It's almost Easter. It makes sense, then, to watch a Jesus film or two—preferably one that is not Passion of the Christ. Also, I included some films that are vaguely inspired by Jesus but aren't necessarily Jesus films.
Nazarin (dir. Luis Bunuel, 1958)--see my review
The Gospel According to Matthew (dir. Pier Paulo Pasolini, 1964)
Life of Brian (dir. Terry Jones, 1979)
The Last Temptation of Christ (dir. Martin Scorsese, 1988)--the book is better
Jesus of Montreal (dir. Denys Arkand, 1989)
Son of Man (dir. Mark Dornford May, 2005)
One I haven't seen yet but would be greatly interested in seeing is The Messiah (dir. Nader Talibsadeh, 2008), an Iranian film that narrates his life from the Islamic perspective.
April 20, 2011
April 15, 2011
April 12, 2011
Film review: Nazarin
Nazarin (dir. Luis Bunuel, 1958). Bunuel's best film, like most of Bunuel's films, is a skillful and satirical examination of religion and relationships of power. In Nazarin, a virtuous priest is subjected to a series of torments obviously meant to mirror the life of Christ. But for Bunuel the atheist, the most unbelievable miracle in the Gospel narratives is that people actually listened and were changed by the words and deeds of Christ. His film imagines a world where the petty squabbles and self-absorption of human beings wholly prevent an authentic spiritual epiphany, and where Jesus' last moments—wracked by doubt and anxiety—take on a subverted but still profound significance for contemporary human experience. The narrative is oddly choppy in places, but Bunuel successfully communicates his critique. A
April 7, 2011
After the Thin Man: A Play
After the Thin Man
Characters in the Play
A
B
SCENE: A and B are seated at a couch. The TV is on and A is flipping channels. The play opens with them in mid conversation.
A: Ian McKellan isn't that funny either.
B: He's entertaining. You would invite him to a dinner party.
A: Yeah, but he might bring one of his “friends” with him. [A attempts to do air quotes, but this is difficult since one hand is already engaged in flipping channels.] It's hard to do air quotes with just one free hand.
B [ignoring A's homophobia, which probably masks a wide array of neuroses]: So use both hands then.
A: After the Thin Man is on. [He settles on this channel and sets down the remote.]
B: You'll do air quotes with both hands after The Thin Man is over?
A: What?
B: You said you'd do air quotes after The Thin Man is on.
A: After the Thin Man, the sequel.
B: They're playing the sequel to The Thin Man after they play The Thin Man? Like a double feature? What's the sequel called?
A: After the Thin Man IS the sequel.
B: You just said that. But what's the sequel called?
A: The sequel to After the Thin Man is Another Thin Man.
B: I know it's another Thin Man movie, but what's it called?
A: What?
B: So you'll do air quotes after the sequel to The Thin Man is on...?
[Beat.]
A: What?
CURTAIN
Characters in the Play
A
B
SCENE: A and B are seated at a couch. The TV is on and A is flipping channels. The play opens with them in mid conversation.
A: Ian McKellan isn't that funny either.
B: He's entertaining. You would invite him to a dinner party.
A: Yeah, but he might bring one of his “friends” with him. [A attempts to do air quotes, but this is difficult since one hand is already engaged in flipping channels.] It's hard to do air quotes with just one free hand.
B [ignoring A's homophobia, which probably masks a wide array of neuroses]: So use both hands then.
A: After the Thin Man is on. [He settles on this channel and sets down the remote.]
B: You'll do air quotes with both hands after The Thin Man is over?
A: What?
B: You said you'd do air quotes after The Thin Man is on.
A: After the Thin Man, the sequel.
B: They're playing the sequel to The Thin Man after they play The Thin Man? Like a double feature? What's the sequel called?
A: After the Thin Man IS the sequel.
B: You just said that. But what's the sequel called?
A: The sequel to After the Thin Man is Another Thin Man.
B: I know it's another Thin Man movie, but what's it called?
A: What?
B: So you'll do air quotes after the sequel to The Thin Man is on...?
[Beat.]
A: What?
