Gary Cooper: The Signature Collection

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Jeff
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#1 Post by Jeff » Fri Aug 04, 2006 11:37 am

From OnVideo:
Gary Cooper: The Signature Collection Six-disc set with new-to-DVD "Sergeant York" (two-disc Special Edition), "The Fountainhead," "Springfield Rifle," "The Wreck of Mary Deare" and "Dallas"; $49.92. "Sergeant York" is available separately for $26.99; "The Fountainhead" for $19.97. (Warner).

* Sergeant York (1941)
Commentary by Jeannine Basinger, classic cartoon "Porky's Preview," vintage short "Lions for Sale," Cooper trailer gallery, new making-of featurette "Sergeant York: Of God and Country," vintage biographical profile "Gary Cooper: American Life, American Legend."

* The Fountainhead (1949)
New featurette "The Making of The Fountainhead."

* Springfield Rifle (1952)

* The Wreck of Mary Deare (1959)

* Dallas (1950)

Narshty
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#2 Post by Narshty » Fri Aug 04, 2006 12:17 pm

Jeff wrote:Sergeant York (1941)
Commentary by Jeannine Basinger, classic cartoon "Porky's Preview," vintage short "Lions for Sale," Cooper trailer gallery, new making-of featurette "Sergeant York: Of God and Country," vintage biographical profile "Gary Cooper: American Life, American Legend."
Glory be!

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Matt
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#3 Post by Matt » Fri Aug 04, 2006 12:22 pm

At long last, Sergeant York. Glad it's available separately, because I'll be damned if I'm buying The Fountainhead or a Charlton Heston movie.

Release date is November 7, for those too lazy to click on the link in the first post.

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htdm
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#4 Post by htdm » Fri Aug 04, 2006 5:18 pm

For me, Sergeant York and The Fountainhead would be the only reasons I would buy this.

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Gigi M.
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#5 Post by Gigi M. » Wed Aug 16, 2006 5:33 pm


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clutch44
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#6 Post by clutch44 » Wed Aug 23, 2006 2:25 am

Matt wrote:At long last, Sergeant York. Glad it's available separately, because I'll be damned if I'm buying The Fountainhead or a Charlton Heston movie.
LOL I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks The Fountainhead is a waste of film.

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clutch44
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#7 Post by clutch44 » Thu Aug 24, 2006 5:30 pm

I did actually, about a year ago just to see if my initial impression was off. I didn't make it through to the end, electing to clean out the garage instead. No chemistry between Cooper and Neal (at least not on screen), terrible dialogue, and overall very contrived. Not a fan, but on a lighter note I'm quite happy to see Sergeant York coming to DVD. Hopefully we'll see The Westerner and Ball of Fire get re released in the near future.

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souvenir
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#8 Post by souvenir » Tue Oct 17, 2006 9:50 pm

It seems that the two released separately are in regular amarays while the others are in thinpaks. Undoubtedly this will lead to packaging complaints.

EDIT: Amazon changed their picture but the DVD Beaver review mentions the set comes in five slimcases.

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HerrSchreck
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#9 Post by HerrSchreck » Tue Jan 09, 2007 6:29 am

Watching THE FOUNTAINHEAD for the first time and am absolutely stunned and riveted. My guess is it either speaks to you or it doesn't-- wonderful that such a literary film is so utterly cinematic. But King Vidor knew the conceits of silent film-- and the heroics of the common man-- very well.

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tryavna
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#10 Post by tryavna » Tue Jan 09, 2007 11:42 am

davidhare wrote:Prefiguring Bernard Hermann in his first really great score the same year (for On Dangerous Ground.)?
Sorry to nit-pick, David. But surely Hermann's earlier scores for Citizen Kane and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir are "really great"!

As for The Fountainhead, I find it to be one of those movies where a director's intelligence and taste triumph over ludicrous material. I don't want to get into too much of a debate over the perceived merits of Rand's "me-first" psuedo-philosophy -- leave it to say that I find it deeply problematic. Nevertheless, I think even the staunchest fan of Rand has to admit that the dialogue is overly weighed-down with her "big ideas." And by all accounts, neither Cooper nor Vidor knew exactly what ideas Rand was trying to convey in Cooper's climactic courtroom speech. (Cooper certainly looks uncomfortable throughout that sequence.) At any rate, it's a movie that I can only watch again with volume off.

