tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post8902669328935661937..comments2023-12-18T23:20:31.042-06:00Comments on Scriblerus Club: Hitchcock/Truffaut (2015).PrisonerNumber6http://www.blogger.com/profile/03156430802462353459noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post-8074391778891542662019-07-08T07:28:00.608-05:002019-07-08T07:28:00.608-05:00I have one of those DVD sets with like 25-30 of Hi...I have one of those DVD sets with like 25-30 of Hitchcock's older films. I don't know if I ever watched any of them. SABOTAGE is on there, I dig that one. I have both versions of THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH. I prefer the Lorre one, actually, although the music is of course greater in the 50s version. (Like he tells Truffaut in that book, the first is the work of a talented amateur while the second is the work of a professional. True, but I think there's an energy to the first that's missing from the second, or perhaps it's just the aw-shucks-ness of Stewart/Day hasn't aged as well as Lorre's film-noir-ness.) This is by no means a dis of the 50s version; pretty much every Hitchcock except for DIAL M FOR MURDER / FAMILY PLOT is awesome. And even those might be; it's been awhile and I'm due a re-eval.B McMolohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02706178983936146307noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post-79450170837856560912019-07-08T07:24:43.735-05:002019-07-08T07:24:43.735-05:00Let's hope so, for all our sakes, re: your las...Let's hope so, for all our sakes, re: your last point!B McMolohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02706178983936146307noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post-16244953940492802532019-07-08T03:11:15.910-05:002019-07-08T03:11:15.910-05:00(7) You're right about the slight deviation on...(7) You're right about the slight deviation on several levels. The first is that this is really sort of a refurbishing of an old article that I wrote a few years back. In some ways, all I've done is take it and expand upon it.<br /><br />All I've added are further reflections on snippets of discussion from the T/H recordings which were shown/heard in the documentary. So in that sense, it was the directors themselves who pretty much determined where I had to go in terms of making an article into a blog post. They would lay down a subject (Suspense, Guilt, Dreams) I just had to follow.<br /><br />The one time I veered off was to look at Hitch's as a Horror director. Other than that, everything else aside from the rumination of the intro, are taken from the documentary.<br /><br />(1)(8)(9)(10) There is at least a bit light at the end of this particular tunnel, of a sort, anyway.<br /><br />I think we've reached a point as a society where in order to move forward a lot of people are going to have to knuckle down and really try to engage with a lot of the lessons of the past if they want to have a future.<br /><br />It seems like a lesson we've had to learn the hard way, yet I can't say it will have been all that bad if people one day start to pick up the ball on topics like this.<br /><br />With any luck, this can mean the re-discovery of people like Wouk and films like "Tokyo Story". It's one idea, anyway.<br /><br />ChrisCPrisonerNumber6https://www.blogger.com/profile/03156430802462353459noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post-27588429271920673512019-07-08T02:55:02.564-05:002019-07-08T02:55:02.564-05:00(2)(3)(4)(5) I can recall this one indie-video sto...(2)(3)(4)(5) I can recall this one indie-video store from way back in the late 80s and all of the 90s, "Audio/Video Plus". They were one of those dedicated types, the kind that kept documentaries and schlock films on their shelves that were so obscure no one had even heard of them.<br /><br />I remember they even had old beta tapes ('member those?) of the original first season of SNL, including the very first episode featuring George Carlin as the host. Also, I could be wrong when I say they may have had a copy of "A Hard Day's Night". Probably they never did, that never seems to have been released until just a few years ago. Still, they did have a making-of documentary of the Fab Four's first film (try sayin' it three times fast!), along with a genuine, musty, VHS copy of "Yellow Submarine". It's also where I was introduced to the original 60s "Outer Limits".<br /><br />Which of Hitch's old films did you find? Was any of them the Peter Lorre version of "The Man who Knew Too Much"? I bought a Criterion copy of that film just recently. While I have to admit I prefer the Jimmy Stewart version, the older one is still good, for all that. <br /><br />ChrisCPrisonerNumber6https://www.blogger.com/profile/03156430802462353459noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post-58245810389160199062019-07-07T17:55:20.466-05:002019-07-07T17:55:20.466-05:00(6) Anyway, this TRUFFAUT/ HITCHCOK book was much ...<br />(6) Anyway, this TRUFFAUT/ HITCHCOK book was much more palatable than all the film theory stuff above. I really loved reading this book. <br /><br />(7) The middle section of this blog seems like it might have belonged thematically to another blog. I kept waiting it to tie back into the TRUFFAUT/ HITCHCOCK book set-up. Just some honest feedback and very mild, not like it doesn't work (and it's all very interesting to read and all). That way, too, you'd have had 2 blogs instead of just 1! Pts. 1 and 2. Don't mind me - I still think like a magazine/copy editor even if I hadn't had that job in almost 20 years. Always looking for sentences to cut/ themes to re-group.<br /><br />(8) I can never tell if I've just reached the age where I think the younger generation doesn't have the proper curiousity or respect for the artists of older generations, or if it's actually going on. I usually bemoan trends in academia to purposefully obscure the canon or redirect it in more politically correct (quaint term, it seems, these days) directions. But, just in general, I mean, this seems to be a guy-in-his-40s-and-beyond sort of comment, regardless of whether it's happening, so I always wonder if I'm just playing out the role assigned to me.