Cannes Gives Andrea Arnold Special Jury Prize

Andrea Arnold, the UK director acclaimed for her innovative Oscar winning short Wasp, won the Cannes jury over and received a special prize for The Red Road, a film about a woman who works for the Glasgow council closed circuit television and one day notices a man from her past. The Red Road is the first of three films in a dogme like conception called Advance Party. The other segments are scheduled to be directed by two other helmers -Morag McKinnon and Mikkel Norgaard who will be using the same characters and also set in Scotland. The award was announced at the closing ceremonies of the Cannes Film Festival this evening (28 May) .

Pedro Almodovár won the best screenplay award for Volver. The Spanish director is claimed to have revitalized cinema in Spain after Franco primarily with gender benders. The ensemble cast of the film won the best actress award: Penélope Cruz, Carmen Maura, Lola Dueñas, Chus Lampreave, Yohana Cobo and Blanca Portillo, presented by French actor Jean Rochefort. Cruz said that the prize belonged to Almodovár: "Thanks for what you do for women all over the world."

Beyond being nominated for a Palme d'Or there hasn't beeen such an innovative period piece since Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon. The main criticism against the film was that Sofia Coppola left out the French Revolution. But she never said that was what her aim, nor was it her intention to show the execution of Antoinette. That exclusion may make it "petit bourgeois" for some French reviewers, but in terms of style, Marie Antoinette is a ground-breaking film with a film score that includes teen rock hits. Since its Cannes debut, according to surveys, it is the film that most viewers want to see. Sofia Coppola, a young auteur reknowned for soulful explorations of the territory of young women, was considered a top contender for an award along with Pedro Almodovár for Volver, and Alejandro González Iñárritu, for Babel, who won the best director prize. The 35- year old director also wrote the script, adapted from Lady Antonia Fraser's novel on the Austrian woman who became a French regent. As for the French cold shoulder, according to Fraser "Marie Antoinette wasn't French, and neither am I".

"I think it's a good year for women," reported Samuel L. Jackson, member of the nine-member jury.

The Sacred Feminine in Cannes

There may not have been much to chew on in Ron Howard’s The Da Vinci Code but there are stronger signs of female power at Cannes making this festival one of the best. First of all there is the veteran actor- the magnifique Gena Rowlands featured in Paris, Je T'Aime in Un Certain Regard and who will be giving a Master Class. Almost everything that comes out of the mouth of this veteran actor is inspirational and provocative:

"We actors do not need to die to be reincarnated, we for that is what we do each and every day. But what freedom! We all have thousands of characters within us. Only actors and madmen (whom we are often taken for) can give them expression and body, and defend them. With complete impunity".

Rowlands remarked how rewarding it was to work on Paris, Je T'Aime, a film made by 18 directors about the arrondissement in Paris they love, especially because of the integration of age spans. We need to know that love exists, she remarked about the role she has in the section directed by Olivier Assayas.

Monica Bellucci who serves on the official jury made a marvellous statement at the start of the festival that we can say to earth pods whey they ask us why we watch SO much cinema :

""If I was not an actress, I would then be a big cinemagoer. I love cinema and I could not deprive myself of movies one way or another. It is through cinema that quality encounters between cultures can take place and their various expressions meet."

Actresses typically are to be found on the international jury, rarely directors. This year the Argentine director Lucretia Martel is a part of the feature film jury, whose film The Holy One has received international acclaim since its debut at Cannes in 2004. Agnes Varda was on the jury in 2005. Several women have served as presidents of the jury, all actresses: Liv Ullmann (2001) Isabelle Adjani (1997), Jeanne Moreau(1995 and 1975) , Ingrid Bergman (1973) , and Sophie Loren (1966).

Actresses are typically the "Madame of Ceremonies", - such as Monica Bellucci, Charlotte Rampling and Sophie Marceau but this year in a gender bender, the French actor Vincent Cassell was selected. He heralded the multiculturality of France, adding that in addition to the spiral formed arrondissement of Paris, there are 177 communities!

The artistic director of Cannes, Thierry Frémaux was interviewed by Dagens Nyheter ( 14 May) and declared that each Cannes selection is a global snapshot of the world. "We are not the UN and we don't have quotas. For example, we don't take a film from Sweden that is half good just because Sweden may be underrepresented. Jamais". By the same tack Frémaux said that films by women although appreciated are not sought after. He can put together an entire program without women with no qualms. Although he appears to have no insight into why it might be so he declared, "Men make more films than women, and this is reflected at Cannes". Since we have no reason to expect women selected to the international competition, this year a HOLY TRINITY of female power was selected much to our delight.

Sofia Coppolas's Marie Antoinette is the story of the young Austrian woman who became regent. A period piece is expected from directors with two or three successes under their belt. However, in this respect Coppola has modernized the historical epic, with rock music and an occasional converse footed actor. The film is adapted by the novel by Lady Antonia Fraser, married to that rebel rousing Nobel laureate Harold Pinter. Coppola seems to be keeping interesting company.


