Touch Of Evil (preview)

Touch Of Evil, directed by Orson Welles, was the last of Hollywood's initial film noir cycle, bookending a trend that began with The Maltese Falcon. It's an exceptionally dark film; literally so, because several scenes take place in almost pitch blackness. Like all great noir films about high-level police corruption, it has a superb sense of authority and gravitas that it takes great pleasure in unravelling in its conclusion.

The opening shot is one of the greatest sequences in cinema: a four-minute crane shot following an American couple as they cross the Mexican border. When Welles was interviewed for This Is Orson Welles, he said that, with hindsight, he disliked the bravura of this opening shot, pointing out that there is another, longer, more complex crane shot later in the film. This later shot, in which the camera moves through several rooms of an apartment, is less flamboyant and therefore, according to Welles, more of an achievement.

Famously, the film was altered by Universal against Welles's wishes. Some extra exposition scenes were added, and the film was re-edited behind his back. Welles wrote a long memo to the studio, arguing eloquently against the revised version ("In most cases, I can see, or guess, the point of view which has motivated the change, even when I don't happen, personally, to agree with it"), though most of his requests were refused.

In 1976, a longer version of the film was released. This restoration (the version I've seen), while marketed as a director's cut, is more accurately a compromise between the studio's version and Welles's intended vision. It does restore several key scenes originally removed by the studio, though it also retains the non-Welles sequences that the studio added. Finally, in 1998, most of the non-Welles scenes were removed, and the film was re-edited in accordance with Welles's memo.

One last point: in Touch Of Evil, Janet Leigh stays as the only guest at an isolated motel, staffed by a nervous desk-clerk; two years later, in Psycho, Janet Leigh stayed as the only guest at an isolated motel, staffed by a nervous desk-clerk. Admittedly, she isn't murdered in Touch Of Evil (in fact, perhaps to appease the censors, it's made unrealistically clear that she is never harmed), though the situation is strikingly similar nonetheless.

Stardust Memories

Woody Allen always maintains that he never plays himself in any of his films, and he finds it inexplicable that the audience jumps to the conclusion that his screen persona reflects his true personality. But let's look at the evidence: in the films in which he stars, he often plays neurotic writers and comedians who live in New York, enjoy jazz music and European films, and are in analysis.

In Manhattan, Allen's character, Isaac, defends Ingmar Bergman, Allen's favourite director, as "the only genius in cinema today", and reels off a list of "things that make life worth living" composed entirely of Allen's own favourite things. Revealingly, in Deconstructing Harry, Allen plays Harry as a hard-drinking, pill-popping misogynist - none of which are Allen's own personal characteristics - yet cannot resist also depicting him as a man who avoids smoking dope, which echoes Allen's own attitude though is incongruous for the character in the film.

In Stardust Memories, Allen plays Sandy, a comedian-turned-director who, after making a series of comedies, is branching into portentous drama. Sandy is followed everywhere by autograph-hunters and wannabe actors, and harassed for charitable donations. His producer and fans (and even a group of visiting aliens) dislike his latest film, preferring the "early, funny ones". This is an obvious reference to the negative reaction Allen had received for his Bergman-esque drama Interiors, which was stylistically a stark contrast to his earlier, funnier films such as Sleeper.

Stardust Memories was not an especially popular film, precisely because of the perceived conflation of Allen himself and his characters. In the film, Allen's fans are shown as invaders of his privacy who misinterpret his work. In interviews, though, Allen makes the very sensible point that, if he really did dislike his admirers, he would not be so foolish as to reveal it in one of his films. Stardust Memories self-referentially represents Allen's perplexity and defiance at the negative reaction to Interiors (the autobiographical element), and is also a comic portrait of a consciously exaggerated celebrity lifestyle.

Like his later film Deconstructing Harry (in which Allen plays a writer who encounters the characters from his own fiction in his real life, intercut with dramatic recreations of his novels), Stardust Memories is a post-modern blend of narrative and narrative-within-narrative. It's like a 'Chinese box', beginning with a scene from Sandy's new film, then showing Sandy himself, and frequently switching to dream sequences and scenes from Sandy's other work. The two films also employ jump-cuts in some scenes, an otherwise rare device in Allen's work.

