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Catching Up with Godard (an interview)

From The Soho News, September 24-30, 1980. Their title (not mine) was “Bringing Godard Back Home”. This is the first of two interviews that I’ve had with Godard to date; the other one, 16 years later, can be found here. — J.R.

Jean-Luc Godard seems to be into transportation metaphors a lot nowadays. It’s been rumored that when Paul Schrader sidled up to him recently at a film festival and said, “I think you should know that I took something of yours from The Married Woman and put it in American Gigolo,” the Master coolly replied, “What’s important isn’t what you take — it’s where you take it to.”

Every Man for Himself, Godard’s first movie to open in America and show at the New York Film Festival in eight years, is first of all a vehicle designed to bring him back to us. It has all the ingredients that mainstream critics have been clamoring for: stars (Isabelle Huppert, Jacques Dutronc), clearly defined characters and plot, lush music, beautiful 35mm photography, flaky eroticism, humor. “I’m really making my landing on the earth of story,” Godard tells me at one point. “Like a plane.”

Can it be sheer coincidence that he seems to take up prostitution as a theme only when he’s working in 35mm? After a prostitute in his new film (Huppert) turns a trick with a character named Paul Godard (Dutronc), she’s mauled by some thugs, told and forced to repeat that no one is independent. This makes me think of Godard’s own predicament as a filmmaker – including the fact that most of his 70s movies are still unreleased here (although the five-year-old Numéro deux will be surfacing in a few months). It’s the first thing I ask him about after we climb into the back of a limousine taking us through late-afternoon traffic, from a midtown screening room to LaGuardia Airport.

JONATHAN ROSENBAUM: Does this parallel seem relevant to you?

JEAN-LUC GODARD: Yes, I think so. I didn’t think of that while working on the scene, but…independence is something you have to find inside yourself, too. Most filmmakers seem themselves as independent, or art as independent. Finance people think they’re independent from art! (Laughs.)   Art and economy are always related….Maybe I’m just approaching my real capacity to do a feature.

JR: I suppose that the previous film of yours that Every Man for Himself most reminds me of is 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her. But one thing that sharply distinguishes it from most of your earlier work is its rejection of Paris — the fact that it’s all set in your native Switzerland.

JLG: I was out of Paris 25 years ago, when I was writing for Cahiers du Cinéma. I remember a letter I wrote to my friends Truffaut and Rivette — around the time of the first Astruc film, when I was working on a dam. I remember complaining to them about their prejudice for the city movie. I’m not against cities — I’m against so big a city.

JR: Could you describe the programs that you’ve done for French TV?

JLG: About five years ago, there was a six-part series, About and Under Communication, 6 X 2. The first part of each program was an hour-long interview with someone in a steady [fixed] shot — a worker, mathematician, amateur filmmaker — and then another hour where we tried to do some research related to that. Than three years ago we did 12 half-hour programs, The Tour of France Told by Two Children, which were shown only last summer. In the middle of each was a 15-minute steady shot, speaking with a girl of eight and a boy of nine; the rest was introduction and commentary.

Right now I’m working on three projects together. I have a contract with the government of Mozambique to study television for them while they’re building it. They want comments about it — maybe a shot report, not with written words but with images. I’m doing A True Story of the Movies, which some Dutch people are financing, also a two-year project. Then I have a project in America with Zoetrope Studios, to make a script — but instead of writing it, shooting it. So when the executives ask, “Do you have a script?” I can say, “Yes,” and when they say, “May I read it?” I’ll say, “No — but you can see it.” We’ll have two masters, in video and 35mm. So if there’s no picture made after that, maybe we can show this on TV or sell it like a documentary. It’s called The Story. Why people need a story — it finally digs into that.

JR: Do you foresee making films with stories in order to make other films without stories?

JLG: I’m trying to mix the two together — to work for government, universities, or doctors. If it’s something done for the Mzambique government, maybe it can interest some UNESCO people or some other country – but obviously not Loews Theater. That was my problem: It took me almost 20 years to realize that films like Ici et ailleurs and Comment ça va shouldn’t be done for theaters but just for study, or for a certain category of people. And then it’s difficult, because sometimes these categories can’t afford the money. If you go the usual route, even the art-house route, you should have a proper way of doing it. If not, the resistance will be too strong. They’ll say, “This is not a movie.” Like the people in French TV who say, “This is not TV.” They don’t say it’s bad or worthless. The only censorship is aesthetic: “This is not the way a movie should be done.”

I live on the border. We’re Swiss people, we have a French company, and we want to keep it that way and live on the border. Our only enemies are the customs people, whether these are bankers or critics….People think of their bodies as territories. They think of their skin as the border, and that it’s no longer them once it’s outside the border. But a language is obviously made to cross borders. I’m someone whose real country is language, and whose territory is movies.

JR: There’s been a strong sense of your absence as a critic.

JLG: I want to go on with that, but with movies, not with pen and paper. Try to be a critic, not a regular reviewer. Sometimes I prefer teachers who do occasional pieces. It’s not possible to be a critic once a week.

JR: I find it impossible.

JLG: It is impossible. Even if you’re a genius, you can’t do it.

***

What else has Godard been doing lately? Giving lectures in Montreal on the history of film that have been transcribed and recently published in France. Producing the 300th issue of Cahiers du Cinéma, which contains letters to friends and acquaintances (“No one answered, not even friends – I don’t know why”), fragments of an interview, diverse collages of words and images.

Moving places. Interviewing Chantal Akerman for the magazine Ça. Inviting Jacques Tati to play a small part in Every Man for Himself. (He refused.) Inviting Marguerite Duras to play a small part. (She accepted, but insisted on remaining out of camera range, letting only her voice be heard.)

In short, trying to work with other people. (“I’m trying to do something with other directors whom I respect. I’m trying to learn my job, which I find impossible. It’s my problem, but I’m trying to say it’s our problem.”) trying to communicate: “If there was a true film magazine, it would help people to communicate the way that scientists do. That’s why science is so strong, whether it’s in the Pentagon or wherever. The Tokyo scientist is working with the San Francisco scientist; they send letters back and forth.”

***

JR: But today people seem less interested in films and more interested in filmmakers — the groupie syndrome.

JLG: Yes. But in France, that was mainly because we, the New Wave, said directors are so important. It was in order to have our right to exist as directors, because we weren’t authorized then. Now everyone thinks that directors are like God. Even if you say to a fellow director, “You’re better as a scriptwriter,” he feels puzzled, as though being a screenwriter is inferior. But I don’t think that. I think I’m not a very good screenwriter who can be a good director.

JR: Have you had any exposure to the Rocky Horror Picture Show cult?

JLG: No.

JR: It’s a teenage cult that sees this one movie hundreds of times, participating directly in a kind of ritual. What intrigues me is the way the audience uses the film as a means of communication — not the film itself communicating, but an audience communicating through a film.

JLG: It’s like certain images of traveling. Maybe I say that because I’ve been traveling a lot over the years. People like to think of themselves as stations or terminals, not as trains or planes between airports. I like to think of myself as an airplane, not an airport.

JR: So that people should use you to get certain places and then get off?

JLG: Yes. I’ll work much more on that in my next film. Maybe, if it has to be in a research picture, it’ll be a study, and I’ll take the best of that and use it in a real feature. Because it shouldn’t be put into a picture as I’ve done it here — I quite agree with that. There aren’t more changes of rhythm in the picture, that’s why they’re bad. Even silent pictures had tremendous changes of speed, and were never shown at the same speed they were shot. Today in any current picture the actors speak at the same speed that they speak on TV, where there is no risk. Images come just because of the spoken words: He has to say that, she has to say that, they have to say that. So they don’t look at what they’re shooting anymore, and they don’t listen to the sound. They just listen to the words and see if they correspond to the written words.

