Maybe Today Matinee

There had to be a French entry in our month of costume/fashion in movies, so this week we look at Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless. Emblematic of the Nouvelle Vague, Breathless subverts many filmmaking standards of the time, and lists no costume designer, with the actors perhaps having chosen parts of their wardrobes themselves. Sources IMDb Marantz Cohen, Paula in “Movies: The Potency of ‘Breathless’: At 50, Godard’s Film Still Asks How Something This Bad Can Be So Good” from The American...

How do we look at costume when a film is animated? In the case of Disney’s Cinderella, the costuming is an even-more-obvious-than-usual echo of the fashion trends at the time of the film’s creation. Plus, we look at how Cinderella rescued the faltering Walt Disney Company and at controversies surrounding the over-restoration of classic movies. Sources Duignan, Stephen on Twitter: https://twitter.com/stephen_duignan/status/988445879773351941 Hallay, Amanda at the Ultimate Fashion History:...

Groundbreaking in terms of its technical achievements, Stanley Donen’s Seven Brides for Seven Brothers also features an almost uniform-like approach to the costuming of its main characters. Join us as we discuss these and other aspects of this mid-century musical, including its fantastic dance sequences and rather disturbing politics. Sources Cain, Eric and John Rosman in “Broken Treaties: An Oral History Tracing Oregon’s Native Population” from Oregon Public Broadcasting:...

Who better than Bollywood to launch a month on costume and fashion in film? Lekh Tandon’s colorful Amrapali exhibits the best of sixties style meets period Hindi cinema, but also generates questions about patriotism, religion, and pacifism. Sources Cooney, Patrick Louis at vernonjohns.org: http://www.vernonjohns.org/snuffy1186/amrapali.html Narayanan, Arjun in “Love and Renunciation in Amrapali” at Picture Perfect: A fond recollection of some brilliant moments of cinema:...

Support the show! Influential filmmaker David Lynch got his start in shorts, and today we look at two of his early works, Six Men Getting Sick and The Grandmother. If you know him from Twin Peaks or Mulholland Drive, you’ll want to listen in to hear about Lynch’s early experiments in surrealism. Sources “And the Winner Is...Alan Splet, Who Became a Household Word by Skipping the Oscars” from People Magazine:...

Support the show! Cartoons are perhaps the most common exposure most of us have to short films, and this week we’re looking at some of the weirdest created by Disney. We trace the evolution of Goofy from unnamed Mickey Mouse sidekick in the ‘30s all the way up through the present day, and then focus on his strangest incarnation, ‘50s suburbanite George Geef. Sources Dave Lee Down Under in “Evolution of GOOFY Over 87 Years (1932-2019) Explained”:...

Support the show! Our second entry in our month of shorts features Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising, a film less characterized by a definitive plot than by a series of images against an addictive pop soundtrack. Together we try to untangle the mix of homoerotic, religious, and Nazi symbolism presented throughout Scorpio’s 28 minutes. Sources Carr, Jeremy in “Scorpio Rising” from Senses of Cinema: http://sensesofcinema.com/2015/cteq/scorpio-rising/ Moats, David in “Scorpio Rising: Kenneth...

Support the show! We kick off a month of short films with one of the earliest plot-driven movies, Georges Méliès’s A Trip to the Moon. We discuss the technology of this very early work, the talents of its actors, and its surprising thematic elements touching on imperialism and the pretentiousness of scientists. AMC Filmsite: https://www.filmsite.org/voya.html Kanopy: https://lbpl.kanopy.com/video/trip-moon-1 Movies Silently:...

Support the show! At the tail end of Hollywood’s Golden Age, Alfred Hitchcock released a film so “modern” that its imagery and its music still thoroughly permeate pop culture 60 years later. Today we discuss Psycho: the fear, the bloodshed, and the taxidermied animals. Part 2 of 2. Sources Bertolini, John A in “‘Psycho’ at Fifty: Pure Cinema or Invitation to an Orgy?” from New England Review Bui, Hoai-Tran in “Hitchcock’s Psycho Uncut Version Coming to US Home Video”:...

Support the show! At the tail end of Hollywood’s Golden Age, Alfred Hitchcock released a film so “modern” that its imagery and its music still thoroughly permeate pop culture 60 years later. Today we discuss Psycho: the fear, the bloodshed, and the taxidermied animals. Part 1 of 2 Sources Bertolini, John A in “‘Psycho’ at Fifty: Pure Cinema or Invitation to an Orgy?” from New England Review Bui, Hoai-Tran in “Hitchcock’s Psycho Uncut Version Coming to US Home Video”:...

