From Here To Eternity (1953)

WHO: Fred Zinnemann directed this.

WHAT: My friend Miriam Montag, who wrote a fine piece on Christian Marclay's The Clock earlier this week, still has more to say on that piece, but this time using it as a springboard to a refreshed appreciation of Zinnemann's Oscar-winning film, and particularly the above-pictured scene in which uses Pfeiffer Beach in Big Sur as a stand-in for a Hawaiian shore.

It is quarter to 3 at The Clock and possibly one of the cinema's most famous timepieces is having its moment: Harold Lloyd clinging to a massive minute hand high above the streets of downtown Los Angeles. The thrill that spreads through the room has a bit less to do with Lloyd's daring than the sense of recognition. In a work that largely avoided cinema's greatest hits, the inevitabilty of its inclusion felt so satifying. It's been excerpted in countless docs on the subject of Hollywood's clown princes and on and on. The editors of the New Yorker had no worries that readers would instantly get artist Barry Blitt's parody of the stunt when they put it the cover a few years back.   

There's no way to know for certain, of course, but it's very likely few of those present that day at The Clock had seen Lloyd's Safety Last in its entirety, on film, video or cable.  The San Francisco Silent Film Festival is only getting around to it this July, its 18th full festival. Yet that mad scramble up the clock springs has a place in a collective knowledge for both the casual viewer and the more ravenous one. For many years, this viewer didn't even realize it was part of a chase sequence, assuming Lloyd's dilema was the result of Stan Laurel-style tomfoolery. 

What does this have to do with today's movie, Fred Zinnemann's stirring adaptation of James Jones's novel? It's that kiss. 

When the long retired Deborah Kerr died in 2007, the kiss was predictably in the first line of her obit.  It’s one of the most recognizable kisses in Hollywood history and seems to evoke the very title of the film it’s from: From Here To Eternity.  Two lovers in a clinch that not even the surf of the Pacific could cool.  In this film, set in the days leading up to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, nothing is that simple.  Of course it’s not surprising that the affair is illicit, but the moments that follow the briny buss are still shocking.   

See, Milt (Burt Lancaster) knew having an affair with his commanding officer’s wife Karen (Kerr) was gonna be messy, but he’s just caught wind of the fact that this affair is not her first time on the extramarital rollercoaster. He’s not letting her just-murmured declaration that "it’s never been like this before" go unchallenged. It gets ugly fast. How close does he come to calling her a slut? YouTube clips of this scene hover at about the 50 second mark, never including the spat, so a quick double check was not possible. Let's just say it gets close enough to be bracing to those who have experienced this cine-bite as the high point of romantic perfection. 

(It's not even the best lip lock in movies, that honor must surely go to Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman in Hitchcock's Notorious and probably about half of the spit-swapping sessions of Greta Garbo's career) 

As a moment of steadfast devotion, it's about an even match with Prew's playing of taps for his fallen comrade in arms, Maggio. Prew (Montgomery Clift) and Maggio's (Frank Sinatra) struggles are bound up with the ironclad and ridiculous heirarchy of the military life. The cruelty, petty and otherwise, by those with respectable facades and power to abuse, coin of this realm. There's nowhere to run from the emnity they have provoked. 

It's a rich plateful, what with the day that will live in infamy creeping up and all, too rich to be reduced to a romp on a towel. Sometimes a kiss is just a kiss.

WHERE/WHEN: Tonight only at the Stanford Theatre at 7:30 PM

WHY: As I mentioned the other day, 2013 is Burt Lancaster's centenary year, and thus a perfect time to visit or revisit as many of his films on the big screen as possible; this relatively early film will set a good context for next week's 1960 Elmer Gamtry and 1980 Atlantic City at the Castro. 

You can also consider this a warm-up for another Frank Sinatra picture playing the Stanford next week: Some Came Running. Considered by many to be director Vincente Minnelli's greatest masterpiece, and containing perhaps the best performances by Sinatra, Dean Martin and Shirley Maclaine, this is a real rarity to see on the big screen these days, and I'm going to make certain to be there myself. Full disclosure: I've never seen it, having waited for over a decade for an opportunity like this to see it in 35mm.

