianni as a Jewish-Hungarian entertainer (not a very good one) who takes under his wing a widow, played by Hanna, and her kid. They travel around, having formed an onstage trio that finds Hanna doing her Dietrich-best (Fassbinder's influence is everywhere here, but his finesse is nowhere apparent) while Marcello frequently wears blackface. Yes, the dean of all Italian romantic actors is seen here as a sambo minstrel struttin' his stuff for the fledgling fascists in Italy and Hungary (he even causes a riot in one scene here).

The ever-radiant and entrancing Schygulla's musical numbers, and the always game Marcello's corked-up face, thus supply the motivations to check out these super-rare scenes. The songs aren't that hummable, and the melodramatic frames for the numbers are pretty meager, but you ain't seein' this one anyplace else.

Two scenes that set up the characters (Hanna's first song!)

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Marcello in blackface, doing a full-out number, feast your eyes:

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And why can't a man in blackface cause a riot among fledgling fascists?

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Close-ups and subtitles, or Liv Ullmann's mouth

I’ve been rewatching Bergman’s films for an upcoming tribute on the Funhouse. I had forgotten how visual intrusive subtitles are on his films. Of course you need ’em if you don’t speak Swedish but — with the possible exception of Cassavetes and Dreyer — few filmmakers depended so consistently on close-ups to tell his story.

When I used to see the Bergmans, they were being shown in horrible-looking, white-on-white subtitles, barely readable in the prints that were sent around to rep houses by Janus films and other distributors during the 1980s. The films still had the power to blow one’s mind (Persona is of the ’60s and yet it is timeless, as are The Silence, Hour of the Wolf and Shame). What’s odd is that now that we possess absolutely pristine prints of these films on DVDs with imminently readable subtitles, the subs are still extremely intrusive because they haven’t been MOVED DOWN on the image. Granted, Bergman did work for the most part in the 1:33 ratio (read: square, box-like, the TV ratio), but I just watched The Passion of Anna tonight, which appears to be 1:66 with small letterboxing, and the DVD company (in this case, MGM-UA, who did a phenomenal job otherwise on these ’60s classics) has kept the subs where they always where — namely, on Liv Ullmann and Max Von Sydow’s mouths.

I attended the “Tutto Fellini” traveling festival in NYC about a decade and a half ago, where perfect prints in Italian were screened, with English subtitles present on LED lettering. The effect was slightly odd, like the operas that do the same: you feel like you’re watching the absolutely most sublime print of the film in the world, and yet you’re reading the dialogue off of a robotic “crawl.” Nonetheless, it is a good deal more preferable than the placing of subtitles on the bottom portion of the screen, when the filmmaker in question is, like Bergman, obsessed with the landscape of the face. I’ve noticed that this method has never been used since in the NYC area for film; I in fact was even told by one major museum curator that “our viewers have complained about it, they hated it,” leading to the institution in question to show un-subtitled prints rather than copies with LED subs. (I would bet that these same complainers were the people who wander into the auditorium, not knowing what film they’re attending….)

I know my tiny voice carries no weight whatsoever, but as a film fan, I think it’s time to reconsider LED technology for these films. At least for the theaters that can afford it — and, I have to ask, how come the wonderful Anthology Film Archives could afford to do it some years back for a great print of Bunuel’s Cela S’Appelle L’Aurore (Sunrise), and the two main institutions in town that show absolutely brilliant rep and have major arts funding behind them have never done it?

And for the DVDs, when letterboxing is involved, could you guys PLEASE move the fucking English subs just a few centimeters/inches down so we can see the actor’s mouth when they’re speaking and not have words sittin’ right over their faces?

And the fact that white subs are still being used in digital-land when there are several other methods available (yellow subs, greying the letters, providing a dark band behind the words) is a subject for another rant sometime in the future. If you want to know how ridiculous it can get see the end of Assays's Les Destinees, where a character imparts the "secret" of his life and it is seen in the print available over here on white subs that can't be read over his bed clothing. C’mon it’s 2007, people!