Question: Although it is fiction, of course, what do you make of The DaVinci Code and its suggestion regarding the Holy Grail as feminine icon?

Lady Antonia Fraser: Haven't read it. No plans to do so.

We are also spared from the demise of Marie-Antoinette in new pic! Au contraire the film, like other work by Coppola concerns the pressures of life for young women.

"For me, Marie Antoinette has remained, first and foremost, the symbol of a totally decadent style. I didn't realise to what point these people, who were called upon to govern a country, were in point of fact no more than teenagers. Daily life in the Château de Versailles is also, for these adolescents, a form of apprenticeship set in a tense, difficult environment. It is this position and the complexity of the character of Marie Antoinette which interested me."

Nicole Garcia who served on the Cannes jury with several well made films has been invited to present Selon Charlie, an multi-arc film with seven--and a surprise eight- men. Previous films include Place Vendôme starring Catherine Deneuve who plays an alcoholic that has lost her husband. Deneuve won an acting prize at the Venice International Film Festival. L'Adversaire was shown in Cannes in 2002, the story of Jean-Claude Romand man who murdered his wife, children and parents in 1993.

The Oscar winning Wasp director Andrea Arnold brings us the first part of a dogma inspired trilogy concerning a woman who works in closed circuit television studio in Glasgow: The Red Road. Pic has already engendered enthusiastic acclaim for the international competition for its film form and message. The project is called "Advance Style", where three directors will create films based on the same characters by Lone Scherfig and Anders Thomas Jensen--all set in Scotland.

Leonardo Who ? or Symbols of the Sacred Feminine

I missed the frenzy around Dan Brown's best seller last year, The Da Vinci Code recommended by a respected Zen Buddhist teacher in Sweden--before all the media frenzy. All last summer my friends spoke about it in Skala Eresssos on the island of Lesbos on my holiday for it takes up how Mary Magdelene may have been one of the disciples of Jesus . I even bought the book which awaits my scrutiny. Tonite, the film adapted from the book will open the Cannes Film Festival. I saw it several hours earlier today. I am glad I saw the film before I read the book. Because as filmmaker Maya Deren declares: if cinema is to develop its own language it must create a vocabulary of filmic images. It should reject horizontal linear development and create vertical cinematic time and space. That said, Ron Howard's The Da Vinci Code is a horizontal potboiler. There are few instances of cinematic magic. Granted there are several teams that worked on special effects , with colorful code names such as Brainstorm Digital, Double Negative, Rainmaker and The Senate. However, there is little to conjure up "sacred symbols of the feminine" even if the mystery concerns tracing theories about the history of Mary Magdelene. Howard said the theme fascinated him because he has a strong willed wife and three daughters. But this is not the theme of this film. Its an ordinary crime mystery saga, like the novel, with lots of detectives, preyed upon innocents and arch enemies.In just the opening minutes of the film I was confronted by the profundity of the following "symbols".

• Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) is giving a lecture in Paris. He asks - in English - what certain symbols mean for the students. They answer all too quickly like a cadre of Harvard hotshots, nearly all in English. This does not happen in Paris student lectures. Students are contemplative and take their time responding, however brilliant. Granted in the book these are students at the American University in Paris, but in the film, these are French students, admonished to speak in English. The lecture has changed title from "The Symbology of Secret Sects" and "Ideograms"--to the "Sacred Feminine". The precipice of the film, with little to show for it.Later, Bezu Fache (Jean Reno) of the Paris police, questions Langdon about what the symbols mean on the chest of the dead curator of the Louvre - Jacques Saunière (Jean Pierre Marielle). Right in the middle of a book signing in Paris. This kind of public ventilation of the details of a criminal investigation ----just does not happen..... Then, we only get to hear about 10 seconds of Serge Gainsbourg's La Javanaise (The Javanaise Woman) on the taxi radio when Robert is left off at the Louvre to meet Fache and observe the curator's body. Quel dommage!
  
• History: Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tatou) , a French government crytographer doesn't like history but Harvard professor Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) says that is because she may not like "her story". Considering the fanaticism around The Da Vinci Code maybe we would like our history better if it were not surpressed and buried. So, who killed her grandfather, the curator at the Louvre. The symbols on his chest and several anagrams and cryptic numbers reveal a story of power in the Christian Church. His death comes after he assumedly reveals the location of the keystone to the Holy Grail to Silas (Paul Bettany), a deranged flagellator - or did he? The stone marks the site of the "best kept secret of the Catholic Church", on the "Rose Line", a Prime Meridian that passed through Paris before the Greenwich Median was established. Hence an old rivalry is evoked of the two neighbors on the English Channel. In order to present the historical arches of Brown's novel several scenes are rather quickly recreated from biblical and early Christian history - including the modern operations of the Priors of Sion, a "secret" gnostic brotherhood, and the ultra-conservative Catholic sect Opus Dei. which includes Bishop Aringarosa (Alfred Molino). To impart a dated feel to the material, these scenes are blurred, including a fuzzy mass of departed souls ascending the steps of the Temple Church in England. The history of Sophie's grandfather, is given ample room. He was one of the Priors of Sion. She was unknowingly groomed as an apprentice until a fallout. But more is revealed. In the end when Robert cuts himself shaving and the blood forms a Fleur de Lis in his Ritz hotel room sink, he realizes that the Rose Line goes from Rosslyn Chapel in England (which took only 40 years to build!) to " the scar of Paris" as Bezu Fache calls it-- IM Pei's pyramid outside the Louvre. It turns out the Holy Grail is none other than the remains of Mary Magdalene, a real threat to the patriarchal order of the Church. This makes sense when we realize how many thousands of women were burned at the stake and executed with the dawn of Christianity and the bloody Crusades. Da Vinci offers us the clues. The chalice or Holy Grail is Magdelene's womb, the vessel of the blood of Jesus, symbolized in the emptyV-shaped space between Mary Magdelena and Jesus in Da Vinci's Last Supper(shown above). Inversely, each V-stripe on the soldiers of military officers is a male symbol, declares Sir Leigh Teabling (Ian McKellan), a Grail scholar, who cunningly use Robert and Sophie for his own selfish purposes in his quest for the Holy Grail.

