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Buffalo Film Seminars IX: Fall 2004
Conversations about great films with Diane Christian and Bruce Jackson
(free monitored parking in the M&T lot opposite the theater's Washington Street Entrance)
click here for a list of all BFS films to date, sorted by series, title, year of release and director
The links beneath the film entries will take you to sites we found interesting or informative. For actors, crew and other production details, click on the film title itself for the Internet Movie Database listing. If you come upon useful links to any of these films, their crews, their subjects, or their relations, please send them along so we can add them. BEWARE OF TIM DIRKS: Dirks provides interesting brief comments, then does great summaries of the plots, including accurate extracts from the script. If you haven't seen the film before, we'd suggest you DO NOT look at Dirks until after the screening—otherwise he'll spoil the pleasure of the plot.
Asterisked films have been selected by the Library of Congress for the National Film Registry.
August 31 Buster Keaton Sherlock Jr.* and Charles Reisner Steamboat Bill Jr. 1928Accompanied on electronic piano by Philip Carli
"Steamboat Bill, Jr. is Keaton's 'last really fine feature,' and 'With Sherlock Jr, he came up with a haunting little meditation on movies and dreams. Projectionist Buster falls asleep at the controls and dreams that he can enter the film he is unreeling. With a series of ingenious visual effects, Keaton gives us a perfect demonstration of what it would be like to climb up onto a screen and become a part of the movie we are watching. It's an unforgettable scene. Without self-consciousness, Keaton brings home the wondrousness of the medium itself, submerging himself in the ocean of its superb and liquid unreality. When he steps onto the screen, he fulfills something in all of us....Like Chaplin, he had a native gift for movement, but, unlike the Little Tramp, he had very modern instincts that propelled him far ahead of any of his contemporaries. For so long, he was thought of as just a forgotten pie-thrower with stone face and porkpie hat. Today he is revered for that stream of pure movies from the twenties, a sequence of work that has improved with age and speaks to us all from the viewpoint of an artist who is both burned and purified, numb and serene, hopeful but cynical. Buster was just getting the laughs. We got the rest." Dan Callahan, "Buster Keaton," Senses of CinemaThese two films are from what is often called the "Silent Era," the years before film had soundtracks and theaters had equipment that could read and amplify those tracks. But, in fact, early films were rarely silent: small theaters had piano players or organists, and large theaters had full-scale orchestras. The cases that held the reels of film delivered to theaters often contained musical scores from the studios. Pre-soundtrack screenings differed every time, depending on the mood, skill, and imagination of the live musicians. Audiences had the double pleasure of seeing the film onscreen and having a live performance go on at the same time. And so shall we. Philip Carli will accompany the Keaton screening and will join us for our post-film discussion.
Keaton filmography, with links for the films
Film Forum's Keaton page with lots of great links and clips
Dan Callahan: "Buster Keaton" (Senses of Cinema)
A Keaton biography (several pages to this)
September 7 Gregory La Cava My Man Godfrey* 1936
"...one of the 1930's most delightful, classic screwball comedies. It was directed by Gregory La Cava for Universal and is now considered the definitive screwball comedy, with its social commentary on life during the 30s. The film, filled with marvelous character actors (Alice Brady, Eugene Pallette, Gail Patrick, and Mischa Auer), resonated with Depression era audiences for its statements on morality and class." Tim Dirks
Matthew Kennedy (Bright Lights Film Journal)
Tim Dirks Filmsite review "Screwball comedy" (Modern Times)
September 14 John Ford My Darling Clementine* 1946