There’s much more story in a piece of music by John Coltrane or Patti Smith than in most films now. They lack a picture sometimes, but they’re doing a kind of screenwriting without a screen, without writing. And there’s much more than in regular movies. The way they work with sophisticated equipment -– I mean, maybe the camera, lab, and editing table are sophisticated, but in the in-between is so conservative!
The way they make records is much more bold than the way they shoot movies. They record at night when they feel like it. They do it in pieces, they do it again, they make changes –- they discover from listening what’s to be done. But in movies, the written script is obeyed like a law. It’s becoming stronger and stronger, because the pictures have changed into school now.
JR: How did you work with Gabriel Yared, the composer of the score for Every Man for Himself?
JLG: Unfortunately only after shooting, instead of at the same time or before. Next time  — since I know him now, and the experience was new to me -– it’ll be done better. And I’m trying to put pictures on a year’s schedule, working from time to time rather than continuously. I’m trying to work with some of the actors who know me now, maybe once again with Isabelle and with musicians — so we can set up a session and then meet again, say, a month later. The aim is to build the music together. I mean, Patti Smith and her piano player are working together more closely than I work with my cinematographer.

***

I’m thinking of the emphasis on music in Every Man for Himself, an American Zoetrope release “composed” by Godard (as the credits indicate). By now, we’ve pulled up at Air Canada, and Godard invites me into the terminal to see him off on his plane for Toronto.

I ask him how he likes Poto and Cabengo, made by his erstwhile collaborator Jean-Pierre Gorin. Very much, he says, adding that he and Gorin had both been very nervous about whether he would or not. He was particularly struck by a use of stop-frames paralleling his own, which he said neither of them discussed in advance.

He gets to see fewer films than he likes because of his small-town base, halfway between Lausanne and Geneva. He likes two recent Andrzej Wajda films a great deal: Man of Marble and one about divorce whose title escapes him — with a final scene like Kramer vs. Kramer, he says with a grin, but done the way that a real director would do it.

We speak briefly about Tati’s Playtime (”It’s a good movie”), as well as Tati’s illness and bankruptcy. I ask Godard about the scene he wanted Tati to appear in. While Paul Godard stands in front of a cinema showing City Lights, a man steps out, protesting, “There’s no more sound here!”

JR: Why did you include that detail?

JLG: I don’t know. I don’t like what I call empty shots, that are there just for screenwriting reasons. I think the sound is always awful in theaters, and the projectionist’s job is awful because they aren’t paid well. And I worked very carefully on the sound in this movie. If there isn’t something in the shot, you have to bring it. I can’t imagine how a lot of moviemakers are doing shots just to explain something in the story. No painter would ever paint an image, no musicians would ever record a sound, for such a reason. I’ll never show someone crossing a street so you’ll understand he’s going from one place to another. I’ll do it if I like the street, or because of the light, or because of something. If not, I won’t do it, I’ll cut it.

– The Soho News, September 24-30, 1980

Good as Gold?

From the Soho News (September 17, 1980). The owners of this newspaper at the time, if I’m not mistaken, were owners of South African gold mines, and I doubt that this article enhanced my job security — although I remained there as a freelancer for another 14 months, — J.R.

Next »

My Childhood
Written and Directed by Bill Douglas

My Ain Folk

Written and Directed by Bill Douglas

My Way Home

Written and Directed by Bill Douglas

The Gamekeeper

Written and Directed by Ken Loach

Based on the novel by Barry Hines

Bloody Kids

Written by Stephen Piliakoff

Directed by Stephen Frears

Long Shot

Written by Maurice Hatton, Eoin McCann and the cast

Directed by Maurice Hatton

Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession

Written by Yale Udoff

Directed by Nicolas Roeg

“British Film Now” – a package of nine programs (at the Paramount Theater on Broadway at 61^st) consisting of eleven features selected by Richard Roud, to be shown over six days preceding the 18^th New York Film Festival – is being presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the British Film Institute, with financial assistance from the British Council and the Cultural Department of the British Embassy, the British Film Producers Association, and Amcon Group Inc. – a Consolidated Gold Fields Group Company.

The latter is on e of the biggest gold mines in South Africa and, rightly or wrongly, I find it a bit difficult to shake entirely the image of South African workers slaving away at subpoverty wages so that culturally deprived New Yorkers can be exposed to british art movies, at the bargain rates of three bucks a ticket. Considering the trade-offs that legislate other aspects of what we do or don’t get to see from abroad, this is scarcely an isolated case of bizarre exchanges made on our mute behalf. But it’s one that nevertheless should be acknowledged, as part of a cultural context.

It would be misleading to imply that this context has played any role whatsoever in the selection of films. But it does seem worth pointing out that, to judge from the seven of the 11 features that I’ve seen (treating Bill Douglas’s trilogy as three films instead of one — as they are in fact, if not in programming), the choice is essentially safe and noncontroversial. There are no avant-garde films included, and no films that reflect the theoretical interests of such English film magazines as Screen, Screen Education, Afterimage or Framework, nor anything quite as eclectic as, say, Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo’s Winstanley.

Within these limitations, there are still plenty of movies worth seeing for one reason or another. At the top of such a list, I’d put Bill Douglas’s My Childhood (1972), the first and shortest film in his autobiographical trilogy, running only 48 minutes. At the grim bottom, I’d place the latest Nicolas Roeg film, Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession — an unfortunate piece of posturing that I’m afraid might turn out to be almost as popular as Jordache T-shirts, perhaps for related reasons.

Taking the last and worst first, let me go on record as being a onetime Roeg buff who still nurtures some fond memories of Fahrenheit 451 and Petulia (which he shot), Performance (which he codirected), and Walkabout (his first film as solo director) – not to mention some fleeting moments in The Man Who Fell to Earth (mainly ones involving David Bowie, TV sets, and Panavision-Bandaid compositions), and some even more fleeting ones in Don’t Look Now. And Bad Timing, to be just, offers an appealing performance by Theresa Russell – even if this happens to be in one of the silliest pieces of culture-vulturism since Woody Allen started pretending to depict intellectuals for the benefit and comfort of middle-brows with inferiority complexes (as in Interiors and Manhattan).

Part of this process –- also displayed in some of the slickest films by Joseph Losey (especially when he was aping Antonioni in the 60s) and in the sodden Brando sections of Apocalypse Now -– is the prominent display of gilt-edged (or guilt-edged) cultural items as reference points. A Godard, Snow, Rainer, or Rappaport can often play this sort of game with some wit – perhaps because they have nothing in particular to “prove” while an Antonioni at least has a structural point to make when he alludes to Tender is the Night in L’Avventura. But Roeg shovels in heavy-duty stuff about Gustav Klimt, the Viking Portable Blake, Harold Pinter, the Lescher Color Test, Billie Holiday, Freud, and Paul Bowles’ The Sheltering Sky like someone trying to prove he once went to college.

Admittedly, Klimt is probably a fair thematic cross-reference for the male relishing of female suffering (also implied in the Klimtian ads) that seem to lie at the heart of the film — a tradition that Ingmar and Woody, among others, have already done their utmost to authenticate. (At its tackiest, this strain can be felt in the jazzy cuts from the heroine’s sexual seizures to her surgical ones, and back again – for fun than a barrel of cries and whispers, with lots of gushing blood, too).

Then there’s the embarrassed presence of Art Garfunkel as an American “research psychoanalyist” in Vienna, saddled with a doppelganger detective (Harvey Keitel with an Eastern European accent) to clear up the matter of his beloved’s suicide. This conjures up a replay of the Sherlock Holmes plus Freud formula first broached by The 7 ½ Percent Solution and more recently explored by several recent American avant-garde films – summed up in Keitel’s weighty line, “Vot is detection eef not confession?”, which sounds even better if you twist it around. Indeed, the movie tries so strenuously to be up-to-date that it already seems at least 12 years old (the same sage as Je t’aime, je t’aime, which it also occasionally evokes).

As a pure expression of grief-stricken poetry, My Childhood is as memorable in a way as such Continental counterparts as Shoeshine, Germany Year Zero, and The 400 Blows. Conceivably more pared down and less sentimental than any of these, it also winds up being so elliptical in spots that one may have a little trouble getting all the characters and their warped relationships straight – a problem that recurs just as much in My Ain Folk, the immediate sequel. Set in the dreariest of impoverished Scottish mining villages in 1945, and shot in (you guessed it) grainy black and white, the film opens with the sound of air-raid sirens – a succinct introduction to evocative, economical uses of Sound and silence throughout the trilogy.

