PORTRAIT OF JASON - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Stellar Milestone Film and Video Blu-Ray of the legendary Shirley Clarke Doc focusing on early 60s Gay African-American Raconteur

In anticipation of the upcoming 2015 Toronto Hot Docs International Festival of Documentary Cinema, herewith is a review of the Milestone Film and Video Blu-Ray of their Shirley Clarke restoration series featuring one of the greatest documentaries ever made: Portrait of Jason (screened during the 2013 Hot Docs festival) and now available to own. See this important work NOW and possess it FOREVER.

Ingmar Bergman proclaimed Portrait of Jason as being “the most extraordinary film I’ve ever seen in my life.” Its first screening in 1967 included an audience of Tennessee Williams, Norman Mailer, Andy Warhol, Arthur Miller, Elia Kazan, Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis and Terry Southern.

In spite of this, decades passed, yielding little more than a film that disappeared - so cast away that the original elements were thought to be lost, thoroughly and utterly untraceable. The prints that existed, crude 35mm blow-ups to begin with, were so worn and scratched, they were beyond salvation.

After a painstaking search that took years, Dennis Doros and Amy Heller, God's Gifts to saving what was thought to be unsalvageable, eventually found and identified mislabeled “outtakes” as the original 16mm inter-positive negative of Portrait of Jason.

For this, we must all feel beholden to these efforts.

Portrait of Jason is with us now and here to stay.

Forever.

Portrait of Jason (1967)
Dir. Shirley Clarke
Starring: Jason Holliday (aka Aaron Payne)

Review By Greg Klymkiw

To be gay in America right now shouldn't be so fraught with hate and invective, but attitudes and legislation in many pockets of the Red, White and Blue still seem so frustrating and backward. As such, gay bashing and murder are still a real threat.

To be Black in America right now is to also be a target of hate-filled repressive castigation, often ending in murder at the hands of racist police.

To be Black and Gay in America in 2015 - well, let's not even go there - especially not states like Alabama, Indiana, Mississippi or, say, Arkansas, to name but a few. Stay away. Stay far away. Don't believe for a moment that any useless amendments (or lack thereof) made to their boneheadedly hate-filled legislation will do anything to stem the tide of hatred.

Shirley Clarke's Portrait of Jason, a stunning, groundbreaking feature documentary has always held a place of importance in both cinema and, most notably, in its power and insight into what it must have been to be Black and Gay in American during the 1960s. First released almost fifty years ago, it's a window into racial and sexual politics as presented by one of the most fascinating subjects one will find in that period of documentary film. Clarke's picture will indeed have equal resonance in today's era of intolerance; maybe even more so, in light of the aforementioned current conditions plaguing much of America, land of the not-so Free.

Restored and released by the visionary Milestone Films and Video, the film's importance to the art of film and gay history can't be stressed enough. Current attitudes towards both the gay and of-colour communities that still exist in so-called "progressive" societies means, due to Milestone's commitment to saving, preserving and showcasing forgotten and/or lost works, that this vital film can now be experienced by whole new generations of audiences all over the world and, no doubt, for generations to come.

Portrait of Jason is the essential cinéma vérité doc that focuses upon the irreverent gay American houseboy, hustler and wannabe cabaret perfomer, Jason Holiday. Shot over the course of one very long night in Clarke's home in the legendary Chelsea Hotel in New York, the picture is essentially a monologue performed by her old friend as he tells the story of his extraordinary life with equal parts humour and sadness.

Captured in glorious standard-frame black and white 16mm film stock, the camera never leaves the realm of Jason save for cuts or fades to black and occasionally, to sound with no picture when the camera needs to change film rolls. This real exigency of production led to a superb, imaginative editing approach to the picture. Clarke uses the blacks as breathtaking exclamatory bridges between the various segments, which provide an indelible series of transition points in the "narrative" flow of the work itself.

Stylish, dapper and adorned in his trademark heavy-black-framed coke-bottle lenses, often armed with a fortifying drink in one hand and cigarette in the other, Jason recounts both his philosophies of life and extraordinary life story. For good measure, he tosses in plenty of hilarious impersonations and jokes. These are the bountiful maraschino cherries on the - ahem - ever-so delectable Chocolate Holliday Sundae.

His tales begin entertainingly and amusingly enough, but as the film progresses, Jason adds copious reefer ingestion and booze swilling by the bucketful, until the whole affair slowly unravels into a veritable Walpurgisnacht.

What we learn during the 105-minute confession seems mostly truthful, albeit tempered by Jason's abilities as a born raconteur. He gives us snippets of his childhood, his relationship with parents and other family, in addition to friends, employers and lovers, life on the streets, in the baths, in the bars and in the homes of those whom he worked for as a houseboy" (and the various permutations - mostly implied - of what that entailed). He shares his secrets in the arts of hustling, cajoling, stealing, "borrowing" and making his way through life with as little effort as possible.

"I'm lazy," he declares, "I've always really wanted to jump into it, but I kept avoiding it somehow. I always made an excuse for accepting other people's problems and putting down my own. I always became this one or that one's flunky - anything to keep from facing what I really wanted to do and now, I want to do it."

Doing it won't be as easy as he thinks.

His first order of business is a moniker makeover. Jason's given name not only brought back "unpleasant memories", but led to states of deep "despression." Changing his given name of Aaron Payne to the decidedly flamboyant "Jason Holliday" not only helped to erase (or at least suppress) the past, but ultimately gave him the strength to pursue his dreams.

"If the name rings a bell to you, makes you feel well, then take the name," he states emphatically when describing his epiphanies in San Francisco's famed Gay Mecca of Castro Street, a magical place where he met way too many cool "cats" with "hip" names, that he decided his own rebirth was in order.

Hence, a new name.

"I was created in San Francisco," he says with pride, then, with a smile, "and San Francisco is the place to be created in. Believe me!"

By the time Jason is in front of Clarke's camera, he's left San Francisco to be back in his beloved hometown of New York. Here, Jason hopes to rekindle his dream of being a nightclub performer. As Clarke's film proves, he's imbued with more than enough talent to do so and most notably, he's certainly not without material. However, he has one hurdle to overcome - not wanting to work. He relays an anecdote about a close friend who works as a teacher in the public school system; she's so devoted to teaching that after work, she goes from house to house in her neighbourhood teaching kids who either don't go to school or need the kind of additional tutelage and attention they don't get in school. What she says to Jason is as inspiring to him as it is a tool in which to morph his notion of hard work into doing as little as possible.

"One day she said something to me that was really hip. 'Jason', she said, 'everyone in New York has a gimmick. Mine is teaching school.' And from her I learned that mine was hustling."

Jason, of course, prides himself on the diverse nature of his skill. "I have more than one hustle. I'll come on as a maid or a butler; anything to keep from punching the clock from 9-to-5, because every time I've punched that clock it's been a job that's such a drag it makes you sick, and what I really wanna do is what I'm doing now [in front of the camera] and that is to perform."

In the same breath, he subtly drops the aforementioned subject of "performing" and brilliantly segues into a whole new patter. Well, it's an old patter, really, but Jason's crafty enough to know that everything old becomes new again. "I'm scared of responsibility," he continues. "I'm scared of myself, because I'm a pretty frightening cat, as people who know me will tell you." He's quick to elaborate: "I don't mean any harm, but the harm is done. A friend of mine keeps telling me that I'm always going to find a way of fouling it up, but I'm always trying to get in there and pitch." Then, just as smoothly and brilliantly, like he's been doing standup comedy for decades, he segues into a very telling, but funny story about seeing a psychiatrist:

"These head shrinkers are very interesting cats. Sometimes they let you talk. They keep wanting to know who you sleep with. Someone asked me, 'What do you do? ...Do you please them?' I say, "If I don't please them, it's because I'm not trying."