Further profundities

• "I never knew a girl whose grandfather gave her a cryptex. My grandfather gave me a wagon". Langdon to Neveu. Lines like these create little chemistry between the two characters and are notable throughout the entire film.
  

• Sophie's "grandfather" and "grandmother" indulged in rituals of the Priors where men and women recreate the carnal passion of Jesus and Mary Magdelena. This scene is reminiscent of Kubrik's desparate Eyes Wide Shut when Tom Cruise disguises himself and observes masked men and women in ritualized orgies. Sophie on a surprise visit home as a college girl quickly cuts her ties to her grandfather after witnessing this event. Clipped at the wings in Howard's adaptation is a rich pageant of esoteric knowledge and French history. Beneath every calling card is a better, truer story. Brown may have been sued for plagiarizing the novel, but the information is out there in the public domain for modern tropes, however twisted.
  

• Sir Isaac Newton was famous for his scientific inventions but left the ultimate interpretation of them to God. Now that's gravity.

• Mona Lisa by Leonardo DaVinci is a very small portrait kept under glass at the Louvre and is strictly forbidden to be touched or photographed. Another Leonardo worthy of mention is Leonardo Pisa Fibonacci whose numbers were a roadmap to sacred places, possibly even the tomb of Mary Magdelene, if such a place indeed exists. His numbers were used to calculate immaculate conceptions. In this film they are superficially used to access a Swiss banking vault.
  
• The "Fleur de Lis" (introduced in The Da Vinci Code as a pendant left at the Louvre by Jacques Saunière) is the symbol of the Virgin Mary and was used by the Kings of France. The earliest were the Merovingians who established the City of Paris on a vortex point, Rose Line if you will. They also worshipped the goddess Diana. Pont and Place de l' Alma are the sites of underground chambers of worship in her name. Below Place de l'Alma Princess Diana was killed in a tunnel. (Briefly, Ron Howard shows a car ride in a tunnel- and The Ritz where Diana was moments before). The Fleur de Lis is adorned on French churches. The unoffical tour of the Notre Dame de Paris, not sanctioned by the Catholic Church has information with Fleur de Lis prominantly displayed. Hoards of tourists climb the steps to the tower of the Notre Dame. Here if they know what to look for, they will find two languages in stone - one esoteric, such as a statue of an alchemist, a pelican and an elephant and the other Christian, with all the saints and Jesus. At the bottom of the Great Port is a woman-the sacred feminine indeed, holding a book of esoteric and exoteric knowledge, and a series of stone carvings of the stages of alchemy described by Fulcanelli. Secret societies of freemasons and alchemists historically met in the Church honoring these stones. France has a powerful history of esotericism, much carved in stone, and is awaiting cinema for worthy explorations. Ron Howard's The Da Vinci Code does not do it very well.
  

Udine Far East Film Festival

The Udine Far East Film Festival ran from April 21-29. See Greencine dispatches for the entire festival. CinéFemme especially recommends Ma Liwen: You and Me, a meeting between an elderly woman who was a soldier and rode horses, and a young university student. The contemplative pace of the film and the female characters are exceptional.

If the paucity of Asian films at the Cannes Film Festival gets to you, plan on attending this festival. (This year there are 12 Asian films in Cannes, 73 in Udine). Fest catches the Asian films released between Venice and Cannes, and which miss the crosshairs of Berlin. The festival hopes to double the amount of Asian film to the Venezia- Friuli-Veneto region together with the Venice Film Festival. And director Marco Müller was in attendance to give his nod of approval. The festival organizer is of Europe's leading experts in Chinese literature and who saw to it that Hayao Miyazaki came to Italy to accept a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement last year in Venice.