There are some very funny lines. When Sandy complains that he doesn't want to make another comedy, his producer tries to convince him otherwise: "They want laughs in Kansas City, they've been working in the wheat fields all day". When he's stuck in traffic, he asks: "Is the Pope in town, or some other showbusiness figure?". Interestingly, the famous Eddie Adams photograph of the execution of Nguyen Van Lem is blown up to wall-size in Sandy's apartment, to reflect the character's depressed state of mind.

Is it a pretentious film? Yes. Is it as good as his early, funny films? No. But the confusing layers of reality are justified by a revelation at the end: we learn that the entire film has itself been Sandy's creation, and we see the 'actors' watching themselves at the premiere and commenting on their performances.

King Kong

The original version of King Kong is stunning. The megalomaniacal Dino de Laurentiis attempted to remake it in the 1970s, and failed spectacularly. Peter Jackson must be even more of a megalomaniac if he believed he could succeed where de Laurentiis failed.

Personally, I can never see the point of remakes or cover-versions. If you admire a film or song so much, why feel the need to change it? Jackson says he was inspired by the original King Kong as a child, and he now wants his own version to similarly inspire the next generation of children. Surely his Lord Of The Rings trilogy is already a huge inspiration to young children today? And if children are seriously interested in filmmaking they will surely admire the original version of King Kong provided that they have exposure to it.

Jackson's King Kong reportedly cost $207,000,000 to produce, making it the most expensive film ever made (although, if adjusted for inflation, the most expensive film is still Cleopatra, itself a remake). Instead, why not spend a fraction of that inflated budget on a worldwide theatrical rerelease of the original version? Yes, it would be less commercially viable, though less money would be risked because a new film would not actually be made.

John Cleese once said that he had spoken to a film producer and asked him what was the most difficult type of film to market to a multiplex audience. The answer was: anything original. Audiences like formulas, they like genre conventions, and they like actors playing to type. So remakes and sequels are guaranteed box-office successes.

Watching the original King Kong, I constantly asked myself: "How the hell did they do that?". Watching Jackson's remake, I kept asking myself: "How much of this is CGI?". The panoramas and vertigo-inducing helicopter shots look spectacular, yet they are devalued because of the film's reliance upon CGI. Kong is entirely computer-generated, as are the dinosaurs, etc. on Skull island. Kong himself is a convincing CG creation, though many other effects look articifial (when the actors are in rowing-boats, it's obvious that the sea and surroundings are CG). The CG dinosaurs in Jurassic Park were amazing, though why, years later, are CG dinosaurs being churned out left, right, and centre? Has CGI not yet moved on from the resurrection of extinct species?

The film is almost three hours long, and the time whizzes by, so it's certainly entertaining, though you would think that, with such a long running-time available, the plot would have fewer holes. For example, Carl announces that he has "come into possession of a map", though how it came into his possession is never questioned or revealed. The back-stories of Ann (the previous disappointments in her life) and Jimmy (his quasi-feral early life) are both hinted at, though never disclosed. Jack rescues Ann from Kong single-handedly, because they love each other, though when they return to New York they are inexplicably apart.

Heart Of Darkness is one of my favourite novels [though I admit I probably have more dictionaries than novels!], and it was very powerful as the source for Apocalypse Now. But referencing it in adventure films has become a bit of a cliche now, so the not-too-subtle inclusion of it in the new King Kong is not necessary.

Jackson's past as a gore director is hinted at a couple of times. In the ship's hold are a collection of caged animals, amongst them a Sumatran rat monkey, which was the animal that caused the zombie plague in Braindead (for my money, Jackson's best film). When the natives of Skull island are discovered, they are portrayed as crudely as those in Italian mondo and cannibal horror films; in particular, with Carl obsessively filming everything he sees, there is a hint of Cannibal Holocaust. (When Kong is exhibited in a New York theatre, Jackson makes a joke out of the exaggerated gesticulations of the dancers playing natives, though he is guilty of just the same exaggeration in his earlier depictions of the natives on Skull island.)

The scene that formed the centrepiece of the trailer for Jackson's film, in which Carl tells Ann: "Scream for your life!" (a scene taken from the original version of King Kong) is not included in the final cut (or the extended director's cut). However, there is a subtle reference to the original film at the start, when it is explained that "Fay" is working on an RKO film with "Cooper": Fay Wray (the 'scream-queen' of the original film), King Kong's original studio, and Merian C Cooper (its co-director).

