My Film Reeducation Blog — Corn Wagon Thunder
In my late teens and twenties, there were films that proved instrumental in shaping the way I think about the world - or at least reinforced my world view. Twenty plus years later, I am interested in revisiting these films and discovering ones that I missed back then, or slept through, or was too dr
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Corn Wagon Thunder
When I was very young my family had a beloved pet dog named Thunder. He was a collie and apparently had nine lives like a cat. He loved to chase cars and was run over several times resulting in lots of shed tears and large vet bills, but he always survived. Ultimately, it was heart worms that would take poor Thunder down. The whole family gathered round as he passed-on one sad dark January day. We lived in the country and buried our deceased pets on the land. Most were unceremoniously buried in the woods far from the house. We’d put a big rock on top of the shallow grave to keep other animals from digging them up and that was that. Thunder was different. He was such a beloved part of the family that he was laid to rest in a place of honor under a lovely tree in the back yard. It was unusually cold the morning that my father went out to dig the grave. The ground was cold and hard and Poppy was breathing hard from his efforts. By the time the grave was dug, his beard and mustache were covered in tiny icicles from the condensation of his exhaled breath and his cheeks were bright red. He looked transformed by the experience.

I came across Errol Morris’ documentary film Gates of Heaven which is about a pet cemetery in Southern California while looking at a list compiled by Roger Ebert in 1991 called “The Ten Greatest Films of All Time”. Ebert’s blurb about the film ends like this “in the extraordinary centerpiece of the film, there is the old woman Florence Rasmussen, sitting in the doorway of her home, delivering a spontaneous monolog that Faulkner would have killed to have written.” How could I not be intrigued? I didn’t even add it to my “to watch” list, I just watched it right then and there. Afterall, Ebert admitted to viewing it more than thirty times without ever getting to the bottom of it so I had better not waste any time.

Even though the film is forty-five years old, and the pet industry/culture has grown so exponentially since then that you’d think it would be irrelevent, this was a fascinating film about life and the complexities of existence. The tableaux alone are worth the price of admission, but I love how Morris just lets people talk and reveal themselves. The most profound philosophy often comes from ordinary people who take time to contemplate the irony and mystery they find in their life and to make their own sense of it. There’s a little touch of the blues in there. And like good literature, this film is timeless.

I recommend watching this effervescent review from Siskel & Ebert on YouTube: https://youtu.be/GqWTjtd0ZwU?si=U_jODbGHP7eRCUNT&t=363\

I come from a superstitious Southern family. I remember my grandma Ona just about fainting anytime one of us kids put a dining chair on one leg — she thought for sure that we were doomed to bad luck for the rest of our days. I still don’t really understand that one. My mother absolutely adored cats, however, if a black cat crossed her path while she was driving, she would mark an X on the left side of the windshield with her right hand. This was to ward off any bad luck or evil that said cat portended. I find myself compelled to perform the same action to this day even though I’m more apt to think that a black cat (or any cat for that matter) sighting is a good thing.

Our notion that cats are evil or at least supernatural goes way back. Christians in the Middle Ages thought that cats were agents of Satan, witches in disguise, or just plain evil. In Japanese folklore, the shape-shifting ghost/monster cat is called Bakeneko. The mythological Bakeneko are yōkai, or supernatural creatures, that allegedly begin as regular domestic cats. As they age, they become able to transform themselves into other shapes (including human) and gain supernatural powers.

Cat as consort to witches/evil is one of my favorite movie tropes. There’s the villain Blofeld’s white Persian lap cat in the 007 flick From Russia With Love, or Mr. Bigglesworth the hairless companion of Dr. Evil in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, or MAD cat the evil companion of Dr. Claw in one of my favorite cartoons of childhood, Inspector Gadget. Blanche the white cat from Hausu is a top-notch over-the-top offering in the category. The first hint that this friendly fluffy feline is something other comes as a little twinkle in the cat’s eye when the troop of teenage girls arrive at auntie’s diabolical house in the country. Before long, this freaky fuzz-ball transforms into a full-fledged Bakeneko. At the wacky climax of the screwball horror film a painted portrait of our feline friend sprouts fangs and begins spewing copious amounts of blood out of its wide-open mouth in true slasher style. At this point, it’s too late for an X on the windshield!

