Michael Hawley Only Has Two Eyes

It's impossible for any pair of eyes to view all of Frisco Bay's worthwhile film screenings. I'm so pleased that a number of local filmgoers have let me post their repertory/revival screening highlights of 2011. An index of participants is found here.

The following list comes from cinephile/critic Michael Hawley, who blogs at film-415. This list is cross-posted there along with his lists of favorite new films of 2011.


10 Favorite Repertory/Revival Screenings
1. Deep End (1970, UK, dir. Jerzy Skolimowski, Castro Theatre)
2. Battleship Potemkin (1925, USSR, dir. Sergei M. Eisenstein, Castro Theatre)
3. La Dolce Vita (1960, Italy, dir. Federico Fellini, Castro Theatre, San Francisco International Film Festival)
4. Dance Hall Racket (1953, USA, dir. Phil Tucker, Roxie Theater, "I Wake Up Dreaming" Film Noir series)
5. The Leopard (1963, Italy, dir. Luchino Visconti, Castro Theatre)
6. World on a Wire (1973, West Germany, dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Pacific Film Archive – San Francisco International Film Festival)
7. L'argent (1928, France, dir. Marcel L'Herbier, Castro Theater, San Francisco Silent Film Festival Winter Event)
8. The Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948, USA, dir. John Farrow, Roxie Theater, "I Wake Up Dreaming" Film Noir series)
9. Sunrise (1927, USA, dir. F.W. Murnau, Castro Theatre, San Francisco Silent Film Festival)
10. All eight films I saw in the "Southern Discomfort" series at the Pacific Film Archive and Roxie Theater: God's Little Acre (1958, dir. Anthony Mann), The Intruder (1962, dir. Roger Corman), Moonrise (1948, dir. Frank Borzage), Swamp Water (1941, dir. Jean Renoir), Hurry Sundown (1967, dir. Otto Preminger), Poor White Trash (1957, dir. Harold Daniels), The Beguiled (1971, dir. Don Siegel), Shy People (1987, dir. Andrey Konchalovskiy)

Kurtiss Hare Only Has Two Eyes

It's impossible for any pair of eyes to view all of Frisco Bay's worthwhile film screenings. I'm so pleased that a number of local filmgoers have let me post their repertory/revival screening highlights of 2011. An index of participants is found here.

The following list comes from Kurtiss Hare, cinema enthusiast and blogger at cinefrisco.com, where this article was cross-posted.

As 2011 draws to a close, there are no shortage of best-of lists to be found on the internet. My friend, Brian Darr (aka. HellOnFriscoBay), asked a group of Bay Area cinema-goers to bring their top ten repertory/revival experiences of the year to the table, since we only have two eyes apiece. The films listed here are, of course, fantastic on their own, but the real celebrities are the theaters, organizations and curators that make this list possible – a special possibility indeed. In no particular order:


Good Morning (Ozu 1959) @ VIZ Cinema, seen 07/03/2011.

Here, Ozu makes the kind of observations he makes best, this time protracting out from the family to its surrounding neighborhood. Politesse under duress has never been so silly. I remember being very enticed with the VIZ Cinema’s crisp projection of one of Ozu’s few color films.


Lola (Mendoza 2009) @ YBCA, seen 10/02/2011.

It’s monsoon season in the Philippines and two matriarchs brave the impenetrable downpour to keep their families afloat. Heartfelt, stunning and complicated. It was the kind of screening that makes you want to hug a curator.

Woman in the Dunes (Teshigahara 1964) @ VIZ Cinema, seen 6/21/2011.

Meaningful allegories, for me, work best when they aren’t needed. On a granular level, this film is a compelling piece of horror/suspense with sensual visual details. A larger reading of the protagonist’s existential tightrope-walk manages to enhance without usurping. Again, the VIZ’s projection was acute enough to leave me sandblasted.

Kuroneko (Shindō 1968)
House (Obayashi 1977)
@ The Castro Theater, seen 3/23/2011.