Concerned with the filmmaker’s horrifically brutal and loveless youth, My Childhood is a collection of highly subjective reminiscences (“Douglas includes only those moments that people remember forever,” Elizabeth Sussex has noted) without any detailed attempt at analysis. After having tried to plumb my own past subjectively and analytically on paper, I’ll admit I have some trouble with any realist aesthetic that suggests that the past is retrievable (or even “knowable”).

On the other hand the bracing poetry conveyed by some of Douglas’s sounds and images winds up meaning a lot more to me than any ontological assumptions he might have about them. A scene in which the hero’s cousin, after killing a cat out of desperate spite, rushes down to a railway bridge and is sprayed with steam from a passing train, his arms wildly extended like some ecstatic Christ, offers one of the few moments of genuinely lyrical emotional release that I can recall seeing in any movie this year.

It’s mainly in the two sequels (My Ain Folk, My Way Home) that the more prosaic limitations of the realism begin to become apparent. When the latter proceeds to follow the hero into the R.A.F. in Egypt in the 50s, the focus becomes at once too diffuse and too conventionally bildungsroman. But My Childhood — and parts, at least, of its successors – testify to an intense concentration of violent and oddly pastoral memories.

For all their acute differences, Ken Loach, Stephen Frears, and Maurice Hatton are all sufficiently post-Brechtian to situate their realist fantasies on a terrain where some form of social analysis is enacted. The Gamekeeper, Bloody Kids, and Long Shot all deserve some credit for the subtly didactic nature of their fictions, which succeed in teaching the spectator a fair amount about their respective subjects without any heavy strain or sweat.

The low-key strategies of Loach, for instance, include a division of The Gamekeeper into seasonal categories, each one accorded an explanatory chapter heading (e.g., “Spring – collecting and incubating the pheasant eggs”). A nicely acted TV film that takes its time, but is never half as dull as one feels it easily could be, it quietly etches out a critical portrait of a dutiful Yorkshire gamekeeper. The contradictions in his social position that gradually emerge – his fanatical concern for his boss’s property and domain, and the relatively uncertain grasp he maintains over his own (family and home included) – is neither forced nor strident, but lingers afterward like a slightly bitter aftertaste.

At the opposite end of the dynamic scale is Frears’ raucous saga of fugitive punks on the loose, Bloody Kids — another film made for England’s ATV Network. The two main kids in question are 11-year-olds, although one falls briefly under the protection of a creepy older hood (Gary Holton) who suggests a youthful Timothy Carey in spots. In fact, the relative solidarity of all the bloody kids here in contrast to the dumb adult world seems as polarized as the social world of The Wild One.

Shot by Chris Menges in bright, brittle primary colors and set in eerie contemporary locations (disco, shopping mall, a hospital clogged with surveillance equipment)), Bloody Kids exhibits a lot of the panache already shown in Frears’ former Gumshoe. More complexly than any other film treated here, it presents us with a definitive sketch of a futile, closed world of possibilities – one that makes the despairing, absurdist, quasi-suicidal gestures of its goof-off characters seem almost like the only reasonable game going.

Made on a shoestring, three rubber bands, and a paper clip – without even enough budget for a partridge in a pear tree – the likable and lightweight Long Shot is about trying to raise money for a film called Gulf and Western set in Aberdeen, a Scottish oil boom town. The movie never quite makes it to Abdedeen, but it does take in the Edinburgh Film Festival and London, before shooting off to Hollywood for a brief epilogue in color.

Wim Wenders, Susannah York, her agent, and John Boorman are among the characters enjoyably coerced into playing themselves. Stephen Frears turns up as a friendly outsider who finds the manufacture of biscuits no less problematical than cinema. There’s no doubt that the poverty of this movie has more charm than the production values of Bad Timing, even though it’s Hatton, not Roeg, who seems to do the most globetrotting. Prospective independent filmmakers in search of some gentle truths about their profession are advised to see the movie and stop wasting money on plane tickets, even if this might help to clean up the image of a South African gold mine.

• 

Half-Caste Agit-Prop [THE CHANT OF JIMMIE BLACKSMITH]

From The Soho News (September 3, 1980). –- J.R.

The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith

Written and directed by Fred Schepisi

Based on the novel by Thomas Keneally

For a good 80 percent or so of its running time, the experience of seeing The

Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith affords a salutary, beautiful shock. Films that are

even halfway honest about racism — Mandingo and Richard Pryor Live in Concert

are the most recent examples that spring to mind — are so unexpected that

they’re often accused of being racist themselves, perhaps because of the deeply

rooted taboos that they expose and violate.

There’s no question that Fred Schepisi’s powerhouse Australian movie — adapted

from a novel by Thomas Keneally (who plays a small but significant role as a

lecherous cook), and “based on real events that took place in Australia at the

turn of the century” (just before the federation of Australian colonies) – is agit

-prop, ideologically slanted. But then again, it’s hard to think of any other

current release — including, say, The Empire Strikes Back and Dressed

to Kill -– that isn’t.

The aforementioned hits perform in part the not-so-innocent task of turning

contemporary objects of confusion and disgust (recent architecture and sex,

respectively) into occasions for exhilarated lyricism. The Chant of Jimmie

Blacksmith, no less a feast for the eyes, intermittently succeeds in doing some of

The reverse. What all three films do in relation to the way we live is equally

political, whatever their apparent intentions.

Despite a soupy soundtrack score, which seems at times to have been

composed for a sluggish spectacle directed by J. Lee Thompson, and a relish for

beginning sequences with startling close-ups that far exceeds any practical dramatic

utility that device can have, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith is a stirring, often

ingenious piece of invective that deserves to be seen as widely as possible. It was

made two years ago, and, like a surprising number of other interesting foreign films

these days, has apparently circled the globe at least eight times before arriving in

up-to-date New York.

Meanwhile, it has been re-edited by writer-director Schepisi for the more fidgety

American market. (Perhaps significantly, he is currently at work on a film in

Hollywood.) From all the accounts that I’ve been privy to, however, the original

version — which also had a somewhat elliptical narrative — dragged in spots. The

present one doesn’t, although there is an expositional bump or two, and it appears

that the deleted 14 minutes are relatively negligible.

***

The title hero is a half-caste aborigine (forcefully played by Tommy Lewis), reared

and educated in a mission by Rev. Neville (Jack Thompson) and his wife Martha

(Julie Dawson) – charitable racists who decide to help him out simply because he’s

half-white. (As Martha points out to Jimmie, his grandchildren will be only one-

eighth black if he can marry a white woman. )

The film’s percussive pre-credits sequence – concentrating on the dynamic clash

between Jimmie’a aborigine culture and Christianity – economically establishes the

schizophrenia that dominates the film and its hero. When a friend whispered (apropos of Pauline Kael’s early gloss), “It’s not The Birth of a Nation, it’s The Wild Child,” I knew exactly what she meant.

Shot by Ian Baker in ravishing Panavision compositions that sometimes evoke

color photographs by Joel Meyerowitz (particularly those using door frames), the

early parts of the film chronicle Jimmie’s jobs in picaresque fashion. These

consist mainly of putting up fences for farmers, sheep-shearing, working in a

stable and tracking for the odious Constable Farrell (Ray Barrett), the scummiest

villain I’ve encountered in any film all year. The latter job ultimately entails

informing on a black man who is then sexually abused and murdered by Farrell,

while Jimmie tries not to listen. The hero is then ordered to bury his betrayed

friend and assist in the cover-up.

It’s around this point that Jimmie Blacksmith’s status and function in the film

become complex and interesting. Too complicitous by now in the evils of the

white world to qualify any longer as a simple, liberal victim in Schepisi’s crafty

dramaturgy, he nevertheless continues for some time to be the only plausible

identification figure. When, after suffering a great deal more intolerance and

provocation much later in the film (I’ve skipped a lot of the plot), he proceeds

to commit mass murder with the help of his Uncle Tabidgi (Steve Dodds), he

becomes a figure of extraordinarily ambiguous epic proportions — a Nat Turner

seen in Brechtian terms.