I’m back!!! The 1973 Senegalese film Touki Bouki seems like a good reentry point. This film has been on my watch list for some time and when it came to the Center for Contemporary Arts in Santa Fe where I recently started working, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see it on the big screen. I really know nothing about African film let along African politics, so I’ll leave that angle alone and focus on a couple of things, out of many, that caught my attention while watching.

This film had been described as “sonic soup” and indeed the soundtrack seems, much to my delight, at times to exist autonomously from the visual. What we hear directs us as much as what we see on the screen and sometimes it directs us to places of confusion. There are many sounds, like a baby crying, that invade a scene from off screen and leave one wondering at the significance. There are also sounds, like crashing ocean waves, that comingle with and epically describe the visual that is only hinted at on screen. And … there is plenty of music. Like Mambéty’s use of Josephine Baker’s “Paris, Paris” for instance, which eloquently illustrates the two young lovers’ desire to leave Dakar for the glamour and opportunity of Paris.

Along these lines, I was particularly struck by Mado Robin singing Johann Martini's song “Plaisir d’amour” or “Pleasure of Love” – a classical French love song from the eighteenth century. Translated lyrics of this song appear on the screen as subtitles and go something like, “The pleasure of love lasts only a moment, the grief of love lasts a lifetime.” The lines from this two-hundred-year-old song seem not only to foreshadow the outcome of Mory and Anta’s love affair but also to dig at something a little deeper. Falling in love requires optimism. To lose oneself in the possibilities presented by love might lead one ultimately to deny or ignore the certain temporality of life. Mory and Anta are in love with the fantasy of Paris. They play dress-up and fantasize about the power of wealth. They are focused on what the Paris of their dreams can offer them and they ignore the possibility of struggle and hardship that would likely befall them as immigrants in a foreign and inhospitable land.

As I was looking for more information on “Plaisir d’amour” I came across some interesting videos – a very young and angelic Marianne Faithfull for one. I also discovered the Elvis Presley song “Can’t Help Falling in Love” uses the same melody. From there, I just had to watch my favorite Elvis video – one of his final performances where he belts out “Unchained Melody” with so much raw emotion and power. I love when he looks out at the audience and a lovely grin spreads across his face that lights it up with the spirit of youth. Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efg4l3brInU

North by Northwest is a gorgeous American pilgrimage and classic mistaken identity thriller from Alfred Hitchcock that starts in New York City and ends at Mount Rushmore, America’s “Shrine of Democracy”. Earlier this week, in the American Landscape art history class that I am taking, there was a discussion about Mount Rushmore. This class is largely focused on the role of art in imperialist nation-building. There is much critique of colonialism in class and this day there was much critique of this tumid display of American ego. Ironically, the Department of Interior and the National Park Service objected quite vehemently to Hitchcock’s film noting (without irony) that the portrayal of violence desecrated the national monument.

I think of Mount Rushmore as a bad tattoo on the flexed bicep of a muscle-tee wearing mullet-headed country. I have to wonder what this Brit saw in the location. Was it just a plot coupon or is there some sort of critique? When the film was made, the monument was less than twenty years old. Hitchcock told the screenwriter Ernest Lehman, “I always wanted to do a chase scene across the faces of Mt. Rushmore,” and that was the starting point for the movie. Or rather the ending point. Citing “patent desecration” the Department of Interior would not allow Hitchcock to film on the monument. So, he had a large replica built in a Hollywood studio where the chase scene was filmed. Even after filming switched to the set in Culver City, the Department of Interior instructed Hitchcock/MGM not to show anything above the Presidential chins when shooting the Mount Rushmore scenes. Amusingly, the working title for the film was “The Man on Lincoln’s Nose”. Hitchcock reportedly had wanted to film a humorous scene of Cary Grant having a sneezing fit while standing in Lincoln’s nostril.

