Film Theory

THE DEVIL FINDS WORK (1976) [REDUX]

March 8, 2024

When I first started this blog roughly three years ago, it was solely to briefly mention films and TV shows that I found remarkable. To boost works that fell through the cracks. It grew from that, to more long-form essays, more personal examinations, more experimental takes on how one — and others — examine media.

Apart from fellow classmates, I’ve never known anyone who is familiar with any of the works I’ve extolled over the past two weeks. All of these works were imparted to me in a collegiate atmosphere, but all helped to form my idea of, not only what film criticism and analysis could be, but also what film could be.

I have no idea whether these works will do the same for you but, like the other entries in this blog, I hope they’ll prod you to seek them out, even if some of them sound too dry or academic.

The sole work I’m including here that I wasn’t introduced to in school is James Baldwin’s THE DEVIL FINDS WORK, the last post in this series. I previously wrote about THE DEVIL FINDS WORK here. I’d suggest reading that before going further, but hopefully it’s not a necessity.

Not mentioned in that post is that I was only aware of Baldwin because of his fictional works and activism. If you haven’t read GIOVANNI’S ROOM? That is an essential read, especially if you are queer.

My prior post regarding THE DEVIL FINDS WORK touches on many of the words I’ve posted about in this series, and like in that post, I will express my frustration that THE DEVIL FINDS WORK was not part of any of my curriculum. Baldwin was an expert cultural and media critic and his essays are absolutely essential in examining cinema.

To bluntly underscore matters: I am still pissed off that I discovered it so late in life, not just at the teachers I had (many of whom I love dearly) but at myself for not finding a way to have that text in my hands earlier.

THE DEVIL FINDS WORK is that good. It is that important. It is relevant. Like FROM CALIGARI TO HITLER it examines the cultural impact of populist media regarding race, class, and sexuality. Also? It’s so well-penned and, while it will make you angry — at culture, at people, at the world in general — it is so very readable.

I plan to follow this series up with an array of modern film criticism and analysis that has influenced me since. I’d love to say that, due to the Internet, there’s never been a better, more egalitarian time to write about film and have your words read and seen, but I’d be lying.

There was a brief period of time where astute film criticism and analysis was boosted by the Internet and everyone could have their own platform via their own website and others could be inspired by others.

Thanks to the bubbles created by social media, YouTube clickbait, Rotten Tomatoes, et al.? Those times are over, at least for now.

That doesn’t stop folks like myself from finding ways to write about film or media in general, and there are so many folks from so many walks of life who are doing the same, and it can often feel like screaming into the void, but they are there if you seek them out.

If you don’t make that attempt? Well, you are just as guilty as I was for not seeking out THE DEVIL FINDS WORK earlier.

You can get a copy of THE DEVIL FINDS WORK via Matt Zoller Seitz’s store!

BREAKING THE GLASS ARMOR (1988)

March 5, 2024

Author’s Note

I wrote this before David Bordwell passed. While his wife was the one who penned this work, the two of them were an unstoppable team of film academics who instilled and imbued so much knowledge into the world. I’m devastated that David is no longer with us, but his legacy will live on, and he was writing up until the very end.

If you are a film criticism/theory nerd, Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell are perhaps the goddamn greatest film couple in history. If you’ve taken a film class, you have almost inevitably been assigned one of their texts, probably FILM ART: AN INTRODUCTION or FILM HISTORY: AN INTRODUCTION.

Bordwell and Thompson are so astute and knowledgable while also being clear and never talk down via their work. They want to impart their love of film, as well as what they’ve gleaned over the years.

Kristin Thompson’s BREAKING THE GLASS ARMOR was a fucking revelation for me. Thompson breaks down her dissection of film criticism and analysis, which mostly consists of: fucking take different approaches to discuss works as deemed necessary.

Neoformalism is derived from Russian Formalism and — more or less — can be boiled down to discussing films based on form, context, authorial intent, and how every aesthetic facet of a creative piece works towards a central thesis, and scrutinizing that requires separate analytical approaches.

