The Art of the Movie Poster: Lee Madden Memorial Edition

Operation Screenshot (Films of the 2000s): Martin Scorsese's The Departed (2006)

While I suspect that this might be one of the more unpopular choices of this series so far, I am actually extremely happy to include it. After being incredibly disappointed by Scorsese's films since Bringing Out The Dead, I had particularly looked forward to The Departed. However with my first viewing I only found it to be a partial return to form. Revisiting the film though has been a great treat and I now think it's his finest work since Casino and possibly The Age of Innocence. Complaints that Scorsese is revisiting themes he has explored time and time again don't ring true to me as I expect my favorite filmmakers to return to many of the same thematic and personal obsessions throughout their career. The Departed is a thrilling and hugely entertaining film, and and Martin Scorsese is one of the few American filmmakers who would place a film in my best of lists of the seventies, eighties, nineties and now this decade. God bless him...

Antonioni On Region 1 DVD

Antonioni is currently represented on DVD with a scattering a truly fine discs, a couple of decent ones and then a handful of very collectible out of print items. While most of his best films are represented, a couple of his most important are still unavailable.
Here is a brief guide for those interested. This is more of a look at the quality of the dvds and not the films themselves.
STORY OF A LOVE AFFAIR: (1950) This is the earliest work by Antonioni currently available and it is put out by the great No Shame dvd company. No Shame has been one of the most exciting companies to emerge in the past few years and this disc was most welcome, even if it is not among the maestro's best works. The print is a bit worn, which isn't surprising considering the age of the film, but NoShame have done a decent job with it. The most notable thing about this disc is the welcome second disc of extras that include an interview with cinematographer Guiseppe Rotuno, actress Lucia Bose and a handful of others connected to the film. Antonioni is himself seen at a touching modern screening of the film. No Shame's set is a valuable addition to anyone film lovers dvd library.

LE AMICHE (1955): This is another one of the few of his early films that is currently available. While not among his greatest works this film is well worth searching out even though the dvd is disappointing. While not the disaster of some of Image's dvds, the print offered here isn't anything spectacular but is reasonably clean and sharp. The disc's biggest drawback is that no extras are offered to put this film into any kind of historical perspective.

IL GRIDO (1957): This is one of his first truly great films which makes it all the more disappointing that Kino's bare bones disc is all that is currently available. The print used here is actually a little worse that LE AMICHE which makes this disc a real missed opportunity. Many of Antonioni's reoccurring themes really kick into gear with this film and it is an essential work.

L'AVVENTURA (1960): Arguably his first great masterpiece, although IL GRIDO could make that claim as well, L'AVVENTURA is available in a remarkable set from Criterion. The picture is miraculous looking for the most part with just some very minor damage and the extras are exhaustive. They include an informative commentary by Gene Youngblood and a William Arrowsmith essay on the first disc while an hour long documentary takes up most of the second disc. My favorite extra on Criterion's great set is Jack Nicholson reading some of the master's writings. Nicholson is very reverent and his unmistakable voice reading these is wonderful to hear. Criterion's double disc set is essential.

L'ECLISSE (1962): Criterion again presents another Antonioni masterpiece in a great two disc set that features an incredible looking print of the film including an authoritative commentary by Richard Pena on disc one while disc two contains the great Italian documentary THE EYE THAT CHANGED CINEMA. Also included on disc two is a fascinating interview with Antonioni friend Carlo di Carlo that really manages to give some real insight into the man. Like Criterion's L'AVVENTURA, their set of L'ECLISSE is highly recommended. I actually prefer L'ECLISSE to the more celebrated L'AVVENTURA with special mention going to both Alain Delon and Monica Vitti.

LA NOTTE (1963): Unfortunately Criterion didn't put out Antonioni's next feature, the striking LA NOTTE starring Marcello Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau. Fox Lorber's disc is terrible. The print hasn't been restored properly, it feels overly digitized at times and annoyingly shaky at others. No extras are included. One can only hope that Criterion eventually puts out this important film and gives it the kind of quality release it deserves.

