Ok, I think it is probably well known among longtime readers of thie little blog that Arnaud Desplechin is my favorite working filmmaker. I have been tracking the production of his newest film Un Conte De Noël for months now, with a first look at stills from the film and an early synopsis posted here last summer. Now that the film is in Cannes (and I have to say, is the film I am hoping will win the Palme D'Or) and is nearing its French theatrical release date, a French language trailer for the film has been posted online. Take a look:

Hope your French is better than mine... Anyway, one of the things that grabs me right away is the film's location; The city of Roubaix, the location of the Desplechin family home (as seen in L'Aimee) and a location that lends this film more than a small whiff of autobiography. I guess you could say that all of Desplechin's films carry autobiographical signifiers, but the choice of Roubaix seems to lend this film more of a direct connection than others. The movie looks like a cross between Kings and Queen and La Vie Des Morts, which features much of the same dysfunctional sibling rivalry that seems on display here. Either way, I can't wait and am hopeful that Arnaud will bring home the Palme. I can't wait to see this, hopefully in Toronto and New York this fall, and am again green with envy at those who will be headed to Cannes to catch the World Premiere. Send word!

(Thanks as always to P. for the news I love to receive...)

“The terrible thing is that the people who wish to destroy the world have nothing to put in its place. This is what I mean by nihilism.”—V.S. Naipaul, discussing the rise of Islamic Fundamentalism, April 20, 2008.

Forty years on, 1968 seems like an historical impossibility. In the cold light of our times, the momentary flowering of an international youth movement built on the idea of expanding human freedom (pro-academic freedom, pro-free speech, pro-labor rights, pro-choice and decidedly anti-war) seems at once charming and, for someone like me who has only been alive for 37 of the intervening 40 years, spectral, a flickering light against a rapidly expanding void. In celebration of that historic moment and all it has meant to the cinema, The Film Society of Lincoln Center has assembled an expansive program of films called 1968: An International Perspective and, great minds thinking somewhat alike, the Film Forum is featuring a Godard’s 60’s retrospective. In preparation for this monumental trip down "received memory" lane, I have been re-visiting my own feelings about 1968, a series of events that hovers just beyond the grasp of my personal experience but which has had a profound effect on the world as I have known it.

I have always respected and admired the moment of '68; The hope of May in Paris to the bloody battle in Chicago at the Democratic National Convention in the late summer to the resistance to the terrible fall of Prague in the fall. But I am a child of its historical residue, left floating in the polluted wake of lessons learned and a near-universal retreat from the values espoused by the movement. What is left for me, for my generation? Where do we stand in relation to this definitive experience that has shaped our collective imagination, an image of populism so powerful that we have been unable to replace its fundamental physical structure in the decades since its collapse?

As a twenty-something student myself, confronting my own feelings and how to respond to Bush I and his Gulf War, it was fascinating to me to watch my generation ape this movement; The large rallies and long, sweaty meetings discussing strategy, 25,000 students marching on the streets of Ann Arbor, hand painted signs and peace symbols, my friends and I packing up the car and heading to Washington, D.C. for the obligatory March On Washington, and all of it to almost no effect. Where was the actual confrontation? And again, another decade later, a new Bush and a new war; Masses of people taking to the streets against the War in Iraq, folk songs being sung, sit-ins, rallies marches and talk talk talk but again, nothing. Silence. And now, there is no real popular movement in America, a dominant media environment that refuses to acknowledge dissenting opinion and a public (and, much to my dismay, a youth culture) that identifies more closely with the empty jargon of a factually and historically inaccurate rationale for war than they do with any message a popular anti-war movement seems capable of providing. Is it any wonder we have a cinema that teeters between silence and failure, an entire form seemingly unable to communicate the experience of being alive in the Bush years, the outrage of the Iraq War overly literalized into cinematic cliché?