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tryavna
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#11 Post by tryavna » Tue Jan 09, 2007 6:44 pm

davidhare wrote:Hermann's earlier scores are very fine but he steps up to greatness in the 50s, beginning with On Dangerous Ground. The orchestration and introduction of things like the cor anglais, a-rthythmic beat, thematic complexity.
The funny thing is, David, that I perceive much of the same innovation you mention in some of his scores from the 1940s. For example, there's certainly a cor anglais in his score for Ghost and Mrs. Muir (as well as contrabass clarinet and typically Herrmann-esque use of two or more harps). Even as early as The Devil and Daniel Webster, Herrmann uses that wonderful multilayering -- which was the only conceivable way of depicting Scratch's facility with the fiddle. And of course, his score for Citizen Kane is orchestrated like no other before it. I will grant you, however, that Herrmann is less rhythmically adventurous in the 1940s, though he does explore that terrain a little in Anna and the King of Siam. I guess I've just never been totally convinced that there's as much of a break/shift in Herrmann's style c. 1950 as you (and others I know) seem to perceive. At the very least, the fact that he reused so much of the music from Ghost and Mrs. Muir in his 1951 opera Wuthering Heights suggests that Herrmann himself held that score in very high regard.

Back to Vidor: I've always felt that, after 1940-41, with the double-whammy of Northwest Passage and H.M. Pulham, Esq., Vidor was never wholly engaged with his material again. There are brilliant moments that make those later movies worth watching and taking seriously, but they never really come together in the same way that his best work from the 1920s and 1930s did. I don't think it was entirely Vidor's fault. He faced interference from Selznick on Duel in the Sun, interference from Rand on The Fountainhead, serious script problems on War and Peace, and the death of his star on Solomon and Sheba. I suppose the worst you could say is that Vidor may have been trying too hard to follow the trends of post-WWII Hollywood (the biblical and historical epics, for example). At any rate, I find that I always get more out of his "younger" works.

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tryavna
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#12 Post by tryavna » Wed Jan 10, 2007 12:21 pm

davidhare wrote:But I do recommend reviewing at least Beyond the Forest, Ruby Gentry and Man Without a Star.
Ah, I had forgotten that Beyond the Forest was a Vidor film. That is an effective little film. It's been years since I've seen Ruby Gentry, and I've never seen Man Without a Star. So you've convinced me to at least revisit those films when I get a chance. (So much to watch, though, and so little time....)

I can't answer your question about who first used multiple harps for film scoring. I can't think of any examples before Kong, at any rate. That choice of orchestration gives a highly distinctive sound, but I most associate it with Herrmann. (In fact, he goes overboard with it sometimes. I think he uses four or five harps in his score for Journey to the Center of the Earth!) I'm glad that I've spurred you to revisit Ghost and Mrs. Muir, though. It's a lovely movie, and Herrmann's score is certainly one of my all-time favorites.

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Scharphedin2
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#13 Post by Scharphedin2 » Thu Jan 11, 2007 10:44 am

Reading this insightful discussion of Bernard Hermann's work really heightened my appreciation of his contribution to The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, when I sat down to see it last night. The score is very rich and detailed, and, possibly because I was primed by these posts, I kept noticing the use of cues in the film, and the playful way in which Hermann used different instruments. At times the music would underscore the emotion of a scene, but just as often the music added another layer to the story, in many instances subtlely playing against the images, and adding a comic element that would not have been clear without the music.

The film as such is a really sweet hybrid of ghost story and comedy (and, I suppose the noir element is there in the beautiful photography). It has a great cast, Tierney, Sanders, and of course Rex Harrison, and excellent dialogue. I can't resist Harrison's irreverent name calling: "perfumed parlour snake" in reference to a particularly dandyish George Sanders; "blasted mud turtle" pronounced with a very scruffy and intimidating voice to persuade a fellow train passenger with a shock of white hair and huge walruss moustache to find a seat in a different compartment (for some reason I thought of Schreck, whenever Rex had an inspired verbal outburst -- great laughter too).