HOW: On a 35mm double-bill with another film taking advantage of Monterey location shooting, Fritz Lang's Clash By Night.

The Clock (2010)

WHO: San Rafael-born artist Christian Marclay is responsible for this 1440-minute-long looped installation made up entirely of clips from thousands of movies and (a comparative few) television shows.

WHAT: After five visits and a total of 10 1/4 of its 24 hours logged over the past two months, I'm still not sure what exactly I think of The Clock, but feel like I'm starting to finally get a sense of what makes it tick- and what doesn't. I haven't spied any more clips of documentary or animation (including any such special effects- clips from CGI-dependent films used scenes that weren't.) after ten hours than I had after two, unless you count shots of televisions showing newscasts or Simpsons episodes being watched by fictional characters. I also haven't noticed any shots of timepieces in space, and none from sword-and-sandal movies or medieval fantasy either, though the appearance of a sundial (in a clip from this movie, I think) had me wondering why not. There's something too-clever-by-half about the construction of this artwork, and I can't help but wonder if it would be at all compelling if it weren't for its monumental scale. But I keep coming back to it, perhaps because I want to figure out why I was so moved by Marclay's inclusion of one particular clip: the opening scene of a movie I haven't seen in which a teacher asks a classroom of children for ideas of things to put inside a time capsule.

My friend Miriam Montag has seen more than I have, and has written an impression of what it's like for a cinephile to attend this exhibit.

Christian Marclay’s 24-hour behemoth video installation The Clock is, as a complete work, is loaded with the tension of letting go and hanging on. It gives and it takes away, and the net effect of the whole process might not seem clear at first.   

From the outset, while there may be enough hours in the day, a wait is involved. Even those who enjoy a swami-like freedom from bodily functions will likely require multiple visits, with the accompanying waiting time in most cases, to see the whole blasted thing. The wait, about two hours usually and thoroughly expected by most attendees, acts as a bizarre vacation from time. Once the art-lover has committed a chunk of time to The Clock and its related wait, this time has a deliciousness to it that a holiday Monday can’t quite match. One has let go of the idea that there isn’t enough time. Books will be read, email inboxes will be cleaned out, old friends caught up with, alliances formed, the names and menus of eateries in Madrid divulged.

What must be left go of is a lot harder to quantify, particularly for the cineaste’s often neurotic needs. It will be worth it. 

Upon entering the exhibition, it is clear that a lot more than the satisfactions and disappointments of narrative of will be sacrificed. As a video installation, the beauty and vagaries of film were not to be expected, of course. Seamlessness required a uniformity of screen format. Cropped widescreen, such as Tonino Delli Colli’s compositions for Sergio Leone, and partially scalped shots from The Twilight Zone both bow to this directive. For Academy ratio films blown up from poor VHS copies, the distortions took on a poignant cast that they would not have for a full viewing. A decades' worth of image quality discernment, out the window! Film-going bugaboo number one and two hit the gray carpet with nary a thud. 

For those who log a few minutes on imdb.com playing “Where Have I Seen That School Marm Before?” or have some sort of similar post-viewing compulsion, The Clock says “Eat my dust!”. Attempts to jot down details of unfamiliar clips to figure out what the devil they are just will just be a mocking reminder after the fact. “Jess Walter/ W. Beatty b/w”? Why? Really, why? If the title of the film where Jerome Cowan and Edward Everett Horton sing about champagne is worth looking into, the question will come to mind after the viewer has showered, napped and eaten a proper meal. Impulses toward all consuming knowledge will need to settle to the bottom of the sensible viewer’s brain pan or tragedy is in the cards. 

A somewhat fussy baby might burble and sightlines might not be all one wishes, but the annoyances of a typical night at the local Bijou melt away in submersive experience of this singular work, only to be replaced by nuttier ones. People who check their light up watches for the time are just a source of bemusement.   