The only problem is, having performed this remarkable act of moral violence on the

spectator, Schepisi seems to have been at a loss about what to do next. As soon as

Jimmie becomes a fugitive outlaw (“I’ve declared war, that’s what I’ve done”), his half-

brother Mort (a purer aborigine appalled by Jimmie’s continuing violence, played by

the very expressive Freddy Reynolds) becomes the central identification figure –

a sort of pagan, pre-intellectual Pierrot le fou.

Then McCready (Peter Carroll), an asthmatic white schoolteacher taken along as

hostage by Jimmie and Mort, emerges briefly as the film’s moral spokesman,

especially when he addresses Jimmie about Mort: “He’s not really your brother, he’s

an aborigine. There’s still too much Christian in you. It’ll bugger him up, the way it’s

buggered you.”

But by this time, the narrative focus has become too diffuse. When the film finally

resumes its concentration on the title hero, he has turned into an allegorical and

mythical Christ figure, wounded and unconvincing – rather like James Mason at the

end of Odd Man Out.

The lapse is unfortunate, but far from lethal. The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith still

contains enough energy and insight and talent to warrant a look from anyone,

whatever its flaws. If Schepisi’s next film achieves even a fraction of what this one

sets out to do, it’ll clearly be something to watch.

Directions for Use

I am reprinting the entirety of my first and most ambitious book (Moving Places: A Life at the Movies, New York: Harper & Row, 1980) in its second edition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995) on this site in eleven installments. This is the eleventh and last.

Note: The following index to Moving Places: A Life at the Movies (1980) cannot be used here for its pagination in relation to this particular web site, but the links provided lead directly to the relevant passages online.

Another note: The book can be purchased on Amazon here, and accessed online in its entirety here. – J.R.

Directions for Use

An attempt to extend the usefulness and reduce the elitism of the standard index, in which the reader is enabled to trace certain connections and to discover or rediscover the traces of certain people, places, films, and other cultural artifacts, in motion and in circulation, whether cited or merely evoked in the text. A few supplementary bibliographical suggestions are also included.

A

Aaron, Judge Edward, 142 , 192

A Bout De Souffle. See Breathless

Academy Awards, 118 , 124

Advent screens, ix , 118 , 147 , 174

Advertising, x , 7 -8, 10 , 18 , 29 , 35 , 40 , 43 , 52 -53, 55 , 58 , 60 , 63 , 68 , 77 , 85 , 93 , 98 -99, 101 , 108-120 , 122 , 123 -124, 127 , 142 -143, 144 , 149 , 158 , 177 .

See also “The Carole Lombard in Macy’s Window,” by Charles Eckert, Quarterly Review of Film Studies , Winter 1978; and Decoding Advertisements , by Judith Williamson, Marion Boyars, 1978

An Affair to Remember , 142

Agee, James, xii , 164

Aguirre, Wrath of God , xvi

Air conditioning, 37 , 138 -139, 143 , 190 .

See also “The Growth of Movie Monopolies: The Case of Balaban and Katz,” by Douglas Gomery, Wide Angle , vol. 3, no. 1, 1979

Airport 1975 , 185

Al Capone , 131

Ali (Fear Eats the Soul) , 23

Alien , 188

All Ashore , 133

Allen, Woody, 175

Alphaville , 162 -164, 172

American Film , ix , xv , 124

Ames, Leon, 31 , 33 , 63 , 66

Anatomy of a Murder , 189

Anderson, Sherwood, xii

Anderson’s News (Florence, Alabama), 35 , 36 , 38 , 41 , 46 , 55 , 169

André (Bird of Paradise ), 15 , 18 , 19 , 24 , 118 , 156

L’Année Dernière à Marienbad , 183 , 188

Annie Get Your Gun , xiii , 31 , 36 , 79

Antonioni, Michelangelo, 132 , 183 , 188

Apocalypse Now , 148 -149

Aprà, Adriano, 145 , 146

April in Paris , 45

The Arabian Nights , 193

Archie Comics , 51 , 54

Arden, Eve, 47 , 185

Arlen, Michael, 184

Armstrong, Louis, 139

Astaire, Fred, 4

Astor Grill and Hotel (New York City), 189

Athena , 18 , 20 , 191

Athens, Alabama, 7 -9, 14 , 20 , 32

Atlanta, Georgia, 20 , 22 , 54 ,95, 98 , 123 , 133 , 140 -141, 153 , 166 , 172

At War with the Army , 24 , 82

Audience, 26 , 28 , 127 -130, 145 -158, 162 , 174 -175, 176 -177, 190 -191

Autry, Gene, 10 , 11 , 181

Avalanche Express , 176 -177

Avery, Tex, 82

L’Avventura , 132

B

Baby Doll , 140 -141, 143

Bacall, Lauren, 4 , 108

Baldwin, James, xii , xiv

Ballyhoo, 108 -112, 129 -130

Bambi , 178

Barbarella , 160 , 163

Bard College, xiv , 107 , 131 , 132 , 154 , 160 , 161 , 162 , 164 -165, 171 , 172 , 174 , 182

Barthes, Roland, xvi , 177 .

See also his ThePleasure of the Text , Hill & Wang, 1975

Bartholomew, Freddie, 178

Bazin, André, xi , 49 -50

Beckett, Samuel, 54 , 120

Behind the Rising Sun , 116 -118

Bellour, Raymond, x

Benching, 187 , 192

Bergman, Ingmar, 159 , 169 , 170

Berkeley, California, 88 , 97 , 116

Bertolucci, Bernardo, 15

Bicycle Thief , 125 -126

Biette, Jean-Claude, 107

The Big Carnival (Ace in the Hole) , 40

The Big Sleep , 170

Big Wednesday , 3

Billboards, 93 , 108 , 112 , 116 .

See also 99 , 117 ,

and The Tradition of the New , by Harold Rosenberg, Horizon Press, 1959

Bird of Paradise , x , xvi , 2 , 15 , 18 -20, 22 , 23 , 27 , 70 , 106 , 108 , 119 , 156 , 158 -160

The Birth of a Nation , 155 , 176

Bitter Rice , 20

Bitter Victory , 161

Black and Tan , 154

Bleecker Street Cinema (New York City), 97 , 160 , 162 , 167 , 187 , 188

Blood Alley , 108 .

See also “The Secret Integration,” by Thomas Pynchon, Saturday Evening Post , December 12-26, 1964

The Blue Angel (Der Blaue Angel) , 120

Bluecher, Heinrich, 171

Blue Star, Camp, 24 , 33 , 82

Bogart, Humphrey, 4 , 43

Bookholtz, Gussy (”Grandma”), 36 , 192

Bookholtz, Isador (”Izzie,” “Bo B.”), 192

Borges, Jorge Luis, 106

Brando, Marlon, 95 , 98 , 102 , 148 , 176 , 193

Breathless , 49 , 50 , 166

Brecht, Bertolt, 23

Bresson, Robert, 48 , 54 , 55 , 188

British Film Institute, 76 , 83 , 131 , 185 , 187

Brody, Meredith, 87 , 170

Brooks, Richard, 27 , 166 , 188 -192, 193

Brown, Dr. Harry, 105 , 165 , 166

Bunny, Bugs, 24 , 44 , 127

Buñuel, Luis, 23 , 165 .

