Movie Night

artschmart: olympia + iris

janeharr — Fri, 04 Sep 2015 03:52:16 +0000

It occurred to me that this image/still of Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver, 1976, did for the 20th century what Manet’s Olympia, 1863, did for the 19th: confront society with its ultimate sham-muse; the idealized whore. Or courtesan no-more. Manet did it by attacking art history’s tradition of the reclining nude, and showing what a sham all that allegorical pretense really was.
Édouard Manet’s Olympia, 1863

Paul Schrader’s construction of Iris, a 12-year junkie old prostitute too young to be jaded – so aptly called the Shirley Temple of the 1970s – does much the same, shorning her of her innocence (one must be an adult to consent, right?) in order to skewer sexual mores. Both managed to titillate and shock through resolutely abject visions, and yet both succeeded in their bids for fame . Manet has become part of the canon, and Taxi Driver is undoubtably a classic as well. Both also came from repressed families. Here’s some excerpts from an interview with Schrader who talks about this, along with the film:

“I had no intention of being involved in the motion-picture business; I backed into it. It began when I was at Calvin College, a seminary in Michigan. I became interested in movies because they were not allowed. This was the era of The Seventh Seal and La Strada, and I saw that movies could fit into the religious structure of the school and provide a bridge between my religious training and the forbidden world. Movies were forbidden in our church by a synodical decree of 1928 which defined them as a “worldly amusement,” along with card-playing, dancing, smoking, drinking, and so on. I snuck off to see my first movie, The Absent-Minded Professor, which I’d been blackmailed into seeing by watching The Mickey Mouse Club.

When I was in New York, I was feeling particularly blue in a bar at around three A.M. I noticed a girl and ended up picking her up. I should have been forewarned when she was so easy to pick up; I’m very bad at it. The only reason I tried it that night is that I was so drunk. I was shocked by my success until we got back to my hotel and I realized that she was: (1) a hooker; (2) under age; and (3) a junkie. Well, at the end of the night I sent Marty a note saying: “Iris is in my room. We’re having breakfast at nine. Will you please join us?” So we came down, Marty came down, and a lot of the character of Iris was rewritten from this girl who had a concentration span of about twenty seconds. Her name was Garth.”

Manet’s Olympia (a common name for prostitutes at the time, btw) was modeled by Victorine Meurent, an artist who modeled for many of Paris’s demimonde. Meurent though, was much younger, and poorer than her aristocratic male “peers”. The story of Schrader with Garth/Iris is much the same in terms of the exploitive older male exercising his prerogative. Which is exactly what both call attention to, if unwittingly,as they do implicate themselves I think, consciously or otherwise. Though as the Guardian piece linked above makes clear, the abjection still resides in the woman:

“But while Meurent’s contribution was recognised by Manet’s friends, her willingness to pose naked made her a notorious figure to the general public, undermining her hopes of being taken seriously.”

Posing nude made her a prostitute for all intents and purposes then, anyway. Interestingly, it didn’t seem to deter her from wanting to continue her pursuit of painting anymore than it did Foster with acting. The later even talks about how proud she is to have been part of Taxi Driver.

In 1932 Paul Valéry wrote of Olympia, “She bears dreams of all the primitive barbarism and animal ritual hidden and preserved in the customs and practices of urban prostitution”, which applies just as well to Iris.

In the end, Manet and Schrader send-ups to the notion of the ideal “whore” underscore all this projected fantasy. That, and the fact that what is particularly abject exists because there is such demand. Something to mull over more, I think…

movie night: horror vacui

janeharr — Sat, 20 Jun 2015 05:31:03 +0000

I just love that you can get on the internet, and find someone who’s had the same thought as you, instantly. Its made me a 21st century gurl. I can’t imagine doing without that ability to instantly know or learn on the library of all libraries: the interwebs! Anyway, I felt like watching a movie that would take my mind off the tragedy in Charleston this week, and the victims’ families and community-at-large, talk of racial battle fatigue making it all the more horrifyingly real. And on the heels of that lurid Rachel Dolezal story, which I think is well-summed up here.

SO, I decided to watch Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, a film I’ve wanted to watch again. I love Lynch’s work, and watching, I was reminded how much his aesthetic evokes David Cronenberg. And Viola! I’m not the only one!. Makes me wonder if there’s a female counterpart director – so insanely wrong that women directors are still so goddamn rare these days…But back to the film (for me, that is), which I highly recommend! Here’s a pic of the ever-fab Ann Miller channeling perfect 60s SoCal grooviness as Mrs. Coco Lenoix! I want to recreate that hair look somehow…

vignettes of the nite: LVIII

janeharr — Sun, 13 Jul 2014 01:26:43 +0000

“By just presenting rambling Ondine or National Velvet as isolated, spoiled fruits, stripping away their connections to personal drama or outside world, and by languidly exposing jig-acting situations (tangled bodies on a mattress, gargantuan make-up scenes, a crazy telephone scene with a witchlike gypsy, her maddening horsey smile flashing on and off like a neon sign), the picture becomes a drum-beat of the film concept that the Moment’s the thing, and, also, that what’s Now is pretty sickening…There is no story-telling form imposing its pressure on the screen. When Brigid Polk, hippopotamus of sin, sprawls in a bathtub in white bra and blue jeans, and talks to someone just outside camera range about the drug-curing scene in different hospitals, the image is free, for itself, and wide open: the spectator, as well as the actor, can almost vegetalize inside the frame. ” – Manny Farbus on Warhol, from Carbonated Dyspepsia (1968)

