Randy_Kryn Reviews

David Holzman's Diary (1967)

Truth--actually fiction--at 24 frames a second

[10/10 · 24 April 2007]

Just watched the film, phoned the distributor (where I learned the film "is" fiction), read the reviews on this website, and feel happy to be the first in five years to comment on this masterpiece.

What an experience--especially thinking it was "real" and made by one person as a documentary. "Peeping Tom" (on U.K. 100) could have easily found inspiration from this film, as could have "Sherman's March". The earlier masterpiece, "A Man With A Movie Camera" (from Russia) contains hints of where Jim McBride's search for "truth at 24 frames a second" may have first popped up. Since none of these films find listing in the recommendations section for this film, I'll add them here and there.

OK, a few words about this father of fakeumentaries itself. So far ahead of it's time that it duplicates, at times, the life of a present day blogger, this film also historically depicts real-life New York, its citizens, and the media overlay placed upon the populace as the Vietnam War raged like a mental wildfire in the consciousness of millions of those citizens and media figures. There is a rage here, centered around David's (Kit Carson) relationship with Penny, and how her anger at David filming her finally let's her find a reason to break off an obviously one-sided relationship--and David's mild obsession with Sandra who lives "one floor above him" across the street. The two women counterpoint each other as David knows Penny too well and Sandra not a all. And all these metaphors, all the emotions played with in this film, also metaphor the Vietnam War and its effect on individual Americans, especially of draft age. I could go on and on along those lines, but will let it go at this. I'd suggest a viewing of this film, and show it to someone who doesn't know it's a work of 'fiction', and share with them, once again, "truth at 24 frames a second".

Chimes at Midnight (1965)

Welles's favorite film, what more to say?

[10/10 · 10 April 2007]

Well, a little more. When Orson Welles decided to remove and digest one character, John Falstaff, from several of William Shakespeare's works and build a failed play and then a masterpiece of a film around him, he successfully combined Shakespeare's inner-child and playfulness with some of the most subtle commentary on human nature in its diverse faces, masks, and merriments ever to appear on these creations of light we call cinema. The result: a team effort by Shakespeare and Welles--the bard meets the belly--in which Falstaff comes to life clothed in the girth bestowed upon him by both sides of the team as he frolics his way through dens of pleasure, landscapes of death. and the even more joyful and deadly emotions humans express until Will and Orson weave together the laughter of days and then a touch of despair as the night turns. And so we find these two men, with this film, jostling and combining talents, always just touching, simply with wisdom, what it means to inhabit human.

Richard III (1912)

19th Century Stage Actor becomes Richard

[8/10 · 22 December 2006]

High-scored this movie not by today's standards, but by what a viewer in 1912 may have experienced. For what they saw on screen, the flickering light fairly new to their worldview, captured the spirit of Shakespeare's Richard in gory detail (well, semi-gory, but probably upped to gory by the imagination).

The specific treat here lies in the man who introduces the film--both on screen without costume and, when the film played, traveled the country to both introduce it and speak to the audience between reels)--the 19th-Century stage actor Frederick Warde. A youthful 61 when he made the film, he hunchbackingly runs and plots and creates on-screen emotion via hand and facial expressions. Shakespeare may have beamed well-pleased at this chosen Richard, a fellow thespian who, according to an interview reproduced on the DVD, had to mouth the words to fully capture the role even though no sound would survive the flowing decades.

The film contains an interested use of backlighting, as the ghosts of all his recent victims point accusingly, in unison and determination, at Richard just before he goes out to join them in the back-lit-hereafter. Great costumes in this film, for its time or any other, and who can say they don't come close to the originals of the depicted era.

An interesting scholarship question remains. Although the only surviving print came into the hands of the American Film Institute (AFI) from a serious print collector, William Buffum (Buffum interviewed in the extras on the DVD), I'm wondering where he got it. May have missed the explanation, but it may have come in a trade with another collector. Film history owes a thanks to all involved.

The Wind (1928)

Ending of "The WInd" nearly perfect

[10/10 · 5 December 2006]

Spoilers ahead, ending discussed.

The central criticism of "The Wind" centers on an ending dictated to director Victor Sjostrom by--as far as I know--unnamed studio executives. Letty originally staggered off into the windblown prairie of Texas to, supposedly, die from sand inhalation, dehydration, or possibly from stepping wild-eyed into the path of one of the "thousands of wild horses" coming out of the mountains as the norther blows. The execs didn't like this one bit, mandated a happy ending, and more-or-less chased Sjostrom out of Hollywood forever.

Yet looked at from the viewpoint of observing this finished movie 78 years later, it seems to me that the ending reaches near-perfection.

Lettie enters the film innocent, a Virginian child unthinkingly tossing herself into real life. There she at first trusts, then experiences, and then enters into alternating states of fear, denial, shock, quick-but-sure loss of innocence and all manner of emotion that Lillian Gish played like the fine acting instrument she embodied. Lettie goes into the wind, watches the wind through windows, and feels it on her face and brushes sand and dust unendingly from her clothes and home. She feels engulfed by sand, sound, and images of the white stallion of Indian lore which represents the power and strength of air in its full-state. A tornado shows up, and gives her further daymares. The norther blows in, and at the same time her suitor Wirt Roddy shows up to force his nature onto unwilling Lettie--an echo of her rejecting her husband's advances, perhaps from fear of her own power.

Then, she accidentally shoots Wirt, experiences his death, and buries him on, ah, in, the old prairie, only to imagine that the wind began to uncover his corpse. Yet in these moments, in the final confrontation with forces stronger than herself, she seems to have finally come to the point where she could handle them. Her husband comes back, and after she confesses her crime he wants to continue his own plan of sending her back East. But at that moment, she transcends. No, I will not go back. I love you. I will be your wife. And from this confidence, this growth, she goes to the door, confronts the wind, a smile on her face, the beauty of her long hair blowing around and away from her while her husband comes up to spoon her as both look out directly at the element of wind--now mentally and emotionally a part of her, rather than an enemy the air itself becomes her true friend.

Looked at from this viewpoint, a brief exploration of Letty's name. Lettie Mason Hightower. A journey through the stages of a mason, and an emergence on a high-tower, a mystical orbit attained through testing. And oh, does Letty get those tests. In one ending, she fails, and sand covers her in a mad rush of fear. In the other ending, the wind plays with and becomes one with her. And her with the white and wild horses of nature.