See also Narrative

Burch, Noël, 186

Burroughs, William S., 187

Butler, W. L., 112 , 114 , 129

By the Light of the Silvery Moon , 32 , 76

C

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari , 105 , 164

Cahiers du Cinéma , 44 , 107 , 162 , 178

Callenbach, Ernest, xv

Camera movement, 19 , 20 , 40 , 45 , 50 , 58 , 71 , 75 -76, 102 , 105 , 163 , 164

Cannes Film Festival (France), 112

Cartoons, 12 , 15 , 19 , 20 , 22 , 23 , 42 , 44 , 47 , 56 , 68 , 82 , 124 , 127 , 133 , 143 , 153 -154, 159 , 178 , 192

Car Wash , 175

Cassavetes, John, 161 , 170

Castration, 75 , 90 -91, 98 , 142 , 189 , 191 , 192

Censorship, 126 , 140 -141

Chaplin, Charlie, 43 , 59 , 125 , 174

Chaplin, Geraldine, 107

Chase, Chevy, 172

Checking-up, 112-114 , 116 , 122 , 124 , 131 , 139

Chicago, 73 -74, 77 , 151 , 190

Christmas, 30 , 52 -53, 55 , 58 , 59 , 60 , 62 , 64 -65, 68 -69, 70 , 83 , 98 , 108 , 109 , 129 , 158 , 161 , 175

Christopher Street (New York City), 160 , 162 -163, 187

Cigarettes, 37 , 69 , 87 , 97 , 100, 164 -165, 192

Cimino, Michael, 118 , 177 , 184

CinemaScope, 54 , 95 , 98 , 100 , 102 , 114 , 123 , 124 , 126 , 130 , 160 , 191

Cinémathèque (Paris), 101 , 161 , 170 , 175

Circulation, 177 -178, 195 -202.

See alsoPlaytime and Tati

Citizen Kane , 40 , 51 , 166 , 181 -182, 191

City Drug (Florence, Alabama), 93 , 129 , 131 -132

Clarens, Carlos, 170

Claypool, Cora, 49 -52, 57 , 81 , 88 , 167 , 179 .

See also “Narrative Space,” by Stephen Heath, Screen , Autumn 1976

Close Encounters of the Third Kind , 27

Coburn, Charles, 85 , 120 -123, 157

Colbert Theatre (Sheffield, Alabama), 18 , 24 , 25 , 31 , 108-112 , 113 , 114 , 115 , 124 , 127 , 129 , 130 , 177

Comic books, 20 , 35 , 46 , 54-55 , 57 , 62 , 82 , 92 , 94 , 101 , 167

The Connection , 169 -170

The Connection , 170 , 171

Conquistador, xv -xvi, 28 -29, 44 , 51 , 52 , 63 , 72 -73, 75 , 81 , 82 , 88 , 91 , 96 , 101 , 102 , 107 , 112 -113, 139 , 144 , 153 -154, 166 , 167 , 178 , 179 , 181 -182, 183 , 186 , 191 .

See also Werner Herzog’s Aguirre, Wrath of God

Conrad, Joseph, 1 , 148

Coppola, Francis F., 148 -149, 150 , 177

Court Street (Florence, Alabama), 12 , 13 , 51 , 190 , 193

Crump Camera Shop (Florence, Alabama), 38-39 , 181

Curry, Tim, 130 , 151

D

Danner, Blythe, 172

Darby, David, 32 , 36 , 37 , 55 -56, 92 , 94 , 95 , 100 , 141 , 158 , 165 , 170

Dark Venture , 134 , 143

Daves, Delmer, 2 , 5 , 15 , 19 , 24

Davis, Miles, 171

Dawn of the Dead , 149

Day, Doris, 30 , 31 , 33 , 34 , 37 , 41 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 58 , 70 , 85 , 88 , 91 , 102 , 192

The Day the Earth Stood Still , 108

Dean, James, xii , 105 , 142 -143

Dean Street (London), 131 , 187

Death, 4 , 18 , 19 , 23 , 112 , 129 , 134 -139, 143 -144, 160 , 186 , 192 -193

DeCamp, Rosemary, 31 , 63 , 85

The Deer Hunter , 116 , 118 , 175

De Gregorio, Eduardo, 184 . . .

De Mille, Cecil B., 3 , 19 , 141 -142, 173

Destination Moon , 125 , 126

Le Diable Probablement , 54 , 55

Dial M for Murder , 95 , 97 , 98 ,

Dietrich, Marlene, 76 , 178

Disney, Walt, xii , 3 , 4 , 5 , 12 , 19 , 34 , 37 , 42 , 55 , 68 , 115 , 124 , 143 , 146 , 148 , 150 , 153 -154, 159 , 174 , 178 , 185 , 192 .

See also “Walt Disney,” Film Comment, January-February 1975

Disneyland, 1 , 3 , 4 , 34 , 37 , 55 , 148

Dixie cup, 42 , 59

Douglas, Wyoming, 10 , 155 -157, 177 , 179 -180

Dreyer, Carl, xii , 1 , 2 , 44 , 166 , 183

Driscoll, Bobby, 125 , 153

Dumbo , 12

Durgnat, Raymond, xii , 41 , 70 , 119

E

Earles, Harry, 32 , 119 -120

Eckert, Charles, xiii

L’Eclisse (Eclipse) , 132 , 183

The Eddie Duchin Story , 126

Ehrenstein, David, 119 , 183

8th Street Playhouse (New York City), 130 , 150 -152

Eisenstein, Sergei, 68 , 105 , 160 , 188

Eisner, Lotte H., 164

Elkins, Aston (”Elk”), x , 108 -112, 113 , 114 , 115 , 121 , 129

Elmer Gantry , 166 , 190

Excuse My Dust , 81 , 143

Expressionism, 105 , 163 -164

F

Fair and Muddy , 7 , 15

Fantasia , 124 , 159

Fassbinder, Rainer Werner, 23

Father Knows Best , 34 , 63

Faulkner, William, xii , 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 141 , 159 , 160

5th Avenue Cinema (New York City), 159 , 169 , 188

Film Comment , 112 , 119 , 184 -186

Finn, Huck, 31 , 125 , 153

Fireside, Carolyn, 116 , 155

The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T , 56 -57, 82

Flitterman, Sandy, 49 , 88 , 90 -91, 97 , 124 , 164 , 174 , 176 , 191 , 192 , 193

Follow that Dream , 193

Forbes, Jill, 175

Forbidden Planet , 159

Ford, John, 3 , 116 , 143 , 169 , 187

Freaks , 15 , 31 -32, 106-107 , 114 , 119 -120

From Here to Eternity , 95

Fuller, Samuel, 50 , 143

G

Gardner, Ava, 118 -119, 120

Gass, William, xii

Gem Theater (Milburn, Indiana), 59 , 61

Geng, Veronica, xv

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes , 120 -123, 142

George Winfield house, 30 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 53 , 64 -65, 70 , 79 , 88 , 89 -90

Gertrud , 1 -2, 44 , 183

Giant , 114 , 141

God, 18 -19, 27 , 38 , 40 , 45 , 96 , 100 , 159 , 160 , 185 , 190

Godard, Jean-Luc, xvi , 15 , 45 , 50 , 161 , 162 -164, 166 , 172

Goldin, Marilyn, 14 -15

The Great Caruso , 27 , 125

Greenbaum, Connie, 101

Greenspun, Roger, 97

Greenwich Village, 69 -70, 102 , 151 , 159 , 160 , 171 , 187 -188

Griffith, D. W., 153 , 155 , 170 , 176 , 178

H

Harlem (New York City), 165 , 170

Harper & Row, xi , xiii , 49 , 96 , 97 , 176

Harvey, Stephen, xv

Hashish, 155 , 191

Hawks, Howard, 4 , 43 , 116 , 120 -123

Herr, Michael, x

Highlander Folk School, 165 -169, 170 , 172

High Noon , 139 , 165

Hitchcock, Alfred, 43 , 95 , 97 , 98 , 100 -101, 102 , 139 , 143 , 159 , 165 , 175 , 176

Hoberman, J., xv

Hoboken, New Jersey, 51 , 95 , 101 , 102 , 157 , 164 , 175 -177

Hoboken Cinema 1 , 176 -177, 190

Houston, Penelope, 131 , 188

Huillet, Danièle, 187

I

Illusionism, xv , 3 -5, 15 , 28 -29, 51 , 69 , 126 , 161 -162, 174 , 187 , 191

In a Lonely Place , 24 , 43

Das Indische Grabmal (The Indian Tomb) , 20 , 185 -186

It’s a Big Country , 132 -133, 143

It’s in the Bag , 82

Ivan the Terrible (Parts I & II) , 105 , 160 , 163

J

J., 2 , 3 , 5 , 55

James, Jesse, 10 , 15 , 35

Jazz, xi , 3 , 5 , 24 , 125 , 139 , 142 , 152 , 154 , 159 , 160 , 169 , 170 , 171 , 172 , 178 , 181 .

