The Wolf Man wants to die and other stories.

It's been a while since I've had a long lazy day of staying home and enjoying movies.  This past Saturday was a nice treat.  

I woke up before anyone else and watched Rohmer's 2nd Moral Tale, Suzanne's Career.  Like Bakery Girl, it's a simple story about emotional attraction and the ways that man is dishonest with himself when engaging with the fearsome otherness of woman.  The male friend plays a much larger role here than in Bakery Girl, adding rivalry into the already bewildering landscape of gender interactions.

Everyone woke up.  I cooked some eggs, then after breakfast Abby left with Millie, Susie, and Lu.  Me, Annie, and the Pip were left all alone in an empty house with shelves full of DVDs.

With no mama to warn against monster movies, we had to watch Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man.

I loved it.  Lon Chaney, Jr. is the major reason why.  This is the third film I've seen him in as the Wolf Man.  The guy is so likable it hurts.  

It may be silly to say, but the scenes between him and the Frankenstein monster are touching.  Talbot is basically using the monster, but he also understands the monster and shows only gentleness and not fear.

Most importantly, Annie loved it.

Next, we watched Billy the Kid Trapped, a pretty standard entry in the Crabbe Billy the Kid series of pictures.  And "pretty standard" = fine afternoon entertainment.  I've got 20 of these films on a cheap DVD set that I got from my mother this past Christmas.  Trapped has an above average share of laughs, but my favorite moment is the cheap laugh when Fuzzy comes face to face with his doppleganger.

Even with the white hats and the black hats, Annie had a hard time keeping straight who was who, but she liked it all.

Also, this was the Golden Age of cowboy movies, when a fight scene was exciting because the action was clearly understood.  I sound like an old fogey, but I can do without today's incomprehensibly frenetic action editing.

Actually, the same holds true for Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man.  The obligatory showdown between the two at the end is TENSE!

We took a break.  Potatoes for lunch.

Next, we watched Steam Boat 'Round the Bend, a John Ford comedy that I've let sit on my shelf for too long.  It's the first film I've ever seen Will Rogers in.  And it's funny.  I love the sly pokes at temperance preachers and self-proclaimed prophets.  The way that the film celebrates the South while ridiculing it.  White/Black relations is one of the thorniest elements of this movie, if only because of the silence on the matter.  Stepin Fetchit puts in an amazing performance as David Begat Solomon or George Lincoln Washington or we'll just call him Jonah.  He's really funny.  He's also among equals while on the steamboat.  Of course, those equals are all crazy in their own way, but that's what integration will get you.  He also is the final character holding the trophy in the end.

I need to watch Judge Priest now.

Boxcar Bertha I watched alone while the girls napped.  I'm actually really surprised that this film is so little known and not thought that well of.

The textbook Flashback: A Brief History of Film was the text used in the only film class I ever had the opportunity to take.  Here's what Flashback says:
"After directing a Roger Corman cheapie, he got a chance to direct his first important feature, Mean Streets (1973)."

That Corman cheapie was Boxcar Bertha.  Not having instant gratification through Internet access, I can't tell you how the film was received at the time nor how it is widely viewed today.  My impression is that it's forgotten either on purpose or out of contempt.

Which is too bad.  I can't say that I loved it, but then again I've never really loved any Scorcese picture.  Maybe Bringing Out the Dead I can say I loved.  But, dang, I respect the man.  And Boxcar Bertha seems to fit into Scorcese's body of work very well.

Boxcar Bertha is a really interesting early example of Scorcese as part of the "New Hollywood" and as a Corman disciple.  Gangs of New York is the most recent Scorcese film that it reminded me of, but there are hints of everything to come from Last Temptation of Christ to Goodfellas.  Seriously, these films have as much if not more in common with Boxcar Bertha than with Mean Streets.

It's also the first instance of Scorcese tackling an historic American story that isn't part of the accepted history curriculum.  (though I have no experience with the source material and no idea how faithful this film is to it but in some ways that is beside the point)  

It's easy to see Scorcese's early work as extremely personal as evidenced by the director's own scripts for Who's That Knocking at My Door and Mean Streets or his later collaborations with Schrader.  But, this gritty "personal" style only holds true as a fact if one overlooks the "anomolies" of Boxcar Bertha and Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore or the later The King of Comedy and After Hours.

I'm being unclear.  I'm not arguing that Boxcar Bertha isn't personal.  I'm arguing that people forget it because it doesn't fit nicely into the common conception of early Scorcese.  