THEN, he uses this to leap into a riff on sex:

"I've spent so much of my life being sexy, as you can see!" he cheekily exclaims with the flourish of a runway model's twirl of the head, until, with his ever-impeccable timing, the requisite self-deprecation and a winning smile, he returns to the theme of his sloth: "Lord knows, I haven't gotten anything else done."

Jason is clearly gifted and it's to Clarke's credit that she's made this film if only to capture Holliday's crazy genius and by extension, fashioning a macrocosmic view of a life and lifestyle which feels at once, locked in time and yet, replete with resonance to our modern world.

He describes one of his employers as "a tall, lanky, sad looking blonde from Alabama." With giddy delivery he recalls, "She'd say 'Jason, fix me some of that chicken.' They always want chicken, cuz, of course, all coloured folks know how to fix chicken, so I'd be in the kitchen, frying the ass off this chicken, 'Yas'm, I'd say.'" He then takes a deeply racist slur and turns it into a joke: "One time she says, 'You know Jason, I never really much liked niggers, but you're the first one I ever really cared for.' And I said, 'Well that's very sweet of you, I guess that means I should have this job for a very long time."

As masterful as Jason's delivery is, it's tempered with seep sadness: "I think as a house boy I really suffered" he admits with genuine sadness before flipping it around with: "But this hasn't all been a waste. They think you're just a dumb, stupid little coloured boy who's trying to get a few dollars. They think they're gonna use you as a joke, but the real joke is this: who's using who?"

By expressing deep pain over the prejudicial views assailing him at every turn, he's clearly able to turn the tables on his oppressors. Though it doesn't seem like mere rationalization, one gets the sense that the tit-for-tat is probably more one-sided; that the notion of empowerment is imbued with a high degree of self-delusion. This surely speaks to anyone and everyone who has been the target of deep-seeded hatred and sought to fight back, only to find that they're using a shield to repel the blows that in fact, have virtually no genuine resonance upon the attacker.

Clarke deftly takes hours upon hours of footage and recreates a powerful dramatic arc in which Jason, by his words and actions, eventually takes his shield and transforms it into an ostrich hole of drug and alcohol abuse, and in so doing, Clarke captures an encapsulation of generations upon generations of prejudicial abuse and its effects upon even the most accomplished and intelligent human beings who were, and frankly, continue to be targets of ignorance.

This has got to stop. One hopes a fifty-year-old film will have the requisite power to do so.

As important as the film itself, is its restoration. Milestone Film and Video's work earned the company's founders Amy Heller and Dennis Doros a Special Award from the 2012 New York Film Critics Circle for preserving "the work of pioneering indie filmmaker Shirley Clarke." The greatness of Clarke's Portrait of Jason cannot be underestimated, nor, frankly, can the painstaking work of Heller and Doros.

The film must be seen by as wide an audience as possible and the Milestone Film and Video Blu-ray should be in every home of anyone committed to great cinema as well as work that stands as a testament to those who fought, lost and won in the battle for dignity and the most basic human rights.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars (for both the film and the stunning Milestone Film and Video Blu-Ray)

The Milestone Film and Video Blu-Ray of Portrait of Jason includes: Where's Shirley? (25 mins) a lovely, heartfelt documentary from Milestone's original crowd funding plea to have the film restored and detailing a bevy of important information about the painstaking efforts to bring the film back into the public eye, The Lost Confrontation (7 mins), Jason in Color! (2:30 mins), Trailer (2 mins), Jason: Before and After (1:30 mins), Butterfly (1967, 3:34 mins) Shirley Clarke in Underground New York (1967, 9:37 mins), Jason Unleashed (Audio outtakes. 35 mins), Pacifica Radio Interview with Shirley Clarke (1967, 53 mins), The Jason Holiday Comedy Album (1967, 54:00 mins, audio) and SDH Subtitles

Read the original Film Corner crowd funding plea for the film's restoration in 2012 HERE

Feel free to read my RAVE reviews of other great Milestone Film and Video releases: ON THE BOWERY HERE. My Review of THE DRAGON PAINTER can be read HERE. And be on the lookout for my full-length Film Corner reviews of RAGS AND RICHES: THE MARY PICKFORD COLLECTION HERE, CUT TO THE CHASE!: THE CHARLIE CHASE COLLECTION HERE and ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S "BON VOYAGE" & "ADVENTURE MALGACHE" HERE.


Don't forget you can order PORTRAIT OF JASON from the Amazon links below and in so doing, contribute to the ongoing maintenance of the Film Corner:


In USA and the rest of the WORLD - BUY Portrait of Jason - HERE!

In Canada - BUY Portrait of Jason HERE, eh!

In the UNITED KINGDOM - BUY Portrait of Jason - HERE!

Klymkiw reviews 3 Classics presented as retrospective screenings at the 2014 (FNC) Festival du nouveau cinéma in Montreal. Samuel Fuller's THE BIG RED ONE, Ken Russell's CRIMES OF PASSION, King Hu's DRAGON INN

From D-Day to the Liberation of the
Death Camps, LEE MARVIN leads an
all-star cast in SAMUEL FULLER'S
autobiographical masterpiece of
WORLD WAR II.

The Big Red One: The Reconstruction (1980/2004)
Dir. Samuel Fuller
Starring: Lee Marvin, Mark Hamill, Robert Carradine, Bobby Di Cicco, Kelly Ward, Siegfried Rauch, Stéphane Audran

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Samuel Fuller made films that pulsated with the stuff of life and yet, at the same time, crackled with the pulpy, hard-boiled crispness of paperback potboilers and tabloid news rags. The guy was a true original and his 1980 classic The Big Red One practically reeks with the stench of death.

It's one of the great war movies of all time and is quite possibly one of the few explorations of men in battle to benefit from an exquisite amalgam of both the terrible truths it conveys and Fuller's terse, almost machine-gun-like style of presentation. Fuller, of course brought the life experience of being an investigative reporter to bear upon all his films, but he also infused them with his horrific exposure to the senseless waste of humanity during his years as an infantryman in the legendary Big Red One of the title.

Fuller himself was present at D-Day and made it to the liberation of Nazi Death Camps. He knew what it was like to be in battle and he especially understood both male camaraderie and the sickening heartache of encountering the remnants of massive genocide. He put all of this into The Big Red One.

Though he approved a much shorter version of the picture for theatrical release, he always regretted not holding out for his lengthier version. Thanks to a shooting script, detailed notes and the dogged persistence of film critic Richard Schickel, we're now able to experience a version of the film that's much closer to what Fuller intended.

It's one corker of a war movie - touching, exciting, wildly humorous and finally, deeply moving. With gruff Lee Marvin leading the charge, Robert Carradine as a cigar-chomping Fuller surrogate and a post-Star Wars Mark Hamill, we're told the tale of several survivors through a harrowing tour of duty. Bodies blow to bits, blood splashes liberally, tanks creak over raw terrain and finally, we experience the charred remains in Nazi Death Ovens.

Fuller hands us one episode after another that evokes the horror of war. Lee Marvin, especially, gives the performance of a lifetime. Seeing him befriend a starving child-survivor of the Death Camp is proof positive of Marvin's versatility.

It might also be the only time Lee Marvin will have you in tears.

NOTE: Samuel Fuller's daughter Samantha, who played a war orphan in The Big Red One, will be present at the FNC screening to introduce the film and engage in a question and answer session.