OK, so there are two films here, but they were part of a delightful Japanese feline horror-themed double feature. From Kuroneko’s sexy & vicious apparitions to House’s ultra-campy blood floods, this was one hell of an afternoon altercation.


Days of Heaven (Malick 1978)
Badlands (Malick 1973)
@ The Castro Theater, seen 8/25/2011.

A somewhat less creatively curated duo, but no less appreciated. I sometimes think Malick's quiet internal monologues were positively designed to resound through the Castro's arched ceilings before reaching the ear. This was my first time seeing Days of Heaven, and while sometimes a theatrical screening makes me want to hug a curator, other times the curator beats me to the punch.


The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (Herzog 1974) @ Red Vic Movie House, seen 3/30/2011.

Kaspar was not the last film I saw at the Red Vic, but it will be the one by which I choose to remember our departed. Here, Herzog puts the entire genre of science fiction to shame by excavating human gems from a plausible, if controversial, case of man-in-the-wild.


It (Badger 1927) @ Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, seen 5/28/2011.

As in, Clara Bow has got "it." Her charisma and peppiness are monuments unto themselves, having injected a potent substance into the veins of our modern outlook on celebrity and Hollywoodland romance. This evening at the Niles-Essanay gave me a taste of silent film the way its original audiences might have enjoyed it.


The Goose Woman (Brown 1925) @ The Castro Theater, seen 7/16/2011.

Another silent, this time during the San Francisco Silent Film Festival at The Castro. Some alpha-noir stylings and an enthralling characterization of haggard, piercing irrelevance by Louise Dresser left me quite taken. We have our own Stanford Theatre Foundation to thank for its preservation.


Gaslight (Cukor 1944) @ The Castro Theater, seen 1/22/2011.

One of the more psychologically twisted (my favorite kind!) noirs I saw this year. I don't know its technical term, but I just googled "the derivation of pleasure from simulated insanity," so that should tell you something. Oh, according to wikipedia, the word "gaslighting" has been appropriated for just such an occasion.


Streets of Shame (Mizoguchi 1956) @ The PFA, seen 6/25/2011.

For me, this very much more focused film is "streets ahead" of Mizoguchi's sweeping epic, Sansho the Bailiff, which I also saw as part of the Pacific Film Archive's Japanese Divas series. It's structured to examine multiple facets of prostitution that are typically hidden behind the bamboo curtain of everyday sensibilities. This was one film in an excellent series overall.

Rob Byrne Only Has Two Eyes

It's impossible for any pair of eyes to view all of Frisco Bay's worthwhile film screenings. I'm so pleased that a number of local filmgoers have let me post their repertory/revival screening highlights of 2011. An index of participants is found here.

The following list comes from film preservationist and researcher Rob Byrne. He blogs at Starts Thursday!: The Art And History of Motion Picture Coming Attraction Slides

In no particular order:

Lois Weber's Shoes (1916) (7/17, Castro, SF Silent Film Festival)
I worked on the restoration, so how can it not hold a special place in my heart?

Rick Prelinger's Lost Landscapes of San Francisco (12/8, Castro).
Annually the "must see" archival show of the year.

Noir City 9 (1/21-30, Castro).
No specific title, just the whole damn thing.

The Great White Silence (1924) - (7/15, Castro, SF Silent Film Festival)
Also qualifies as too musical experience of the year. Matti Bye Ensemble and tinted polar footage are a match made in heaven.

The White Meadows (2009) (3/27, YBCA)
Presented by Global Film Initiative as part of Iran Beyond Censorship. Simply gorgeous film from filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof, currently in Iranian prison sentenced to six years for “assembly, collusion, and propagandizing against the regime.”

Giorgio Moroder's Metropolis (1984) (10/27, Castro)
A guilty pleasure - like being unable to look away from a traffic accident. I love and hate it all at the same time.

Randy Habercamp Presents - A Century Ago: The Films of 1911 (11/2, San Rafael CFI)
Two thumbs up for Randy's annual 100 year flashback. Big hisses for CFI's inability to project film at anything other than 24fps.