Fantastic Voyage

Fantastic Voyage, by Richard Fleischer, was one of the other in-flight movies on the return flight to Bangkok last week. I remember Innerspace (a Fantastic Voyage spoof) as one of my favourite childhood films, though I had never seen the original Fantastic Voyage itself.

The title was surely inspired by Jules Verne. Exactly a century previously, Verne wrote about fantastical, then-impossible expeditions: Voyage To The Centre Of The Earth and Around The World In Eighty Days. A few years ago, I wrote a paper, Fascination Beneath The Surface, comparing the fictional voyages of Verne to the subcutaneous photographs of artists like Gilbert and George.

Fantastic Voyage is a natural progression from Verne, and it long predates Gilbert and George. (It arguably influenced them because it shows an equally iridescent, abstract view of our insides.) The film shows blood corpuscles as if they were oils in a lava lamp, for instance. Now, endoscopic imaging can place cameras inside a real human body, and Mona Hatoum has turned her own endoscopy examination into video art, coming as close as is currently possible to a documentary version of Fantastic Voyage.

Fantastic Voyage has an incredible concept: the miniaturisation of a team of scientists in a submarine, surgically injected into a man's body in order to remove a potentially fatal blood clot. What is surprising is that it makes no bones about the fact that this concept is all it has to offer. There is only a brief exposition at the start, hinting at a Cold War sub-plot in the vaguest possible terms. The purpose of the miniaturised rescue mission is to remove the blood clot in order that the man can regain consciousness and divulge a state secret, though the film ends abruptly as soon as the miniature scientists emerge from the man's body. We are not told if the man survived, what his secret was, or even if he was able to pass it on, as if the film itself admits that they were merely plot devices to serve the concept.

Kill Bill II

On the plane back to Bangkok, one of the in-flight movies was Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill II, which I hadn't seen before. I saw Kill Bill I when it was released, though I wasn't overkeen on it because of the constant martial arts. I'm not an especially big fan of kung-fu films, so I didn't go to see Kill Bill II.

Having finally seen it on the plane, I was surprised by how stylistically different it is to the first film. The martial arts elements are much less prevalent, and there's much more of Tarantino's typically witty dialogue. Some of his trademark shots are included, as usual (a low-angle point-of-view: Budd and Ernie looking down at the Bride; a sequence replayed from two different perspectives: Elle driving up to Budd's trailer).

There are numerous references to other films, the most obvious being an homage to Carrie when the Bride's hand thrusts out of the ground as she escapes from the grave. (The version released in Japan contains some additional shots, with almost a minute of extra material.)

History Of Graphic Design

The fourth edition of A History Of Graphic Design has been published in the US (and in the UK later this year). The previous editions were all written by Philip B Meggs, though following his death this new edition (retitled Meggs' History Of Graphic Design) has been revised and updated by Alston W Purvis.

There are very few books on graphic design history (literally only a handful), and Meggs's book has always been regarded as the most comprehensive on the subject, tracing graphic art from prehistory to the present day. It's not only the definitive history of graphic design, it's one of the essential books on the history of art.

Stanley Kubrick: Drama & Shadows

Rainer Crone, the author of the German book Still Moving Pictures, has now written an English-language book on the same topic, Stanley Kubrick: Drama & Shadows. Both are studies of Kubrick's brief career as a Look magazine photographer.

Kubrick worked for Look between 1945-1950. Still Moving Pictures was useful because it reprinted some of Kubrick's best Look photo-essays exactly as they originally appeared in the magazine, including a bibliography listing the magazine's headlines and dates of publication.

Crone's new book, Drama & Shadows, is partly better and partly worse than the old one. It's better because, rather than reprinting previously-published images, it features Kubrick's contact-sheets, which have never been published before. However, it doesn't include a proper bibliography, so it's not clear which photo-essays these contact-sheets relate to.

So, as a collection of previously-unpublished images by Kubrick, Drama & Shadows is excellent. The images are beautifully printed, though the text is too heavy on theory but too light on bibliographic context.

Are We Alone?

Kubrick's former personal assistant, Anthony Frewin, has written a book called Are We Alone?: The Stanley Kubrick Extraterrestrial-Intelligence Interviews. The title is a little misleading: the interviews in the book were commissioned by Kubrick, though they are not interviews with Kubrick.