RED DESERT (1964): How is it that one of the greatest films ever made is currently absent on dvd? Image's dvd , featuring a hazy and messy widescreen transfer, is a bare bones and very out of print affair that is currently going for up to $300.00 dollars on Amazon and Ebay. I love this film so much and treasure my Image disc even if it is a bit of a disaster. RED DESERT is one of the major must get re-released discs on the market.

BLOW-UP (1966): While Criterion had put this massively important film out on laser disc, Warner Home Video are responsible for this disappointing dvd. The picture quality is solid for the most part but the sound is a mess. This film is so dependant on it's sound design and Warner's disc is mixed way too low. I always have to crank my speakers when watching this disc and it is extremely irritating. Even more disappointing is the lack of extras, if ever a film demanded a good set of extra features it is BLOW-UP. The only supplement offered is a pointless commentary by critic Peter Brunette (who wrote the valuable book THE FILMS OF MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI) that I have still not managed to make it all the way through. Along with Richard Schickle's irritating ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA commentary, it is one of the most unlistenable I have ever heard. BLOW-UP is a hugely exciting film and it deserves an engaged and informative commentary, it's a shame that Brunette didn't deliver a better one. A Criterion set of this film would be a major release.

THE PASSENGER (1975): A fine and welcome release, Sony's dvd offers a beautifully restored print of one of the maestro's greatest works. More extras would have been welcome, I would love to see an interview with the miraculous Maria Schneider but the disc does offer two fine commentaries. The track by screenwriter Mark Peploe assisted by journalist Aurora Irvine is informative and entertaining but it is Jack Nicholson's track that is the real stunner. Not too many stars of Jack's stature would bother with a little European Art film they made over thirty years ago but it is obvious listening to this track that this is the film Jack is most proud of. His stories are fascinating, his love for Antonioni is infectious, and one gets the feeling he would go to the end of the earth for this film. It's one of my favorite commentaries of all time and it couldn't have been featured on a better film.

BEYOND THE CLOUDS (1995): Like RED DESERT, this dvd has slipped out of print and now fetches huge prices. Antonioni's erotic and undervalued late period film features Sophie Marceau and Irene Jacob among others. Image's hard to find dvd offers just a decent print of the film and the audio is strangely missing some of the voice over narration but it is notable in that it includes the great documentary TO MAKE A FILM IS TO BE ALIVE. This film, while not one of his greatest, is an extremely valuable addition to his filmography and is in need of a re-release.

EROS (2004): Antonioni's final film is a short in this flawed anthology film. His short is the best to my eyes and the disc also includes his remarkable short EYE TO EYE, which is even better than his main contribution to the film. The disc is fine even though outside of the extra short is bare bones.

This was just a listing of dvds that have been, or are currently available, in the United States. My apologies if I have overlooked any. Many more discs are available throughout Europe including box sets and a special edition of RED DESERT that I am dying to see. Hopefully soon we will see some more quality releases of his work as I am really holding out for Criterion to pick up LA NOTTE, RED DESERT and BLOW-UP.
The most notable absences right on DVD, outside of his early work in the fifties, are ZABRISKIE POINT (1970), the documentary CHINA (1972), THE MYSTERY OF OBERWALD (1981) and his last truly great film (although I love BEYOND THE CLOUDS) IDENTIFICATION OF A WOMAN (1982).
It is frankly ridiculous that a director of Antonioni's stature has so many holes with his filmography on the DVD market. With some luck that will hopefully begin to change very soon.

A New Career In A New Town

"I met a new me at 8 am, the other one got lost,
this was not a trade in, although I wouldn't believe the cost.
I woke up crying as we said goodbye,
me an my old self, each day he vanished more and more
as I became someone else."
-Lou Reed, Trade In-

"I am the passenger
I stay under glass
I look through my window so bright
I see the stars come out tonight
I see the bright and hollow sky."
-David Bowie, Iggy Pop, The Passenger-

When thinking about Antonioni's greatest film it is RED DESERT that typically pops into my mind. However I find as I am getting older it is his 1975 feature THE PASSENGER that I return to more and more.
I first saw THE PASSENGER just after I got my drivers licence when I was sixteen. There was an Evansville video store that had a small foreign section and it was here that I found Antonioni's masterpiece in one of those oversize clam shell boxes that was covered in dust. The cover shot of a beautifully bruised and tragic looking Jack Nicholson standing in a doorway was incredibly evocative and I have been sorry to not see it used more.

