This cinematic staging of Al Roberts’s steadily more suspect story is, I submit, the signal achievement of Detour. In The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film, his book of interviews with the great sound and film editor, Michael Ondaatje focuses on two styles of filmmaking—the first, associated with Alfred Hitchcock, where “a film is already complete in the creator’s head”; the second, associated with Francis Ford Coppola, “that thrives on process, where one choreographs and invents and gathers during the process of filmmaking.” The surviving documentation suggests that Detour is a dazzling instance of the process type. The vision of the film remained inchoate right until the last possible transactions of the filmmaking operation. The ambiguous design was finally accomplished by stripping away characters and alternate viewpoints that had survived into the final shooting script, and beyond. The determination to lock the film fully inside Roberts’s disturbed consciousness emerged late, on set or during editing.
thanks. working on a summer NYC premiere for y'all right now... not at a festival but at a more casual rooftop film series. And that means McSorley's!!
thanks. working on a summer NYC premiere for y'all right now... not at a festival but at a more casual rooftop film series. And that means McSorley's!!
This is an interesting take. I liked the film a lot the first time I saw it, but it enjoy it less now. The whole waiting-for-the-medical report annoys me, but the rest is good. The Michel Legrand songs (and cameo) are fun.
It's interesting that you mention Truffaut, because in her subsequent film (Happiness) Varda out-Godarded Godard. The film of hers I like best, though, is the one with Sandrine Bonnaire from 1987.
Sans Toit ni Loi. It's available on replay right now (franco-german tv channel Arte is doing a full Varda cycle). I'll watch it.
A beautiful woman, a singer, becomes obsessed by the idea of death while waiting for the results of a medical analysis. From 5pm to 7pm. It’s almost in real time (the movie lasts for 90min).
I’m very surprised by how good it was. I have no idea why I never expected to like anything by Agnès Varda.... yet I had seen absolutely none of her work. It’s charming like an early Truffaut, but with a much more impressive ability to craft evocative visuals.
It’s so cool to see 1962 Paris, especially since a good chunk of it is probably shot without any kind of authorization. So you see the real inhabitants at the time. They tend to look like hobbits. Seeing a story about an utterly feminine woman told by a woman is also pretty interesting.
This is an interesting take. I liked the film a lot the first time I saw it, but it enjoy it less now. The whole waiting-for-the-medical report annoys me, but the rest is good. The Michel Legrand songs (and cameo) are fun.
It's interesting that you mention Truffaut, because in her subsequent film (Happiness) Varda out-Godarded Godard. The film of hers I like best, though, is the one with Sandrine Bonnaire from 1987.
For those of you who are entitled to receive the DVD of the documentary "Sad Hill unearthed", I have some good news... I wrote to Luisa Cowell asking when we may expect the DVD and I got following reply:
Hi Leonardo, gladly I sent all yesterday, they come by ordinary post so it will take a couple of weeks I suppose.
Agree, I may enjoy looking at the form of a sculpture, or be drawn into an Edward Hopper painting, but would not be necessarily entertained by it. I guess it's gonna all hinge on everyone's definitions of what constitutes "entertainment." You could broaden the definition to say anything you observe is to some degree briefly entertaining, a sunrise, thunderstorm, the moon, the Milky Way, etc. etc.
Yeah, in a way, even the most boring stuff I can imagine is at least a tad more entertaining to watch than nothing.