Kubrick's original intention, when filming 2001: A Space Odyssey, was to begin it with a prologue in which the world's leading scientists discussed the film's cosmological themes. To this end, he sent Roger Caras around the world with a 35mm movie camera, to interview various scientists. In the end, Kubrick did not use the interviews in the finished film, and they have subsequently been lost. All that survives is a written transcript of each interview, and it is these transcripts that constitute the bulk of Frewin's book.

The interview transcripts have already been published, albeit in an edited form, in Jerome Agel's out-of-print The Making Of Kubrick's 2001, a fact that Frewin only mentions in the briefest possible way in his bibliography. Also, most of Frewin's introduction has previously been published (as 2001: The Prologue That Nearly Was) in the Frankfurt Kubrick exhibition catalogue.

Atlas Maior

Joan Blaeu's Atlas Maior, published in 1662, was described by Lloyd A Brown in The Story Of Maps as "in many respects the most beautiful geographical work ever published". It contained around 600 map plates, in multiple volumes, making it the most extensive world atlas ever produced. (Even today's most comprehensive atlases, such as The Times Atlas Of The World, contain fewer than 200 plates.)

Taschen has reprinted the 1665 Latin edition of the Atlas Maior, combining the original eleven volumes into a single folio (titled Atlas Maior Of 1665: The Greatest & Finest Atlas Ever Published). Blaeu's ornate Baroque engravings are beautifully reproduced, and introduced by Peter van der Krogt. He contributed to The History Of Cartography: Cartography In The European Renaissance Part II, which describes the Atlas Maior as "a fiercely coveted status symbol among wealthy patricians" - an extravagant collector's item, now available in a more accessible form thanks to Taschen's lavish reprint.

Nine Great Movies from Nine Decades

Richard Corliss and Richard Schickel, film critics for Time magazine, have compiled a list of nine greatest films by selecting one title from each decade, from the 1920s to the early 2000s. In chronological order, the nine films are: Metropolis from the 1920s, Dodsworth from the 1930s, Citizen Kane from the 1940s, Ikiru (生きる) from the 1950s, Persona from the 1960s, Chinatown from the 1970s, Decalogue (Dekalog) from the 1980s, Pulp Fiction from the 1990s, and Talk to Her (Hable con ella) from the 2000s.

(Decalogue is a series of ten films, so there are technically more than nine titles on the list.) Corliss and Schickel’s Nine Great Movies from Nine Decades appeared in the 30th May issue of Time (vol. 165, no. 22). Their full list of 100 titles was published online and reprinted in the Encyclopædia Britannica Almanac.

1001 MoviesYou Must See Before You Die

1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, edited by Steven Jay Schneider, is a collaboration between some of the most respected international film critics (including Kim Newman, Geoff Andrew, and Jonathan Rosenbaum), and it represents an outstanding canon of significant films. It was first published in 2003 (with Psycho on the cover). It was reprinted in 2004 (with the same cover), with only two changes: The Barbarian Invasions and Kill Bill I were added, and Adaptation and Far From Heaven were removed.

The new 2005 edition still has 1001 films, thus the new additions have resulted in an equal number of deletions. A handful of (mostly recent) films have been replaced, including, unfortunately, Eyes Wide Shut and Tetsuo. The new entries are all recent, too, including Hero, Oldboy, The Passion Of The Christ, and The Lord Of The Rings.

My Favourite Film

No, not my favourite film. My Favourite Film, an ABC TV show, was broadcast yesterday in Australia. The programme revealed the results of an Australian public survey to find the nation's favourite films, as follows:

1. The Lord Of The Rings I-III
2. Amelie
3. Blade Runner
4. The Shawshank Redemption
5. Donnie Darko
6. Star Wars IV: A New Hope
7. Pulp Fiction
8. The Princess Bride
9. Gone With The Wind
10. Fight Club

The Lord Of The Rings trilogy is considered as one entry, so the list has thirteen films instead of ten.

Live 8

A DVD of this year's Live 8 concerts has been released. Like A Prayer, Ray Of Light, and Music, performed by Madonna in London, are all included.

Ken AdamThe Art Of Production Design

Christopher Frayling has written an excellent new book about Ken Adam, who worked as a designer for Stanley Kubrick on Dr Strangelove and Barry Lyndon. Ken Adam: The Art Of Production Design includes photos of Kubrick taken by Adam, and photos of Adam taken by Kubrick.