THE FILM CORNER RATING:
***** - Five Stars

I WILL KILL YOU! I WILL SAVE YOU! HARLOT!

Crimes of Passion (1984)
Dir. Ken Russell
Starring: Kathleen Turner, Anthony Perkins

Review By Greg Klymkiw

This is a rare opportunity to see Ken Russell's deliciously scary, funny and perverse thriller in 35mm, thanks to screenwriter Barry Sandler's collection at the Academy Film Archive. (Sandler will also be present for the screening.) It's sometimes hard to believe certain films are as old as they are. Crimes of Passion turns 30-years-of-age and it feels as insanely cutting-edge and over-the-top as it did when I first saw it first-run. FNC will be screening the rare director’s cut which has been available on DVD, but I can assure you, there's nothing like seeing its grotesque colours and glorious grain on actual film. You'll be able to thrill to Kathleen Turner's sexually-explicit, no-holds-barred performance as a repressed housewife who transforms herself by night into the ultra-hote-babe China Blue.

This alluring, albeit low-track street hooker, engages in all manner of aggressive sexual gymnastics as an addictive, though empty antidote to frigidity. Matching Turner's brilliant, outrageous performance is everyone's favourite Psycho Anthony Perkins as a demented preacher malevolently stalking her. He will save China Blue, even if he has to eventually snuff her out. She has another stalker, though. He wants to love her. Oh, what's a $50-per-trick hooker supposed to do? Decisions. Decisions.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** - Four Stars

Beware of sneaky, sword-wielding EUNUCHS!!!

Dragon Inn (1967)
Dir. King Hu
Starring: Bai Ying, Miao Tien, Han Ying-chieh, Shih Chun, Cho Kin, Hsieh Han

Review By Greg Klymkiw

In the middle of nowhere lies the last outpost before the border, a godforsaken hellhole called the Dragon Gate Inn. This is where political exiles are banished to during the Ming Dynasty of ancient China. When the cruel Emperor executes one of his officials, the unfortunate's family are booted out of town and sent packing to the ends of the earth. Sadly, exile isn't their only problem since the big bad ruler has sent a nasty eunuch to spy on them and eventually effect their deathly eradication from the planet. Like some mad kung-fu spaghetti western, a whole passel of deadly killers descend upon the Inn and we're treated to intrigue and action. King Hu was one of the grand masters of cinema and his masterpiece Dragon Inn was recently afforded a gorgeous 4K digital restoration - all the better to take in the sumptuous vistas, cleverly composed (and designed) interiors and the astounding choreography and direction of some of the most stirring sword fights and hand-to-hand combat ever wrought within martial arts movies. Hu's frame is always lively, his moves masterful and his sense of spatial geography always dead-on. Here you'll have the opportunity to witness a director at the peak of his considerable powers, working in tandem with ace choreographer and action helmer Han Ying-chieh. Between the two of them, Dragon Inn is one of the most thriller martial arts pictures of all time - one which influenced Tsui Hark, John Woo, Jacky Chan, Ang Lee, Zhang Yimou and yes, Quentin Tarantino. It's a classic in all respects. Best of all, it feels like it could have been made yesterday.

The skill and technique on display has not dated one single, solitary bit and you'll constantly be catching your breath, doing double takes and needing to pinch yourself to make sure you're not dreaming. And even though it feels as modern as all get-out in terms of its movie-making sophistication and savvy, the fact truly remains that they actually don't make 'em like this anymore.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** - 4-Stars

For further information visit the FNC - Festival international du nouveau cinéma de Montréal website HERE. PLEASE FEEL FREE TO ORDER THE AFOREMENTIONED FILMS FROM AMAZON BY USING THE LINKS BELOW, AND IN SO DOING, SUPPORT THE ONGING MAINTENANCE OF THE FILM CORNER.

In Canada - BUY The Big Red One HERE, eh!

In USA and the rest of the WORLD - BUY The Big Red One - HERE!

In the UNITED KINGDOM - BUY The Big Red One - HERE!

In Canada - BUY Crimes of Passion HERE, eh!

In USA and the rest of the WORLD - BUY Crimes of Passion - HERE!

In the UNITED KINGDOM - BUY Crimes of Passion - HERE!

In USA and the rest of the WORLD - BUY Dragon Inn - HERE!

In the UNITED KINGDOM - BUY Dragon Inn - HERE!

DRAGON INN (TIFF 2014 - TIFF CINEMATHEQUE) - Review By Greg Klymkiw

Beware sneaky, sword-wielding EUNUCHS!!!

Dragon Inn (1967)
Dir. King Hu
Starring: Bai Ying, Miao Tien, Han Ying-chieh, Shih Chun, Cho Kin, Hsieh Han

Review By Greg Klymkiw

In the middle of nowhere lies the last outpost before the border, a godforsaken hellhole called the Dragon Gate Inn. This is where political exiles are banished to during the Ming Dynasty of ancient China. When the cruel Emperor executes one of his officials, the unfortunate's family are booted out of town and sent packing to the ends of the earth. Sadly, exile isn't their only problem since the big bad ruler has sent a nasty eunuch to spy on them and eventually effect their deathly eradication from the planet.

Like some mad kung-fu spaghetti western, a whole passel of deadly killers descend upon the Inn and we're treated to intrigue and action.

King Hu was one of the grand masters of cinema and his masterpiece Dragon Inn was recently afforded a gorgeous 4K digital restoration - all the better to take in the sumptuous vistas, cleverly composed (and designed) interiors and the astounding choreography and direction of some of the most stirring sword fights and hand-to-hand combat ever wrought within martial arts movies. Hu's frame is always lively, his moves masterful and his sense of spatial geography always dead-on.

Here you'll have the opportunity to witness a director at the peak of his considerable powers, working in tandem with ace choreographer and action helmer Han Ying-chieh. Between the two of them, Dragon Inn is one of the most thrilling martial arts pictures of all time.

This is a film which influenced Tsui Hark, John Woo, Jacky Chan, Ang Lee, Zhang Yimou and yes, Quentin Tarantino. It's a classic in all respects. Best of all, it feels like it could have been made yesterday.

The skill and technique on display has not dated one single, solitary bit and you'll constantly be catching your breath, doing double takes and needing to pinch yourself to make sure you're not dreaming. And even though it feels as modern as all get-out in terms of its movie-making sophistication and savvy, the fact truly remains that they actually don't make 'em like this anymore.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4-Stars

DRAGON INN is a special TIFF CINEMATHEQUE presentation at TIFF 2014. The 4K Digital restoration is by the Chinese Taipei Film Archive at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory in Bologna from the original negative. The film's cinematographer Hui-ying Hua personally supervised the colour grading. For further info, visit the TIFF website HERE.

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TOKYO DRIFTER and BRANDED TO KILL - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Seijun Suzuki X 2 Seijun Suzuki for you Seijun Suzuki for one, for all, Hip Hip Hooray on Criterion Blu-Ray

Is the director of these movies
CLINICALLY INSANE?
You be the judge, jury and executioner!

Tokyo Drifter (1966) dir. Seijun Suzuki ***1/2
Starring: Tetsuya Watari, Chieko Matsubara, Hideaki Nitani

Branded To Kill (1967) dir. Seijun Suzuki ****
Starring: Jô Shishido, Kôji Nanbara, Isao

Reviewed By Greg Klymkiw

Nobody. Seriously. Nobody. Nobody. Nobody. Nobody - and I'm dead serious - NOBODY ever or will ever make crime pictures like the supremely stylish and (quite possibly) clinically insane Japanese maestro of strange gangster shoot-em-ups - Seijun Suzuki. In the span of a decade, Suzuki directed 40 - count 'em - 40 B-movies for Japan's Nikkatsu studios.

