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writers gone wild!
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Bright Lights Film Journal
Issue 51 | February 2006

from the editor

You know, you're soaking in it.

As you — and everyone you know — should be. Ever since the Sunday London Times called us "superb" (apparently our check cleared), we've been soaking in it, so to speak, walking around with a noticeably enlarged head. Or perhaps it's a late case of hydrocephalism. Whatever, all this darn respect made us redouble our efforts to raise, or at least maintain, our standard this time. It wasn't easy. We made sacrifices. We had to turn off the television, cut those daylong trips to the mall, put aside the petit-fours — you get the picture. We suffered — terribly.

Of course, our loss (we're still pining for those petit-fours) is your gain, as we guide you through the byways of cinema, hitting many a hot spot (ouch!) along the way. For example, readers who must know more about Austrian film history and culture can do so courtesy of Robert von Dassanowsky's thoughtful treatise on the subject. Fans of Hamlet will enjoy Alan Vanneman's exhaustive entry on nine cinematic versions. Those intrigued by Hollywood's closets can peek inside Robert Keser's detailed discussion of sexual repression in Tinseltown via recent books on Henry Willson and Tab Hunter.

Moving from features foyer to articles antechamber, we find a gaggle of goodies. Lesley Chow ingeniously investigates new pleasures in Bertolucci's distinctive use of music. Robert Castle takes on a wealth of subjects in two articles that deep-sea dive into two film adaptations of Proust and Philip Roth. Tom Sutpen cannily confronts auteurism and Sergeant Madden as evidence of von Sternberg's demise. Jayson Harsin adeptly analyzes von Trier's Manderlay, while Dave Saunders uses la cucaracha, Hotel Rwanda, and more to launch a clever cultural critique.

In our desperate attempt to chase down (and perhaps kill) the zeitgeist, we feature a whopping ten reviews of recent films. The now iconic Brokeback Mountain gets the once-over twice, stylish applause from Matt Kennedy and mixed reaction from Vanneman, who also praises and pans to various degrees The Squid and the Whale, King Kong, Grandma's Boy, and Jarhead. Cronenberg's A History of Violence elicited two very different but equally exciting analyses by Megan Ratner and A. Jay Adler. Meanwhile, Ian Johnston righteously reviews Wenders' problematic Don't Come Knocking and the Dardennes' more enticing L'Enfant.

There's nothing like the past to make the present look bad, and with that in mind we showcase Dan Callahan's loving resurrection and redemption of Lillian Gish. More charms from cinema's dinosaur days come from Vanneman's tidy tribute to Harold Lloyd (on the occasion of the release of New Line Home Video's Lloyd DVD box set); and from Gordon Thomas' sympathetic study of DeMille's underrated King of Kings. Closer, but not too close, to the contemporary, Lesley Chow assesses David O. Russell's Flirting with Disaster; Tom Sutpen excavates Frederick Wiseman's Juvenile Court; and Matt Kennedy finds fun and foolishness in the 1982 Return of the Soldier.

Rounding out this issue, Scott Thill, commander of the Good Ship Morphizm, interrogates Peter Chung of Aeon Flux fame, and yours truly again dips his toes into a queer film festival, this time the one in Portland, Oregon. Speaking of returning soldiers, the "Little Stabs of Happiness (and Horror)" are back this issue, despite certain readers' persistent pleas and prayers to desist. Enjoy!

Gary Morris

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Visit the archives for hundreds of other articles, dear.

features foyer

Austria Hungry: The Return of a Film Nation — Vienna's Forgotten Influences and New Austrian Film

Nine Hamlets: Olivier, Burton, Jacobi, Kline, Gibson, Branagh, Scott, Hawke, and Lester All Take a Stab at the Original Man in Black — "Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar?"

Inside the Dreamboat Factory: The Fairy Godfather of Hollywood — "He won't be gay when I get through with him!"

articles antechamber

What the Sound Is Saying: How Music Moves in Bertolucci — "Who doesn't want to be rescued by their narrator?"

The Last Cockroach: The De- and Rehumanizing of Culture in Cinema — Reasons to be evil

Unadaptable: A Fatal Problem with The Human Stain — "Why not sock the audiences early with the ‘fuck her in the ass' line?"

Von Trier's Brechtian Gamble: On Manderlay — This time "liberal" is a dirty word

Auteur in Distress: On Wallace Beery, von Sternberg, and Sergeant Madden — Cinema's supreme pictorialist meets "the cop on the beat"

Proust Regained: On Raul Ruiz's Time Regained and Filming the Unfilmable — "In a single bold stroke, Ruiz films the novel according to the play of images, feelings, scents, and tastes that Marcel experiences."

conflict corner

A History of Violence

Everyone Has Something to Hide: On Cronenberg's A History of Violence — Unmasking (the) America(n)

A History of Violence: A Minimum of Thought — "A whole load of ‘Aw' with not a lot of ‘shucks,' updated only by a little cunnilingus."

Brokeback Mountain

Men in Love: On Brokeback Mountain — Ang Lee expertly limns the catastrophes of the closet

Toto, I Don't Think We're in the Grand Tetons Anymore: Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain — Queens in jeans?

the empty guest room

Blossom in the Dust: Lillian Gish, The Wind, and Mr. Griffith — "I was never young, and if you were never young, how can you ever feel old?"

recent film roundabout

Wim, We Hardly Know Ye: On Wenders' Don't Come Knocking — The bad news is . . . there's not much good news

We're Just Taller Children: On the Dardennes' L'Enfant — The Belgian humanists' most Bressonian film to date

Grandma's Boy: No, Not That One — Linda Cardellini dies and goes to Hell

Looking for Angst in All the Wrong Places: Sam Mendes' Jarhead: Marines Gone Wild! — A few really cute boys take their shirts off, but that's about it

Anthropomorphizing the Anthropoid: Peter Jackson's King Kong — Even a big ape can enjoy a sunset, can't he?

Tentacles No Knives Can Cut: Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale — All in the family, unfortunately

cellar of silence

"Step Right Up and Call Me Speedy!" Harold Lloyd: Almost All Isn't Enough — The last of the great silent clowns now on DVD

A Tale of Two Kings: DeMille's Silent Classic on DVD, in Both Versions — Faith meets flamboyance in DeMille's Jesus epic, beautifully restored

interrogation alcove

Expanding the Possibilities: Peter Chung Talks About Aeon Flux, Matriculated, Dark Fury, and More — "The more you're able to project your own world upon the work, the more power it has."

film festival flying buttress

More Fun in the New (Queer) World: The 2005 Portland Lesbian and Gay Film Festival — Out of the closets and onto the screens

revival room

Babies Bubbling Up: David O Russell's Fertile Perversity Filigrees Flirting with Disaster — "There's always been an acute mystery attached to the body . . ."

Buried Alive: On Frederick Wiseman's Juvenile Court — "The great legal scholar Lenny Bruce once observed that in the halls of justice the only justice is in the halls . . ."

Ann-Margret in Wonderland: But Bates and the Brits Are at Home in The Return of the Soldier, on DVD — "Her English accent wanders around her mouth like a playful ice cube."

cornucopia corner

Little Stabs of Happiness (and Horror): Random Short Reviews of the Worthy and the Worthless in Recent and Old-School Cinema — "Who's the black private dick that's a sex machine for all the chicks?"