Amazingly, Adam says that "a few years ago" he was taken to the British Film Institute archive in London where he watched the custard-pie-fight epilogue from Dr Strangelove. This sequence, which Kubrick removed from the film at the last minute, had always been considered lost or destroyed, though Frayling's book appears to confirm for the first time that the scene is still extant.

Full Metal Jacket Diary

Matthew Modine, star of Full Metal Jacket, has published a journal about the making of the film, Full Metal Jacket Diary. There are plenty of previously-unseen Kubrick photos, and transcripts of conversations between Modine and Kubrick. It's limited to 20,000 copies, and has metal covers (i.e., a 'full metal jacket'). Highlights were previously available as a PDF download, titled Full Metal Dairy [sic], from the Kubrick Exhibition website.

Sooklek

Prayoon Chanyawongse, widely known as ‘the king of Thai cartoons’, was born 100 years ago, and the new commemorative book Sooklek (ศุขเล็ก) has been published to mark his centenary. It features reprints of classic comic strips, caricatures of several prime ministers, and some of the political cartoons that raised the hackles of the military government in the early 1970s. (Prayoon was warned several times to stop satirising the government. He responded by drawing the Sooklek character, his alter ego, with his mouth sewn shut.)

Confessions On A Dance Floor

Madonna's new album, Confessions On A Dance Floor, has been compared in the press to Ray Of Light and even Like A Prayer. I don't think it's as incredible as those two, though it's certainly as good as Music.

The album's complete track-listing is: Hung Up, Get Together, Sorry, Future Lovers, I Love New York, Let It Will Be, Forbidden Love, Jump, How High, Isaac, Push, and Like It Or Not. A deluxe edition contains the bonus track Fighting Spirit. An extra song, History, is available as the B-side to the single Jump. An additional track, Superpop, is available as a download for members of Madonna's Icon fan club.

The Pocket EssentialFilm Soleil

D.K. Holm’s new book Film Soleil discusses a subgenre of neo-noir films coined by the author: “For want of a better term I have called it “film soleil” to distinguish it from noir proper.” Holm contrasts film soleil with film noir: “If traditional film noir is night and shadows, then film soleil is daytime and sunny.” He cites Chinatown as the key transitional film separating noir from soleil, though he argues that Blood Simple marks the true birth of the subgenre: “The string of sunlit crime films officially began in 1984 with the release of Blood Simple... heralding the arrival of a new cinematic style.”

The 100 Greatest Movies Of All Time

Total Film magazine's editorial staff have selected a list of The 100 Greatest Movies Of All Time, as follows:

1. GoodFellas
2. Vertigo
3. Jaws
4. Fight Club
5. The Godfather II
6. Citizen Kane
7. Tokyo Story
8. Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back
9. The Lord Of The Rings I-III
10. His Girl Friday
11. Persona
12. Chinatown
13. Manhattan
14. Taxi Driver
15. It's A Wonderful Life
16. The Apartment
17. Once Upon A Time In The West
18. All About Eve
19. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
20. Apocalypse Now
21. Crash
22. Sunrise
23. The Godfather
24. Rear Window
25. Sunset Boulevard
26. The Third Man
27. Some Like It Hot
28. Raging Bull
29. The Rules Of The Game
30. Reservoir Dogs
31. Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid
32. Children Of Paradise
33. Star Wars IV: A New Hope
34. The Searchers
35. A Matter Of Life & Death
36. 2001: A Space Odyssey
37. Touch Of Evil
38. Badlands
39. Monty Python & The Holy Grail
40. ET: The Extra-Terrestrial
41. The Last Picture Show
42. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
43. Heat
44. Annie Hall
45. Mean Streets
46. Nashville
47. Blade Runner
48. Singin' In The Rain
49. Pulp Fiction
50. It Happened One Night
51. Aliens
52. Sullivan's Travels
53. The Deer Hunter
54. Miller's Crossing
55. Kiss Me Deadly
56. The Shawshank Redemption
57. Sweet Smell Of Success
58. Die Hard
59. Blue Velvet
60. The Outlaw Josey Wales
61. Halloween
62. The Night Of The Hunter
63. The Matrix
64. The Conversation
65. 8½
66. Seven
67. L'Atalante
68. This Is Spinal Tap
69. Sideways
70. Dawn Of The Dead
71. North By Northwest
72. The Terminator
73. Hoop Dreams
74. Raiders Of The Lost Ark
75. The Wild Bunch
76. Close Encounters Of The Third Kind
77. Lawrence Of Arabia
78. The Graduate
79. The Wicker Man
80. Day For Night
81. The Shining
82. Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
83. The Wizard Of Oz
84. Metropolis
85. The King Of Comedy
86. Kind Hearts & Coronets
87. Donnie Darko
88. Get Carter
89. Rio Bravo
90. Psycho
91. Decalogue I-X
92. Back To The Future
93. Salvador
94. Magnolia
95. The Usual Suspects
96. Stand By Me
97. Trainspotting
98. Casablanca
99. Three Kings
100. Goldfinger