Is there any film critic writing today who possesses Farber’s incisive revelatory passionate wit? Remember he was writing this in the midst of the “Moment” moment long before the Warhol corpus (Brigid Polk rather than Brigid Berlin). I’m assuming btw that the Polk moment happened in Tub Girls, 1967, which featured a lot of Viva, ““the most tiresome voice I’d ever heard” Warhol once quipped. I know because I used it in a Time Out New York feature on her husband, the great filmmaker, Michel Auder’s survey at Zach Feuer Gallery, Newman Popiashvili Gallery and Participant, Inc.http://www.timeout.com/newyork/art/michel-auder-keeping-busy-an-inaccurate-survey

Anyway, I think Farber nails it – the whole moment – yes, I’m choosing to stick with that word:) – brilliantly, and recommend reading the whole piece, which overall considers the underground/oppositional/non-narrative filmmaking of the 1960s as a disenchantment with what he calls “the pre-1960’s notion of good and/or profitable movie creation.” Film buffs, I also recommend Farber on Film: The Complete Film Writings of Manny Farber, Edited by Robert Polito. USA: The Library of America, 2009. Even the Contents page is a great read:)

Farber was btw, also a painter! Someone I missed this Ps1 show in 2004, though for me they’re only interesting insofar as they relate to his film writing, still check ’em out!

vignettes of the nite LVII: the crimes of genitalia

janeharr — Fri, 30 May 2014 05:47:44 +0000

I shared this very racy photo that got censored from the Bruce LaBruce interview I did for The Believer (finally, its up!) in a Happy Birthday post on FB and turns out this person is embroiled in some legal shite such that if it hadn’t been seen and removed ASAP, it could’ve been used by the enemy. EEK, naturally, when told, I felt terrible.

It reminded me of the power images still have (sometimes we all feel inured), though I would’ve thought the two photographs at the end of the interview were more “disturbing”. You decide (I find the second one pretty gross). I’ve placed them side by side. Both the images and Bruce’s work in general make me think of a great quote by Donna Hathaway from her iconic early work, A CYBORG MANIFESTO, 1983, part of which you can read here: “blasphemy protects one from the moral majority within, while still insisting on the need for community.” I should’ve used it, but it didn’t occur to me, oh well, too late:)

(above) Bruce LaBruce, Rasberry Reich, 2004 (censored)

(below) Bruce LaBruce, photographs from exhibition, Obscenity, 2012, LaFresh Gallery, Madrid (not censored)

audio mash-up #2

janeharr — Thu, 10 Apr 2014 20:24:23 +0000

Here’s the latest mash-up created from a long list of excerpts I compiled, in no particular order, from films, TV, commercials, cartoons, etc. What’s presented here reflects what my intern, the amazing Nick Stromberg, could cull online, and edit together. There will be more…ENJOY!

1. copyright janestown.net

vignettes of the nite XL: the academy awards, vicariously

janeharr — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 06:29:10 +0000

(“A commercial society whose members are essentially ascetic and indifferent in social ritual has to be provided with blueprints and specifications for evoking the right tone for every occasion.” Marshall McLuhan)

C’mon, its funny!

I missed the Academy Awards tonite, but I had to share Justin Vivian Bond’s tweets, which I cut-and-pasted from v’s FB wall. There should be a book of JVB zingers and witticisms, the likes of which tonite, from what I hear, were funnier than Ellen’s! JVB is such a sardonic wit, check out Putin is the New Kitty Litter , from her vid series, The Drunk News, to see what I mean.

Following JVB’s tweets are a couple of FB posts made by Prince Terrence, (a NYC-based DJ), that I also found funny. I was going to post a whole thread I came upon about Gabourey Sidibe’s weight, where people were alternately mean, embarrassed or worried for her, but I won’t add to the scrutiny. As I commented, much of it seemed misguided and unhealthy, the very criticisms being waged at her, as IMHO its her life and her career and there are far more productive ways to address issues of health and obesity. She must be so overwhelmed by fame and the spotlight that any defensive posture on her part they read as arrogance has to be understandable. Still, I guess its the same as when people get very disturbed by seeing someone anorexic, they insist it must be addressed, its life-threatening, etc. I don’t know, for me there’s a fine line between collective concern and moral bullying when it comes to dealing with the idea of self-harm…

As for the best dressed lists, W’s picks make me think I didn’t miss much, sartorially speaking (Tina Fey’s dress, srsly?), and British Vogue left me equally blah (though I loved the trend of navy/inky blue). Pharrell and Helen Lasichanh both in suits by Lanvin did make me happy, though!

The best thing about Jennifer Lawrence is that I prefer to watch her act more than anything else she does. #Oscars2014

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Justin Vivian Bond
4 hours ago via Twitter

Charlize Theron = Madame X http://t.co/yuZVhjOgIr
Justin Vivian Bond (@mxjustinVbond) posted a photo on Twitter
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Get the whole picture – and other photos from Justin Vivian Bond

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