While I admired the film on that first viewing, I think I was perhaps too young to completely appreciate what it was that Nicholson's David Locke was running from. Add that on to the fact that that old full frame and faded VHS copy did everything it could to drain all the artistic life out of Michelangelo's film. Although I saw this film several times in this way throughout my teens and twenties, I didn't truly experience it until I saw it a couple of years back at a Louisville theater for it's re-release.
That theatrical experience was interesting. The theater was surprisingly crowded and there have only been a handful of films that I had ever been more excited to see. I have also never been more personally offended by a series of walk outs in a film, as there were a few. Seeing THE PASSENGER restored and on a big screen was for me a remarkable and hypnotic experience.
There were several things that jumped out at me that afternoon in the theater. The color of the sky in the opening shots of this film in indescribable and throughout the picture Luciano Tavoli's color photography is nearly too beautiful to look at. It literally was like seeing a different film than that old VHS copy. Another thing that stood out was Maria Schneider, the sometimes maligned LAST TANGO IN PARIS star is so effective in this picture as the girl who might be controlling much more than anyone can imagine. The shot of her standing in the car with her arms outstretched as the treetops envelope her from behind is one of the most remarkably composed shots of Antonioni's career, and Schneider looks like one of the great lost Art House icons of all time in it.

A few other thoughts I had were that Jack Nicholson, easily one of the greatest American actors, has never been better in a role. There is such an intensity to his performance in this film and I can think of very few American stars who would have been willing to play a role like this, and even less who could have done it so beautifully.
The final thought I had about the film, and it came to me shortly after the astonishing seven minute long one shot take that still baffles me even though I have heard it explained. The thought was this, that THE PASSENGER was the closing chapter to the great European Art House movement. That's not to suggest that there haven't been other art house films, or films as a completely pure and sacred art form (Kieslowski's THREE COLORS TRILOGY certainly springs to mind) but after 1975 things did surely change. Much like RAGING BULL and BLOW-OUT feel like the furious last gasps of the American film movement of the Seventies, then indeed THE PASSENGER seems like a hypnotic coda to a remarkable period when it wasn't just possible to make a film like this but also a time when anyone would bother.
The only other time I can remember being so hypnotized by a theatrical experience was when I saw the restored print of Peter Weir's PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK in the mid nineties. Coming out of the theater that afternoon the sun felt positively blinding and I was so wiped out emotionally that Islept for what felt like hours when I got home that afternoon.
I think it wasn't just Michelangelo's remarkable direction of THE PASSENGER that got me so much but it was a real personal connection to the lost David Locke. In the past decade I have felt more and more like that character, who wants nothing more than not only a new life but the ability to erase his old one (or as David Bowie would put it two years after this film, "A New Career In A New Town). Antonioni finally suggests that perhaps finding this way out, this trade in, might not be all its made out to be. Maybe we are all in our own way looking for a our own personal trade in but sometimes just going along for life's ride is the only way out. I don't know, I find it difficult to express my emotions about David Locke and Antonioni's film, all I know is that there are few films that have spoken to me more about the increasingly disconnected nature of my life that this one.
THE PASSENGER might not ever be held in the same esteem as the trilogy of black and white films Antonioni shot in the early sixties but I suspect it will continue to grow in prestige. It is a remarkable film that is, much like the man who made it, truly timeless.

