Climbing Mount Criterion XXVIII
We're crashing a book deadline, but we're still keeping up...
Spike Lee's done his best work in recent years concentrating on actors: he immortalized Ed Norton in 25th Hour, got a stunning amount of mileage out of Damon Wayans in Bamboozled, and organized an excellent ensemble in Summer of Sam. It's been a while since I've seen Do the Right Thing (#97) , but though I recall excellent performances there as well(Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, the forever underrated Giancarlo Esposito), I think of it as dull, Big Idea Spike, where his ambition to strike blows about race and class swallows up the movie. But it's fascinating for being the start of something--the moment where he began his career-long struggle to make message films and be Woody Allen at the same time.
My schooling on Antonioni is still limited--just Blow Up and L'Avventura (#98)--and I'm afraid I still remain unimpressed, or at least unaffected.
I've learned to like other Maysles Brothers films more--Salesman in particular--but Gimme Shelter (#99) was my first, and (thinking on it now) perhaps my first exposure to the idea of a documentary as an art piece--a showcase of a rock star's smugness, and how easily it can get erased. I don't think that the videos assembled for the Beastie Boys Anthology (#100) are any better than what a lot of bands these days can assemble, but you can argue that the Beastie Boys cared the most at the time they began. "Sabotage" and "Shadrach" are unquestionably brilliant conceptually, but watching a bunch of videos in a row by any one group tends to erase your ability to see the videos as art. It becomes a crazy-quilt image of the persona an act wants to present to the public--promotion.
Despite a remarkable Liv Ullmann performance, Cries and Whispers (#101) never really transcends the oppressive black-and-red color scheme that surrounds this story's three sisters, all metaphorically dying and one literally dead. Autumn Sonata at least had the good grace to have a fight at the end; this film collapses in on its own sad tone.
Spike Lee's done his best work in recent years concentrating on actors: he immortalized Ed Norton in 25th Hour, got a stunning amount of mileage out of Damon Wayans in Bamboozled, and organized an excellent ensemble in Summer of Sam. It's been a while since I've seen Do the Right Thing (#97) , but though I recall excellent performances there as well(Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, the forever underrated Giancarlo Esposito), I think of it as dull, Big Idea Spike, where his ambition to strike blows about race and class swallows up the movie. But it's fascinating for being the start of something--the moment where he began his career-long struggle to make message films and be Woody Allen at the same time.
My schooling on Antonioni is still limited--just Blow Up and L'Avventura (#98)--and I'm afraid I still remain unimpressed, or at least unaffected.
I've learned to like other Maysles Brothers films more--Salesman in particular--but Gimme Shelter (#99) was my first, and (thinking on it now) perhaps my first exposure to the idea of a documentary as an art piece--a showcase of a rock star's smugness, and how easily it can get erased. I don't think that the videos assembled for the Beastie Boys Anthology (#100) are any better than what a lot of bands these days can assemble, but you can argue that the Beastie Boys cared the most at the time they began. "Sabotage" and "Shadrach" are unquestionably brilliant conceptually, but watching a bunch of videos in a row by any one group tends to erase your ability to see the videos as art. It becomes a crazy-quilt image of the persona an act wants to present to the public--promotion.
Despite a remarkable Liv Ullmann performance, Cries and Whispers (#101) never really transcends the oppressive black-and-red color scheme that surrounds this story's three sisters, all metaphorically dying and one literally dead. Autumn Sonata at least had the good grace to have a fight at the end; this film collapses in on its own sad tone.
1 Comments:
You forgot to mention the video for "Netty's Girl"! Just kidding, but it was one of the first things Tamra Davis ever did. I think the videos for "Intergalactic" and "Body Movin'" are pretty terrific, too. The only thing that bugs me about the collection is how reliant the Beasties became on the fish-eye lens once Ricky Powell introduced them to it. Sheesh, they use it on, like, 1/2 of their videos!
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