And why is that? Why is it that populism has fallen on such hard times? Why is the cinema unable to capture this time and place, or even satirize it effectively? In my opinion, the shadow of 1968 has a great deal to do with it. We have been unable to replace our own romanticism of that moment, of young people and folk songs and barricades and free love and confrontation, with the relevant set of tools necessary to engage the ways in which the world has changed. Power refuses to confront the people; It's easier to ignore the masses, to stay on message and refuse to acknowledge everything else. The movement for political change in this country has, ironically, refused to embrace the actual changes in society and seems not to have learned the lessons that the rest of the post-1968 world learned; Principles be damned, you have to control the articulation of your message in order to convince people that they have a stake in the change you propose. And personally speaking, I find it hard to see much change in the rhetoric of romanticism for a movement that never delivered on its glorious promises. Why in the world would anyone play a folk song at a political rally in 2008? If I had a hammer, I'd use it to re-shape the fucking unintelligible lingua franca of protests. Why has the internet not been properly utilized as a tool for creating the conditions for social change? Why can we not replace the romantic structure of a by-gone set of tactics and strategies with a new, relevant set that erases idealism and replaces it with practical actions for winning the war of ideas?

In looking over the film schedules for the 1968 and Godard programs, I am at once fascinated, excited and self-critical; I wonder if Godard, Garrell, Oshima, Wexler and Makavejev spent their weekday afternoons in May of '68 in the dark, sitting in various cinemathéques around the world and watching retrospectives from 1928, hoping for lessons in the silent films of that era, looking back forty years and wondering how they might find images that spoke to their own times. I wonder if they gathered to watch Dreyer’s 1928 The Passion of Joan Of Arc, curious as to how Falconetti’s face might symbolize their own refusal to conform to the will of an unjust authority. Or did they instead look forward, hoping to find ways to shake things up in their own times and examine their own unique moment as an opportunity to re-shape cinema into an expression of youthful desire? Either way (or both ways), the distance between the on-screen matyrdom of Falconetti’s young, pure idealist and Godard’s brilliant excoriation of the youth movement in Week End is the same distance and that lies between Week End and the cinema of today. But man, it's been a long forty years; Is there a film that feels less likely to be made today than Week End? Who would even try?

Week End: Godard Wasn't Subtle, But He May Be Right.

One of the most restrictive concepts of '68 as a cinematic moment is the absolute certainty it presents in its image of the world; The cinema is suddenly reshaped, primarily by Godard, through the power of montage. This is the dawn of the essay film, a form which reached its apotheosis in the hands of Chris Marker (whose brilliant 1968 elegy A Grin Without A Cat is playing in the Lincoln Center series) and the didacticism of certainty is so beloved by so many of these filmmakers, they bend over backwards to stuff their films full of timely, big ideas; Newsreel footage, documentary footage of demonstrations, dramatic recreations of historical events (reshaped to conform to the correct dogmatic principles of the day). There is so much lecturing going on that characters will often spend endless scenes reading decontextualized passages from books to one another, the poetry of a literary fragment providing the dramatic thrust for undercooked connections to bygone eras.

Thankfully, the best of these films has a tongue buried in its cheek and this certainty, this need to understand ideals as desirable realities, is eventually exposed as a pretext for good old fashioned human interaction; No sex before a literary and intellectual pedigree is established, thankyouverymuch. It’s got to be politically justifiable love, after all. But oh, aren't they cool? So young and beautiful, so passionate about ideas? For me, it all feels so tragic knowing that just around the corner, outside the comforts of the cinema and in the real world, this powerful sense of political certainty would literally explode into the 1970’s with the formation of left-wing political terrorist groups like The Red Army Faction, The Weather Underground and The Red Brigades. Yes, cinema (and art in general) was eager to expose the dangers that this unyielding, self-satisfied approach to political life offered, but that warning was often muted by the fun and beauty to be found in giving visual representation to what was, in so many respects, a truly lovely sense of idealism. Unfortunately, that idealism became reactionary nihilism very quickly.