My Look At Henry Jaglom's 'A Safe Place" At Amplifier

My second article from my new online column at Amplifier has just been posted if anyone would like to come by and give it a read. It's a bit longer and more of a personal selection than my first. I have been meaning to post more on the career of Tuesday Weld here but this new column seemed to be a perfect time to take a look at one of her more elusive films, Henry Jaglom's debut work, A SAFE PACE from 1971. Comments are appreciated over there by me, as well as my editor so I invite anyone curious to take a look and leave a note.
Here is the link:

http://www.bgdailynews.com/articles/2007/08/24/the_amplifier/stage_and_screen/9977undervalued-a_safe_place.txt

Amplifier Article #2: Henry Jaglom's A Safe Place

The original version of this article can be found at this link. This is my slightly revamped version for Moon In The Gutter.

"A SAFE PLACE is an important milestone in the art from of the motion picture."
-THE FREE PRESS, 1971-

"Tuesday Weld changed the whole way I did films, she taught me to be true to myself."
-HENRY JAGLOM-

"I may be self destructive, but I like taking chances with movies. I like challenges and I also like the particular position I've been in all these years, with people wanting to save me from all the awful films I've been in. I'm happy being a legend. I think the Tuesday Weld cult is a very nice thing."
-TUESDAY WELD on the eve of filming A SAFE PLACE-

"A SAFE PLACE is an essay on time and memory."
-HENRY JAGLOM-

"The part was written for me and about me. I'm really that girl, Noah, except that I don't want to go anywhere near my past. I would like to develop amnesia about it...I feel misplaced everywhere."
-TUESDAY WELD-

The unexpected success of Dennis Hopper’s low budget EASY RIDER threw a major monkey wrench into an already struggling studio system machine in 1969. Suddenly, baffled movie executives desperately began searching for young talent to come in and create their own counter-culture success, in order to flip the bill for such big budget disasters like PAINT YOUR WAGON.
The two years following EASY RIDER is one of the most audacious and uncompromising periods in Hollywood history. Never before had so many young filmmakers been given Cart blanch in the Studio system. Films like Jack Nicholson’s DRIVE HE SAID, Peter Fonda’s THE HIRED HAND and Hopper’s own THE LAST MOVIE would have been unthinkable just a few years before, but Hollywood was in trouble. The studio heads knew it, and blank checks were being handed out to anyone with a vision.

No one had more of an uncompromising vision than 29-year-old actor and writer Henry Jaglom in 1970. British born and mainly known as a TV actor, Jaglom had struck up friendships with Hopper, Fonda and Nicholson in the sixties and had appeared in EASY RIDER with the three of them. On Hopper’s recommendation Columbia Pictures gave the go ahead to Jaglom’s first feature, A SAFE PLACE ( a work originally written as a stage play), in the hopes that it would find the same sort of massive success Hopper's film had secured.

Despite the studios bafflement at the young Jaglom’s ideas about making a film dealing with childhood as a mystical place of magic and memories; they were thrilled when he quickly secured not only friend Jack Nicholson for the film but also legendary Orson Welles as well. The key to the film though lay in the casting of the female lead who would be known at different points as Susan and Noah.
Tuesday Weld was already something of an underground legend by 1970. Thought by many to be the greatest actress of her generation, the intense Weld seemed to take great delight in continually sabotaging her career, and by 1969 had turned down everything from BONNIE AND CLYDE to ROSEMARY'S BABY. After finishing up work on John Frankenheimer’s underrated WALK THE LINE in 1970, Henry Jaglom offered Weld the complicated lead role in his film. She quickly signed on for it and set into motion one of the most baffling and moving performances in American film history.
With his cast in place and MIDNIGHT COWBOY camera operator Richard C. Kratina along for the ride, Jaglom began shooting his partially scripted, largely improvised first feature in early 1971.

Any attempt at detailing the plot of A SAFE PLACE is futile at best. Think of a special childhood memory that is so vague that you can’t be sure if it actually happened, and you might get a feeling of how A SAFE PLACE feels. Unlike Hopper, Fonda and Nicholson, Jaglom didn’t seem to be a filmmaker concerned with the day’s politics or the youth movement, which he seemed to accept as only an idealistic gesture destined to fail. His film, scored mostly with songs from his youth in the place of the expected popular music that had helped sell EASY RIDER, was a strange and at times deliberately absurd valentine to childhood slipping away.

