Some Came Running

So where exactly IS Catherine Breillat in "Last Tango in Paris," anyway?

Such was the question that I was determined to finally answer when I got the recent Blu-ray disc release of Bertolucci's still-argument-provoking 1972 film, in which the future director of A ma soeur! and Barbe Bleue, to name but two of my favorites of hers, is credited as appearing in the role of "Mouchette," while sister Marie-Hélene plays "Muriel." And I believe I found the two, in the scene in which Maria Schneider's Jeanne is trying on her wedding dress and discussing the relation of love to "pop marriage" and advertising with her schmuck cinephile/cineaste fiancé Tom (poor Jean-Pierre Léaud) and very nearly giving away her secret affair with the aging American Paul (Marlon Brando). To be honest, I can't be quite sure here which one is Catherine and which is Marie-Hélene; while the characters are named in the credits, they're not referred to by those names in the film proper (unless I missed something). Marie Hélene is only all of thirteen months older than Catherine, so it's hard to tell the difference. (It's kind of funny to consider their scant age difference and incredibly strong resemblance in contrast to the admittedly autobiographical or quasi-autobiographical portrayals of the sisters in the Breillat films I cite above, and the marked dissimilarities between the two girls in each of those films; just another study for the "perception IS reality" book, I guess.) Anyway, the two act very sweet and hippy dippy as they attend to Jeanne like ladies in waiting; it's a moment of comic and lyrical respite before everything starts coming crashing down and the film reaches its peculiar conclusion, which itself prompts a number of questions: is Jeanne in fact in "the wrong?" Will Paul be happier without the chewing gum? And so on.

Still such a weird, multi-layered film, really a mess in certain ways, because it tries to do so much; it's a study of the iconography of Hollywood stardom and what happens when you metaphorically destroy the system upon which it's built (and if you think that's over-reading the film, you need to pay closer attention to the description of Paul the cleaning woman tells Paul she gave to the authorities), a study of the soul-rot that can be an inherent feature of a certain species of cinephilia (something Bertolucci never quite got out of his system, and a topic to which I can imagine the sometime anti-cinephile Richard Brody warming to), AND an attempt to apply a new frankness to sexuality than had prior been attempted in conventional narrative film. It is this last feature that Breillat most obviously picked up at least part of her own artistic cue from, and from film to film you can see her succeeding where Bertolucci failed, and failing in ways he never even dreamed of. And that's even before we start getting into the attendant gender and sexual politics of the whole deal.

I have to say since I'm here that I'm not crazy about the MGM/UA  Blu-ray—it strikes me as a bit on the noisy side—and still have very fond memories of Criterion's laser disc, which I recollect as having been mastered from superior materials. Not that there's much of anything I can do about that. 

Effin mad aincha

One of the interesting things about writing for a larger, more mainstream audience, as I have been doing, and quite happily at that, for MSN Movies, is the feedback you get, and the ways some people track you down in order to provide that feedback. As, for instance, the complaint of one "Sauncie" concerning my negative notice on The Tourist, in a post on this blog that has no relation to The Tourist. Another dissatisfied customer contacted me via my Facebook account. This individual wrote, in part, "...your review seemed extremely arrogant, self-assuming, full of big words to try and impress people who have no clue as to what you are talking about. Your veiled insults to the fun Pirates movies was extremely irritating. One thing that I think all critics forget is that they are watching MOVIES. Things that are NOT real but made for entertainment purposes. You may not like the story, and that is your right, of course, but could you maybe dare to condescend to the little people and word it to where people can understand it easier and not want to throw darts at a picture of your face? Chronicles of Narnia are fun adventure movies....why take them so seriously. Relax, stop trying to impress people and let yourself be taken away. By the way, the Pirates movies were fantastically done. The last one may have had too much of a story but hey, it was easy to let yourself get into.......IF you let yourself. Take care."

The review in question was of the new (and lousy) Narnia movie with the seafaring stuff, but as you'll note, my correspondent was more irritated by my incredibly offhand (albeit admittedly sarcastic) and brief mention of the Pirates of the Cari-whatsis film franchise therein. I was somewhat reminded of back in the early '90s, during my brief but glorious sojourn as the Sci-Fi/Fantasy columnist for TV Guide, and I was writing something about the then kinda inchoate Cartoon Network debuting a new series, and I said something along the lines of "Just in case you've had your fill of Huckleberry Hound reruns on the Cartoon Network," which elicited this pained three-page letter from a minister (I forget which denomination) out in the Midwest taking me to task for disparaging this beloved, humane, wonderful cartoon character who never did anybody any harm. I always found that a little...well, quizzical. And whenever that story springs to mind, I remember when voice artist Daws Butler passed away in 1988, and the New York Daily News ran an obit of him, and they didn't have a picture of him on file, so they ran a drawing of the beloved, humane, etc. character Huckleberry Hound, only the layout didn't provide room for a very long caption, so the caption read "H.Hound." Which, when it comes to mind, never doesn't crack me up. 