See also (and hear) André Hodeir

Jim Crow laws, 8 , 24 , 26 , 38 , 121 -122, 139 , 146 , 164 -165, 168 , 181

Johnson, Elmo Benner, 24 , 127 , 134 -139, 141 , 142 , 143 -144

Jones, Spike, 46 , 82

Joyce, James, xiv

Judaism, 15 , 18 , 19 , 23 , 24 , 27 , 32 , 33 , 43 , 82 , 159 , 160 , 167 , 179 , 187 , 189 , 192 , 193

Jules and Jim (Jules Et Jim) , 161

Julie , 102 , 139

K

Kael, Pauline, 182 -183, 188

Kalua (Bird of Paradise ), 15 , 18 , 19 , 24 , 108 , 119 , 159

Kazan, Elia, 95 , 97 , 98 , 101 , 102 , 105 , 140 -141, 165 , 166 , 175 -177, 188 -189.

See also entry in Cinema: A Critical Dictionary, vol. 1, ed. Richard Roud, Viking, 1980

Keel, Howard, 36 , 98

Kelly, Grace, 97 , 98 , 100 , 102

The Kid , 59 , 125

Kilby Training School (Florence, Alabama), 30 , 31 , 45 -47, 94

King, Martin Luther, Jr., 165 , 173

King Kong , 27 , 54

Klibanoff family, 121 , 123

Korean War, 24 , 74 , 192

Kracauer, Siegfried, 164

Kubrick, Stanley, 131 , 139 , 163

Ku Klux Klan, 68 , 142 , 192

L

Lacan, Jacques, 38

Lang, Fritz, xii , 20 , 22 , 101 , 185 -186, 187

LaRue, Lash, 119 , 181

Last Year at Marienbad . See L’Année Dernière à Marienbad

Lauderdale County Court House (Florence, Alabama), 51 , 146 , 193

Leigh, Janet, 132 -133, 142

Lelyveld family, xiv , 32 , 125

Lewis, Jerry, 54 , 82 , 160 , 175

Life , 82 , 98

Life with Father , 34 , 63

Light in August , xii , xiv , 1 , 159

Lili , 67 -68

Little Carnegie (New York City), 183 , 188

The Little Hut , 118 -119, 120 , 141

Little Rock, Arkansas, 142 , 153 , 179 -180

Lobbies, 8 , 24 , 31 , 43 , 114 , 115, 127 -129 , 151 , 190

London, England, xi , xiii , 3 , 20 , 23 , 55 , 76 , 131 , 150 , 155 , 161 , 178 , 182 , 183 , 184 , 185 -186, 187

The Long, Hot Summer , 1 , 3

Look for the Silver Lining , 85

Looking for Mr. Goodbar , 27 , 190

Lord Love a Duck , 124

Los Angeles, 3 , 4 , 49 , 53 , 62 , 70 , 87 -88, 119 , 174 , 185

Los Angeles County Museum, 3 , 4 , 185

Love Me Tender , 129 -130, 143

LSD, x , 155 -157, 160 -161

Lublin, Poland, 155 , 178 , 179

Lust for Life , 139 , 166

M

Macdonald, Dwight, 166

MacRae, Gordon, 30 , 31 , 35 -36, 37 , 58 , 70 , 71 , 88 , 91 , 155 , 192

Mad Comics , 54 , 57 , 82 , 101

The Magician , 159 , 169

The Magnificent Ambersons , 37 , 49 -50

Majestic Theatre (Florence, Alabama), 10 , 12 , 13 , 15 , 27 , 32 , 107 , 127

Malden, Karl, 95 , 140 -141, 176 , 191

Maltin, Leonard, 2 , 94

The Man from PlanetX , 83

Manhattan. See New York City

Mankiewicz, Herman J., 3 , 40 , 51 , 166 , 181

Mans, Lorenzo, 44 , 162 -163 . . .

The March of Time , 24 , 174

Marihuana, x , 37 , 53 , 158 , 160 , 162 -163, 171 , 173 , 191

Martin Theaters, 14 , 43 , 164 , 190

Marvel, Captain, 35 , 41 , 45

Mazarine, rue de (Paris), 155 , 161

McCarten, John, 101 -102, 175 , 188

McCarthy, Todd, xv

McLaren, Norman, 125 , 159

McMillan Theater (New York City), 182 , 193

Meatballs , 146 , 147

Meet Me In St. Louis , 34

Memory. See Nostalgia

Merman, Cynthia, xi , xii , xiii , 96 , 97

MGM, xiii , 3 , 20 , 31 , 36 , 81 , 101 , 119 , 120 , 123 , 132 , 158 , 191

Michelson, Annette, 163

Milburn, Indiana, 30 , 34 , 56 , 76 , 179

Milburn railroad station, 64 , 75 -77, 79 , 85

Milne, Tom, xv , 131

Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 49 , 88

Minafer, Charles, 37 , 49 -50

Mingus, Charles, 170 , 171

Misogyny, xvi , 34 , 36 -37, 49 -52, 53 -54, 57 , 67 , 71-74 , 76 -79, 81 -82, 83 , 90 -91 , 98 , 100 , 113 , 116 -119, 130 , 131 , 141 , 149 , 161 , 190 , 191 , 192 .

See also Racism

Mitchum, Robert, 100 , 108 , 116 , 166

Mobile Street (Florence, Alabama), 13 , 35 , 38 ,39 , 62 , 138

Monroe, Marilyn, 22 , 100 , 120 -123, 143

Montgomery, Alabama, 165 , 172 -174, 176

Monthly Film Bulletin , 83 , 131 , 184 , 187

Moonfleet , 185 , 186

Moonlight Bay, 30 , 32 -33, 37 , 45 , 70

Morphing, xi

Moses, 19 , 27 , 141 -142

Motion Picture Almanac , 116 , 131

Motion Picture Herald , 74 , 84

Moullet, Luc, 3 .

See also “À la Recherche de Luc Moullet,” Film Comment , November-December 1977

Mouse, Mickey, 124 , 192

Mouse, Mighty, 15 , 20 , 64 , 158

Murnau, F. W., 19 , 163 -164, 172 , 182 -183

Muscle Shoals City, Alabama, 24 , 114

Muscle Shoals Theatres, 7 , 10 , 12 , 22 , 94 , 108

Museum of Modern Art (New York City), 18 , 59 , 116 , 125 , 163 , 176 , 188

Musicals, xiii , 20 , 31 , 40 , 44 -45 , 53 , 68 -69, 82 , 120 -123, 129 -130, 150 -152, 170 , 181 , 188

Muzak, 45 , 51 , 108 , 119 , 149 , 184 , 185

My Sister Eileen , 159 , 160

N

Narrative, xv , 28 -29, 44 -45, 48 , 51 , 73 -74, 91 , 102 , 113 , 119 , 145 , 185 .

See also “Interruption as Style” (on Buñuel), Sight and Sound , Winter 1972-1973; and “Obscure Objects of Desire” (on nonnarrative), Film Comment , July-August 1978

The Narrow Margin , 124

National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), xi -xii

Never On Sunday , 68 , 92

Newman, Paul, 188 -192

New York, New York , 3 , 5

New York City, xvi , 10 , 14 , 18 , 36 , 49 , 55 , 58 , 59 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 66 , 69 , 70 , 75 , 90 , 92 , 93 -102, 116 , 120 , 125 -126, 133 , 145 , 148 , 150 , 151 , 159 , 160 , 162 -163, 164 , 166 , 167 , 169 , 170 , 171 , 172 , 176 , 182 , 187 -189, 191 , 192 , 193

The New Yorker , 101 , 175 , 184 , 188 .