Asian Cannes 2006
Competition: Summer Palace, Lou Ye
Quinzaine des realizateurs: The Host, Bong Joon-ho,Yureru, Nishikawa MiwaSepohon Rambutan Indah Kepunyaanku Di Tanjung Rambutan, U-Wei bin HajiSaari
Un Certain regard: Re-cycle, Oxide Pang Chun & Danny Pang Gwai Wik, Luxury Car, Wang Chao, The Unforgiven, Yoon Jong-bin, Serambi, Garin Nugroho
Midnight screening: Election 2, Johnnie To, Guisi, Su Chao-pin
Cannes Classics: Shi Si Nu Ying Hao, Kang Cheng, Kaze No Tani No Naushika, Hayao Miyazaki
Photograph ©Moira Sullivan

Jane Fonda back in Stockholm

©Moira Sullivan

Jane Fonda was in Stockholm during the antiwar demonstrations against the Vietnam war in the early 1970's. Then in 1989 to promote the film Old Gringo. On March 18-22 she came again to promote her book, My Life So Far, and to introduce a retrospective of her films at the Swedish Film Institute Cinemateque. She marvelled at how Swedish films are paid for by a percentage of the box office, and enthusiastically presented On Golden Pond, the last film her father Henry Fonda made. She starred as his daughter, and recalled some of the problematic issues of their relationship on screen. Katherine Hepburn played Jane's mother who tried to smooth the way between them, both offscreen and onscreen. Both Henry and Katherine won Oscars for their roles and Fonda recalled how Katherine remarked, " you'll never catch me now!"

©Moira Sullivan 

A huge crowd of primarily middle aged women filled the Stockholm Kulturhuset to hear Jane Fonda speak about her life and reveal anecdotes that are found in her best selling book, translated into Swedish. The actress was interviewed by Stina Dabrowski, who had visited Fonda in her apartment in Atlanta a few weeks before. Dabrowski chose to ask questions about Fonda's personal life, who is more than willing that people know the intimate details of failed marriages and her own recovery from bulimia and alcoholism. Dabrowski was also asked by Fonda about her own failed marriage, which she declined to discuss.
The ultra-professional actor revealed earlier at a press conference that she isn't asked to star in so many movies, relating factors of modern day Hollywood production with huge budgets and so much tied into marketing and the demands for instant box office success. Fonda recalled how young actors were given a chance to have their films find a market. But Fonda is certainly in top form in her third act. Should she come to the attention of a European director she wouldn't mind it. Charlotte Rampling, Jane Birkin, Catherine Deneuve and Jeanne Moreau still work, and Jane is fluent in French. But one French director she would never work again with is Jean Luc Godard. She regarded his "generically political" film, made by a Maoist", Tout Va Bien as horrible. Although she enjoyed working with Yves Montand, and highly regarded Jean Seberg's work with Godard, she realized he was using her for his own agenda. When she tried to back out, his "henchman" Gorin physically threatened her. Godard's write off was Letter to Jane, a film she "doesn't have a clue about " as far as what he wanted to say.

Fonda enjoyed her success in Monster in Law, which she calls a 'popcorn movie', and wouldn't mind a sequel. But she doesn't have the time to produce it, so someone else will have to.

Regarding her relationship to Sweden she recalled how she came to strategize with antiwar demonstrators in Stockholm in the 1970s. She was proud of the country and the late Olof Palme. Since her visit in 1989 she says revealed that she is feeling much better as "a whole person". Mary Hershberger's Jane Fonda’s War: A Political Biography of an Anti-war Icon illuminates Fonda's work with antiwar resisters during the very unpopular war. The study reveals how Fonda through Nixon propaganda was used as a scapegoat to chastize the antiwar movement. On a personal scale, in My Life So Far , Fonda revealed how antiwar activist Tom Hayden belittled her achievements which ultimately let to their divorce.

Fonda admitted to having a low profile regarding the Iraq war and said there were others out there now to do the job. Her choice of best film at the Academy Awards was Syriana, a film that was not nominated, though George Clooney won best supporting actor, and she loves his work.

Two young Stockholm sci-fi enthusiasts, Erik Dalen and Helena Sterner dressed as Barbarella and Pygar came to the book signing dressed up straight from the cult science fiction film directed by Fonda's ex husband, the late Roger Vadim. An astonished Jane exclaimed, but "they didn't have piercings back then", when she noted the adorned chest of the Swedish Pygar. As true
Barbarellian aficionados, Erik and Helena were well versed in the intricacies of the film. Such as the remarks of "The Great Tyrant"(Brian Jones real life girlfriend Anita Pallenberg) to Barbarella - "Hello Pretty Pretty"? "I didn't like those biting dolls," revealed Helena. "Did you know that the pop group Duran - Duran was named for the film?" "Of course", replied Erik.

©Moira Sullivan

Jane revealed her fantasy of a 21st century Barbarella in neutral Sweden, which she called "liberated territory", acclaiming her peace making mission, then as now.