I'm arguing that Boxcar Bertha is just as personal or at least as meaningful as Scorcese's more celebrated films and reveals just as much about the director as those other films do.  Certainly, Scorcese's developing style is evidenced here as well as the themes that will preoccupy him for the rest of his career.  It's just that this isn't urban Scorcese.  Here is Scorcese the alternative historian, the man who tells stories of outlaws and martyrs who nonetheless were flesh and blood.  Scorcese both mythologizes and carnalizes through the crazy concrete fluidity of his films.  I'm not sure if that makes sense.  But I'm speaking of guys crucified on boxcars now.  Yeah?

Boxcar Bertha also was the most recent instigation for Abby to yell at me for watching movies with naked ladies in them.

Without getting into that too much, I'll just note that visualized sexuality has always been as important to Scorcese as religion and violence.  In fact, the three are often tied up together in his films and many of his films are just barely on the artful side of the exploitation line.

So why do I subject myself to a Scorcese film when I pretty much know that I'm guaranteed an eyeful of sex and graphic violence accompanied by an earful of foul language?  And that I don't even like most Scorcese films that I've seen? 

It has something to do with auteur theory.  I've grown to know Scorcese as an author and even if I know that I'll see something I find distasteful in his films, I know just as surely that he'll be wrestling with his faith (or lack thereof) in public each time he makes a picture.  Also, that each film of his is in a sense an act of film criticism as he interacts with genres and other specific films.  Scorcese is striving for (and often achieving) artistic excellence in the medium he loves.

Likewise and even more extreme, I'm more interested in the next abhorrent Reygadas or Von Trier film than whatever the Fireproof studio has planned next, even though I understand that I'm in fundamental agreement with the message of fidelity and monogamy found in Fireproof and am absolutely at war with Reygadas's salvific fornication and Von Trier's unfocused religious mania.  But, hot damn and hellfire, these two guys can make powerful films. 

Now I need to see Fireproof if I'm going to make it a whipping boy.  Not having seen Fireproof, it is unfair of me to use it as an example above, but it is the most recent representative of mediocre "Christian" films and I know it by reputation.

More often than not, I'd rather see a demonically well-crafted film depicting a worldview I despise than a mediocre film with a message I cherish.

This is one reason I love Rohmer so much and haven't yet found a reason not to.  The man's films exude excellence while challenging the lies and half-truths of modern and post-modern man looking to get laid.  Rohmer's films explore love and sexuality as earnestly and honestly as a Reygadas or Von Trier or even Apatow or Smith, to be generous toward America's leading men of raunch, who I do think are seeking for answers.  The difference is that Rohmer seems to cherish virtue and seems optimistic even at his most disheartened.  

That was a long tangent.  Sorry.
 
After Bertha, Abby returned home with the other girls and the napping girls woke up.  I made a quick trip to The Point for ale and cheese. 

Once home again, I watched Whistle, a short (28m) film by Duncan Jones which was, surprisingly enough, dedicated to me.  It's good.  I'm excited to see whatever Jones does next after Moon.

Speaking of Moon, it's a crime that its score hasn't received much recognition.  It may be the best score of last year.  I guess most scores, good or bad, receive little recognition.  

I didn't watch Moon, but I did dabble in the bonus features on the disc.

I watched the two Q and A sessions featuring Duncan Jones at Sundance and at NASA and I love Moon even more now.  Jones is remarkably humble and grateful to be making films at all.   

There was some more time spent away from the TV, suppertime and such. 

Then, some final moving images - a bedtime viewing of Breaking Bad, Season 2 Episodes 10 and 11.

[Spoilers]Breaking Bad has the distinguished honor of making its audience love its protagonist, then having us feel really conflicted, almost disappointed, when we get the news that Walt's cancer is in remission and that he might just live for a long time to come.  Amazing!  This news, coupled with the idea of Jesse as an obvious liability moving into the future is enough to wrench anyone's guts.  Or at least mine.[/Spoilers]

At the end of the day, roughly 7 hours of viewing.  A good day at the movies. At home.

Also, for the record, besides Saturday, the only other films I've watched since my Ikiru post are Lakeview Terrace, a disappointment from Neil LaBute and Nearly Wed, a funny enough Popeye short.  Oh yeah, and Lost.  Ricardo is Jesus.  Yeah.  

In short, minimal viewing for a couple of weeks followed by a Saturday binge.

I feel alright.