Suzuki's favourite setting was against the backdrop of the Yakuza and his pictures just got increasingly delirious as he continued to grind out one after another. He hit his peak with Nikkatsu in 1966 and 1967 with, respectively, Tokyo Drifter and Branded To Kill. The latter picture was so confounding, so over-the-top, so disinterested in narrative logic, that the studio fired him - even though he delivered consistent product that made money for Nikkatsu. He successfully sued the company for wrongful dismissal, but his high ideals and legal victory effectively blacklisted him from making a movie for over ten years.

Tokyo Drifter, shot in lurid technicolor and scope, is a pure visceral rollercoaster ride of violence and - I kid you not - includes musical numbers. Even John Woo in his Hong Kong prime NEVER delivered such inspired nuttiness and nastiness in one fell swoop of a cinematic bushido blade.

The plot, such as it is, involves a loyal hit man, Phoenix Tetsu (Tetsuya Watari) who respects and acquiesces to his mob boss' desire to go straight. However, Tetsu is one bundle of trouble and every rival gang is drawn to creating a nightmare for his boss. Tetsu does the only thing honour will allow - he imposes a strange self-exile and becomes a drifter; a man without a country, so to speak. Loyalty, only goes so far, however, and when he realizes he's been set-up as a fall-guy, there is hell to pay.

One action scene after another is shot in near-fluorescent colour with lurid, yet stunning backdrops. The guns blaze and the blood flows freely. I'm also happy to declare that the climactic shootout ranks way up there with all the greats.

Oh, have I mentioned yet that there are musical numbers?

Tokyo Drifter made absolutely no sense to the top brass at Nikkatsu and they demanded that Suzuki tone it down for his next movie. He agreed.

Then, like all great filmmakers, he lied.

The next picture was the hypnotically demented Branded to Kill. Shot in glorious widescreen black and white with wall-to-wall sex, violence and tons of delectable nudity, it told the tale of hit man Goro Hanada (Jô Shishido) who is currently rated as Killer #3. When he screws up a job, his status in the Yakuza is threatened and soon, he finds himself the target of several hit men and hit ladies (including his mistress and wife). And soon, he is embroiled in a cat and mouse dance of death with the almost-ghost-like Killer #1.

Like Tokyo Drifter, Branded to Kill has absolutely no need or respect for issues like continuity and narrative clarity. Suzuki can barely acknowledge the plot and in its stead, stages one brilliantly shot and choreographed action set-piece after another. If Luis Bunuel had been Japanese, not even he would have approached the surrealistic heights that Suzuki ascends to so dazzlingly.

Branded to Kill is populated with some utterly delicious babes - all of whom sport guns and remove their clothing a lot. Our hero Goro, is played by the suave, ultra-cool Jô Shishido. With his odd puffy cheekbones and wry expression, Shisedo invests his role with steely intensity. The movie oozes with style like lava chugging out of a roiling volcano. The stunning black and white photography is worthy of John Alton's great noir work and the movie is driven by a terrific score that blends ultra-cool jazz styling with Ennio Morricone-influence spaghetti-riffs with crazed orchestral action genre music as if performed by the Kronos Quartet on crack cocaine.

If the picture has one crowning glory (and frankly, it has many) it surely must be Goro's fetish for the smell of boiling rice. Any excuse Suzuki can give his hero to demand it and then sniff away with abandon he manages to find it. Sometimes, there isn't even a good reason for it. Sometimes, it's just the thing to do. Sometimes, a man's just got to sniff boiling rice.

This, I understand. I hope you do, too.

If not, go to Hell.

"Tokyo Drifter" and "Branded To Kill" have been released with mind-bogglingly stunning Blu-Ray transfers on the Criterion Collection label. Both films are replete with fine added content, but ultimately, it's the movies that count. These are keepers and belong in any self-respecting cineaste's collection.

LIGHTS! CAMERA! ELVIS! - Blue Hawaii, Easy Come Easy Go, GI Blues, Girls Girls Girls, King Creole, Fun in Acapulco, Roustabout, Paradise Hawaiian Style

The Lights! Camera! Elvis! DVD Collection: Blue Hawaii (1961), Easy Come Easy Go (1967), GI Blues (1960), Girls Girls Girls (1962), King Creole (1958), Fun in Acapulco (1963), Roustabout (1964) and Paradise Hawaiian Style (1966)

RATING OF COLLECTION: **1/2
INDIVIDUAL FILM RATINGS:
BLUE HAWAII: *
EASY COME EASY GO: *
GI BLUES: *
GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS: *
KING CREOLE: ****
FUN IN ACAPULCO: *
ROUSTABOUT: ***
PARADISE HAWAIIAN STYLE: *

By Greg Klymkiw

Paramount Home Video’s contribution to the recent glut of Presley celluloid on the market is a nicely packaged box set entitled: “Lights! Camera! Elvis! Collection”. It is precisely the packaging – a fancy blue suede box that holds the eight movies – which counts as one of two reasons to recommend picking up this title that exploits (I mean, commemorates) the 30th anniversary of the King’s deadly slide off the porcelain throne onto the cool slab of Memphis marble adorning the second floor of Graceland.

The second reason to pick up the box is the inclusion of Mr. Presley’s fine movie – the just-short-of-great King Creole. Based loosely on Harold Robbins’s best-selling pot-boiling trash-lit "A Stone For Danny Fisher" that serves, not surprisingly, as a solid structural coat-hanger to this stylish dark fabric of late-noir. It's a Michael (Casablanca) Curtiz-helmed studio picture that tells the tale of poor-boy Danny Fisher and his rise from the gutter and ultimate acceptance of his loving Dad while battling a sleazy gangster and having to choose between a life of crime or a life of song.

Featuring a terrific supporting cast, King Creole features the delectably sleazy Walter Matthau as the gangster-club-owner who makes Danny’s and pretty much everyone else’s life miserable, a sad and sexy Carolyn Jones as Matthau’s Madonna-whore moll with a heart of gold, a suitably pathetic Dean Jagger as Danny’s loser Dad and the radiant and utterly magical Dolores Hart as Presley’s main love interest. Better yet is Presley’s fine performance. His smouldering screen presence is palpable and he displays a wide range of emotion. If Col. Tom Parker had not so horribly bungled Elvis’s motion picture career, the King might well have joined the ranks of James Dean, Paul Newman and Marlon Brando as one of the truly great angry young men of 50s and 60s celluloid rather than the popular, but ultimately cartoon-like joke he became in later pictures.

The rest of the package is a woeful collection of some of Presley’s worst screen offences – some more risible than others, but risible nonetheless. From the standpoint of picture quality, this collection offers transfers ranging from adequate to first-rate. The lack of extra features (save for original theatrical trailers) is a bit annoying, but only King Creole really suffers from having no additional tidbits to add some informational cherries to the ample and tasty treat of the picture itself. It’d be great to try and score a commentary track (or even extensive interview) from Dolores Hart who, at the age of 25, left the fame and glamour of the movie business to become a nun in the Catholic Church. Even now, she apparently holds the distinction of being the only nun who is a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. I also think a scholarly commentary would be great with this picture especially since Curtiz’s direction is so first-rate and the late-noir style would also deserve some in-depth analysis.