Jane Birkin at Créteil Films de Femmes

Jane Birkin is perhaps best known for jumping up and down on David Hemmings bed in Antonioni's Blowup (1966) as a teenage groupie. But when the famous photographer Hemmings plays takes her fawning serious she realizes the game is too rough for her. Later she is to star opposite singer/songwriter Serge Gainbourg in Je t’aime moi non plus (1969) - also a legendary pop hit - and marries him in real life. Jacques Rivette puts her range of acting talents to use in L'Amour Par Terre (1983) opposite Geraldine Chaplin, a three hour spectacle of young actors commisioned to perform theater in the elaborate home of the wealthy Roquemaure. Rolled up shirt sleeves, roomy Manchester slacks and slippers, she exemplifies the finess of androgyny that makes her perfect for roles in films like Kung Fu Master (1987) by Agnès Varda. Now at 60 Birkin has cut a new CD using material from songwriters such as Neil Hannon, The Divine Comedy, The Magic Numbers, Beth Gibbons, and Rufus Wainwright. Fictions will be released March 20 by one of the most versatile Francophiles of the screen.
Birkin was honored with a special retrospective at the 28th Créteil International Film Festival (March 10-19), sporting what else? Rolled up shirt sleeves and roomy slacks. For the Soirée Gala on March 11th, she selected Jacques Doillon's La Pirate (1984) - a film where she was allowed to play a "plain Jane".

Long before the Oscars were the BAFTA's--and they chose Brokeback Mountain!

BAFTA's , February 19, 2006
It was a night of surprises, an excellent, gracious and witty host - Stephen Fry who starred in Wilde (1997), as Oscar Wilde. It was also a night to thank George Clooney for stirring up the political volume in film. The highest honor went to producer Lord David Puttnam behind films like The Killing Fields, and Chariots of Fire,with Ben Cross sitting in the audience. Cross starred opposite Ian Charleson in Chariots of Fire (1981) - a film about "two men chasing dreams of glory" at the 1924 Olympics. Charleson died of AIDS in 1990. Putnam applauded the work of George Clooney for themes that had changed the industry in a year – probably the best accolade of the evening.

But above all it was a nite for Brokeback Mountain--best script, best adapted screenplay , best supporting actor.

"Its not a gay cowboy film", quipped the producer of Brokeback Mountain upon receiving the award for best film. "Its a gay shepard film!" Jake Gyllenhaal got his just rewards for best supporting actor. Jake reports in Premiere last month how hard it was to initiate 'the intimacy' in the film, but not when Ledger and he were wrestling. After all sports are perfectly acceptable homosocial encounters - for spectators and players alike. Observe the fascination for the Olympics. So, if 'love is a force of nature', as the film poster states, why not nominate both actors? The Brits did!

Fry's jokes went over well, many about the handsome men in the room and on stage. The awards ceremony was polished and intelligent. Tributes to people in the industry who had passed away was very well made -- with clips from films of among others, Shelley Winters, Sir John Miles and Richard Pryor.

Wallace and Gromit: the Curse of the Were Rabbit won best British film. The Constant Gardener, nominated for ten awards took home one award. The awards caused a stir the next day, how can we not reward our own? Not realizing that is exactly what Hollywood would do a couple of weeks later. Cheers to the Brits!

"I'm not a lesbian but my girlfriend is...."

Biopic on the late vocalist Dusty Springfield in the works, directed by Ang Lee. Charlize Theron will be cast as Springfield and opposite, as the PR goes, Springfield's lesbian lover Kate Moss. So what does that make Springfield? Remember that T-shirt "I'm not a lesbian but my girlfriend is". Here we go again. Marketing for an Ang Lee film about what it's not about....
Springfield biopic
Ang Lee's new film cast

Brokeback Tie-Ins?

From the beginning Brokeback gained art house cult momentum from its Golden Lion at Venice to its opening in far less theaters than King Kong, but holding its own enough to surpass the Kong box office based on its exhibition availabilities. Now the film has moved into popular culture with auctions, music and advertising--that are not your usual 'tie-ins'.

This is an amazing phenomena to witness. I disagree that it has 'perked up' heterosexual interet in gay relationships. It reveals the extent of a covert homosexual culture forced underground for the prejudices and hate crimes depicted in 1960's middle America but are rampant everywhere today.
Pop Cult Brokeback

Quote:

"Brokeback" shirts go for more than $100k The eBay auction of the two shirts worn by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhall in "Brokeback Mountain" closed Sunday afternoon. The winning bid? $101,100.51! The shirts were won by Tom Gregory, who placed the winning bid about 10 minutes before the auction closed. Gregory told PlanetOut he was thrilled that he won the auction, but explained his euphoria on a broader level. "The shirts represent such a significant moment in the history of film," Gregory said. "And when you see the shirts together in the closet in the film, it's an extraordinary moment for gay people. You just . . . sigh."

Brokeback auction

White Woman, King Kong

We all knew it was going to win something--visual. Thrilling dinosaur matches with King Kong, giant sucking insects, flying creatures which compel. Otherwise, why do a King Kong film now? The theme of the film, according to scriptwriter Jackson: "beauty destroyed the beast. The day she met him, he was a dead "man", captivated". Doesn't really explain why make a Kong film NOW, though.

