Daisies

Mr Cousins and I were getting on like a house on fire.  I was auditing his course, if you will, on my couch, watching his documentary, The Story of Film An Odyssey.

Getting on like a house on fire, we were, right up until the French New Wave.  And, then it got ugly.  There were points I wanted to throw napkins at the screen.  

No mention of Rohmer or Melville, at all.  And, barely any time devoted to Godard.  Instead, Cousins went rapturous and riot over Fellini, Pasolini, and Antonioni.  Now, Nights of Cabiria is a no doubt masterpiece, and Fellini is obviously a massive influence on just about every director since, including one of my heroes, Bob Fosse, but the rest of his oeuvre does very little for me. Pasolini looks intriguing, if a little heavy, and Antonioni's "Trilogy" is a bridge I will eventually cross when I know that the time is right.  Just like, I have finally realized that I am ready to devour Godard's 60s films at this moment, right now.  

There are other problems I have with Mr Cousins' course, too, notably about the New American Cinema.  But, I am going to save my powder for that until another time.  And, anyway, all is forgiven, because Mr Cousins introduced me to Sedmikrasky (Daisies), directed by Vera Chytilova in 1966.  (Before the Soviet tanks rolled in to Prague in the Spring of 1968 and shut that whole party down.)  

Daisies is an absolute revelation to me, on so many different levels.  It is one of the finest "Women's Pictures" ever made, full stop.  That, of course, sounds like a back-handed compliment, but should not be considered such.  I have never seen a film so in tune with what it means to be a young woman in the Industrial West.  I am near tempted to say that it should be compulsory viewing for every college age female (and male, honestly) in the Western World.  Near tempted, because, I obviously do not really mean that.  It would take so much joy out of the experience of discovering something so fresh and new, discovering something quite on your own, the feeling that you held a splendid secret to yourself.  (And, who were those worthy of sharing that secret with? One of the greatest personal pleasures of enjoying art.) 

Daisies seems to be lauded as a dadaist or surrealistic work.  (Like much of what I speak on in this space, I have not done extensive, or even cursory, critical review.  I would rather get my thoughts down first, and then compare.) But, I do not see that, at all.  Obviously, style leaves its fingerprints all over this fantastic motion picture.  But, it plays to me as a straight symbolic work, right out of the old-world tradition.  There is a story here, if not perhaps of the classical three act Hollywood variety.  

I say symbolic because Ms Chytilova has so expertly used the symbols for her story, as not to be enigmatic or pretentious, but illuminating.  The female symbols are:  eggs, apples, daisies, butterflies, roses, etc, ... The main male symbols are newsprint, newspapers, and magazines.  I know of no other film that best exemplifies the magical, other-worldly sensuous (not sensual) relationship between food and drink and women than this one.  

Ms Chytilova has crafted the tale of a young, free-wheeling spirit, eager (but not desperate) to lose her virginity and become an adult.  (But, does adulthood come with losing your virginity? In 1966, maybe.  Now, not so much.) Chytilova uses two actresses, playing two parts of a whole, Marie I and Marie II, to portray the Catholic/Western Madonna/Whore complex.  But, Chytilova pokes fun at that, too.  By using two female characters for what may be considered the male and female forms of a woman's psyche, she has ultimately rendered men unessential.  The men in this film are either workmanlike tools, or wealthy bourgeois idiots.  (One of my favorite moments in the picture is when Marie I, Marie II, and a wealthy businessman are at the train station.  The man asks Marie I to get him a newspaper, so he can have some time alone with Marie II.  When Marie I finally shows up, she has not just the Prague paper, but every single other newspaper and magazine available at the tote.  If that is not one of the greatest representations of the typical, generalized male/female relationship then I am a fool.) Marie I, the virgin side of the psyche, eventually realizes the futility of her efforts, and absorbs the other half of herself, Marie II, the whore, and becomes whole.  It is not a statement of lesbianism, despite men being so infrequent and foolish in the picture, as a statement of self-actualization and empowerment.  

But, there is another thread here that I would like to unravel.  

Greil Marcus changed my life in the book, Lipstick Traces, in which he proposed that, like Jung, that there must be a collective Western subconscious that speaks to artists across the decades and centuries.  

This collective subconscious played crazy tricks all over my mind as I watched Daisies yesterday.  

Look at the cabaret scene in Daisies.  Look at the way Marie I completely resembles the great stage actress, Gwen Verdon.  

Now, is it more likely that Ms Chytilova, behind the Iron Curtain, in Communist Czechoslovakia, had seen the Broadway or Hollywood production of Damn Yankees or any other things of Fosse's work? He had not made a film yet.  Or, was Fosse exposed to Daisies at some Broadway or Hollywood party after hours, as "Check this out.  It will blow your mind."

The fingerprints are all over it.  You would think there is no way that Cabaret or that Daisies were not influenced by each other, whichever one it was that did it.  Or, is there a true collective subconscious that is holding us in its thrall?

Just a couple of Czech girls drinking Pilsner Urquell at the cabaret

xxxoooxxx, 

Ardent

No. 4: All That Jazz (Fosse)

Remember that this is my personal ballot and not the final compiled ballot that will be posted in this space on 2/29/12.

