OutofOfficeReply@ScarlettCinema.blogspot.com

P.L. Kerpius will be away from the blogosphere and out of the country, with limited access to the Internet, returning early December-ish with riveting tales of French and Italian cinema experiences--the kind involving no subtitles or English dubbing. Wow!

Au revoir!

Arrivederci!

First Look Films at the Denver Int'l Film Fest

Wowee! The First Look Student Film Festival is now officially part of the Denver International Film Festival, which is up and running as we speak. Tonight the First Look series of films begin and they will run through the weekend. Festival creator, Josh Weinberg and Wade Gardner were recently interviewed by former Rocky Mountain News film critic Bob Denerstein; catch the podcast HERE.

As a former Coloradoan, First Look and the DIFF are especially closes to my heart: the latter is the first festival I attended with press credentials (I sat, neck crunched, in the first rows of the Boettcher Hall theatre to see the adorable Shirley MacLaine in 1999); and it was at the First Look that filmmaker Barry Jenkins's (Medicine for Melancholy, 2008) short films premiered--to much applause, I do recall. Go HERE for more information and history on the First Look Film Festival, and if you're in Denver this weekend--check it out!

Did my book just drop?

Well, it is official, my first major publication, a chapter contribution to Violating Time: History, Memory, and Nostalgia in Cinema has been released! Does it work in the publishing world as it does in the music business--did my book just "drop?" Will it get a shout-out on TRL? No? I see. Well, then, this smart, fresh little text in cinema studies shall proceed with shameless self-promotion instead.

Here is a picture of the book's exterior:

Note the name on the cover, "Christina Lee." Violating Time is not really "my" book, despite the clever though misleading title of this post. Rather, I have made a chapter contribution, Chapter 3 (pp. 40-55, to be precise), of which Christina Lee (see sidebar) has edited with great diligence and wit. My hat is off to her for her strong dedication and intelligence in creating the text you see pictured above. Professor Lee possesses what I find to be a rare ability to remain focused on a tough task at hand while juggling a multitude of others, like lecturing, paper marking and student mentoring--leaving little time for sleep, yet enough for additional paper developments and their subsequent presentation at conferences around the globe. To see her accomplishments and her rigorous ambition in action is energizing. I think it's lucky for me to be able to say so personally.

My own glossy copy of the hardcover book arrived in the day's mail buried in brown paper in a dull corrugated box. It was an occasion to unwrap this surreal sort of gift from Continuum Press, my own gratis copy for taking what was originally a grad school assignment from first draft to conference paper to second, to third, to final draft, with a slew of editing and proofing in between, to a bound, glossy coated book. Like clockwork, my mother would ask me on a near-monthly basis, "So what's going on with that book? Is that book ready yet?" From someone outside of the process and of academia, I could understand her concern; but the grueling truth is that from the pitch process to finished, amazon.com marketplace product, it took about three years to complete. Somewhere there in the wintry days of year two, with no real end in sight, I suspect she thought I was some liar. Pamela, published? Prove it, honey. But books don't pop up like blog posts! This is common knowledge, maybe, but to be honest, the conceptualization of a book's production time frame, did not dawn on me (and my mother I conjecture too) until the finished copy was set in my hands. Which were at that moment shaking from the nervous joy of seeing my name printed in an ink that could not be erased.




Being out of the academic world for a few years now, my day-to-day activities in cinema studies and film criticism usually aren't challenged to the extent that I wish they could be. Over the course of years in various freelance positions (everything from mobile media film reviewer to documentary film researcher), office work as a copy editor, and other such various and sundries, my film background and knowledge is not on a daily basis in high demand. Most new acquaintances and coworkers I meet are taken aback by this newfangled thing, higher education in cinema studies ("You can get a degree in that?"). But almost everyone I meet is over the moon to be acquainted with someone who holds such an abstract interest. You can believe me, then, when I say I don't get asked many questions about the topic of narrative function in historical film, the topic of my chapter in Violating Time. When the book's existence eventually comes out of the woodwork to my non-cinephile friends, I am met with cheerful enthusiasm, but doggone no one ever asks about the essay's methodology. Which is why on one recent Friday evening spent in the company of two PhD candidates in cinema studies, I was taken aback myself when one of them asked while flipping to page 40, "What is your methodology?"

"What?" was my oblivious response.

"Like, is this historical, biographical...?" he patiently rephrased for me. A tepid awkwardness hung heavy in the air. Choking on it, I piped up.

"Oh, duh! It is a bit historical in the portions that explore Nixon's involvement in Watergate, but mostly it looks at narrative similarities between fiction and history."