Thompson puts it this way:

“The aim of the formalist method, or at least one of its aims, is not to explain the work, but to call attention to it, to restore that ‘orientation towards form’ which is characteristic of a work of art.”

[…]

“But most important, neoformalism treats audience response as a matter of education about and awareness of norms, not as a matter of passive acceptance of norms imposed by the makers of popular films.”

BREAKING THE GLASS ARMOR, pg. 32

Does neoformalist analysis always work? No, no it does not, but canny viewers can still suss out a work’s contextual manifesto, and are able to point at how almost every facet of a work bolsters the collective voice.

(I’ll note that the film teacher that assigned this text also imbued in me the idea that no one sets out to make a bad film. The next time you want to rip a film a new one? Please keep that in mind. Be gracious with your criticism!)

BREAKING THE GLASS ARMOR dissects a number of classic films, all films that I absolutely love, and some that so few have seen: Godard’s vastly underseen TOUT VA BIEN, which is a fucking marvel of the complexities of communications and so, so very Brechtian; Tati’s PLAYTIME, which is perhaps the most astoundingly amusing and well-blocked non-silent-but-silent film ever; the nebulous nature and unreliable narrative of the film adaptation of LAURA from Otto Preminger; Ozu’s steadfast camerawork for LATE SPRING.

As noted above, this is a very accessible and thoughtful and insightful work, one that doesn’t rely of the impenetrable nature of academia. It made me see film and artistic works in a completely way, and I can’t thank Thompson enough for penning this work.

You can buy it via Princeton University Press!

MEN, WOMEN, AND CHAIN SAWS (1992) [REDUX]

March 4, 2024

While I’ve already extolled the feminist triumph of Carol L. Clover’s MEN, WOMEN, AND CHAIN SAWS, I couldn’t let it go without mentioning it this week.

I know horror is often written off as cultural garbage, as schlock, instead of the cultural barometer it actually is. I would dare say it’s the most relevant genre.

The subtext of horror works speaks to our insecurities, our fears, our dangers, our own worries about what we’re capable of and what terrors and malice others are capable of.

Clover scrutinizes all of that and clearly and succinctly details how imbalanced gender is in the world we live in and how these works — and horror in general — are more often than not treatises on living a life cautiously.

To say this is an groundbreaking work doesn’t even begin to do it justice. At a time when folks simply shrugged at genre work, she took it seriously and thoughtfully penned about horror in a way that resonates today.

Also, I just want to note that I love how she refers to chainsaws in the broken text of THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE. *chef kiss*

THE HAUNTED SCREEN (1947)

March 1, 2024

Lotte H. Eisner is probably a name not known to you. If you are aware of her, give yourself a pat on the back.

She was a film fanatic, and instrumental to the New German Cinema movement which was an extremely productive, prolific and revolutionary time for filmmaking in Germany in the 1970s.

Born in 1896, she was a mentor to so many filmmakers. She had a brilliant eye for visual communication, so it’s no surprise that she was so taken with German Expressionism.

However! She is best know for penning and collecting THE HAUNTED SCREEN, which is her brazenly extolling the striking visual technicals of German Expressionism.

While her deep dive into films that are mostly either lost or forgotten, what makes this work really shine are the film captures.

Like any good goth, as a college youth I photocopied each and every page with a screenshot and cut and plastered it to my walls, because there is nothing more goth than German Expressionism. I even made tape cover montages through the images, as was the style of the times.

If you are not familiar with German Expressionistic films, here’s your introduction. If you are, but haven’t read it? You will find comfort in it. It’s a great read, one that should be on every cineaste’s book list.

It is available via the University of California Press!

FROM CALIGARI TO HILTER (1947)

February 29, 2024

Another foundational film text, one way, way the fuck ahead of its time. Siegfried Krachuer’s FROM CALIGARI TO HITLER blew my teenage mind.