I knew that my ballot would have to contain either Cabaret or All That Jazz.  And in some sense you can consider Cabaret to be section B of this ballot choice.  In order to make the decision I naturally watched both films again recently.  (Not back to back! That might be too intense a double feature.)  And in the end, I am going with All That Jazz.  Despite Joel Grey's stunning, Oscar-winning performance; the absolutely ravishing Marisa Berenson; Bob Fosse's typically sexy perfect choreography and his stellar direction (Fosse beat Coppola for Best Director at the Oscars that year!) and editing genius; and the legendary Kander and Ebb songs; there are still very shaky moments with some of the acting performances and the script in Cabaret.  It is a tough call, though.  (The story goes that Stanley Kubrick saw an advance screening of Cabaret in London and was heard to mutter on his way out the cinema, "I have just seen the perfect film.")

I have a deeply intimate and passionate relationship with both of these motion pictures.  One of my earliest childhood memories is waking up in a theater, next to my Mum, after the credits had rolled on Cabaret and the house lights had come back on.  I was probably around four years old.  And I loved the Cabaret movie soundtrack.  I would play it over and over again.  My favorite songs were Two Ladies, Willkommen, and The Money Song.  And there has never been a time in my life where I have re-watched Cabaret and not thought it absolute genius.

I saw All That Jazz upon its release in a theater, as well.  With my parents.  And even for a ten-year old All That Jazz fit so snugly in to my wheelhouse that its stock has not dropped even a mite in all these years.  Let us face it, I was on track at that age to be a great theatre actor.  I was even acting in a Broadway-styled musical at the Dallas Theater Center at the time.  (The musical was called The Illusion, and was a World Premiere.  It was a flop.  The review headline for the Dallas Times-Herald 11/30/79:  "Few wonders are worked in Theater Center's 'Illusion'".  The Dallas Morning News was kinder:  "'Illusion' shows a bit of magic".  I did receive my first 'notice' ever in the Times-Herald review, though, " ... an adoring Newsboy, Michael Tankersley.")  And considering that nearly all child actors have to dance and sing as well as act (I was a decent to good singer --still am! -- but never got very good at dancing despite lots of lessons and classes) All That Jazz seemed to me a spot-on reflection of what my life already was like.  And what my adult life would be like, too.  

And, Wow, what a life! Full of rejection, politics, back-stabbing peers, infidelity, partying, promiscuity, chain-smoking, lots of casual sex, recreational drugs, applause, awards, heart disease, fame, first growth bordeaux, champagne, intense massively rewarding friendships, vile hateful directors and producers, heartbreak, flops, failure, fan mail, wretched notices, media scorn, a fickle public, the complete loss of personal privacy, First Class, Michelin-starred restaurants, my personal table at Elaine's or The Russian Tea Room, loneliness, a "star on my door", etc, ... Yeah, give me that! Give me all of that and more, please! 

Look, theatre and show business folks see this movie completely differently than other folks do.  (Yet, the film is so rich and moving and amazing that you can still be touched without a theatre background.)  If you have seen the film, you know the scene where Roy Scheider humiliates  the dancer, Victoria, making her do the dance routine repeatedly, embarrassing her in front of her cast mates? I was not even out of Junior High yet, and could already identify with what that kind of experience was like.  (My director was not a dick, like Fosse, but, once, I simply could not get a line right from a scene of a television program I was working on and I had a complete meltdown and stormed off the set.  My wonderful director talked to me as I sobbed in the bathroom.  I returned, nailed it in one take, and the cast and crew burst in to applause.)  

The immensely moving ballet rehearsal scene between Scheider and Erzsebet Foldi (her performance has been criminally under-rated all these years)? I know what that is like.  The perhaps even more touching "Movie Premiere Dance Present" sequence with Ms Foldi and the beautiful Ann Reinking? Been there, done that.  The brilliant Cattle Call scenes? I've lived that numerous times. 

Even though "An Actor's Life for Me" was ultimately not in the cards (I was not nearly dedicated enough in school or in my life) all that theatre and show biz are absolute part and parcel of my essential self.  They can not be separated.  That theatre life influences, on some level, no matter how minute sometimes, every single thing I do.

There is a game Renee, who has seen much more of the world than I have, likes to play with me sometimes.  Whenever a place, spot, famous work of art or architecture shows up on our teevee screen or at the movies, Renee nudges me and says, "I've been there," knowing full well that I have not.  Well, my answer to that is All That Jazz.  Scene by scene I can go through All That Jazz and proclaim, "I've been there."  And there are a lot more people who have seen the Statue of David than can lay claim to what I have done here.  That is very special.

Still, even if you watch the film without any background or interest in the theatre, like I said, it still works.  Those who panned it and still pan it speak of its self-indulgence; Fosse putting his fucked-up, womanizing, pill-popping, workaholic life on screen for all too see, yet, still somehow portraying himself as a lovable person.  I have no problem with that.  He is lovable.  And that is not something that is exclusive to show biz lifestyles.  We are so many of us deeply flawed, insensitive, wretched human beings, who are yet also capable of expressing and sharing love, and are worthy of receiving love.  I do not see that as a fault of the film.  I see it as exquisitely tapping in to one of the most important themes of our wonderful human experience.  (And for what it is worth, All That Jazz is a much much much better film than Fellini's 8 1/2 -- which All That Jazz was loosely based on.)  

Top 4 quotes, moments from All That Jazz:

1.  "You're lying to me."  "Yes."

2.  "Fuck him! He never picks me."  "Honey, I did fuck him and he never picks me, either!"

3.  Cattle Call scene.  Like the late Roy Scheider said in his commentary for the previous dvd edition of All That Jazz, "Bob Fosse put the entire Broadway Musical, A Chorus Line, in to this one sequence."

4.  The "Movie Premiere Present" dance sequence.

Like Gold Diggers before it, I can not pick just one clip.  There will be a few.  Enjoy!

Mwah, ...

AH