I watched an excellent film during the 2000 version of TIFF entitled THE TRUTH ABOUT TULLY (sadly, it died the quick theatrical death that befalls many non-mainstream films that appear at the Festival).  What made this film unique was its realistic portrayal of the main characters (a group of Americans who live and work in a farming community).  These people weren't written in either of the usual two Hollywood extremes of "beautiful salt-of-the-earth near-angels who can do no wrong" or "slack-jawed yokels who are here to be mocked and make us city-dwellers feel superior"; they were simply normal people, making both good and bad choices about a variety of things, and dealing with life's challenges in their own way.  Farming wasn't portrayed as being noble, but it also wasn't presented as being a nice, fun, easy lifestyle to which one could retire and relax (one of the all-time great North American myths); it was simply viewed a job that involved a lot of hard work and tough business decisions.

I was reminded of TULLY as I was watching last night's screening of LA DONATION.  This entry on the 2009 Top Ten list is a great study of the daily lives of a bunch of people (specifically the local doctor) who live in a small town in a very remote region of northern Quebec.  Refreshingly, the locals were not portrayed as being any better or worse than their urban cousins; instead, their characters were written as people who experience many of the same issues and problems as those of us who live in big cities.  This fact, combined with a well-told story, fine acting, and gorgeous cinematography, makes LA DONATION a superb addition to the pantheon of great (and often documentary) films that deal with small-town Quebec life.  It receives a release in English Canada later this month, and is definitely worth seeing.

Please note: I write this as someone who has never lived on a farm (although I have spent many weekends and summers at the farms of my relatives), but who has grown extremely tired of having to sit through the Hollywood short-hand of rural = less intelligent or completely unsophisticated.

This week, TIFF Cinematheque released the results of its Best of the Decade poll, a list of the best films from the past ten years as suggested by over sixty film curators, historians, programmers and more. Reactions have ranged from delight to shock to (in one case) utter fury, and we couldn't be happier about it. After all, the list is hardly intended as a prescription for film-goers ("Watch these and you'll know what good movies are! Also, eat your greens."). Like all canons, it should be (and is meant to be) celebrated, even venerated, but above all fiercely interrogated. The fun of lists like these is that it's virtually impossible to reach a total consensus. There's no way that everyone's favourite film will be honoured in the way that they see fit, which means that the list becomes a starting point for furious debate about recent films or film in general. And if you've been to the Cinematheque offices recently, you'll know that there's nothing we find more enjoyable than that.

That's where you come in. We want to know: what do you think of the Best of the Decade list? Were your favourites included or omitted? Did you find it inclusive? Diverse? Lofty? Esoteric? (If you fall into the latter camp, I might politely point out that no less than four contemporary Hollywood hunks will be gracing the Jackman Hall screen in 2010; among them, Christian "the Batman" Bale.) Have you seen them all already? Will you see them for the first time next season?

It would hardly be fair for me to ask you to indulge me without revealing my own hand. Among my personal favourites: Hou Hsiao-hsien's Three Times, Jia Zhang-ke's The World, Terrence Malick's The New World, and Claire Denis' Beau travail. I'm looking forward to seeing Platform for the first time; same goes for Millenium Mambo. And I am particularly looking forward to watching Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Syndromes and a Century in the center of what I hope will be a delighted (and packed) audience, excited to see the exquisite film that was voted the best of the decade. 

Feel free to disagree. I hope you do, in fact! After all, cinema has always been met with fervent and passionate responses. The beauty of the Best of the Decade list is that it not only honours the extraordinary accomplishments of contemporary artists, but inspires us to continue the tradition of debate and discussion that has run parallel to cinema since its inception in the late 1800s.