The other movies in this box include one of Elvis’s biggest hits, the utterly ludicrous travelogue Blue Hawaii which has the dubious distinction of virtually no plot and an annoyingly over-the-top Angela Lansbury offering support. G.I. Blues is a plodding attempt to present Presley’s service experience in an entertaining fashion. Stella Stevens is mouth-wateringly gorgeous in Girls! Girls! Girls! but her character is such a sourball that one is not surprised that Elvis’s eyes may occasionally roam around at the constant bevy of beauties around him. Fun in Acapulco and Paradise Hawaiian Style are both dull and silly travelogues, while Easy Come Easy Gotries to mix it up with some deep-sea diving action to liven up the stale proceedings.

These titles are pretty woeful, but for some they might offer enough nostalgia appeal to warrant sitting through more than once. I, for one, was kind of hoping for at least some melancholic magic that’d bring me back to those halcyon days when I first saw many of these movies as a kid attending the Saturday matinees at a little neighbourhood cinema in my old hometown. Through the gentle haze of childhood recollection, I thought many of these pictures were really wonderful. Alas, they do not hold up to adult scrutiny. Elvis is always cool in the pictures, but it’s alternately depressing seeing this brilliant young actor in material that is so below his talents that all feelings of bygone warm and fuzzies dissipate pretty quickly.

Other than the terrific King Creole, the only other picture in this collection that might warrant more than one viewing is the solid, though unexceptional Roustabout that tells a tale of Elvis amidst some old-time carnies played with classic verve by Barbara Stanwyck and Leif Erickson. This is one movie that might have benefited from having someone or something resembling a director behind the lens as opposed to the dull-as-dishwater competence of John Rich who is, not surprisingly, a veteran television director. He’s a decent enough camera jockey, but it might have been nice to imagine this picture in the hands of someone like Don Siegel or Sam Peckinpah.

Now, I am sure that some might argue that the whole point of the Elvis pictures is to showcase the songs and the King performing them in a variety of locations. This might have been fine in the day, but it’s awfully hard to watch most of what’s in this box set after watching King Creole. It’s not only a good movie with a genuinely good Elvis performance, but the music is presented in a context that does not detract from the noir-ish world Curtiz creates, but actually works within it, not unlike the musical sequences in something like the classic Rita Hayworth picture Gilda. Among a whole mess o’ tuneful crawfish ditties crooned by everyone’s fave lipster, my personal delights were his renditions of the title track, “Trouble” and the get-up-and-boogie “Hard Headed Woman”.

And while this may be hard to believe, many of the other movies don’t actually feature Elvis’s best numbers. They’re always beautifully performed – his voice is smoother than smooth, but tinged with those occasional wild-man highs and lows that can send us to truly orgasmic places – however, many of the songs themselves just plain suck. There’s no polite way of saying it, so allow me to reiterate – they just plain suck! For example, the Blue Hawaii soundtrack features one – count ‘em – one truly legendary song (“Can’t Help Falling In Love”), but I am sure my life will be full if I never again have to hear “Rock-a-Hula Baby”. And yes, I know the album from this picture was probably one of the biggest albums of all-time, but that doesn’t mean most of the songs on it were any good. In G.I. Blues we get to see Elvis sing “Blue Suede Shoes”, but we also have to suffer through numerous musical mediocrities. This is pretty much the case for the rest of the pictures in this box set.

In summation, the “Lights! Camera! Elvis! Collection” presents an interesting look at how a brilliant young actor was used, abused and wasted – especially in light of the great work he displayed in King Creole. If you must own the blue suede box that houses the abovementioned titles, then feel free to pick this collection up. Otherwise, you might do better by just renting Roustabout and purchasing King Creole on its own or waiting until someone issues a special edition of this fine picture. Art thou listening Paramount Home Video? Do Elvis and his fans proud and get cracking on a tasty DVD gumbo of this fabulous movie.

8/28/07

"PORTRAIT OF JASON" - The CLASSIC 1967 DOC on BEING GAY and OF COLOUR in AMERICA NEEDS MAJOR RESTORATION. TODAY'S SPECIAL KLYMKIW FILM CORNER CHRISTMAS GIFT IDEA #12 MIGHT BE THE BEST GIFT IDEA OF ALL - AN OPPORTUNITY TO ASSIST THE MILESTONE FILMS RESTORATION OF THIS IMPORTANT MOTION PICTURE - By Greg Klymkiw

Classic Documentary Restoration

2012 Film Corner Christmas Gift Suggestion #12:
PARTICIPATE IN THE IMPORTANT RESTORATION OF SHIRLEY CLARKE's CLASSIC DOC: PORTRAIT OF JASON

By Greg Klymkiw

Movie-lovers still have two days (until Dec. 10, 2012) to give the Christmas gift that keeps on giving. Imagine making a friend, loved one, family member AND yourself a contributor to the Kickstarter restoration of an important cinéma vérité documentary film focusing upon the irreverent GAY AMERICAN houseboy, hustler and wannabe cabaret perfomer, Jason Holiday.

Make no mistake!!! The film NEEDS restoration and it's importance to GAY HISTORY and FILM ART cannot be stressed enough. Creating new work is all well and good, but for the future of cinema, the preservation of its past is just as vital.

Shirley Clarke's PORTRAIT OF JASON is being SAVED and RESTORED by Amy Heller and Dennis Doros of the legendary Milestone Films and will have its fresh launch at the 2013 edition of the Berlinale (the Berlin International Film Festival) - 45 YEARS after it was first made.

Milestone's important work earned its founders Amy Heller and Dennis Doros a Special Award from the 2012 New York Film Critics Circle for the "current project to preserve the work of pioneering indie filmmaker Shirley Clarke."

If you've never seen this great picture, here is a clip from a RESTORED section of the film wherein its subject Jason describes his experience as a "houseboy" for a rich, old Southern white lady:

The most amazing thing is that the recent Kickstarter program devoted to this restoration has already met its goal. This DOES NOT mean, you can't or shouldn't contribute. Every penny will go to the creation of this stunning doc and going over the goal will mean MORE goodies that might be created as bonus features for the Blu-Ray and DVD releases and possibly including the restoration of Shirley Clarke's shorts, restoring a few of her “unfinished” film projects and interviewing those who worked on the making of Portrait of Jason.

I haven't seen this extraordinary film since the late 70s, but at the time it knocked me on my proverbial ass. Jason himself was an incredible subject and through his experience one got an indelible portrait of being gay AND black at that time. Strangely enough, memory serves me well enough on this that the film is, in spite of changing times, as relevant to today's world as it was then - maybe even more so. With the fuckwads in Uganda and their attempts to criminalize homosexuality as a capital offence and frankly, attitudes towards both the gay and of-colour communities that still exist in even so-called "progressive" societies means that this film can now be experienced by whole new generations of audiences all over the world and for generations to come.

Here's another great restored clip from Portrait of Jason:

Now, let it be said that Dennis Doros and Amy Heller at Milestone Film are International Treasures. Their dedication to preserving lost and/or damaged motion pictures and then making them available theatrically and to home entertainment enthusiasts (I probably own at least half of the Milestone Films library).

In addition to perusing the available donations for this restoration (and making your donations HERE), please feel free to visit the Milestone Films website HERE and look at the treasure trove of great stuff YOU CAN OWN. Buy it directly from their site OR, SUPPORT MY SITE by ordering some of their great titles from the links at the bottom of this page.

Your donations get you, your friends, your family and other loved ones the thrill of contributing to this important restoration, but also, some great bonus items.

$35 gets you: A Portrait of Jason theatrical release poster, designed by award-winning graphic designer Scott Meola and a personal handwritten thank you from Milestone founders, Dennis Doros and Amy Heller!

$60 gets you: Everything above plus your name in the closing credits of the home DVD and Blu-ray release of Portrait of Jason.