FROM CALIGARI TO HITLER posits that film not only speaks to modern culture, of the trials and tribulations of the present, but also speaks about the future.

Notably, it details how you could see the rise of Nazi-ism through years of German cinema, especially tracking German insecurities via the 1920 expressionistic film THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI.

I do not understand how others have yet to latch onto this idea, because, for fuck’s sake, if nothing has told us about the insecurities and hopes for powerful influences to protect us, it’s the inscrutable fucking Marvel superhero franchise.

(It’s also telling that we’ve grown disillusioned by it!)

I will also note! German cinema fell the fuck apart during Nazi-ism! German cinema was at one point the goddamn hallmark of quality media, then fell off the face of the Earth until the New German Cinema movement occurred in the 70s, thanks to especially to Fassbinder, Herzog, and Wenders.

So, yeah. 30 years of cinematic garbage.

(FYI, the same occurred with the Soviet Union. That’s a tale for another time.)

What FROM CALIGARI TO HILTER instills is a political and cultural way of perceiving the hows and whys works exist, what folks are fraught of, of the subject matter they want to tackle and usually? That’s what is right in front of not only their faces, but everyone else.

So, yes, think about that the next time you head out to a Hollywood blockbuster. Think about the subtext. Think about the undercurrent, because it’s fucking there, regardless of whether it’s something the collective creators of a film are aware of.

These are works that represent a singular point in time, and they speak volumes. Watch and listen to them.

Similarly, this is also available via Princeton University Press!

PLACING MOVIES/MOVIES AS POLITICS (1995)

February 28, 2024

I’m lumping together PLACING MOVIES and MOVIES AS POLITICS from Jonathan Rosenbaum because they’re two sides of the same coin.

If you were of a certain age in Chicago, you read the weekly alt-print Chicago Reader and if you were a film nerd? You ate up Jonathan Rosenbaum’s words. While he was not the only film critic at the Reader, he was certainly the most prestigious.

Rosenbaum was extremely prolific and one hell of a Francophile and not only did he take the dumbest films seriously — MOVIES AS POLITICS even scrutinizes the absolutely puerile ACE VENTURA — but he also framed films within their cultural impact and also what the filmmakers were attempting to do, and also how they were influenced by the world around them.

My copies of these works are so dog-eared and dotted with so many asterisks and notes. In a world when so many folks were solely talking about the entertainment value of projected works, he respected what film was capable of, of how the flicker brings us together, of how these collective works speak to everyone, but also have so much more to say than most folks perceive.

He was also instrumental in the absolutely gorgeous restoration of Orson Welles’ TOUCH OF EVIL, which is quite the accomplishment! (He does go into detail about the restoration if you take the time to buy it on physical media.)

I will note that he has since retired, but he still haunts screenings! Also, I did meet him once at FACETS, a Chicago theater that is actively uncommercial and I do not understand how they’re able to pay the rent.

Anyway! He barely gave me the time of day which … fair, I know how I present … but goddamn, I’m not gonna lie: that hurt, but doesn’t diminish from his critical contributions.

IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE (1995)

February 27, 2024

If you aren’t familiar with Walter Murch, he is an absolutely exceptional film editor. You’ve seen his work. He’s best known for editing the significantly unruly APOCALYPSE NOW, as well as THE GODFATHER PART III, but also GHOST, as well as THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING. He’s also super-fucking smart. He has the heart of a philosopher and is so inquisitive and thoughtful in a way that I can only extoll as someone that is more than happy to mentor folks.

IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE is Murch imparting all of his editing knowledge, because he’s that generous of an individual.

I think about this book at least once a month. While it’s dense with all sorts of minutiae about editing — he spends A LOT of time discussing the difference between vertical editing (via Moviolas and Steenbecks) and digital editing in ways that I think no one nowadays consider — it’s still exceptionally entertaining and enlightening.

I was lucky enough to straddle that strange film divide, in that I did edit on actual film but also edited on AVID systems.