CURTAIN
April 4, 2011
Film review: The Circus
The Circus (dir. Charles Chaplin, 1928). In what is possibly Chaplin's most pleasant feature film, the Tramp accidentally becomes the main attraction of a floundering circus (though for most of the film he is not cognizant of this); sight gags, sentimentality, and spider monkeys ensue. Though Chaplin's films lack the imagination and intelligence of the work of Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, he remains more popular than them both because of his willingness to submerge his films in pathos. He attempts to emphasize every frustrated expression, every kind gesture, every longing glance as if it were the focal point of the film, and in doing so, he uses his films as tools to draw his audience into a shared emotional experience—they establish an immutable empathic bond between reel and real life. This bond became problematic in his later films, where Chaplin's use of pathos in social commentary slips sometimes into emotional fascism (social commentary should appeal foremost to the intellect rather than preying upon the emotions; see The Great Dictator), but The Circus works because of its much more modest goals. A
March 30, 2011
Film review: Killer of Sheep
Killer of Sheep (dir. Charles Burnett, 1977). Killer of Sheep offers a non-narrative approach that allows Burnett to express a community's internal dialectic and their complicated relationship to the external world—two processes that define the individual and collective experience of the community. As an historical document, it relates essential details of black life in 20th century America as cuttingly precise and intense as the work of masters like Ralph Ellison and Ishmael Reed; as a work of cinematic art, it is a frightening portrait of conditioning with currents of hope. Originally filmed as Burnett's film school dissertation in 1977, it remained sadly unseen but heavily mythologized until some boring soundtrack-related legal considerations were worked out about 30 years later. A
March 18, 2011
Caroline/Coraline: A Play
Cast of Characters:
Nondescript Guy
Indistinctive Fellow
Scene: A featureless room at an indeterminate time.
Guy: Is Caroline that good?
Fellow: CO-raline.
Guy: Hah?
Fellow: It's pronounced “Coraline,” not “Caroline.” “Caroline” would be like the Neil Diamond song.
Guy: As opposed to a stop motion movie by Henry Selick.
Fellow: Based on a children's book written by Neil Gaiman.
Guy: OK.
[Rest.]
Fellow [epiphanic]: Ooh! Coraline/Caroline / Diamond/Gaiman. There's definitely the opportunity for a double joke in there.
Guy: Yeah, but that kind of homophonic humor seems really difficult to set up.
Fellow [calming]: Yeah. It's so situational that someone not involved in this conversation could never understand.
Guy: It could end with someone just saying “I said 'Neil Gaiman'.”
Fellow: Maybe the joke should be two people talking about how to set up the joke.
Guy: You should write it into a play, like you did with the Pythagoras thing.
Fellow: Yeah...
Guy: One guy would just become obsessed with the line “I said 'Neil Gaiman'” while the other guy kept trying to piece together the joke. And then the stage would fade to black--
Fellow: And from the darkness, a voice would say--
Guy: “I said 'Neil Gaiman'.”
Fellow: It could work.
[Rest.]
Guy [remembering]: So is Coraline any good?
Fellow: It's pretty good. Best animated film of...2009?
Guy: I should watch it then.
Fellow: Yes, you should.
[The lights fade to black.]
Guy: I said “Neil Gaiman.”
END
[NOTE: Imagine my disappointment later when I found out that Neil Gaiman's name is pronounced “Geigh-man” instead of “Guy-man.” So close...]
Nondescript Guy
Indistinctive Fellow
Scene: A featureless room at an indeterminate time.
Guy: Is Caroline that good?
Fellow: CO-raline.
Guy: Hah?
Fellow: It's pronounced “Coraline,” not “Caroline.” “Caroline” would be like the Neil Diamond song.
Guy: As opposed to a stop motion movie by Henry Selick.
Fellow: Based on a children's book written by Neil Gaiman.
Guy: OK.
[Rest.]
Fellow [epiphanic]: Ooh! Coraline/Caroline / Diamond/Gaiman. There's definitely the opportunity for a double joke in there.
Guy: Yeah, but that kind of homophonic humor seems really difficult to set up.
Fellow [calming]: Yeah. It's so situational that someone not involved in this conversation could never understand.
Guy: It could end with someone just saying “I said 'Neil Gaiman'.”
Fellow: Maybe the joke should be two people talking about how to set up the joke.
Guy: You should write it into a play, like you did with the Pythagoras thing.
Fellow: Yeah...
Guy: One guy would just become obsessed with the line “I said 'Neil Gaiman'” while the other guy kept trying to piece together the joke. And then the stage would fade to black--
Fellow: And from the darkness, a voice would say--
Guy: “I said 'Neil Gaiman'.”
Fellow: It could work.
[Rest.]
Guy [remembering]: So is Coraline any good?
Fellow: It's pretty good. Best animated film of...2009?
Guy: I should watch it then.
Fellow: Yes, you should.
[The lights fade to black.]
Guy: I said “Neil Gaiman.”
END
[NOTE: Imagine my disappointment later when I found out that Neil Gaiman's name is pronounced “Geigh-man” instead of “Guy-man.” So close...]
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