Beginning January 21, 2010, TIFF Cinematheque presents The Best of the Decade: An Alternative View, a curated series based on a poll conducted by TIFF Cinematheque's Senior Programmer James Quandt. An esteemed panel of over sixty film curators, historians, archivists and programmers from festivals, cinematheques and similar organizations around the world participated and were asked to pick the films they thought were the most important of the past decade. The poll's participants are connected by their leadership in the field of historical film curation, with most having published books, essays and polemics on cinema, bringing perspectives that distinguish this poll from other end-of-the-decade polls.

Read more...

Jean-Pierre Gorin's introduction to Ici et ailleurs and Letter to Jane was quite short and ended rather memorably: "If you survive the first one, the second one will kill you." Indeed, the essay films he presented - two of his collaborations with Jean-Luc Godard as part of the Dziga Vertov Group - offer a clear rebuttal to anyone who considers cinema a passive form of entertainment. One may consider these films an acquired taste; watching them is certainly an acquired skill.

Ici et ailleurs, originally to be entitled Jusqu'à la victoire, opened the double-bill. Paralleling at times rather graphic footage of the Palestinian resistance with scenes of a French family engaged in such activities as eating soup and watching television, the film's system of montage for images alone is highly provocative. The film's soundtrack, which features narration from Godard, adds yet another level of meaning to the piece. Perhaps it is fairer to say that meaning is not added but multiplied by the interaction of sound and image. As Erik Ulman writes in senses of cinema, the film's achieves "an extraordinary formal density [...] as well as a political lucidity that remains all too relevant today."

Equally dense and politically relevant, Letter to Jane takes an entirely different approach to the essay film. Gorin called it "the ultimate student film" - shot in a day and edited in an hour... and I may have those backwards.  The end result is a 52-minute meditation, guided by Godard and Gorin through alternating voice-overs, on the implications of an infamous photograph from L'Express of Jane Fonda in North Vietnam, 1972. The concept seems so absurdly basic that it's hard to believe they made the film for any other reason than to prove they could - or because somebody bet they couldn't. Yet, in my opinion, Godard and Gorin's self-conscious acknowledgement of their fundamentalism infuses what could be (and, many will argue, is) a very dry film with subtle humour and striking insight. One thing is certain: you will never look at any photograph quite the same after.

Taken on their own, these films are challenging, to say the least. Back-to-back, if anyone's mind can literally be blown, this would be the combination of films to do it. Each one has the density of a nuclear bomb. In some respects then, it is lucky that the medium resists being taken in all at once. Unlike the written essay, which you read (and reread) at your own leisure, the film essay has a temporal impetus. Following the next point requires leaving the last one behind - frequently not something the viewer does at the same pace as the film. For example, in Ici et ailleurs, the line "It is too simple and too easy to divide the world in two," distracted this viewer for a good fifteen minutes. While a slew of new ideas and compelling images paraded through my consciousness, I found my own thoughts competing with Godard's narration and my mind's eye privileging memories of the dichotomous images which had accompanied that line over the pictures currently on the screen. It quickly became apparent to me that these films are both exhausting and inexhaustible. They are like marathons - some combination of torture and exhilaration. So here's the good news: Ici et ailleurs and Letter to Jane can support an infinite number of viewings. The bad news, of course, is that the first one may kill you. 

Maureen Holland is currently a student at the University of Toronto.

In Elia Kazan's debut as a feature director, he tells the tale of a Brooklyn family, the Nolans, struggling to keep ends meet in a post-War setting. While much of the US was booming at the time (indeed shades of this wealth can be seen from the Nolan's rooftop with the Manhattan skyscrapers both a river and a world away), Kazan reminds us that many continued to struggle.

What much of the film deals with is how to cope with this struggle. A father drinks, and struggles to find work. A mother struggles to compensate for her husband's shortcomings and is sure to count every penny. And two young children struggle to hang on to their fading childhood, with the very real possibility that they may be sent to work before even entering high school.