A white woman esteemed by a gorilla. A white woman in a white dress walking through the streets of New York in 0 degree weather to find her King (Kong). A group of white men, (one) white woman , (one) Asian man and (one) black man on a boat to Skull Island? Spoilers: the black and Asian man die first. Next, a group of spirit possessed black islanders are subdued by the militarism of a ship's primarily white crew and captain? Why now? Why Kong?

I do not mean that the film is 'racist'. It skillfully uses race tropes, primarily white and black. By looking at how these tropes are used we can get a better sense of images are endowed in film , particularly images of 'white' people. Who gets contrasted against these seemingly 'normative' images? De-mythologizing, deconstructing "whiteness".

Kong also 'capitalizes' on macho gender roles. Ann does cartwheels to impress Kong, and all he can come back with is knocking her down over and over which gives him a real chuckle. When she challenges him, he feels emasculated, pounds his chest and fists and gets hit with a rock that falls on him from his rage attack. After that, she's gotten to him, and he's captive. Oh boy, how infantile can the scriptwriters get. Or casting - Jack Black could play Orson Welles, if he wasn't such a bad actor.

And have to agree that Kong gave Jackson the opportunity to work with the special effects of Lord of the Rings, and all that dinosaur flesh rolling over and over, with safty insects sucking up the men provide plenty of material.

Its impossible to ignore the racial tropes, its so obvious, and since Kong has been recycled many times, trotting out a new version exposes the story for these crystallized structures. What comes to mind when I watch this movie is film professor ( University of Warwick) Richard Dyer's masterful study White, on the representation of white in film, and the history of 'white' in culture. From Richard Dyer's White:

Quote:

White people are not literally or symbolically white; nor are they uniquely virtuous and pure. Racial imagery and racial representation are central to the organisation of the contemporary world but, while there are many studies of images of black and Asian people, whiteness is an invisible racial position. At the level of racial representation, whites are not of a certain race. They are just the human race, a 'colour' against which other ethnicities are always examined. In White , Richard Dyer looks beyond the apparent unremarkability of whiteness and argues for the importance of analysing images of white people. Dyer traces the representation of whiteness by whites in Western visual culture, focusing on the mass media of photography, advertising, fine art, cinema and television. Dyer examines the representation of whiteness and the white body in the contexts of Christianity, 'race' and colonialism and, in a series of absorbing case studies, he discusses the representations of whiteness in muscle-man action cinema, from Italian 'peplum' movies to the Tarzan and Rambo series; shows the construction of whiteness in photography and cinema in the lighting of white and black faces, and analyses the representation of white women in end-of-empire fictions such as The Jewel in the Crown , and traces the disturbing association of whiteness with death, in vampire narratives and dystopian films such as Blade Runner and the Aliens trilogy.

The part above about 'lighting' whiteness is especially true for Jackson's new film. Note how Watts is lit in the scenes where her whiteness is constrasted with the darkness of Skull Island, and islanders. And the scene where she finds Kong in NYC, wearing only a white gown. And in the end with Kong gone, its time to return to 'her own kind' with an embrace of Brody. No contrasts needed.

Regarding having new heights to the new tale, a modern Kong may have scaled the WTC, but in the original story, this was the Great Depression, and the Empire State Building was the tallest edifice to challenge Kong. Opening scenes of the film about time period promised something that just never was delivered. Jackson just got sucked into the story, its his kind of story anyway. He made it his kind of story.

Whose Cold Blood?

Its a pretty disturbing film when you realize that the character played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman is far from the vampire Truman Capote was in real life. Perry Smith confessed to the murders before he told Capote, unlike the version in the latest theatrical realize. Its doubtful that Truman assisted in stays of execution as the film intimates, but like the film used his money and influence to play with the courts and penal institutions to his whim and fancy. Amazing that a celebrity could have such disregard for human life and buy his way through. He lived a good twenty years after he wrote In Cold Blood and died of alcoholism. From the film its clear that the disease had taken its toll early on.

There is something indeed disturbing about the gay and lesbian characters in Capote. For one thing, thing they never have sex. Its the most sexless movie that has ever been made. The director pumps up the eroticism between Perry and Truman, and is content having Truman's boring lover dismiss Harper Lee as "masculine". She also never has sex. Though Seymour Hoffman does a great job of portraying a caricature of the real life very stereotypical gay Capote, we learn that the title of his book could just as well apply to the way he got his story.

What does In Cold Blood (1967) have to say about Capote? Time to watch Robert Blake, the man who shot his wife have a go at Perry Smith.

Master Executioner of Sharks and Humans

Munich is so incredibly violent that its unbearable to watch. For spice Spielberg throws in a female assassin that is brutally murdered with coolness- simple little bullet holes from a silencer, that are neat and small and then spurt blood, her body left naked. There is seemingly no point at all for this, for the efforts to first conceal her, then not to feel guilt afterwards that her body wasn't covered by the men who executed her. Her crime is punished in a way that in its subtleness is disturbing--she executed for money, not for political motive, which is why her execution is aesthetized in distinctly vivid ways.
The execution of "Jeanette"(Marie-Josée Croze) differs from the laid out naked corpse of "Carl"(Ciarán Hinds), in dim hotel light --actually no comparison.

