Comments on Bright Lights After Dark: My One Horse Town Libido is an Abandoned Minature ...

But I can't stand GREED, the pacing is intolerable...

2009-05-22T08:38:10.196-07:00

But I can't stand GREED, the pacing is intolerable without a pretty face to look at. Zasu Pitts!?!?!

Lol, Erich...but is it really fair to judge the film for its pacing, of all things, considering that less than one-third of the original exists? Then again, the mythical full-length version might exacerbate your misgivings...8-9 hours without a pretty face is a long time (though try telling that to Bela Tarr).

ahhhhh, I should have caught that! My name is even...

2009-05-21T18:09:07.791-07:00

ahhhhh, I should have caught that! My name is even spelled the same. But I can't stand GREED, the pacing is intolerable without a pretty face to look at. Zasu Pitts!?!?! Spacek on the other hand, I'm only beginning to realize how hot she is/was. Love that picture with the gun... of course.

I've been reading BRITTON ON FILM and you are all right, he is a genius!! I'm already ultra-skeptical of all my patriarchally-instilled values, such as girls and guns looking so good together, but it don't matter man, it's CINEMA!

God, I've been watching CARTOON NETWORK commercials--the children's weaponry is off the hook! In my day we had to build our swords of wood, like Noah once used an arc of electricity... it's all either the latest in toy weapons or AIDS warnings (buckle up!) Why did they have to kill him?

Erich, if I can talk just one person out of reloca...

2009-05-21T14:44:29.949-07:00

Erich, if I can talk just one person out of relocating to El Lay then my criticism has not been in vain.

And thanks much for the comments.

I'm still wondering what sombre and partially lost work of art climaxes in Death Valley's vulcan entrails and is in a class by itself?

I was thinking of "Greed," the full version of which I'm anxiously hoping will be discovered in the old ice chest of some abandoned ranch, or something (wouldn't that just be perfect?). Technically it ends in Death Valley rather than climaxing there but, y'know, poetic license and all...

whoa! You just talked me out of moving to L.A. Am ...

2009-05-21T12:04:12.420-07:00

whoa! You just talked me out of moving to L.A. Am I missing something in that I'm still wondering what sombre and partially lost work of art climaxes in Death Valley's vulcan entrails and is in a class by itself? Is it 3 Women? The Sonic Youth song? An unfinished Steinbeck novel? You make me want to watch this movie again with opener eyes, and that's what good film writing is all about!

Thanks very much, Mr. Aisenberg. My own view of t...

2009-05-21T08:44:30.730-07:00

Thanks very much, Mr. Aisenberg.

My own view of this film, I guess, was probably something of the "facile identity crisis" variety you mentioned

Well, don't get me wrong -- the thematic connection to "Persona" is most definitely there. I've just tired of seeing so many critics going through those motions and then stopping, as though Bergman is the film's rosetta stone. This is the kind of movie that deserves a novel written about it in response. Your interpretation above, however, of the whole "identity crisis" thing does tease out more complexities than most reviews I've read.

reminds me of Joan Didion's Highway Existentialism in Play it as it lays

Definitely. Didion, both in fiction and in essays, nails California's mercurial essence with tough precision. She was always my favorite of the new journalists...

I think I may have taken off on your California point and wound up somewhere else entirely,

If so, I'm glad the piece gave you something to chew on...and besides, this desert is lovely, dark, and deep: more than big enough for the two of us.

I love it. What a beautifully written take on the ...

2009-05-21T00:39:10.999-07:00

I love it. What a beautifully written take on the film. I like the idea of the story as an emanation from the california landscape. My own view of this film, I guess, was probably something of the "facile identity crisis" variety you mentioned: Altman had cleverly turned Bergman's psychological nightmare Persona into a kind of sociological satire, about people so ephemeral and vapid that it was rather easy for them to simply misplace or mix themselves up; that Spacek might be better at being Duval than she herself was struck me as the best most paranoic joke in the whole movie. But your idea of the movie's essential Californianess adds all kinds of layers I hadn't thought of before, reminds me of Joan Didion's Highway Existentialism in Play it as it lays, crossed with the sort of star-struck grotesquerie of The Day of The Locust (book, and, maybe, the terrible film). Isn't California the place where people try to be other than themselves? In 3 Women, they literalize that dream, but without realizing how tawdry the dream really is (yet unlike The Day of the Locust, the effect is poetic, all haunting atmospherics). I think I may have taken off on your California point and wound up somewhere else entirely, a place not quite as delicately evocative either. Anyway, this is a favorite film and you've enriched it for me.

Nice. Very nice. Almost as dense and allusive as t...

2009-05-20T16:12:57.215-07:00

Nice. Very nice. Almost as dense and allusive as the film itself.