Note taking? You want to account for as many minutes of Marclay’s day as you can? The more rabid the film-goer, the closer this approaches to Death Match territory. If a seat in the eyeline of the unseasoned viewer is occupied by one “getting” more titles, it is tempting to just write any old crap down just to look worldly. Let it go, that guy wasn’t making any notes during To Sir With Love, and the theme was playing in the clip as Sidney Potier ironed is shirt, so who cares what he thinks? He’s never heard of Abram Room, see any version of OUT and probably thinks Judy Geeson is Lulu. He and his superior knowledge of teen films of the 90s can go to hell!  At this point, dear viewer, please consider going home. 

What’s holding us? The nagging suspicion that the longer the session, the deeper the experience of the work. The clock as a time compression device in films is turned on its head most violently here. It’s apparent that a certain moody teen being relieved from the “You’ll sit here till you eat that dinner, Missy!” treatment is sweeter for the folks, who hours before, saw the punishment being meted out. They’re glad they stayed and how would they have known of this pay off otherwise? The tedium of being booked by the cops is brought home by its reappearance, hours later with a different time on the clock and you were THERE. Yes, Travis and Betsy are going for coffee during her next break at 4 pm . . . but will The Clock be there? Will there be a dead general at dawn? What time of day does napalm smell best? Some chimes, oh say, about 12 AM? 

Is it rational to risk one’s health and well-being just because one is dissatisfied by the only clip of Michael Caine screened during your puny 4 hour stretch? Yes, it is. This is where the tenacity and endurance only a veteran of Jacques Rivette retrospectives can claim comes in, and god dammit, it is a proud and untamable madness! It’s morning and Harry Palmer will soon be waking to one very annoying alarm clock. So stay. You’ll never come back to fill in the upcoming 3 hour gap, so stay. You can’t believe there’s no Godard, so stay. It will never return, not really, so stay. It seems like you’ve just had a second (third, fourth) wind so stay.  Stay, stay, stay.

WHERE/WHEN: Screens 24 hours a day at SFMOMA until June 2, after which the museum closes for an extensive remodel. But it's only available to view during the museum's open hours, which are 11 AM-5:45 PM today, 10 AM-9:45 PM Thursday, 10 AM to 5:45 PM Friday, and a final 31 hour blow-out starting 10 AM Saturday until 5:45 PM Sunday.

WHY: I don't know if Miriam's correct about her prediction, "It will never return" but why risk it? If you have some time to devote to this piece before it disappears, you really ought to try it, if only to see for yourself what this thing really is. I predict that every half-hour spent waiting in line outside the museum before it opens will save you at least an hour wait time in the museum if you arrive during its open hours.

HOW: Projected video installation.

The Pervert's Guide To Ideology (2012)

WHO: Sophie Fiennes directed this.

WHAT: If you saw Slavoj Žižek holding court on screen in Fiennes's 2006 feature The Pervert's Guide to Cinema, you know what to expect here: an often light-hearted lecture by one of the world's most colorful philosophers, illustrated by clips and wry recreations of set designs from twenty-four films, among them They Live, Jaws, Triumph of the Will, The Fireman's Ball, and one of Žižek's all-time favorites, The Sound of Music. I have not seen this "sequel" yet, but I understand that instead of investigating the cinema itself from the often contrarian (thus perverted- in the non-sexual sense of the term) point of view of its host, as the 2006 film did, The Pervert's Guide To Ideology utilizes cinema as a lens through which to re-examine our preconceived beliefs about society, history and ideology itself. How successful it is at this has been debated since its world premiere last fall. For a sense of the debate, try this Keyframe Daily post from last November.

The comparison may seem specious once I see it, but I can't help but think of parallels to Christian Marclay's The Clock, which also excerpts from cinema history in order to make the viewer ruminate not so much on movies and their formal qualities, but on their social uses and issues rippling far beyond the screen or the walls surrounding it.

WHERE/WHEN: San Francisco International Film Festival screening tonight and on May 5th at 9:15 PM each night at the Kabuki, and at 3:30 on May 1 at New People

WHY: Since I haven't seen The Pervert's Guide to Ideology, I can't exactly recommend it, but it does appear to be one of the titles cinephiles might want to consider seeing today, the first full day of the festival. Others include Raúl Ruiz's swan song Night Across The Street, the critically-lauded fishing documentary Leviathan, and the latest from Takeshi Kitano, Outrage Beyond. 