Desire On The Barricades: Philippe Garrel's Regular Lovers

Which brings me back to the quote I used to introduce this piece. I heard it this past week on a terrific radio show called To The Best Of Our Knowledge when V.S. Naipaul (not one of my favorite thinkers) used it to describe his primary beef with that certain brand of Islamic Fundamentalism that promotes the use of terror. While I wouldn’t dare equate the populist movements of ’68 with the rise of global Islamic terrorism in the 21st century, I do believe that the great irony we face in the shadow of ’68 is that the most profoundly influential youth movement shaping our world today stands, in many respects, at the absolute opposite end of the spectrum from the values and ideals espoused forty years ago. Time feels like it is moving backward now. Which is to say, young Muslims all over the world are ready to organize, rise up, murder and die for their own belief in the certainty of paradise, only this paradise is so ideal as to not be attainable on earth, in our physical reality. What's a free-thinking humanist to do? And while Naipaul is right (in my opinion) about the nihilism of fundamentalism of all stripes, that there is nothing that has ever been proposed by political and moral certainty that could possibly adequately replace the beautiful and messy reality of our own world, the failure of the movements of 1968 to reshape mankind into a free loving, peaceful, egalitarian utopia is borne from a similar limitation; The world that was proposed by the popular youth movement at that moment was simply not possible or, in retrospect, even desirable. And it was this certainty that things were, in fact, possible and desirable that lead to the empty, short-sighted violence of the 1970’ s and ultimately to the near-wholesale cultural rejection in this country of the principles of ’68. Which is a terrible shame.

As I said before, I am a child of that rejection. And while I plan on taking in as many films in both series as I possibly can in the coming weeks, I always look at films about ’68 differently than I look at other films; I look for what might have survived, which sparkling bits of humanity and idealism still speak to the world today. Because, and it must be faced, the rest of it feels like a lot of bullshit. There is a very real sense of sadness that permeates these films, a grief in knowing what might have been possible if only someone, anyone had known what they were doing. Oh, what might have been. And then again, oh, what is.

This past January, I attended a party at the Sundance Film Festival. It was my first night in Park City, and I scored an invite to a private affair, hosted by friends and by all accounts a lovely gathering. While I was enjoying getting caught up with familiar faces and colleagues I had never met, I was also a little disappointed in myself; I had arrived at the party committed to not having a drink of alcohol and within fifteen minutes (and having slurped down two club sodas) all I wanted was a cold beer. I knew what that meant; One beer meant a few beers meant a fitful sleep meant a hangover meant an exhausting start to the festival. I caved anyway. I drank a few drinks, stayed longer than I planned and I regretted it instantly. Let down by my utter lack of willpower, I woke up the next morning feeling like shit. Again.

Let's not even discuss my last three weeks in Sarasota, where drinking alcohol feels like a job requirement.

Having a few days to think about things while wrapping up down in Florida, I started getting a little bit worried; Can I actually decide not to drink and then follow through by not actually drinking? If I can't, do I have a problem? I decided it's time to put myself to the test.

I have been working in the film community since 1997 and with a decade of parties and festivals under my belt, from Sundance to Cannes to Toronto to The Hamptons to Sarasota to who can remember where else, I know that the abundance of free alcohol is one of the great factors in the social equation that is the "community" of the film business. I don't consider myself an alcoholic and I don't look down my nose at people who drink and enjoy themselves, but man, it struck me a few days ago that in this working environment (and given that it is also a highly social environment), it feels almost impossible for me to say no to alcohol.

It's not that I feel pressured by my peers or colleagues to drink; I've hung out with many people at festivals who choose not to drink at all. I think a lot of it has to do with social and professional anxiety; Striving to please people, feeling nervous and, after hours on end of incredible stress, enjoying the ways in which alcohol calms the nerves and eases my inhibitions. I've tried not to drink at work events; It might be time to make a change when you order a club soda and colleagues wonder aloud if everything is ok. Having a glass of water? An eyebrow might be raised or the assumption made that you're paying the price for a prior indulgence. "You sure you don't want a beer?," they ask. "A gin and tonic? Hair of the dog... I'm going to the bar..." And then, my inevitable collapse.