I'm pretty sure it didn't come out even that articulate. My brain has a tendency to remember things being more refined than they actually were. It wasn't that I didn't understand the question, it was that no one had asked me anything like it in ages; I forgot for a moment that those kinds of questions were asked at all. But onward we go--and onward I have moved! It was a funny thing editing my essay in its final stages; as I read it I found myself asking in that overly-critical voice, "so what?" What is the next question to ask about this--Nixon, politics, history and film? I suppose before I get there I'll be interested to hear what my friends--the critics and film scholars--have to say about it. I expect many more awkward but ultimately productive moments. Let the conversation begin!

Au Bonheur des dames (1930)

Dita Parlo! Two weeks ago I saw a movie that from the opening shot made my heart skip a beat, Julien Duvivier's Au Bonheur des dames (1930), starring Dita Parlo--the ever-lovely and understated beauty. It was a sheer delight to watch her flitter through the projector full of life on this magnificently restored print that is only rarely seen on screen.

The print was on loan to the University of Chicago from La Cinémathèque française, and Au Bonheur has gone unseen in the United States for at least a couple of years. U of C film scholar Tom Gunning, who introduced the film, mentioned the scarcity of past screenings, and if the details of this history are correct, this might be only the fourth time the film has played on this continent since its original release in 1930. Those details, to me, remain imprecise. A DVD copy of the movie is available, but only in European markets, so this sparkling restored 35mm version was a rare and ephemeral delight. An experience that was enhanced more by pianist extraordinaire David Drazin's musical accompaniment, making this show the biggest little film spectacle of 2008.

There couldn't have been more than 30 or so of us who settled into the obscure third floor screening room in the Gothic depths of the Hyde Park campus, making the movie seem all the more precious. A first person camera opened the film to reveal a web of steel railroad tracks intersecting and overlapping across the backyard stretch of the Paris rail station. The train pulled in with a glittering gift--cinema! Our movie had arrived there in the very first shot, beautiful and crisp. Sticking with its claim to reject American ubiquity, the French intertitles had no English translation, so professor cum narrator, the lovely Jennifer Wild, provided real-time spoken subtitles.

Though we were huddled in the screening room, the vibrancy of Paris blossomed before us like we were native observes there on the street corner. Many of the opening shots that weave the audience through foot and cable car traffic were taken from a documentary perspective; this is what Paris looked like in 1930. It is electric. Indeed the film itself, an adaptation of Emile Zola's novel of the same name, is obsessed with modernization: bustling crowds, cable cars and automobiles, and the flashing bulbs arranged to spell out the name of the mass merchant, "Au Bonheur de dames," The Ladies Paradise department store. Consumerism is the centripetal force that brings a lone lady from the country, Denise (Dita Parlo), to her uncle's failing storefront shop, and finally into the arms of her boss, the suit behind Au Boheur's intoxicating marquee. The imagery that stages the course of the plot is immense: scores of frenetic shoppers pillaging through bins of scarves, an army of counter attendants ready to help you try on a snug leather glove, and wide, beaming long shots of the entire department store's interior, a palace in its own right.

An English subtitled DVD version, if ever offered on the market, would make it into my library in an instant. Though I am almost reluctant to find it. It would be a case of overwhelming melancholia to discover that a digital disk had translated only a fraction of the wonder as that piece of film did two weeks ago on screen.

Slumdog Millionaire

American audiences' first real taste of filmmaker Danny Boyle's unique vision came in 1996 with Trainspotting, a relentlessly gritty portrait of a group of drug-addicted friends in Edinburgh, Scotland. Since then, the British auteur has directed a string of eclectically different films, ranging from romantic comedies (A Life Less Ordinary) to zombie-horror social commentaries (28 Days Later), from highly conceptual and philosophical science fiction (Sunshine) to his most recent offering: the melodramatic and moralistic, Bollywood-infused Slumdog Millionaire.

Winner of the People's Choice Award at this year's Toronto Film Festival, Slumdog Millionaire tells the tale of Jamal Malik (played by Dev Patel), a poor and uneducated young man from the most destitute neighborhood in Mumbai, who becomes a contestant on India's version of the popular television game show, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Upon the film's opening, we find Jamal being abused and tortured by the Mumbai police while being held under suspicion of cheating on the show. After jolting the youth with electrical volts as a means of interrogation, the police inspector (played by the formidable Irfan Khan) snarls with disgust, "The show has had doctors, lawyers, engineers... none of them have gotten past 60,000 rupees." Unable to believe that Jamal, a poor orphan, is only one question away from winning the show's grand prize-- 20 million rupees-- the inspector roars, "What can a slumdog know!?"-- to which his sergeant meekly replies, "The answers?"

