By Yasmina Tawil
Its International Womens Dayand O-Scope would like to take this opportunity to declare war on sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, inequality, violence against women, segregation, misogyny, racism, and all the rest of the bullshit that keeps women down.
O-Scope has always been punk as fuck, and about half our films are directed by women, so wed like to offer...
By Yasmina Tawil
It’s International Women’s Day and O-Scope would like to take this opportunity to declare war on sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, inequality, violence against women, segregation, misogyny, racism, and all the rest of the bullshit that keeps women down.
O-Scope has always been punk as fuck, and about half our films are directed by women, so we’d like to...
By Yasmina Tawil
Starting in the early 70s right on through to his departure in 1982, showbiz executive Ned Tanen turned Universal Pictures into a hotbed of creativity, throwing respectable budgets at daring, original directors and meeting with box-office success more frequently than he didnt. This halcyon era of studio-sanctioned risks yielded American Graffiti, Animal House, Jaws, and The Deer Hunter, and positioned Universal as an exemplar of New Hollywoods ethic of innovation and experimentation. One of the lesser-known beneficiaries of Tanens permissive doctrine was director Frank Perry, who used his authorial latitude to pull off a pair of vital releases that would have otherwise been a difficult sell, to put it mildly.
Sister films Diary of a Mad Housewife and Play It As It Lays could have only been made in the 70s, when their disillusioned, harshly critical, even accusatory stance happened to be in vogue. Their subjects live relatively similar lives and chafe under roughly the same social pressures: two women, both beset on all sides by unfeeling husbands, manipulative lovers, and children they cant connect with. Alongside contemporary filmmaker John Cassavetes and his Gena Rowlands-led masterpiece A Woman Under the Influence, Perry spearheaded a small movement of pictures focused on the hazardous expectations placed on mothers, and the deleterious psychological effects they can have. They established a tradition that still lives on today in such fine films as Xavier Dolans polarizing Mommy and Trey Edward Shults recent feature debut Krisha. But as the world and its dominant attitudes towards maternal duty have evolved, so too has the way this micro-genre interfaces with its subjects.
Perrys nervous-breakdown diptych and most of Cassavetes collaborations with Rowlands were strongly informed by the tenets of second-wave feminism, and its aspirations to reconfigure the womans role in the home and other social spaces. Play It As It Lays adapted Joan Didions novel about an actress named Maria (played with total commitment by a tremulous Tuesday Weld) contending with a slow-moving divorce from her vindictive producer husband, a rotating carousel of equally unfulfilling sexual flings, an unstable daughter cooped up in a sanatorium, and a chronically depressed best friend played by Anthony Perkins. Likewise, as mad housewife Tina Balser, Carrie Snodgress is stuck with one of the worst husbands in cinema history in Richard Benjamins sniveling social climber. He treats her like an all-in-one servant-hooker-secretary, when not actively and deliberately abusing her. To make matters worse, her offspring is a nasty-tempered little brat who openly berates Mom at every opportunity.
By Yasmina Tawil
Starting in the early ‘70s right on through to his departure in 1982, showbiz executive Ned Tanen turned Universal Pictures into a hotbed of creativity, throwing respectable budgets at daring, original directors and meeting with box-office success more frequently than he didn’t. This halcyon era of studio-sanctioned risks yielded American Graffiti, Animal House, Jaws, and The Deer Hunter, and positioned Universal as an exemplar of New Hollywood’s ethic of innovation and experimentation. One of the lesser-known beneficiaries of Tanen’s permissive doctrine was director Frank Perry, who used his authorial latitude to pull off a pair of vital releases that would have otherwise been a difficult sell, to put it mildly.
Sister films Diary of a Mad Housewife and Play It As It Lays could have only been made in the ‘70s, when their disillusioned, harshly critical, even accusatory stance happened to be in vogue. Their subjects live relatively similar lives and chafe under roughly the same social pressures: two women, both beset on all sides by unfeeling husbands, manipulative lovers, and children they can’t connect with. Alongside contemporary filmmaker John Cassavetes and his Gena Rowlands-led masterpiece A Woman Under the Influence, Perry spearheaded a small movement of pictures focused on the hazardous expectations placed on mothers, and the deleterious psychological effects they can have. They established a tradition that still lives on today in such fine films as Xavier Dolan’s polarizing Mommy and Trey Edward Shults’ recent feature debut Krisha. But as the world and its dominant attitudes towards maternal duty have evolved, so too has the way this micro-genre interfaces with its subjects.
Perry’s nervous-breakdown diptych and most of Cassavetes’ collaborations with Rowlands were strongly informed by the tenets of second-wave feminism, and its aspirations to reconfigure the woman’s role in the home and other social spaces. Play It As It Lays adapted Joan Didion’s novel about an actress named Maria (played with total commitment by a tremulous Tuesday Weld) contending with a slow-moving divorce from her vindictive producer husband, a rotating carousel of equally unfulfilling sexual flings, an unstable daughter cooped up in a sanatorium, and a chronically depressed best friend played by Anthony Perkins. Likewise, as mad housewife Tina Balser, Carrie Snodgress is stuck with one of the worst husbands in cinema history in Richard Benjamin’s sniveling social climber. He treats her like an all-in-one servant-hooker-secretary, when not actively and deliberately abusing her. To make matters worse, her offspring is a nasty-tempered little brat who openly berates Mom at every opportunity.