Alcohol is the norm. And it is always there, free, in abundance. Is there a single film event that doesn't either happen in a bar or have a liquor sponsor? Of course not. And why should there be? Enjoying a drink or two is part of the fun of being a grown up, right? My main problem is, of course, moderation. It would be great if I could slowly nurse a drink or two and call it a night, but I have never been one to do that in any part of my life; I just am not a moderate person. One of the things I want to work on with myself is developing a sense of moderation, of enjoying new experiences instead of constantly feeling like I have to keep up with everyone and drinkdrinkdrink. I assume it will be better for my health overall which is important (and which is, honestly, another important motive for me in all of this, but more about that soon). And so, my three-step plan is as follows;

1. Take a few months off from the drinking altogether
2. Try moderation in all areas of personal consumption
3. When I feel ready, enjoy a beer or some wine as part of a more moderate lifestyle.

I am eager to put this plan to the test at TriBeCa this week and look forward to some fun, sober nights on the town (and happy, hangover-free mornings in my apartment). I also think that by writing this I am making a sort of public commitment (well, at least to the ten people who read my blog) and therefore am more likely to honor it; Maybe this is another way to inspire myself to stick to the plan. Either way, I am committed to taking some time away from the sauce while re-connecting with the cinema, back home in Brooklyn after months away from my favorite movie theaters, my friends, my family. It's time for me to take a break in order to savor everything I've been missing while I've been away in Florida. I'm more than ready.

I know I'm probably stating the obvious, but I'm interested to know what others think about this... Feel free to comment and I'll publish in regular intervals.

... which explains THIS.

Come On You Reds!

Best Goal Ever

Did You In The FA Cup

First Goal In The League

(Oh, the memories... sigh...)

fet-ish : [FET-ish, FEE-tish]

1. an object regarded with awe as being the embodiment or habitation of a potent spirit or as having magical potency.
2. any object, idea, etc., eliciting unquestioning reverence, respect, or devotion: to make a fetish of high grades.
3. Psychology. Any object or non-genital part of the body that causes a habitual erotic response or fixation.

Let's get personal.

One of the slow-building revelations I have experienced this past year is a growing awareness that my relationship to the movies is a form of fetishism. I seem to experience movies and cinema-related thinking (blogs, criticism, discussion) in a way that touches upon all three of the classic definitions of 'fetish' listed above; I certainly believe in the transcendental power of cinema as a near-perfect delivery system for emotions and storytelling, I absolutely hold my trips to the movies with a secular form of reverence that I reserve only for cinema and, this one being the hardest to understand and admit, there seems to be a certain set of visual stimuli that I find to be a huge turn-on. I am slowly but surely coming to the realization that the design of an image-- form, function, order-- when integrated into the meaning of an image-- context, story, tone-- creates a clear stimulation of something in my head that just, well, turns me on. I haven't reached the point where I understand the dynamics of the turn-on, which specific combination of design and meaning throw me into a Freudian spiral, but I know it when it happens. My body relaxes and I reach an almost ecstatic, blissful state of wonder that makes me feel incredible.

Recently, as I have come to recognize this sensation, I have been able to target the images that switch me on. By way of example, I can point to two disparate examples:

The images and trailer for the upcoming Speed Racer film and the on-air/on-line universe that houses Turner Classic Movies.

Speed Racer

When I was a little kid in the mid-1970's, there was no cartoon I loved more than Speed Racer; The theme song, the simple drawings and nonsensical, repetitive story lines, the super cheap look and feel of the show were, taken as a whole, an incredible source of happiness for me. I loved that show. When I saw the early reports that the Wachowski Brothers were going to direct the film, I assumed it would be an exciting and reverent take on the cartoon. When I read that they were creating a new coloring and image layering process for the film, where backgrounds and foregrounds could be separated to give the film a cartoon feel, I started getting excited. When I saw the first trailer, I almost literally went numb.

Something inside of me just tingles when I see an impossible image like that; My brain goes a million directions at once. J Pop anime, 2046, Takashi Murakami, and then that light, those perfect, colored spheres, like a galaxy of exploding planets, a universe of lens flares. Or what about this?

That car in the foreground, the ratio of space between the three entryways in the back, the gothic arches (echoed in the 'M' on the hood of the Mach 5), columns and ceilings against the polished, reflective glow of the floor, the spheres of the headlights, the green and pink and teal against the reflective white of the Mach 5, and best of all, the perfect centering of Speed's head in the frame, his face blocking out the middle archway and giving off a whiff of the Wachowski's devotion to the iconography of religious mythology... I mean, come on!! The colors, the composition; Is there any doubt that Speed will be a savior? And that's just one frame! The design in this film feels to me like something I've been waiting my whole life to see and when I see this...

