Masters of Cinema, Red River, and Me

Big News! I am pleased to announce that I'm joining the team at Masters of Cinema to be a occasional booklet editor. What is Masters of Cinema, you say? In short, they are the "Criterion Collection" of the United Kingdom, and have put out many of the same films with the highest quality transfers. They've also put out things you can't get in the United States, like Le Pont Du Nord, Van Gogh, and Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, and then they've done releases for major works like Lang's M, Ozu's Floating Weeds, The Blue Angel, and next year Computer Chess! (you can see a full list here). More than that, each booklet is more than just an essay, but a collection of canonical articles, interviews, and rare photos to go with it. The upcoming Mizoguchi box set, for example, has a booklet that runs 344 pages!

My first big project, as it turned out, happened to be a favorite: Howard Hawks's Red River. It's an excellent transfer of this amazing film, and the booklet I edited includes essays by Andrew Sarris and Suzanne Liandrat-Guigues, plus interviews with editor (and The Thing credited director) Christian Nyby and writer Borden Chase. The Blu-Ray also features a video conversation with two of my favorite cinephiles: Dan Sallitt and Jaime Christley. Finally, I have a small essay in the booklet as well, talking about the differences between the now canonical Book Version and the rarer, hard to find Voice Version. 

Anyways, major thanks to Craig Keller for bringing me on the team—it's a total honor to work with and investigate these fantastic films and bring them all to you. As a treat to get you all excited, one of the things I pulled during my archival research was The Chisholm Trail, the original short story by Borden Chase that ran in the Saturday Evening Post starting on December 7, 1946. We didn't have room for it in the book, and since it is now out of copyright, I am presenting the first part here for your reading enjoyment—the second chapter should be especially interesting for fans of the film, as it paints Joanne Dru's Tess in a very different light. Enjoy!

Dan Sallitt's The Unspeakable Act

Today sees the release of my friend Dan Sallitt’s The Unspeakable Act on DVD (and for rent on iTunes!), which remains one of my favorite films of the year after a recent second viewing. Originally, I was planning to do a longform dialogue with another writer for a publication on my thoughts as well as his two other films, but the circumstances between my relationship with Dan when I first saw the film and now are quite different. Before, I had only met Dan once and only spoke to him briefly. Now I see him quite often, and feel it would be improper, especially given “recent” fights about the relationship between filmmakers and critics, to write about the film for a publication without a very long disclosure. (There’s also a case of I’m currently working a paid project assigned by one of the collaborators on The Unspeakable Act, meaning now I really should recuse myself from writing about the film professionally).

However, there are a few things to say here. First of all there’s the Cinephiliacs episode Dan and I did back in February, which is a very excellent listen.  Secondly, I did excerpt some notes I had from my discarded piece on it:

An Act You Really Must See

The Unspeakable Act played at BamCinemaFest last summer, which I declared "Rapturous" at the time. I meant to write something long about the film, but sadly my notebook was stolen and I lost everything I had planned. Still, I can vividly recall much of the film, and it remains an early candidate for my favorite film of 2013.

Since then, I've gotten to known its director, Dan Sallitt, through our various paths in the NY repertory scene, and I've thoroughly investigated his writing and his other films. The result is the latest episode of The Cinephiliacs, timed with the release of The Unspeakable Act at Anthology Film Archives in New York, along with a retro of Dan's other films. If you are in New York and don't go to it, I seriously question your dedication to our cause.

On the episode, Dan brought in Alan Clarke's Christine, which tops my list of February filmic discoveries. Make sure to listen to the conversation over here. And here's the list below:

1. Christine (Alan Clarke, UK, 1987) - Streaming Via YouTube
2. Life and Nothing More... (Abbas Kiarostami, Iran, 1992) — 35mm projection, Film Society of Lincoln Center
3. Two for the Road (Stanley Donen, USA, 1967) — 35,, projection, Anthology Film Archive
4. I Wanna Hold Your Hand (Robert Zemeckis, USA, 1977) — 35mm projection, Film Society of Lincoln Center
5. Where is the Friend's Home? (Abbas Kiarostami, Iran, 1987) — 35mm projection, Film Society of Lincoln Center
6. The Night of Counting the Years (Shadi Abdel Salam, Egypt, 1969) — DVD
7. Modern Romance (Albert Brooks, USA, 1981) — 35mm projection, Anthology Film Archives
8. The River's Edge (Alan Dwan, USA, 1957) — 35mm projection, Anthology Film Archives
9. Man's Castle (Frank Borzage, USA, 1933) — 35mm projection, Film Forum
10. All the Ships At Sea (Dan Sallitt, USA, 2004) — DVD

Also Notable: The Mayor of Hell Town (Edward Mayo, USA, 1933), , Used Cars (Robert Zemeckis, USA, 1980), Some Call It Loving (James B. Harris, USA, 1973), Through the Olive Trees (Abbas Kiarostami, USA, 1994, Moonstruck (Norman Jewison, USA, 1987)

Screening Log: Ignorance is Bliss Edition

            It’s a short screening log this week, but I’m excited to see Dan Sallitt’s The Unspeakable Act tonight at BAMcinemaFest (as long as my train back to NYC is on time). I briefly met Sallitt a month ago and I’ve considered him one of the most intelligent critics whenever I read it work. Here’s a piece he wrote on Julia Leigh’s The Sleeping Beauty, which is much more eloquent than mine. And here’s a nice Wall Street Journal profile on Sallitt, which also quotes my Personal Recommendation Machine^TM Bilge Ebiri.

-Blowup, 1966. Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni. DVD.

-Duck, You Sucker!, 1971. Directed by Sergio Leone. 35mm projection at Film Forum.

-The Ruthless Four, 1968. Directed by Giorgio Capitani. 35mm projection at Film Forum.

-Horrible Bosses, 2010. Directed by Seth Gordon. HBO.