By Yasmina Tawil
People who arent familiar with this milieu could think this is a kind of science-fiction film. writer/director Alain Guiraudie
Of all the films that came out of the 2013 Cannes Film Festivala remarkably strong year, in retrospectthe one I keep returning to, curiously enough, is from a filmmaker whose prior work was entirely unknown to me at the time. Emerging from a field that included highly anticipated films from Ethan and Joel Coen, Sofia Coppola, Asghar Farhadi, Jim Jarmusch, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Hirokazu Koreeda, Alexander Payne, Roman Polanski, Nicolas Winding Refn, and Steven Soderbergh (to name ten), Alain Guiraudies Stranger By The Lake muscled its way onto my must-see list on the basis of what is admittedly a mixed festival dispatch and stayed there until it came to Blu-ray one year later. Ive since watched it three more times, including a much-welcome repertory screening at my local university, and can easily see myself revisiting it every couple of years until I dieor the disc wears out, whichever happens first.
Part of the attraction for me is that films that deal so directlyand so franklywith gay male desire arent always easy to come by. (Its also rare for them to get much traction at prestigious festivals like Cannes, where Guiraudie won the Directing Prize in the Un Certain Regard section and Stranger beat out Palme dOr winner Blue Is The Warmest Color and Soderberghs Behind The Candelabra for the Queer Palm, an award whose existence is a welcome sign these kinds of films are no longer getting swept under the rug.) The other part of the attraction is the way Guiraudie takes full advantage of his premise to give the viewer an eyeful of his buff leads, who spend much of the films running time partially or completely in the buff.
Since its unlikely Ill be visiting a nude beach in the South of France anytime soon, Stranger By The Lake scratches the same voyeuristic itch as William Friedkins Cruising, which steeped itself in New Yorks leather bar scene just before AIDS forever altered the playing field. And sure enough, the specter of AIDS haunts this film as well. Drawn to both the idyllic cruising spot that serves as its sole location and Michel (Christophe Paou), the handsome, mustachioed stranger he encounters there, Franck (Pierre Deladonchamps), the films impetuous protagonist, is cavalier about condom use to the point that hes essentially taking his life in his hands every time he has sex. Then again, he does that anyway, since he continues to pursue the object of his infatuation even after watching Michel drown his lover Pascal (Franois Labarthe, one of the films art directors) late one night. Sure, the guy has an Adonis-like body, but thats taking amour fou to the extreme.
By Yasmina Tawil
“People who aren’t familiar with this milieu could think this is a kind of science-fiction film.” –writer/director Alain Guiraudie
Of all the films that came out of the 2013 Cannes Film Festival—a remarkably strong year, in retrospect—the one I keep returning to, curiously enough, is from a filmmaker whose prior work was entirely unknown to me at the time. Emerging from a field that included highly anticipated films from Ethan and Joel Coen, Sofia Coppola, Asghar Farhadi, Jim Jarmusch, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Hirokazu Koreeda, Alexander Payne, Roman Polanski, Nicolas Winding Refn, and Steven Soderbergh (to name ten), Alain Guiraudie’s Stranger By The Lake muscled its way onto my must-see list on the basis of what is admittedly a mixed festival dispatch and stayed there until it came to Blu-ray one year later. I’ve since watched it three more times, including a much-welcome repertory screening at my local university, and can easily see myself revisiting it every couple of years until I die—or the disc wears out, whichever happens first.
Part of the attraction for me is that films that deal so directly—and so frankly—with gay male desire aren’t always easy to come by. (It’s also rare for them to get much traction at prestigious festivals like Cannes, where Guiraudie won the Directing Prize in the Un Certain Regard section and Stranger beat out Palme d’Or winner Blue Is The Warmest Color and Soderbergh’s Behind The Candelabra for the Queer Palm, an award whose existence is a welcome sign these kinds of films are no longer getting swept under the rug.) The other part of the attraction is the way Guiraudie takes full advantage of his premise to give the viewer an eyeful of his buff leads, who spend much of the film’s running time partially or completely in the buff.
Since it’s unlikely I’ll be visiting a nude beach in the South of France anytime soon, Stranger By The Lake scratches the same voyeuristic itch as William Friedkin’s Cruising, which steeped itself in New York’s leather bar scene just before AIDS forever altered the playing field. And sure enough, the specter of AIDS haunts this film as well. Drawn to both the idyllic cruising spot that serves as its sole location and Michel (Christophe Paou), the handsome, mustachioed stranger he encounters there, Franck (Pierre Deladonchamps), the film’s impetuous protagonist, is cavalier about condom use to the point that he’s essentially taking his life in his hands every time he has sex. Then again, he does that anyway, since he continues to pursue the object of his infatuation even after watching Michel drown his lover Pascal (François Labarthe, one of the film’s art directors) late one night. Sure, the guy has an Adonis-like body, but that’s taking amour fou to the extreme.
By Yasmina Tawil
Weve had some really fantastic and unseasonably warm weather over the past few days, and to be honest its feeling pretty nice. Lets all take a moment to enjoy the sunshine, and forget about the fact that at approximately the same time last year the temperature in New York City felt like 20 below zero.
Having nice weather in February can sometimes give you false...
By Yasmina Tawil
We’ve had some really fantastic and unseasonably warm weather over the past few days, and to be honest it’s feeling pretty nice. Let’s all take a moment to enjoy the sunshine, and forget about the fact that at approximately the same time last year the temperature in New York City felt like 20 below zero.
Having nice weather in February can sometimes give you...
