Three notes on Wings and William Wellman’s home movies.
I.
In the non-genre of the aviation romance—a boy and his plane—Howard Hawks gets to keep up as specter of cinema incarnate, granting and granted movies as an all-American ideal: a studio built by man, a world closed-off, remade and renewed in his actions as barkeep, strummer, errant lover. But against the attraction of pure cinema, American Idyll, there’s American history, not quite so pure, teetering chassis of botched escapades, scores wounded, fast-money men who kill kids because it’s a living. Each man in his time, Raoul Walsh labeled his autobiography, and as the kid says in Walsh's The Bowery (1933), get the buck, give the breeze. The ethos comes out the same as Hawks that nobility’s worth it only for itself, but against Hawks’ cinema of action plays this cinema of reaction, William Wellman’s movies that show,...
I.
In the non-genre of the aviation romance—a boy and his plane—Howard Hawks gets to keep up as specter of cinema incarnate, granting and granted movies as an all-American ideal: a studio built by man, a world closed-off, remade and renewed in his actions as barkeep, strummer, errant lover. But against the attraction of pure cinema, American Idyll, there’s American history, not quite so pure, teetering chassis of botched escapades, scores wounded, fast-money men who kill kids because it’s a living. Each man in his time, Raoul Walsh labeled his autobiography, and as the kid says in Walsh's The Bowery (1933), get the buck, give the breeze. The ethos comes out the same as Hawks that nobility’s worth it only for itself, but against Hawks’ cinema of action plays this cinema of reaction, William Wellman’s movies that show,...
- 2/9/2012
- MUBI
Scene from The Unchanging Sea and Inception The following video essay by by Michael Joshua Rowin and Kevin B. Lee of Fandor.com (via Matthew Seitz) takes a look at the parallel editing of Christopher Nolan's Inception, but using the work of D.W. Griffith to show where it all started, the video opens by saying, "[When] compared to the work of a filmmaker who directed a hundred years before Nolan, Inception doesn't look all that mind-blowing. Considered the father of narrative cinema, D.W. Griffith practically invented such techniques like parallel editing, pushing them to unprecedented levels of complexity and depth."
"The true architect of Inception is D.W. Griffith." ~ Michael Joshua Rowin It's a fascinating look at the effect cinema's history has had on the movies today and why cinephiles always make sure to point out the directors that started it all as a warm reminder that by not opening...
"The true architect of Inception is D.W. Griffith." ~ Michael Joshua Rowin It's a fascinating look at the effect cinema's history has had on the movies today and why cinephiles always make sure to point out the directors that started it all as a warm reminder that by not opening...
- 12/16/2010
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
Los Angeles Filmforum will present "D.W. Griffith in California," on Sunday, Nov. 15, at 7:30 pm. at the Echo Park Film Center. At the screening, film scholar Tom Gunning will discuss D. W. Griffith and his early Californian films. Six of those Griffith productions will be screened: Man’s Genesis (1912, 17 min); The New Dress (1911, 17 min.); The Massacre (1914, 20 min); The Unchanging Sea (below right, 1910, 14 min.); The Sands of Dee (1912, 17 min); and The Female of the Species (1912, 17 min). All in 16mm, with live musical accompaniment by Cliff Retallick. Among the early stars featured in those shorts are Blanche Sweet, Mae Marsh, Robert Harron, Arthur Johnson, Wilfred Lucas, and, [...]...
- 11/11/2009
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
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