These are just educated guesses; tomorrow I'll start posting about SFIFF films I've actually seen. But not having seen a film hasn't stopped me from mentioning it on this blog before (though I try to be careful to make sure it's clear whether I have or haven't) and the festival itself is promoting sight-unseen SFIFF picks by six local celebrities and a sports team. For truly informed suggestions for what to see over the next two weeks it's best to consult critics who have actually seen the films they write about. Again, try Keyframe Daily for links to reviews and capsules by just such critics.

Connections between The Pervert's Guide To Ideology and other films in the SFIFF program are probably legion. But I have seen one film that shares with it an engagement with The Sound of Music: Scott Stark's Bloom, which is part of the Shorts 5 program of experimental works screening tomorrow and this Tuesday. Two films Žižek is reported to excerpt are screening at the Castro over the next few days, though not at the festival: A Clockwork Orange and Brazil. I looked in vain on the list of 24 for a title starring the just-announced recipient of the Peter J. Owens Award: Harrison Ford, but he's nowhere to be found. Nor did he appear in The Pervert's Guide to Cinema; the clip of The Conversation used in that piece was not one of his relatively few scenes.

HOW: Perverts Guide To Ideology screens digitally, as it was made digitally (although the clips it excerpts from were shot on film, thus perhaps representing too much of a compromise for the most hard-core film-as-film purists).

Hands On A Hard Body (1997)

WHO: S. R. Bindler directed this documentary.

WHAT: it's a story best-known as a This American Life broadcast, but it works even better as a feature-length video where we can see the spectacle and its participants: a group of twenty Texans engaged in a contest of endurance. The one who can stand beside a brand-new pick-up truck with at least one of his or her gloved hands in constant contact with the vehicle for days longer than any of the others, fighting sleep, soreness, pain, numbness, concentration and frustration, gets to drive it home and keep it. The contest typically lasts days on end.

WHERE/WHEN: Tonight and tomorrow at the Roxie at 7 & 9 PM.

WHY: So The Clock has arrived in San Francisco at long last. As I mentioned the other day, I was able to sample a little of it- about ten percent of the twenty-four-hour installation, to be somewhat precise. It's been a fascinating topic of conversation over the weekend, but I haven't yet encountered anyone here with serious plans to watch all twenty-four hours in one sitting. But I'm sure it's only a matter of time. (So to speak.) For now, The Clock is viewable only during SFMOMA's regular open hours, but there will be four all-night screenings each Saturday in May, plus a sure-to-be-popular free one on the last weekend the museum will be open before it shuts for a multi-year renovation: June 1-2. All this information is on the SFMOMA website.

What isn't on the website is information on how to attempt a 24-four-hour continuous viewing of The Clock, or if it's even really possible to do. The Clock's creator Christian Marclay has repeatedly stressed that he doesn't intend the piece to be viewed in a a single marathon session, but neither were the many paths, running from the California-Mexico border to the 49th parallel, that make up the Pacific Crest Trail originally intended to be traversed in a single excursion, yet over a hundred thru-hikers complete that journey every year. 

Any marathon required preparation. Even cinephiles used to seeing four or five feature films per day at a film festival, or taking in ultra-long experiences like Napoléon or Sátántangó, aren't used to spending an entire day and night watching a single screen. A viewing of Hands On A Hardbody might be the ideal first step in such a preparation in the form of inspiration: the participants in the contest Bindler depicts each have a game plan for their expected multi-day challenge, and a would-be The Clock marathoner will be keen to note which ones pay off and which do not. Like the documentary's contestants, New York viewer Max Nelson allowed himself periodic breaks during his 24-hour Marclay immersion. I don't know how SFMOMA's wait times (frequently updated on twitter) might impact the marathon viewer, however.  Questions of food, drink, and restroom use also become paramount, and complicated by the museum setting. One thing I suspect anyone who watches Hands On A Hardbody in preparation for The Clock will surely be thankful for is the comfortable seating provided at the Marclay installation. Compared to the standing these truck-lovers must go through in Texas, a potential Clock-watcher has it easy. 

HOW: Hands On A Hard Body was shot on video and will be projected on video.

