Bright Lights Film Journal :: May 2009

May 2009 | Issue 64

Editorial

Articles

Tex Avery: Arch-Radicalizer of the Hollywood Cartoon

by Greg Ford

"Avery's pics confirm an always-lingering suspicion that the many radical plays with movie syntax and the numerous distancing techniques employed in '60s live-action films, of 'New Wave Cinema' extraction, were, in fact, first invented, and used for purely comic effect, in animated cartoons."

Retro Virus: Did AIDS perform Nensha?

by Mark Adnum

"Be aware: there are forces at work here of which we have no knowledge." — Queen Elizabeth 2

Fifteen Years of French Cinema: By André Bazin

Translated and with an introduction by Bert Cardullo

"If French cinema was no longer down in the dumps, so the reasoning went, its palette should duly adorn itself with all the colors of the intellectual rainbow. And this is exactly what happened."

The Complete A of Altruism: In Which the Selfish Gene Explains Everything

by D. J. M. Saunders

Except whether to laugh or cry

Between Nudist Morality and Freudian Realism! Denuding Fleshly Hypocrisies, Cinematic and Otherwise

by Andrew Grossman

"Nude on the Moon's exploitation is as innocent as the Good Christo-Nudist's reclaiming of a pre-figleafed (albeit non-recreational) Eden."

Desperation and Divinity: "Help us, Mae!"

by Erich Kuersten

Hazy thoughts on the transition from real sex to digital hallucinations

Wild Boys and Midnight Maries: Social Realism and Pre-Code in Forbidden Hollywood (Vol. 3)

by Erich Kuersten

"We can't help but roll our eyes at a woman who would rather wear holes in her shoes looking for a 'good honest job' than roll around in money and mink."

Movies

"Just Another Man": On James Toback's Tyson

by Robert Ecksel

"Toback, to his credit, and despite the empathy he feels toward his subject, doesn't pull his punches."

Busby Berkeley's Hollywood Hotel: Bring on the dancing girls! Oh, wait! There aren't any!

by Alan Vanneman

Thank God for the Benny Goodman Quartet

Let's Dance? Must We? Fred Astaire Collides with Betty Hutton

by Alan Vanneman

Ouch!

Women Larger Than Life: Program Notes 1: Allan Dwan's Woman They Almost Lynched (1953)/Slightly Scarlet (1956)

by Roger McNiven

"Within the confines of the action genres, Dwan is, like Jean Renoir, a classical humanist."

Opposition Compositions: Treasures IV: American Avant Garde Film 1947-1986 on DVD

by C. Jerry Kutner

"Avant garde filmmaking has been defined almost entirely in opposition to the Hollywood mainstream."

The Child Is Father to the Child: On the Friday the 13th Series

by Noah Berlatsky

"You can depend on Jason."

Actors

"Strong, Righteous, and Rustic": An Interview with Joel McCrea

by Gerald Peary

"I told Hitchcock, 'I do miss my horse.'"

Ida Lupino: Demon Mother Night

by Dan Callahan

"[H]er favorite expression of strained intensity would be less quickly relieved by a merciful death than by Ex-Lax." — James Agee, 1943

James Mason: Odd Man Out

by Christopher Sandford

Mason was "equally at home playing small, brooding anti-heroes, camping it up in a toga, or doing a nice line in late career self-parody."

The Goddess in Her Element: Ruan Lingyu in Shanghai

by Lesley Chow

"This is an actress who shows excitement down to the curl of her fingers, and whose face reveals every kind of mercurial change."

Lee Tracy: "A Manic, Scalding Passion for Success"

by Imogen Sara Smith

"With his impish grin, twinkling eyes, and boyish blond hair, he looks like Tom Sawyer crossed with a Tammany Hall fixer."

Directors

"Monsieur Hulot and Time": By André Bazin

Translated and with an introduction by Bert Cardullo

"In their blend of social satire, wry charm, imaginative physical gags, and ingenious aural as well as visual devices, Jacques Tati's movies have not been surpassed by those of any other postwar cinematic comic — French or otherwise."

Impressions of an Auteur, Tehran Today: Talking with Iranian Director Khosrow Sinai

by Michaël Abecassis

"This situation requires the filmmakers to be more creative in handling their mostly simple stories, which sometimes are so simple as to seem very modern and minimalistic."

Return of the Obsessed: James Toback Steps into the Ring Again with Tyson

by Damon Smith

"And then he said, 'It's like a Greek tragedy. The only problem is, I'm the subject.'"

Columns