by Sam Juliano
Dear Allan:
The time for our annual film discussion on the occasion of the site tribute to your incomparable mastery of the medium you practically gave your life to, has arrived. Word got back to me down here of the major shindig they arranged for you at “The Angel’s Inn.” There isn’t anything I wouldn’t have done to be in attendance that day, (Monday, May 28) but of course I will only be eligible when my time arrives. I do know you are spreading the word on a daily basis, though as of late I understand you have soured big-time on the new releases. Heck, you only gave your vaunted five-star ratings to movies three or four times a year, and at least once I remember you only awarded a film such a grade, though I seem to have forgotten the year. With you – and who can blame you? – the discussion always reverts back to the golden years, which for you means the American pre-code era, the whole of Japanese cinema, the French New Wave, the British New Wave, the Czech New Wave, German expressionism, Neorealism, American Film Noir, and British television. As to the last of those headings, you are always attuned to the very latest in small screen excellence. I wonder what you think of The Crown, for one. I would bet the farm you are a huge fan for all sorts of reasons. Anyway, I am only allowed in this correspondence to focus on a single topic for the lion’s share of the letter. I thought about the public domain Our Town (1940) or a difficult-to-locate American film from 1969 by Frank Perry titled Last Summer – and for sure either would have inspired a nice talk, especially since you saw both and spoke glowingly on them – but this past year something happened on the film scene that you were anticipating right up until your untimely departure in 2016.
As a lifelong hater of the Oscars and other groups that gave short shrift to arthouse films in favor of the commercial pictures that flood our multiplexes, you took some measure of refuge in polls conducted by film scholars and serious cineastes. One such poll – conducted by the British Film Institute – was always regarded as the Rolls Royce of such undertakings, and for as long as I knew you (you will recall we first connected in the summer of 2005 on e bay) you issued some positive commentary on the films appearing on the respective Top 10s, even with the caveat that some of the placements were preposterous and/or undeserved. As you will recall, these were the polls anointing such masterpieces like Citizen Kane, Tokyo Story, La Regle de Jeu, Vertigo, The Passion of Joan of Arc, Man with a Movie Camera, The Godfather, Singin in the Rain, and your own personal #1 film of all-time, Murnau’s Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. I never forgot your strong preference for the critic’s poll over the director’s poll. You made that position clear many times. Your reasoning, as I seem to recall was that filmmakers could never be trusted to evaluate their own work, and though you disliked many critics, you felt the best of them – your all-time favorite was David Thomson, who is still here on earth, though relatively inactive now – were more worthy than filmmaker-critics.
Well my friend, I am unable to determine what your position is on the matter of Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles’s ascendency to pole position. You were a longtime champion of the film (and of Dielman’s cinema overall) and you once sent me a DVD-R of the film, well before it first appeared legitimately. When I told you I had mixed feelings about it, you told me I probably fell asleep while watching the nearly three-hour subtitled film, one that took a while to get off the mat. Since that time, I have re-watched the film, and while I do feel its merit and reputation are understandable, I remain perplexed at how it raced up to the top spot, over such masterpieces as Vertigo, Kane and Tokyo Story. The sordid subject matter was rather a turn-off, though the feminism at the film’s heart was a long time coming in the male-dominated art. Since I am a maniacal adherent of French cinema from all eras, it pained me greatly to check in with a less-than-enthusiastic verdict on a film that many of my respected friends and colleagues have praised to high heaven. When an online film lover predicted it would end up #1 on the day before the results were announced, I politely told him it had less than a 1% chance. He answered that when it did win I should reach out to him and apologize for the error in my ways. My wager is that you celebrated when news of the balloting reached upstairs, even though I do well know your love for Tokyo Story, Vertigo, 2001 and other iconic pictures eclipses by quite a distance your affinity for this feminist film, even if it represents the long-deserved recognition of a gender and a type of film that was always ignored. Similarly, the placement of Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love in the Number 5 spot, Claire Denis’s Beau Travail at Number 6 and David Lynch’s new millennium Mulholland Drive has to have you beaming, if I know you as well as I think I do. To boot, Agnes Varda’s Cleo from 5 to 7 placing at Number 14 surely impressed you in a polling that overall gave more attention to contemporary cinema than any poll ever conducted by the institute.
And yet, I know you must have been disappointed on the No. 11 finish of Sunrise, (I surely am as well) and we both would agree that Ozu’s Tokyo Story should have been in the top 2, not at Number 4. I am certain all the blowback to the poll has reached you and I bet you remarked, “The philistines are at it again!” Numerical disagreements aside, I am sure you approve of the actual films chosen for S & S’s Top 20. Yes, Satyajit Ray is sorely underrepresented (but doesn’t Indian cinema always gets the short end of the stick?) though you have always been on the same wave length as Canadian-Indian Sachin Gandhi and Indian Shubhajit Lahiri, film scholars who have long understood the central Asian nation’s film tradition is really on the highest level worldwide, roughly equal to America, France, the UK and Japan. And where is Dreyer? And Bresson? And Tarkovsky? And Godard? And Mizoguchi? Well, to be fair, films by them and some others I haven’t mentioned are there under the Top 20 -and after all, how many films can be possibly place in that Top 20? – and our hero Bergman is highest at Number 18 for Persona. Heck, it is all relative, I know, and our own voters – bless their hearts – gave stellar representation to this group, and of course to the miraculous Apu Trilogy. I never forgot you once telling me that Pather Panchali was one of the greatest films ever made, and one sitting pretty in your own Top 10. And I recall I answered you nodding vigorously over the phone. I miss those phone chats, Allan. Terribly. I would pay a hefty fee to hear you ream me out on my ignorance, irresponsible handling of DVDRs, and my “pedestrian” taste, and I don’t think I’ll ever tire of your creative takedowns of Zeffirelli’s Brother Sun Sister Moon and Beresford’s Driving Miss Daisy. On the former you altered the title to Brother Sun, Sister Shite, and added: “There should never be a death penalty for bad taste, but if I were Pope I’d have the film burned in public.”
I know you are having a blast up there, and the class you taught on the Sight & Sound 2022 results had to be fantastic, but things are simply not the same down here. We’ll always pay tribute to you in late May, and as long as I am breathing any attempts to close it out will be rebuffed – any I know project founder Jamie Uhler feels the same – but your sizzling diatribes are sorely missed as is your comprehensive mastery of film and television, and daily alerts. If only you knew how much we all really thought of you. Life is simply too short for certain sentiments to filter through.
The summer season up there must be so special. Outdoor festivals can’t be beat, especially with those fabulous temperatures!
Love,
Sam
P.S. I always meant to ask you. As you’ll well remember you weren’t keen on Italian food when you visited us in successive years. You thought tomato sauce was vial, and the thought of putting ketchup on hamburgers repulsed you. Has your diet up there changed? Have you discovered the Mediterranean cuisine? I recommend that you watch the CNN television series, Searching For Italy moderated from his personal experiences by Stanley Tucci. It is quite persuasive!