One way that some characters in the film deal with the harsh realities they face is to just simply not face them at all. The father in the film, Johnny Nolan (an Oscar performance by James Dunn) is emblematic of this failure to deal with reality in a proactive manner. He stumbles home late at night or early in the morning with little to show for his night's work. He is also a dreamer, hoping that his opportunity to make it on Broadway is not far off. Johnny's salvation however is that he is a good father. He passes on his hopeful spirit to his daughter, Francie (Peggy Ann Garner), who appears to have the talent to actually realize her dreams someday as a writer.

Johnny's failure see the truth of his reality culminates over the holiday season, just after Katie (Dorothy McGuire) informs him that she is pregnant with their third child. Just prior to this scene Francie is praised for her creative writing skills after her teacher catches her lying about wanting to take a pie to a needy family (in reality, the needy family is her and her family). Her teacher tells her to "tell the truth and write the lies". Knowing that Francie doesn't quite fit into this middle-class school, the teacher is helping provide Francie with an outlet for her struggles. She is to use her imagination in her writing, but not let that imagination carry over into her interactions in the real-world. Sadly, this is a lesson that her father never learned.

Initially exuberant of the knowledge of a third child, Katie informs Johnny that the addition to the family will require Francie to enter the working world. Knowing that Francie thinks the world of her father, Katie pushes Johnny to break the harsh-truth to Francie. Sadly, he cannot do it. He hides the truth from his daughter and instead goes out for a walk on Christmas Eve, never to return. He later turns up dead in Manhattan due to alcoholism and pneumonia. "One leading to the other", the doctor informs Katie. 

There are other examples of characters ignoring the harsh truth in their lives in the film, like Aunt Sissy, married four times and referring to all her hsubands as "Bill" so as to ignore the failures of her past. However the standout character is Katie, so clearly aware of the realities her and her family face, to the point of being frigid. She consistently tells it like it is throughout the film and although her daughter is resentful of her for it, especially after Johnny's funeral, the family is better for it in the long-run.

Somehow Katie manages to keep her family afloat in the months following Johnny's death. Francie and her brother Neely both graduate from middle school, the newest member of the family, a daughter, is safely born and Katie even finds happiness at the films conclusion with friendly Officer McShane. Perhaps one day soon the Nolans/McShanes may even get their little piece of the American dream.

I don't believe the film's message is to abandon all your hopes and dreams when tough times occur. However the failure to see the reality that those dreams might be born into is a downfall that in this film, leads to death. Made in an era full of dreams and success, this film for me stands out as one of the few examples of post-World War II American cinema that doesn't just gloss over the many social inequities that existed at the time. Yes the troops were home and the War was won, but many Americans were forced to quickly temper their celebrations as they had plenty of other issues to worry about. How they would deal with these issues was now the most pressing concern.

Steve D'Alimonte is currently a student at Ryerson University

In order to prepare for the upcoming essay series, below are a mix of links to essays and reviews that may be of interest.

Sense of Cinema: Jean-Pierre Gorin 

Cinema Scope: "Manny Farber and all that Jazz" by Jean-Pierre Gorin

Jean-Pierre Gorin's Top 10

Bombsite: An Interview with Jean-Pierre Gorin

John Semley blogs about the upcoming essay series

EyeWeekly: "Essays for the Screen" by Jason Anderson

Toronto Star: "New Series Explores a Literary Film Genre" 

Moving Image Source: "Other Ways Around" by Andrew Tracy

Tandem: "The Many Layers of Pasolini" by Paola Bernardini

CinemaEye: "The Rage of Pasolini" by Gilbert Seah

Torontoist: Essay series on this week's Urban Planner

*The master of the essay film himself, Jean-Pierre Gorin will be at Cinematheque this weekend (November 6, 7  & 8 ) to introduce the series.