The walk on representation of Golda Meir is also shallow and a caricature no doubt because of poor scripting.

There is just execution after execution in this film, no analysis of what was going on at the time with the asassination of the 11 athletes. Nothing revealed other than violence. A pointless film in this respect in which nothing is learned. Other than that violence solves nothing. The aesthetics of violence should excite. Which is why so many analyses of the film confine themselves to apartments exploding and glass shattering. There is no inspiration to learn more from the film, only what the film lacks and doesn't discuss.

If studio execs prefer Brokeback Mountain over Munich it is because Lee's film provides a background and conceptualization of the brutality and repression of homosexuality with emotion. Kuscher and Roth try to humanize Eric Bana in between executions, and off assignment but it doesn't diminish Spielberg's 167 minute tirade of cinema time and space destruction.

Theories around Why Crash Beat Brokeback--like I said, it was a local thing, and like I said the theme of two closeted gay men in Brokeback was too much for 'liberal', ahem, conservative Hollywood.

Gee its so hard for a pimp....

More on the hypocrite meter of liberal Hollywood. Gee we feel so sorry for these poor pimps that have it so hard that their woman hatred is the only outlet they have, instead of fighting for real change....
Did it occur to the creators of these lyrics that confronting racism in the USA allows involves confronting sexism? And what about all the lame ass liberals that voted for this while at the same time rewarding CRASH? Sexual discrimination is at the bottom of racism making the message of Brokeback Mountain far more radical....But this is Hollywood...superficial treatment of "the human condition" at all costs.

The songs from CRASH, Transamerica and Hustle and Flow display the intersection of gender and race themes. Next year they will be showing montages of the fact that films about pimps aren't all that rare, now that films about prostitutes have oversaturated the market. But how can you sing against racism and beat on women.

Happy International Women's Day! (March 8th) The UN still does not acknowlege crimes against woman as crimes against humanity.

CinéFemme presents the lyrics of the award winning tune for the folks that don't listen to the lyrics of rap songs because it all sounds the same, or for the ones who do, for all the folks that applauded the song at the Oscars because it was politically correct but didn't know what the lyrics were about, and for those who did.

DJAY F/ SHUG - IT'S HARD OUT HERE FOR A PIMP LYRICS
Jordan Houston, Cedric Coleman and Paul Beauregard
[Chorus 2X: Shug - singing] + (Djay)
You know it's hard out here for a pimp (you ain't knowin)
When he tryin to get this money for the rent (you ain't knowin)
For the Cadillacs and gas money spent (you ain't knowin)
[1] Because a whole lot of bitches talkin shit (you ain't knowin)
[2] Will have a whole lot of bitches talkin shit (you ain't knowin)
[Djay]
In my eyes I done seen some crazy thangs in the streets
Gotta couple hoes workin on the changes for me
But I gotta keep my game tight like Kobe on game night
Like takin from a ho don't know no better, I know that ain't right
Done seen people killed, done seen people deal
Done seen people live in poverty with no meals
It's fucked up where I live, but that's just how it is
It might be new to you, but it's been like this for years
It's blood sweat and tears when it come down to this shit
I'm tryin to get rich 'fore I leave up out this bitch
I'm tryin to have thangs but it's hard fo' a pimp
But I'm prayin and I'm hopin to God I don't slip, yeah
[Chorus]
[Djay]
Man it seems like I'm duckin dodgin bullets everyday
Niggaz hatin on me cause I got, hoes on the tray
But I gotta stay paid, gotta stay above water
Couldn't keep up with my hoes, that's when shit got harder
North Memphis where I'm from, I'm 7th Street bound
Where niggaz all the time end up lost and never found
Man these girls think we prove thangs, leave a big head
They come hopin every night, they don't end up bein dead
Wait I got a snow bunny, and a black girl too
You pay the right price and they'll both do you
That's the way the game goes, gotta keep it strictly pimpin
Gotta have my hustle tight, makin change off these women, yeah

[Chorus]

Oscar Beeswax

To be sure, CRASH. was the instructive movie. A preachy movie. Ang Lee said he wasn't sure why the Academy didn't like Brokeback Mountain. Probably something home grown from LA was preferable. But certainly homophobia is part of why it wasn't selected. The kind that no one will admit to, just as no one will admit to racism, or sexism. The why do you have to make a big fuss about it kind of homophobia. Why the big deal. See we've dealt with it before. We're all liberal, we work with each other everyday. That kind of 'ism'. The film that had the widest support is bullshit...its who had the most screeners, pushers and preachers. And then in the end, it comes down to your personal belief system.

But the truth is most of the films were kind of preachy this year--and everyone was selling messages: this film is about this and that, and, oh by the way I want to thank my grandmother, mother, father etc. for this. Its like that documentary from England where these school children are followed every seven years from seven to 49--it all seems so predictable. Peggy Lee's tune "is that all there is comes to mind"..... The Constant Gardener and Munich were two films skillfully made that also went home (almost) emptyhanded. What do the publicists have to say about these films. And didn't Spielberg look a bit sour....