Finally, a different thread was talking about transcendence in film narrative the other day. In this film we get transcendence in the way only Hollywood could deliver.

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lubitsch
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#14 Post by lubitsch » Sun Jan 21, 2007 6:12 am

Seen SERGEANT YORK for the second and hopefully last time ever in my life. It's even worse than I remembered it, I loved the poor guy in the featurette who couldn't understand why Hawks fans hate it, but then they apparently had trouble to find self respecting film historians who would say anything positive about this rubbish..
I know it was a propaganda film, but all the folksiness, the religion including a lightning conversion, Cooper's simpleton character who gets told the values of America the land of freedom (except for niggers and redskins I suppose) and its history, Cooper's "cute" acting, the ridiculous way to handle the whole dilemma with Cooper sitting on a mountain, the wind blowing the right bible passage and worst of all the appaling turkey call idea. I could have killed these idiots for putting in something like that in the war scenes, but then telling the World War in terms of a heroic effort is bad enough.
Rare to encounter a film where practically everything is made in bad taste.

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HerrSchreck
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#15 Post by HerrSchreck » Sun Jan 21, 2007 6:57 am

I uh... (fidget) actually liked it. Of course it's pure Sunday afternoon, watch it like a wide-eyed, opinion-free little kid flopped on the floor with a pillow with the resta the family on the couch kinda way. But I liked it-- I thought it was entertaining the way a Godzilla film is entertaining. That's all I ask from a film-- to sweep me away and entertain me. I can't ask a film to be washed clean of historical sin and to have piercing, laser-eyed rarest Truth-that-about-ten-or-twenty-folks-including-me-have-access-to-over-the-course-of-a-century. This is Hollywood filmmaking, in a land (America) started by sea pirates (our founding fathers), who believed in racist magic-man real-estate-deals-in-the- sky-type fairy tales (JudeoChristianity). The whole rotten kaboodle stinks to high hell.

At least Hawks knew how to shoot a narrative beautifully-- lift any one of those bluegrass scenes and stick as is into a modern film and jaws would drop at the mere photography and the winking drag ass huckleberry mise en scene. Put your brain on hold, enjoy the film, come out and say "Wow-- now THAT sure was fuckin fake.... but fun," and no worse for the wear.

It's the joy of the movies... popcorn etc

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Scharphedin2
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#16 Post by Scharphedin2 » Sun Jan 21, 2007 7:01 am

How is this film so deplorable, when seen in the context of Hawks' oeuvre? The values that York is representative of in this film are largely the same that Hawks habitually espoused in his films.

Also, as Lubitsch points out, it was a film produced during the war, designed to rally the nation around the flag, and as far as I know, it was one of the most successful Hollywood films in this respect.

As for the "lightning conversion" and the Bible opening on the correct passage... is this not simply "(economic) storytelling?"

There are many ways to approach films. I like to try and live in to the place and period in which they were made, and to meet a given film on its own terms. Certainly, there are other ways to view films, and that of course is a different discussion entirely. However, as a '40s Hawks/Hollywood film, I think Sergeant York displays exactly the kind of storytelling and craftsmanship/professional movie making that is emblematic of the period.

The Sergeant York, that I saw, was an exceptionally poignant and entertaining '40s film with excellent people in front and behind the camera, delivering some of their best work of the decade.

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HerrSchreck
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#17 Post by HerrSchreck » Sun Jan 21, 2007 7:28 am

Scharphedin2 wrote:There are many ways to approach films. I like to try and live in to the place and period in which they were made, and to meet a given film on its own terms. Certainly, there are other ways to view films, and that of course is a different discussion entirely..
Amen, brother.

This is what baffles me, though not really. I was thinking of the SUNRISE thread where another viewer couldn't get with the film because she wouldn't behave as The Wife wouldn't, i e allow her husband back in so soon after contemplating violence.

Films for me are like women-- when I was in my teens and twenties I hunted (for relationships, that is) girls who shared my interests... who were interested in the things I was, were into the same music I was, were arts oriented, who would only hang out with the same kind of folks I would hang out with. Being a snotnose arrogant young bastard this led to terrible times where I felt disappointed and criticized chicks for this or that social or artistic indiscretion.. for not hanging out with those as down as I thought I was, or god forbid listening to pop music or seeing a fuckin Schwarzenegger movie.

