Macunaima (1969, Joaquin Pedro de Andrade)

This is some obnoxious filmmaking. Beautifully shot hand-held, intensely colorful camerawork, but just repellently artificial, the sort of excessive, gonzo-Brechtian stuff I might’ve crapped myself over a few years ago (”Ha! It disrupts the diegesis! Ha!”) but find myself bored by today. I suppose there are some interesting racial discourses going on in here - the way the feral black Macunaima changes into a European Adonis is a pretty strident critique of the idea of beauty as it relates to ethnicity in Brazilian society. But most of this just doesn’t speak to me - maybe if I were Brazilian, I’d understand what appear to be complex and (judging by the laughter of the Brazilians who seemed to make up 80-90% of the audience at my screening, funny) political comments. I don’t want to make or see movies like this.

The Threat (1949, Felix Feist)

Some garden-variety noir programmer with my favorite noir acting staple, Charles McGraw - that name! that voice! that furrowed brow! McGraw’s better in the stuff he did for Richard Fleischer (and in Anthony Mann’s T-Men), but this is pretty good. It reminds me a lot of The Sadist, the great Arch Hall Jr.-starring picture I wrote the second chapter of my thesis on - limited location and time-frame, similar set-up (watch as this sadist dangles a trio of innocents in his web), similar discourses on the American road and the wilderness. This isn’t as good - not as raw as it could or should be. Lit very well, with some elegant camera moves, by Harry J. Wild, who also shot Murder, My Sweet.

Kid Nation (Episodes 1-3)

I’m going to devote a larger entry to this show soon, but despite, or perhaps because of, its ethically abhorrent storytelling and insanely drama-friendly cast of kids, this is one of the most entertaining shows on television.

Graveyard of Honor (1975, Kinji Fukasaku) - first half

Tyson (my new roommate) and I watched the first half of this the other night. Without seeing the other half, I can say it’s a fascinating continuation of the formal project Fukasaku presented in the Yakuza Papers films. It’s the same battering-ram camerawork, freeze frames, identity-free filmmaking as in those films, where characters are introduced and killed off so quickly one doesn’t bother getting to know them so much as recognize the way their lives are consumed by the violent mass that is mob culture. What strikes me about this and Fukasaku in general is how incredibly beautiful the action is choreographed. Up there with Lumet, Nicholas Ray, and Bunuel as far as a complete mastery in the staging of actors, especially in large groups.

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