#70 - The Last Temptation of Christ

We're really going to cram these in the next 4 weeks - my HOPE is to get to Tokyo Olympiad at #155 cause it's hard to find and it's on filmstruck - let's see what we can do in 30 days

#70 - I wasn't old enough to see this when it came out and as a good Christian kid I wouldn't have but I remember the controversy.    Seems so far away now -

The Last Temptation of Christ is a good film - it's not Orthodox, and neither was the book it's based on - right off the bat the movie tells you this isn't about the Gospels - but it's not a work by men without faith either - A good chunk of the story is a straight up condensation of the life of Jesus - I think Scorsese wanted to do a film about the Life of Jesus, and as the Wikipedia tells it, Barbara Hershey gave him a copy of Nikos Kazantzakis' novel, and the rest worked itself out.

Shot in Morocco on a shoestring budget and timeline, the film doesn't suffer from it much.  Peter Gabriel does the music, and like people have said, it's probably a better film than the Passion of the Christ, which although more orthodox, was a film that near the end relished in the brutality. 

There's a lot I could say about the faith here, but I'll just leave it as a good film

RB

#69 - The Testament of Orpheus

And we off!!!! - the final stretches before Filmstruck shuts down - well, ok - this one I had to get off Netflix.

This is Cocteau's final film and the capstone on a career of trying to make poetry out of film - Here the Director himself plays a poet wandering film sets, breaking down the 4th wall and being led/guided by characters from the film Orpheus, who he recognizes as characters from his film - so yah we're back in the surreal a bit, and according to an essay, he states that he wanted this to be a bookend to his Blood of a Poet film - he does well.

There is an essay on the DVD where he laments the expense of making film and how he hoped he could inspire others and that the walls to making a film could come down financially speaking - I guess in a way we've done that but it's interesting how the seem to be less creative but here in the 21st century with filming being more and more possible on digital, and the outlets for releasing a film are so much more varied - (hell put it on youtube) - it's kinda nice in a way to think that those walls have come down. 

We'll only see one more Cocteau film in the future - a collabaration but he did two or three othersout there - perhaps at some point we'll get those released as well - I'd be curious to see them

we're going to get a lot of films done in the next 4 weeks kids - hold on :)

Side Tangent - R.I.P. Filmstruck

I feel like I need to take a few moments here to lament on the loss of Filmstruck - a lot of people I follow in the community either worked there or had very close connections - it's a loss for all of us to not have this kind of cinema readily available - Netflix certainly won't be picking up the slack.

I obviously came for the Criterion, but got to enjoy many other good films around this time - in fact in the last month between updates, I knocked out the Sorrow and the Pity, Hitler's Hollywood, and had added a number of films from a Bengal director to my watchlist.  I almost got around to watching some of the WWII German films as well - (propaganda in repressive/totalitarian regimes is fascinating to me) -

Where am I going to find these films again?   God only knows - I suspect Turner/Warner will do some dogshit thing where it's broken down into 2-3 streaming services - I know Criterion has committed to putting it's Channel out there again somewhere soon - maybe back to Hulu?   (Listen up Hulu - I'd resubscribe) - but one thing is for certain, we've lost a great resource for classic films, and in a world where the modern blockbuster is about blowing up shit or robots, watching films like Orpheus is like finding hidden treasures - sadly they are treasures people don't look for - I live in perpetual fear the Criterion label will go out of business like indie music labels and we'll just be stuck with freaking Transformer/Marvel sequels for 30 more years.

anyways, just wanted to register my sadness and sorrow at losing a great resource - I guess it will be back to libraries and Netflix for most of my viewing but I'd really, really like to sign up for the next incarnation of the Criterion channel when it comes out and I hope quite a few of these other films make it as well

RB

#68 - Orpheus

And we're back! - (Wife is gone for a week after Nov 7th so expect a flurry - especially in light of the announcement that Filmstruck is shutting down - SOB!)