As I got older I realized I was tormenting my relationships with an awful challenge and strain. A great weight was lifted as I grew up and sought out girls who were not like me at all (a good thing as I was a drinker, smoker, drug taker anyhow who had problems with the law)... I sought out goodie two shoes Ivory Snow girls who came from completely different worlds. Two completely different worlds coming together and making something new, cornball as that may sound it's real fucking pragmatic. And enjoyable and entertaining as hell, rather than reinforcing the same old iron monotone.

Isn't it fun to forget yourself for awhile and inhabit strange new worlds with strange new people? Isn't it interesting to drift off into a black and white world where everything has a candy gloss and good and evil are easy to define? Trust me, this here sinister world isn't going anywhere-- it'll be here with all of it's rotten facts when you get back. A single film cannot erase the sins against the "niggers" and the "redskins" :roll:

So who gets to make a patriotic war film, who had something worth fighting for? Not the Americans against Hitler? The Russians maybe? Remember that piece of shit Stalin? Is it neccessary to walk in with a laundry list of each sin committed by every potential protagonist to enjoy a simple tale? Lincoln didn't really "free" anybody, and he was a cold manipulating sonofabitch; Martin Luther King was known-- like JFK-- to be a philandering two timing bum who had his routine down in vaudeville terms. Mention Churchill or FDR and poison darts will fly. Margaret Meade? Go buy a fucking aquarium furguchrissakes.. anna dental dam while at it.

Who gets to have a movie? Aren't we all pieces of shit, somewhere somehow?

Just another example where, when we think we've nailed a film down at what it brings to us, it kicks back and tells us just as much about ourselves and what we bring to it.

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tryavna
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#18 Post by tryavna » Sun Jan 21, 2007 1:22 pm

HerrSchreck wrote:Of course it's pure Sunday afternoon, watch it like a wide-eyed, opinion-free little kid flopped on the floor with a pillow with the resta the family on the couch kinda way.
I'm with Schreck on this one. When I was growing up, I remember that this was one of my mother's favorite movies. (She always was -- and still is -- a sucker for folksy humor. But there were also strong personal associations: She grew up in southern West Virginia, which isn't that different culturally or geographically from the area of Tennessee where York came from. And her father, who was also a WWI veteran, had actually met and thought highly of York.) So anyway, I remember seeing this film a number of times in my youth.

Watching the movie again several years ago, after I had come to know the work of Howard Hawks, I had a similar reaction to that of Lubitsch and David. It struck me as appallingly superficial and naive. But then I watched it again a couple of months ago -- during a rainy Sunday afternoon -- and found myself enjoying it immensely, in particular the effortless acting of Cooper and Brennan (who always made a good team). It probably helped that I was watching it simply to pass the time, rather than trying to dissect it as I sometimes do when I watch movies in the evening. At any rate, it reminded me of how entertaining the film was when I watched it with my mother years earlier.

As far as the "eye-rolling" moments in the film are concerned (like the thunderstorm conversion, the turkey-call sniping, etc.), I think the best approach is to consider it standard Hollywood bio-pic myth-making. The thunderstorm conversion has an honorable tradition dating back at least to Martin Luther, after all.

The other aspect of Sergeant York that I genuinely like is that it's one of the few films from its period that depicts Appalachian people and culture without really patronizing them. To be sure, there are still stereotypes, but the characters retain their dignity and aren't played for Ma-and-Pa-Kettle-type laughs.