$85 gets you (and THIS IS A SUPER DEAL): Everything above plus your choice of a DVD or Blu-ray copy of Portrait of Jason.

$110 gets you: Everything above plus posters for Shirley Clarke's other groundbreaking films — The Connection and Ornette: Made in America. Both designed by award-winning graphic designer Scott Meola.

$260 gets you: Everything above plus Milestone's ENTIRE Shirley Clarke home video collection, including The Connection (Blu-ray or DVD), Ornette: Made in America (Blu-ray or DVD), and Robert Frost: A Lover's Quarrel with the World (DVD).

$510 gets you: Everything above plus your name in the closing credits of the theatrical release version of Portrait of Jason, as well as an invitation to a press screening of the film in New York City!

Oh, and all my American readers, just a reminder that you can deduct $10 from the above donations as it's cheaper to send stuff to you than the rest of the world.

$1000 gets you: Silver-level Donor: Everything above plus your name listed as a silver-level backer in the closing credits of the theatrical and home video releases and on the poster and website for Portrait of Jason.

And okay now, all you RICH BASTARDS (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE), HERE'S SOMETHING JUST FOR YOU! HERE ARE THREE DONATIONS YOU CAN MAKE.

MAYBE EVEN SOME RICH CANADIAN FILM COMPANIES CAN FORK OUT LIKE CINEPLEX ENTERTAINMENT or even E-ONE CANADA and then donate the packages to some worthy young filmmaker or (a few) at the National Screen Institute, York University, Concordia University, Ryerson University Documentary School or the Canadian Film Centre.

$2500 bags you: Gold-level Donor: Everything above plus your name listed prominently as a gold-level backer in the closing credits of the theatrical and home video releases and on the poster and website for Portrait of Jason, PLUS any 5 available DVDs from the Milestone collection!

$5000 bags you: Platinum-level Donor: Everything above plus a private dinner with Dennis Doros and Amy Heller, founders of Milestone Film & Video, in New York City to discuss the restoration of Portrait of Jason and hear Dennis give his famous lecture, "Where's Shirley?" about the process of discovering materials for Portrait of Jason. [Travel and accommodations not included] PLUS any 10 available DVDs from the Milestone collection!

$10,000 bags you: Diamond-level Donor: All of the above and the dinner invitation included with a Platinum donation, joined by Shirley Clarke's daughter Wendy Clarke. [Travel and accommodations not included] PLUS any 10 available DVDs from the Milestone collection and two one-year memberships to NYC's acclaimed IFC Center.

Again, RICH BASTARDS NOTE - the above three are just for you - especially if you want to not be a total GREEDY FUCKING PIG and donate your winnings to some young filmmakers.

You can order Portrait of Jason directly from the links below.

In USA and the rest of the WORLD - BUY Portrait of Jason - HERE!

In Canada - BUY Portrait of Jason HERE, eh!

In the UNITED KINGDOM - BUY Portrait of Jason - HERE!

Feel free to read my RAVE review of ON THE BOWERY HERE. My Review of THE DRAGON PAINTER can be read HERE. And be on the lookout for my full-length Film Corner reviews of RAGS AND RICHES: THE MARY PICKFORD COLLECTION HERE, CUT TO THE CHASE!: THE CHARLIE CHASE COLLECTION HERE and ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S "BON VOYAGE" & "ADVENTURE MALGACHE" HERE.

MOUCHETTE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Robert Bresson's devastating portrait of a teen girl struggling for her own voice amidst the repression, sexism and misogyny of a small town has few equals. "Mouchette" is part of the continuing TIFF Cinematheque retrospective of the complete works of Robert Bresson as organized/curated by legendary film programmer/curator James Quandt.

Mouchette (1967) dir. Robert Bresson
Starring: Nadine Nortier, Jean-Claude Guilbert, Paul Hebert, Marie Cardinal, Jean Vimenet

*****

By Greg Klymkiw

Thank heaven for little girls
for little girls get bigger every day!

Thank heaven for little girls
they grow up in the most delightful way!

Those little eyes so helpless and appealing
one day will flash and send you crashin' thru the ceilin'

Thank heaven for little girls
thank heaven for them all,
no matter where no matter who
for without them, what would little boys do?

Thank heaven... thank heaven...
Thank heaven for little girls!

Lyrics from the Vincente Minnelli/Arthur Freed
1958 MGM film musical Gigi,
Sung by Maurice Chevalier
with Lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner
and Music by Frederic Lowe

I detailed my knee-jerk assessment of French cinema whilst reviewing Pickpocket, citing a general Gallic preponderance towards dipsy-doodle whimsy, unbearably overwrought comedy, lavishly dull costume drama and pretension (mostly via Godard). I pointed to the salient exception to the rule - crime pictures and thrillers. With Mouchette, another exception to my gross generalization is cinema dealing with childhood - not the magic, per se, but the devastation and dashed dreams.

The typical anchors for this are Francois Truffaut's The 400 Blows (wherein the young Antoine Doinel experiences the hypocrisies inherent in adults around him) and Louis Malle's heartbreaking Au Revoir Les Enfants (wherein a young boy loses his best friend to extermination in Auschwitz).

Perhaps only Russian cinema paints a bleaker portrait of childhood than the French (Tarkovsky's Ivan's Childhood is especially traumatic), but when it comes to presenting horrendous tales of the FEMALE experience in childhood, the French have EVERYONE beat all to hell. Films that spring immediately to mind are Rene Clement's Forbidden Games (wherein a little girl is orphaned in wartime, finds a family and friend she loves and eventually loses it to be swallowed up in the faceless hordes of the displaced), Jacques Doillon's Ponette (wherein a four-year-old girl tries desperately to come to terms with the death of her mother) and the Francis Mankiewicz masterpiece of French-Canadian cinema Les Bons Debarras (which focuses on a twelve-year-old-girl amidst the poverty of backwoods pur laine white trash).

The indisputable winner in the utterly depressing portrait of young womanhood in French (and perhaps all) Cinema is none other than - you guessed it - Robert Bresson's Mouchette.

And it's a great film!

Detailing the life of fourteen-year-old Mouchette (Nadine Nortier), Bresson pulls out all the stops and the movie bursts the despair-o-meter right off the charts. Set in a small provincial village, the title character is clearly out-of-step with everyone who lives there. Not that this is a bad thing since everyone in the town represents the lowest order of humanity. Her father (Paul Hebert) is a mean, abusive drunk. Her mother (Marie Cardinal) is dying and barely hides her contempt for Mouchette, fearing she'll lose a nursemaid to herself and her baby.

Mouchette has no friends at school - the prissy girlies are rotten, cliquish and so mean to her that she delights in hiding in a ditch and hurling balls of dirt at them. Her teachers hate her - probably because she's smarter than they are - and pays scant attention to their lazy, uninspired dronings. She receives further physical abuse at the hands of these crones.

Even more horrendous is a sequence where Mouchette becomes lost in the woods during a rainstorm and witnesses a violent dispute between a poacher (Jean-Claude Guilbert) and a warden (Jean Vimenet) - one which, ironically, has nothing to do with poaching, but the two mens' idiotic romantic rivalry for the town's homely barmaid. The poacher, thinking he's killed the warden, discovers Mouchette, lures her into his shelter to convince her into providing an alibi, has a violent epileptic seizure, is nursed back to consciousness by the little girl and once he's up to snuff, he rapes her.