A SAFE PLACE feels authentically dreamlike and, viewing it today, it also feels very much like a film divided between two ideals. Tuesday Weld’s Susan/Noah is a woman literally split between becoming the person the blossoming women’s movement was asking her to be, and the child she wanted to hold onto so tightly. Nicholson, who later said he improvised his whole part, as an old free-spirited boyfriend, and Welles, as a wise old magician, seem to be the two catalysts pulling Weld in these very different directions. There are other characters that randomly wander in and out of the thin storyline, but it all centers on Weld’s struggle with her identity, a struggle that many young women were going through in 1971.

Welles and Nicholson are both fine in the film. Welles is certainly featured a lot more, and he floats in and out of the film like some wise old ghost with the ability to see just past where everyone else’s vision stops. His scenes with Weld are some of the most effective of his later career, and the monumental Welles surely must have felt some kinship with the idea frenzied Jaglom. Welles unfortunately remained mostly silent on the film in later years though, so it is hard to accurately know exactly what he was feeling.

Tuesday Weld is simply astonishing in the film, and very strange. Perhaps only Marlon Brando in Bertolucci’s LAST TANGO IN PARIS would seemingly give so much of his own memories and inner turmoil to a role. Weld invests her fragmenting character with a mystifying childlike intensity that is hypnotic at times, and extremely troubling at others. No other American actress could have played a role like this, and seemed anything other than ridiculous. Tuesday Weld is very much all of our lost childhoods in this film, and the work's final haunting disappearing act is a total triumph, even if it is one of the puzzling endings in all of American cinema.

Henry Jaglom confidently delivered A SAFE PLACE to Columbia studios in the summer of 1971, and it completely alienated and baffled the studio’s executives. With no idea what to do with the film, the Studio decided to take a chance and premiere it at the New York Film Festival in October of 1971. The film received such a divided and hostile reaction that screaming matches were said to have broken out in theatre between people who thought it was nonsense, and those proclaimed it a masterpiece.
The film had some brief European showings, and it received a handful of rave reviews in Paris and Britain and then, much like its lead character, it totally disappeared.
The film was pulled from circulation from Columbia and outside of a handful of Festivals, private screenings and gray market copies; A SAFE PLACE has virtually vanished.
By 1972 the Studios started to get a handle on the new Hollywood, and many of the periods most maverick artists would find their original works harder and harder to get made. Few directors were hit as hard as Henry Jaglom, and it would be five years before he was able to get another project off the ground, with the intense TRACKS crash landing in 1976. He has managed to get more than a dozen made since, but they have all been hard fights and he has never again been backed by a major studio again.
Jack Nicholson would of course go in to become one of the most respected actors and stars in the business, and he has thankfully still never completely let go the ghost of his independent days. Ironically his brave and brilliant 1971 directorial debut DRIVE HE SAID remains just as hard to see as A SAFE PLACE.
Tuesday Weld would have just one more leading role, that of the fragmented and destroyed Maria in Frank Perry’s masterful 1972 film PLAY IT AS IT LAYS, and has spent the rest of her career playing supporting roles in films almost exclusively not good enough for her. She remains one of Hollywood’s best kept secrets, the sad and complicated sex kitten who turned out to be the best actress of her generation , even if very few realized it.

The stage version of A SAFE PLACE is still occasionally performed, but the film remains one of Hollywood’s most hidden treasures. It is a near lost reminder of when, for a very brief shining time, the movie business was almost took over by authentic, and very sincere, visionaries; mavericks controlled by their imaginations and not a company’s pocketbook. A film like A SAFE PLACE should be being celebrated and not lying dormant in a studio vault somewhere.

For more on Tuesday Weld, I highly recommend the out of print PRETTY POISON: THE TUESDAY WELD STORY by Floyd Conner. The quotes at the beginning of this piece are taken from it.

Operation Screenshot (Films of the Sixties) Richard Rush's Psych-Out (1968)