Strictly speaking, there are more than 100 films here, as the ten films comprising Decalogue are listed as a single entry, as are the three films in the Lord Of The Rings trilogy. Interestingly, though, The Godfather and its sequel are split, whereas many such lists treat them as the same film. Note that Crash is the Paul Haggis Oscar-winner, not the scandalous David Cronenberg film. Also, Some Like It Hot is the 1959 comic masterpiece, not the obscure 1939 comedy; and Psycho is the original version.

“If he were not a monk...”

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra filed a libel lawsuit today against his former ally Sondhi Limthongkul, owner of the Manager Daily (ผู้จัดการรายวัน) newspaper, seeking ฿500 million in damages. Manager published the full text of a sermon delivered by Luang Ta Maha Bua, a monk who was highly critical of Thaksin.

Speaking on the morning of 27th September from his temple in Udon Thani, the monk accused Thaksin of attempting to userp power from the monarchy. His sermon was published on Manager’s website that evening. Thaksin’s lawyer, Thana Benjathikul, explained that the monk himself would not be sued, as this would cause public disapproval: “If he were not a monk, we would have taken legal action against him”.

Maha Bua’s speech was broadcast online and widely reported in the media, yet Thaksin has singled out Manager for his defamation lawsuit. This makes clear that the case is politically motivated, another example of the vexatious litigation practised by both Thaksin and Sondhi.

Jyllands-Posten

This image is taken from Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper which published twelve cartoons caricaturing Mohammed on 30th September. Visual depictions of Mohammed are regarded as idolatrous and are thus forbidden by Islam.

Rashomon

I saw Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon today, a very thought-provoking film. Although the absolute truth of the events it describes is shown to be irrelevant, I can't help wondering exactly what the 'real' scenario is.

The plot is, at least initially, uncomplicated: a woman is raped by a bandit and her husband is killed. Also, the film has only three locations: the wood where the rape and killing take place, an open-air court where witnesses describe the events, and a derelict building in which the situation is discussed during a rainstorm. The action begins in medias res, like many of Kurosawa's narratives.

What the director does with this simple scenario is quite amazing: he presents the narrative in flashback, from the perspectives of four different people as reported by others. Each version of the events is different, as each one favours its own self-serving and unreliable narrator. We are never told which, if indeed any, of these versions is entirely true, though we are left with the clear awareness that truth itself is highly subjective. We may doubt the veracity of many of the characters, though the film is ultimately optimistic, with the rainstorm ending and an abandoned baby being cared for.

Toshiro Mifune stars as the proud yet naive bandit. He recounts what he regards as his noble actions, though, in one version of events, the woman escapes after he begs her to marry him. Her surprisingly stoical husband reacts calmly to everything around him though is also a skilled samurai swordsman. His wife is alternately terrified and dominant, screaming in fear though later mocking the two men for their lack of verility. So, each version of the story presents a different interpretation of the characters.

In the wood where the central events take place, the sun shines through the trees creating a dappled light like Pierre Auguste Renoir's painting Moulin De La Galette. Kurosawa also films the sun itself, glinting between the trees; he was apparently one of the first directors to point his camera directly at the sun, and when he does so in Rashomon the effect is beautiful and natural.

Black God, White Devil

I saw Glauber Rocha's film Black God, White Devil today. The film looks stunning, with black-and-white, almost solarised, photography. At the start, the camera is hand-held and moving frenetically, but later there are some lovely images of desert landscapes and ruined buildings. It's a very slow film, though, with the ritualised action punctuated by long pauses in which the characters simply stand around staring at each other. Most characters also have a knack for speaking with portentous pauses, which slows things down even more.

Rocha was the most influential director of Brazil's New Cinema movement in the 1960s, and this was his first internationally-famous film, but the earlier social realist New Cinema films are arguably more important than the theatricality of Black God, White Devil.