See also The Putney School New York Film Festival, 54 , 161 , 162

New York University. See NYU

The Next Voice You Hear , 24 , 125 .

See also God

A Night At The Opera , 82

The Night Of The Hunter , 165 , 166

North Little Rock, Arkansas, 10 , 153 , 180

North Wood Avenue (Florence, Alabama), 80 , 94 , 134 , 193

Norwood Theater (Florence, Alabama), 23 , 123 , 142 , 161 , 169

Nostalgia, 2 -3, 4 , 19 , 23 , 48 , 89 , 118 , 171 , 177 .

See also The Mind of a Mnemonist , by A. R. Luria, Basic Books, 1980

La Notte , 132 , 188

NYU (New York University), xiv , 131 , 160 , 169 , 170 , 182 , 187 , 188 , 193

O

Oakley, Annie, 12 , 31 , 36

O’Brien, Geoffrey, xiv

Oedipus Rex , 27 , 125 .

See also Barthes O’Neal Bridge (Florence and Sheffield, Alabama), 19 , 113 , 135

One A.M. , 59 , 125

On Moonlight Bay , xvi , 18 , 30 -92, 106 , 153 , 155 , 156 , 167 , 179 , 192

On The Waterfront , 95 , 97 , 98 , 101 -102, 107 , 165 , 167 , 174 , 175 -176, 193

Out 1: Spectre , 184 -185

Oz, 31 , 57 , 64

P

Pacific Palisades, California, 84 , 87 -88

Page, Geraldine, 188 -192

Paget, Debra, 2 , 15 , 20 , 119 , 130 , 186

Paramount Pictures, 19 , 98 , 100 , 106 , 123

Paris, France, 14 -15, 45 -46, 55 , 101 , 112 , 116 , 150 , 154 , 155 -157, 161 , 162 , 170 , 175 , 178 , 181 -184, 189

Park-Vue/Marboro Drive-In (Muscle Shoals City, Alabama), 112 , 114 , 120 -123

Patterson, Patricia, 18 , 20 , 176

Pavlov, Ivan Petrovich, 2 , 48 , 187

Payne Whitney Hospital (New York City), 93 , 95 -97, 101 , 106 , 120 , 189

Penrod , 30 , 31 , 33 -34, 47 , 50 , 52 , 81 , 90

Peyote, x , 18 , 158 -159, 161 , 177

Phantom of the Opera, 20 , 128 .

See also Rivette

The Phenix City Story , 107 , 174 , 176

Pilgrimage, 1 , 2 , 3 , 97

Plato, xii , 156 , 186 , 190

Playboy , 118 , 148 , 149

Playtime , 149 -150, 155 -158, 176 , 183 -184, 186 .

See also Circulation

Popcorn, 34 , 43 , 59 , 113 , 122 , 127 -128, 160

Preminger, Otto, 31 , 39 , 140 , 187 , 189

Presley, Elvis, 2 , 5 , 129 -130, 141 , 142 , 193

Previews. See Trailers

Princess/Cinema Theatre (Florence, Alabama), 10 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 24 , 26 , 31 , 42 , 43 , 59 , 83 , 100 , 116 , 119 , 123 , 125 , 127 , 128 , 131 , 132 , 134 -139, 141 , 143 , 153 , 158 , 169 , 170 , 180-181

Princess Theater (Douglas, Wyoming), 10 , 155 -157, 177

Princess Theater (North Little Rock, Arkansas), 10 , 180

Psychoanalysis, 2 , 15 , 18 , 27 , 38 , 48 -51, 59 -60, 72 -73, 75 , 77 -78, 88 , 90 -91, 93 -107, 119 , 120 , 131 , 133 , 135 -139, 143 -144, 153 -154, 175 , 177 , 185 -186

The Putney School, 105 -106, 132 , 154 , 158 -159, 164 -165, 168 , 169 , 170 , 181 , 183 , 189 .

See also “E. B. White and The New Yorker ,” The Immediate Experience , by Robert Warshow, Doubleday, 1962

Pynchon, Thomas, xiii

R

Racism, 19 , 23 , 116 -118, 165 -166, 167 -170, 171 -172, 175 .

See also Jim Crow laws; The Devil Finds Work , by James Baldwin, Dial Press, 1976; and “The Power & the Gory” (on Taxi Driver), by Patricia Patterson and Manny Farber, Film Comment , May-June 1976

Radio, 19 , 22 , 46 , 112 -113

Radio City Music Hall (New York City), 85 , 95 , 125

Rainer, Yvonne, 45 , 175

Ray, Nicholas, 43 , 123 , 161 , 182 -183.

See also “Circle of Pain,” Sight and Sound , Autumn 1973

Rear Window , 95 , 97 , 98 , 100 , 102 , 159 , 175 , 176

Reggie Comics , 54 , 55

Remus, Uncle, 153 -154, 186

Resnais, Alain, 45 , 105 , 183 , 188

Reverse angle, 69 -70, 71 , 77 , 97 , 102 , 103 , 127 , 134 , 174 , 188 .

See also Godard’s Numero Deux

Rhapsody , 94

Richard Pryor Live In Concert , 175

Rickey, Carrie, 84 , 87

Riefenstahl, Leni, 5 , 19

Ritz Theatre (Athens, Alabama), 7 -10, 14 , 20

Ritz Theatre (Sheffield, Alabama), 2 , 10 , 12 , 27 , 141

Riverview Drive (Florence, Alabama), 10 , 98 , 103

Rivette, Jacques, 97 , 153 , 184 -185, 188 .

See also Rivette: Texts and Interviews , British Film Institute, 1977

RKO, 4 , 100 , 161

The Rocky Horror Picture Show , 130 , 150 -152, 177 -178.

See alsoFreaks

The Rocky Horror Show , 150 -151

Roman, Ruth, 22 , 161

Rosenbaum, Alvin Robert, 12 , 15 , 23 , 31 , 32 , 64 , 67 -68, 78 , 92 , 93 -95, 97 , 107 , 121 , 125 , 129 , 132 , 141 , 168 , 169 , 172 , 192 , 193

Rosenbaum, Anna Block (”Grandma”), 10 , 80 , 94 , 97 , 120 -121, 139 , 153 , 174 , 180 , 189 , 193

Rosenbaum, David Hillel, 12 , 15 , 18 , 23 , 24 , 27 , 31 , 32 , 54 , 55 -56, 64 , 67 -68, 75 , 81 , 93 , 94 , 95 , 97 , 107 , 120 , 121 , 122 , 123 , 125 , 139 , 141 , 192 , 193

Rosenbaum, Louis (”Bo”), 2 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 14 , 24 , 31 , 34 , 35 , 37 , 38 , 43 , 62 , 80 , 83 , 85 , 93 , 94 , 96 , 101 , 112 -113, 116 , 120 -121, 122 , 123 , 124 , 127 , 131 , 136 , 137 -138, 140 , 145 , 154 , 155 -157, 160 , 165 , 170 , 174 , 178-180,185 , 187 , 188-193

Rosenbaum, Michael Joseph, 12 , 23 , 31 , 32 , 67 -68, 93 -95, 96-97 , 121 , 122 -123, 129 , 141 , 155 , 160-161 , 192 , 193

Rosenbaum, Mildred Ruth Bookholtz (”Mimi,” “Mommy”), 10 , 18 , 31 , 32 , 54 , 56 , 64 , 67 , 82 , 93 -107, 112 , 113 , 114 , 120 -123, 129 , 136 , 139 , 145 , 153 -154, 160 , 180

Rosenbaum, Stanley (”Daddy”), xiv , 10 , 14 , 18 , 20 , 22 , 24 , 27 , 31 , 32 , 35 , 37 , 38 , 45 , 46 , 54 , 57 , 62 , 64 , 67 , 82 -83, 84 , 120-126 , 128 -129, 131 , 133 , 135 , 136 , 137 , 139 , 140-141,142 -143 , 145 , 153 , 154 , 155 , 158 , 160 , 161 , 165 , 168 , 169 , 180 , 181 , 190