L'inhumaine (1924) (2/24, PFA)
Architectural splendor presented in conjunction with The First International Berkeley Conference on Silent Cinema CINEMA ACROSS MEDIA: THE 1920s.

Lebanon (2009) (3/13, Orinda Theatre) Presented as part of East Bay International Jewish Film Festival
Powerful.

Silly Symphonies (PFA, 2/23) - Part of UCB Film 50 Series
Russell Merritt presents and interprets a Who's Who of Disney's Silly Symphonies (1931-37). What's not to like?

There Haven't Been Any Quiet Moments

Welcome to 2012 and a New Year of Frisco Bay cinephilia! Rumors of the Castro Theatre's demise were greatly exaggerated, and it's running repertory and festival screenings, now with newly-hired general manager Keith Arnold at the helm. After largely avoiding Japanese films in the first months of programming their year-round venue New People, the SF Film Society, its identity as an exhibitor of varied, cutting-edge from around the globe now established at the venue, brings samurai classics back to that screen in January. Yerba Buena Center For the Arts begins a promising Spring season this week with the local premiere of a new restoration of Nick Ray's We Can't Go Home Again; check Max Goldberg for an excellent recent article (complete with comment by one of Ray's former student-filmmakers!) The Rafael Film Center hosts its annual For Your Consideration series of Oscar-contending foreign films for a week starting Friday; first looks at new films by Béla Tarr, Ann Hui & Nuri Bilge Ceylan are among the most tantalizing of those considered.

Perhaps most excitingly of all, on Thursday Berkeley's Pacific Film Archive opens up again for a new semester featuring, among other offerings, retrospectives for Henri-Georges Clouzot, Gregory Markopoulos, Robert Bresson and Howard Hawks. The latter, though not complete, is a hearty mixture of the consummate classic-era Hollywood director's best-known and least-known films, including four rarely-seen silents, and the pair of important pre-code action dramas that open the series: The Crowd Roars and Monterey Bay-shot Tiger Shark (pictured above). It's on the occasion of this Hawks series that I introduce a new guest contributor to Hell On Frisco Bay, one of my longest-standing cinephile friends, moving image archivist and philatelic blogger Sterling Hedgpeth. He previews the series through the prism of the film aptly chosen to play the PFA on February 14th.

Here's his article.

The Curious Case of Bringing Up Baby

written by guest blogger Sterling Hedgpeth, a.k.a.The Filmatelist:

As both a film lover and a stamp collector, I was thrilled when the US Postal Service announced that they’d be honoring four directors from the Golden Age of Hollywood in 2012. And when I heard who they were going to be—Ford, Capra, Wilder, Huston—my first reaction was a simple one:

“Where the hell is Howard Hawks?!?”

Because for me, Hawks embodies a seamless, no frills style of classic American filmmaking, while at the same time transcending that deceptive simplicity. Suspended between the sentimentality of Ford and Capra and the cynicism of Wilder and Huston, Hawks mastered a variety of genres with a clarity of vision and perspective that makes his films feel, 70+ years later, still quite contemporary. And fortunately for us, the Pacific Film Archive on the U.C. Berkeley campus will be holding a months-long retrospective of his work, starting on Friday, January 13.

Much has been written about the masculine ethos of Hawks’s world—a world with men of will and stoic action, motley crews united by an unspoken moral compass, women who give as good as they get, and conflicts that require solidarity and resourcefulness. It’s a recurring motif in all his films, to the point that critic David Thomson wrote “Like Monet forever painting lilies or Bon-nard always re-creating his wife in her bath, Hawks made only one artwork. It is the principle of that movie that men are more expressive rolling a cigarette than saving the world.”

But of his most revered films, one stands apart from the rest. For Bringing Up Baby (1938), while perfectly Hawksian in its wit, sexual sophistication, and breezy tone, is unusual for a couple of interesting reasons.