Thus, the film posits one of its main conceits: that despite traditional social constructions, which dictate a hierarchy of class, race, and religion, every person's life story holds true value, and even the most humble of individuals can achieve greatness. Slumdog is the classic story of the underdog-- a narrative paradigm that can be traced as far back as the picaro literary tradition, a subgenre of prose fiction that first gained popular appeal in sixteenth-century Spain. Usually satirical in tone, picaresque novels often depict in realistic and humorous detail the adventures of a roguish hero of low social class who lives by his or her wits in a corrupt society. And indeed, it is true that while filming mostly in Mumbai, Boyle certainly had a wealth of material in human economy from which to draw upon.

Boasting a population of nearly a billion people, India's governance of its own citizens can be called decentralized at best-- leaving the director a wild and chaotic urban landscape to capture on film. Spurred on by a rapidly expanding economy, India's modernization and its effects upon traditional Indian values are central to Jamal's tale: in one lighthearted episode, Jamal finds a way to make a living by taking advantage of ignorant tourists from Europe and America; in another, much darker episode, we watch Jamal's older brother, Salim, succumb to the glamorous allure of underground crime. Slowly, as one watches the conventions of an older society fall away, one begins to realize that the true driving force behind Jamal's entire story is in itself only a more recent development in the history of Indian national consciousness: the notion of romantic love.

Earlier on the film, a much younger Jamal meets another orphan named, Latika. After the two are ripped apart by circumstance, Jamal is never able to shake the memory of her and thus sets out on a journey to find Latika years later. It is this unwavering love for Latika that eventually sees Jamal through a lifetime of hardship and abuse-- this notion of being together with his one true love, rather than the idea of upward mobility to which so many others around him desperately cling. It just so happens, as well, that in Boyle's sentimental view, love can also lead to financial wealth.

For in a world as corrupt as modern-day Mumbai, the idea of suddenly being able to change the course of one's life is all too easily encapsulated by a game show whose title coyly asks its mostly destitute audience, "Who wants to be a millionaire?" For Latika, who has only ever known the cruelty of men, she explains to Jamal that she watches the show, because it makes it seem possible to "walk into another life." Meanwhile, for Jamal, the show is nothing more than a vehicle by which he is able to demonstrate to the world that sometimes patience, steadfast love, and virtue can elevate even the lowliest peasant to the status of a national hero.

There is no getting around the fact that despite Boyle's exciting visual style and the realism with which he plunges the viewer into the slums of modern-day India, the film is contrived. The exuberance with which his camera races alongside bare feet, the axles of a fast-moving train, or the glint of a pistol recalls the smashed-cut, violent, and funk-music infused milieu of Fernando Mereilles' favelas in City of God. Boyle's Mumbai is similarly gritty, violent, and substitutes heavily synthesized mixes of electronica, bhangra, pop, and Bollywood music for its soundtrack. However, the similarities between the two films stop there; for the premise that a "slumdog" can win the greatest cash prize in Indian television history, based solely on the right concoction of life experiences that have taught him precisely the right answers, is a stretch for even the wildest imagination. In short, the story is a fantasy... which is exactly why it has been such a crowd-pleaser at festivals.

In Boyle's 2004 film, Millions, the idea of a child's dreams coming true, thanks to the very sudden gift of millions of British pounds, is explored with a comic and sometimes dark sense of whimsy. By the end of the film, the young boy Damian (played by Alex Etel) comes to learn that having millions is ultimately meaningless if it has meant having to compromise one's morals. Similarly, in Slumdog, Boyle explores the idea of a youth's stubborn adherence to his idealistic dreams. Only this time, rather than making a moral choice which sets him free, Boyle's newest hero, Jamal, has already made his choices; and it is the memory of how these choices have dictated the course of his life that ultimately, and against all odds, sets him free.

At its basest level, Slumdog Millionaire may be considered purely studio-driven entertainment. However, I would argue that in its hybridization of film genres, cultures and styles, Boyle's film has also tapped into and captured an interesting moment in India's national development. The Bollywood machine is notorious for generating hundreds of films each year; but only recently has India's national cinema begun to have a more far-reaching effect upon the consciousness of filmmakers, such as Boyle, who are not of South Asian descent. Originally written entirely in English, the script for Slumdog initially inhibited the Briton from casting dozens of extras and minor parts due to the fact that much of the dialogue simply didn't ring true in any other language but Hindi. Thus, Boyle felt compelled to go against the wishes of the film's American backers and rewrite a third of the film, translated into Hindi.

From left to right: Actors Freida Pinto and Dev Patel, Producer Christian Colson, Screenwriter
Simon Beaufoy, and Director Danny Boyle at a recent screening of Slumdog Millionaire

At a recent screening of the film at the Scandanavia House in New York City, Boyle observed that his choice to rewrite the dialogue in Hindi was liberating, because from that point onward, the talent and scenes simply fell into place. Freida Pinto, who plays the grown version of Latika and who is a Mumbai native herself, reaffirmed Boyle's vision, praising it as "the most accurate picture of Mumbai ever captured on film yet to date."

