Hi Elizabeth,
I just thought I'd check in, even though I don't have much to report as usual. I hope all is well (and I'm sure it is), you are probably working on a video or maybe your album, or practicing the viola, or maybe all of those things. :)
I hope you got to go to Alcest! And if you did I also hope you took some photos.
We started a new retrospective last night at the CSUN Cinematheque, the films of John Cassavettes, the director who really jump started independent filmmaking in America. He was a big name in the '60s. I remember my parents talking about him, and they would go see his films, and listening to them as a kid, the name stuck because it was unusual sounding. John Cassa-vet-ees.
Well anyhow, we saw his first film last night, called "Shadows". Man, I don't even know what to say about this movie except to call it high energy and very creative. It is free form; a caption at the end proclaims it to be entirely improvised. The version we saw (from 1959) actually was not, it was a scripted and more professional version of the 1957 improvised version, but the improvisational feel remains. It is the story of three siblings : two black musicians and their light skinned sister (played by a white Italian actress). She has a boyfriend who doesn't know she's black, and when he meets her brothers he is immediately turned off to her. This was the 1950s, so race was a big deal then, and probably still is, though now it is not as overt.
The film is only loosely about this storyline, however. The overall story is all over the place, and really just follows this gang of people around New York City, in nightclubs and apartments and bars. You can totally see where Martin Scorcese got his style. Cassavettes must have been a huge influence on him. But I have never seen a movie quite like "Shadows". It is somewhat chaotic, like a Jean-Luc Godard film, but like Godard, Cassavettes not only pulls it off, but makes a low-budget classic of American cinema. The key is the professionalism behind the cinematic anarchy. If everyone involved wasn't as talented as they are, the movie would have been terrible. But because they are all so good, the chaos becomes pure creativity and it not only holds the viewer but keeps him or her riveted. You can't take your eyes off this movie. I give it a Big Thumbs Up, and I am looking forward to more of the Cassavettes retrospective. :)
This evening I saw that the actor John Hurt had passed away, and it took me back to what feels like another lifetime, to my days at Metrocolor, which was MGM Studios film laboratory as I have mentioned. I worked there from 1979 through 1981, and for much of that time I ran the old black and white processing machine through which reels of film were developed. These were the positive reels that, when dried and finished, would be shipped to movie theaters all over the country and around the world. By the 1980s, no one was shooting in black and white anymore, so almost all the films I was processing were oldies. And it was a real trip running that machine, because it was situated in a room away from the main lab where the color machines were located, and so I felt I was "back in time", as the machine itself was probably built in the 1920s or early '30s, and the films I was processing were from the Golden Age.
But then in 1980, we began the run of prints for "The Elephant Man" by David Lynch, which he shot in black and white. I had become a fan of Lynch two years earlier, in 1977 when his landmark debut "Eraserhead" was released. That too was B&W, and wow what a weird and genius movie....
But back to "The Elephant Man", well, it is a small claim to fame for me that I processed most of the prints for that film, the reels of film that were shown in theaters. It was also a huge thrill for me, because I got to see, by holding the 35mm film up to my eyes, the images of the Elephant Man character himself, as played by John Hurt, who today passed away. I will always remember how shocked I was to see what he looked like in that makeup. It was frightening, actually, and very shocking when you see the film, but I was seeing it before it was ever in a theater......
I was such a fan of David Lynch, and the images of John Hurt as The Elephant Man were so awesome looking to me, that I snipped a few frames from a damaged reel and took them home as a souvenier, which I still have today - a snippet of 35mm frames from that film.
It seems like another lifetime, and I did not always appreciate my job when I had it (though looking back it was a pretty awesome job), but it will always be a big honor for me to have run the black and white processing machine at Metrocolor, and to have done the prints for "The Elephant Man". If you have never seen the movie, I cannot recommend it highly enough, though I would suggest holding on to a handkerchief as you watch. :)
Well, SB, that's all I know for tonight. I hope all is well. Post if you get a chance, and if you want to.
I Love You. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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