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Gregory
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#19 Post by Gregory » Sun Jan 21, 2007 2:40 pm

This admirer of Hawks agrees with the consensus that this is one of his most flawed films (though I haven't seen any of the early, pre-Scarface work). The turkey-call thing that lubitsch mentioned gets at one of the worst, most propagandistic things about it: trivializing death on the side of "our enemy."
About the broader discussion here of values and ideology in film, my own position is that I most certainly don't have to agree with a film to find greatness or value in it. However, on the whole (and I emphasize that) film is not just about pure, meaningless beauty. It communicates things to us and of course these should be put in their appropriate contexts. Still, when a film attempts to sell me some extremely problematic notion (morally or otherwise), or that puts its arm around me and assumes that I share in some especially reprehensible idea or world view, that's naturally not going to play well in my appraisal of its project -- how well it accomplishes not just what it set out to achieve but really anything.
The crucial difference, I think, between HerrSchreck's position and mine is his cynicism, e.g. the apparent disdain for all of history and everyone in it without hesitation. I can sympathize with an iconoclastic or skeptical view of the "great" figures and ideals of the past that have been drummed into us, but his comments seem to go way beyond that, although maybe just rhetorically. And I admit my own approach -- watching films as a way of shedding light on often unpleasant issues -- is uncommon. I'm mostly incapable of escapism. Anyway, this part is really off the stated topic of the thread and not the kind of discussion that ever goes anywhere worthwhile on this forum anyway, so I'll drop it there.

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Scharphedin2
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#20 Post by Scharphedin2 » Sun Jan 21, 2007 7:29 pm

There is a quote that goes something like "...the sign of a cultured mind is that it can hold two contradictory ideas at the same time..." I unfortunately do not remember the source, maybe you can help me, Gregory... You generally come across as a more cultured man than I.

Sergeant York was released early in the forties; planned and produced I assume before the United States had formally entered in the war. If I understand history correctly, the United States both as a nation, and as a people, was still very much divided on the country's role in concerns of an international nature. Whatever our feelings about war, and the vast casualties and tragedies that it implies, I am sure we can agree that it was a good thing that the United States decided to enter into it. I know that my family was happy for it, and I think I would have been too (all my personal values -- which are anything but in favor of violent resolutions to problems, be they on a personal or social scale -- to the contrary). But the point is that it was not an easy decision, and it took many different arguments to convince the nation and its people that it should participate in another war. After all, why should the American people, who had come to this paradise called America only a few generations before, risk the lives of its young men, to step into a conflict that presently held no great risk to the American way of life.

From what little I know of Hawks and Cooper, they were "cultured" men; I am sure that they also knew that the nation was not peopled solely by cultured men and women, and that the vast majority of their audience in fact concisted of "uncultured" men and women. Furthermore, the people that would be asked to send their loved ones to go and fight and die in the trenches would come out of these uncultured masses. So, during the first two thirds of this film that is Sergeant York, we are treated to a wonderful depiction of how America saw itself at the time done up largely in glossy black and white images of the finest kind that Hollywood could produce at the time, as Schreck would have it, or, we may say it is meaninglessly beautiful. Here is a rich gallery of characters, people who are born with a little good and a little bad in them, and who choose (mainly) to be good people in the end. We are treated to an archetypical story firmly rooted in the American ideals of the time -- The one who is just prevails in the end; through hard work comes great rewards; the one who is true of heart wins the girl in the end; a culture based on respect for the Bible, and respect for ones elders. The idea of leaving ones native soil, to go to a foreign country and fight the people of another nation, does not sit easily with York's ideals and beliefs, but after much soul searching, he understands that to preserve all that he holds dear, he must go. He fights in the war, and he prevails exactly because of who he is, his ideals and beliefs; in short he fights as York the farmer from Tennessee, turkey-calls and all. He then returns from the war a hero, yet (I think) not proud of what he has done, and really in a hurry to return to the life he left behind. It may be just my eyes that are getting weak, but a film like Sergeant York in its own way sheds a lot of light on issues that were, and still are, unpleasant.

Is Sergeant York a "propagandistic" picture; sure. Is it more blatantly so than many another American film of the forties, or, of any other nation engaged in the war; I don't think so. I also do not experience the particular disdain for the enemy in this particular film that is described above. Yes, clearly the German soldiers are the enemy, and, yes, clearly York is an iconic hero, and he defeats the German soldiers perhaps too easily and with tricks like turkey-calls. However, I really see that as who York is, and it is again typical Hollywood story-telling technique. We have heard York talk about this turkey hunting technique earlier in the film, and what is more natural and in character than that he should employ this technique in fighting the enemy.

