Cine-Journal, Mark II

For five years I turned out this blog, mostly on matters cinematic, on a somewhat regular basis. It wasn't always easy although it was frequently fun. It enabled me to experiment with different registers and tones in my writing, to plug my occasional public appearances, my books and the writings of my friends (including my esteemed and gifted wife) and my politics. Occasionally I would bend the self-imposed rules and comment on matters having nothing to do with the moving image.

For several months now, since October in fact, the blog has been dormant. As I have remarked in this space occasionally, when you are a professional writer -- someone who writes for a living, to pay the bills and feed the cat -- it is a pain in the ass to write for free. Of course, at least in theory, the blog leads to paying gigs or somehow creates other cash-earning opportunities. I have not found that to be the case, although I suppose it did alert some of you to the existence of my books, none of which is remotely about cinema.

After careful consideration, though, I have realized that writing the blog fills a few other needs, almost as important as the gaping holes in my bank account. It allows me to communicate more directly with similar-minded film people, to write on films that have no Jewish content, to write on films that are not necessarily playing in theaters right this instant, not to mention giving me a forum in which to comment on larger issues. When I'm not writing the blog, I have to pass up all of those. Obviously, if a paying gig came along that afforded similar opportunities, this space would suddenly be a blank once more. And if anyone reading this knows of such job, don't hesitate to tell me.

In the meantime, the Tribeca festival has begun once again and you can find my first Jewish Week piece on the event here.

As always, I reserve the right to talk sports, politics, literature or nonsense here. You can expect plenty of the last, I'm sure.

In Memoriam . . .

I've always liked Ed Lauter. He is, or more appropriately, was a wonderful character actor, an inventive player who brought lots of nuance to any role he was handed. Plus his career coincided with my own salad days as a film critic.

So I'm seriously bummed that he has died at the age of 74. My friend and colleague Ira Hozinsky drew my attention to an excellent interview with Lauter, which you can read here

One small tidbit I have to add to Lauter's story about Robert Aldrich casting him in The Longest Yard, everything Lauter says about Aldrich's many accomplishments is true -- he was an Aldich as in the Rockefellers and the Aldrichs, and went to UVA -- but what Lauter either didn't know or had forgotten is that Aldrich played varsity football at Virginia, so he knew even more about football than Lauter lets on.

Washington Heights Film Class Has a New Website

We're back up!
Check out our fall schedule here:

www.wahifilmclass.com

Hope to see some of you tomorrow night for The Trip!
(No, not the Roger Corman, the Michael Winterbottom.)

Another NY Film Festival Story

You can read my next NYFF piece at Jewish Week. And I urge you to check out the Empire project's website. They now have both the Legacy and Cradle segments up and each is well worth your time.

 Is this a legacy of slavery? Ceremonies in Ghana in the Empire project videos

Saw the new James Gray, The Immigrant, and the new Claire Denis, Bastards, yesterday, and I'll have a bit to say about each later this weekend.

From Russia with Films

You can't keep track of everything that happens in New York City in film. Heaven knows I try, but it's simply not possible. So when I received an e-mail about the sixth annual Russian Documentary Film Festival in New York I was a bit surprised -- sixth? and I never heard about it before? Not to mention that the e-mail came the day before the event begins.

So let me pull your coat to what looks like an interesting group of films about one of the most complicated nations on earth. The focus is mostly on non-controversial works, including a 75th birthday tribute to Rudolf Nureyev, but there are some very appealing subjects on display, including a longitudinal study of young Russians, literally a Russian 28 Up, directed by Sergey Miroshnichenko. Not surprisingly, it's a Russian-British co-production.

The program takes place October 4-6 at the Tribeca Cinemas, DCTV and the Brooklyn Public Library and you can find the particulars here.

