Full Metal Boxes

I was musing yesterday about how Jon Ronson's article on being allowed access to Stanley Kubrick's estate after his death would make a good basis for a film, and actually Ronson did turn it into a documentary in 2008 called Stanley Kubrick's Boxes. Here's a clip about how he found some old film cans in a stable that turned out to be eighteen hours of footage Kubrick's daughter shot on the set of Full Metal Jacket. We then see some of this footage, arguing over tea breaks, setting up and filming scenes, moments picked I think to show Kubrick as calm, practical and amused, in order to counteract the claim he was becoming increasingly unhinged at this time. Although, personally, I'd like to believe he really did eat all three courses of his dinner simultaneously in the manner of Napoleon.

Operation Snafu

Been suffering one of my occassional non-verbal phases, a writer's block that gets worse as new ideas pile up on top of already unfinished or unstarted ones. As befits an epic dumb-show of this nature, I've taken to the visual therapy of Tumblr to keep sanity and momentum going. Anyway, in order to try getting out of this snafu, I've decided to do a ragbag post of recent film-related stuff.



Firstly there's this excellent article from 2004 by Jon Ronson called Citizen Kubrick about how he was invited to Stanley Kubrick's estate after his death and allowed roam through his archive of boxes. It's fascinating, makes you wish it was still there so you could go too. There's also a sense, as the Citizen Kane reference implies, that there's more here than simply a newspaper article; there's a short story, novel or film asking to be made, an exploration of a man's life, of cinema and obsession, through the immaculately-catalogued debris of his life. A kind of Krapp's Last Tape, maybe, except with boxes, personally designed, with easy-to-remove tops.



Another insight into a master director's work came from Jeff Desom, who atomised Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window and then put it back together as a panoromic view of the film's famous courtyard. Originally a 20-minute loop, here it's been condensed into a three-minute timelapse. For an explanation of how it was made go here and for an interview with its maker here.



Sometimes not living in a city sucks, especially when it comes to film screenings. Like, for instance, London's Future Cinema, who are showing an interactive screening of Bugsy Malone where the audience get to dress up as gangsters and flappers in a mock-up of the film's Prohibition speakeasy, Fat Sam's, with the whole thing ending in a real custard pie fight. Looks like great fun.

Classic Scene #35

Arguably the greatest opening scene of any film, Squadron Leader Peter Carter (David Niven) redefines gentlemanly bravery in the face of impending death in Powell and Pressburger's A Matter of Life and Death. It's a little movie unto itself. Carter is heartbreaking, facing his fate with stoic good humour, quoting Walter Raleigh's The Pilgrimage and Andrew Marvell's To his Coy Mistress. He's an ideal of a certain kind of Englishness, of gentlemanly values, a chivalric echo. Throughout the war years in films like A Canterbury Tale and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Powell was preoccupied with this English tradition, and here he gives us it's epitome in Peter Carter. Niven is fantastic but let's not underestimate what Kim Hunter brings to the scene. Her reactions are just as important to the connection they make. She provides American vitality and youth, the grave empathy of her peaches and cream complexion and not incidentally, all the information Peter needs to dream the rest of the film. And finally there's the technicolour which is like no other, a gorgeous burnished glow that's like life itself as seen for the last time.

Hitchcock/Truffaut

Over twenty-five years ago (don't want to think too much about how long ago that was) a friend of mine went to America on holiday, still a reasonably exotic thing to do in those days, the mid 1980s. When he returned I called to his house to hear all about it and discovered that he'd brought me back a present, a book, this book.



Truffaut had died in October 1984 so looking back now it was probably why the book was in the shops and caught his attention. I have to admit I had no idea Truffaut was dead. I was still in the early days of my film education and huge swaths of cinema were a mystery to me (not to mention what it was like to live in a cultural backwater with no internet or anything else to keep you up to speed with things like the deaths of European film directors.) Hitchcock, on the other hand, was already an obsession. I still have the book and dip into it every now and again. Here is a clip from a interview Truffaut did in April 1984, his last TV appearance, on the show Apostrophe, in which he discusses the book and Hitchcock in general with host Bernard Pivot and fellow guest Roman Polanski.

Classic Scene #34

Marilyn Monroe performs One Silver Dollar from River of No Return. What a fantastic singer she was. I don't mean her voice as such, although it was fine, but her immersion in a song's meaning and emotion. It's where her acting is at its finest. While she was a peerless light comedian, her serious acting could be clunky at times (although by no means always) but just watch her sing. 'Love is a shining dollar/Bright as a church bell's chime/Gambled and spent and wasted/And lost in a dawn of time'. You feel she understands this song completely. Even the camera cutting away to follow Mitchum through the crowd can't break the spell.

Alternative Universe Films

Just came across this. Someone wondered what stars of yesteryear would be cast in todays films (and who would direct them) and decided to create posters for these films. It's very good. The casting is spot on. Warren Oates as Jesus in Lebowski made me shout yes! at the computer. How about Trainspotting by Godard? Or Rushmore as a Nicholas Ray film with James Dean, James Stewart and Audrey Hepburn. Fritz Lang's 2001 anyone? It's inspired. Honestly, I would kill to see some of these Movies from An Alternative Universe.

Classic Scene #33

My Christmas morning consisted of taking toys out of elaborate packaging and assembling them for impatient, over-excited children, all the while wondering if it's too early to have my first drink of the day (it was, sadly). So I can only look on with frazzled envy at the Christmas morning of Nick and Nora Charles in The Thin Man. No one was unwise enough to get me a pellet gun and my wife isn't independently rich enough to buy herself expensive presents because I can't be bothered, but that's not really what appeals about this scene. It's the wryly bemused expression on Nora's face as Nick takes aim at the Christmas tree, and the studiously ridiculous poses he takes up. He's being childish but also entertaining her. That's his whole schtick, keeping this wonderful woman amused. Their life is a neverending playtime with responsibility for nothing more taxing than a cute dog and maybe the occassional murder to solve in between martinis and wisecracks. The perfect marriage then, but also the carefree boredom of the idle rich, never so charmingly portrayed. May we all maintain a small amount of their blithe spirit over the Christmas holidays. (Now, where's that Nerf gun...)