And this of course in turn reminds me of the great bit in the 1946 Disney animated short "Donald's Double Trouble," in which the ever-irascible Donald Duck finds himself once again alienated from the lovely Daisy. On the street Donald happens upon a doppelganger, one who talks like Ronald Colman even, and persuades him to pose as Donald and make nice with Daisy. You can see where this is going. When the doppelganger gets a load of Daisy, he figures he's a cinch to tap that, particularly if he lays down the swanky smarm, which he correctly figures she's not accustomed to from the other guy. "We'll paint the town vermillion!" he promises her, and squires her to a nearby fair. Donald tails them, and keeps an obsessive record of all the PDAs he observes. It's all very Raging Bull. Near the, erm, climax, the doppelganger proposes to take Daisy through the fair's Tunnel of Love. The enraged, desperate Donald scribbles a note, which he passes surreptitiously to his would-be destroyer:

Who knew that Donald, in the privacy of his interiority, referred to his own self as "Don?" Fascinating.

Incidentally, the argument raised by the objector to my dismissal of the Pirates of the Whozis movies—"Things that are NOT real but made for entertainment purposes"—is echoed in a much more full-of-big-words-to-try-and-impress-people fashion in a recent Die Filmkrant post by Adrian Martin. 

At top: Hatfield and the North, a vault recording title of whom provides the name for this post. Their music is highly enjoyable to let yourself get into...IF you let yourself. No, really. 

Elvis is everywhere...(now with winner announcement!)

...including, apparently, your iPhone, if you want it. Last week Warner Digital began offering King classics Elvis On Tour, Viva Las Vegas, and Jailhouse Rock on On Demand and as downloads from iTunes. And the delightful folks at Warner were kind enough to offer yours truly a free download of the immortal Elvis On Tour, which will play on any device that accepts, you know, video downloads from iTunes.  Rather than hog the item myself—particularly as I'm a little old-fashioned about watching films on mobile devices, despite my desire to be not so much of a luddite—I thought I would offer it to my readership. Or, rather, to the lucky and interested party in my readership who can answer these three multiple choice questions concerning the King and his oeuvre. Yes, this is a contest. As it's a contest that involves answering questions, it won't be played in the comments section. Rather, send your answers to me, under the subject line "Elvis," via e-mail at the address [email protected]. First person to send an e-mail with the correct answers will have a link for the free download sent to him or her. So. Are you ready? Get set...here goes.

QUESTION 1: Which of the below-named guitarists never backed up the King?

a) Scotty Moore

b) James Burton

c) Richard Lloyd

QUESTION 2: He appeared in an Elvis film when he was a child actor; he went on to play Elvis in a television biopic. Who is he?

a) Rick Schroeder

b) Kurt Russell

c) Tony Dow

QUESTION 3: Whose cover version of "Heartbreak Hotel" adds the qualifier "I never will" to the line "Take a walk down Lonely Street?"

a) Willie Nelson's

b) Alvin and the Chipmunks'

c) John Cale's

Results to be announced tomorrow morning.

UPDATE: Ooops! Someone who didn't read the post thoroughly left some answers—all correct—in the comments. I've deleted that, and—duh!— blocked comments. (You can tell I don't do this sort of thing too often.) James K., if you still wanna play, send the answers to my e-mail ([email protected]) under the subject heading "Elvis"!

FURTHER UPDATE: Well, we have a winner. Or, by my lights, we have two winners, which I'll have to sort out with my Warner contact (gulp). Details will come tomorrow; in the meantime, do not e-mail answers. E-mail to say hi, sure, but the contest is done. Thanks!

FINAL UPDATE: Partly because of my own screwup (not closing comments right off the bat), and partly because someone doesn't read posts as thoroughly as they ought (I won't name names, but tsk, tsk), a state of affairs transpired in which, to my mind, there were two winners. Thankfully my pals at Warner decided to show mercy on this contest-running novice, and will award a free download of Elvis On Tour to both James Keepnews and the commenter known as Chris O. I thank everyone who sent responses.

The answers? On question 1, it was c), the great guitarist Richard Lloyd, who had never backed Elvis. Both Lloyd and his former Television partner Tom Verlaine will tell you plenty, though, about the greatness of both Scotty Moore and James Burton, the first being Elvis's earliest guitarist and the latter being the anchor of the TCB Band.

Question 2 everybody knows the answer to; of course the great Kurt Russell appeared with the King in It Happened At The World's Fair and played the King in John Carpenter's fabulous made-for-television Elvis.

Question 3 was kind of a trick question. First of all, I was a little surprised at how relatively few covers of "Heartbreak Hotel" there have been. Which isn't to say that when Elvis did a song, it didn't stay done, but that fact never stopped any fools rushing in, particularly Nashville-based ones. And that's not to say that Willie Nelson is a fool; his cover's a right nice one, and apt. As for the Alvin and the Chipmunks rendition, it sounds just like Alvin and the Chipmunks. But the one in which the line "take a walk down Lonely Street" is followed by the boast "I never will!" is in a radical reinvention of the song by the then-maniacal John Cale. Except—and here's the kind of trick part—Cale himself recorded two versions of his minimalist arrangement, and he only adds that line in one of them. It's not on the studio recording of the song that appears on 1975's Slow Dazzle, his second LP for Island Records. It is, rather, on the live recording of the song released on the album June 1, 1974, a document of a concert held on that date at London's Rainbow Theater featuring turns by Cale, Brian Eno, Nico, and headlined by Kevin Ayers (of whose discography that album is officially a part). James and Chris were both aware of this; one respondent, conversant only with the Slow Dazzle recording, was not. So there you have it.  

Thanks to everyone who played. James and Chris, lemme know how those downloads work out for you.