Support the show! Modern pop culture may be more familiar with the ‘80s iteration of Scarface, but the gangster film prototype was set in the early ‘30s by a number of pre-Hays mob flicks. We discuss how the original Scarface (dir. Howard Hawks) filmmakers nevertheless dealt with an infuriating series of censorship setbacks before they arrived at a movie they could finally release. Sources Clarens, Carlos: Crime Movies : From Griffith to The Godfather and Beyond (1980)...

Support the show! Otto Preminger’s The Man with the Golden Arm takes an early look at drug addiction as its makers pushed against the by-then gradually weakening restrictions of the Hays Code. We discuss the film’s wish-fulfillment plotline as well as Frank Sinatra’s turn as a surprisingly talented actor. Sources Bloom, Rachel in “The Man with the Golden Arm” from Senses of Cinema: http://sensesofcinema.com/2013/cteq/the-man-with-the-golden-arm/ Dee, Jonathan in “Nelson Algren’s Street...

Support the show! This month we discuss the role of censorship in filmmaking, starting off with Oscar Micheaux’s seminal work, Within Our Gates. What kind of art were black filmmakers producing at this early period in film history? What were the effects of censorship, internal or external, on “race films” like this one? Why are silent films so prone to working with character archetypes? Sources The Cinephiliac:...

Support the show! Our final Halloween episode is Robert Wise’s classic, The Haunting. Join us as we ponder psychological versus supernatural horror, depictions of gay characters in film, and the mysterious bendy doors and ghost dogs of Hill House. Sources “Elegant Chills: The Haunting” in American Cinematographer: https://ascmag.com/articles/flashback-the-haunting-1963 IMdB Koresky, Michael in “Queer & Now & Then: 1963” from Film Comment:...

Support the show! Your hosts are at odds over this week’s pick, Naresh Mitra’s Kankal. Regarded as the first still-extant Bengali horror film, it combines elements of melodrama and supernatural horror. We examine the history of scary movies in India and ponder to what degree shoddy subtitling impedes our understanding of this polarizing picture. Sources Dhusiya, Mithuraaj in Indian Horror Cinema: (En)gendering the Monstrous...

Support the show! Today we examine an early talkie, a film which, despite the presence of audio dialogue and sound effects, still feels very much like a silent picture. Even so, there’s something about Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Vampyr that is incredibly contemporary. Join us as we discuss the second film in our month of Halloween horror. Sources Bordwell, David: “Carl Theodore Dryer’s Most Unusual Experiment” video essay on Criterion...

Support the show! Prepare for a month of spoooooky Halloween episodes as we kick it off with a film many regard as the first example of Japanese horror cinema. Pits of doom, possessed (?) masks, naked people running through fields of intimidating grass--Kaneto Shindo’s Onibaba has it all. Sources Bradshaw, Peter at the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2010/oct/15/onibaba-kaneto-shindo-devil-woman Eggert, Brian at Deep Focus Review:...

Support the show! Our last episode on animation covers an early ‘70s work of sci fi allegory. We discuss the differences between American and European traditional animation, as well as the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of allegory in messaging about serious social issues. Sources Brooke, Michael: “Fantastic Planet: Gambous Amalga” in Criterion https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/4112-fantastic-planet-gambous-amalga Csicsery-Ronay, Jr., Istvan: “What is Estranged in Science Fiction...

Support the show! Animation as we know it today would not be the same without Japan, and today we look at one of the earliest animated feature films to be released in the country. Trying to build a Disney counterpart in the East, Toei Animation’s early films follow closely in the footsteps of Snow White and other classics, but gradually begin to carve out their own niche. We discuss the animation process in detail, down to the evolution of technology and the labor disputes, and what really...

Support the show! This week’s unconventional pick might be better viewed in multiple sittings. Harry Everett Smith’s one-man production may be less feature film and more art installation, leading us to question conventional methods of movie-viewing and what Smith’s intent was in creating this picture. Does art have to have an audience? And why do certain pieces of art make us feel personally insulted or angry? Sources Carroll, Noël: “Mind, Medium and Metaphor in Harry Smith’s Heaven and...