"The most famous and sublime treatment of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, John Ford's My Darling Clementine is by any measure one of the most classically perfect Westerns ever made. Henry Fonda plays a hard, serious Wyatt Earp leading a cattle drive west with his brothers when a stopover in the wild town of Tombstone ends in the murder of his youngest brother. Wyatt takes up the badge he had turned down earlier and tames the wide-open town with his brothers (Ward Bond and Tim Holt), all the while waiting for the wild Clantons (led by Walter Brennan's ruthless Old Man Clanton) to make a mistake. Victor Mature delivers perhaps his finest performance as the tubercular gambler Doc Holliday, an alcoholic Eastern doctor escaping civilization in the Wild West. Ford takes great liberties with history, bending the story to fit his ideal of the West, a balance of social law and pioneer spirit. Though the film reaches its climax in the legendary gunfight between the Earps (with Doc Holliday) and the Clantons, the most powerful moment is the moving Sunday morning church social played out on the floor of the unfinished church. As Earp dances with Clementine (Cathy Downs)--Fonda's stiff, self-conscious movements showing a man unaccustomed to such social interaction--Ford's camera frames them against the open sky: the town and the wilderness merge into the new Eden of the West for a brief moment." --Sean Axmaker
Richard Franklin: "John Ford" (Senses of Cinema)
September 21 Carol Reed Odd Man Out 1947
"Film noir is a term usually associated with American films of the 1940s and 1950s, but this British classic from 1947 fits the definition in almost every respect. It's one of the milestone films of its era, highlighted by what is arguably the best performance in the illustrious career of James Mason, here playing the leader of an underground Irish rebel organization who is seriously wounded when a payroll heist goes sour. Left for dead by his accomplices on the streets of Belfast, he's forced to hide wherever he can find shelter and refuge, and as his gunshot wound gradually drains his life away, his lover (Kathleen Ryan) struggles to locate him before it's too late. Although the IRA and Belfast are never mentioned by name, this film was a daring and morally complex examination of Northern Ireland's "troubles," and its compelling tragedy hasn't lost any of its impact. A study of conscience in crisis and the bitter aftermath of terrorism, this was one of the first films to address IRA activities on intimately human terms. Political potency is there for those who seek it, but the film is equally invigorating as a riveting story of a tragic figure on the run from the law, forced to confront the wrath of his own beliefs in the last hours of his life. It was this brilliant, unforgettable film that established the directorial prowess of Carol Reed, whose next two films (The Fallen Idol and The Third Man) were equally extraordinary." --Jeff Shannon
Deirdre Feehan: "Carol Reed" (Senses of Cinema)
"Full-text Articles and Essays on Film Noir"
September 28 Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger The Red Shoes 1948
One of Powell and Pressburger's best-loved films, The Red Shoes, released in 1948, is perhaps the definitive ballet movie. The film interweaves the story of an ambitious young ballerina, Vicky (Moira Shearer), with that of The Red Shoes ballet (inspired by Hans Christian Andersen) which forms its centrepiece - the most dazzling flight of fantasy in Powell's career, and scarcely matched in British cinema. (BFI ScreenOnLine)
Adrian Danks: "Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger" (Senses of Cinema)
"The Red Shoes: Still Dancing after 50 Years. An interview with Moira Shearer and Jack Cardiff"
Hans Christian Andersen: "The Red Shoes"
"Powell and Pressburger: Pilgrim's Progress" (BFI)
October 5 Yasujiro Ozu Floating Weeds/Ukiguza 1959
"Remaking his own 1934 film, STORY OF FLOATING WEEDS, Ozu changed the setting to a seaside town and exploited the palette of Mizoguchi's regular cinematographer, Kazuo Miyagawa, for some of the most gorgeous images in his color work. The story remains largely the same as before: when the head of an itinerant troupe (Ganjiro Nakamura) visits the small town where he fathered a son years before, his mistress (Machiko Kyo) attempts to bring about a confrontation with his former lover and now adult son. Avoiding historical reconstruction in his attempt to evoke the spirit of the Meiji era, Ozu unfolds his tale in an anachronistic, vaguely contemporary setting, suffused with nostalgia for a long-lost world. FLOATING WEEDS features an outstanding lead performance by celebrated kabuki actor Nakamura, and is Ozu's sole collaboration with the stunning Machiko Kyo, by then world famous and the veteran of such works as Mizoguchi's Ugetsu, Kon Ichikawa's Odd Obsession, and Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon."