More interesting perhaps than a discussion of Sergeant York's merits as a picture of its time or any time, is perhaps the persona of Gary Cooper. Look at Cooper (in the probably twenty films or so that I have seen him in), and we see an image of everything that an American man should ideally be (at that time). The Cooper hero is always humble, integrous, generous, idealistic in a quiet way, slow to action, and able. In a way, I suppose one could say that Cooper was a walking, talking commercial for the American, and his way of life. I think, kids looked up to Cooper back in the day. That is another reason that some folks go to the movies, or used to anyway... to experience for a few moments, and possibly to learn, what it is to be a hero. I do not think the American nation was the worse for a Cooper; honestly, I think we could do with a Gary Cooper today. We may call this kind of film-going "escapism," but then "escapism" has its value too.

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HerrSchreck
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#21 Post by HerrSchreck » Mon Jan 22, 2007 2:15 am

Gregory wrote:The crucial difference, I think, between HerrSchreck's position and mine is his cynicism, e.g. the apparent disdain for all of history and everyone in it without hesitation..
I'm stripping naked and going into a cave and eating nuts birds & berries for the rest of my life-- if the sarcasm in my "historical condemnation" "list" didn't come across....

greg I was trying to say if we want to get into that lubitsch mode of throwing a "moral application" at every potential figure in every feature film, we'll become so bitter & cynical that there'd be no movies left to watch. I was emphatically arguing for NOT being so cynical, for NOT being so judgemental, because we all have something lousy about us someway, so.....?

That said, the only thing I have a problem with in your post greg is
The turkey-call thing that lubitsch mentioned gets at one of the worst, most propagandistic things about it: trivializing death on the side of "our enemy."
That's a conversation which takes place far far far after a World War is over, and far far behind a front line.

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Gregory
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#22 Post by Gregory » Mon Jan 22, 2007 4:58 am

HerrSchreck:

Believe me, I could tell you were being sarcastic or at least somewhat facetious, but I also think we can be informed by our humor, and I hope I didn't misinterpret. My reply probably could have been more thorough and thus clearer.
One problem here is that we seem to be using the word cynicism very differently.
Your reductio of lubitsch is based on a slippery-slope argument: if moral principles are involved in film criticism then cynicism will result because we'll end up judging everything harshly and there will be nothing left to watch or enjoy. If this is a fair representation of your point, then I would make two points in response. First, what I meant to defend was not the particular "lubitsch mode," not really knowing what that is, but rather the more school of criticism of film as engaging its ideological elements (and in this case, I agreed with some of the critiques of this film that had been made). Throwing that out in order to avoid potential pedantry is misguided in my view. Second, the normal flaw with the slippery-slope argument is that it doesn't show precisely how one thing leads to another resulting in the undesirable result. More to the point, I think one can make ideological and even moral critiques of a film according to consistent principles without condemning everything. To argue to the contrary, as I took your point to be, suggests that everything is equally deserving of condemnation -- everything is equally problematic and fucked up. That position is what I was terming cynicism. I hope this has made things clearer.
HerrSchreck wrote:That's a conversation which takes place far far far after a World War is over, and far far behind a front line.
The dehumanization of the enemy thing I mentioned gets at the basic issues that underlie the perceived legitimacy of war, but that extends into a huge, off-topic discussion, so I'll resist the urge to make any further reply on that.
davidhare wrote:The biggest problem with York is twofold ...
I agree with these points, more or less, and at least some crucial part of the reason that the propagandistic content is problematic in this film can be traced to precisely the ways in which it diverges from the organization of the themes that are central to Hawks' better films. This is a good example of the how ideology and aesthetics are bound up. The core ideals in Hawks' body of work depended not only on what they were but how he articulated them through the work (and never any other way, so there's a lot of room for interpretation).

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HerrSchreck
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#23 Post by HerrSchreck » Mon Jan 22, 2007 5:58 am

Understood greg, and of course one should neither go completely one way or the other way. That is to say, become totally morally blind in the real world simply because one wants to enter into the false universe of mass market entertainment, or-- the opposite-- becoming so historically and morally demanding that nobody gets to make (or like, or be able to speak approvingly about) a war film, or propoganda film like YORK or BLIMP or COME AND SEE or RYAN. (Like I asked before-- before the bar of history, who is clean enough to make a war film? I'd like an answer to that one? If the American effort in WW1 &2 were not justified, whose were?)

