Daisies (1966)

Written and directed by Věra Chytilová.

First viewing. My god, how could I have not known of this before today!

Someone recently referred to my artwork as absurdist. (I don’t think they meant it as a complement either.) I have to admit that I wasn’t totally sure what they were talking about so off I scurried to seek guidance from our good friend google. 

absurdism: 1. Intentionally ridiculous or bizarre behavior or character 2. The belief that human beings exist in a purposeless, chaotic universe.

Fuck yeah! That bitch pretty much hits the nail right on the mutha fuckin’ head. Aside from now having a label to apply to what I am doing, the really fantastic thing about this revelation was that it lead me to Daisies — you know, down the internet k-hole go I. This film just blows me away. It is like candy, I can’t get enough. It’s a visual delight and these two women are a riot. 

Vera Chytilová may well be my new shero. Daisies was banned by the Czech government who accused it of “depicting the wanton.” The wanton apparently being a menace to society. She was consequently forbidden from making another film until 1975.

More like this, please!

Blood on the Moon (1948)

Directed by Robert Wise. Starring Robert Mitchum and Barbara Bel Geddes and the lovable Walter Brennan.

When there’s blood on the moon, death lurks in the shadows.

First viewing of this film. Who could resist the title and Robert Mitchum? Mitchum is the consummate outsider, the dangerous good guy, in this noir-western beauty from the director who would later bring us The Sound of Music! I love Mitchum’s portrayal of the cowboy hero disillusioned by the dark side of western expansion’s shady nation-building tactics.

Alice (1988)

Directed by Jan Švankmajer.

“Close your eyes, otherwise you won’t see anything.” 

This is such an important film to me. It’s a beautiful dark delirium that shifts between reality and fantasy like the lucid dream/nightmare of an imaginative child that is filled with dread and delight. I was in high school when I first saw it and it totally blew my mind. I mean some sort of internal paradigm shift occurred during the course of watching this fantastic re-envisioning of Alice in Wonderland. I don’t know if I can pinpoint it exactly. Ultimately, I think it helped me understand how to be who I needed to be. After all, I was little weirdo growing up in a very conservative environment and my “strange” ideas were not always well received. I needed a mentor and this film was the freaky fairy dust that would set my mind free. It’s so great to re-visit Alice. It has lost none of its power to inspire and enthrall me. It’s also a great reminder that you can be inspired by something that already exists in the world, use it as the basis for your own work by bringing something unique to it. Hasn’t everything already been done anyway? But not by me!

The Naked Spur (1953)

Directed by Anthony Mann. Staring James Stewart, Janet Leigh, Robert Ryan, and Ralph Meeker.

This is my first time watching this film.

Anthony Mann! My first taste of Mann was T-Men, a hard edged film noir style docudrama from 1947 (might have to rewatch this one too). I’d seen a few of Mann’s westerns with Jimmy Stewart - Winchester ‘73, The Man From Laramie, Bend of the River - all fucking great movies. I came across The Naked Spur in a collection titled “Noir on the Range”. Yes, please.

Ali: Fear Eats The Soul (1974)

Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. With Brigitte Mira as Emmi and El Hedi Ben Salem as Ali.

“Viel denken, viel weinen” (much thinking, much crying),

This was my first viewing of this film. 

For some reason, the thought of watching a Fassbinder film was not appealing to me at first. I have some fuzzy memory of forming a negative opinion about Fassbinder based solely on the fact that a woman from my youth that I dreaded loved Fassbinder. I’m glad that I got over it.

Oh, it’s a long, long way from May to September. An older German woman and a handsome young Moroccan man find love in this intriguing melodrama. It’s Fassbinder’s shout out to Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows (another film worth rewatching). It is a surprising, courageous, and sweet romance that is strained almost to the breaking point by the racism and  conventions of a narrow minded society. Thankfully, in the end, love triumphs.

Wanda (1970)

Written and directed by Barbara Loden. Also, starring Barbara Loden as the title character.

“I've been like that myself. I came from a rural region, where people have a hard time. They don't have time for wittily observing the things around them. They're not concerned about anything more than existing from day to day.” -Barbara Loden quoted in the NY Times in 1971

Holy shit! I love it. All the thumbs up.

This was my first viewing of this film. I’m not sure if I would have been ready for this film in my twenties.

The film is set in dreary Pennsylvania coal country. Wanda is a poor, directionless, aging beauty who lets herself be used and abused by men. When her husband seeks a divorce because she has neglected both the marriage and the children, she does not disagree. With no one left to turn to for support, she shacks up with a string of men eventually getting swept up with a bank robber. Wanda is not an exciting character but she is a complex character. For all that we don’t understand about her and her motivations, we are asked to question how it is that she came to be. The film is an intimate portrayal of a woman stranded at the margins - just trying to exist.

Stagecoach (1939)

Directed by John Ford. Starring Claire Trevor and (a very young) John Wayne (before he became a swollen parody).

This was my first viewing of this landmark film. I decided to start here because I was thinking about the differences between the West that I had just driven through and the West that I had imagined as a kid - imaginings that were largely the result of movies or television that I’d seen it portrayed in. I grew up in a time when children were taught to play cowboys and Indians - meaning we were taught to pick sides and fight. We were spoon-fed the mythology of the American frontier — and we ate it up. In my mind, the cowboys and the Indians were equally mysterious and glorious. I wanted to be both.

John Ford’s Stagecoach is lauded as the movie that defined the western tradition as we know it. It is a motley cast of characters who, like it or not, are confined together in a cramped stagecoach. Who are bound by their fear of the looming threat of an attack by Apache warriors led by Geronimo. There are sweeping vistas, drama, action, and romance. While the film, and the entire genre, may be problematic when viewed through a modern lens, it is certainly worth watching for its significance to American film history. The cinematography is rather fetching too.