"Sooner or later, everyone who loves movies comes to Ozu. He is the quietest and gentlest of directors, the most humanistic, the most serene. But the emotions that flow through his films are strong and deep, because they reflect the things we care about the most: Parents and children, marriage or a life lived alone, illness and death, and taking care of one another....Ozu was most Japanese in taking similar materials and working them again and again in subtly different ways, always in his own style. Like the Japanese printmakers of earlier centuries, he disliked novelty, and preferred variations on a theme. When you see his films, you feel in the arms of a serenely confident and caring master. In his stories about people who live far away, you recognize, in one way or another, everyone you know." (Roger Ebert)
Nick Wrigley: "Yasujiro Ozu" (Senses of Cinema)
Richard Combs: "The Poetics of Resistance"
"Yasujiro Ozu" (summaries of the later films)
October 12 John Huston The Misfits 1961
"THE MISFITS shows off Monroe's range like no previous role. But despite wonderful performances by Gable, Monroe, Montgomery Clift, Eli Wallach, and the invincible Thelma Ritter, the final product has always been overshadowed by the baggage of its stars. It was both Monroe's and Gable's final film. Though she survived an overdose during the course of shooting and was able to finish the movie, as the world knows, one year later Monroe succeeded in committing suicide. Gable, seemingly spry at 59, died soon after the film was completed of a fatal heart attack, blamed on his own insistence on performing all the dangerous horse stunts himself. Clift, who plays Perce, a cowboy with a penchant for the rodeo, also died unexpectedly of coronary artery disease not long after the film was released.
"The story is less an entertaining western than a cerebral exploration of what happens when a group of discontents fall in love with the same insecure woman. Monroe's acting is superb. Huston transforms her stunning looks into something less sexy than vulnerable, and her characterization of Roslyn is full of haunting depth and subtlety." (PBS Notes to "Making the Misfits")"The Misfits: What happened around the camera" (book review)
Great Performances: Making the Misfits (PBS)
October 19 Federico Fellini 8½ 1963
"I'd always been a Fellini fan, but something about 8 1/2, it just got under my skin. Creativity is really what it's about. It just happens to be about a movie director. It's about the process of trying to make something and knowing you don't know how to make it, and everybody waiting for you to come up with the solution. He is stalling. He is dealing with producers and money problems. It's really just this juggling back and forth while his whole life is disintegrating and him remembering bits of it and the fact that the film then spreads right back through his life, through his dreams, through the relationship with his parents, everything is what's so wonderful about it. It uses that and it uses the past, the future, the present and it uses dreams - all the things that I've used in my films in different ways." Terry Gilliam
Derek Malcolm: "Federico Fellini 8½" (Guardian)
Antonia Shanahan: "Federico Fellini" (Senses of Cinema)
Toni Maraini: "An Interview with Federico Fellini" (Bright Lights Film Journal)
October 26 Peter Davis Hearts and Minds 1974
"A courageous and startling film, Peter Davis’ landmark documentary Hearts and Minds unflinchingly confronts the United States’ involvement in Vietnam. Using a wealth of sources—from interviews to newsreels to documentary footage of the conflict at home and abroad—Davis constructs a powerfully affecting portrait of the disastrous effects of war. Explosive, persuasive, and shocking, Hearts and Minds is an overwhelming emotional experience and the controversial winner of the 1974 Academy Award™ for Best Documentary." (Criterion DVD notes)
David Ng: Images Film Journal dvd review
"Hearts and Minds" (Reality Film)
Carol Wilder: "Hearts and Minds Redux"
"Documentary Film" (Wikipedia)
November 2 Haskell Wexler Medium Cool* 1969
"A passionate liberal, Wexler produced, directed, wrote and photographed one of the most devastating and technically sophisticated anti-establishment films ever made, MEDIUM COOL (1969). Drawing on the stylistic and theoretical advances made by such vanguard figures as Jean-Luc Godard, and taking its title almost straight from mouth of media guru Marshall McLuhan, MEDIUM COOL was set and filmed during the 1968 Chicago Democratic convention. It chronicles -- in striking, neo-documentary style -- the affairs, both professional and amorous, of a detached TV news cameraman (Robert Forster) as he becomes increasingly aware of the political ramifications of his work. The film remains a landmark of political cinema and an insightful essay on the "cool medium." Baseline's Encyclopedia of Film