#68 was a much better experience for me than the last one - Orpheus isn't just a modern telling, but it's a re-imaging of the myth and an exploration of the art and immortality of poetry.   Jean Cocteau does his usual stellar job here of creating some magical film effects, and there's even a feature about that on this Blu-Ray/DVD/Stream

In this film, Orpheus is a modern day Elvis/Poet, who is enamored with a woman he meets at the site of a traffic accident, who actually turns out to be one of the incarnations of death - in this story, he is not merely going back for Eurydice, but for Death herself

The film is a great art-house film - there is one line that stuck out to me - at one point Orpheus says he is a poet - someone corrects him and says he's a writer - and Orpheus makes the remark that "A poet is a writer who doesn't write"  - In a sense, I think that's what Jean is also saying with film - it is poetry that isn't written - I'm looking forward to the 3rd and final film in the trilogy as a result of this powerful work, and that really says something about it's impact.  Cocteau is about poetry, and as discussed previously,

Jean Marais FEELS like an actor I should know - but his only other stint so far in the blog was Beauty and the Beast - he and Cocteau were very close, and he was in almost all his films - (close in more ways than one - according to IMDB they were lovers, but Marais was also married during some of those years) - He just has that rugged movie handsomeness. 

My last observation is that if the opening scenes at the Poet's Cafe in Paris don't make you want to find a time machine and go back to 1950's Bohemian Paris, you have no soul ;)

At this point I can kinda see why this one is still in print and readily available - I might find myself picking this up during the next flash sale at Barnes and Nobles.

up next - the final film in the trilogy

#67 - The Blood of A Poet

I call this entry - "The Blood of a Poet, or what the hell did I just watch?"

This is a surrealist sort of film, meant to provide images rather than a plot or narrative - this is a good movie to have a cliffs notes or wikipedia entry read BEFORE you watch

Of course, as the director points out Surrealism wasn't a thing in film when he did this - if there were 50's or 60's it might feel like a drugged out college director's debut but of course, Jean was a poet, and sought to create and make images out of the poet's struggles and lives

Might be worth a second watch at 55 minutes - an incredibly interesting snippet is that it was commissioned by a French Viscount who had a scene in it where he's in a balcony applauding, but when it was realized they were applauding over a gruesome scene filmed seperately, they forbid their footage and the balcony members were reshot with actors

a bit of a whacky film but no worries

RB

#66 - The Orphic Trilogy

So evidently, now the boxed set spines have a number and then the movies - So technically #66 is just the SPINE for this box set but my OCD won't have me skipping numbers - so I have an entry to talk about

Jean Cocteau was here before in film #6 - Beauty and the Beast - This series of three films are various takes on the story of Orpheus - (what now we'll have four in 68 films?) - The first and last films also bookend the film output of Jean, being his first and last film.  He was also a heck of a poet, writer, etc, but we're only doing films here, man - films...get with it

Not sure what I'm going to make of these but the first one is only 55 minutes so it should be doable

Most of this set is out of print - good ol' Netflix comes thru - even Filmstruck only has one of the three in it's library right now

#65 - Rushmore

#65 was probably added to the collection almost as soon as it was released (1998 release, 2000 addition) -

Amazingly, I never saw this when it came out till just now - I was more of a band and music guy in the late 90's - but this is an excellent film

Jason Schwartzman cements the lead role, with Bill Murray and Olivia Williams providing the three sides of the love triangle at a private Prep School where these three characters push and pull at each other with great amusement and dialogue.

I think what's most interesting about this film is there is a LOT to not like about Jason's character, Max Fischer.   Max is, for lack of a better word, probably today what we would call a serial harasser.  His attempts to woo Olivia's character, Rosemary, play out quite often in real life and end in restraining orders, toxic masculinity, and the like.  What the movie succeeds in doing is giving us just enough to root for him still, despite his obvious failings and arrogance. 

You never truly feel either his character or Bill's is a bad guy - just decent guys getting pulled into some bad behavior

Of course, Wes Anderson has a filming style all his own - you can almost identify one of his movies based on some of the little things he does in a film, like tone, music, and dialogue - I love that you can recognize a director's style by the kind of story and the way he films it and that he can make it a unique thing, instead of being an interchangeable cog in the machine.

Fun fact, he co-wrote this with Owen Wilson and Luke Wilson gets a small part - good for him - LOL