...I am suddenly thrown back in time, to my childhood, to my love of Speed himself, to my own dreams of being a hero. One of the amazing dynamics of Speed Racer is Speed's relationship with Racer X, his rival and protector. As my little brother started to grow up, I started having a deeper connection to the Racer X character. From Wikipedia:

"It was acknowledged by (Speed) over the years that Racer X was the superior driver of the two, and the greatest driver that (he) had ever seen, but Speed always vowed to defeat Racer X as the two vigorously competed. Speed was often suspicious of Racer X's identity and motives because Racer X would repeatedly, and inexplicably, sacrifice winning races to protect Speed from drivers and others who tried to harm or even kill Speed. The assistance from Racer X nearly always led to Speed winning races, while Racer X came in second place. Racer X always left the scene unnoticed, receding into his secret life."

Which, as an older brother, I can say was a model I tried to follow, even if my own über-competitive instincts often won out. Here again; The costume and the futuristic curve of the windshield rhyming with Speed's helmet visor, the lavender and red just popping off the white of Speed's suit and car, the curves of the car body, helmet, windshield, Hirsch's jaw line? Every frame of this movie (that I've seen) has an overwhelming sense of design and composition that just fills me with ecstasy. Seeing Emile Hirsch as Speed throws me back to that fraternal instinct, and that near-Kubrickian stare (and the 2001-ish coloring and style of that close-up)?

And when you see the frames move? The circles, the colors, the curves, the arches, the lens flares? And the thunderous sound of the cars and the music? I think I'm in love.

Remember saying goodbye to your summer love? That first time you met someone special and, even though you knew it would never last, that the future was an absolute impossibility, you threw your entire heart and body into the moment anyway? And then, too soon, suddenly, that last night on the beach; The sun setting, the sky transitioning from blue to orange to purple to black, hands in the pockets of your hooded sweatshirt to keep them away from the cold wind blowing off of the water. An inevitable goodbye, a final kiss. You look up and the sky is on fire with starlight. You look down and see the image of your love receding into the oblivion of the summer night. You stare at your feet for a moment and remember the smallest details, the avalanche of perfect hours that lead you to this moment, stolen kisses, the river of nerves tearing through your stomach. You look up again and it’s over. Nothing but the long walk home and no way to ever explain how much it all meant to you.

That’s how it feels for me when the film festival ends. Hundreds of artists and co-workers walking one by one into the night, saying good-bye, I look up and then back and they are gone. And me alone with the memory of it all. You work so hard for eight months to create this temporal, collective cocoon, ten days of shared experiences and then suddenly it's gone but for the lingering image in the darkness, a trail of sensations that will never exist quite the same way again.

I can remember most of it; The spectacle of Opening Night, the surge in film attendance (with audiences almost universally pleased with the films, always eager to discuss them), the pure living inspiration that is Liv Ullmann (and meeting her, talking with her, moderating her Q&A), chatting with Michael Barker, watching the juries deliberate the awards with passionate seriousness, Josh Safdie accepting the Independent Visions Award in a state of shock, the unexpected precision and grace of the 10th Anniversary Ball, the passion and thoughtfulness of Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, Ted Hope, Stanley Tucci and the radiant and fiercely intelligent Charlize Theron, Dennis Lambert performing his monster hits at the wrap party, catching up with Elvis Mitchell, meeting the possible #1 pick in the NFL Draft at our 10th Anniversary Ball, a standing ovation for Battle In Seattle, meeting an amazing group of artists whose work I so deeply admired; It all feels so surreal on the other side of the experience of living it. In the moment, I was trying as hard as I could to maintain a sense of professionalism, but there was certainly a part of me that hovered above it all, observing everything and gasping at how perfectly it was all unfolding before me; I just wanted to hold onto every day and slow it down, to savor what was happening.