"Activist Artist: Haskell Wexler" (Free Press)
National Film Registry Screening Notes
November 9 Terrence Malick Badlands 1973
"Still one of American cinema's most powerful, daring filmmaking debuts, Terrence Malick's Badlands is a quirky, visionary psychological and social enigma masquerading as a simple lovers-on-the-lam flick. Inspired by the 1958 murders in the cold, stark badlands of South Dakota by Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate, the film's plot, on the surface, is similar to that of other killing-couple films, like Bonnie and Clyde and Gun Crazy. Martin Sheen, in an understated, sophisticated performance, plays the strange James Dean-like social outcast who falls in love with the naïve Sissy Spacek--and then kills her father when he comes between them. The two flee like animals to the wilderness, until the police arrive and the killing spree begins. What sets the film apart from others of its genre is Malick's complicated approach. Gorgeous, impenetrable images contrast sharply with Spacek's nostalgically artless narration, serving as ironic counterpoints, blurring concrete meaning, and stressing that nothing this horrific is simple. Malick observes, rather than analyzes, the couple in a manner as detached and apathetic as the couple's shocking actions. No judgment or definitive motivations are offered, though Malick's empathy often leans toward his senseless protagonists, rather than the star-struck society that makes killers famous." --Dave McCoy
Hwanlee Lee: Terrence Malick (Senses of Cinema)
Michael Filippidis: On Malick's Subjects
Cathy Horin: Secrets from the Badlands (NY Times 28 August 2004)
November 16 Andrei Tarkovsky The Mirror/Zerkalo 1974
"Tarkovsky's fascinating meditation on his life, on memory and on time is narrated and witnessed by a quasi-fictional self who never appears on camera...is a startling piece of film-making, floating free of the conventional demands of period and narrative." Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
nostalghia.com A Tarkovsky information site
"Andrei Tarkovsky" (strictly film school)
Maximilian Le Cain: "Andrei Tarkovsky" (Senses of Cinema)
Christ Fujiwara: "The cinematic universe of Andrei Tarkovsky"
November 23 Stanley Kubrick Barry Lyndon 1975
Barry Lyndon is a masterpiece of a director whose films are all extraordinary; it marks a new conception of the art of film. Although based on a novel, it is entirely cinematic, offering and endlessly suggestive vision of reality which is irreducible to verbal formulations. Each shot and cut tells us more than any verbal formulations (including this one) can convey. Like its hero, it seems at first uncomplicated; but it maintains a dream-like coherence and ambiguity throughout, succeeding as a story, spectacle, historical reconstruction, psychological allegory and vision of Western man. And it is about the act of viewing. It betters our ability to watch, and betters us. In an age less interested in ugliness, seen by the viewers Kubrick has helped to create, its greatness will be recognized and its reputation righted." Mark Crispin Miller
Bilge Erbi: "Barry Lyndon: The Shape of Things to Come"
Mark Crispin Miller: "Barry Lyndon Reconsidered"
Keith Uhlick: "Stanley Kubrick" (Senses of Cinema)
The Authorized Stanley Kubrick Web Site
November 30 Martin Scorsese Raging Bull*1980
"Raging Bull'' is the most painful and heartrending portrait of jealousy in the cinema--an ``Othello'' for our times. It's the best film I've seen about the low self-esteem, sexual inadequacy and fear that lead some men to abuse women. Boxing is the arena, not the subject. LaMotta was famous for refusing to be knocked down in the ring. There are scenes where he stands passively, his hands at his side, allowing himself to be hammered. We sense why he didn't go down. He hurt too much to allow the pain to stop." Roger Ebert
"The skillfully-made film was both praised and vilified at the time of its release, but has since been rated as one of the best films of its decade. Out of its eight Academy Awards nominations, Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Joe Pesci), Best Supporting Actress (Cathy Moriarty), Best Director (Martin Scorsese), Best Cinematography (Michael Chapman), and Best Sound, it only won two Oscars: Best Actor (De Niro), and Best Film Editing (Thelma Schoonmaker). The film lost both the Best Director and Best Picture awards to Robert Redford's Ordinary People (1980)." Tim Dirks
Mark Raymond: "Martin Scorsese" (Senses of Cinema)
December 7 Orson Welles Citizen Kane* 1941
Jaime N. Chirstley:"Orson Welles" (Senses of Cinema)
Roger Ebert's Viewer's Companion to "Citizen Kane"
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