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Bright Lights Film Journal
Issue 63 | February 2009

from the editor

The march of the manly men!

Each issue of Bright Lights comes together through serendipity; i.e., whatever ideas are preoccupying our regular staff, along with any exceptional material that arrives from new writers before deadline, typically end up in the issue. And we can usually count on serendipity (no, not whimsy and caprice) to make each issue at least seem varied.

That's why we were surprised to see how much sheer testosterone is in this issue. Yes, we can almost call this the Man issue of Bright Lights. A quick glance down this page (or at the column to the right) will verify this surprising, and somewhat unsettling, state of affairs. While the saving grace is that we think this is a good Man issue, if such a thing has to exist, we can at least offer sensitive readers solace in the fact that there are bits of queer and women-oriented content cleverly hidden throughout the issue. Still, we're determined to give serendipity the boot next time and diversify the contents, so we're not bleeding male angst all over the place, cinematically speaking. Perhaps that long-awaited All-Tranny issue is in order? Readers, what say you?

Now that that's out of the way, let's take a manly stride into the issue. Newbie Colm O'Shea rips open the door to the features foyer with a lively analysis of the theme of "metaphysical escape" in the work of Charlie Kaufman. In the same space we contributed to BL's new macho emphasis by excavating our pal Michael Stern's brilliant take on Jerry Lewis' films from the Summer 1975 print issue of Bright Lights. Moving into the articles antechamber, we find more recent inductees along with some BL veterans. Among the former, Angelos Koutsourakis clarifies the oft-hinted-at but never-quite-nailed connection between Cassavetes and Dogme; Stephen Harris uses Czech Dream, one of the rare "provocumentaries," as a springboard for a larger discussion of culture jamming; and Ivan Cañadas contemplates race and class in Spike Lee's underrated 25th Hour. Associate editor Alan Vanneman continues his exhaustive tribute to the Little Tramp — this time tackling City Lights. BL veterans Gordon Thomas and Dave Saunders work their considerable magic on, respectively, Griffith's Way Down East and the work of Ken Loach.

Visitors to the recent cinema roundabout will find much if not all of what they need to know about David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Erich Kuersten); Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York (Madison Brookshire); Terence Davies' Of Time and the City (Ian Johnston); and Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir (Jayson Harsin). Danke, comrades!

For those who seek still more macho, head to the empty guest room. There Dan Callahan waxes thoughtful on the great Robert Ryan, and Lesley Chow continues BL's deep probe of canonical film critics (so far including Pauline Kael and Manny Farber) by celebrating the unsung Robert Warshow. A quick peek into the director's dream den finds yours truly's brief scribblings about snappy dresser Jean-Pierre Melville.

Shaking off some of that pesky manly energy, we see a new addition to Castle Bright Lights, the pre-code parapet, featuring two articles on this timeless and often reassuringly woman-centered subject. Imogen Smith situates pre-Code cinema in its social and cultural context, with a special nod to Joan Blondell naked in the bathtub in Blonde Crazy. And Erich Kuersten cleverly plays doctor by identifying a condition we've all felt but could never put our finger on: Post-Code Stress Syndrome! Meanwhile, in the interrogation alcove, Karin Badt waylaid Tomas Alfredson, whose Let the Right One In caused viewers some sleepless nights; and a new contributor, Sukhmani Khorana, sat down with one of our favorite directors, Deepa Mehta, to talk about Heaven on Earth and other subjects. Associate Editor Megan Ratner attended the American Film Institute Festival so you wouldn't have to, and writes it up with her usual aplomb in the otherwise restful film festival flying buttress. And Gordon Thomas's Bright Sights column delves into a bracing range of must-have DVDs, from Flicker Alley's magnificent Douglas Fairbanks Sr. box to the Russian masterpiece Lady with the Dog.

Readers longing for the relief of queer content are advised to check out Matt Kennedy's scintillating take on The Boys in the Band in the vale of video. Yours truly also reviews the Boys as part of a round-up of queer cinema and TV in Little Stabs of Homo Happiness (and Horror). Your editor also found time to lay the lorgnette — I mean, fix his bayonet — on John Maybury's experimental love-fest Read Only Memory, in the avant-garde atelier.

Finally, in our continuing effort to do our little part to return literacy to our increasingly Visigoth-like culture, we're featuring a whopping five book reviews this time, some of them quite hefty: The Matrix of Visual Culture (Gopalan Ravindran); Masculine Singular (Erich Kuersten); Encyclopedia Shatnerica (Alan Vanneman); David Thomson's Have You Seen . . . ? (Jon Lanthier); and Mark Vieira's Hollywood Dreams Made Real (yours truly).

Igor just brought in a lovely paté and a sassy bilberry liqueur – oh, better make that a raw steak and a couple of large onions, Igor. Onward, men!