Kudzu Vine (2011)

WHO: Josh Gibson, who directed this, has also made documentaries about Chang and Eng Bunker, the original "Siamese Twins", about Lake Victoria's invasive fish species the Nile Perch, and other subjects.

WHAT: I've only sampled a five-minute online clip of this 20-minute documentary on the fast-growing kudzu plant, which was introduced to this continent from Japan 137 years ago, but now covers more than 7 million acres of land in Southern states like North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia. Five minutes was enough to know I can't wait to see the whole thing projected on the big screen.

If you've ever driven through kudzu-affected regions,you know how overwhelming its effect on the landscape can be, covering hillsides, houses, trees, and seemingly everything in its path. There's definitely an otherworldliness to a kudzu invasion, so it's appropriate that Gibson has made not a straight-ahead documentary but one that takes on the eerie quality of a 1950s science fiction movie, aided by his use of the cinemascope frame and 35mm hand-processing. For more on the film and its making, check out Eric Ferreri's interview article.

WHERE/WHEN: Screens 4:30 this afternoon at the Victoria Theatre.

WHY: According to the Internet Movie Database, Christian Marclay's The Clock is a documentary. At one level this is absurd, and just another indication of the imdb's limitations as a resource for accurate information about anything other than a certain narrow (if generally 'popular') slice of the world's motion picture output. If you've seen any part of The Clock, now on display at SFMOMA, you know it's a 24-hour looped video installation made up entirely of carefully-edited timepiece-centric shots and scenes from thousands of movies (and some television shows for good measure). The only thing it objectively "documents" is what the current time is, as it's shown onscreen and/or mentioned on the soundtrack at least once every minute.

On the other hand (the long hand, perhaps?), perhaps we need to loosen the definition of documentary somewhat. We could go as far as Jean-Luc Godard, who once said "Every film is a documentary of its actors", but that seems to take what was meant as a provocation perhaps too literally, and render the term meaningless. More useful, I think, may be to take a cue from a term from the literary word, that is often used synonymously with "documentary" anyway: "non-fiction". In most libraries, the fiction section is composed entirely of stories set in constructed worlds that may resemble or disresemble the one we live in, but only to the extent that they are controlled and described by their authors. Non-fiction, while often thought of as a term for truthful or factual expression, is as it's name suggests: a catch-all category for "everything else". Where will you find mythology, poetry, musical scores, or books comprised entirely of Salvador Dali paintings? Almost certainly not in the fiction section, despite the often contra-factual elements of these publications. And not usually in separate sections of their own either, but interfiled with the historical and journalistic accounts, the essays, the how-to guides, and other materials we may feel more entirely comfortable calling "non-fiction". 

Similarly, perhaps "documentary" could be a more useful, less constraining (and for some, dismissive) term if it were more frequently applied to all moving image works that aren't stories set in constructed and controlled fictional "film worlds" described through the ineffable "film time" created by shot duration. By this definition, The Clock is a documentary; it doesn't contain its own story, and its "film time" is not constructed or controlled by Marclay but by the filmmakers he and his assistants have selected to appropriate from. It seems worth noting that in the 2 1/2 segment of The Clock I previewed, there appeared to be no images taken from non-fiction films of any sort- or from animation for that matter.

Last night I viewed two programs of Crossroads works while thinking about this possibly expanded view of "documentary". None of the works would qualify as documentaries under the strictest, most conventional definitions, which necessitate genre conventions like voice-over narration, talking-head interviews, etc. Several, such as Paul Clipson's lovely city symphony Absteigend or Jeanne C. Finley & John Muse's seemingly diaristic Manhole 452 or Jodie Mack's delightful feat of animation and musical storytelling Dusty Stacks of Mom, might (like Kudzu Vine) be considered documentaries by most definitions. Others, like Luther Price's unburied Nomadic Flesh or Suzan Pitt's painted Pinball would be easy to call non-fiction but rarely considered as documentaries of anything other than their own creation. But perhaps that's enough.

HOW: Kudzu Vine screens as 35mm print, as part of program 4 in the Crossroads festival, which also includes work screened in 16mm and digital video.