My point is that there is no moral sacrifice in kicking back, watching a piece of superentertaining fluff like YORK, snapping it off and say "Well, a lot of that was, as relates to The Real World Here On Earth, a bunch of bullshit-- but I still had a great time watching it." One is no worse for the wear. It's called watching a movie on downtime for pleasure. I don't mean to sound facetious but isn't this screamingly obvious? Do we hafta chuck THIEF OF BAGDHAD because the charm laid over Haroun Al Rashid-types in the Tales masks the bloody limb chopping reality of medieval life under Islamic sharia, beheadings for nothing, etc?

I find these arguments collegiate. These are pieces of entertainment. They really have no "social or moral responsibility". This is Hollywood, "lies at 24 fps" etc. This is the "anti-world", not life itself. This is where folks go to find a simpler world, sometimes those which evolved back when life seemed to be less ambiguous, when our villains truly were black and white, and where heroes kicked their asses.

Take SCHNINDLER'S LIST. That movie is a tissue of rampant bullshit fore and aft-- historically. Emile Schindler tried to sue Spielbergs face right off of his skull because he warped it all deliberately and with aforethought just to wrap it all up into a male-heroic ball. But it's one of the few films that Spielberg has made over the past 20 years that I have unfettered admiration for. I'm somewhat of a WW2 historian, I have bookcases filled with classic & recent texts... but I still watch the film. Because it's just a film. They're just actors reciting somelines somebody wrote. Which is the point-- you watch it and disappear from the earth for awhile, flying a way to a world of make believe. Wide eyed kids in cinema darkness smashing popcorn into riveted faces etc..

I'll leave you with this, because this, to me, is real pedestrian:

Those who seek their history from Hollywood features, deserve to be deceived. It never did tell the truth in the past, doesn't now, and never will.

I say that because I'm trying to head off the predictable "lies at 24fps is fine so long as you don't allege to be telling a story of real history," etc.

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Scharphedin2
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#24 Post by Scharphedin2 » Mon Jan 22, 2007 7:52 am

Davidhare, your points are incontestable, but I think also quite subjective, and in any event I would like to understand why these points necessarily make the film problematic and insufferable to you.
davidhare wrote:1: it doesn't embody the celebration of the "team" which is central to Hawks, and which always extends to the indivual personalities of the teamsters.

With a few exceptions I have seen all of Hawks' films after Bringing Up Baby, and with a few exceptions, nothing before it. In general I find Hawks' films hugely enjoyable as films, which I think would have pleased the director. I know that several critics/historians have pointed out the male "love affairs"/"teams" as central to Hawks' oeuvre. Yet, based on the films that I have seen, I am not convinced about the extent to which this quality is so intrinsic to the quality of Hawks' films in general. True, a great many of his best films have these elements (Only Angels Have Wings, Red River, The Big Sky, Hatari!, and the Wayne trilogy of westerns). Then, on the other hand, the Bogart pictures and the Cary Grant comedies do not really have these elements (at least not in the same way), and I still think these films are amongst his best and most successful (both personally, but also by general critical consensus). So, why does the absence of this element in your view count specifically against Sergeant York?
davidhare wrote:2: Piety and all its ramifications dont really have a place in Hawks' canon. Anyway I always find piety nauseating and particularly so here. It doesnt suit him. Or Cooper.
Piety per se is not my dish either, although I do recognise it as the bedrock of much of American and Western culture, and I think that many of the values that comes with pietism are basically good. I can to a certain extent see what you mean by pietism not having a place in Hawks' work, and I think I understand what you mean by pietism not fitting Hawks or Cooper. On the other hand, I do not really feel that Hawks makes a strong case for pietism in this film; it is simply an ingrained part of the character of York and his development as a character. Again, I would like to understand better the objection to this aspect of the film. Why is this particularly nauseating to you in York?

Gregory, Davidhare, I hope these couple of posts of mine are not seen to be overly antagonistic on my part. I value your insights, and simply wish to understand your views better, as I so obviously had a very different experience of this film from both of you.
Last edited by Scharphedin2 on Mon Jan 22, 2007 3:28 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Gregory
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#25 Post by Gregory » Mon Jan 22, 2007 1:24 pm

HerrSchreck wrote:Who is clean enough to make a war film? I'd like an answer to that one?