I couldn’t be more proud; From Kim Miele and her amazing work on our events to Carolyn Kaylor and our technical dream team to Brian Reiss and his unbelievable graciousness in treating all 250 festival guests like rock stars to Bob/Chris/Becky/Noah/Grace making the trains run comfortably on time to Jen Weiss pulling it all together and me, taking a step back and watching Holly blossom into an even more exemplary professional right before my eyes; It just doesn’t seem possible. I am privileged to know and work with all of them.

And then there was the karaoke. This year, staff and filmmakers took no less than three trips to The Cabana Inn for amazing nights of singing and dancing that just blew the doors off of the place. I still haven’t recovered.

I am not sure what else to say. It’s too close to home; I can’t even begin to put things into context. All I know is that we had a very special group here this year and if ever I doubt my desire to spend eight months struggling to pull the festival program together, I need only remember the time we had together. Thank you to the artists and audiences who made this possible. There is still much to do, but it’s nice to take a minute and reflect. I miss it already.

The festival starts in a few hours. The culmination of eight solid months of work and it will all be over in ten days. I think I am going to let the programming speak for itself (I hope you'll take a moment and look things over). Lots to do in the meantime, but I want to take a moment to thank my friends and colleagues for their amazing work in getting this boat to float. Without these people we're quite literally nothing.

THANK YOU
Jessica Bardsley
Brian Belmore
Jennifer Berges
Mark Bettis
Elizabeth Blais
Jennifer Blum
James Bond
Max Burke- Phillips
Ray Conner
Scott Cook
Vincent Dale
Alexandra DiSclafani
Magida Diouri
Maureen Donovan
D'Arcy Drollinger
Kyle Gilland
Tamara Gilman
Bob Giovanelli
Justin Irwin
Terry Jamieson
Jamie Jirak
Adrianne Jorge
Megan Jourdan
Carolyn Kaylor
Tracy Kelley
Kathleen Kemp
Jody Kielbasa
Linda Knox
Geraldine Kuster
Noah Lamport
Gray Lawry
Ethnee Lea
Karla Lehn
Molly Maginn
Zachary Manning
Robin Mansour
Kimberly Miele
B.J. Moore
Lisa Norman
Dave Olson
Colin Panetta
Dania Permesly
Michelle Puetz
Brian Reiss
Jessica Schubick
Gary Springer
Carla Thompson
Jamie Turney
Amber Vistein
Alan Wallach
Jen Weiss
Hans Wohlgefahrt
Kim Ye
Rebekah Zimmerman

... and of course, Holly Herrick. You're the best.

Off we go...

Our little Film Festival begins on Friday night. I can't believe it's finally here. It seemed at once like the week would never arrive but also as if it was always just around the corner; deadlines coming and going, the clock counting down, films confirming, others falling away, guests saying yes, guests saying no. As a programmer, the fun for me lies primarily in, well, the programming. It's the thrill of the hunt; loving movies and working with my partner in crime (and, let's be honest, one of my best friends in the whole world) to bring the films that we're passionate about to the festival. Looking at this year's line-up, I feel both proud and lucky to have such an amazing group of films and filmmakers coming to share their stories with us.

This year also features a program I am particularly proud to have assembled; Face To Face: The Films Of Liv Ullmann and Ingmar Bergman is a complete twelve film retrospective of the creative relationship between these two amazing artists. I have been trying to put this program together for a few years now, and I am so deeply honored that Liv Ullmann will be joining us to receive our festival's Master of World Cinema Award (inaugurated in 2006 when we hosted Werner Herzog.) Ms. Ullmann will also be attending a Q&A after our screening of her film Faithless and we have an hour-long conversation with Ms. Ullmann planned for the Historic Asolo Theater, moderated by Sony Pictures Classics President Michael Barker. It should be special, so I hope you can join us.

The Films
Persona (1966)
Hour Of The Wolf (1968)
Shame (1968)
Passion Of Anna (1969)
Cries And Whispers (1972)
Scenes From A Marriage (1973)
Face To Face (1976)
The Serpent’s Egg (1977)
Autumn Sonata (1978)
Private Confessions (1996)
Faithless (2000)
Saraband (2003)