Nothing could be built, even temporarily, at the Mount Rushmore site. Therefore the iconic mid-century modern Vandamm house was also a set constructed in Hollywood. The exterior shots of the house, reminiscent of a Julius Schulman Case Study photograph, is a matte painting (a pre-digital effect when a real set or location was combined with a painting). Hitchcock had wanted to get Frank Lloyd Wright to design the house, but his fee was too high for the film’s budget. Instead, they just dreamed up a house that looked like it could have been designed by Wright and built it in Culver City. The house featured the ubiquitous modernist cantilever design, but it had no glass in the windows (to avoid reflections while filming) and the limestone walls were just plaster.

In the introduction to this blog, I mentioned that I may have been intoxicated while watching these films in my youth. I remember waking up on more than one occasion and quoting Roger Thornhill, “They tried to kill me with bourbon!” This time around, I was completely sober – just eating pumpkin pie and drinking tea and loving every minute of this film.

I’ve been thinking about the portrayal of family and domesticity in Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Living Dead films. According to Merriam-Webster, the term “nuclear family” was first coined in 1920s by social anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski and refers to “the core members of a family, usually parents and children.” Increased industrialization of the 1920s led young people to leave their place at the farm table and move to urban areas in search of employment in factories. As a result, families became small detached “nuclear” units.

By the 1950s marriage and children had become a national agenda item in cold war America. The nuclear family unit became the normative model of family life, and the image of the happy family was powerful propaganda in the effort to show American superiority over communism. The basic tenet of the nuclear family (as envisioned by the conservative white male leadership) was that of a marriage (between a man and woman) that is sacred (monogamous) and with the ultimate purpose of procreation (progeny). Within this framework gender roles were clearly defined. Women were relegated to the home, expected to be submissive to their husbands and attentive to their children, divorce was taboo, adultery was forbidden, abortion unthinkable. The nuclear family was promoted as a stable and satisfying way of life and the pursuit of it was enthusiastically encouraged.

By the end of the 1960s the fragility of the ideal of the nuclear family is uncovered, and the structure begins to crumble as a code of self-expression, self-reliance, and self-fulfillment (rugged individualism) comes to the fore. “The period when the nuclear family flourished was not normal. It was a freakish historical moment when all of society conspired to obscure its essential fragility.” Brooks continues, “Over the past several decades, the decline of the nuclear family has created an epidemic of trauma—millions have been set adrift because what should have been the most loving and secure relationship in their life broke. Slowly, but with increasing frequency, these drifting individuals are coming together to create forged families.” [David Brooks. The Atlantic] Sounds like a zombie flick to me.

In Night of the Living Dead, Romero rather heavy-handedly critiques a range of social stereotypes of femineity in the female characters of the catatonic Barbara, the exasperated wife Helen, the lover Judy, and the matricidal daughter Karen. Romero “disrupts any fixed notions we have about women (in film), as one by one each archetypal female figure and what she represents is annihilated (i.e. “wife/mother,” “virgin,” “good girl,” “daddy’s girl,” and “lover”).” [Natasha Patterson] By the time we get to Dawn of the Dead, Romero gives us one female character to focus on – Fran. She is a successful white career woman who, it turns out is pregnant and unmarried. This character would have been an impossibility in the 1950s. Natasha Patterson again, “In Dawn, once the men find out that Fran is pregnant, there is considerable change in their behavior toward her – a chauvinistic attitude that seems oddly out of place and somewhat ridiculous in light of the circumstances surrounding them. Fran questions the men and thereby patriarchal definitions of femininity, telling the men:

I’m sorry you found out I’m pregnant because I don’t want to be treated any differently than you treat each other … and I’m not going to be den mother for you guys and I want to know what’s going on, and I want to have something to say about the plans. There’s four of us, okay?”