A Quick Update

Jewish Week has two new film stories of mine up on the website right now:

http://www.thejewishweek.com/arts/film/search-trochenbrod

http://www.thejewishweek.com/arts/film/jews-money-and-mythology

On a more serious note, let me draw your attention to the latest attack on an Iranian filmmaker, this one by the ostensibly more moderate new regime. I've written a bit about Muhammad Rasoulof's problems with the government before, and this comes as no great surprise. I guess Rowhani felt he had to let people at home know that the face he showed at the UN wasn't that of a "weak" leader.

http://www.screendaily.com/5061046.article

Back Again . . .

So I've been covering the New York Film Festival and other goodies for Jewish Week. Plus a bunch of things I want to pull your coat to.

First, my first Film Festival piece is here:http://www.thejewishweek.com/arts/film/last-elder-terezin
I don't know when the Frederick Wiseman review will be posted, but here's what I said:

Frederick Wiseman is a documentarian whose work seldom touches directly on Jewish topics (although his brilliant essay in fiction film, “The Last Letter” does so with exceptional power), but his attitude and interests bespeak a personality steeped in Jewish ethics and values. His latest film, “At Berkeley,” a four-hour glimpse into the inner workings of the University of California at Berkeley, provides an excellent example. As in most of Wiseman’s work, the film pivots on the theme of the place of large public institutions in a democratic society, one that is pluralistic and wildly diverse. Berkeley, which has always grappled pretty openly with this issue in both its governance and its daily routines, is a terrific vehicle for Wiseman’s cinema-verite gaze.

Covering most of an academic year at the school, Wiseman’s primary focus is on the complex vectors of power that tug at the school on a daily basis – the state legislature in Sacramento, the impossibly complicated array of student groups and interests, California’s financial crunch, potential donors both personal and corporate, and so on – and his access was formidable. In the post-screening press conference he said that the only meetings to which he was not privy were discussions of tenure.

Strangely enough, therein lies the film’s central dilemma. If you can show nearly everything, how do you choose what to show? For much of the film’s running time, Wiseman’s choices are unerring as usual. The university’s leaders, particularly the handsome and soothing-voiced Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau (who retired this May), are not merely smart manipulators. One feels their genuine concern for the student body, beleaguered by continuously rising costs, and the faculty, and their commitment to the place of higher education in a democratic society. When the film is focusing on them, and on the staff, its footing is sure. But the choices of class time Wiseman has made frequently seem arbitrary, even perfunctory. Only towards the end of the film, when he devotes a long sequence to a remarkable group of older students, an on-campus  veterans’ support group, do we get some sense of the larger societal impact of a great public university.

The second part of a spirited and charming conversation with Eran Riklis is up on the JWeek site here: http://www.thejewishweek.com/arts/film/these-mean-streets-are-beirut 

Stephen Dorff in Time Out, One of His Bleaker Moments in Eran Riklis's Zaytoun

I cannot urge you strongly enough to see Alan Berliner's HBO film First Cousin Once Removed.  You can find information on screening times here: http://www.hbo.com/#/documentaries/first-cousin-once-removed

and my interview with Berliner is here:http://www.thejewishweek.com/arts/film/filmmaker-grapples-family-and-memory

Ooh, Scary -- Alan Berliner in Pamplona, Hypnotizing the Spanish Audiences

As regular readers know, I've become an ardent advocate for the wider dissemination of literature in translation. In addition to the growing number of publishing houses that specialize in this area -- and I cannot overpraise Open Letter Books, Archipelago Press, New Vessel Publishing and countless others -- I want to draw your attention to a fascinating project (w/blog, of course) of a young woman reader in England. The very useful Publishing Perspectives website has a story on her here with links to her blog and her book list:

http://publishingperspectives.com/2013/09/one-year-reading-a-book-from-every-nation-in-the-world/

And you could do a lot worse than to check out Publishing Perspectives on a regular basis, particularly if you are a writer.

As we know, I won't make any promises about regular appearances in this space, but I'm hoping that the fall will bring more to write about.

C'mon Spurs, crush Chelsea!!!