Bresson presents a world completely lacking in happiness or compassion. He presents it unflinchingly and with his trademark simplicity, the effect of this narrative is pure devastation. One sequence involves Mouchette find a tiny oasis from the drudgery of life when a carnival comes to town. She manages to get enough money to try the bumper cars and in a freewheeling few minutes of joy, she experiences complete abandon. She not only gets out her frustrations behind the wheel of the bumper car, but catches the eye of a sweet young man. When she follows him to a shooting gallery and is on the verge of perhaps making a friend, her father charges into the scene, strikes her brutally, calls her a slut and drags her back to the outdoor cafe where he sits and boozes.

Bresson presents no easy answers or explanations for this horrid world. It is displayed for all its ugly worth. One hopes (against hope, I'm afraid) that there will be some escape for poor little Mouchette. Alas, escape proves to be a solution of finality and we're left with nothing but the feeling that we live in a world of darkness and ignorance.

Frankly, I believe we do. Those who would benefit from a film like Mouchette will never see it. Those of us who do, live in a rarified world. We are a minority in a sea of humanity, fouled and polluted by ignorance and stupidity. Our title character has it worst than most of us. She is an individual and has no desire to graze, sheep-like, amongst the rest - AND, she's a woman.

Mouchette is a tragedy - one in which childhood is just a brief, painful rite of passage where innocence is blackened upon birth. The Hollywood perception of France (and by extension, the world) which is presented in the MGM musical Gigi, delivers the sentiment via everyone's favourite stereotypical Frenchman Maurice Chevalier when he sings the famous Lerner/Lowe song "Thank Heaven For Little Girls". He croons, in his blithe bon-vivance, that little girls, their "ittle eyes so helpless and appealing", "grow up in the most delightful way".

For Mouchette, and frankly, for all humanity, nothing could be further from the truth.

"Mouchette" is part of the TIFF Cinemtheque's major retrospective organized and curated by the legendary programmer James Quandt. Aptly titled "The Poetry of Precision: The Films of Robert Bresson", this and every other Bresson film is unspooling at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto and over a dozen cinemas across North America. "Mouchette" is also available on a stunning Criterion Collection DVD. This is definitely worth owning, but only AFTER or in TANDEM with seeing the picture ON A BIG SCREEN - ON FILM. "Mouchette" is screening at TIFF Bell Lightbox Saturday February 11 at 7:00 PM and Wednesday February 29 06:30 PM. To order tickets and read Quandt's fabulous program notes, visit the TIFF website HERE. To read my opening tribute to Bresson and this series, feel free to visit The Robert Bresson Man-Cave™ HERE. I am reviewing ever film Bresson ever made. In case you missed it, my review of "A Man Escaped" is HERE and my review of Pickpocket is HERE.

"You Only Have Yourself To Blame" Polanski's Claustrophobia Films - a Two Part Feature By Greg Klymkiw - Part I: My Love Affair With "The Poison Dwarf"

Some call him "THE POISON DWARF"
Others call him "ROMAN POLANSKI"

"You Only Have Yourself To Blame"
The Claustrophobia Films of Roman Polanski
Part One: My Love Affair With The Poison Dwarf

By Greg Klymkiw

The vast majority of Roman Polanksi films referred to in this series of articles are all available on a variety of labels including THE CRITERION COLLECTION and can be ordered directly through this website via the Amazon.ca Amazon.com and amazon.uk links at the bottom of this piece.

Anticipating the release of "Carnage", Roman Polanski's nasty, insanely hilarious four-hander, The Toronto International Film Festival's TIFF Bell Lightbox presents an astonishing mini-retrospective of the work of everyone's favourite genius child rapist that focuses upon his continued obsession with paranoia within the context of closed spaces. Films include: "Knife in the Water" (Saturday December 17 @ 09:00 PM), "Cul-de-sac" (Sunday December 18 09:00 PM), "Repulsion" (Wednesday December 21 09:00 PM), "The Tenant" (Thursday December 22 09:00 PM), "Rosemary's Baby" (Friday December 23 09:00 PM) and "The Ghost Writer" (Sunday December 25 04:00 PM). "Chinatown" will also be on display (Sunday December 18 03:00 PM & Tuesday December 2009:00 PM)

I have no idea what possessed me, but as a teenager in 1977 I took my mother to see Roman Polanski's The Tenant. My poor mother, BUT - lucky me! To be a kid who loved movies during the 1960s and 70s is an experience I fear can never be replicated. Those whose first real taste of cinema in, God Help Us, the 80s and onwards, will never know the joy of experiencing something like The Tenant on a big screen in its first run. It was a time of such daring and insanity - in both the mainstream and fringes - and to already be afflicted with an obsession for cinema in this good time is something I will always cherish. For most cinephiles of the generations following my own, their first taste of this, or earlier periods of film history, was most often in a home entertainment format. This is, and was of course, better than nothing, but one can never replace a big screen experience - especially within the context of a film's first run.

The aforementioned screening of The Tenant (with Mom, who was just a nice Ukrainian girl from North End Winnipeg and not aware of even the most mild depravity, let alone the full-on whack-jobbery on display) was hardly the beginning of my mad affair with Roman Polanski.

Is it possible for a gentleman in drag to menstruate?
Well, if that gentleman happens to be Roman Polanski...

My palate first acquired a taste of Polanski's gifts in the form of a heavily-censored prime-time network television premiere of Rosemary's Baby which, even in this expurgated delivery, scared the living shit out of me as a kid. My second helping of Polanski was when my Grade 8 English teacher Mrs. Rappaport (wife of famed Winnipeg Rabbi, the late Sidney Rappaport of the Rosh Pina Synagogue) showed a 16mm print of Macbeth projected onto a small classroom screen as it clackety-clacked through a Bell and Howell projector. This was, indeed, racy material to be showing in a North-end Winnipeg school what with its gloriously nude and nubile toil-and-trouble witches, Lady Macbeth sleepwalking in the nude (natch'), magnificent manly carnage, copious bloodletting and a decapitation that will live with me always as it was my first on-screen taste of such joyous activity.

Even more extraordinary was how the movie came so immediately in the wake of the brutal murder of Polanski's beloved pregnant wife Sharon Tate at the hands of the Charles Manson "family". Being a precocious little bugger, I recall bringing this up in classroom discussions with Mrs. Rappaport. This pleased her to no end. Then again, i have a vague memory of the late Rabbi coming in to do a guest lecture on the Holocaust and screening Night and Fog. Things in the North End of the 'Peg were plenty, and perhaps to some, surprisingly progressive during the 70s. I ask you: What movie lovers of any subsequent generation could discuss Polanski's Macbeth within the context of horrific events so fresh? And in junior high school, no less.

Polanski's MACBETH: Buckets of Blood. As it should be. 

And then, over a period of several years, I became a fixture at a seemingly endless parade of mini retrospectives at the Manitoba Planetarium Auditorium. Programmed by the legendary critic and trade reporter Len Klady I received my most intense immersion in the work of the perverse genius Polanski who, as a child, survived all manner of brutalities during WWII (that were horrendously detailed and re-imagined in Jerzy Kosinski's great novel "The Painted Bird"). It was here, in brand spanking new 16mm prints, that I tasted Knife in the Water, Cul-de-sac and Repulsion. These early masterworks of paranoia within claustrophobic settings were more than enough to instil the kind of adulation and love for a filmmaker's work that would be with me for my whole life. As well, there was the added context of being this weird fat pudge-o-rama who showed up to every screening until eventually the inimitable Mr. Klady offered, "Kid, you're here all the time. Why don't you rip tickets for me and I'll let you see the movies for free?"

MAJOR LEAGUE BONII!!!

