He gave every young man in the world a goal. He created millions of non-slobs. Including me.
– Michael Caine
Category: cinema
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Capra is the last survivor of that great quartet of American comedy; Leo McCarey, Ernst Lubitsch, and Preston Sturges. An Italian, born in Palermo, he brought to Hollywood the secrets of the commedia dell’arte. He was a navigator who knew how to steer his characters into the deepest dimensions of desperate human situations (I have often wept during the tragic moments of Capra’s comedies) before he reestablished a balance and brought off the the miracle that let us leave the theater with a renewed confidence in life.
François Truffaut, 1974Truffaut describes the brilliance of Frank Capra with precision. When you finish watching a Frank Capra film, you absolutely feel a renewed confidence in life.
Truffaut, François. The films in my life. New York, Hachette Books, 1994.
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Kurosawa’s private interests were no less varied than his professional skills–a painter, a mountaineer, a knowledgeable amateur of classical music, a passionate drinker of whiskey, a devourer of cultural experience. He was an ardent student of Japan’s traditional art forms–Noh, kendo, haiku, ceramics–and a thorough scholar of Japan’s history
One can see with Kurosawa how his side-interests would feed into his cinematic work. Artists have to absorb, absorb, absorb.
Reminiscent of Thomas Jefferson…
Wilford, Lauren, and Stevenson, Ryan. The Wes Anderson Collection: Isle of Dogs. United States, ABRAMS, 2018. pp26
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In this, Kurosawa-tenno was really something of an emperor among directors, seemingly born for the role. A single defining trait as a great film craftsman would be impossible to pinpoint — Kurosawa was one of the all-time greats at blocking, one of the all time greats at pulling powerful performances from actors. At shooting in color, at shooting in black and white; at vertical compositions in Academy ratio and at perfectly balanced framings in anamorphic widescreen. At quick cutting, at holding a long take, at movement, at stillness. At using score, at sourcing music, at choosing and mixing sound. At deeply researched period pieces, at portraits of modern life; at using complex sets, at finding stunning locations. At wrangling even the weather itself, his constant bane and frequent boon — his scenes are set by wind-whipping grass, muddy cloudbursts, volcanic steam and eldritch ice-mists, heatstruck streets and frostbitten hinterlands, lung-spasmingly brisk autumn air. What he couldn’t find, he made. What he couldn’t make, he waited for.
Not to mention he wrote or cowrote every one of his movie’s screenplays. The list of required skills for a director is endless, but Kurosawa is maybe the closest to filling every bubble.
Wilford, Lauren, and Stevenson, Ryan. The Wes Anderson Collection: Isle of Dogs. United States, ABRAMS, 2018. pp26
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THE BOY
I like printing. I get a real kick out of it. I mean sometimes when I’m feeding the press, I forget that’s nothing but an old broken-down machine. I think to myself, that’s a black monster who’s going to snap off my fingers if I don’t keep him tame. You know what I mean?
MR. HEALY
I often have the same image myself.
THE BOY
When I go out on deliveries, I always wear my apron because I want everybody in the street to know I’m a printer.
MR. HEALY
Boy, I never met a linotyper who liked his job.
THE BOY
They like their job on payday, I bet you.
MR. HEALY
They sit all day, plunking keys. There’s no craft to it. There’s no pride.
THE BOY
Nowadays, I don’t know you have to be so proud. Mister Healy, I just figure there ain’t much future in being a compositor. I mean, what’s wrong with linotyping? If the didn’t have linotype machines, how would they print all the books in the thousands and thousands of copies?
MR. HEALY
Are there so many good books around? Are the authors any more clever?
THE BOY
How are you going to set up daily newspapers? You can’t supply the public demand for printed matter by hand setting.
MR. HEALY
Are the people any wiser than they were a hundred years ago? Are they happier? This is the great American disease, boy! This passion for machines. Everybody is always inventing labor-saving devices. What’s wrong with labor? A man’s work is the sweetest thing he owns. It would do us a lot better to invent some labor-making devices. We’ve gone mad, boy, with this mad chase for comfort, and it’s sure we’re losing the very juice of living. It’s a sad business, boy, when they sit a row of printers down in a line, and the machine clacks, and the mats flip, and when it comes out, the printer has about as much joy of creation as the delivery boy. There’s no joy in this kind of life, boy–no joy. It’s a very hard hundred dollars a week, I’ll tell you that!
(THE BOY stares down at his feet.)
Chayefsky, Paddy. The Collected Works of Paddy Chayefsky: The television plays. United States, Applause, 1994.
Intriguing contrast in this scene. Mr. Healy doesn’t view The Boy’s work as craft, but the boy does. He take genuine pride in his work.
In a way both Mr. Healy and The Boy are both right. Reminds me of when Spike Lee mentioned drama is created when two opposing perspectives are right (paraphrasing).
I disagree with Mr. Healy though. We’re not inventing enough laborsaving devices…
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Roald Dahl has a rare talent to be able to just invent these stories that have details and ideas in them that stick in people’s minds for decades and decades – that they never forget.
– Wes AndersonThey need to no question, release this collection on Blu-Ray.
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A balanced outlook…
A film is something intimate like a letter, but it is also two hundred million old francs invested by different persons.
I don’t despise money, I just don’t love it, but the idea of making others lose it is unbearable to me.
I love my work enough to believe it interesting, not enough to believe it indispensable or beyond reproach.
– François TruffautHas any director ever articulated a more balanced outlook on film financing than Truffaut?
From: L’Avant-Scène Cinéma, December 14, 1971
Truffaut, François. Truffaut by Truffaut. New York: Harry N. Abrams Inc, 1985. pp129
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With the pennant races rumbling on…
Ohtani as proof mythical men did exist:
Ohtani makes me believe that many of the stories of the heroes of old, of Greek myth, or Mesopotamian myth, Arab or African myth, or whatever myth, that such men did walk the earth
– David Bentley HartDamn. Some men have it all. Ohtani is baseball’s George Clooney.
And lets admit it. It’s annoying. He’s tall. And handsome. And suave. And you know, its just, he makes the rest of us feel just slightly less human.
– David Bentley HartAnd Ohtani’s underrated, but awe inspiring skill:
The thing that amazes me most when I’m watching him is not necessarily the massively soaring home runs, or the one hundred and one mile per hour fastball on the corner. It’s actually watching him run the bases, because he does it like a gazelle. He’s moving as fast as some of the fastest runners in the game, but he looks like he’s just taking long, easy, loping strides when he does it. He’ll steal without a slide half the time, because he doesn’t have to slide. He’s an amazing specimen. And happily plays the only game in the world worthy of his skills.
– David Bentley HartI echo that last statement. Once, I watched Ohtani stretch out a double and his helmet flew off while he was running. I couldn’t help but smile. I thought “man this guy is having fun”.
This excerpt begins at 12:40. Watch the interview in full from the C.S. Lewis foundation below.
Floodlights and Goalposts 