While I am a computer nerd — I grew up with a keyboard in my hand and I still have the PCjr to prove it — there is fucking absolutely nothing like editing physical film.

Digital is disposable. You can shoot for hours and hours.

Physical film is not. You get a spool of film. You have to cultivate an eye for lighting, for camera position, for ensuring you are methodically shooting for the best verve of storytelling, that you aren’t violating the 30 degree rule, that you’re following through with the right angles of a shot-reverse shot, that you’re getting the best coverage while still being mindful of your film budget.

You do not have any way to see your work apart from what is right in your eyes, the space you inhabit.

Then once it’s shot, you have to string out your workprint — which I’ll note can take far too long to process! — and thread it through a reel-to-reel workbed and squint at the tiny screen projecting your hard work, then find your mark, unspool the film and splice it with a razor.

It is often a grueling process. Splice after splice for hundreds of feet of footage. Film cement is pasted over and over again. Your oily fingers often taint what cost way too much money to film.

Digital editing disposes of all of that and, what Murch notes, it’s easier, but far less intimate; footage goes from being something precious to transitory and almost wasteful; as if it’s taking performers and labor for granted.

I digress.

What keeps popping in my mind is what Murch titled his work over: IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE.

Murch realized pretty quickly that one blinks after the completion of a thought.

He also realized that narratively, that’s organic to storytelling.

Consequently, he found himself innately cutting whenever he saw a great actor blink.

Bad actors? They flutter their eyes. They’re far too focused on recalling lines, too distracted by other actors or the surrounding sets. They do not inhabit their roles.

Great actors have a visual intensity. They become who they’re asked to. They blink naturally because they’re on the same wavelength.

This doesn’t just apply to film, but also real-life. For better or worse? Once you’re imparted with that knowledge? It is very easy to tell who is taking in your words, and who simply doesn’t give a shit and lives in their own little world that you are not a part of.

You’re probably familiar with the phrase that the eyes are windows to the soul, and I do believe that, but eyes are also so, so very complex. They convey so much, perhaps more than any other facet of the human body. There’s a reason why poker players often wear sunglasses; it’s so very hard to lie when your eyes are willing to betray you.

Murch gets that, which is why he’s such an amazing talent, and the fact that he’s willing to let the world into his observations and knowledge, well, be thankful and perhaps you — like me — will retain his words and wisdom.

WORDS ON WORDS ON FILM WEEK+

February 26, 2024

You may be unaware that I spent a good number of years in film school. Most folks aren’t aware, but yeah, I wasted a lot of money before realizing that 1) writing about film was no way to earn a living, and this was way back when newspapers had full-time staff and 401Ks!! Also, 2) when I migrated from film criticism/analysis to cinematography? I quickly became aware that I am not gregarious enough for industry work.

If you are a people person? The film industry is a lot of fun! If you are not? It fucking sucks!

That said? The time I spent on indie sets and scrabbling about as a grip for TV pilots? Those were some of the best times of my life. You’re given a purpose and you either pass with flying colors, or fucking fail spectacularly!

Also? I learned so much about electricity! Especially how not to use it! Holy moly, Chicago apartments have the worst wiring in the U.S. I cannot tell you how goddamn valuable that is a skill to have.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: unless you have a goddamn good reason to turn down a gig, say yes. There’s nothing like on-set experience and the camaraderie one has when working on a collective effort, especially when it’s a feature film and you’re essentially living with folks you do not know and are thrown into the fray for at least a month for exploitative hours on end!

It is something special and unknowable and you will be hard-pressed to recreate that ever again.

So, this week? This week is all about the texts that made me fall in love with film. (It’s technically a week and then some because I do not know how to shut myself up.)

I know it sounds antithetical, extolling text for what is a visual and aural medium, but I love nothing but to read others be effusive as to what they love, often dictated via screenshots and credits and shared screenings, in whichever way and form they can do so.

So: welcome to Words on Words on Film week, which will actually last longer than a week. Hey, my blog? My rules!