After this scene, Fran further claims her agency by demanding that she be taught how to fly the helicopter and how to shoot a gun. She abandons the antiquated notion that women must look to men for safety and protection and essentially saves herself. “While the interracial coupling is intriguing in light of the racial tensions of the 1970s, what is also notable is the lack of any romantic trappings in this scene. Peter and Fran survive and escape, and whatever affiliation they will form, presumable at some point including Fran’s child, shows no sign of resembling anything like the traditional family.” [Phillips]

Changing notions of domestic space are also explored in George Romero’s films Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead. The central setting for Night of the Living Dead is a traditional (familiar therefore safe) farmhouse where worn and shabby furniture is dismantled to transform the structure into a fortress that the zombies cannot penetrate. In “The Rise of the New Paradigm”, Kyle William Bishop points out that “The farmhouse itself symbolizes the comforting idea that one’s home is a place of security…”. Bishop continues, “By setting the action in a typical house, Romero is addressing cultural anxieties connected to the American family of the 1960s, emphasizing in particular the breakdown of the nuclear family…”. This is illustrated in interactions between the members of the nuclear family hiding in the basement – the wife is clearly agitated by her husband’s hot-headed attitude as well as his inability to be effective in the face of danger, finally the zombified daughter brutally murders and devours her. It is interesting that all of the protagonist’s die within the structure that they thought would keep them safe. “On one level, there seems a clear message about the failure of the domestic structure fashioned around the nuclear family. The domestic space of the house in Night becomes more a scene of internal strife than any genuine safe-haven, and the one actual family unit that finds itself within the house, the Coopers, paints a fairly grim picture of familial relations.” [Phillips]

The traditional nuclear family and the physical structure that contains it is completely absent in Romero’s following film Dawn of the Dead. In this film, set in a suburban shopping mall, the idea of family and domesticity is portrayed as a tenuous fantasy. While they wait out the zombie epidemic, the “family” of survivors sets up a very fashionable makeshift home including the latest in décor trends scavenged from the department stores at the mall that houses them. The chic furniture stands in sharp contrast to the cardboard boxes that act as barricades and the TV screen that is filled with static. The central characters, initially overjoyed at having access to their every material desire, drift into boredom and malaise once they realize their lives effectively are meaningless and without purpose. They should have gotten married and had some kids!

I have just started my second year of graduate school at the University of New Mexico. This semester I am taking a film theory class focused on zombie movies. When asked what my favorite film is, George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead often comes to mind and I love horror movies in general, so this class seemed right up my alley. Each week we are to watch a zombie movie, moving chronologically from early zombie fare to more recent efforts. Last week I watched White Zombie (1932) with Bela Lugosi. I was struck by how insignificant and non-threatening the actual zombies were in that film. The real fear is not being attacked by zombies but in being turned into a zombie - not the flesh eating kind but a simple mindless fuck. The same is true with I Walked with a Zombie. In fact, we are never sure that the zombies are really zombies in this film and maybe the film is not really about zombies at all in the end.

The symbolic use of the arrow ravaged Saint Sebastian (in this film, set on the fictional island of San Sebastian, is represented by “Ti Misery” the figure head from a slave ship that is now part of the sugar plantation garden) is a rather interesting contrast to the voodoo religion of the islanders. Sebastian, before being martyred, was ordered to be killed by arrows. He survived and was nursed back to health by a Christian widow named Irene (obvious parallels to nurse Betsy and zombie Jessica who should be martyred for putting up with her insufferable husband). Interestingly, Saint Sebastian is also the patron of plague victims. Each character in this film seems plagued by some different flavor of torment that human beings bring upon themselves.