Even better were several years of engaging conversation and tutelage under one of the most rapturous film aficiandos on this Good Earth.

My next heapin' helpin' o' Polanski came both at home and on the big screen. Like Rosemary's Baby, I first saw The Fearless Vampire Killers on network television in prime time. My impressions as a kid, were not all that memorable. It was probably the first time I saw a Polanski picture that just didn't do it for me. Though by this point I was already a Hammer Horror fan (thanks to sneaking off alone to a variety of Main Street Winnipeg grindhouses where I drank in any number of Christopher Lee bloodsuckers within an auditoriums rife with the pungent aroma of urine, sticky cum-plastered floors and toothless hookers giving gum jobs to old men), I failed to see any humour or thrills in this spoof of the aforementioned lurid British horror fests. (Though 20 years or so after, I watched a gorgeous laserdisc transfer, and found the entire crazed pastiche very entertaining.)

And, O! glorious 70s! Will I ever forget seeing Chinatown - FIRST RUN and on a big screen in a packed-to-the-rafters Polo Park Cinema? I saw this with Mom, too, but unlike The Tenant, she fell hook, line and sinker for the neo-noir mystery thriller.

By the time I dragged my Mom to The Tenant, I was already hooked - rapturously in love with Roman Polanski. I've tried analyzing why his pictures meant so much to me 'twixt the tender ages of about 7 to 17. Looking back on my original notes (yes, I really was that big of a geek in the 60s and 70s - from age 7, I kept detailed index cards on every movie I saw) and, in addition to recalling my initial feelings, it boils down to a few salient details.

First of all, I had (and continue to possess) a healthy penchant for genre pictures and the territory Polanski was exploring in his own thrillers worked on visceral levels (they were creepy and scary), but in ways NOBODY else could do. His eye, always so meticulous about holding on images until we saw what his protagonist and/or what Polanski himself wanted us to see, his mastery of pace - especially of the slow, gnawing, creep-crawly kind and last, but certainly not least, his genuine perversity - not just for its own sake, but as a genuinec reflection of alternate realities that so often hit home and/or felt frighteningly familiar. More importantly, on a strictly personal note, I've always had a pretty morbid (some might even suggest sick) sense of humour and between, or even during the scares, Polanski has been the prime inspiration for me to slap my knee whilst horking out huge guffaws. And certainly, as my aforementioned anecdote regarding my Macbeth experience in junior high school displays, I always had lots of cool shit to talk about beyond the usual plot and/or cool-factor exclamations my peers were afflicted with. In fact, the movies allowed me to talk to adults similarly afflicted with cinema obsession and happily, on a whole different level.

Is that a severed head outside Polanski's window?

As well, Polanski seemed to make movies unlike anyone else. Even those that were unfurled against the backdrop of extremely claustrophobic settings sent me into multi-orgasmic explosions of utter drainage. I could never keep my eyes off the screen - every beat, every sound, every gesture, every detail seemed so inextricably linked to moving the stories forward, that I am convinced I was attracted to this mastery of cinematic story telling over all else.

Polanski was, in a word, perverse. So, it would seem, was I.

In retrospect, numerous subsequent viewings of his work and knowledge of his horrific experiences living on the streets during the Nazi occupation (his own Mother died in Auschwitz) explain a great deal. Polanski brought perhaps the single most important element to the proceedings - life experience. It's not an automatic pre-requisite, but when artists bring both their soul and life experience to the fore, one is almost guaranteed to take a cinematic ride unlike those machine-tooled by the proficient, but empty camera jockeys who generate skilled entertainments, but ultimately, have nothing to say.

Seeing Polanski's work during my formative years and when the films were so immediate you could almost touch them is, a personal factor in my obsession. That said, though, they were and still are wholly original - imbued with that special something that guarantees appreciation beyond the mere ephemeral - thus ensuring that they'll live well beyond their initial release.

The generation I pity the most, of course, are all those who fell in love with the movies when utter drivel unspooled upon their movie-needy psyches and shaped a woeful generation weaned on the worst cinema history had to offer. The tastes of this sad generation were chiseled by work that was best exemplified by the title of Pauline Kael's compilation of her New Yorker reviews from this period. It was titled, "State of the Art". All of Kael's previous book titles were rooted in sexual abandon - titles like "I Lost It At The Movies", "Reeling", "When the Lights Go Down", "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" and my favourite, "Deeper Into Movies". With that title, one could almost imagine plucky Pauline, her eyes sparking devilishly, an ever-so slight smirk emblazoned upon her visage, almost matronly (yet alternately that of some come-hither, gutter-dwelling slattern), before affixing a mighty strap-on dildo to her torso and plunging it into whatever orifice we'd allow her to puncture - just so she could drill down to our collective G-spot.

The movies. Of course.

But after the 70s, we no longer "lost it" at the movies. No sex, no carnal desire, no rapturous orgasmic celebration of the greatest art form of all creation. For Kael, movies had all become an industrialized, cold, thing. No longer was blood pumping to the penis or vagina. Instead, a throbbing, jack hammering cacophony emanated from the screen and induced nausea and/or sheer boredom. And when it wasn't that, it was the mewing and/or caterwauling to pulverize our cinematic libidos into cornmeal. Cases in point: George Lucas's original Star Wars series, John Hughes's whine-fests or all the empty calories of early Bruckheimer and Simpson extravaganzas. This was no longer sex, it was, "The State of the Art".

The post-70s period was also the decade when true repertory cinema began to die and where mainstream network television and its affiliates decreased the number of classic films on its programming slates. Not only did subsequent generations of burgeoning movie lovers have to be inflicted with first run "state of the art" crap, but they had no reference points for cinema beyond Bruckheimer, Hughes and Luke Skywalker.

To coin a refrain from Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf: "Sad, sad,sad."

I still remember the theatre I first saw Polanski's crazed cross-dressing plunge into madness and xenophobia, the long-departed Northstar Cinema. This "modern" twin hardtop on Portage Avenue in downtown Winnipeg was home to a weird variety of motion picture product. In those halcyon days, both of the auditoriums were huge. One screen would often feature something that was of the blockbuster variety, while the other would show more sophisticated fare.

It's where I first saw - FIRST RUN - Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers, Lina Wertmuler's Seven Beauties and, I kid you not, Don Shebib's classic of Canadian cinema Goin' Down The Road - and in a 600-seat house that almost always managed to draw huge crowds for films that now would be lucky to get a miserable postage stamp screen in a dank, poorly attended discount-cinema-cum-arthouse populated by backpack-adorned granola-munching vegans.

Mom enjoyed seeing movies there, too. It was a fresh, new and clean complex and because of its upscale qualities, it never seemed to attract that certain "element" (my Mother's favourite word) which spoiled any outing outside of the mall in our suburban paradise. The theatre was also conveniently located round the corner from the bank she worked in, so I'd often plan to meet her downtown after work and see a movie.

And what, did I choose? A Roman Polanski movie. And not just any Roman Polanski movie, but easily one of his most creepy and perverse pictures up to that point.

Jesus, I was a weird kid.

But that's not the entire story. It's always important to consider the venues and context of seeing a picture because ultimately, if it has the potential to break free of those considerations, it almost always is the sign of a true classic. Luckily, for those who never experienced Polanski properly on a big screen (and those who have and need to do so again), The TIFF Bell Lightbox Polanski retrospective will afford a most rare opportunity. "You Only Have Yourself To Blame" The Claustrophobia Films of Roman Polanski by Greg Klymkiw continues on Monday, December 19, 2011 with Part Two - The Art of Humiliation: Repulsion and The Tenant. To access that piece now, click HERE.