“You just listen to the music and if you like it, you like it” – Teenage Head

There was a time, not too long ago, when Toronto had a “burgeoning punk scene,” when The Horseshoe Tavern was twice its current size, and when, according to Colin Brunton, a man would get beaten up for walking along Queen St. W. wearing a leather jacket and ripped jeans. In that time, one night really stood out: December 1, 1978. That night saw a punk concert to end all punk concerts – in the Horseshoe Tavern at least. Visionary promoters Gary Cormier and Gary Topp (a.k.a. The Garys) had been ahead of the curve on the punk movement – even booking The Ramones before they were “The Ramones.” Unfortunately, the owners of The Horseshoe couldn’t see where they were going and ordered a change of musical direction. Before making that change, the Garys engineered “The Last Pogo.” This is the way the punk era ends: with a bang, not a whimper.

Then 23-year-old Brunton, who had been working at The Horseshoe, expressed his (self-admittedly somewhat inebriated) desire to document the event. He got $10,000 and 37–40 minutes of footage. Intercutting interviews, performances, and band point-of-view shots, the 25-minute finished product feels wonderfully unfinished. Much like the punk movement itself, The Last Pogo ends before it’s over. Technically, Brunton completely ran out of film: he had to use footage of the Viletones’ stage point-of-view in the Teenage Head’s set. Literally, overcrowding of the venue led to the event itself being cut short. The credits appear over shots of a riotous audience crowding an empty stage and the varying degrees of destruction left in their wake. Mirroring the interview segment which begins the film, Teenage Head has the last word (quoted above).

While in the Q & A after the screening, Brunton repeatedly emphasized that he really had no idea what he was doing, it’s clear his rawness as a filmmaker was far from a hindrance in this case. He may not have known film, but he lived punk. The Last Pogo breathes because he infused it with that life. Nothing revolutionary in terms of framing and pacing, the film is imbued with a unique vibrancy – a palpable excitement and anticipation enhanced by the simple, rough feel of the footage. To paraphrase Teenage Head: watch the film, if you like it, you like it. And if you really like it, look out for the sequel: The Last Pogo Jumps Again.

Maureen Holland is working towards her B.A. in the Cinema Studies department at the University of Toronto.

We regularly post links to essays, reviews and write-ups of TIFF Cinematheque programming on our main website. Here, for your reading pleasure, is a list of reading highlights that will help you prepare for programmes both in progress and to come:

MANOEL DE OLIVEIRA’S TIME REGAINED

• Prepare for our retrospective of this celebrated director by reading essays and reviews published in the New York Times, LA Weekly, Film Comment, The Guardian, The New Yorker, Eye Weekly, New York Film Festival, IamFuture, The Toronto Star, The Portuguese Sun and CinemaEye.

AMERICAN OUTSIDER: THE FILMS OF ELIA KAZAN

• Get to know the man behind the famed films A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE and ON THE WATERFRONT by reading his celebrity profile in Movie Entertainment Magazine.

THE WAY OF THE TERMITE: THE ESSAY FILM

• Luminary Jean-Pierre Gorin is profiled in (or else contributes to) a series of articles from Senses of Cinema, Cinema Scope, The Criterion Collection, Rouge (times two) and Bomb Magazine.

• SANS SOLEIL makes Ian Kiaer's Top 10!

HOLY GIRLS AND HEADLESS WOMEN: THE FILMS OF LUCRECIA MARTEL

• Our limited run of Lucrecia Martel's THE HEADLESS WOMAN, as well as our upcoming retrospectives for Martel and Lisandro Alonso, are mentioned in Abanico Magazine (in Spanish). Read all about it here.  

J. Hoberman reviews Elia Kazan's WILD RIVER:

• J. Hoberman reviews Elia Kazan's WILD RIVER, playing at TIFF Cinematheque on November 21st at 7:00pm, on the Village Voice website. Check it out here.

Backstory- Mark Lewis Presents Rear Projection's Greatest Hits:

• CinemaEye reviews Mark Lewis's use of rear projection in his works, Cinema Museum and Backstory.