Rosenbaum Theatres, ix , x , xv , 12 , 43 , 96 , 115 , 131 , 136 , 190

Rosenberg family (Ethel, Julius, and Sons), 67 , 101

Roszak, Theodore, xiv

Rothstein, Arnold, 12 , 13

Roud, Richard, 182 , 184

Ruby Gentry , 20

Rudolph, Alan, 4 -5, 107

Russell, Jane, 120 -123

Russell, Ron, 15 , 18 , 19 , 27 , 114 , 121 , 128 -129, 130

S

Saint, Eva Marie, 97 , 98 , 102 , 176 , 193

Sakall, S. Z. (”Cuddles”), 85 , 132

Salinger, J. D, xii

Sarandon, Susan, 130

Sarris, Andrew, 97 , 182 -183, 186

Schmidt, Paul, xi

Schneible, Helen, 34 , 45 , 46 , 79

Schulberg, Budd, 95 , 97 , 98 , 101 , 102

Schuler, Mickey, 175

Schwartz, Delmore, xiii

Science fiction, 83 , 125 -126, 150 , 159 , 160 , 162 -163, 177

Screen , x , xii , 38

Seberg, Jean, 50 , 84

Segregation. See Jim Crow laws; Racism

Seminary Street (Florence, Alabama), 38 39 , 93 , 129 , 131 , 134

Serials, 10 , 27 , 59 , 116 , 127 , 158

Seven Brides For Seven Brothers , 95 , 97 , 98 , 101 , 102

The Seventh Victim , 159 , 176

Sheffield, Alabama, 2 , 10 , 12 , 19 , 23 , 24 , 27 , 82 , 105 , 108 -112, 113 -116, 130 , 134 , 139 , 141 , 177 , 193

Sheffield railroad station, 82 , 146 , 193

Shklovsky, Viktor, xii , 186 .

See also his Zoo or Letters About Love , Cornell University Press, 1971

Shoals Theatre (Florence, Alabama), 12 , 19 , 20 , 24 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 37 -38, 39 , 40 , 43 , 45 , 46 , 56 , 57 , 60 , 63 , 65 , 68 , 70 , 78 , 91 , 94 , 105 , 108 , 112 , 114 , 116 , 119 , 120 , 121 , 124 , 126 , 127-129 , 130 , 131 , 133 , 139 , 141 , 142 , 143 , 146 , 147 , 174 , 175 , 185 , 188 -193

Shoeshine (Sciuscia) , 166 -167

Shopping malls, 23 , 43 -44, 55 , 146 -149, 178

Sight and Sound , xv , 131 , 163 -164, 177 -178, 184 , 188

Sirk, Douglas, 22 -23, 141

Skelton, Red, 69 , 81 , 125

Skipalong Rosenbloom , 82 -83

Snow, Michael, 187 .

See also “Edinburgh Encounters,” Sight and Sound, Winter 1975-1976

SoHo (New York City), 69 , 120 , 126 , 164

Song Of The South , 153 -154, 186

Sottery Hall (Bard College), 107 , 160 , 182

Spielberg, Steven, xv , 27 , 177

Stafford, Tom, 127 , 179 -180, 131-132 , 137 -138, 193

Stanley Rosenbaum house, 10 , 12 , 19 , 27 , 31 , 42 , 96 , 102-105 , 107 , 112 .

See also The Natural House, by Frank Lloyd Wright, Horizon Press, 1954

Star Wars , 52 , 175

Steiger, Rod, 131 , 193

Stein, Elliot, xiii , 120

Steiner, Max, 45 , 53 , 89

Sternberg, Josef von, 23 , 76 , 120 , 142

Stewart, Bobby, x , 38 , 108 , 112 , 127 , 128 , 129 , 131 , 135 -139

Stone, Oliver, xv

Stony Brook. See SUNY at Stony Brook

Straub, Jean-Marie, 186 , 187

Sturges, Preston, 24 , 143 , 192 .

See also Negative Space , by Manny Farber, Praeger, 1971

Sunrise , 163 , 172 , 182 , 183 , 193

The Sun Shines Bright , 169 , 187

SUNY at Stony Brook (Long Island), xiv , 154 , 162

Surprise Night, 31 , 101 , 112

Sutton, Beulah, x , 20 , 38 , 131 , 133 , 139

Sweet Bird of Youth , 188 -189

Sweet Bird of Youth , 188 -193

T

Take One , 116 , 124 , 175

Tarkington, Booth, 30 , 31 , 33 , 34 , 37 , 43 , 50 , 52 .

See also his Seventeen

Tashlin, Frank, 82 -83, 110 , 139 , 142

Tati, Jacques, 126 , 149 -150, 155 -158, 175 , 176 , 183 -184, 188 .

See also “Tati’s Democracy,” Film Comment , May-June 1973

Tattling, 75 , 78 , 167

Taylor, Elizabeth, 77 , 94

Technicolor, 15 , 39 , 41 , 85 , 100 , 119 , 126

Temple B’nai Israel (Sheffield and Florence, Alabama), 23 , 43 , 46 , 71 , 82 , 108

Tennessee Street (Florence, Alabama), 16 , 17 , 93 , 131 , 134 , 142

Terminator 2: Judgment Day , xi

Thalia Theater (New York City), 100 , 133 , 183

Thanksgiving, 123 , 129 , 171 , 192

That Lady in Ermine , 31 , 39

Theatre 80 (New York City), 107 , 120 , 191

Thompson, James, 121 , 122

Thomson, David, xiv

3-D, 56 -57, 94 , 98 , 100

Der Tiger Von Eschnapur , 20 , 185 -186

Time , 116 , 125 , 148

Times Square (New York City), 56 , 101 , 125 , 158 , 160 , 170 , 189

Titles, 119 , 127 , 134 , 143 -144

To Have and Have Not , 2 , 4 , 170

Track of the Cat , 116

Tracy, Spencer, 77

Trailers, 15 , 29 , 114 -115, 127 , 133

Truffaut, François, 187 , 188

Tuscumbia, Alabama, 10 , 108 , 112 , 113 , 114

Tuscumbian Theatre, 112 , 113 , 114 , 124 , 127 , 129 , 143

TV, ix , 15 , 20 , 22 , 24 , 33 , 37 , 43 , 44 , 45 ,

52 -53, 63 , 83 , 88 , 92 , 106 , 112 -113, 118 , 124 , 133 , 142 , 147 , 161 , 162 -163, 173-174

TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority), 24 , 38 , 114

Twentieth Century-Fox, 15 , 52 , 54 , 120 -123, 160

U

University of California, San Diego, xi , 54 -55, 58 , 150

University of Indiana, 30 , 36 -37, 42 , 43 , 47 , 64 , 69 , 70 -74, 155

University of North Alabama/Florence State College, 14 , 161 , 169 , 190

V

VCRs, ix -x, xiii

Vidor, King, 10 , 18 , 20

Vietnam, xv , 55 , 58 , 116 , 117 , 148 -149

Vista Vision, 98 , 100 , 106 , 123

W

Wait ‘Til the Sun Shines Nellie , 73 -74

Wallace, George, 173 , 193

Warner Brothers, 30 , 34 , 40 , 41 , 45 , 70 , 81 , 91 , 123

Washington, D.C., 49 , 64 , 67 , 108 , 192

Wayne, John, 108 , 116 , 142

Welles, Orson, xi , xv , 1 , 37 , 40 , 49 -51, 105 , 127 , 156 , 181 -182

Westerns, 10 , 11 , 27 , 82 -83, 113 , 133 , 158

The West Point Story , 24 ,31

Williams, Esther, 3 , 19 , 69 , 85 , 94

Williams, Tennessee, 1 , 140 -141, 188 -192

Wood, Michael, xv

World’s Fair, 35 , 179 , 180

World War I, 30 , 63 , 72 , 73 , 74 , 90 , 91 , 181

World War II, 4 , 116 -118, 138 -139

Wright, Frank Lloyd, 10 , 19 , 102-105 , 107 , 160

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