The 50 Greatest Films Of All Time

The current issue of Vanity Fair has a feature listing The 50 Greatest Films Of All Time. They don't explain who wrote the article, or who chose the fifty films, and the titles are listed alphabetically:

• All About Eve
  
• Amarcord
  
• Annie Hall
  
• Blow-Up
  
• Bonnie & Clyde
  
• Breathless
  
• Bringing Up Baby
  
• Casablanca
  
• Chinatown
  
• Citizen Kane
  
• The Conformist
  
• Die Hard
  
• Dirty Harry
  
• Double Indemnity
  
• Dumbo
  
• The General
  
• The Godfather
  
• The Godfather II
  
• Goldfinger
  
• The Gold Rush
  
• Gone With The Wind
  
• GoodFellas
  
• The Graduate
  
• Grand Illusion
  
• It Happened One Night
  
• It's A Gift
  
• Jaws
  
• Lawrence Of Arabia
  
• Mildred Pierce
  
• National Lampoon's Animal House
  
• North By Northwest
  
• Now Voyager
  
• Old School
  
• Paths Of Glory
  
• Psycho
  
• Red River
  
• Reds
  
• Rome: Open City
  
• The Rules Of The Game
  
• Seven Samurai
  
• The Seventh Seal
  
• Singin' In The Rain
  
• Some Like It Hot
  
• Stagecoach
  
• Sullivan's Travels
  
• Sunset Boulevard
  
• Toy Story
  
• Trouble In Paradise
  
• 2001: A Space Odyssey
  
• The Wild Bunch
  
• The Wizard Of Oz
  
• The Women

Film lists like this can broadly be divided into three types.

Classical Hollywood lists:
Golden Age films like Gone With The Wind and The Wizard Of Oz, selected by nostalgic film critics with rose-tinted glasses.

World cinema lists:
arthouse films like Pather Panchali and Seven Samurai, which are selected by film directors simply because they always have been.

New Hollywood lists:
American cinema 1970s+, like Star Wars and The Godfather, which appear at the top of lists voted for by the public.

Of these main types, the Vanity Fair one is closest to the 'Classical Hollywood' list. It emphasises classic Hollywood films like Casablanca, Stagecoach, and The Wizard Of Oz. It also finds room for Animal House and Die Hard, though, which is almost criminal considering the films it leaves out (Apocalypse Now, A Streetcar Named Desire...). There are only eight foreign-language films, which is nowhere near enough.

Citizen Kane and Battleship Potemkin are almost obligatory on lists like this - if a 'greatest films of all time' list doesn't include these, it can't really be a credible list. Personally, I think 2001: A Space Odyssey and Psycho should also be obligatory, too.

Howard Hawks, Francis Coppola, Victor Fleming, Billy Wilder, Michael Curtiz, Jean Renoir, Alfred Hitchcock, and Stanley Kubrick are the only directors who appear twice in the list. I think, in addition, Akira Kurosawa and Orson Welles each deserve another entry.

Fritz Lang and Sergei Eisenstein don't appear here at all, because silent cinema is very under-represented. The only silent films included are the comedies The General and The Gold Rush. This is a shame, considering the many experimental silent films available to choose from. I know Vanity Fair is a glamour magazine not an academic journal, but Un Chien Andalou, Metropolis, Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari, and Battleship Potemkin are far more important silent films than the two they chose.

There aren't precisely fifty films on this list - they admit that they (inexplicably) included Old School as an extra guilty pleasure, and (like many such lists) they treat The Godfather and The Godfather II as a single film. Note, by the way, that there are two films called Some Like It Hot: the one on this list is the 1959 comic masterpiece, not the obscure 1939 comedy.

The Sun

Cameron Diaz has been awarded damages today after winning her High Court libel suit against The Sun in the UK. In an article published on 12th May, the newspaper had falsely claimed that Diaz had been seen kissing an MTV producer.