When Shoot the Piano Player was first released, one journalist asked if the film was intended to be a comedy or a tragedy. Truffaut replied, simply, “It’s both.” Indeed, Piano Player is a unique amalgamation of numerous genres and tones, combining hard-boiled gangster film and bittersweet romance with elements of slapstick comedy. The result is a film that defies easy description; Truffaut himself alternately termed it a “fairy tale”, “almost a musical” and, perhaps most fittingly, a “grab bag” .
 
This stylistic and generic innovation (and the film’s subsequent resistance to taxonomy) was initially the source of some contention; upon its release, it was met with what Kent Jones terms a “disappointing to disastrous reception by the critics and the public (to say nothing of the censors).” But, as critics have come to recognize, it is this very mélange of moods that makes Piano Player such a unique and engaging film. Rather than being cagey or elusive in his response, Truffaut was actually gesturing towards the film’s greatest strength: its ability to be at once playful and wistful, light-hearted and haunting.

In Piano Player, Truffaut freely mixes devices and borrows conventions, combining them to creative and unexpected ends. Based on American pulp writer David Goodis’s 1956 Down There, Piano Player tells the story of a man who tries, and ultimately fails, to escape his past. It’s a typical set-up for a gangster story, but Truffaut thickens the plot by having our protagonist be not a hard-bodied hero (or thug), but a slight and shy concert pianist who is unsure how to communicate with the world around him. Rather than telling the standard tale of a strong-willed sort who battles against the world, Piano Player then becomes about a man who battles against himself—who is fundamentally unsure if he is good or bad, deserving of happiness or not. This is ingeniously articulated through the use of voiceover, a device oft-used in the film noir or gangster tale. Interior monologue functions in the former films to display the protagonist’s awareness and understanding of the world around them; for example, the voiceover in Sunset Boulevard, the protagonist’s posthumous recounting of the tale now that, in death, he understands how it all fits together. Here, Edouard’s inner thoughts are exhibited, but he lacks the certainty of his film noir peers; instead, his voiceovers serve only as glimpses into his neuroses, the things he wants to do but cannot, the inner self he cannot reconcile with the outer. Truffaut also treats us to several visual moments that underscore this theme and lend this gangster tale even greater poignancy—for example, the numerous shots of protagonist Edouard’s hands, so certain and strong on the keyboard, faltering as he attempts to touch a woman, to ring the doorbell of a potential tutor.
 
Though the film is largely dramatic in its structure and its content, it is nonetheless imbued with moments of unexpected levity. Piano Player features a number of broad slapstick gags, none better than the famous moment when a gangster declares that his mother should “drop over dead” if he is lying followed by a quick shot of her doing exactly that. But there are subtler instances of comedy as well. While not a comedic filmmaker per se, Truffaut often precisely locates humor in human behavior; consider, for example, the moment in The 400 Blows when Antoine’s classmate furiously scribbles in his notebook, frantically starting again each time he drags ink marks all over his work, or the moment in this film where a dancer simultaneously lures a half-soused youth out of his chair and rebuffs his advances, only to turn into another man’s arms when he finally explodes in frustration.These moments, deftly and delightfully enacted, serve to further confound our expectations; as Annette Insdorf suggests, they “lead us to an awareness of how close laughter and suffering can be and how experience is more complex than the terms with which we label it.” Insdorf's comment reveals why Truffaut's approach here is so successful; ultimately, in melding numerous styles, Truffaut refuses to compartmentalize emotion, a gesture that at once challenges our typical responses to film and demonstrates a view of life that is complex and multifaceted.
 
Piano Player’s blending of moods is far from its only virtue—the simultaneous concision and playfulness of its storytelling is perhaps worthy of another full-length discussion. But it is certainly one of its most notable-- a viable reason for why Jones describes the film as “[the] skeleton key to Truffaut’s oeuvre-- the film in which all of his assorted gifts and preoccupations are in play and meshed into a uniquely idiosyncratic whole”, and why critics now view the film as a masterpiece of the modern cinema.