In return, Boyle humbly remarked that while in India, he came to see that the country's national cinema is most definitely on the rise, that the level of talent within India is astounding, and that he is certain that within the next few years, someone-- whether it is Pinto, who is new to the scene but quickly becoming a star; or a child of the diaspora, such as Patel, whose performance is beyond his years-- will cross over and make it big in the Western film market. While nodding his head, Boyle gazed ahead at the audience:

"I can feel it's about to happen. It's more than just an article in the paper. It will happen soon."


'Slumdog Millionaire' is being released by Fox Searchlight and opens in select cities nationwide on Wednesday, November 12.

...and exhale.

Politics be gone! While I prepare a few new bits on the cinema of late, let me jot down a little pictorial tour of some of the past month's highlights. I'm cooling down now from Obamania and am ready once again to think about movies, not the status of the latest presidential poll taken in central Florida. I would like to thank the framers of our constitution for making sure this process happens only every four years, for I might otherwise burn out; the quadrennial does keep me in check, and over the past month or so, the following flicks below did too.

24 City (2008)

This was my first priority at the Chicago International Film Festival.

High Plains Drifter (1973)
We checked out a video projector and watched an 8-foot wide picture of this on the living room wall. It was awesome.


The Furies (1950)
When Barbara shoots she doesn't miss.


Throwdown (2004)
Johnnie To's action movie is instilled with a sense of wonder. Blood, sweat and tears with a Pooh bear touch.


Happy-Go-Lucky (2008)
I want to make one of those paper hats. Feeling blue? Pretend you are a colorful bird!



30 Rock (2008, the Oprah episode)


I eat emotionally too!

Obama's victory in Times Square

Pammy's presence at Grant Park, Chicago when Obama's victory was announced was indeed a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

But so was being smack in the middle of Times Square at the same exact moment. Whereas the rally at Grant Park had been organized and pre-planned; the wonderfully exuberant celebration in New York simply erupted spontaneously. A few friends with whom I work hunkered down in a conference room the evening of election night, turning the space into a virtual war room; and then we held our breaths. When Obama's victory was announced, we screamed, laughed, and cried. And then we heard it.

Located just half a block away, Times Square had exploded in pure, unadulterated joy. Every driver of an automobile in the city was laying on his/her horn. And MILLIONS of people had poured into the streets and were shouting into the night. Unable to bear being inside any longer, my friends and I rushed out into the streets to join the fray. Times Square, which is usually so frenetic with movement, traffic, and bustle, was now teeming with people at a standstill, all standing, waiting, watching the giant monitors that had suddenly been erected to broadcast CNN. It looked and felt like New Year's Eve times ten!

I documented the entire experience in pictures here and here. Videos below as well (taken with a small digital photo camera; so please excuse the compressed sound and humble pixelation).

And P.S.-- For the first time EVER, I think, I can proudly call the new President-Elect "my President."

a little movie

Election Day is officially over. It is time to refocus, get a handle on the day-to-day and move happily forward. But before I get back to business, I have just one more little video from Tuesday's big event at Grant Park. This video was taken at the countdown of the west coast poll closings, and then it dawns upon us, the moment Barack Obama won the election.

Reactions

Jesse Jackson in Chicago



Denver, Colorado



L.A.




Paris



Kenya




Australia



Hamburg, Germany



Jakarta, Indonesia



London



More world reactions from the BBC click here.

Happy Election Day 2008! VOTE!

Today is the day! In case you are living under a rock, it is Election Day, my friends, so get out and VOTE!
Don't know where to vote? Go HERE to find out.


My Election Day Schedule:
Wake up: 7:00 a.m.
Vote!: 8:00 a.m.
Get Free Starbucks: 9:30 a.m.
Text Message Friends To Vote: 8:00 a.m. - ?
Posting Anything Movie Related to the Blog: Sorry folks, not today!
Phone Banking to Colorado Voters: 1:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Attend the Grant Park Rally in Chicago: 8:30 p.m. - ?
Experience Election Day Exuberance Hangover: Wednesday, 11/5/08 (all day)



And finally, my politically incorrect partisan web video pick:

Click here for more videos from Vote For Change


Update!
I've scrapped together a blank electoral college map for you election nuts out there to color in with your own state-by-state predictions! Enjoy!

(Click on the image and print!)

Election Day 2008

After what feels like an interminable but epically historic campaign, come early tomorrow morning (or very late tonight, depending on how decisively either candidate wins), the United States will have a brand new president!

SO GO OUT THERE AND VOTE TODAY! YOUR VOTE COUNTS!!!

The View of the Election

Go vote!