Early in the film, we get our first introduction to the zombie concept as it is mansplained to Betsy. (Zombies, and I don’t mean the cocktail!) I was struck by this seemingly oddball reference to the Zombie cocktail which dates to 1934 and the rise of “tiki culture”, an appropriation and amalgamation merging products and culture from the Caribbean islands with those of the South Pacific – if you’ve seen one island savage, you’ve seen them all. So, pour me another glass of rum.

I feel like Hazel Motes as I try to write about this film – struggling with the God that is Flannery O’Connor. A voice far more commanding than even John Huston’s. I tried to ignore the novel and just approach the film but once you’ve walked the garden path with O’Connor there is no backsliding. Redemption (serenity) comes by way of heeling to the things one cannot change.

In the opening credits Huston’s name is misspelled, purposefully, and it made me wonder if he was going to take additional cheap jabs at southern stereotypes rather than be true to O’Connor’s darkly humorous investigation into the complexities of Southern humanity. While the characters are absurd, they work hard to honestly portray the wild contradictions inherent in living a Christian life. In the south in particular, religion is not a side dish offered up on Sundays but the main dish of life for many. Southern folks have doggedly managed to hold tight to the spiritual as a way of living a meaningful life despite the modern capitalist insistence on consumerism as the meaning of life.

As I watched the film, I was struck by the realization (something that I hadn’t remembered from reading the book) that Hazel Motes is a true loner not so much by choice but by circumstance. He’s lost his family and the only home, albeit a troubled one, that he’s ever known. He’s a soldier that apparently has returned from action, though of what nature is not clear. Still, this experience with the world sets him up for some serious potential for disillusionment.

“Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to never was there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it.” You can never go home boys! But, who you are is shaped by who raised you up – the wise blood that courses through your veins compels you. In some respect, you never leave home. After all the internal struggles and external conflicts are said and done, we realize that we are what we are in spite of ourselves. So, you may as well get on out there and do some things you never have done before and if a good car comes your way you won’t need any justification.

For me, the magic of great filmmaking is its ability to elicit our childlike capacity for enchantment, as Cocteau openly asks from us in the film’s introduction, while simultaneously telling the paradoxical tale of our grown-up obsessions with desire and fear. Cocteau based his magical version of Beauty and the Beast on the 18th-century story by Madame Leprince de Beaumont. He modeled the surrealistic realm of the beast – a place of shadow, romance, and dreams – on Gustave Doré’s illustrations and the diurnal world of Beauty’s familial life of servitude on paintings by Vermeer. As I watched the film, on several occasions I was reminded of scenes from other great films that echo Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast: the somnambulist watching Jane sleep in Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari(1920); the image of James Stewart carrying Kim Novak’s limp body in front of the Golden Gate bridge in Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958); the long hotel hallway with billowing red curtains in Wong Kar Wai’s In the Mood for Love (2000).

In addition to the obvious, the contrast of beauty and ugliness is illustrated in the use of darkness and light, and the duality of our human nature can be read in the juxtaposition of interior and exterior worlds. The opening scene of Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast shows a small dog (a “tamed” beast) sleeping indoors, surrounded by three fussing women, who is then very nearly pierced by an arrow carelessly launched through an open window by a couple of silly boys playing outdoors. Later in the film, after she arrives at his castle the beast carries Beauty’s limp body into the bedroom that he has prepared for her. As they move through the threshold of the room, her dress transforms from that of a peasant to a princess. The bedroom appears to reside in a liminal space between interior and exterior where twisting vines surround the bed and the floor appears to be earth. Beauty exists in both the world of her father and the world of the Beast as a prisoner and no matter which world she inhabits there is something or someone that she longs for in the other. She peers into the magic mirror seeking a glimpse not of herself but of the person that she has left behind who is dying as a result of her absence. In the end, Beauty’s kindness frees the Beast from his prison but it seems that Beauty is forever to be ensnared by desire.