Gary Morris

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Visit the archives for hundreds of other articles, dear.

features foyer

Out Of His Head: Metaphysical Escape Attempts in the Screenplays of Charlie Kaufman — "Kaufman's homunculi schema is an implicit mockery of our bottomless ignorance of the nature of consciousness."

Jerry Lewis: b. Joseph Levitch, Newark, New Jersey, 1926, res. Hollywood — "Each film is an elaborately choreographed movement around the problem of Jerry's uncertain relationship to the world around him."

articles antechamber

John Cassavetes: The First Dogme Director? "The major point of convergence between Cassavetes and the Dogme movement is an oppositional realist form that blurs the boundaries between being and performing."

Looking at Charlie — City Lights: An Occasional Series on the Life and Work of Charlie Chaplin — "If you could only see me as I really am, not as I appear but as I really am, as I am in my heart."

What Is Cheaper Than Nothing at All? Czech Dream, Culture Jamming, and Consumerism — "I jam because I am without ID."

Griffith's Great American Pastoral — Location and Meaning in Way Down East — "The air is saturated with their feelings for each other as they listen to 'the distant music of the falls,' the same falls, of course, that will threaten to kill her."

Hotels and Homelands — After Ken and Rosa — Neither will be the same

Spike Lee's "Uniquely American [Di]vision": Race and Class in 25th Hour — "Is it simply that the hero must be white for a mainstream American audience to care for him, or for the mainstream critical establishment to value Lee's work?

avant-garde atelier

Lysergic Landscapes: John Maybury's Read Only Memory — "Story, characters, and other reassuring elements are simply obliterated by what appears to be Maybury's quite elaborate private mythology."

film festival flying buttress

Deep and Wide: The 2008 American Film Institute Festival — A sampling of the best of the fest's international offerings

vale of video

Oh Mary Don't Ask: The Boys in the Bands on DVD — "In the ensuing post-Stonewall civil rights struggles, The Boys in the Band became crazy Aunt Betty locked in the attic when guests came over."

bright sights

Bright Sights: Recent DVDs: The General, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Douglas Fairbanks: A Modern Musketeer, Fighters/Real Money, Lady with the Dog — An ongoing column that looks at some of the most intriguing of recent, under-the-radar releases

recent cinema roundabout

Reflections Through a Golden Nigh: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: — "Like Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam, or the Scott brothers Ridley and Tony, Fincher is an auteur-facile, an auteur of illusory depth."

"A Universe Inside a Universe": On Synecdoche, New York — synecdoche: a figure of speech in which a part is used for a whole, an individual for a class, a material for a thing, or the reverse of any of these (Ex.: bread for food, the army for a soldier, or copper for a penny) — Webster's Online Dictionary

Liverpool Lullaby: On Terence Davies' Of Time and the City — "Through cinema the past is regained."

The Responsible Dream: On Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir — "We were the Nazis."

the empty guest room

Robert Ryan: A Moon for the Misbegotten — "I have been in films pretty well everything I am dedicated to fighting against."

On How Things Seem: The Views of Robert Warshow "Where Warshow distinguishes himself from Kracauer and other sociological critics is his reaction to the 'absorbing immediacy' of films."

directors' dream den

Jean-Pierre Melville, Director: Notes on the French Auteur's Career — "The film was shot in what would become a blueprint for the director's production style — without authorization, studio resources, or sufficient funds."

interrogation alcove

Of Bullies and Blood Drinkers: Talking to Tomas Alfredson about Let the Right One In — "I think the most horrifying images are the ones you make yourself. Is there someone standing behind the door, or is it just two shoes standing there?"

Maps and Motels: Talking with Deepa Mehta — "I think it's really important for you, or anybody who wants to be a filmmaker, to really be honest with yourself."

pre-code parapet

Sinners' Holiday: An Ode to Pre-Code — "Code? What Code?"

Dizzy from the Altitude, Pre-Code Cinema and the Post-Code-Shock Syndrome — "With so much underhanded conventionalizing, it's easy to forget that once upon a time these social mores were being challenged and disputed, not by our parents but by our grandparents . . ."

little stabs

Little Stabs of Happiness (and Horror): Random Short Reviews of the Worthy and the Worthless in Recent and Old-School Cinema — "Heterosexual brides-to-be are one of the demographics that arrive by the busloads to partake of Darcelle's mad mix of risqué zingers, over-the-top musical routines, and mother-hen reassurances."

hiding in the stacks

The Matrix of Visual Culture: Working with Deleuze in Film Theory, by Patricia Pisters

Masculine Singular: French New Wave Cinema, by Geneviève Sellier

Encyclopedia Shatnerica: An A to Z Guide to the Man and His Universe, by Robert Schnakenberg

"Have You Seen . . .?": A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films, by David Thomson

Hollywood Dreams Made Real: Irving Thalberg and the Rise of M-G-M, by Mark A. Vieira