There's no answer to this. I thought it was a rhetorical question the first time. I thought we were criticizing the ways the films was made, not war films as a whole or the worthiness of Hawks or the Americans as a whole to make them. There are plenty of great war films. If you're asking who gets to make a pro-war propaganda film, that leads right into a different discussion about war itself.
If the American effort in WW1 &2 were not justified, whose were?
Again, I think this isn't a crucial question to a criticism of SY -- even if the U.S. effort was 100% justified in both cases I don't think that takes away the reasons SY doesn't work. But I never come across anyone who can give any explanation of what WWI was all about that makes any real sense let alone why one side was justified. Such a thing would be odd and interesting to hear. WWII was a different story, of course, and not something I can try to do any justice to here. The decision to use one to rally support during the other is a subject in itself.
My point is that there is no moral sacrifice in kicking back, watching a piece of superentertaining fluff like YORK, snapping it off and say "Well, a lot of that was, as relates to The Real World Here On Earth, a bunch of bullshit-- but I still had a great time watching it." One is no worse for the wear. It's called watching a movie on downtime for pleasure. I don't mean to sound facetious but isn't this screamingly obvious? Do we hafta chuck THIEF OF BAGDHAD because the charm laid over Haroun Al Rashid-types in the Tales masks the bloody limb chopping reality of medieval life under Islamic sharia, beheadings for nothing, etc?
It may not be a moral sacrifice, but it's only one way of watching movies. I watch movies like that sometimes but there are a lot of ideological themes running through both the best and the worst film has to offer and would feel I were missing out if I didn't ever engage these aspects and learn from them. The point of it really is not judgment in the normal sense or condemnation. And of course we don't have to throw out Thief of Bagdad. It sits on my own shelf, and I can watch it in one of two ways, even simultaneously (even without holding contradictory ideas): as an aesthetic treat and as a companion to the book Orientalism. Sergeant York has some merits, too, but the aesthetic problems AND outright dumb notions the film tries weakly to convey make it one of the least impressive Hawks films I've seen. It is one of those bad or not-so-great films that we can learn a great deal from? Possibly but I'd have to see it again. Is it something that works as a pure escapist treat? Personally no, but that's just me.
These are pieces of entertainment. They really have no "social or moral responsibility". This is Hollywood, "lies at 24 fps" etc. This is the "anti-world", not life itself. This is where folks go to find a simpler world, sometimes those which evolved back when life seemed to be less ambiguous, when our villains truly were black and white, and where heroes kicked their asses.
That's what it is most of the time but it doesn't have to end there. And it doesn't have to be the real world or life itself to inform us. Think of it as anthropological or ethnographic: learning about a society through the stories it tells itself -- this can include the lies, to use your characterization. After all, the way of viewing film that I'm defending isn't really any different from literary criticism or art criticism when it comes down to it.
Those who seek their history from Hollywood features deserve to be deceived.
I see this as in some ways a separate discussion. Our society probably "deserves" to be deceived in a lot of ways, because our parents and teachers didn't raise us to be critical enough. It's easy to see, logically, why someone shouldn't be influenced by a piece of entertainment in a movie theater, but people aren't always logical that way, especially with subtle, propagandistic influences. A lot of these historical Hollywood films are taken into history classrooms as a straightforward part of a lesson plan and shown to kids who don't know any better. As a personal anecdote, when I was in 8th grade history, our entire unit on the Vietnam War consisted of watching John Wayne's The Green Berets. Not a word on the subject before the movie, not a word after (and even if there had been I can only imagine what BS it would have been). The vast majority of Americans never study history again after they get out of high school, so Schlindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, and the History Channel are what they get. But this is a tangent, sorry.
Scharphedin2 wrote:Gregory, Davidhare, I hope these couple of posts of mine are not seen to be overly antagonistic on my part. I value your insights, and simply wish to understand your views better, as I so obviously had a very different experience of this film from both of you.
Not at all. I valued the points you raised and agreed with a number of the main ones but didn't have time to respond.

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