This Week...#4 (5th December to 7th December 2012)

From http://s3.amazonaws.com/auteurs_production/images/film/sherlock-holmes-and-the-spider-woman/w448/sherlock-holmes-and-the-spider-woman.jpg?1324291913

5^th December 2012: Sherlock Holmes and The Spider Woman (Roy William Neill, 1944)

Sherlock Holmes investigates a series of so-called "pajama suicides". He knows the female villain behind them is as cunning as Moriarty and as venomous as a spider. (IMDB)

I’ve seen a couple of these now, and while they do not really stick in my mind, I wouldn’t mind seeing all the films in this 40s series of short length adaptations of the Sherlock Holmes character. This film feels weaker than the others, its mixing of different stories and plot twists creating a sense of ridiculousness to the film, but at the same making it feel erratic in nature and liable to fall into drops in quality during certain scenes. Basil Rathbone as Holmes does a tremendous job even in this film, and I can’t help but think there will be people out there who (understandably) view him as the best actor who played this character. I cannot say the same for Nigel Bruce as Doctor Watson, in all the films I’ve seen hung out to dry by a really irritating decision to make the character a bumbling old man; he gets a moment to help Holmes in this film thankfully, but it really comes off as a terrible idea for portraying this very famous literary character, especially when the jokes fall flat most of the time.

From http://indieethos.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/film-socialisme-still-2-image-courtesy-of-wild-bunch.jpeg

6^th December 2012: Film Socialisme (Jean-Luc Godard, 2010) & Film Socialisme (Jean-Luc Godard, 2010)

A symphony in three movements. Things such as a Mediterranean cruise, numerous conversations, in numerous languages, between the passengers, almost all of whom are on holiday... Our Europe. At night, a sister and her younger brother have summoned their parents to appear before the court of their childhood. The children demand serious explanations of the themes of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Our humanities. Visits to six sites of true or false myths: Egypt, Palestine, Odessa, Hellas, Naples and Barcelona. (IMDB)

What does it mean, what does it mean? What I had to learn, so I could go from viewing Godard as an overrated director to a great one I admire, is that he is probably one of the greatest practitioners of improvisation in filmmaking and that, especially in his later years after Week End (1967), the sense of being overwhelmed  by his work is clearly on purpose, where even what you think is a problem with the actual DVD is actually Godard playing with the audio and pace of the film to pull you out of your comfort zone and make the disparity noticeable. First segment of the film is quite obvious in theme, Europe represented by a cruise ship where nothing has been learnt from an entire century of war, where a casino can look like a church and, thanks to a rough camera phone recording, a disco sounds like a bombing raid is taking place. The third part (possibly a fourth within it too) is continuing his essay work with Historie(s) du Cinema but tackling on global issues such as the state of Greece fully, and emphasising the idea, as in all the parts of the film, of how it’s up to the youth of the current era to improve the world around them. The second half is a bit more difficult to fully grasp as it continues Godard’s habit of not sign-posting clear ideas in his dramas and forcing the viewer to think for themselves. Even without the infamous Navajo English subtitles, where he only keeps choices words and makes them almost into abstract poetry, and viewed with a full translation of the dialogue, his mix of musings coming from the characters mouths actually can hide and distract the viewer from thinking of the ideas clearly hidden underneath the dialogue. It is a very free flowing film, certainly not for everyone, but one wonders if some critics, especially British critic Mark Kermode who viewed it as the worst thing at that year’s Cannes Film Festival in 2010, were actually willing to be patient with the film before criticising it or, to be crass but blunt, couldn’t be arsed to do so going into that first premier of the film.

This criticism came apparent with the Navajo subtitles which got their infamy from the anger many English film critics threw at them, Kermode himself believing that Godard was purposely trying to alienate English speakers from the film. Godard has major issues with the dominance of the English language, if you research interviews and quotations of him online, but the Navajo subtitles are actually far more accessible, especially compared to the content of the film, than one would believe. Yes, large subplots and tangents of impossible to catch unless you are bilingual, but there are other moments where the connections and connotations I made with the words kept in the subtitles were the exact, if not close to the same, as that of the full translation of the dialogue and onscreen text, watching the Navajo English than full translated version of the film one after the other. A third hybrid of both versions would be interesting to see; the full translation of some parts of the film is incredibly useful, but the Navajo English subtitles are for the most part far superior. Godard effectively cuts out the incidental words needed to make up sentences, and some pointless pieces that do knock the film down a little in quality, and almost makes a rudimentary system to allow English speakers to watch foreign films into an elaborate E.E Cummings poem. This is the same with the film itself, the melding of various different styles of image – cameras on phones, video, the blisteringly, beautiful colours of an electronic paintbox effect, even YouTube with a hilarious joke about two cats seemingly being able to communicate –put into a vast collage with various choices of music with manipulation of both aspects throughout the running time. It does feel like the creation of a young, first time director, flawed but effortlessly creative and full of ideas of depth, which made by a veteran director in his eighties is an intellectual spectacle that is incredible to see.

From https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGrNnu00OASiXdMjA8zxbM6MJS9BRBpejs5Ah-jXrXLurkXRJ1HPMGyCJWgdMk_vciPHOgGcygzu5AlmWGVc_YFsx0YjvYUsxJJ59iboMvZpr0nUCPVC0WvAcNs-Rs8COPGjg7H2yJHes/s1600/MARDIGRASMASSACRE-000.png

7^th December 2012: Mardi Gras Massacre (Jack Weis, 1978)

Police try to capture someone who is commiting ritual murders of women during Mardi Gras in New Orleans. (IMDB)

Pretty dreadful film from the Video Nasties list, its main problem is that it has a complete aversion to its killer plot. Instead it pads out its own length with a subplot between the main cop character and a prostitute that never goes anywhere, and long drawn out scenes around the locations or dialogue exposition that means very little to what you watch. It could have worked in an anti-narrative sort of way unintentionally, if it wasn’t for the fact that you can feel that few people in front of or behind the camera have any idea how to push the film onwards. One person who thankfully did get some inkling of what he should do is William Metzo as John the killer. It’s not just that he goes into bars asking what women are ‘evil’ or pronounces even his orders to a Chinese takeaway on the phone in a sinister voice, but that as the following dialogue is spoken he also includes an elaborately long pause involving a head moment to the right of the screen....

“This is 6-20 Madison Street, apartment four. I would like you to deliver an order of shrimp rolls, lobster Cantonese, Char Siu Din.................... [Long Pause to look off screen]....................and a fortune cookie.”

This is also one of those films that no matter how tedious it can get it is partly saved by having a legitimately great soundtrack of disco and funk music, cutting through the tedium of certain scenes including those Metzo isn’t involved in.