<br /><br />(9) I like your idea of having turned the mainstream artist into a kind of freak. The 70s changed oh-so-many-things!<br /><br />(10) "To young people like the kind I'm thinking about, Hitchcock's work must sound like the transmission of some strange, indecipherable foreign language." I wonder that, too. Sheesh. I can only hope that more iconoclastic trends aside, the films are fun enough to watch that they will, in some fashion, be continually rediscovered. Whether or not they will ever enjoy the mainstream popularity or reverence they had for so many decades (and this goes for so many: CITIZEN KANE, TOKYO STORY, anything considered untouchable only 20 years ago in any SIGHT AND SOUND poll) I don't know. I doubt it. But let's say canon makes a comeback. People shrug off this need to constantly destroy the past in the name of the future. If people re-learn cinema from the ground up and emphasive context and evolution of the medium, they probably will. But such things aside, let's hope there's just some basic appetite for beautiful people, music, scenes, settings, and suspense. Otherwise, what a boring world!B McMolohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02706178983936146307noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post-16030279499797629202019-07-07T17:55:04.744-05:002019-07-07T17:55:04.744-05:00(1) Oh man, this book. Well first off: it's a ...(1) Oh man, this book. Well first off: it's a sad truism that popular novelists of their age fade into obscurity at a greater rate than the ones who are remembered. Any trade in any era, I guess. At one point it must have seemed impossible to think Michener or Wouk would be largely unread (if indeed they are - not that I'm disputing the basic jist of your argument, here, just I really have no idea: I'd be really curious how many copies of HAWAII or THE WINDS OF WAR still sell, year to year; I imagine the #s aren't totally dismissible, but who knows? Sooner or later, almost inevitably, I bet they will be. For that matter, even King may be unread, perhaps even in our lifetime. Or perhaps memory-holed if certain trends continue. I am digressing. Back to it.) in the same way those Ozymandias statues must have seemed immortal. <br /><br />(2) When I was studying film at Wright State 96-98, right down the road from campus was one of those huge Meijer super-stores. My girlfriend at the time had to run in and get some things so I stayed in the parking lot and read Truffaut/ Hitchcock, which I got out of the film department's library. She took so long in there I read practically the whole thing. I already liked both filmmakers but that kicked off a fondly-remembered watchathon of everything I could get my hands on. (At the time, that was anything available on VHS and at one of the 2 of the 3 places I rented movies from. Luckily one of those was again the film department library, so I had access to some of their more obscure output.) <br /><br />(3) Holy moley they made a documentary about this?! Kids have knocked me so out of orbit of what's come out since 2013, I am reminded/ scandalized by this on a weekly basis. I have to track this down. I'm not surprised they got the directors you mention, who've taught me much about how to look at cinema (and often alluding to either Hitchcock or Truffaut as the original observers), especially Bogdanovich, who's always so eloquent when he talks of the directors he admires. <br /><br />(4) I spent the year leading up to going to "film school" (as I always referred to it and might slip into it again, hence the air quotes) checking books out of the library, trying to get up to speed on things. Whenever I am in such a period, my brain usually retains info better if I simultaneously pick up something else to learn about. Not sure why this is, but it's served me well over the years. This time, it was The X-Files. So anytime I think of the French New Wave I think of season 1-5 of the X-Files. Neither here not there, really, just hey, while we're here. In between all that French theory there was a lot of X-Files watching and reading whatever X-Files overviews were available at the Dayton Public Library. (That was one genre woefully absent from my film department's otherwise-wonderful library.)<br /><br />(5) Sheesh, holy memory lane, this is really kicking up a lot of associative memories. I'll stop here but I wonder if that awesome video store in Beavercreek, OH is still around in some fashion? I hope so. At one point they were the only place to get Hong Kong cinema in like a 60 mile radius. I made the trek out there many a time, just to rent movies for a night and then drive the 45 mintues out there again to avoid the fine. (X-Files, Hong Kong cinema, French New Wave: a pretty fair approximation of my headspace 1997-1998)B McMolohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02706178983936146307noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post-33446511659469377152019-07-07T06:33:39.452-05:002019-07-07T06:33:39.452-05:00I think you'll be in for a pretty good flick. ...I think you'll be in for a pretty good flick. At least I thought it was pretty good.<br /><br />ChrisC<br /><br />PrisonerNumber6https://www.blogger.com/profile/03156430802462353459noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post-34016215520056618962019-07-07T05:14:22.234-05:002019-07-07T05:14:22.234-05:00I bought this on Blu-ray not long ago, but have no...I bought this on Blu-ray not long ago, but have not watched it yet. I'll wait to read this post until I do!Bryant Burnettehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01189356171455609865noreply@blogger.com