Some called her Miss Black...

Some called her Miss Black... 

...Polly Tix,
that Kid 'in' Africa,
Managed Money,
Wee Willie Winkie,
Ours,
Merrily,
War Baby,
Marky,
A Twentieth Century Fox,
that Kid in Hollywood,
Dora,
Bright Eyes,
Curly Top,
Littlest Rebel,
Poor Little Rich Girl,
Dimples,
Heidi,
Philadelphia Thursday,
Storybook...



In memory of Shirley Temple, 1928-2014.

Pedro Costa and Chris Petit discuss Where Lies Your Hidden Smile? last January 9th at the "Institute of Contemporary Art," London, plus a question and answer... here. Thanks to Mehelli Modi.

Your attitude toward art?

One-millionth part of the inventiveness which every man shows in his daily work in the factory, the work, in the field, that already contains an element of what people single out as so called "art". 

The very term "art" is counter-revolutionary in essence, since it shelters a whole caste of privileged people, who imagine themselves to be not people but the miracle workers of this same "art". Inspiration, or rather an enthusiasm for your work, is not the prerogative of these "Magi", but also of every worker on the Vlkhov Hydro-Electric Plant, every driver in his train, every turner at his lathe. 

Destroying once and for all the term "art", we should not, of course, bring it back in another form, let's say under the sauce of "artistic labor". It is essential that we establish definitively that there is no border between artistic and non-artistic labor.

Dziga Vertov, "Otvet na piat voprosov", Kino, 21 October 1924.

Pedro Costa rediscovers the intuition of the greats, Godard and Straub, when he says he admires the idea that cinema is "cinematographic life experience." The cinema is not only a very specific practice (to make quickly, thinking-shooting-showing), but a model of life whose rhythm is in itself finding, as if losing, a line drawn by thought. 

(Costa:) "Increasingly I only see little ideas, techniques, formal, script things, or whatever. The device that wants to be vraisemblant, it stinks, and it feels and shows on film. Before, there was a thought that accompanied practice, a diffuse thought, not necessarily structured." 

Dominique Villain, THÉORIES INTIMES sur Le Travail du cinéma

Don't go flushing your cheeks red, Miss O'Hara. You're playing a tragedy.

(Production still from Ford's The Long Gray Line, found in the West Point, 1954 photo album)

What is the color of your goal?

— You and Me, 

Fritz Lang 

"I would like the movie to start when you leave the cinema."

- Jacques Tati

Before Hollywood. Germany, 1930  —



After Hollywood. Germany, 1950 —

In Hollywood, 1940  —


Allegretto


                                                               I   saw   ma    -    ny   friends   and    the


friend    I  lov  -  ed    most    a  -  mong  them   help  -  less  -  ly  sunk  in - to  the

                                                                          

swamp  —                                                           I       pass       by    —


And            a             drown     -     ing            was           not            o     -     ver


in               a              sin     -     gle               morn             -             ing.


          This        made it more        ter  -  ri  -  ble.                         And —    the —


mem  -  o   -  ry     of   —     our   —   long   —        talks —    a  -  bout —    the


swamp —                        which     al  -  rea  -  dy      held      so —    ma  -  ny —


pow     -     er  -  less.     Now       I  —       watched    him    lean  -  ing   back  —


co    -    vered   with      leech  -  es    in —   the    shim       -       mering  soft  -  ly


mov     -     ing     slime —                                              u          -          pon     the


sink                -                ing                              face                              the


ghast              -                ly                                bliss               -              ful


smile. —

(A Hollywood Elegy. 

by Hanns Eisler and Bertolt Brecht.)

(Hollywood or Bust,
Frank Tashlin)

****************

DREAM STREET

 (D.W. Griffith, 1921)

Kindness to Horses

The hooves stomped faster,
singing as they trod:
— Grip.
Grab.
Rob.
Grub. —

Wind-fostered,
ice-shod,
the street skidded.
Onto its side, a horse
toppled,
and immediately,
the loafers gathered,
as crowds of trousers assembled up close
on the Kuznetsky,
and laughter snickered and spluttered.
—“A horse tumbled!”
—“It tumbled — that horse!”
The Kuznetsky cackled,
and only I
did not mix my voice with the hooting.
I came up
and looked into
the horse’s eye...

The street, up-turned,
continued moving.
I came up and saw
tears, — huge and passionate,
rolling down the face,
vanishing in its coat...
and some kind of a universal,
animal anguish
spilled out of me
and splashing, it flowed.
“Horse, there’s no need for this!
Horse, listen, —
look at them all, - who has it worse?
Child,
we are all, to some extent, horses, —
everyone here is a bit of a horse.”

Perhaps
she was old
and didn’t want to be nursed,
or maybe, she took in my speech with a scoff,
but
the horse,
out of nowhere, suddenly burst,
heaved to its feet,
and neighing,
walked off.
Wiggling its tail,
with its mane shinning gold,
It returned to the stall,
full of joyful feelings.
She imagined once more
that she was a colt,
and work was worth doing
and life was worth living.

Vladimir Mayakovsky, 1918
 

Black Gold (1947, Phil Karlson)

thanks to Misho Antadze for the poem.

Centro Historico (2012, Kaurismaki, Costa, Erice, Oliveira) will screen this Friday, October 25th, 4pm, at the California Institute of the Arts, BIJOU theater. 

I salute you, October

Juliet and Spectator.

Drawings by Klimt after Shakespeare. 

Love is merely a madness, and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do; and the reason why they are not so punished and cured is that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers are in love too.

Rosalind in As You Like It, Shakespeare.

Frame: La tête contre les murs (1959, Franju)

Rest In Peace, General Vo Nguyen Giap.

Died today at age 102.

"One must say that in the classroom of History, the imperialists are really poor students."