04/20/2002 Entry:
"Belle De Jour commentary
The Killing - Stanley Kubrick (1956)"

OK. I did not go see Tristana, alas. There are about 800 movies showing this week, of which I will probably get to see 0. Douglas Trumbull is speaking on Wednesday and maybe, just maybe, if I'm lucky, i can make it to that. *sigh* I need to find a job in the city again.

I spent a lot of time getting used to the heat by sleeping on the train last week. I did manage to get in the Belle De Jour commentary, which while interesting was not essential.

I don't know why, but it seems like a the film historian commentaries are the least interesting (aside from Micahel Jeck's exceptional commentary for The Seven Samurai.) The commentator, "Buñuel Scholar" Julie Jones, proposed a lot of interpretations I might not have thought of myself, but then again I thought most of them were wrong too. I've read a lot about how ambiguous this movie is, and I didn't find it that way at all. For instance, the end scene, with the carraige bells and cats mewling, seems to obviously be a dream sequence that underscores Severine's unhappiness with life in general - when her marraige is perfect she dreams of ways to shake it up and once its shaken up she dreams of it being perfect. Her reading of needlework as a symbol for betrayal was interesting though, and the suggestion that Severine had been sodomized by the man with the buzzing box was something that seems obvious but that I missed. I have a feeling I would enjoy this more on a second viewing, and Bethany is interested so perhaps I will get my chance before I ship it out.

Last night I watched what I believe is the second to last gap in my Kubrick viewing - The Killer. This movie was great. I've been seeing all these noirs at Music Box recently (Criss Cross, The Killers, Laura, Kiss Me Deadly) and this was better than all of them. You can completely see the beginnings of Kubrick's shooting style here - the completely intentional and thoughtful framing, amazing high contrast b&w cinematography by Lucien Ballard. There is one amazing shot where Sterling Hayden is seen coming througbh a door, then the camera pulls back revealing you've been looking at a mirror, then he turns a corner into your face revealing the mirror was pointed around a corner. It was really offputting and cool. Great stuff. Tarantino was obviously influenced by the way Kubrick uses flashbacks and jumping around in the timeline. I still need to see Killer's Kiss. I was talking a while ago about being able to view the entire works of a director and it occurs to me I could do this with Kubrick since all his films are on DVD, but then again I'm so familiar with about 2/3 of them that I'm not sure it would be the most worthwhile experience or how much I would get out of it. It could be interesting though.