The name Chris Marker crossed my path within the last month. At the time, I did not investigate who he was but filed it away in the to-do-later brain pocket. Tonight, I was scrolling through Criterion Channel recommendations looking for a film to watch and in the “art house classics” section I came across La Jetée. I remembered the name Chris Marker so I decided to give it a whirl. I had no idea!

First off, I noticed that the opening image of the last film that I watched for this project, Stranger Than Paradise, is remarkably similar to this film. Go ahead and take a look at the image that I used on that post and compare it to the one on this post. It’s just too similar to be a mere coincidence. Perhaps also the lone woman in Jarmusch’s New York airport scene is a nod to the lone woman on the observation deck at Orly La Jetee?

Do a quick googling and you’ll learn that this film has been immensely inspirational to many filmmakers that followed – famously Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys. It is a film that was made in tribute to another great film, Hitchcock’s Vertigo. It’s no wonder then that as I watched, I kept thinking of my friend Bob White’s animated sci-fi films. In particular, his 1996 film Terri Lovenote that features a voiceover narration in a voice that sounds similar to the voices of the scientists in La Jetée. I texted Bob immediately to ask him about it. He confirmed his debts, adding that every semester for the past fifty years he has shown this film to his students at Simmons College. I may have to add it to my Intro to Photo class syllabus next semester.

I often thought of Dr. Strangelove over the past four years as we collectively endured the mind-boggling buffoonery of the Trump circus. Now that we have been released, scarred but still intact, from the villainous grip of the orange tyrant, I felt it was safe to venture back to Kubrick’s Cold War satire.

Before I watched Dr. Strangelove again, I read a little bit of Roger Ebert’s 1999 review. Ebert wrote this review after watching the film for perhaps the tenth time. He begins by stating that every time one watches a great film something new comes to light. Ebert happens to zero in on the performance given by George C. Scott as General Turgidson – particularly what he does with his face, the tics and twitches, the comic plasticity of his over-the-top expressions. So, that is what I paid attention to as I watched the film again. In my past viewings, I’m sure that I paid most attention to Peter Sellers’ characters and the delightfully bizarre general Jack D. Ripper played by Sterling Hayden. I’m glad that Ebert steered me toward Scott’s exuberant performance – it’s brilliant comedy. Also brilliant is Ebert’s review and critique of the film. He offers great insights. I suggest you see for yourself: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-dr-strangelove-1964

One insight offered in Ebert’s review is related to the War Room set which was designed by Ken Adam. While I had certainly been aware of the brilliance of that set, I’d never really considered its design and creation. Upon further investigation, I learned that Ken Adam, having worked on over 75 films during his 60 year career, has a long list of equally brilliant sets to his name. For instance, Adam is the vision behind the futuristic secret volcanic lair of the international terrorist organization Spectre in the Bond film, You Only Live Twice. The following anecdote about Adam’s war room set pretty well sums up how convincing and influential his vision was: “Shortly after being elected president of the United States in 1981, Ronald Reagan was shown around the Pentagon by his chief of staff, James Baker. At the end of the tour, Reagan asked why they hadn't seen the War Room. Baker explained that it didn't exist, except in a movie.”

I associate Auntie Mame with Christmas. It’s an absurd and delightful sign of the season that brings me as much joy as that talking snowman and island of misfit toys did when I was a child. Rosalind Russell is an endearing master of ceremonies in this over-the-top Technicolor escapade.

I also associate Auntie Mame with my favorite bartender, Randy Hedrick (RIP). I first met Randy in 1999 in Boston at the Lenox Hotel bar Anago. Anago was a rather swanky place for riff-raff like me to be hanging out in. Randy had previously been employed at Jack Lynch’s Webster Lounge, a less tony establishment that existed in a strange place on the edge of a parking garage overlooking the expressway. I never went there but my drinking buddies Bob and Nat were regulars there and followed Randy to Anago when Jack Lynch’s closed. When I started hanging around with those two degenerates, I also started visiting Randy on a regular basis. He made a fine cocktail. He knew what you drank and how you liked it. Like Auntie Mame, he was good looking, witty, and charming as hell. Naturally, he loved Auntie Mame and quoted the film all the time as he danced behind the bar from cocktail to cocktail.