The first is that while most of his films either take place in the urban jungle (His Girl Friday, The Big Sleep) are on outposts far from civilization (Red River, Only Angels Have Wings), Baby bridges the two, for in the telling of David Huxley (Cary Grant) and his search for his intercostal clavicle, we move from the city and its social trappings to the Connecticut backwoods and then back again. This is done not only to point out the humorous incongruities of a leopard being walked down a busy thoroughfare, but to have the unpredictability of the outdoors be the vehicle by which the stifled David can discover himself.

Hawks’s cowboys and adventurers find a natural affinity with their surroundings, but for David, nature is something new and uncomfortable. Still, it’s the perfect place where a butterfly (as his even more uptight fiancée describes him) can take wing—and quite literally get caught in the net of Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn). Hawks rarely indulged in flights-of-fancy, keeping the tone of his films very grounded, but there’s something almost mystical about the moonlit excursion of David and Susan in search of her leopard. You almost expect Mickey Rooney’s Puck to pop his head out—a Midsummer Night’s Fever Dream. And what better place to abandon pretenses and your own senses?

Hawks’s classic women (Slim in To Have and Have Not, Feathers in Rio Bravo) can hold their own amidst the insular brotherhoods of his films, but Susan is unique by being the most masculine presence in Baby. For who else is there? The effete Charlie Ruggles with his animal calls? The plastered Barry Fitzgerald or clueless Fritz Feld? Nature abhors a vacuum, and Susan fills the testosterone void, be it sinking that impressive putt on the golf course, or pretending to be the quick-talking toughie and gang member. Hawks usually has his men shepherd each other through this rite of redemption, but lacking any other male role model, David steps up to the plate with Susan as his guide. It’s the Rising of Mr. Bone (which David is also called in the film).

But the film is still fundamentally a romance, and the film revolves around how the unlikely pairing of the mismatched duo is still a perfect fit. This is not a new conceit to the genre, but Hawks gets plenty of mileage out of finding simple ways of demonstrating this. When Hepburn rips the back of her party dress, the two walk in perfect lockstep, him behind her, as if they were a single unit. When singing “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, Baby”, their serenade consists of deft, spontaneous two-part vocals. Harmony. Synchronization. Balance.

Well, given that last remarkable stunt back in the museum—maybe there’s room for improvement on keeping balance. But that’s the moment when David realizes he loves Susan. So equilibrium between city/country, male/female, order/chaos are all on display in a way that we rarely see in Hawks. Hawks has been criticized for indulging in his Boys Club too often, a bromance ethos that has its own internal rules and memes. But Baby shows he can be just as brilliant at undermining those tropes while still having it feel perfectly at home in his body of work.

Sadly, Man’s Favorite Sport? (1964) is not part of the PFA series, because 25 years later, he updates this sensibility without ever losing his sense of humor or irony. Essentially a loose remake of Baby, it has cityboy Rock Hudson also return to nature, a faux fisherman and himself a fish out of water, with Paula Prentiss the most irresistible steamroller you might find. Like Baby, it has its flights of fancy, with slapstick sequences which emulate Looney Toons cartoons perfectly (a high comedic compliment indeed)—very atypical for Hawks, yet still fitting right in.

And with the exception of Sirk and Frankenheimer, nobody ever used Hudson quite so knowingly. For in his Doris Day vehicles, Rock played the rabid lothario who felt obliged to fake a sensitive side to get to first base with his object of pursuit. But in Sport, his entire existence consists of pretending to be someone he’s not, putting on a false image for the world, his fear of being outed a constant one. The premise (as well as Rock’s ritual humiliation throughout the film) is a cutting metaphor for Hudson’s career. All that’s missing is him putting on a female bathrobe (as Cary does in Baby)…”because I just went gay all of a sudden!”

Between them, Ford, Capra, Huston & Wilder earned over a dozen competitive Oscars. Hawks had to settle for a single nod (for Sergeant York) and a Lifetime Achievement kudo from the Academy decades later. The USPS will probably be the same way; Hawks will get his stamp eventually. But even for this Hawks veteran, the PFA offers some golden opportunities for films rarely screened. It’s a chance not to be missed. Hope to see you there.

For more discussion on Baby and postage stamps, come visit my blog here.