The article said: "JUSTIN Timberlake's bride-to-be Cameron Diaz has been caught snogging a married man. The Hollywood babe, 32, was spotted in a clinch with the TV producer while her pop star fiancée prepared to go into hospital for a throat operation. Witness Oscar Duran said: 'Cameron wrapped her arms around the guy and started kissing him on the mouth. They stood kissing for a good three minutes.' Cameron and producer Shane Nickerson, 33, who works on her MTV travel show Trippin have enjoyed more than just a professional relationship, according to a US magazine. Mr Duran told how he saw the pair emerging from the Oracle Post studio in Santa Monica where Trippin is dubbed and stop behind bushes in broad daylight. He said: 'They seemed to glance around to see if anyone was watching.' Mr Duran confessed: 'I was surprised they would stand there in public on the sidewalk kissing.' Nickerson's wife Elisa is a high school teacher. They have a one-year-old daughter Lucy."

Size Counts:A Celebration of the Erection

Size Counts: A Celebration of the Erection is the first photobook devoted to the phallus. Published in a limited edition of 1,000 copies, it also features erection-themed poetry and a brief history of phallic mythology.

The Stanley Kubrick Archives

An exhibition of artefacts from Stanley Kubrick’s personal archives was held in Germany last year, and will begin an international tour later this year. The exhibition was curated by Bernd Eichhorn, who was one of a select few researchers permitted to examine Kubrick’s archives in situ at Childwickbury Manor (his home in St Albans, near London) after his death. Alison Castle also delved into Kubrick’s storage boxes at Childwickbury, and her new book The Stanley Kubrick Archives, published by Taschen, is arguably the definitive work on Kubrick.

If a book’s weight is any indication of its quality (and it often is), then The Stanley Kubrick Archives is very good indeed, weighing 5kg. This lavish, folio-sized book begins with frame-enlargements from each of Kubrick’s films from Killer's Kiss (under its working title Kiss Me, Kill Me) to Eyes Wide Shut. Unfortunately, this section is problematic for a couple of reasons: it omits Fear and Desire (the feature debut that Kubrick later disowned), and it lists incorrect aspect ratios for three films. (Paths of Glory’s correct ratio is 1.66:1, Lolita’s alternates between 1.33:1 and 1.66:1, and Barry Lyndon’s is 1.66:1).

The second half of the book presents “the nuts and bolts of Kubrick’s creative history.” This is a treasure trove for Kubrick fans, illustrated with more than 800 photographs, script pages, and props. There are also reprints of selected Kubrick interviews, and new essays by Gene D. Phillips, Rodney Hill, and Michel Ciment. Each copy of this (admittedly expensive) book also comes with a CD recording of an interview Kubrick gave to Jeremy Bernstein on 27th November 1966, and a strip of twelve frames from Kubrick’s personal 70mm print of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The Jaws Log (expanded edition)

The Jaws Log, by Carl Gottlieb (who co-wrote the Jaws screenplay), has been released in an expanded 30th anniversary edition. The book was first published in 1975, and provides a behind-the-scenes account of the making of Steven Spielberg's Jaws.

A 25th anniversary edition appeared in 2001, with new introductions by Peter Benchley (author of the Jaws novel) and Gottlieb, and a selection of on-set photographs; the book's main text was not altered, though extensive footnotes were added. For the 30th anniversary edition, Gottlieb has written a short foreword, though there's no other additional material.

The Poseidon Adventure

The Poseidon Adventure was the film that established the basic conventions of the disaster genre, i.e. a group of A-list stars in peril. In this case, they're guests on a luxury liner which is capsized by a tidal wave.

One of the highlights comes when Gene Hackman realises that, if they propped up a large Christmas tree, they could climb up it and reach a ledge that led to a potential exit. He convinces a small group to climb up, but most of the others won't listen to him. He tries one last time to make them see sense, but they still ignore him. So he climbs up the tree himself, and, from the ledge, he pauses to look down contemptibly at them. Then there's an explosion, and the scene below him looks like Sodom and Gomorrah in hell - a writhing mass of burning people. Hackman turns his back on them and goes through a door to safety... and then he closes the door behind him!

It's one thing to turn his back on them, but closing the door on them as well seems a bit harsh. (Hackman's character is a priest, after all.) It's a very funny moment, though, and the film is worth seeing despite most of the acting (apart from Hackman and Shelley Winters) being a bit ropey. It also has Leslie Nielsen as a deadpan ship's captain at the start, so you think it's going to be a parody but in fact it isn't (not intentionally, anyway).

Book on the Beach

My third book review column, Book on the Beach, has been published in the April issue of Guide of Pattaya magazine (p. 8). The article is a review of Donna Leon’s novel Doctored Evidence. My previous columns were published in February and March.