One of my favorite holiday memories was orchestrated by Randy. On a cold night in December, Bob, Nat, and I decided to head to Anago. Uncharacteristically, we called ahead to tell Randy that we were coming and that we would like to request eggnog as our drink of the evening. Anago was not a large bar, there were maybe 8 or 10 seats at the bar and it was usually full, especially during the holidays. When we arrived, there were three empty seats, each with a glass of eggnog waiting. When we three ragamuffins made our entrance and were shown to our beverages all the fancy heads turned. It was an absurd and delightful event – a memory of a man and a time that I hold dear.

I was recently reading about Samuel Clemens and how he came to his more well-known sobriquet of Mark Twain. It was applied to him by the steamboat captain, John Bixby, with whom he apprenticed. ‘Mark Twain’ is a river term for measuring water depth, meaning two fathoms deep (that’s twelve feet for all you landlubbers out there). Bixby taught Twain the need to read surface for indications of depth; how small perturbations might infer large submerged truths. So it is with Jeanne Dielman.

I had never heard of this film but it kept appearing in those ubiquitous “best films of all-time” lists – which of course I look at. Touted as an experimental feminist classic and coming in at three hours and twenty-one minutes running time, I was saving it for a wretched afternoon when I would have no interest in going outside. After watching this claustrophobia-inducing film, I felt a need to be out on a mountain breathing in the fresh air and taking in the long view. Or, if I couldn’t go outside, I wanted to make a mess, to have an orgasm, to drink a glass of whiskey, and dance like a fool. Jeanne Dielman’s life is order personified. The film is shot in tight spaces, so many grids, so many doors opening and closing, so many lights being turned on and turned off. So much time spent inside - indoors and inside the head, arranging and ordering. So little pleasure taken.

It is a long film, but it is completely mesmerizing. The way that such small details, presented in the context of the mundane, work to instill anxiety in the viewer is fascinating. A dropped brush, an over-cooked potato, a missing button. The meat kneading scene sent me over the edge. The pace of the film allows time for the quiet details to speak. I began to detest this woman that I felt sorry for at first. The absurdism is an acquiescent Tati, the melodrama a blanched Sirk. It is a three hour still life that slowly crumbles before your eyes. Did the potato fiasco push her over the edge? Ackerman was twenty-five when she made this film. I wonder what she thought of it as she approached the age of Jeanne Dielman?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pSNOEYSIlg

I was so happy when I got an e-mail from Criterion Channel announcing that Badlands would be streaming in December. This film has legendary status in my memory and I have been eager to watch it again. It has not fallen from its legendary status after a second viewing. This is great storytelling, great acting, great filmmaking.

I have been thinking a lot about how stories get attached to landscapes. In my mind, South Dakota is forever attached to this film, this story, this couple – Holly and Kit. There’s also Kansas and In Cold Blood. Is there something about the endless plains that inspires murderous sprees? Toward the end of Badlands, when Kit has stopped running and is waiting for the law to catch up with him, he builds a cairn at the side of the road. The cairn is a holdover from the ‘old world’ – a monument and a waymarker, a collection of traveler’s stories. When the arresting officers finally take him, he points it out to them, certain that they will want to return to the exact spot later to tell their own story. He’s built a monument to himself or to his story and their stories. I think of maps as a way to connect stories, waymarkers for meaning-making. Each point or line on a map is a story, has a story, relates a story, collects more stories, connects to another story. Maps are lyrical. Maps are songs. Badlands is a lyrical film. It is a murder ballad. A holdover from the ‘old world’. It is a cairn, a commemoration, and a marker, a story to which we gravitate, a fairy tale, a myth, a legend. It tells us something about how we navigate our world.