Brokeback Mountainmay not have been the best film, but it covered territory that has NOT been treated in mainstream film previously. Tacky speech by the producers of film though....for adapted screenplay. Fitting in timely with all those messages about the film. And maybe the marketers would have done well to proclaim " This is a Gay Love Story about Two Closeted Shepherds Who Married Women to Hide Their Love".


The award for original song "IT'S HARD OUT HERE FOR A PIMP" (Hustle and Flow) was a total bore. But the burning cars from CRASH and Dolly Parton's Transamerica score weren't invigorating enough for the one's voting in this category. No matter how the presenters tried to dress up that other song titles have been "unusual" this was a real low for Oscar history.

Just how original was this rap song with the same predictable format.......hello? But for the Oscars, radical. Prostitutes are made happy in Hollywood (Julia Roberts), now its time for the pimps that beat them up. And a song to glorify it. CRASH!!!!

George Clooney is Mr Oscar 2006. Best acceptance speech: Batman is dead. But is George...possibly...gay? in the year of Brokeback Mountain ....

Tsotsi seemed to be a sure thing from beginning. Now according to Jon Stewart, 3 Pack Mafia knew how to accept an award. Wrong. It was Gavin Hood.

Joaquin Phoenix gave a lot more than Phillip Seymour Hoffman, far more than Reese "I'm just trying to matter" Witherspoon. Sometimes you wonder. But its a publicist bash, not an awards show. Did you see all the props paraded on stage, penguins bow ties etc.

Tribute to Robert Altman, rather swell ( Streep, Tomlin did it well). Altman's films snubbed at previous Oscar 'awards' makes you appreciate what good film can be...even a special Oscar at that....
And of course the industry is worried about downloading films and pushing the widescreen. How many times did they do that?

Moira Sullivan: Underground Films, Skala Eressos, Lesbos

Since 1997 I have made films in Eressos, on the island of Lesbos. These are collaborative non commercial, personal creations with islanders and travelers. Two are mythological journeys contextualized with film clips from Maya Deren's At Land, Alien, Jaws and Bergman's The Seventh Seal . Both made in Eressos, Lesbos in Greece during the summers of 1997 and 1998:

• At Land Too (1997) inspired by the film At Land (1945) by American avant-garde filmmaker Maya Deren. Includes a so called 'lesbian scene' which has inspired a wave of lesbian iconography 25 years after Deren's death in 1961, including the work of Barbara Hammer. At Land Too is a modern saga made with the infamous Gaul beach lesbians - "Salopes de la Mer". Featuring "Rock Time", and "The Dirty Old Man on the Beach".

• Vagina Dentata (1998) is made with Teutonic and Anglosaxon beach lesbians and concerns the myth of a vagina with teeth. Modern films such as Jaws and Alien have reproduced the saga and given teeth a bad reputation. Featuring the original Vagina Dentata tribe at Eressos, starring H.R.C., and a flock of dancing Grecian urns. Featured on Canal+ , Paris . Moving Dykes Film Festival, Eressos. Selected for Bay Area Burning Man Film Festival, and projected from a VCR on the roof of a car against a garage.

ASSORTED SHORTS FROM ERESSOS

• Out and About, the Parthenon, demystified. 1995.
• The Lunchmaker , (1999) Featuring Antipodes lesbians. A sea nymph serves up two mermaids from the sea who each do their dance. Skala Eressos.
• Shadows (2001) Two shadows, survivors of a shipwreck, saunter along Sappho's beach. Skala Eressos.
• Sappho Postcards (2002) Viking lesbians recite poems by Sappho in her garden. This is a spoof on a Swedish filmmaker named Roy Andersson noted for his deadpan long takes of meaningless uncomfortable silence. Featuring virtually brain dead lesbians. Skala Eressos.
• Les Lesbiennes Terribles (2004) Two mischievous lesbians meet up with a mercenary driver. It happens to the best of us.When good things happen to misfits. Skala Eressos.
• The True Story of Antiope (2005) Featuring Les Parents Terribles. Lykos and Dirce take away Antiope's home and children. and later suffer a horrible fate. When bad things happen to bad people. Featuring coral reefs, goat herds and a brood of hungry birds. Filmed in Sigri and Skala Eressos.
• Hypernotomachia Nausika (2009). This is a compilation film about Nausika's struggle for love in a dream. There can be no harmony, until there is harmony.

Other films

• WORLD PREMIERE! On the Highway with My Girlfriend (Stockholm, Sweden. 5 minutes). Selected for Denver Underground Film Festival.
  

Welcome to CinéFemme

CinéFemme is an international forum for film and media analysis of and by women.

This is a new cinema discussion blog for comments regarding new theatrical releases, women's film festivals , genres and spaces, the work of women in film and all films with a gender perspective. Is there really anything like this out there? Discusss the latest film by Jamie Babbitt, Mira Nair, Chantal Akerman or Margaretha von Trotta Or if you prefer rant about the films of David Lynch, Lars Von Trier, or Steven Spielberg. Feminist film criticism, gender studies, queer perspectives.

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